Great Britain, too, was to suffer from her own retaliatory policy.
His refusal soon after his inauguration to honour the requisition of the governor of Virginia for three persons charged with assisting a slave to escape from Norfolk, provoked retaliatory measures by the Virginia legislature, in which Mississippi and South Carolina soon joined.
Besides, denunciation would not have meant a return to prior conditions; for other countries would have continued the convention, and probably with success, and would have proposed prohibitive or retaliatory duties in respect of British sugar, with bad results politically.
This he calculated would bring about a retaliatory invasion of Poland by the Turks, which would justify him in taking the field against them also with all the forces of the Republic. In case of success he would be able to impose the will of a victorious king upon a discredited diet, and reform the constitution on an English or Swedish model.
The correspondence between Mr Chamberlain and Mr Balfour (September 9th and 16th) was published, and presented the latter in the light of a sympathizer with some form of fiscal union with the colonies, if practicable, and in favour of retaliatory duties, but unable to believe that the country was yet ready to agree to the taxation of food required for a preferential tariff, and therefore unwilling to support that scheme; at the same time he encouraged Mr Chamberlain to test the feeling of the public and to convert them by his missionary efforts outside the government.