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Title: History of the United States of America, Volume 5 (of 9) : During the First Administration of James Madison
Author: Adams, Henry
Language: English
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THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION
OF
JAMES MADISON
1809–1813
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
BY
HENRY ADAMS.
VOLS. I. AND II.--THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF JEFFERSON.
1801–1805.
VOLS. III. AND IV.--THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF JEFFERSON.
1805–1809.
VOLS. V. AND VI.--THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF MADISON.
1809–1813.
VOLS. VII., VIII., AND IX.--THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF
MADISON. 1813–1817. WITH AN INDEX TO THE ENTIRE WORK.
(_In Press._)
HISTORY
OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DURING THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF
JAMES MADISON
BY HENRY ADAMS
VOL. V.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1890
_Copyright, 1890_
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
CONTENTS OF VOL. V.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. SUBSIDENCE OF FACTION 1
II. ALIENATION FROM FRANCE 22
III. CANNING’S CONCESSIONS 42
IV. ERSKINE’S ARRANGEMENT 66
V. DISAVOWAL OF ERSKINE 87
VI. FRANCIS JAMES JACKSON 109
VII. NAPOLEON’S TRIUMPH 133
VIII. EXECUTIVE WEAKNESS 154
IX. LEGISLATIVE IMPOTENCE 176
X. INCAPACITY OF GOVERNMENT 199
XI. THE DECREE OF RAMBOUILLET 220
XII. CADORE’S LETTER OF AUGUST 5 241
XIII. THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY 262
XIV. GOVERNMENT BY PROCLAMATION 289
XV. THE FLORIDAS AND THE BANK 316
XVI. CONTRACT WITH FRANCE 338
XVII. DISMISSAL OF ROBERT SMITH 359
XVIII. NAPOLEON’S DELAYS 380
XIX. RUSSIA AND SWEDEN 404
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
CHAPTER I.
THE “National Intelligencer,” which called public attention
only to such points of interest as the Government wished to accent,
noticed that President Madison was “dressed in a full suit of cloth
of American manufacture” when he appeared at noon, March 4, 1809,
under escort of the “troops of cavalry of the city and Georgetown,”
amid a crowd of ten thousand people, to take the oath of office at the
Capitol. The suit of American clothes told more of Madison’s tendencies
than was to be learned from the language of the Inaugural Address,
which he delivered in a tone of voice so low as not to be heard by
the large audience gathered in the new and imposing Representatives’
Hall.[1] Indeed, the Address suggested a doubt whether the new
President wished to be understood. The conventionality of his thought
nowhere betrayed itself more plainly than in this speech on the
greatest occasion of Madison’s life, when he was required to explain
the means by which he should retrieve the failures of Jefferson.
“It is a precious reflection,” said Madison to his anxious
audience, “that the transition from this prosperous condition
of our country to the scene which has for some time been
distressing us, is not chargeable on any unwarrantable views,
nor as I trust on any voluntary errors, in the public councils.
Indulging no passions which trespass on the rights or the repose
of other nations, it has been the true glory of the United
States to cultivate peace by observing justice, and to entitle
themselves to the respect of the nations at war by fulfilling
their neutral obligations with the most scrupulous impartiality.
If there be candor in the world, the truth of these assertions
will not be questioned; posterity at least will do justice to
them.”
Since none of Madison’s enemies, either abroad or at home, intended to
show him candor, his only hope was in posterity; yet the judgment of
posterity depended chiefly on the course which the new President might
take to remedy the misfortunes of his predecessor. The nation expected
from him some impulse toward the end he had in mind; foreign nations
were also waiting to learn whether they should have to reckon with a
new force in politics; but Madison seemed to show his contentment with
the policy hitherto pursued, rather than his wish to change it.
“This unexceptionable course,” he continued, “could not avail
against the injustice and violence of the belligerent Powers.
In their rage against each other, or impelled by more direct
motives, principles of retaliation have been introduced equally
contrary to universal reason and acknowledged law. How long
their arbitrary edicts will be continued, in spite of the
demonstrations that not even a pretext for them has been given
by the United States, and of the fair and liberal attempt to
induce a revocation of them, cannot be anticipated. Assuring
myself that under every vicissitude the determined spirit and
united councils of the nation will be safeguards to its honor
and essential interests, I repair to the post assigned me, with
no other discouragement than what springs from my own inadequacy
to its high duties.”
Neither the actual world nor posterity could find much in these
expressions on which to approve or condemn the policy of Madison,
for no policy could be deduced from them. The same iteration of
commonplaces marked the list of general principles which filled the
next paragraph of the Address. Balancing every suggestion of energy
by a corresponding limitation of scope, Madison showed only a wish
to remain within the limits defined by his predecessor. “To cherish
peace and friendly intercourse with all nations having corresponding
dispositions” seemed to imply possible recourse to war with other
nations; but “to prefer in all cases amicable discussion and reasonable
accommodation of differences to a decision of them by an appeal to
arms” seemed to exclude the use of force. “To promote by authorized
means improvements friendly to agriculture, to manufactures, and to
external as well as internal commerce” was a phrase so cautiously
framed that no one could attack it. “To support the Constitution,
which is the cement of the Union, as well in its limitations as in
its authorities,” seemed a duty so guarded as to need no further
antithesis; yet Madison did not omit the usual obligation “to respect
the rights and authorities reserved to the States and to the people,
as equally incorporated with, and essential to, the success of the
general system.” No one could object to the phrases with which the
Address defined Executive duties; but no one could point out a syllable
implying that Madison would bend his energies with sterner purpose to
maintain the nation’s rights.
At the close of the speech Chief-Justice Marshall administered the
oath; the new President then passed the militia in review, and in the
evening Madison and Jefferson attended an inauguration ball, where
“the crowd was excessive, the heat oppressive, and the entertainment
bad.”[2] With this complaint, so familiar on the occasion, the day
ended, and President Madison’s troubles began.
About March 1, Wilson Cary Nicholas had called on the President elect
to warn him that he must look for serious opposition to the expected
appointment of Gallatin as Secretary of State. Nicholas had the
best reason to know that Giles, Samuel Smith, and Leib were bent on
defeating Gallatin.
“I believed from what I heard he would be rejected,” wrote
Nicholas two years afterward;[3] “and that at all events, if he
was not, his confirmation would be by a bare majority. During my
public service but one event had ever occurred that gave me as
much uneasiness: I mean the degradation of the country at that
very moment by the abandonment of [the embargo].”
The two events were in fact somewhat alike in character. That Gallatin
should become Secretary of State seemed a point of little consequence,
even though it were the only remaining chance for honorable peace; but
that another secretary should be forced on the President by a faction
in the Senate, for the selfish objects of men like Samuel Smith and
Giles, foreboded revolution in the form of government. Nicholas saw
chiefly the danger which threatened his friends; but the remoter peril
to Executive independence promised worse evils than could be caused
even by the overthrow of the party in power at a moment of foreign
aggression.
The effort of Giles and Smith to control Madison had no excuse.
Gallatin’s foreign birth, the only objection urged against him,
warranted doubt, not indeed of his fitness, but of difficulty in
obliging European powers to deal with a native of Geneva, who was
in their eyes either a subject of their own or an enemy at war; but
neither Napoleon nor King George in the year 1809 showed so much regard
to American feelings that the United States needed to affect delicacy
in respect to theirs; and Gallatin’s foreign birth became a signal
advantage if it should force England to accept the fact, even though
she refused to admit the law, of American naturalization. Gallatin’s
fitness was undisputed, and the last men who could question it were
Giles and Samuel Smith, who had been his friends for twenty years,
had trusted their greatest party interests in his hands, had helped
to put the Treasury under his control, and were at the moment keeping
him at its head when they might remove him to the less responsible
post of minister for foreign affairs. Any question of Gallatin’s
patriotism suggested ideas even more delicate than those raised by
doubts of his fitness. A party which had once trusted Burr and which
still trusted Wilkinson, not to mention Giles himself, had little
right to discuss Gallatin’s patriotism, or the honesty of foreign-born
citizens. Even the mild-spoken Wilson Cary Nicholas almost lost his
temper at this point. “I honestly believe,” he wrote in 1811, “if all
our _native_ citizens had as well discharged their duty to their
country, that we should by our energy have extorted from both England
and France a respect for our rights, and that before this day we should
have extricated ourselves from all our embarrassments instead of having
increased them.” The men who doubted Gallatin’s patriotism were for the
most part themselves habitually factious, or actually dallying with
ideas of treason.
Had any competent native American been pressed for the Department
of State, the Senate might still have had some pretext for excluding
Gallatin; but no such candidate could be suggested. Giles was alone in
thinking himself the proper secretary; Samuel Smith probably stood in
the same position; Monroe still sulked in opposition and discredit;
Armstrong, never quite trusted, was in Paris; William Pinkney and J. Q.
Adams were converts too recent for such lofty promotion; G. W. Campbell
and W. H. Crawford had neither experience nor natural fitness for the
post. The appointment of Gallatin not only seemed to be, but actually
was, necessary to Madison’s Administration.
No argument affected the resistance of Giles and Samuel Smith, and
during the early days of March Madison could see no means of avoiding
a party schism. From that evil, at such a stage, he shrank. While the
subject still stood unsettled, some unknown person suggested a new
idea. If Robert Smith could be put in the Treasury, his brother Samuel
would vote to confirm Gallatin as Secretary of State. The character of
such a transaction needed no epithet; but Madison went to Robert Smith
and offered him the Treasury.[4] He knew Smith to be incompetent, but
he thought that with Gallatin’s aid even an incompetent person might
manage the finances; and perhaps his astuteness went so far as to
foresee what was to happen,--that he should deal with the Smiths on
some better occasion in a more summary manner. Madison’s resemblance
to a cardinal was not wholly imaginary.[5]
While Robert Smith went to inquire into the details of Treasury
business before accepting the offered post, the President consulted
with Gallatin, who rejected the scheme at once. He could not, he said,
undertake the charge of both departments; the President would do better
to appoint Robert Smith Secretary of State, and leave the Treasury as
it was. Madison seized this outlet of escape. He returned to Robert
Smith with the offer of the State Department, which Smith accepted.
In making this arrangement Madison knew that he must himself supply
Smith’s deficiencies; but stronger wills than that of Madison had
yielded to party discontent, and he gained much if he gained only time.
The true victim of the bargain was Gallatin, who might wisely have
chosen the moment for retiring from the Cabinet; but after declining an
arrangement in his favor, he could not fairly desert the President, who
had offered to sacrifice much for him, and he was too proud to avow a
personal slight as the motive of his public action. Weakened already by
the unexpected decline of his influence in the Senate, his usefulness
was sure to be still further lessened by the charge of clinging to
office; but after weighing the arguments for retirement he decided to
remain,[6] although he could not, even if he would, forget that the
quarrel which had been forced upon him must be met as vigorously as it
was made.
The War and Navy Departments remained to be filled. Dearborn, who had
continued in the War Department chiefly to oblige President Jefferson,
retired in the month of February to become Collector of the port of
Boston. As his successor, Madison selected William Eustis, of Boston,
who had served in Congress during Jefferson’s first Administration.
Eustis was about fifty-six years old; in the Revolutionary War he
had filled the post of hospital surgeon, and since the peace he had
practised his profession in Boston. Little could be said of the
appointment, except that no other candidate was suggested who seemed
better qualified for the place.[7]
To succeed Robert Smith at the Navy Department, Madison selected Paul
Hamilton, of South Carolina. Nothing was known of Hamilton, except that
he had been governor of his State some ten years before. No one seemed
aware why he had attracted the President’s attention, or what qualities
fitted him for the charge of naval affairs; but he appeared in due time
at Washington,--a South Carolinian gentleman, little known in society
or even to his colleagues in the government, and little felt as an
active force in the struggle of parties and opinions.
From the outset Madison’s Cabinet was the least satisfactory that
any President had known. More than once the Federalist cabinets had
been convulsed by disagreements, but the Administration of Madison
had hardly strength to support two sides of a dispute. Gallatin
alone gave it character, but was himself in a sort of disgrace. The
Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of the
Navy, overshadowed in the Cabinet by Gallatin, stood in a position
of inevitable hostility to his influence, although they represented
neither ideas nor constituents. While Gallatin exacted economy,
the army and navy required expenditures, and the two secretaries
necessarily looked to Robert Smith as their friend. Toward Robert
Smith Gallatin could feel only antipathy, which was certainly shared
by Madison. “We had all been astonished at his appointment,” said Joel
Barlow two years afterward;[8] “we all learned the history of that
miserable intrigue by which it was effected.” Looking upon Robert
Smith’s position as the result of a “miserable intrigue,” Gallatin
could make no secret of his contempt. The social relations between
them, which had once been intimate, wholly ceased.
To embroil matters further, the defalcation of a navy agent at Leghorn
revealed business relations between the Navy Department and Senator
Samuel Smith’s mercantile firm which scandalized Gallatin and drew
from him a sharp criticism. He told Samuel Smith that the transactions
of the firm of Smith and Buchanan were the most extraordinary that
had fallen within his knowledge since he had been in the Treasury,
and had left very unfavorable impressions on his mind.[9] Smith was
then struggling for a re-election to the Senate, and felt the hand
of Gallatin as a chief obstacle in his way. The feud became almost
mortal under these reciprocal injuries; but Samuel Smith gained all his
objects, and for the time held Gallatin and Madison at his mercy. Had
he been able to separate them, his influence would have had no bounds,
except his want of ability.
Yet Madison was always a dangerous enemy, gifted with a quality
of persistence singularly sure in its results. An example of this
persistence occurred at the moment of yielding to the Smiths’
intrigues, when, perhaps partly in the hope of profiting by his
sacrifice, he approached the Senate once more on the subject of the
mission to Russia. February 27, the nomination of William Short to
St. Petersburg had been unanimously rejected. March 6, with the
nominations of Robert Smith and William Eustis to the Cabinet,
Madison sent the names of J. Q. Adams as minister at St. Petersburg,
and of Thomas Sumter as minister to Brazil. He asked the Senate to
establish two new missions at once. March 7 the Senate confirmed all
the other nominations, but by a vote of seventeen to fifteen, adhered
to the opinion that a mission to Russia was inexpedient. Both Giles
and Samuel Smith supported the Government; but the two senators
from Pennsylvania, the two from Kentucky, together with Anderson of
Tennessee and William H. Crawford, persisted in aiding the Federalists
to defeat the President’s wish. Yet the majority was so small as to
prove that Madison would carry his point in the end. Senators who
rejected the services of Gallatin and John Quincy Adams in order to
employ those of Robert Smith, Dr. Eustis, and Governor Hamilton could
not but suffer discredit. Faction which had no capacity of its own,
and which showed only dislike of ability in others, could never rule a
government in times of danger or distress.
After thus embarrassing the President in organizing his service
the Senate rose, leaving Madison in peace until May 22, when the
Eleventh Congress was to meet in special session. The outlook was more
discouraging than at the beginning of any previous Administration.
President Jefferson had strained his authority to breaking, and the
sudden reaction threw society as well as government into disorder. The
factiousness at Washington reflected only in a mild form the worse
factiousness elsewhere. The Legislature of Massachusetts, having
issued its Address to the People, adjourned; and a few days afterward
the people, by an election which called out more than ninety thousand
votes, dismissed their Republican governor, and by a majority of two or
three thousand chose Christopher Gore in his place. The new Legislature
was more decidedly Federalist than the old one. New Hampshire effected
the same revolution. Rhode Island followed. In New York the Federalists
carried the Legislature, as they did also in Maryland.
