“In addition, my Lord, to these circumstances, I have been sorry to find in my recent conversations with Mr. Madison that he has treated this subject in a much more serious light than he had at first represented it to me. At my last interview with him, two days ago, he said that he had flattered himself that Mr. Monroe’s remonstrances to your Lordship would not only have produced the liberation of all the vessels which should have been detained previously to the 1st November, but that, as that minister had been promised an answer in writing to his representations, the reconsideration of the matter which would probably have taken place before a written answer was given might have induced his Majesty’s government, if not to give up entirely, at least to modify to a tolerable degree, the principle upon which they acted. It was true that the answer in question had not as yet reached him, nor had he heard lately from Mr. Monroe; but he had recently received information from an authentic though not an official quarter, which gave him the strongest reason to apprehend that if any reply at all in writing should be made on the subject, it would contain nothing satisfactory.” Madison raised his tone awkwardly. Mysterious “information from an authentic quarter” was scarcely sufficient ground for so abrupt a change, but Merry failed to press him on this point. The secretary told the British minister that the government of England had committed “an act of commercial hostility on this country, and that the citizens of the United States would have a just claim of indemnity for whatever effective losses they might sustain in consequence of it; and he feared that these would be very considerable.” He hinted that measures would be taken to seek redress; and although he did not then foreshadow these measures, Merry read two days afterward in the “National Intelligencer” the Resolutions and speech in which Madison, in the year 1794, had urged commercial restrictions as the true policy of the United States against the same British outrages. The motive of republication was plain. At about the same time Madison finished his pamphlet called “Examination of the British Doctrine,” which in the course of the coming session was laid on the desk of every senator and member. The book was creditable to his literary and scholarly qualities. Clear, calm, convincing, it left the British government no excuse for its conduct; but, not without reason, John Randolph objected that as an argument it was but a shilling pamphlet against eight hundred British ships of war. That Pitt could occasionally be convinced of his mistakes was certain; but no reasoners except Napoleon and Moreau had ever effectually convinced him.