When the news arrived, President Madison was at his Virginia plantation. During his absence Gallatin was in charge of matters at Washington, and on the instant wrote that he thought the President should return. In a letter of July 27, three days after the news reached Washington, Gallatin gave his own view of the situation:[83]-- “I will not waste time in conjectures respecting the true cause of the conduct of the British government, nor can we, until we are better informed, lay any permanent plan of conduct for ourselves. I will only observe that we are not so well prepared for resistance as we were one year ago. Then all or almost all our mercantile wealth was safe at home, our resources entire, and our finances sufficient to carry us through during the first year of the contest. Our property is now all afloat; England relieved by our relaxations might stand two years of privations with ease. We have wasted our resources without any national utility; and our treasury being exhausted, we must begin our plan of resistance with considerable and therefore unpopular loans.” The immediate crisis called first for attention. Gallatin held that the Non-intercourse Act necessarily revived from the moment the supposed fact on which alone its suspension rested was shown not to have taken place. The remoter problem of Jackson’s mission seemed to the secretary simpler than the question of law:[84]-- “If we are too weak or too prudent to resist England in the direct and proper manner, I hope at least that we shall not make a single voluntary concession inconsistent with our rights and interest. If Mr. Jackson has any compromise to offer which would not be burdened with such, I shall be very agreeably disappointed. But judging by what is said to have been the substance of Mr. Erskine’s instructions, what can we expect but dishonorable and inadmissible proposals? He is probably sent out like Mr. Rose to amuse and to divide; and we shall, I trust, by coming at once to the point, bring his negotiation to an immediate close.” The President heard the news with as much perplexity as anger, and even tried to persuade himself that Canning would be less severe than he threatened. Madison still clung to hope when he first replied to Gallatin’s summons:[85]--