In making an issue of war, President Madison needed to exercise extreme caution not to shock the sentiment of New England, but he needed to observe no such delicacy in regard to the feelings of the British Tories. In respect to the British government, the nature of the issue mattered little, provided an issue were made; and Pinkney might reasonably think that the more paradoxical his arguments the more impression they would produce. Centuries of study at Oxford and Edinburgh, and generations devoted to the logic or rhetoric of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, had left the most educated classes of Great Britain still in the stage of culture where reasoning, in order to convince, must cease to be reasonable. As Pinkney became positive and arrogant, Wellesley became conciliatory and almost yielding. The American note of January 14, written in a tone that had not hitherto been taken in London, was coupled with a notice that brought the two governments in presence of the long-threatened rupture. Pinkney informed Lord Wellesley that as the British government, after a lapse of many months, had taken no steps to carry out the assurance of sending a new minister to Washington, the United States government could not retain a minister at London. Therewith Pinkney requested an audience of leave. Although Wellesley had never avowed a political motive for his systematic delays, no one could doubt that he intentionally postponed not only concession on the Orders in Council, but also a settlement of the “Chesapeake” affair and the appointment of a new minister at Washington, because his colleagues, as he hinted[11] to Pinkney, were persuaded “that the British interest in America would be completely destroyed by sending thither at this time a minister plenipotentiary,” and of course by any other frank advance. The influence of F. J. Jackson with the Government was perhaps strong enough to check action that would have amounted to a censure on his own conduct; and although the American elections showed that Jackson had for the time so much reduced British influence in America as to make some change of policy necessary if it were to be revived, Jackson, in daily intercourse with the Foreign Office and with ministers, was exerting every effort to maintain his credit. Nothing less than Pinkney’s request for an audience of leave was likely to end these ministerial hesitations. For the moment, as Pinkney knew, his request could not be granted, because the King was insane and could give audience to no one. Since Nov. 1, 1810, Parliament had done no other business than such as related to the regency; yet on Jan. 14, 1811, when Pinkney’s two notes were written, the Regency Bill had not been brought before the Commons. Introduced on the following day, Parliament showed extraordinary energy by making it law in little more than a fortnight; yet the Prince Regent, who took the oaths February 6, still required time to settle his government.