Popular feeling was at high pitch.

In this condition of affairs Alexander Baring, who had been raised to the peerage as Lord Ashburton, was sent to America on a mission of friendship and peace.

As a young man he had listened to the debate on Jay's treaty in 1795.

He was now to be received by Webster in Washington in the same spirit in which Grenville received Jay in London, when it was mutually understood that they should discuss the matter as friends and not as diplomatists, and leave their articles as records of agreement, not as compromises of discord.

Gallatin eagerly awaited the arrival of his old friend, and was grievously disappointed when contrary winds blew the frigate which carried him to Annapolis.