Even in Pennsylvania, although nothing shook the fixed political
character of the State, the epidemic of faction broke out. While the
legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut declared Acts of Congress
unconstitutional, and refused aid to execute them, the legislature
of Pennsylvania authorized Governor Snyder to resist by armed force
a mandate of the Supreme Court; and when the United States marshal
attempted to serve process on the person of certain respondents at the
suit of Gideon Olmstead, he found himself stopped by State militia
acting under orders.
In a country where popular temper had easier means of concentrating
its violence, government might have been paralyzed by these proofs
of low esteem; but America had not by far reached such a stage, and
dark as the prospect was both within and without, Madison could safely
disregard dangers on which most rulers had habitually to count. His
difficulties were only an inheritance from the old Administration,
and began to disappear as quickly as they had risen. At a word
from the President the State of Pennsylvania recovered its natural
common-sense, and with some little sacrifice of dignity gave way. The
popular successes won by the Federalists were hardly more serious than
the momentary folly of Pennsylvania. As yet, the Union stood in no
danger. The Federalists gained many votes; but these were the votes
of moderate men who would desert their new companions on the first
sign of a treasonable act, and their presence tended to make the party
cautious rather than rash. John Henry, the secret agent of Sir James
Craig, reported with truth to the governor-general that the Federalist
leaders at Boston found disunion a very delicate topic, and that “an
unpopular war ... can alone produce a sudden separation of any section
of this country from the common head.”[10] In public, the most violent
Federalists curbed their tongues whenever the Union was discussed, and
instead of threatening to dissolve it, contented themselves by charging
the blame on the Southern States in case it should fall to pieces.
Success sobered them; the repeal of the embargo seemed so great a
triumph that they were almost tempted into good humor.
On the people of New England other motives more directly selfish began
to have effect. The chief sources of their wealth were shipping and
manufactures. The embargo destroyed the value of the shipping after
it had been diminished by the belligerent edicts; the repeal of the
embargo restored the value. The Federalist newspapers tried to prove
that this was not the case, and that the Non-intercourse Act, which
prohibited commerce with England, France, or their dependencies, was
as ruinous as embargo itself; but the shipping soon showed that
Gottenburg, Riga, Lisbon, and the Spanish ports in America were
markets almost as convenient as London or Havre for the sale of
American produce. The Yankee ship-owner received freights to Europe
by circuitous routes, on the accumulations of two years in grain,
cotton, tobacco, and timber, of the whole United States, besides the
freights of an extended coast-trade. Massachusetts owned more than a
third of the American registered tonnage, and the returns for 1809
and 1810 proved that her profits were great. The registered tonnage
of Massachusetts employed in foreign trade was 213,000 tons in 1800,
and rose to 310,000 tons in 1807 before the embargo; in 1809 it rose
again to 324,000; in 1810 it made another leap to 352,000 tons. The
coasting trade employed in 1807 about 90,000 tons of Massachusetts
shipping which was much increased by the embargo, and again reduced by
its repeal; but in 1809 and 1810 this enrolled shipping still stood far
above the prosperous level of 1807, and averaged 110,000 tons for the
two years.[11]
Such rapid and general improvement in shipping proved that New
England had better employment than political factiousness to occupy
the thoughts of her citizens; but large as the profits on freights
might be, they hardly equalled the profits on manufactures. In truth,
the manufactories of New England were created by the embargo, which
obliged the whole nation to consume their products or to go without.
The first American cotton mills, begun as early as 1787, met with so
little success that when the embargo was imposed in 1807, only fifteen
mills with about eight thousand spindles were in operation, producing
some three hundred thousand pounds of yarn a year. These eight thousand
spindles, representing a capital of half a million dollars, were
chiefly in or near Rhode Island.
The embargo and non-importation Acts went into effect in the last
days of 1807. Within less than two years the number of spindles was
increased, or arrangements were made for increasing it, from eight
thousand to eighty thousand.[12] Nearly four million dollars of capital
were invested in mills, and four thousand persons were in their employ,
or expected soon to be employed in them. The cotton cost about twenty
cents a pound; the yarn sold on an average at about $1.12½ a pound.
Besides these mills, which were worked mostly by water but partly by
horsepower, the domestic manufacture of cotton and linen supplied
a much larger part of the market. Two thirds of the clothing and
house-linen used in the United States outside of the cities was made in
farm-houses, and nearly every farmer in New England sold some portion
of the stock woven every year by the women of his household. Much of
this coarse but strong flaxen material, sold at about fifteen or
twenty cents a yard by the spinner, was sent to the Southern
States.[13]
While the cotton and linen industries of the North became profitable,
the manufactures of wool lagged little behind. William Whittemore,
who owned the patent for a machine which manufactured wool and cotton
cards, reported from Cambridge in Massachusetts, Nov. 24, 1809, that
only the want of card-wire prevented him from using all his machines
to the full extent of their power.[14] “Since the obstructions to
our foreign trade, the manufactures of our country have increased
astonishingly,” he wrote. “The demand for wool and cotton cards
the present season has been twice as great as it has been any year
preceding.” Scarcity of good wool checked the growth of this industry,
and the demand soon roused a mania among farmers for improving the
breed of sheep. Between one hundred and three hundred per cent of
profit attended all these industries, and little or no capital was
required.
All the Northern and Eastern States shared in the advantages of this
production, for which Virginia with the Western and Southern States
paid; but in the whole Union New England fared best. Already the
development of small industries had taken place, which, by making a
varied aggregate, became the foundation and the security of Yankee
wealth. Massachusetts taxed her neighbors on many small articles
of daily use. She employed in the single manufacture of hats four
thousand persons,--more than were yet engaged in the cotton mills.
More than a million and a half of hats were annually made, and three
fourths of these were sold beyond the State; between three and four
million dollars a year flowed into Massachusetts in exchange for hats
alone.[15] At Lynn, in Massachusetts, were made one hundred thousand
pairs of women’s shoes every year. The town of Roxbury made eight
hundred thousand pounds of soap. Massachusetts supplied the country
with cut-iron nails to the value of twelve hundred thousand dollars a
year. Connecticut supplied the whole country with tin-ware.
New industries sprang up rapidly on a soil and in a climate where the
struggle of life was more severe than elsewhere in the Union, and where
already capital existed in quantities that made production easy. One
industry stimulated another. Women had much to do with the work, and
their quickness and patience of details added largely to the income of
New England at the cost of less active communities. Their hands wove
most of the cotton and woollen cloths sent in large quantities to the
West and South; but they were inventors as well as workmen. In 1801,
when English straw-bonnets were in fashion, a girl of Wrentham, not
far from Boston, found that she could make for herself a straw-hat as
good as the imported one. In a few months every girl in the county of
Norfolk made her own straw-bonnet; and soon the South and West paid two
hundred thousand dollars a year to the county of Norfolk for straw hats
and bonnets.[16]
At no time could such industries have been established without
the stimulus of a handsome profit; but when Virginia compelled
Massachusetts and the Northern States to accept a monopoly of the
American market, the Yankee manufacturer must have expected to get, and
actually got, great profits for his cottons and woollens, his hats,
shoes, soap, and nails. As though this were not more than enough,
Virginia gave the Northern shipowners the whole freight on Southern
produce, two thirds of which in one form or another went into the hands
of New England shipbuilders, shippers, and merchants. Slowly the specie
capital of the Union drifted towards the Banks of Boston and New Haven,
until, as the story will show, the steady drain of specie eastward
bankrupted the other States and the national government. Never, before
or since, was the country so racked to create and support monopolies
as in 1808, 1809, and 1810, under Southern rule, and under the system
of the President who began his career by declaring that if he could
prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under
the pretence of protecting them, they must become happy.[17] The navy
and army of the United States were employed, and were paid millions of
dollars, during these years in order to shut out foreign competition,
and compel New England at the cannon’s mouth to accept these enormous
bribes.
The Yankee, however ill-tempered he might be, was shrewd enough to
see where his profit lay. The Federalist leaders and newspapers
grumbled without intermission that their life-blood was drained to
support a negro-slave aristocracy, “baser than its own slaves,” as
their phrase went; but they took the profits thrust upon them; and
what they could not clutch was taken by New York and Pennsylvania,
while Virginia slowly sank into ruin. Virginia paid the price to
gratify her passion for political power; and at the time, she paid it
knowingly and willingly. John Randolph protested almost alone. American
manufactures owed more to Jefferson and Virginians, who disliked them,
than to Northern statesmen, who merely encouraged them after they were
established.
These movements and tendencies were rather felt than understood amid
the uproar of personal and local interests; but the repeal of the
embargo had the effect intended by the Virginians,--it paralyzed
Pickering and the party of forcible resistance. New England quickly
turned from revolutionary thoughts while she engaged in money-making;
and as though the tide of fortune had at last set in Madison’s favor, a
stroke of his diplomacy raised the tottering Administration to a sudden
height of popularity such as Jefferson himself had never reached.
CHAPTER II.
WHEN Napoleon, Aug. 3, 1808, heard at Bordeaux that the Spaniards had
captured Dupont’s army at Baylen and Rosily’s ships at Cadiz, and had
thrown eighty thousand French troops back upon the Pyrenees, his anger
was great; but his perplexity was much greater. In a character so
interesting as that of Napoleon, the moments of perplexity were best
worth study; and in his career no single moment occurred when he had
more reason to call upon his genius for a resource than when he faced
at Bordeaux the failure of his greatest scheme. From St. Petersburg
to Gibraltar every shopkeeper knew that England had escaped, and all
believed that no combination either of force or fraud could again be
made with reasonable hope of driving her commerce from its channels.
On this belief every merchant, as well as every government in the
world, was actually shaping calculations. Napoleon also must shape
his calculations on theirs, since he had failed to force theirs into
the path of his own. The escape of England made useless the machinery
he had created for her ruin. Spain, Russia, and Austria had little
value for his immediate object, except as their control was necessary
for the subjection of England; and the military occupation of Spain
beyond the Ebro became worse than a blunder from the moment when Cadiz
and Lisbon, Cuba and Mexico, Brazil and Peru threw themselves into
England’s arms.[18]
More than once this history has shown that Napoleon never hesitated to
throw aside a plan which had miscarried. If he did not in the autumn of
1808 throw aside his Spanish schemes, the reason could only be that he
saw no other resource, and that in his belief his power would suffer
too much from the shock of admitting failure. He showed unusual signs
of vacillation, and of a desire to escape the position into which
his miscalculations had led him. Instead of going at once to Spain
and restoring order to his armies, he left his brother helpless at
Vittoria while he passed three months in negotiations looking toward
peace with England. In September he went to Germany, where he met the
Czar of Russia at Erfurt, and induced Alexander, or consented to his
inducement, to join in an autograph letter to the King of England,
marked by the usual Napoleonic character, and offering the principle of
_uti possidetis_ as the preliminary to a general peace. England
regarded this advance as deceptive, and George Canning was never more
successful than in the gesture of self-restrained contempt with which
he tossed back the letter that Napoleon and Alexander had presumed to
address to a constitutional King of England; but even Canning could
hardly suppose that Napoleon would invite an insult without a motive.
From whatever side Napoleon approached the situation he could invent
no line of conduct which did not imply the triumph of England. Study
the problem as he might, he could not escape from the political and
military disadvantages he incurred from the Spanish uprising. Without
the consent of England he could neither free his civil government from
the system of commercial restriction, nor free his military strength
from partial paralysis in Spain; and England refused to help him, or
even to hear reason from Alexander.
Thenceforward a want of distinct purpose showed itself in Napoleon’s
acts. Unable either to enforce or to abandon his Continental system, he
began to use it for momentary objects,--sometimes to weaken England,
sometimes to obtain money, or as the pretext for conquests. Unable
to hold the Peninsula or to withdraw from it, he seemed at one time
resolved on conquest, at another disposed toward retreat. In the autumn
of 1808 both paths ran together, for his credit required him to conquer
before he could honorably establish any dynasty on the throne; and
during the months of September and October he marched new French armies
across the Pyrenees and massed an irresistible force behind the Ebro. A
year before, he had thought one hundred thousand men enough to occupy
all Spain and Portugal; but in October, 1808, he held not less than two
hundred and fifty thousand men beyond the Pyrenees, ready to move at
the moment of his arrival.
October 25, after his return from Germany, the Emperor pronounced
a speech at the opening of his legislative chambers; and the
embarrassment of his true position was evident under the words in which
he covered it.
“Russia and Denmark,” he said, “have united with me against
England. The United States have preferred to renounce commerce
and the sea rather than recognize their slavery. A part of
my army marches against those that England has formed or
disembarked in Spain. It is a special benefit of that Providence
which has constantly protected our arms, that passion has so
blinded English councils as to make them renounce the protection
of the sea and at last present their armies on the Continent. I
depart in a few days to place myself at the head of my army, and
with God’s aid to crown the King of Spain in Madrid, and plant
my eagles on the forts of Lisbon.”
He left Paris October 29, and ten days later, November 9, began the
campaign which still attracts the admiration of military critics, but
which did not result in planting his eagles on the forts of Lisbon.
“To my great astonishment,” he afterward said,[19] “I had to fight the
battles of Tudela, Espinosa, Burgos, and Somo Sierra, to gain Madrid,
which, in spite of my victories, refused me admission during two
days.” After disposing in rapid succession of all the Spanish armies,
he occupied Madrid December 4, and found himself at the end of his
campaign. The conquest of Lisbon and Cadiz required more time, and
led to less military result than suited his objects. At that moment
he learned that an English army under Sir John Moore had ventured
to march from Portugal into the north of Spain, and had already
advanced so far toward Burgos as to make their capture possible. The
destruction of an English army, however small, offered Napoleon the
triumph he wanted. Rapidly collecting his forces, he hurried across the
Guadarrama Mountains to cut off Moore’s retreat; but for once he was
out-generalled. Sir John Moore not only saved his own army, but also
led the French a long and exhausting chase to the extreme northwestern
shore of Spain, where the British fleet carried Moore’s army out of
their reach.
Napoleon would not have been the genius he was had he wasted his
energies in following Moore to Corunna, or in trying to plant his
eagles on the forts of Lisbon or Cadiz. A year earlier, Lisbon and
Cadiz had been central points of his scheme; but in December, 1808,
they were worth to him little more than any other seaports without
fleets or colonies. For Spain and Portugal Napoleon showed that he had
no further use. The moment he saw that Moore had escaped, which became
clear when the Emperor reached Astorga, Jan. 2, 1809, throwing upon
Soult the task of marching one hundred and fifty miles to Corunna after
Moore and the British army, Napoleon stopped short, turned about, and
with rapidity unusual even for him, quitted Spain forever. “The affairs
of Spain are finished,” he wrote January 16;[20] although Joseph had
the best reason to know and much cause to tell how his brother left
nothing finished in Spain. “The circumstances of Europe oblige me to
go for three weeks to Paris,” he wrote to Joseph early in the morning
of January 15; “if nothing prevents, I shall be back again before the
end of February.”[21] With characteristic mixture of harshness and
tenderness toward his elder brother, he wrote at noon the same day
another account, equally deceptive, of his motives and intentions:--
“You must say everywhere, and make the army believe, that I
shall return in three or four weeks. In fact, my mere presence
at Paris will make Austria shrink back to her nullity; and then,
before the end of October, I will be back here. I shall be in
Paris in five days. I shall go at full speed, day and night, as
far as Bordeaux. Meanwhile everything will go on quieting itself
in Spain.”[22]
Giving out that the conduct of Austria required his presence at Paris,
he succeeded in imposing this fiction upon Europe by the empire of his
will. Europe accepted the fable, which became history; but although
the Emperor soon disposed of Austria, and although Spain was a more
difficult problem than Austria ever was, Napoleon never kept his word
to Joseph, and never again ventured within sight of the mistakes he
could no longer correct.
