Public opinion in England was so occupied with affairs in the Peninsula and political dissensions at home that it did not concern itself with distant Canada, or even with the standing quarrel with the {120} United States. The new president, James Madison, while removing the embargo, still held to non-intercourse with France and England, their colonies or dependencies. The Non-Intercourse Bill, brought in by the committee on foreign relations and passed by congress, excluded all public and private vessels of France and England from American waters, and forbade, under severe penalties, the importation of British or French goods. It was at this time that one John Henry, was sent by Ryland, on behalf of the governor-general of Canada, into the New England States to report on the state of public opinion there with regard to internal politics and the probability of war. It was supposed then that the Federalists of Massachusetts, rather than submit to the difficulties they were subjected to, would bring about a separation from the union. Henry's letters, unimportant in themselves, afterwards came into the possession of the government of the United States, and were made use of to foment the war feeling of 1812. [Sidenote: New order-in-council] Early in 1809 Canning had sent instructions to the British minister in Washington, Mr. Erskine, to offer to withdraw the orders-in-council on certain conditions. The minister exceeded his instructions, and announced in April that the orders of 1807 would be withdrawn, in respect to the United States, on June 10th. There was universal joy and satisfaction throughout that country at the resumption of trade. A thousand ships {121} hurried out of the harbours laden with merchandise for British ports. The French minister at Washington remonstrated at the hasty belief in promises, and it was soon found that the announcement was premature. The conditions attached to the withdrawal had not been insisted upon by the English envoy, and on the very day, June 10th, that the revocation of the order was arranged for, it was learned in America that on April 26th another order-in-council had been passed by England establishing a strict blockade of the ports of Holland, France, and Italy.[1] British merchants, frightened at the prospect of free entrance of American ships to the Baltic, had crowded the board of trade protesting that if American vessels with cheaper sugar, cotton, and coffee were allowed into Amsterdam and Antwerp, British trade was at an end. Their warehouses were stuffed full, and they could not stand American competition and the resulting fall in prices. Relations with the United States were more strained than ever. Smuggling during these years of restriction seems to have flourished everywhere, and the island of Heligoland was the chief depot for English traders in the Baltic.