The British government pledged itself to repeal the orders in council as soon as the French decrees should cease to exist. In 1809, Jefferson was succeeded as president by Madison, who was compelled to yield somewhat to the popular outcry, and to repeal the universal embargo substituting a non-intercourse act with England and France, both which nations, it must be confessed, having by restraints on their commerce given the Americans just grounds for dissatisfaction. On the 23d June, 1812, the prince regent in council revoked the orders in council as far as regarded America, with a proviso that the revocation should be of no effect unless the United States rescinded their non-intercourse act with England. It has been thought that the revocation came too late, and that if it had been conceded a few weeks earlier, there would have been no war with America; but Madison had been treating with Bonaparte's government since the end of the year 1810, and the whole course of his conduct, with his evident desire to illustrate his presidency by the conquest of Canada, proved his determination to brave a war with England. He and his party nicely calculated on which side the greater profit was to be obtained--whether the United States would gain more by going to war with England than by hostility against Bonaparte and his edicts. "Every thing in the United States," says James in his naval history, "was to be settled by a calculation of profit and loss. France had numerous allies--England scarcely any. France had no contiguous territory; England had the Canadas ready to be marched into at a moment's notice. France had no commerce; England had richly-laden merchantmen traversing every sea. England, therefore, it was against whom the death-blows of America were to be levelled." The struggles of England against Napoleon enabled the American government to choose its own time. On the 14th April, congress laid an embargo on all ships and vessels of the United States during the space of ninety days, with the view of lessening the number that would be at the mercy of England when war was finally declared, and also of manning efficiently their ships of war and privateers. By the end of May their fastest merchant vessels were converted into cruisers, ready to start at a short notice. On the 18th of June, before the revocation of the orders in council was known in the United States, a declaration of war was carried in the house of representatives by seventy-nine to forty-nine votes, its supporters being chiefly from the western and southern states to Pennsylvania inclusive, while the advocates for peace were principally from the northern and eastern states.[44] _Sir George Prevost to Major-General Brock_. QUEBEC, January 22, 1812.