Meanwhile Armstrong, disgusted with the disappointments and annoyances
of his residence at Paris, had become anxious to escape without
further loss of credit. His letters to Madison, published by Congress,
returned to terrify his French acquaintance, and to close his sources
of information. He could see no hope of further usefulness. As early as
Oct. 25, 1808, when the Emperor was addressing his legislative chambers
before setting out for Spain, Armstrong wrote to Madison that no good
could come from keeping an American minister at Paris.[23] Yet in the
enforced idleness of the month when Napoleon was in Spain, Armstrong
found one ally whose aid was well worth seeking. After the Czar
Alexander accepted, at Tilsit, the ascendency of Napoleon, he appointed
as his minister of foreign relations the Count Nicholas Roumanzoff. The
Czar was still a young man in his thirty-first year, while Roumanzoff,
fifty-four years old, had the full powers of maturity. Together they
shaped a Russian policy, in the traditional direction of Russian
interests, founded upon jealousy of British maritime tyranny. Lord
Howick’s and Spencer Perceval’s Orders in Council served to sharpen
Russian as well as American antipathies, and brought the two distant
nations into a sympathy which was certainly not deep, but which
England had reason to fear. In the autumn of 1808 Count Roumanzoff
came to Paris to arrange with Champagny the details of their joint
diplomacy; and at the same time, in the month of November, William
Short arrived in Paris secretly accredited as minister plenipotentiary
at St. Petersburg, but waiting confirmation by the Senate before
going to his post. When Armstrong told Roumanzoff that an American
minister would soon be on his way to St. Petersburg, the count was
highly pleased, and promised at once to send a full minister to replace
André Daschkoff, the chargé at Washington. “Ever since I came into
office,” he said to Armstrong,[24] “I have been desirous of producing
this effect; for in dissolving our commercial connections with Great
Britain it became necessary to seek some other power in whom we might
find a substitute; and on looking round I could see none but the United
States who were at all competent to this object.” So far as concerned
England, the alliance promised great advantages; but Armstrong’s chief
anxiety affected France, and when he attempted to enlist Roumanzoff
in resistance to Napoleon’s robberies, he found no encouragement.
Roumanzoff had already tried his influence with Napoleon on behalf
of the Danes, who wanted compensation for their plundered commerce.
“Give them a civil answer,” replied Napoleon,[25] “but of course one
never pays for this sort of thing,--_On ne paye jamais ces choses-là,
n’est-ce pas?_” From Roumanzoff’s refusal, Armstrong inferred that
no change need be hoped in Napoleon’s conduct.
“On the contrary,” he wrote to Madison, the day when Napoleon
abandoned the pursuit of Sir John Moore,[26] “their anti-neutral
system is more rigidly observed; the embargo on ships of the
United States found here before the imperial decrees were issued
is continued; every ship of ours coming into a port of France
or of her allies is immediately seized and sequestered; cargoes
regularly admitted to entry by the custom-houses are withheld
from their owners; ships most obviously exceptions to the
operation of the Decrees have been recently condemned; and--what
in my view of the subject does not admit of aggravation--the
burning of the ship ‘Brutus’ on the high seas, so far from being
disavowed, is substantially justified.”
Had this been all, perhaps President Madison and Congress might have
waited with courtesy, if not with hope, for Napoleon’s pleasure; but
grievances equally serious ran back to the year 1803, and not one of
them had been redressed by France.
“It is now three years since one of her admirals, on the
principle of self-preservation, burnt four of our ships at sea,
and the Emperor immediately acknowledged the debt and repeatedly
promised to discharge it; but not a shilling has yet been paid,
nor is it probable that a shilling ever will be paid. Besides
this breach of justice in the first instance and of promise
in the last, we have to complain that bills of exchange drawn
to the order of citizens of the United States by the public
functionaries of France, to the amount of many millions of
dollars, and for articles of the first necessity, and drawn many
years ago, are not only not paid, but are officially denounced
as not payable.”
Armstrong’s temper, bad in the winter, became worse in the spring,
until his letters to the Department of State seemed to leave no
remedy but war for the grievances he described. The angry tone of his
despatches was not counteracted by fair words in the instructions sent
by Champagny to Turreau, which were calculated to irritate President
Madison beyond patience.
“You cannot too much call attention to the grievances of the
Americans against England in order to make them more sensibly
felt,” wrote Champagny to Turreau, after the Emperor went to
Spain.[27] “The Americans would like France to grant them
commercial privileges which no nation at present enjoys....
But ... hitherto it has not seemed proper, in the execution
of general measures, to introduce exceptions which would have
really destroyed their effect. If the rules adopted against
English commerce had not been made common, that commerce would
continue through every opening left to it; England would
preserve the same resources as before for supporting the war. A
system of exception for one people would turn the rule into an
injustice toward all others; all would have right to complain of
a privilege granted to the Federal government which themselves
would not enjoy.”
Unanswerable as this reasoning was from the Napoleonic standpoint, it
was open to the objection of placing Madison among the belligerents
at war with England, and of obliging him not only to accept the rules
imposed by Napoleon on the allies of France, but also to admit the
corresponding right of British retaliation, even to the point of war.
Until President Madison made up his mind to war with England, he could
hardly be induced by Napoleon’s diplomacy to overlook his causes of war
with France.
Had Napoleon acted according to rules of ordinary civilization, he
would at least have softened the harshness of his commercial policy
toward America by opening to the American President some vista of
compensation elsewhere. Florida seemed peculiarly suited for this
object, and no one so well as Napoleon knew the anxiety of the late
Administration to obtain that territory, which, for any legitimate
purpose, was useless and worthless to France. In December, 1808,
Napoleon could have retained little or no hope of controlling the
Spanish colonies by force; yet he ordered the American government
to leave them alone, as he ordered it to adopt the French system of
commercial restraint. “I venture to presume,” continued Champagny
to Turreau, “that if his Majesty has no reason to complain of the
disposition shown by the United States toward him, he will show
himself more and more inclined to treat them favorably. What will
most influence his course will be the conduct pursued by the United
States toward the Spanish colonies, and the care that shall be taken
to do nothing in regard to them which can contravene the rights of the
mother-country.”
Thus from Turreau’s attitude as well as from Armstrong’s letters, the
government at Washington was advised that neither favor nor justice
need be expected from Napoleon. This impression, strengthened by
all the private advices which arrived from France during the winter
of 1808–1809, even though partly balanced by the bulletins of the
Emperor’s splendid Spanish campaign, had much to do with the refusal of
Congress to declare a double war, which, however general in terms, must
in effect be waged against England alone. Anger with France affected
Republicans almost as strongly as fear of Napoleon excited Federalists.
When the final struggle took place in Congress over the embargo,
no small share of the weakness shown by the Administration and its
followers was due to their consciousness that the repeal of the embargo
would relieve them from appearing to obey an imperial mandate.
Turreau understood the repeal in no other light, and was extremely
irritated to see the decline of his influence. Men who had given him
pledge upon pledge that the embargo should be withdrawn only when
war against England should be declared, could plead no better excuse
for failing to keep their promise than that Napoleon had forfeited
his claim to their support. March 19, two weeks after Congress rose,
Turreau wrote from Baltimore to Champagny,[28]--
“You will have judged from my last despatches that the Embargo
Law would be repealed. It has been so, in fact, despite my
efforts to maintain it, and notwithstanding the promise of quite
a large number of influential Representatives, especially among
the senators, who had guaranteed to me its continuance till
the next Congress, and who have voted against their political
conscience. I had informed your Excellency of the disunion
projects shown by some of the Northern States. Their avowed
opposition to the continuance of the embargo, and their threats
to resist its execution, terrified Congress to such a degree
that the dominant party became divided, and the feebleness
(_faiblesse_) of Mr. Jefferson sanctioned the last and
the most shameful act of his Administration.... I say it with
regret,--and perhaps I have said it too late,--I am convinced
there is nothing to hope from these people.”
Erskine, whose persistent efforts to conciliate had also something
to do with the action of Congress, made Turreau’s anger the subject
of a despatch, doubtless hoping it might guide Canning’s thoughts
toward the wisdom of conciliation.[29] “The French minister it seems
is so much offended at the Non-intercourse Law which has been lately
passed, and is so little pleased with the general disposition, as he
conceives it, of the new Administration of the United States toward
France, that he has quitted this city, having previously given up his
house and removed all his furniture, without calling either upon the
new President or any of the members of the Administration, as was
his uniform custom in former years, and as is always done by foreign
ministers.” Robert Smith informed Erskine that the Government would
consider it to be their duty, which he was sure they would feel no
disposition to shrink from, to recommend to the new Congress to enter
upon immediate measures of hostility against France in the event of
Great Britain giving way as to her Orders so far as to afford an
opportunity to the United States to assert their rights against France.
During the month of March, Turreau watched the workings of the
Non-intercourse Act, but found little encouragement. “Generally the
ventures have not been so numerous as was to be expected from the
well-known avidity of American merchants, and the privations they
have suffered from the embargo.”[30] Most of the outgoing vessels had
cleared for the West Indies or the Azores, “but the French government
may rest assured that among a hundred ships leaving the ports of the
Union for the high seas, ninety of them will have the real object of
satisfying the wants and demands of England.” Such a commerce was in
his opinion fair prey. England had gained the upper-hand in America;
English superiority could no longer be contested; and to France
remained only the desperate chances of the political gambler.
“To-day not only is the separation of New England openly talked
about, but the people of those five States wish for this
separation, pronounce it, openly prepare it, will carry it
out under British protection, and probably will meet with no
resistance on the part of the other States. Yet this project,
which is known and avowed; the last proceedings of Congress,
which are blamed; the progress of the Federalists; the alarms
of commerce; the feebleness of the highest authorities (_des
premiers pouvoirs_), and the doubts regarding the capacity
and the party views of the new President,--cause a ferment of
public opinion; and perhaps the moment has come for forming a
party in favor of France in the Central and Southern States,
whenever those of the North, having given themselves a separate
government under the support of Great Britain, may threaten the
independence of the rest.”[31]
Turreau’s speculations might show no great sagacity, but they opened a
glimpse into his mind, and they were the chief information possessed
by Napoleon to form his estimate of American character. Nothing
could more irritate the Emperor than these laments from his minister
at Washington over the victory of English interests in the United
States. The effect of such reports on Napoleon was likely to be the
more decided because Turreau saw everything in darker colors than the
facts warranted. Deceived and defeated in the case of the embargo,
he imagined himself also in danger on the other main point of his
diplomacy,--the Spanish colonies. The old Spanish agents, consular
and diplomatic, mostly patriots, were still officially recognized
or privately received at Washington. Rumor said that troops were
collecting at New Orleans to support a movement of independence
in Florida; that General Wilkinson, on his way to take command in
Louisiana, had stopped at Havana and Pensacola; that President
Jefferson, on the eve of quitting the Presidency, had been heard to
say, “We must have the Floridas and Cuba.” Anonymous letters, believed
by Turreau to be written by one of the clerks in the State Department,
warned him against the intrigues of the Federal government in the
Spanish colonies. So much was he troubled by these alarms, that April
15 he addressed an unofficial note on the subject to Robert Smith.[32]
The President, having no wish to quarrel with the French minister,
and probably aware of his irritation, asked Gallatin, on his way
northwards, to call on Turreau at Baltimore and make to him such
soothing explanations as the case seemed to require. The interview took
place during the last week of April, and Turreau’s report threw another
ray of light into the recesses of Jefferson’s councils.[33]
“‘I am specially charged,’ said Gallatin, ‘to assure you that
whatever proceedings of General Wilkinson may seem to warrant
your suspicions must not be attributed to the Executive, but
solely to the vanity, the indiscretion, and the ordinary
inconsistencies of that General, whom you know perhaps as
well as we.... We are and we wish to be strangers to all that
passes in the Floridas, in Mexico, and also in Cuba. You
would be mistaken if you supposed that Mr. Madison wishes the
possession of the Floridas. That was Mr. Jefferson’s hobby
(_marotte_),--it has never been the wish of his Cabinet;
and Mr. Madison values to-day the possession of the Floridas
only so far as they may be thought indispensable to prevent
every kind of misunderstanding with Spain, and to secure an
outlet for the produce of our Southern States. We have had no
part in the meetings which have taken place in the Floridas, and
we could not know that General Wilkinson has been ill received
there.’ (This is true.) ‘As for the possession of Cuba, this was
also a new idea of Mr. Jefferson which has not been approved
by the Executive council; and I am authorized to protest to
you that even if Cuba were offered us as a gift, we would not
accept it. We are also opposed to every step which would tend,
under the pretext of commerce, to involve us in the politics
of France and Spain, and we shall see to it that any persons
undertaking such enterprises are properly dealt with. I flatter
myself therefore that you will believe the Cabinet to be firmly
resolved carefully to avoid every disturbance of the good
understanding between the United States and France.’”
Gallatin was a persistent enemy of the Florida intrigue, and doubtless
believed that Madison held opinions like his own; but Madison’s
opinions on this subject, as on some others, were elusive,--perhaps
no clearer to himself than to readers of his writings; and Gallatin
had yet to learn that the instinct which coveted Florida could not
be controlled by a decision of the Cabinet. Yet he said only what he
seemed authorized to say; and his reference to the _marotte_ of
President Jefferson was significant. For the moment the weakness seemed
cured. Gallatin gave Turreau to understand that President Madison
would not intrigue in Florida or Cuba, and to that extent he was
doubtless expressly authorized by the President. Perhaps only on his
own authority he went a step further, by hinting that Napoleon need no
longer dangle Florida before Madison’s eyes.
A rupture with France seemed certain. Turreau expected it and hoped
only to delay it. In his eyes the Emperor had suffered an indignity
that could not be overlooked, although he asked that retaliation
should be delayed till autumn. “However dissatisfied the French
government may be by the last measures adopted by Congress, I believe
it would be well to await the result of the next session two months
hence before taking a severer course against the Americans. This
opinion, which I express only with doubt, is yet warranted by advices
which I have received within a few days, and which have been given me
by men who know the Executive intentions, and who at least till now
have not deceived me.” Turreau believed that when the Emperor learned
what the late Congress had done, he would strike the United States
with the thunderbolt of his power. Doubtless the same impression was
general. Even after Napoleon’s character has been the favorite study of
biographers and historians for nearly a hundred years, the shrewdest
criticism might fail in the effort to conjecture what shape the
Emperor’s resentment took. This story has shown many of his processes
from the time when he met the resistance of the Haytian negroes in 1803
to the time when he met the uprising of the Spanish patriots in 1809;
but even with the advantage of his own writings as a guide, neither
friend nor enemy could test theories of his character better than by
attempting to divine the conduct he was to pursue toward the United
States after their defiance of his wishes in the repeal of the embargo.
As though to remove the last doubt of rupture with Napoleon, the
President startled the country by suddenly announcing a settlement of
his disputes with England. April 7 Erskine received new instructions
from London, and during the next two weeks he was closeted with the
President and the Cabinet. April 21 the “National Intelligencer”
announced the result of their labors.
CHAPTER III.
IN Canning’s note to Pinkney of Sept. 23, 1808,--the same
paper which expressed his Majesty’s regret for the embargo “as a
measure of inconvenient restriction upon the American people,”--a
paragraph easily overlooked had been inserted to provide for future
chances of fortune:--
“It is not improbable, indeed, that some alterations may
be made in the Orders of Council as they are at present
framed,--alterations calculated, not to abate their spirit or
impair their principle, but to adapt them more exactly to the
different state of things which has fortunately grown up in
Europe, and to combine all practicable relief to neutrals with
a more severe pressure upon the enemy. But of alterations to
be made with this view only it would be uncandid to take any
advantage in the present discussion, however it might be hoped
that in their practical effect they might prove beneficial to
America, provided the operation of the embargo were not to
prevent her from reaping that benefit.”
