If the British minister knew less exactly what was happening behind the scenes, he still knew enough to alarm him. He reported that the Government was actively organizing its party in Congress; that different sets of members met every evening in caucus, and were instilled with the ideas of the Administration;[127] but that while the members of the Government were to all appearance still undecided themselves, it would be rash for other persons to express a decided opinion. A few days after writing in this doubtful sense, Foster was electrified by an outburst of temper from Monroe, who told him that the Government would send no new minister to England, and that it “had reason to believe Great Britain really wished for war with the United States.”[128] Monroe added that he felt some difficulty in talking openly about the views of the Government, as some of his disclosures might be regarded as menaces. The President, though less warm than the Secretary, talked not less decidedly: “He owned to me that the situation of America was very embarrassing; that anything was better than remaining in such a state; and though he very strongly asserted the impossibility of America receding from the grounds she had taken, ... said that he would ask no sacrifice of principle in Great Britain, and would have no objection to some conventional arrangement between the two countries if it should be judged necessary in the event of the Orders in Council being withdrawn. This was, however, an indispensable preliminary, for he must consider the French Decrees as revoked so far as Great Britain had a right to expect America should require their revocation.” Although Foster became more nervous from day to day, and showed strong symptoms of a wish that the Orders in Council might be modified or withdrawn, neither he nor the President informed the British government that any other cause of war existed, or that the United States meant to insist on further concessions. In secret, diplomacy flattered itself that war would still be avoided; but it reckoned without taking into account the temper of Congress. CHAPTER VII. THE leaders of the war party next performed in Congress a scene in some respects new in the drama of history. November 29, Peter B. Porter of New York, from the Committee of Foreign Relations, presented to the House his report, in part. “Your committee will not incumber your journals,” it began, “and waste your patience with a detailed history of all the various matters growing out of our foreign relations. The cold recital of wrongs, of injuries, and aggressions known and felt by every member of this Union could have no other effect than to deaden the national sensibility, and render the public mind callous to injuries with which it is already too familiar.”