“So we reached the day when the ‘Essex’ arrived,” continued Monroe. “Not an officer of the government, not a citizen in the Republic, but was convinced that this frigate brought the most satisfactory and the most decisive news. Yet to our great astonishment--even to our confusion--she has brought nothing. In spite of a deception so afflicting, the President had still decided to make a last attempt, and this was to send off Mr. Barlow. I had the honor to announce it to you; but on the news of our frigate’s arrival without satisfactory information from France, a general cry of discontent rose all over the Republic, and public opinion pronounced itself so strongly against Mr. Barlow’s departure that the Government can to-day no longer give the order without raising from all parts of the Union the cry of treason. I am myself a daily witness of the general effervescence that this silence of your Government excites. I cannot walk from my house to this office without being accosted by twenty citizens, who say to me: ‘What, sir! shall you send off a minister to France, when the Imperial government shows itself unwilling to carry out its’ engagements; when it treats our citizens with so much injustice, and you yourself with so much contempt? No! the honor of the Republic will not permit you to send your ambassador under such circumstances, and you will be responsible for it to the country.’” Monroe’s objection seemed reasonable. The sending a new minister to France was in no way necessary for making an issue with England. Indeed, if only a simple issue with England had been wanted, the permanent presence of British frigates off Sandy Hook, capturing American vessels and impressing American seamen, was sufficient. No further protest against it needed to be made, seeing that it had been the subject of innumerable protests. If President Madison wanted an issue that should oblige Great Britain to declare war, or to take measures equivalent to war, he could obtain it in a moment by ordering Rodgers and Decatur to drive the British frigates away and rescue their victims. For such a purpose he needed no minister in France, and had no occasion to make himself a party to fraud. Monroe’s language implied that he would have preferred some such issue.