This intended change in the orders depended on the political change
which converted Spain from an enemy into an ally. Spencer Perceval
did not care to press the cause of British commerce so far as to tax
American wheat and salt-fish on their way to Spain and Portugal, where
he must himself provide money to pay for them after they were bought by
the army commissaries. Accordingly, in December, 1808, a new Order in
Council appeared, doing away with the export duties lately imposed by
Parliament on foreign articles passing through England. Thenceforward
American wheat might be shipped at Liverpool for the Spanish peninsula
without paying ten shillings a quarter to the British Treasury,[34] if
only the embargo did not prevent American wheat from entering Liverpool
at all.
In a short note, dated December 24, Canning enclosed to Pinkney a copy
of the new order; and while taking care to explain that this measure
conceded nothing in principle, he offered it as a step toward removing
the most offensive, if not the most oppressive, restraint imposed on
American commerce by the Orders of 1807:--
“As I have more than once understood from you that the part of
the Orders in Council which this order goes to mitigate is that
which was felt most sorely by the United States, I have great
pleasure in being authorized to communicate it to you.”
Pinkney was in no humor to bear more of what he considered Canning’s
bad taste, and he could have but one opinion of the measure which
Canning announced. “This order is a shadow,” he wrote to Madison,[35]
“and if meant to conciliate us, ridiculous.” His reply to Canning
verged for the first time on abruptness, as though the moment were near
when he meant to speak another language.
“It is perfectly true,” began Pinkney’s acknowledgment of Dec.
28, 1808,[36] “as the concluding paragraph of your letter
supposes me to believe, that the United States have viewed with
great sensibility the pretension of this Government (which, as
a pretension, the present order reasserts without much if at
all modifying its practical effect) to levy imposts upon their
commerce, outward and inward, which the Orders in Council of the
last year were to constrain to pass through British ports. But
it is equally true that my Government has constantly protested
against the entire system with which that pretension was
connected, and has in consequence required the repeal, not the
modification, of the British Orders in Council.”
This reception roused the temper of Canning, who could not understand,
if Pinkney honestly wished harmony, why he should repel what might be
taken as a kindness; yet the same reasons which induced him to make the
advance impelled him to bear with the American minister’s roughness.
The moment was ill adapted for more quarrels. Napoleon had occupied
Madrid three weeks before, and was driving Sir John Moore’s army in
headlong flight back to England; the dreams of midsummer had vanished;
the overthrow of France was no nearer than before the Spanish uprising;
the United States were seriously discussing war, and however loudly a
few interested Englishmen might at times talk, the people of England
never wanted war with the United States. Canning found himself obliged
to suppress his irritation, and so far from checking the spirit of
concession to America, was drawn into new and more decided advances.
Spencer Perceval felt the same impulse, and of his own accord proposed
other steps to his colleague, after Pinkney’s letter of December 28 had
been read and considered by the Cabinet. With the impression of that
letter fresh in the minds of both, Canning wrote to Perceval on the
last day of the year:[37]--
“We have given quite proof enough of our determination to
maintain our principle to enable us to relax, if in other
respects advisable, without danger of being suspected of giving
way. The paragraph in my letter to Pinkney, of September 23,
prepares the world for any relaxations that we may think fit to
make, provided they are coupled with increased severity against
France; and though this last consideration is something impaired
by my last communication to Pinkney, yet the manner in which he
has received that communication (with respect to which reception
I partake of the fury which you describe as having been kindled
in Hammond) leaves us quite at liberty to take any new steps
without explanation, and exempts us from any hazard of seeing
them too well received.”
The year 1809 began with this new spirit of accommodation in British
councils. The causes which produced it were notorious. From the moment
Europe closed her ports, in the autumn of 1807, articles commonly
supplied from the Continent rose to speculative prices, and after the
American embargo the same effect followed with American produce. Flax,
linseed, tallow, timber, Spanish wool, silk, hemp, American cotton
doubled or trebled in price in the English markets during the years
1807 and 1808.[38] Colonial produce declined in the same proportion.
Quantities of sugar and coffee overfilled the warehouses of London,
while the same articles could not be bought at Amsterdam and Antwerp at
prices three, four, and five times those asked on the Royal Exchange.
Under the Orders in Council, the whole produce of the West Indies, shut
from Europe by Napoleon and from the United States by the embargo, was
brought to England, until mere plethora stopped accumulation.
Debarred from their natural outlets, English merchandise and
manufactures were forced into every other market which seemed to offer
a hope of sale or barter. When Portugal fell into Napoleon’s hands,
and the royal family took refuge in Brazil under British protection,
English merchants glutted Brazil with their goods, until the beach
at Rio Janeiro was covered with property, which perished for want of
buyers and warehouses. The Spanish trade, thrown open soon afterward,
resulted in similar losses. In the effort to relieve the plethora at
home, England gorged the few small channels of commerce that remained
in her control.
These efforts coincided with a drain of specie on government account to
support the Spanish patriots. The British armies sent to Spain required
large sums in coin for their supplies, and the Spaniards required
every kind of assistance. The process of paying money on every hand
and receiving nothing but worthless produce could not long continue
without turning the exchanges against London; yet a sudden call for
specie threatened to shake the foundations of society. Never was credit
so rotten. Speculation was rampant, and inflation accompanied it. None
of the familiar signs of financial disaster were absent. Visionary
joint-stock enterprises flourished. Discounts at long date, or without
regard to proper security, could be obtained with ease from the private
banks and bankers who were competing for business; and although the
Bank of England followed its usual course, neither contracting nor
expanding its loans and issues, suddenly, at the close of 1808, gold
coin rose at a leap from a nominal rate of 103 to the alarming premium
of 113. The exchanges had turned, and the inevitable crash was near.
The political outlook took the same sombre tone as the finances. The
failure of the Spaniards and the evacuation of Spain by the British
army after the loss of Sir John Moore at Corunna, January 16, destroyed
confidence in all political hopes. Lord Castlereagh, as war-secretary,
was most exposed to attack. Instead of defending him, Canning set the
example of weakening his influence. Aware that the Administration had
not the capacity to hold its own, Canning undertook to reform it. As
early as October, 1808, he talked freely of Castlereagh’s incompetence,
and made no secret of his opinion that the Secretary for War must go
out.[39] Whether his judgment of Castlereagh’s abilities were right or
wrong was a matter for English history to decide; but Americans might
at least wonder that the Convention of Cintra and the campaign of Sir
John Moore were not held to be achievements as respectable as the
American diplomacy of Canning or the commercial experiments of Spencer
Perceval. Canning himself agreed that Perceval was little, if at all,
superior to Castlereagh, and he saw hope for England chiefly in his own
elevation to the post of the Duke of Portland.
Although no one fully understood all that had been done by the Portland
ministry, enough was known to render their fall certain; and Canning
saw himself sinking with the rest. He made active efforts to secure
his own safety and to rise above the misfortunes which threatened to
overwhelm his colleagues. Among other annoyances, he felt the recoil
of his American policy. The tone taken by Pinkney coincided with
the warlike threats reported by Erskine, and with the language of
Campbell’s Report to the House of Representatives. Erskine’s despatch
of November 26, in which Campbell’s Report was enclosed, and his
alarming despatches of December 3 and 4 were received by Canning about
the middle of January,[40] at a time when the Ministry was sustained
only by royal favor. The language and the threats of these advices
were such as Canning could not with dignity overlook or with safety
resent; but he overlooked them. January 18, at a diplomatic dinner
given by him on the Queen’s birthday, he took Pinkney aside to tell him
that the Ministry were willing to consider the Resolutions proposed in
Campbell’s Report as putting an end to the difficulties which prevented
a satisfactory arrangement.[41] Pinkney, surprised by Canning’s “more
than usual kindness and respect,” suggested deferring the subject to a
better occasion; and Canning readily acquiesced, appointing January 22
as the day for an interview.
The next morning, January 19, Parliament met, and American affairs
were instantly made the subject of attack on ministers. In the Lords,
Grenville declared that “the insulting and sophistical answer” returned
by Canning to the American offer, persuaded him “that the intention
of the King’s government is to drive things to extremity with
America.” Lord Hawkesbury the Home Secretary, who had succeeded his
father as Earl of Liverpool, replied in the old tone that ministers
felt no disposition to irritate America, but that national dignity
and importance were not to be sacrificed “at the very moment when
America seemed so blind to her own interest, and betrayed so decided a
partiality in favor of France.”[42] In the Commons, Whitbread and the
other leaders of opposition echoed the attack, but Canning did not echo
the reply.
“The same infatuation,” said Whitbread,[43] “seems now to prevail
that existed in the time of the late American war. There were the
same taunts, the same sarcasms, and the same assertions that America
cannot do without us.” Only a few weeks earlier or later, Canning
would have met such criticisms in his loftiest tone, and with more
reason than in 1807 or in 1808. In his desk were Erskine’s latest
despatches, announcing impending war in every accent of defiance
and in many varieties of italics and capital letters; fresh in his
memory was his own official pledge that “no step which could even
mistakenly be construed into concession should be taken” while a doubt
existed whether America had wholly abandoned her attempt at commercial
restriction. Yet instead of maintaining England’s authority at the
moment when for the first time it was threatened by the United States,
Canning became apologetic and yielding. Repeating the commonplaces of
the newspapers that America had sided with France, and even going so
far as to assert, what he best knew to be an error, that the Orders
in Council had not been the cause of the embargo, and “it was now a
notorious fact that no such ground had been laid for the embargo;”
after declaring the exclusion of British war-vessels from American
harbors to have been the chief obstacle to the compromise offered by
America,--treading, with what seemed a very uncertain foot, among
these slippery and ill-balanced stepping-stones, he reached the
point where he meant to rest. The “Chesapeake” Proclamation, which
excluded British war-ships from American harbors, being his chief
grievance, any settlement which removed that grievance would be so far
satisfactory; and for this reason the measures proposed in Campbell’s
Report, though clothed in hostile language, might, if made known to the
British government in amicable terms, have led to the acceptance of
the compromise proposed, since they excluded French as well as English
ships of war from American ports.
Canning next turned to Pinkney to ascertain how much concession would
be safe. The interview took place January 22; but Pinkney’s powers
had been withdrawn, and he neither could nor would furnish Canning
with any assurance on which a concession could be offered with the
certainty either that it would be accepted, or that it would be
refused. Canning seemed particularly anxious to know how the embargo
could be effectually enforced against commerce with France, after being
removed in regard to England.[44] He “presumed that the government
of the United States would not complain if the naval force of this
country should assist in preventing such a commerce.”[45] Pinkney
felt many doubts of Canning’s good faith,[46] and had every reason
for avoiding committal of himself or of his Government. According to
his own account, he declined to enter into the discussion of details,
and confined himself to general encouragement of Canning’s good
disposition.[47]
After experimenting upon Pinkney, much as he had sounded Parliament,
Canning lost not an hour in composing the new instructions to Erskine.
Four in number, all bearing the same date of January 23, they dealt
successively with each of the disputed points; but in order to
understand the embroilment they caused, readers must carry in mind,
even at some effort of memory, precisely what Canning ordered Erskine
to do, and precisely what Erskine did.
The first instruction dealt with the “Chesapeake” affair, and the
Proclamation occasioned by it. Accepting Gallatin’s idea that the
Proclamation being merged in the general non-intercourse would cease to
exist as a special and separate provision of law, Canning instructed
Erskine that if French ships of war should be excluded from American
ports, and if the Proclamation should be tacitly withdrawn, he need no
longer insist upon the formal recall. Further, Gallatin had suggested
that Congress was about to exclude foreign seamen by law from national
ships; and Canning admitted also this evasion of his demand that the
United States should engage not to countenance desertions. Finally, he
withdrew the demand for disavowals which had wrecked Rose’s mission.
Evidently the British government wished to settle the “Chesapeake”
affair. Had Canning in like manner swept away his old conditions
precedent to withdrawal of the Orders in Council, his good faith
would have been above suspicion; but he approached that subject in a
different spirit, and imposed one condition after another while he
adopted the unusual course of putting each new condition into the
mouth of some American official. He drew from Erskine’s despatches the
inference that Madison, Smith, and Gallatin were willing to recognize
in express terms the validity of the British “Rule of 1756.”[48] For
this misunderstanding Erskine was to blame,[49] but Canning was alone
responsible for the next remark, that “Mr. Pinkney has recently, but
for the first time, expressed to me his opinion that there will be no
indisposition on the part of his Government to the enforcement, by
the naval power of Great Britain,” of the Act of Congress declaring
non-intercourse with France. On the strength of these supposed
expressions of William Pinkney, Madison, Smith, and Gallatin, none of
which was official or in writing, Canning concluded:--
“I flatter myself that there will be no difficulty in obtaining
a distinct and official recognition of these conditions from
the American government. For this purpose you are at liberty
to communicate this despatch _in extenso_ to the American
government.”
The chief interest of these instructions lay in the question whether
Canning meant in good faith to offer on any conditions a withdrawal of
the Orders in Council. The course of his own acts and of Perceval’s
measures, suggested that he did not intend to offer any terms which
the United States could accept. His remark to Perceval three weeks
before, that they were quite at liberty to take new steps without
“any hazard of seeing them too well received,” pointed in the same
direction. Yet motives were enigmas too obscure for search, and the
motives of Canning in this instance were more perplexing than usual. If
he was serious in hoping an agreement, how could he insist on requiring
official recognition of the right of Great Britain to enforce the
municipal laws of the United States when he afterward admitted that
such a claim “could not well find its way into a stipulation; that he
had nevertheless believed it proper to propose the condition to the
United States; that he should have been satisfied with the rejection
of it; and that the consequence would have been that they should have
intercepted the commerce to which it referred, if any such commerce
should be attempted”?[50] In the instructions to Erskine he imposed the
condition as essential to the agreement,--the same condition which he
thought “could not well find its way into a stipulation,” and which “he
should have been satisfied” to see rejected.
For two years Canning had lost no opportunity of charging the American
government with subservience to Napoleon; even in these instructions
he alleged Jefferson’s “manifest partiality” to France as a reason why
England could entertain no propositions coming from him. He had in his
hands Madison’s emphatic threats of war; how then could he conceive of
obtaining from Madison an express recognition of the British Rule of
1756, which Madison had most deeply pledged himself to resist?
On the other hand, Canning showed forbearance and a wish for peace, by
leaving Erskine minister at Washington as well as by passing unnoticed
Madison’s threats of war; and he betrayed a singular incapacity to
understand the bearing of his own demands when he directed Erskine
to communicate his instructions _in extenso_ to the American
government. Had he intelligently acted in bad faith, he would not have
given the President, whose attachment to France he suspected, the
advantage of seeing these instructions, which required that America
should become a subject State of England.
Perhaps a partial clew to these seeming contradictions might be found
in the peculiar traits of Canning’s character. He belonged to a class
of men denied the faculty of realizing the sensibilities of others. At
the moment when he took this tone of authority toward America, he gave
mortal offence to his own colleague Lord Castlereagh, by assuming a
like attitude toward him. He could not understand, and he could never
train himself to regard, the rule that such an attitude between States
as between gentlemen was not admitted among equals.
Whatever was the reason of Canning’s conduct, its effect was that of
creating the impression of bad faith by offering terms intended to
be refused. The effect of bad faith was the more certain because the
instructions closed by giving Erskine some latitude, not as to the
conditions which were to be distinctly and officially recognized, but
as to the form in which the recognition might be required:--
“Upon the receipt here of an official note containing an
engagement for the adoption of the three conditions above
specified, his Majesty will be prepared on the faith of such
engagement,--either immediately, if the repeal shall have been
immediate in America or on any day specified by the American
government for that repeal,--reciprocally to recall the Orders
in Council.”
The form of the required engagement was left to Erskine’s discretion;
and in case Erskine failed, Canning would be still at liberty to claim,
as he afterward did, that his conditions were not so rigorously meant
as Erskine should have supposed them to be.
