Pitt’s return to power, with the intention of changing the American policy which had been pursued since the negotiation of Jay’s treaty, happened very nearly to coincide with the arrival at the Foreign Office of Merry’s most alarming despatches, announcing that Madison required the total abandonment of impressments, the restriction of blockades and the right of search, and complete freedom in the colonial trade, as the conditions on which the friendship of the United States could be preserved. The announcement of President Jefferson’s high tone was accompanied by the British minister’s account of his own social mortifications by the President and the Secretary of State; of the Senate’s refusal to approve the fifth article of Rufus King’s boundary convention, in order to attack the British right of navigating the Mississippi; and by drafts of bills pending in Congress, under which any British admiral, even though it were Nelson himself, who should ever have taken a seaman out of an American vessel, was to be arrested in the streets of the first American port where he might go ashore, and to suffer indefinite imprisonment among thieves and felons in the calaboose. May 30, 1804, Monroe had his first interview with Lord Harrowby. In such cases the new secretary, about to receive a foreign minister, commonly sent for the late correspondence, in order to learn something about the subjects on which he was to have an opinion. Beyond a doubt Lord Harrowby had on his table the despatches of Merry, written between November and April, which he probably finished reading at about the moment when Monroe was announced at the door. Under such circumstances, Monroe reported to his Government that Lord Harrowby’s manners were designedly unfriendly; his reception was rough, his comments on the Senate’s habit of mutilating treaties were harsh, his conduct throughout the interview was calculated to wound and to irritate.[309] After this unpromising experience, two months were allowed to pass without further demonstration on either side. Then Lord Harrowby called Monroe’s attention to the twelfth article of Jay’s treaty, which regulated the commercial relations between the British West Indies and the United States, and which had expired by limitation. He suggested its renewal, according to its old terms, until two years after the next general peace. To this offer Monroe replied, with the utmost frankness, “that the President wished to postpone this matter until he could include impressment and neutral rights in the treaty; that we must begin _de novo_; that America was a young and thriving country; that in 1794 she had had little experience, since then she understood her interests better; and that a new treaty should omit certain things from that of 1794, and include others. The most urgent part was that which respected our seamen.”[310]