Although Jefferson was re-elected in 1804 by a landslide victory, his popularity diminished greatly during his second term. The source of his troubles lay in Europe, where England and France were involved in the long, bitter Napoleonic Wars. England could not defeat Napoleon on land, but her navy was superior. Hence she blockaded the continent. France retaliated by counter-blockades. The United States, with a large merchant fleet but scarcely any navy, was caught in the middle. Hundreds of American ships were seized and their cargoes confiscated. Both England and France violated American neutral rights, but England, with the world’s strongest navy, was the chief offender. When a British warship, the _Leopard_, fired on and impressed American seamen from an American frigate, the _Chesapeake_, off the coast of Virginia, the United States was ready to fight. President Jefferson, however, was determined to avoid war and answered the _Chesapeake_ incident with a proclamation excluding British warships from American waters, but the British would not agree to stop impressing American seamen. In addition, to deal with the seizure of American ships, Jefferson persuaded Congress to pass the Embargo Act. This act forbade American ships to leave for foreign ports. The result was that American ships rotted in the harbors and depression hit American business. Yet England and France were not hurt enough to come to terms. The Embargo Act had to be repealed. Washington Irving Satirizes the Embargo Act About the time the Embargo Act was repealed, Washington Irving, America’s first important man of letters, wrote his _History of New York_. This book is a burlesque account of the old Dutch period in New York history, a very funny book, full of comic pictures of the Dutch governors and the early settlers. The book also contains some contemporary political satire in the chapters devoted to William the Testy. In the selections which follow you will see obvious references to the _Chesapeake_ incident, the Embargo Act, and President Jefferson’s actions. As my readers are well aware of the advantage a potentate has in handling his enemies as he pleases in his speeches and bulletins, where he has the talk all on his own side, they may rest assured that William the Testy did not let such an opportunity escape of giving the Yankees what is called “a taste of his quality.” In speaking of their inroads into the territories of their High Mightinesses, he compared them to the Gauls who desolated Rome, the Goths and Vandals who overran the fairest plains of Europe; but when he came to speak of the unparalleled audacity with which they of Weathersfield had advanced their [_onion_] patches up to the very walls of Fort Goed Hoop, and threatened to smother the garrison in onions, tears of rage started into his eyes, as though he nosed the very offense in question.