Meanwhile the Government of England was falling to pieces. Day by day
the situation became more alarming. For months after these despatches
were sent, the Commons passed their time in taking testimony and
listening to speeches intended to prove or disprove that the Duke of
York, commander-in-chief of the army, was in the habit of selling
officers’ commissions through the agency of his mistress, a certain
Mrs. Clarke; and although the Duke protested his innocence, the
scandal drove him from his office. The old King, blind and infirm,
was quite unfit to bear the shame of his son’s disgrace; while the
Prince of Wales stood no better than the Duke of York either in his
father’s esteem or in public opinion. The Ministry was rent by faction;
Perceval, Castlereagh, and Canning were at cross purposes, while the
Whigs were so weak that they rather feared than hoped their rivals’
fall. Whatever might be the factiousness of Congress or the weakness of
government at Washington, the confusion in Parliament was worse, and
threatened worse dangers.
“All power and influence of Perceval in the House is quite gone
by,” wrote a Whig member, February 16.[51] “He speaks without
authority and without attention paid to him; and Canning has
made two or three such rash declarations that he is little
attended to. You may judge the situation of the House, when I
tell you we were last night nearly three quarters of an hour
debating about the evidence of a drunken footman by Perceval
suggesting modes of ascertaining how to convict him of his
drunkenness,--Charles Long [one of the Administration], near
whom I was sitting telling me at the time what a lamentable
proof it was of the want of some man of sense and judgment
to lead the House. There is no government in the House of
Commons,--you may be assured the thing does not exist; and
whether they can ever recover their tone of power remains to be
proved. At present Mr. Croker, Mr. D. Brown, and Mr. Beresford
are the leaders.... The Cintra Convention, or the general
campaign, or the American question, are minor considerations,
and indeed do not enter into the consideration of any one.”
The House of Lords maintained more appearance of dignity; and there,
February 17, four-and-twenty hours after Colonel Fremantle wrote this
letter, Lord Grenville began a debate on American affairs. As a test of
Tory sincerity in view of what Erskine was soon to do at Washington,
the debate--as well as all else that was said of American affairs
during the session--deserved more than ordinary notice, if only in
justice to the British ministry, whose language was to receive a
commentary they did not expect.[52]
The most significant speech came from Lord Sidmouth. The conservatism
of this peer stood above reproach, and compared closely with that of
Spencer Perceval. Rather than abandon the “established principle” of
the Rule of 1756, he far preferred an American war. He proved his
stubborn Tory consistency too clearly, both before and after 1809, to
warrant a suspicion of leanings toward liberal or American sympathies;
but his speech of February 17 supporting Grenville, and charging
ministers with bad faith, was long and earnest. He called attention to
the scandal that while the Government professed in the speech from the
Throne a persuasion “that in the result the enemy will be convinced of
the impolicy of persevering in a system which retorts upon himself, in
so much greater proportion, those evils which he endeavors to inflict,”
yet instead of retorting those evils, Perceval licensed the export and
import both with France and Holland of the very articles which those
countries wished to sell and buy, while Canning at the same moment
rejected the American offers of trade because he thought it “important
in the highest degree that the disappointment of the hopes of the enemy
should not have been purchased by any concession.”
Ministers might disregard Grenville’s furious denunciation of the
orders as an act of the most egregious folly and the most unexampled
ignorance that ever disgraced the councils of a State; they might even
close their ears to Sidmouth’s charge that the folly and ignorance of
the orders were surpassed by their dishonesty,--but not even Spencer
Perceval could deny or forget that while a year before, Feb. 15, 1808,
forty-eight peers voted against him, on Feb. 17, 1809, seventy lords,
in person or by proxy, supported Grenville. While the opposition gained
twenty-two votes, the government gained only nine.
The impression of weakness in the ministry was increased by the energy
with which the authors of the orders stood at bay in their defence.
When Whitbread in the House of Commons renewed the attack, and the
House, March 6, entered on the debate, James Stephen came forward
as the champion of his own cause. Stephen’s speech,[53] published
afterward as a pamphlet, was intended to be an official as well as
a final answer to attacks against the orders, and was conclusive in
regard to the scope and motives of Perceval’s scheme. Neither Canning
nor Liverpool spoke with personal knowledge to be compared with that of
Stephen. Canning in particular had nothing to do with the orders except
as a subject of diplomatic evasion. Stephen, Perceval, and George Rose
were the parents of commercial restriction, and knew best their own
objects. With frankness creditable to him, but contrasting with the
double-toned language of Perceval and Canning, Stephen always placed
in the foreground the commercial objects he wanted and expected to
attain. His speech of March 6, 1809, once more asserted, in language
as positive as possible, that the orders had no other purpose than to
stop the American trade with France because it threatened to supplant
British trade. The doctrine of retaliation, or the object of retorting
evils on France, had nothing to do with Stephen’s scheme. His words
were clear, for like a true enthusiast he was wholly intent on the idea
in which he thought safety depended.
Canning also planted himself on advanced ground. The question, he said,
was between England and France; not between England and America. On
the principles of international law he had no defence to offer for
the Orders in Council as between England and America. “He was willing
to admit that it was not upon the poor pretence of the existing law
of nations, but upon the extension of that law (an extension just and
necessary), that his Majesty’s ministers were to rely, in the present
instance, for justification.” This extension rested on the excuse
that France had first discarded the law of nations; and America, in
attempting to give to Great Britain the priority in wrong, had incurred
this censure,--“that she had brought a false charge, and persisted in
it.” In his opinion, the American offer to withdraw the embargo in
favor of England and to enforce it against France, “was illusory; he
might add, in the language of Mr. Madison, ‘it was insulting.’” Those
who accused ministers of a disinclination to adopt pacific measures
respecting America had lost sight of the facts. “We had rather gone
too far than done too little. We twice offered to negotiate; yet the
Non-importation Act was not revoked.”
If this was Canning’s true state of mind, his instructions to Erskine
less than a month before, offering to abandon the Orders in Council,
seemed to admit no defence. Still less could be explained how President
Madison, after reading these speeches, should have expected from
Canning the approval of any possible arrangement. Yet the irritation
of Canning’s tone showed him to be ill at ease,--he felt the ground
slipping under his feet. The public had become weary of him and his
colleagues. The commercial system they had invented seemed to create
the evils it was made to counteract. The press began to complain. As
early as January 13 the “Times” showed signs of deserting the orders,
which it declared to be no “acts of retaliation,” but “measures of
counteraction,” complicated by transit duties doubtful either in
expediency or justice. “If America will withdraw her Embargo and
Non-importation Acts as far as they relate to England, provided we
rescind the Orders in Council, we cannot consider this as a disgraceful
concession on our part.” After the debate of March 6, the “Times”
renewed its complaints. Every day increased the difficulties of
ministers, until mere change became relief.
At length, April 26, the reality of the weakness of Perceval and
Canning became clear. On that day a new Order in Council[54] appeared,
which roused great interest because it seemed to abandon the whole
ground taken in the Orders of November, 1807, and to return within
the admitted principles of international law. The machinery of the
old orders was apparently discarded; the machinery of blockade was
restored in its place. The Order of April 26, 1809, declared that the
old orders were revoked and annulled except so far as their objects
were to be attained by a general blockade of all ports and places under
the government of France. The blockade thus declared was to extend
northward as far as Ems, and was to include on the south the ports of
northern Italy. Of course the new blockade was not even claimed to
be effective. No squadrons were to enforce its provisions by their
actual presence before the blockaded ports. In that respect the Order
of April 26, 1809, was as illegal as that of Nov. 11, 1807; but the
new arrangement opened to neutral commerce all ports not actually
ports of France, even though the British flag should be excluded from
them,--retaliating upon France only the injury which the French decrees
attempted to inflict on England.
Pinkney was greatly pleased, and wrote to Madison in excellent
spirits[55] that the change gave all the immediate benefits which
could have arisen from the arrangement proposed by him in the
previous August, except the right to demand from France the recall
of her edicts. “Our triumph is already considered as a signal one
by everybody. The pretexts with which ministers would conceal their
motives for a relinquishment of all which they prized in their system
are seen through, and it is universally viewed as a concession to
America. Our honor is now safe; and by management we may probably
gain everything we have in view.” Canning said to Pinkney: “If these
alterations did not do all that was expected, they at least narrowed
extremely the field of discussion, and gave great facilities and
encouragement to reviving cordiality.”[56] Government took pains to
impress the idea that it had done much, and wished to do more for
conciliation; yet the doubt remained whether Government was acting in
good faith. Pinkney overestimated its concessions. If the British navy
was to blockade Holland, France, and northern Italy only in order that
British commerce might be forced, through the blockade and license
system, into the place of neutral commerce, the new system was only the
old one in disguise. Under a blockade, in good faith, licenses seemed
to have no place. In that case, the Order in Council of April 26 might
lead to a real settlement; but how was it possible that Perceval,
George Rose, and James Stephen should have given up what they believed
to be the only hope for England’s safety?
If one frank and straightforward man could be found among the
ministerial ranks, James Stephen had a right to that distinction, and
to his language one might hope to look with confidence for the truth;
yet Stephen seemed for once not to understand himself. In publishing
his speech of March 6, he added an appendix on the new order, and
closed his remarks by a prayer that seemed meant to open the way for
the full admission of American offers:--
“It is not strange that a measure so indulgent [as the new
Order] should be generally approved by the American merchants
and agents resident in England. The most eminent of the
gentlemen of that description who opposed the Orders of November
have openly professed their satisfaction at this important
change. May the same sentiment prevail on notice of it beyond
the Atlantic! Or, what would be still better, may an amicable
arrangement there have already terminated all the differences
between us and our American brethren on terms that will involve
a complete revocation of our retaliatory orders, and impose on
America herself, by her own consent, the duty of vindicating
effectually the rights of neutrality against the aggressions of
France!”
CHAPTER IV.
EARLY in February, when Congress refused to support Madison’s
war-policy,--the mere shadow of which brought Perceval and Canning
almost to their senses,--Canning’s instructions were despatched from
the Foreign Office. April 7, more than a month after the Tenth Congress
had expired, amidst political conditions altogether different from
those imagined by Canning, the instructions reached Washington; and
Erskine found himself required to carry them into effect.
A cautious diplomatist would have declined to act upon them. Under
pretext of the change which had altered the situation he would have
asked for new instructions, while pointing out the mischievous nature
of the old. The instructions were evidently impossible to execute; the
situation was less critical than ever before, and Great Britain was
master of the field.
On the other hand, the instructions offered some appearance of an
advance toward friendship. They proved Canning’s ignorance, but not
his bad faith; and if Canning in good faith wanted a settlement,
Erskine saw every reason for gratifying him. The arrogance of Canning’s
demands did not necessarily exclude further concession. The great
governments of Europe from time immemorial had used a tone of authority
insufferable to weaker Powers, and not agreeable to one another; yet
their tone did not always imply the wish to quarrel, and England
herself seldom resented manners as unpleasant as her own. Used to
the rough exchange of blows, and hardened by centuries of toil and
fighting, England was not sensitive when her interests were at stake.
Her surliness was a trick rather than a design. Her diplomatic agents
expected to enjoy reasonable liberty in softening the harshness and in
supplying the ignorance of their chiefs of the Foreign Office; and if
such latitude was ever allowed to a diplomatist, Erskine had the best
right to use it in the case of instructions the motives of which he
could not comprehend.
Finally, Erskine was the son of Lord Erskine, and owed his appointment
to Charles James Fox. He was half Republican by education, half
American by marriage; and probably, like all British liberals, he
felt in secret an entire want of confidence in Canning and a positive
antipathy to the Tory commercial system.
Going at once to Secretary Robert Smith, Erskine began on the
“Chesapeake” affair, and quickly disposed of it. The President
abandoned the American demand for a court-martial on Admiral Berkeley,
finding that it would not be entertained.[57] Erskine then wrote a
letter offering the stipulated redress for the “Chesapeake” outrage,
and Madison wrote a letter accepting it, which Robert Smith signed, and
dated April 17.
Two points in Madison’s “Chesapeake” letter attracted notice. Erskine
began his official note[58] by alluding to the Non-intercourse Act of
March 1, as having placed Great Britain on an equal footing with the
other belligerents, and warranting acknowledgment on that account. The
idea was far-fetched, and Madison’s reply was ambiguous:--
“As it appears at the same time, that in making this offer
his Britannic Majesty derives a motive from the equality now
existing in the relations of the United States with the two
belligerent Powers, the President owes it to the occasion and
to himself to let it be understood that this equality is a
result incident to a state of things growing out of distinct
considerations.”
If Madison knew precisely what “distinct considerations” had led
Congress and the country to that state of things to which the
Non-intercourse Act was incident, he knew more than was known to
Congress; but even though he owed this statement to himself, so
important an official note might have expressed his ideas more exactly.
“A result incident to a state of things growing out of distinct
considerations” was something unusual, and to say the least wanting in
clearness, but seemed not intended to gratify Canning.
The second point challenged sharper criticism.
“With this explanation, as requisite as it is frank,” Smith’s
note continued, “I am authorized to inform you that the
President accepts the note delivered by you in the name and by
the order of his Britannic Majesty, and will consider the same
with the engagement therein, when fulfilled, as a satisfaction
for the insult and injury of which he has complained. But I have
it in express charge from the President to state that while he
forbears to insist on the further punishment of the offending
officer, he is not the less sensible of the justice and utility
of such an example, nor the less persuaded that it would best
comport with what is due from his Britannic Majesty to his own
honor.”
According to Robert Smith’s subsequent account, the last sentence was
added by Madison in opposition to his secretary’s wishes.[59] One of
Madison’s peculiarities showed itself in these words, which endangered
the success of all his efforts. If he wished a reconciliation, they
were worse than useless; but if he wished a quarrel, he chose the
right means. The President of the United States was charged with the
duty of asserting in its full extent what was due to his own honor
as representative of the Union; but he was not required, either by
the laws of his country or by the custom of nations, to define the
conduct which in his opinion best comported with what was due from his
Britannic Majesty to the honor of England. That Erskine should have
consented to receive such a note was matter for wonder, knowing as he
did that Kings of England had never smiled on servants who allowed
their sovereign’s honor to be questioned; and the public surprise was
not lessened by his excuse.
“It appeared to me,” he said,[60] “that if any indecorum could
justly be attributed to the expressions in the official notes
of this Government, the censure due would fall upon them; and
that the public opinion would condemn their bad taste or want
of propriety in coldly and ungraciously giving up what they
considered as a right, but which they were not in a condition to
enforce.”
Under the impression that no “intention whatever existed in the mind of
the President of the United States to convey a disrespectful meaning
toward his Majesty by these expressions,” Erskine accepted them in
silence, and Madison himself never understood that he had given cause
of offence.
Having thus disposed of the “Chesapeake” grievance, Erskine took up
the Orders in Council.[61] His instructions were emphatic, and he was
in effect ordered to communicate these instructions _in extenso_
to the President, for in such cases permission was equivalent to
order. He disobeyed; in official sense he did not communicate his
instructions at all. “I considered that it would be in vain,” he
afterward said. This was his first exercise of discretion; and his
second was more serious. After reading Canning’s repeated and positive
orders to require from the American government “a distinct and official
recognition” of three conditions, he decided to treat these orders as
irrelevant. He knew that the President had no Constitutional power
to bind Congress, even if Madison himself would patiently bear a
single reading of three such impossible requirements, and that under
these circumstances the negotiation had better never begin than end
abruptly in anger. Erskine would have done better not to begin it; but
he thought otherwise. Under more favorable circumstances, Monroe and
Pinkney had made the same experiment in 1806.
