The communication was thus more than a suggestion; it was a recommendation that was strongly urged.  According to Page this telegram was the first great mistake the American Government made in its relations with Great Britain.  In September, 1916, the Ambassador submitted to President Wilson a memorandum which he called “Rough notes toward an explanation of the British feeling toward the United States.”  “Of recent years,” he said, “and particularly during the first year of the present Administration, the British feeling toward the United States was most friendly and cordial.  About the time of the repeal of the tolls clause in the Panama Act, the admiration and friendliness of the whole British public (governmental and private) reached the highest point in our history.  In considering the change that has taken place since, it is well to bear this cordiality in mind as a starting point.  When the war came on there was at first nothing to change this attitude.  The hysterical hope of many persons that our Government might protest against the German invasion of Belgium caused some feeling of disappointment, but thinking men did not share it; and, if this had been the sole cause of criticism of us, the criticism would have died out.  The unusually high regard in which the President—­and hence our Government—­was then held was to a degree new.  The British had for many years held the people of the United States in high esteem:  they had not, as a rule, so favourably regarded the Government at Washington, especially in its conduct of foreign relations.  They had long regarded our Government as ignorant of European affairs and amateurish in its cockiness.  When I first got to London I found evidence of this feeling, even in the most friendly atmosphere that surrounded us.  Mr. Bryan was looked on as a joke.  They forgot him—­rather, they never took serious notice of him.  But, when the Panama tolls incident was closed, they regarded the President as his own Foreign Secretary; and thus our Government as well as our Nation came into this high measure of esteem.

“The war began.  We, of course, took a neutral attitude, wholly to their satisfaction.  But we at once interfered—­or tried to interfere—­by insisting on the Declaration of London, which no Great Power but the United States (I think) had ratified and which the British House of Lords had distinctly rejected.  That Declaration would probably have given a victory to Germany if the Allies had adopted it.  In spite of our neutrality we insisted vigorously on its adoption and aroused a distrust in our judgment.  Thus we started in wrong, so far as the British Government is concerned.”