Probably no American diplomat was more aggrieved at the President's definition of neutrality than his Ambassador to Great Britain.

Page had no quarrel with the original neutrality proclamation; that was purely a routine governmental affair, and at the time it was issued it represented the proper American attitude.

But the President's famous emendations filled him with astonishment and dismay.

"We must be impartial in thought as well as in action," said the President on August 19th[90], "we must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a prejudice of one party to the prejudice of another." Page was prepared to observe all the traditional rules of neutrality, to insist on American rights with the British Government, and to do full legal justice to the Germans, but he declined to abrogate his conscience where his personal judgment of the rights and wrongs of the conflict were concerned.

"Neutrality," he said in a letter to his brother, Mr.Henry A.Page, of Aberdeen, N.C., "is a quality of government--an artificial unit.