Canning offered to withdraw the Orders in Council, on three conditions
precedent:--
(1) That all interdicts on commerce should be revoked by the United
States so far as they affected England, while they were still to be
enforced against France. When Erskine submitted this condition to
Robert Smith, he was assured that the President would comply with it,
and that Congress would certainly assert the national rights against
France, but that the President had no power to pledge the government by
a formal act. Erskine decided to consider Canning’s condition fulfilled
if the President, under the eleventh section of the Non-intercourse
Act, should issue a proclamation renewing trade with Great Britain,
while retaining the prohibition against France. This settlement had the
disadvantage of giving no guarantee to England, while it left open the
trade with Holland, which was certainly a dependency of France.
(2) Canning further required that the United States should formally
renounce the pretension to a colonial trade in war which was not
permitted in time of peace. To this condition, which Erskine seems to
have stated as applying only to the direct carrying-trade to Europe,
Robert Smith replied that it could not be recognized except in a formal
treaty; but that it was practically unimportant, because this commerce,
as well as every other with France or her dependencies, was prohibited
by Act of Congress. Erskine accepted this reasoning, and left the
abstract right untouched.
(3) Canning lastly demanded that the United States should recognize
the right of Great Britain to capture such American vessels as should
be found attempting to trade with any of the Powers acting under
the French Decrees. To this suggestion Secretary Smith replied that
the President could not so far degrade the national authority as to
authorize Great Britain to execute American laws; but that the point
seemed to him immaterial, since no citizen could present to the United
States government a claim founded on a violation of its own laws.
Erskine once more acquiesced, although the trade with Holland was not
a violation of law, and would probably give rise to the very claims
which Canning meant to preclude.
Having thus disposed of the three conditions which were to be
distinctly and officially recognized, Erskine exchanged notes with
Robert Smith, bearing date April 18 and 19, 1809, chiefly admirable for
their brevity, since they touched no principle. In his note of April
18, Erskine said that the favorable change produced by anticipation of
the Non-intercourse Act had encouraged his Government to send out a new
envoy with full powers; and that meanwhile his Majesty would recall his
Orders in Council if the President would issue a Proclamation renewing
intercourse with Great Britain. Secretary Smith replied on the same
day that the President would not fail in doing so. April 19, Erskine
in a few lines announced himself “authorized to declare that his
Majesty’s Orders in Council of January and November, 1807, will have
been withdrawn as respects the United States on the 10th of June next.”
Secretary Smith answered that the President would immediately issue his
Proclamation. Two days afterward the four notes and the Proclamation
itself were published in the “National Intelligencer.”
The United States heard with delight that friendship with England
had been restored. Amid an outburst of joy commerce resumed its old
paths, and without waiting for June 10 hurried ships and merchandise
to British ports. No complaints were heard; not a voice was raised
about impressments; no regret was expressed that war with France
must follow reconciliation with England; no one found fault with
Madison for following in 1809 the policy which had raised almost a
resolution against President Washington only fourteen years before. Yet
Madison strained the law, besides showing headlong haste, in acting
upon Erskine’s promises without waiting for their ratification, and
without even asking to see the British negotiator’s special powers or
instructions. The haste was no accident or oversight. When Turreau
remonstrated with Gallatin against such precipitate conduct contrary to
diplomatic usage, Gallatin answered,--
“The offers could not be refused.”
“But you have only promises,” urged Turreau; “and already twelve
hundred vessels, twelve thousand sailors, and two hundred
million [francs] of property have left your ports. May not
the English take all this to serve as a guarantee for other
conditions which their interest might care to impose?”
“We would like it!” replied the Secretary of the Treasury.
“Perhaps our people may need such a lesson to cure them of
British influence and the mania of British commerce.”[62]
Impatient at the conduct of Congress and the people, Madison was glad
to create a new situation, and preferred even hostilities to the
Orders in Council. Erskine’s conduct was unusual, yet Great Britain
had shown no such regard for Madison’s feelings that Madison should
hesitate before the eccentricities of British diplomacy. Perplexed to
account for Canning’s sudden change, the President and his friends
quieted their uneasiness by attributing their triumph to their own
statesmanship. The Republican newspapers, the “National Intelligencer”
at their head, announced that England had been conquered by the
embargo, and taunted not only the Federalists but also the Northern
Republicans with the triumph. While nothing could be more positive than
the language thus encouraged by the Government, the error was partly
redeemed by the tenderness with which it was used to soothe the wounded
feelings of Jefferson.
“The bright day of judgment and retribution has at length
arrived,” said the “National Intelligencer” of April 26, “when
a virtuous nation will not withhold the tribute of its warmest
thanks from an Administration whose sole ambition has ever
been to advance the happiness of its constituents, even at the
sacrifice of its present popularity. Thanks to the sage who now
so gloriously reposes in the shades of Monticello, and to those
who shared his confidence!... It may be boldly alleged that the
revocation of the British Orders is attributable to the embargo.”
President Madison wrote to Jefferson somewhat more cautiously:[63] “The
British Cabinet must have changed its course under a full conviction
that an adjustment with this country had become essential.” Accepting
quietly a turn of fortune that would have bewildered the most astute
diplomatist, Madison made ready to meet the special session of Congress.
The Eleventh Congress differed little in character from its
predecessor, but that little difference was not to its advantage. G.
W. Campbell of Tennessee, David R. Williams of South Carolina, Joseph
Clay of Pennsylvania, Joseph Story of Massachusetts, and Wilson Cary
Nicholas of Virginia disappeared from the House, and no one of equal
influence stepped into their places. The mediocrity of the Tenth
Congress continued to mark the character of the Eleventh. John W. Eppes
became chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means. Varnum was again
chosen Speaker, while Vice-President George Clinton still presided over
the deliberations of thirty-four men whose abilities were certainly not
greater than those of any previous Senate.
May 23 President Madison’s first Annual Message was read. No objection
could be made to its brief recital of the steps which led to the
arrangement with Erskine; but the next paragraph not only provoked
attack, it threatened the country also with commercial wars to the end
of time:--
“Whilst I take pleasure in doing justice to the councils of his
Britannic Majesty which, no longer adhering to the policy which
made an abandonment by France of her Decrees a prerequisite to
the revocation of the British Orders, have substituted the
amicable course which has issued thus happily, I cannot do less
than refer to the proposal heretofore made on the part of the
United States, embracing a like restoration of the suspended
commerce, as a proof of the spirit of accommodation which has
at no time been intermitted, and to the result which now calls
for our congratulations as corroborating the principles by which
the public councils have been guided during a period of the most
trying embarrassments.”
When Madison spoke of the “principles by which the public councils have
been guided,” he meant to place at their head the principles of embargo
and non-intercourse,--a result of Erskine’s arrangement hardly more
agreeable to commercial America than to despotic England; but however
England might resent what Canning would certainly think an offence,
Americans were in no humor for fault-finding, and they received
Madison’s allusions with little protest. The remainder of the Message
contained nothing that called for dispute.
The Federalist minority--strong in numbers, flushed by victory
over Jefferson, and full of contempt for the abilities of their
opponents--found themselves suddenly deprived by Erskine and Madison of
every grievance to stand upon. For once, no one charged that Madison’s
act was dictated from the Tuileries. The Federalist newspapers, like
their Republican rivals, advanced the idea that their success was the
natural result of their own statesmanship. Their efforts against the
embargo had opened the path for Canning’s good-will to show itself,
and the removal of Jefferson’s sinister influence accounted for the
brilliancy of Madison’s success. The attempt to approve Erskine’s
arrangement without approving Jefferson’s system, required ingenuity
as great as was shown in the similar attempt of Madison to weigh down
Erskine’s arrangement by coupling it with the embargo. These party
tactics would hardly deserve notice had not John Randolph, in drawing
a sharp line between Jefferson and Madison, enlivened the monotony of
debate by comments not without interest.
“Without the slightest disposition to create unpleasant
sensations,” said he, “to go back upon the footsteps of the last
four years, I do unequivocally say that I believe the country
will never see such another Administration as the last. It had
my hearty approbation for one half of its career; as for my
opinion of the remainder of it, it has been no secret. The lean
kine of Pharaoh devoured the fat kine; the last four years,
with the embargo in their train, ate up the rich harvest of the
first four; and if we had not had some Joseph to have stepped in
and changed the state of things, what would have been now the
condition of the country? I repeat it,--never has there been any
Administration which went out of office and left the country in
a state so deplorable and calamitous as the last.”
Not satisfied with criticising Jefferson, Randolph committed himself
to the opinion that Canning had been influenced by the same antipathy,
and had been withheld from earlier concessions only by Jefferson’s
conduct:--
“Mr. Canning obtained as good a bargain from us as he could
have expected to obtain; and those gentlemen who speak of his
having heretofore had it in his power to have done the same, did
not take into calculation the material difference between the
situation in which we now stand and the situation in which we
before stood.”
In the virulence of temper with which Randolph blackened the
Administration of Jefferson, he could not help committing himself
to unqualified support of Madison; and even Barent Gardenier, whose
temper was at least as indiscreet as Randolph’s, seemed to revel in the
pleasure of depressing the departed President in order to elevate the
actual Executive, whose eight years of coming power were more dangerous
to the opposition than the eight years of Jefferson had ever been.
“I am pretty well satisfied,” said Barent Gardenier,[64] “that
when the secret history of the two last years is divulged, it
will be found that while the former President was endeavoring to
fan the flames of war, the Secretary of State ... was smoothing
the way for the happy discharge of his Presidential duties when
he should come to the chair. I think it did him honor.... It
is for the promptitude and frankness with which the President
met the late overture that I thank him most cordially for
my country. I approve it most heartily.... And it is now in
proof before us, as I have said and contended, that nothing
was wanting but a proper spirit of conciliation, and fair and
honorable dealing on the part of this country, to bring to a
happy issue all the fictitious differences between this country
and Great Britain.”
Political indiscretion could go no further. The rule that in public
life one could never safely speak well of an opponent, was illustrated
by the mistake of the Federalists in praising Madison merely to gratify
their antipathy to Jefferson. Had they been silent; or had they shown
suspicion, they would have been safe; but all admitted that French
influence and hostility to England had vanished with Jefferson; all
were positive that England had gained what she had sought, and that
Canning had every reason to be satisfied. For the moment Madison was
the most popular President that ever had met Congress. At no session
since 1789 had such harmony prevailed as during the five weeks of
this political paradise, although not one element had changed its
character or position, and the harmony, like the discord, was a play of
imagination. Congress passed its bills with unanimity altogether new.
That which restored relations of commerce with England passed without
discussion, except on the point whether French ships of war should be
admitted to American ports. Somewhat to the alarm of the Eastern men,
Congress decided not to exclude French national vessels,--a decision
which threw some doubt on Madison’s wish to push matters to a head
with Napoleon. Yet care was taken to avoid offence to Great Britain.
Little was said and nothing was done about impressments. An attempt to
increase the protective duties was defeated. Not a voice was raised on
behalf of France; not a fear of Napoleon’s revenge found tongue.
Although no one ventured to avow suspicion that Canning would refuse
to ratify Erskine’s act, news continued to arrive from England which
seemed hard to reconcile with any immediate thought, in the British
ministry, of giving up their restrictive system. June 10, the day
when amid universal delight the new arrangement went into effect, the
public pleasure was not a little disturbed by the arrival of news that
on April 26 the British government had issued a very important Order
in Council, revoking the order of Nov. 11, 1807, and establishing
in its place a general blockade of Holland, France, and Italy. This
step, though evidently a considerable concession,--which would have
produced its intended effect in checking hostile feeling if Erskine
had not intervened,--roused anxiety because of its remote resemblance
to Erskine’s arrangement, which it seemed to adopt by means that the
United States could not admit as legal or consistent with the terms of
Erskine’s letters.
“The new Orders,” wrote Madison to Jefferson,[65] ... “present
a curious feature in the conduct of the British Cabinet. It is
explained by some at the expense of its sincerity. It is more
probably ascribed, I think, to an awkwardness in getting out
of an awkward situation, and to the policy of withholding as
long as possible from France the motive of its example to have
advances on her part toward adjustment with us. The crooked
proceeding seems to be operating as a check to the extravagance
of credit given to Great Britain for the late arrangement with
us, and so far may be salutary.”
Such reasoning was soon felt to be insufficient. The more the new order
was studied, the less its motive was understood. How could Canning
in January have authorized Erskine to withdraw the orders of 1807
without reserve, when in April, without waiting to hear from Erskine,
he himself withdrew those orders only to impose another that had every
mark of permanence? How could Erskine, April 18, have been authorized
to throw open the ports of Holland, when his Government, April 26,
was engaged in imposing a new blockade upon them? So rapidly did the
uneasiness of Congress increase that Erskine was obliged to interpose.
June 15 he wrote an official note to the Secretary of State, which the
President sent the same day to Congress.[66]
“I have the honor,” said Erskine, “to enclose a copy of an
Order of his Majesty in Council issued on the 26th of April
last. In consequence of official communications sent to me from
his Majesty’s government since the adoption of that measure,
I am enabled to assure you that it has no connection whatever
with the overtures which I have been authorized to make to the
government of the United States; and that I am persuaded that
the terms of the agreement so happily concluded by the recent
negotiation will be strictly fulfilled on the part of his
Majesty.”
The expressions of this letter, if carefully read, still left cause for
doubt; and Madison saw it, although he clung to what he thought he had
gained. June 20 he wrote again to Jefferson:[67]--
“The ‘Gazette’ of yesterday contains the mode pursued for
reanimating confidence in the pledge of the British government
given by Mr. Erskine in his arrangement with this government.
The puzzle created by the Order of April struck every one.
Erskine assures us that his Government was under such
impressions as to the views of this, that not the slightest
expectation existed of our fairly meeting its overtures, and
that the last order was considered as a seasonable mitigation of
the tendency of a failure of the experiment. This explanation
seems as extraordinary as the alternative it shows. The fresh
declarations of Mr. Erskine seem to have quieted the distrust
which was becoming very strong, but has not destroyed the effect
of the ill grace stamped on the British retreat, and of the
commercial rigor evinced by the new and insidious duties stated
in the newspapers. It may be expected, I think, that the British
government will fulfil what its minister has stipulated; and
that if it means to be trickish, it will frustrate the proposed
negotiation, and then say their orders were not permanently
repealed but only withdrawn in the mean time.”
Madison had chosen to precipitate a decision, with a view to profiting
in either case, whether England consented or refused to have her hands
thus forced. Indeed, if he had not himself been old in the ways of
diplomacy, Turreau was on the spot to warn him, and lost no chance of
lecturing the Administration on the folly of trusting Erskine’s word.
Meanwhile Turreau so far lost his temper as to address to Secretary
Smith a long letter complaining of the persistently unfriendly attitude
of the United States government toward France. So strong was the
language of the letter that Turreau was obliged to withdraw it.[68]
Robert Smith attempted to pacify him by assurances that the new
Administration would respect the Spanish possessions more strictly than
the old one had done.
“The Secretary of State did not deny that there might have
been some attempt in that direction,” reported Turreau, June
14,[69] “but at the same time, while himself alluding to
the affair of Miranda, he attributed these events to causes
independent of the actual Administration and anterior to its
existence, and especially to the weakness and the indiscretions
of Mr. Jefferson; that he [Smith] was then in the Cabinet,
and knew better than any one how much the want of vigor
(_mollesse_), the uncertainty, and absence of plan in
the Executive head had contributed to the false steps of the
Federal government.”
The new Administration meant to show vigor. Every act and expression
implied that its path was to be direct to its ends. The President and
Congress waited with composure for the outcome of Erskine’s strange
conduct.
