CHAPTER II. THE diplomatic insolvency inherited from Merry, Rose, Erskine, and Jackson became more complete with every year that passed; and even while Foster was on the ocean, a new incident occurred, which if it did not prove a catastrophe to be inevitable, showed at least how small was his chance of averting it. On the renewal of trade between America and France, the British navy renewed its blockade of New York. If nothing more had happened, the recurrence of this vexation would alone have gone far to destroy the hopes of diplomacy; but this was not all. The “Melampus” reappeared, having for a companion the “Guerriere,” commanded by Captain Dacres, and supposed to be one of the best British frigates of her class. Early in May, when Foster sailed from England, these cruisers, lying off Sandy Hook, began to capture American vessels bound for France, and to impress American sailors at will. No sooner did these complaints reach Washington than Secretary Hamilton, May 6,[30] ordered Commodore John Rodgers, whose flag-ship, the 44-gun frigate “President,” was lying at Annapolis, to sail at once to protect American commerce from unlawful interference by British and French cruisers. Rodgers sailed from Annapolis May 10, and May 14 passed the capes. The scene of the “Chesapeake’s” unredressed outrage lay some fifteen or twenty miles to the southward, and the officers and crew of the “President” had reason to think themselves expected to lose no fair opportunity of taking into their own hands the redress which the British government denied. For the past year Rodgers had carried orders “to vindicate the injured honor of our navy and revive the drooping spirits of the nation; ... to maintain and support at any risk and cost the honor” of his flag; and these orders were founded chiefly on “the inhuman and dastardly attack on our frigate ‘Chesapeake,’--an outrage which prostrated the flag of our country, and has imposed on the American people cause of ceaseless mourning.”[31] Rodgers was bound for New York, but on the morning of May 16 was still about thirty miles from Cape Charles and eighteen miles from the coast, when toward noon he saw a ship to the eastward standing toward him under a press of canvas. As the vessel came near, he could make her out from the shape of her upper sails to be a man-of-war; he knew of no man-of-war except the “Guerriere” on the coast; the new-comer appeared from the quarter where that frigate would be looked for, and Rodgers reasoned that in all probability she was the “Guerriere.” He decided to approach her, with the object of ascertaining whether a man named Diggio, said to have been impressed a few days before by Captain Dacres from an American brig, was on board. The spirit of this inquiry was new.