Irritated though the House was by the Senate’s hostility to every measure which had support from the Treasury or was calculated to give it support, the members were for the most part anxious only to see the session ended. No one cared greatly for Macon’s bill No. 2 in any shape. The House refused to accept the Senate’s amendments, and found itself May 1 within a few hours of adjournment, and within the same time of seeing the Non-intercourse Act expire, without having made provision for the commercial relations that were to follow. Perhaps Congress might have shown wisdom by doing nothing; but the instinct to do something was strong, and party feeling mixed with the sense of responsibility. At five o’clock in the afternoon committees of conference were appointed, and at the evening session, Samuel Smith having abandoned his convoy-clause, the House gave up its extra duties and the bill came to its passage. All the Federalists voted against it with Macon, Randolph, and Matthew Lyon,--a minority of twenty-seven. Sixty-four Republicans recorded themselves in its favor, and made the bill a law. CHAPTER X. RANDOLPH, who had been ill at home during the winter of 1809–1810, appeared in public affairs only after the debates were mostly ended. March 22 he moved a Resolution that the military and naval establishments ought to be reduced. He wished to bring Madison’s administration back to the point where Jefferson’s administration eight years before had begun; and in truth the country could choose only between the practices of 1801 and those of 1798. Randolph, who shunned no assumption of fact which suited his object, asked the House whether any one “seriously thought of war, or believed it a relation in which we could be placed”:-- “With respect to war we have--thank God!--in the Atlantic a fosse wide and deep enough to keep off any immediate danger to our territory. The belligerents of Europe know as well as we feel that war is out of the question. No, sir! if our preparation was for battle, the State physicians have mistaken the state of the patient. We have been embargoed and non-intercoursed almost into a consumption, and this is not the time for battle.”