No new measure was suggested, after June 10, to provide for the chance
that Erskine’s arrangement might fail, and that the Order in Council of
April 26, 1809, might prove to be a permanent system. Congress seemed
disposed to indulge the merchants to the utmost in their eagerness for
trade. The nearest approach to suspicion was shown in the House by
appropriating $750,000 for fortifications. Randolph, Macon, Eppes, and
Richard M. Johnson tried to reduce the amount to $150,000. The larger
appropriation was understood to mean an intention of preparing for
attack, and eighty-four members sustained the policy against a minority
of forty-seven; but notwithstanding this vote and the anxiety caused by
the new Order in Council, Congress decided to stop enlistments for the
army; and by an Act approved June 28 the President was authorized, “in
the event of a favorable change in our foreign relations,” to reduce
the naval force, although the words of the Act implied doubt whether
the favorable change would take place.
Nothing could be happier for Madison than this situation, where all
parties were held in check not only by his success but by his danger.
So completely was discipline restored, that June 27 he ventured to
send the name of J. Q. Adams a second time to the Senate as minister
to Russia; and nineteen Republicans confirmed the nomination, while
but one adhered to the opinion that the mission was unnecessary. The
power of England over America was never more strikingly shown than by
the sudden calm which fell on the country, in full prospect of war
with France, at a word from a British minister. As Canning frowned
or smiled, faction rose to frenzy or lay down to slumber throughout
the United States. No sooner did the news of Erskine’s arrangement
reach Quebec May 1, than Sir James Craig recalled his secret agent,
John Henry, from Boston, where he still lingered. “I am cruelly out
of spirits,” wrote Secretary Ryland to Henry,[70] “at the idea of Old
England truckling to such a debased and accursed government as that of
the United States;” but since this was the case, Henry’s services could
no longer be useful. He returned to Montreal early in June.
June 28 Congress adjourned, leaving the Executive, for the first
time in many years, almost without care, until the fourth Monday in
November.
CHAPTER V.
ERSKINE’S despatches were received by Canning May 22, and the
“Morning Post” of the next day printed the news with approval: “Upon
this pleasing event we sincerely congratulate the public.” The “Times”
of May 24 accepted the arrangement: “We shall not urge anything against
the concessions.” May 25, with “considerable pain though but little
surprise,” the same newspaper announced that Erskine was disavowed by
the Government.
Canning’s abrupt rejection of Erskine’s arrangement without explanation
must have seemed even to himself a high-handed course, at variance
with some of his late professions, certain to injure or even to
destroy British influence in America, and likely to end in war. To
the settlement as a practical measure no objection could be alleged.
No charge of bad faith could be supported. No shadow of law or reason
could be devised for enforcing against America rights derived from
retaliation upon France, when America enforced stronger measures of
retaliation upon France than those imposed by the Orders in Council.
Neither the Non-importation Act of 1806, nor the “Chesapeake”
proclamation of 1807, nor the embargo, nor the Non-intercourse Act of
March, 1809, could be used to justify the rejection of an arrangement
which evaded or removed every British grievance. Even the subject of
impressments had been suppressed by the American government. Madison
flung himself into Canning’s arms, and to fling him back was an effort
of sheer violence.
Perhaps the effort gave to Canning’s conduct an air that he would
not naturally have cared to betray; for his manner was that of a man
irritated by finding himself obliged to be brutal. In the want of
a reason for rejecting the American arrangement, he was reduced to
rejecting it without giving a reason. The process of disciplining
Erskine was simple, for Erskine had disregarded instructions to an
extent that no government could afford to overlook; but President
Madison was not in the employ of the British king, and had a right to
such consideration at least as one gentleman commonly owes to another.
Canning addressed himself first to the simpler task. May 22, a few
hours after receiving the despatches from Washington, he wrote a
despatch to Erskine in regard to the “Chesapeake” arrangement.[71]
He reminded Erskine that his instructions had required the formal
exclusion of French war-vessels and the formal withdrawal of the
“Chesapeake” proclamation before any arrangement should be concluded.
Not only had these conditions been neglected, but two other less
serious errors had been made.
Variations from the rigor of instructions might be ground for reproving
Erskine, but could hardly excuse a disavowal of the compact; yet the
compact was disavowed. An impression was general that the Ministry were
disposed to ratify it, but were withheld by the paragraph in Robert
Smith’s letter defining what was due from his Britannic Majesty to
his own honor. Milder Foreign Secretaries than George Canning would
have found themselves obliged to take notice of such a reflection, and
Canning appeared at his best when his adversaries gave him an excuse
for the lofty tone he liked to assume.
“It remains for me,” he continued, “to notice the expressions,
so full of disrespect to his Majesty, with which that note
concludes; and I am to signify to you the displeasure which his
Majesty feels that any minister of his Majesty should have shown
himself so far insensible of what is due to the dignity of his
sovereign as to have consented to receive and transmit a note in
which such expressions were contained.”
Canning was hardly the proper person to criticise Robert Smith’s
disrespectful expressions, which, whatever their intention, failed
to be nearly as offensive as many of his own; but this was a matter
between himself and Erskine. Even after granting the propriety of
his comment, diplomatic usage seemed to require that some demand of
explanation or apology from the American government should precede the
rejection of an engagement otherwise satisfactory; but no such step was
in this case taken through Erskine. His settlement of the “Chesapeake”
outrage was repudiated without more words, and the next day Canning
repudiated the rest of the arrangement.
Nothing could be easier than to show that Erskine had violated his
instructions more plainly in regard to the Orders in Council than in
regard to the “Chesapeake” affair. Of the three conditions imposed by
Canning, not one had been fulfilled. The first required the repeal of
all Non-intercourse Acts against England, “leaving them in force with
respect to France;” but Erskine had doubly failed to secure it:[72]--
“As the matter at present stands before the world in your
official correspondence with Mr. Smith, the American government
would be at liberty to-morrow to repeal the Non-intercourse Act
altogether, without infringing the agreement which you have
thought proper to enter into on behalf of his Majesty; and
if such a clause was thought necessary to this condition at
the time when my instructions were written, it was obviously
become much more so when the Non-intercourse Act was passed for
a limited time. You must also have been aware at the time of
making the agreement that the American government had in fact
formally exempted Holland, a Power which has unquestionably
‘adopted and acted under the Decrees of France,’ from the
operation of the Non-intercourse Act,--an exemption in direct
contravention of the condition prescribed to you, and which of
itself ought to have prevented you from coming to any agreement
whatever.”
Here, again, sufficient reasons were given for punishing Erskine; but
these reasons were not equally good for repudiating the compact with
the United States. No American vessels could enter a Dutch port so long
as the British blockade lasted; therefore the exemption of Holland
from the non-intercourse affected England only by giving to her navy
another chance for booty, and to the Americans one more empty claim.
Canning himself explained to Pinkney[73] “that the exemption of Holland
from the effect of our embargo and non-intercourse would not have
been much objected to by the British government” if the President had
been willing to pledge himself to enforce the non-intercourse against
France; but for aught that appeared to the contrary, “the embargo and
non-intercourse laws might be suffered without any breach of faith
to expire, or might even be repealed immediately, notwithstanding
the perseverance of France in her Berlin and other edicts; and that
Mr. Erskine had in truth secured nothing more, as the consideration
of the recall of the Orders in Council, than the renewal of American
intercourse with Great Britain.”
Thus Canning justified the repudiation of Erskine’s arrangement by the
single reason that the United States government could not be trusted
long enough to prove its good faith. The explanation was difficult
to express in courteous or diplomatic forms; but perhaps its most
striking quality, next to its want of courtesy, was its evident want
of candor. Had the American government evaded its obligation, the
British government held the power of redress in its own hands. Clearly
the true explanation was to be sought elsewhere, in some object which
Canning could not put in diplomatic words, but which lay in the nature
of Perceval’s system. Even during the three days while the decision
was supposed to be in doubt, alarmed merchants threw themselves in
crowds on the Board of Trade, protesting that if American vessels with
their cheaper sugar, cotton, and coffee were allowed to enter Amsterdam
and Antwerp, British trade was at an end.[74] The mere expectation of
their arrival would create such a fall in prices as to make worthless
the accumulated mass of such merchandise with which the warehouses
were filled, not only in London, but also in the little island of
Heligoland at the mouth of the Elbe, where a system of licensed and
unlicensed smuggling had been established under the patronage of the
Board of Trade. Deputations of these merchants waited on Earl Bathurst
to represent the danger of allowing even those American ships to enter
Holland which might have already sailed from the United States on
the faith of Erskine’s arrangement. Somewhat unexpectedly ministers
refused to gratify this prayer. An Order in Council of May 24, while
announcing the Royal repudiation of Erskine’s arrangement, declared
that American vessels which should have cleared for Holland between
April 19 and July 20 would not be molested in their voyage.
The chief objection to Erskine’s arrangement, apart from its effect on
British merchants, consisted in the danger that by its means America
might compel France to withdraw her decrees affecting neutrals. The
chance that Erskine’s arrangement might involve America in war with
Napoleon was not worth the equal chance of its producing in the end
an amicable arrangement with Napoleon which would sacrifice the
last defence of British commerce and manufactures. Had the British
government given way, Napoleon, to whom the most solemn pledges cost
nothing, would certainly persuade President Madison to lean once more
toward France. The habit of balancing the belligerents--the first rule
of American diplomacy--required the incessant see-saw of interest. So
many unsettled questions remained open that British ministers could not
flatter themselves with winning permanent American favor by partial
concession.
To Canning’s despatch repudiating the commercial arrangement, Erskine
made a reply showing more keenness and skill than was to be found in
Canning’s criticism.
“It appears from the general tenor of your despatches,” wrote
Erskine[75] on receiving these letters of May 22 and 23, “that
his Majesty’s government were not willing to trust to assurances
from the American government, but that official pledges were to
have been required which could not be given for want of power,
some of them also being of a nature which would prevent a formal
recognition. Had I believed that his Majesty’s government were
determined to insist upon these conditions being complied with
in one particular manner only, I should have adhered implicitly
to my instructions; but as I collected from them that his
Majesty was desirous of accomplishing his retaliatory system by
such means as were most compatible with a good understanding
with friendly and neutral Powers, I felt confident that his
Majesty would approve of the arrangement I had concluded as
one likely to lead to a cordial and complete understanding
and co-operation on the part of the United States, which
co-operation never could be obtained by previous stipulations
either from the government of the United States, who have no
power to accede to them, or from Congress, which would never
acknowledge them as recognitions to guide their conduct.”
This reply, respectful in form, placed Secretary Canning in the dilemma
between the guilt of ignorance or that of bad faith; but the rejoinder
of a dismissed diplomatist weighed little except in history, and long
before it was made public Erskine and his arrangement had ceased
to interest the world. Canning disposed of both forever by a third
despatch, dated May 30, enclosing to Erskine an Order in Council
disavowing his arrangement and ordering him back to England.
When the official disavowal appeared in the newspapers of May 25,
Canning had an interview with Pinkney.[76] At great length and
with much detail he read the instructions he had given to Erskine,
and commented on the points in which Erskine had violated them. He
complained of unfriendly expressions in the American notes; but he
did not say why the arrangement failed to satisfy all the legitimate
objects of England, nor did he suggest any improvement or change which
would make the arrangement, as it existed, agreeable to him. On the
other hand, he announced that though Erskine would have to be recalled,
his successor was already appointed and would sail for America within a
few days.
If Canning showed, by his indulgence to American vessels and his haste
to send out a new minister, the wish to avoid a rupture with the United
States, his selection of an agent for that purpose was so singular as
to suggest that he relied on terror rather than on conciliation. In
case Erskine had obeyed his instructions, which ordered him merely
to prepare the way for negotiation, Canning had fixed upon George
Henry Rose as the negotiator.[77] Considering the impression left in
America by Rose on his previous mission, his appointment seemed almost
the worst that could have been made; but bad as the effect of such a
selection would have been, one man, and perhaps only one, in England
was certain to make a worse; and him Canning chose. The new minister
was Francis James Jackson. Whatever good qualities Jackson possessed
were overshadowed by the reputation he had made for himself at
Copenhagen. His name was a threat of violence; his temper and manners
were notorious; and nothing but his rank in the service marked him as
suitable for the post. Pinkney, whose self-control and tact in these
difficult circumstances could hardly be too much admired, listened in
silence to Canning’s announcement, and rather than risk making the
situation worse, reported that Jackson was, he believed, “a worthy man,
and although completely attached to all those British principles and
doctrines which sometimes give us trouble will, _I should hope_,
give satisfaction.” The English press was not so forbearing. The
“Morning Chronicle” of May 29 said that the appointment had excited
general surprise, owing to “the character of the individual;” and
Pinkney himself, in a later despatch, warned his Government that “it
is rather a prevailing notion here that this gentleman’s conduct will
not and cannot be what we all wish, and that a better choice might have
been made.”[78]
Jackson himself sought the position, knowing its difficulties. May
23, the day of his appointment, he wrote privately to his brother in
Spain: “I am about to enter upon a most delicate--I _hope_ not
desperate--enterprise.”[79] At a later time, embittered by want of
support from home, he complained that Canning had sent him on an errand
which he knew to be impossible to perform.[80] So well understood
between Canning and Jackson was the nature of the service, that Jackson
asked and received as a condition of his acceptance the promise that
his employment should last not less than twelve months.[81] The
delicate enterprise of which he spoke could have been nothing more than
that of preventing a rupture between England and America; but until he
studied his instructions, he could hardly have known in its full extent
how desperate this undertaking would be.
Canning made no haste. Nearly two months elapsed before Jackson
sailed. After correcting Erskine’s mistake and replacing the United
States in their position under the Orders in Council of April 26,
Canning, June 13, made a statement to the House of Commons. Declining
to touch questions of general policy for the reason that negotiations
were pending, he contented himself with satisfying the House that
Erskine had acted contrary to instructions and deserved recall. James
Stephen showed more clearly the spirit of Government by avowing the
opinion “that America in all her proceedings had no wish to promote
an impartial course with respect to France and this country.” The
Whigs knew little or nothing of the true facts; Erskine’s conduct
could not be defended; no one cared to point out that Canning left to
America no dignified course but war, and public interest was once more
concentrated with painful anxiety on the continent of Europe. America
dropped from sight, and Canning’s last and worst acts toward the United
States escaped notice or knowledge.
The session of Parliament ended June 21, a week before the special
session of Congress came to an end; and while England waited
impatiently for news from Vienna, where Napoleon was making ready for
the battle of Wagram, Canning drew up the instructions to Jackson,--the
last of the series of papers by which, through the peculiar qualities
of his style even more than by the violence of his acts, he embittered
to a point that seemed altogether contrary to their nature a whole
nation of Americans against the nation that gave them birth. If the
famous phrase of Canning was ever in any sense true,--that he called
a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old,--it was
most nearly true in the sense that his instructions and letters forced
the United States into a nationality of character which the war of the
Revolution itself had failed to give them.
The instructions to Jackson[82]--five in number--were dated July 1,
and require careful attention if the train of events which brought the
United States to the level of war with England is to be understood.
The first instruction began by complaint of Erskine’s conduct, passing
quickly to a charge of bad faith against the American government,
founded on “the publicity so unwarrantably given” to Erskine’s
arrangement:--
“The premature publication of the correspondence by the
American government so effectually precluded any middle course
of explanation and accommodation that it is hardly possible
to suppose that it must not have been resorted to in a great
measure with that view.
“The American government cannot have believed that such an
arrangement as Mr. Erskine consented to accept was conformable
to his instructions. If Mr. Erskine availed himself of the
liberty allowed to him of communicating those instructions on
the affair of the Orders in Council, they must have known that
it was not so; but even without such communication they cannot
by possibility have believed that without any new motive, and
without any apparent change in the dispositions of the enemy,
the British government could have been disposed at once and
unconditionally to give up the system on which they have been
acting, and which they had so recently refused to relinquish,
even in return for considerations which though far from being
satisfactory were yet infinitely more so than anything which can
be supposed to have been gained by Mr. Erskine’s arrangement.”
Canning attributed this conduct to a hope held by President Madison
that the British government would feel itself compelled, however
reluctantly, to sanction an agreement which it had not authorized. In
this case the American government had only itself to blame for the
consequences:--
“So far, therefore, from the American government having any
reason to complain of the non-ratification of Mr. Erskine’s
unauthorized agreement, his Majesty has on his part just ground
of complaint for that share of the inconvenience from the
publication which may have fallen upon his Majesty’s subjects,
so far as their interests may have been involved in the renewed
speculations of their American correspondents; and his Majesty
cannot but think any complaint, if any should be made on this
occasion in America, the more unreasonable, as the government
of the United States is that government which perhaps of all
others has most freely exercised the right of withholding its
ratification from even the authorized acts of its own diplomatic
agents.”
In this spirit Jackson was to meet any “preliminary discussion” which
might arise before he could proceed to negotiation. Canning did not
touch on the probability that if Jackson met preliminary discussion in
such a spirit as this, he would run something more than a risk of never
reaching negotiation at all; or if Canning considered this point, he
treated it orally. The other written instructions given to Jackson
dealt at once with negotiation.
The “Chesapeake” affair came first in order, and was quickly dismissed.
Jackson was to require from the President a written acknowledgment
that the interdict on British ships was annulled before any settlement
could be made. The Orders in Council came next, and were the subject
of a long instruction, full of interest and marked by many of
Canning’s peculiarities. Once more he explained that Erskine had
inverted the relation of things by appearing to recall the orders as
an inducement to the renewal of trade,--“as if in any arrangement,
whether commercial or political, his Majesty could condescend to barter
objects of national policy and dignity for permission to trade with
another country. The character even more than the stipulations of such
a compact must under any circumstances have put out of question the
possibility of his Majesty’s consenting to confirm it.” He related the
history of the orders, which he called “defensive retaliation,” and
explained why Erskine’s arrangement failed to effect the object of that
system:--
“In the arrangement agreed to by Mr. Erskine the incidental
consequence is mistaken for the object of the negotiation. His
Majesty is made by his minister to concede the whole point in
dispute by the total and unconditional recall of the Orders in
Council; and nothing is done by the United States in return
except to permit their citizens to renew their commercial
intercourse with Great Britain. Whereas, before his Majesty’s
consent to withdraw or even to modify the Orders in Council was
declared, the United States should have taken upon themselves
to execute in substance the objects of the Orders in Council by
effectually prohibiting all trade between their citizens and
France, or the Powers acting under her decrees, and by engaging
for the continuance of that prohibition so long as those decrees
should continue unrepealed.”
As in the “Chesapeake” affair, so in regard to the orders,--Canning’s
objection to Erskine’s arrangement was stated as one of form. That
the “Chesapeake” proclamation was no longer in force; that Congress
had effectually prohibited trade with France; and that the President
had engaged as far as he could to continue that prohibition till the
French Decrees were repealed,--these were matters of notoriety. England
took the ground that the United States were liable to the operation of
the British retaliatory orders against France, even though Congress
should have declared war upon France, unless the declaration of war was
regularly made known to the British minister at Washington, and unless
“the United States should have taken upon themselves,” by treaty with
England, to continue the war till France repealed her decrees.
Canning was happy in the phrase he employed in Parliament, March 6,
to justify the course of ministers toward America. “Extension of the
law of nations” described well the Orders in Council themselves; but
the instruction to Jackson was remarkable as a prodigious extension
of the extended orders. The last legal plea was abandoned by these
instructions, and the subject would have been the clearer for that
abandonment were it not that owing to the rapidity of events the new
extravagance was never known; with Canning himself the subject slipped
from public view, and only the mystery remained of Canning’s objects
and expectations.
Another man would have temporized, and would have offered some
suggestion toward breaking the force of such a blow at a friendly
people. Not only did Canning make no new suggestion, but he even
withdrew that which he had made in February. He told Jackson to propose
nothing whatever:--
“You are to inform the American Secretary of State that in the
event of the government of the United States being desirous
now to adopt this proposal, you are authorized to renew the
negotiation and to conclude it on the terms of my instructions
to Mr. Erskine; but that you are not instructed to press upon
the acceptance of the American government an arrangement which
they have so recently declined, especially as the arrangement
itself is become less important, and the terms of it less
applicable to the state of things now existing.”
The remainder of this despatch was devoted to proving that, the late
order of April 26 had so modified that of November, 1807, as to remove
the most serious American objections; and although the blockade was
more restrictive than the old orders as concerned French and Dutch
colonies, yet the recent surrender of Martinique had reduced the
practical hardship of this restriction so considerably that it was
fairly offset by the opening of the Baltic. America had the less
inducement to a further arrangement which could little increase the
extent of her commerce, while England was indifferent provided she
obtained her indispensable objects:--
“I am therefore not to direct you to propose to the American
government any formal agreement to be substituted for that which
his Majesty has been under the necessity of disavowing. You are,
however, at liberty to receive for reference home any proposal
which the American government may tender to you; but it is
only in the case of that proposal comprehending all the three
conditions which Mr. Erskine was instructed to require.”
The fourth instruction prescribed the forms in which such an
arrangement, if made, must be framed. The fifth dealt with another
branch of the subject,--the Rule of 1756. Canning declined to accept
a mere understanding in regard to this rule. Great Britain would
insist on her right to prohibit neutral trade with enemies’ colonies,
“of which she has permitted the exercise only by indulgence; ... but
the indulgence which was granted for peculiar and temporary reasons
being now withdrawn, the question is merely whether the rule from
which such an indulgence was a deviation shall be established by the
admission of America or enforced as heretofore by the naval power of
Great Britain.” As a matter of courtesy the British government had
no objection to allowing the United States to sanction by treaty the
British right, so that legal condemnations should be made under the
authority of the treaty instead of an Order in Council; “but either
authority is sufficient. No offence is taken at the refusal of the
United States to make this matter subject of compact. The result is
that it must be the subject of an Order in Council.”
The result was that it became the subject of a much higher tribunal
than his Majesty’s Council, and that the British people, and Canning
himself, took great offence at the refusal of the United States to
make it a subject of one-sided compact; but with this concluding touch
Canning’s official irony toward America ended, and he laid down his
pen. About the middle of June, Jackson with three well-defined _casus
belli_ in his portfolio, and another--that of impressments--awaiting
his arrival, set sail for America on the errand which he strangely
hoped might not be desperate. With his departure Canning’s control
of American relations ceased. At the moment when he challenged for
the last time an instant declaration of war from a people who had no
warmer wish than to be permitted to remain his friends, the career of
the Administration to which he belonged came to an end in scandalous
disaster.
Hardly had the Duke of York stopped one source of libel, by resigning
May 16 his office of commanderin-chief, when fresh troubles from
many directions assailed ministers. As early as April 4, Canning had
satisfied the Duke of Portland that he must dismiss Castlereagh for
incompetence, and every Cabinet minister except Castlereagh himself
was acquainted with this decision; but contrary to Canning’s wishes no
action was taken, and the conduct of the war was left at a critical
moment in the hands of a man whose removal for incompetence had been
decreed by his own colleagues. The summer campaign was then fought.
April 9 Austria had begun another war with Napoleon. At Essling, May
21, she nearly won a great victory; at Wagram, July 6, she lost a
battle, and soon afterward entered on negotiations which ended, October
20, in the treaty of Vienna. While this great campaign went on, Sir
Arthur Wellesley drove Soult out of Portugal much as Napoleon had
driven Sir John Moore out of Spain; and then marching up the valley of
the Tagus scared Joseph a second time from Madrid, and fought, July
28, the desperate battle of Talavera. In any case the result of the
Austrian war would have obliged him to retreat; but the concentration
of the French forces in his front quickly drove the British army
back toward Lisbon, and ended all hope of immediate success in the
Peninsula. A third great effort against Napoleon was directed from
London toward the Scheldt and Meuse. The Cabinet, June 14, decided
that Castlereagh should attempt this experiment; for raids of the kind
had charms for a naval power, and although success could affect the
war but little, it might assist smuggling and destroy a naval depot
of Napoleon. Castlereagh sent to the Scheldt forty thousand soldiers
who were grievously wanted on the Tagus. July 28, while Wellington
fought the battle of Talavera, Lord Chatham’s expedition started from
the Downs, and reaching the mouth of the Scheldt occupied itself until
August 15 with the capture of Flushing. In gaining this success the
army was worn out; nearly half its number were suffering from typhoid,
and September 2 the Cabinet unanimously voted to recall the expedition.
Talavera and Flushing closed Castlereagh’s career in the War Office,
as Jackson’s mission closed that of Canning in American diplomacy.
Defeat abroad, ruin at home, disgrace and disaster everywhere were
the results of two years of Tory administration. August 11 the Duke
of Portland was struck by paralysis; and deprived of its chief, the
Cabinet went to pieces. September 7 Castlereagh was gently forced to
resign. Canning, refusing to serve under Perceval or under any one whom
Perceval suggested, tendered his own resignation. In the course of the
complicated negotiations that followed, Perceval showed to Castlereagh
letters in which for a year past Canning had pressed Castlereagh’s
removal from office. Then at last Castlereagh discovered, as he
conceived, that Canning was not a gentleman or a man of honor, and
having called him out, September 21, in a duel on Putney Heath shot him
through the thigh.
Such an outcome was a natural result of such an Administration; but
as concerned the United States Canning had already done all the harm
possible, and more than three generations could wholly repair.
CHAPTER VI.
THE news of Erskine’s disavowal reached America so slowly that
merchants enjoyed three months of unrestricted trade, and shipped to
England or elsewhere the accumulations of nearly two years’ produce.
From April 21 till July 21 this process of depletion continued without
an anxiety; and when July 21 news arrived that the arrangement had been
repudiated, merchants still had time to hurry their last cargoes to sea
before the government could again interpose.
The first effect of Canning’s disavowal seemed bewilderment. No one in
the United States, whether enemy or friend of England, could for a time
understand why Canning had taken so perplexing a course. Very few of
England’s friends could believe that her conduct rested on the motives
she avowed; they sought for some noble, or at least some respectable,
object behind her acts. For several months the Federalist newspapers
were at a loss for words, and groped in the dark for an English hand to
help them; while the Republican press broke into anger, which expressed
the common popular feeling. “The late conduct of the British ministry,”
said the “National Intelligencer” of July 26, “has capped the climax
of atrocity toward this country.” Every hope of reconciliation or even
of peace with England seemed almost extinguished; yet the country was
still far from a rupture. Not until popular feeling could express
itself in a new election would the national will be felt; and the
next election was still more than a year away, while the Congress to
be then chosen would meet only in December, 1811. Until then war was
improbable, perhaps impossible, except by the act of England.
When the news arrived, President Madison was at his Virginia
plantation. During his absence Gallatin was in charge of matters at
Washington, and on the instant wrote that he thought the President
should return. In a letter of July 27, three days after the news
reached Washington, Gallatin gave his own view of the situation:[83]--
“I will not waste time in conjectures respecting the true cause
of the conduct of the British government, nor can we, until
we are better informed, lay any permanent plan of conduct for
ourselves. I will only observe that we are not so well prepared
for resistance as we were one year ago. Then all or almost all
our mercantile wealth was safe at home, our resources entire,
and our finances sufficient to carry us through during the first
year of the contest. Our property is now all afloat; England
relieved by our relaxations might stand two years of privations
with ease. We have wasted our resources without any national
utility; and our treasury being exhausted, we must begin our
plan of resistance with considerable and therefore unpopular
loans.”
The immediate crisis called first for attention. Gallatin held that the
Non-intercourse Act necessarily revived from the moment the supposed
fact on which alone its suspension rested was shown not to have taken
place. The remoter problem of Jackson’s mission seemed to the secretary
simpler than the question of law:[84]--
“If we are too weak or too prudent to resist England in the
direct and proper manner, I hope at least that we shall not
make a single voluntary concession inconsistent with our rights
and interest. If Mr. Jackson has any compromise to offer which
would not be burdened with such, I shall be very agreeably
disappointed. But judging by what is said to have been the
substance of Mr. Erskine’s instructions, what can we expect but
dishonorable and inadmissible proposals? He is probably sent out
like Mr. Rose to amuse and to divide; and we shall, I trust,
by coming at once to the point, bring his negotiation to an
immediate close.”
The President heard the news with as much perplexity as anger, and
even tried to persuade himself that Canning would be less severe than
he threatened. Madison still clung to hope when he first replied to
Gallatin’s summons:[85]--
“The conduct of the British government in protesting the
arrangement of its minister surprises one in spite of all their
examples of folly. If it be not their plan, now that they
have filled their magazines with our supplies and ascertained
our want of firmness in withholding them, to adopt openly a
system of monopoly and piracy, it may be hoped that they will
not persist in the scandalous course in which they have set
out. Supposing Erskine to have misunderstood or overstrained
his instructions, can the difference between our trading
directly and indirectly with Holland account for the violent
remedy applied to the case? Is it not more probable that they
have yielded to the clamors of the London smugglers in sugar
and coffee, whose numbers and impudence are displayed in the
scandalous and successful demand from their government that
it should strangle the lawful trade of a friendly nation lest
it should interfere with their avowed purpose of carrying on
a smuggling trade with their enemies? Such an outrage on all
decency was never before heard of even on the shores of Africa.”
Madison exaggerated. The outrage on decency committed by the British
government in May, 1809, was on the whole not so great as that of Sir
William Scott’s decision in the case of the “Essex” in July, 1805; or
that of the blockade of New York and the killing of Pierce in April,
1806; or that of Lord Howick’s Order in Council of January, 1807,
when the signatures to Monroe’s treaty were hardly dry; or that of
Spencer Perceval’s Orders in November, 1807, and the speeches made in
their defence; or the mission of George Henry Rose in the winter of
1807–1808; or Erskine’s letter of February 23, or Canning’s letters of
September 23, 1808,--for all these left the United States in a worse
position than that created by the disavowal of Erskine. Indeed, except
for the disgrace of submitting to acts of illegal force, the United
States stood in a comparatively easy attitude after the orders of April
26, 1809, so long as Napoleon himself enforced within his empire a more
rigid exclusion of neutral commerce than any that could be effected by
a British blockade.
“Still, I cannot but hope,” continued Madison, “on the
supposition that there be no predetermined hostility against our
commerce and navigation, that things may take another turn under
the influence of the obvious and striking considerations which
advise it.”
The hope vanished when Erskine’s instructions became known, and was
succeeded by consternation when the public read the reports made by
Erskine and Canning of the language used by Madison, Gallatin, and
Pinkney. For the first time in this contest, Englishmen and Americans
could no longer understand each other’s meaning. Erskine had so
confused every detail with his own ideas, and Canning’s course on one
side the Atlantic seemed so little to accord with his tactics on the
other, that neither party could longer believe in the other’s good
faith. Americans were convinced that Canning had offered terms which
he intended them to refuse. Englishmen were sure that Madison had
precipitated a settlement which he knew could not be carried out.
Madison credited Canning with fraud as freely as Canning charged
Madison with connivance.
“I find myself under the mortifying necessity of setting out
to-morrow morning for Washington,” wrote Madison to Jefferson,
August 3.[86] “The intricate state of our affairs with England
produced by the mixture of fraud and folly in her late conduct,
and the important questions to be decided as to the legal effect
of the failure of the arrangement of April on our commercial
relations with her are thought by the heads of departments
to require that I should join them.... You will see by the
instructions to Erskine, as published by Canning, that the
latter was as much determined that there should be no adjustment
as the former was that there should be one.”
The President remained three days in Washington in order to sign,
August 9, a Proclamation reviving the Non-intercourse Act against
Great Britain. On the same day the Secretary of the Treasury enclosed
this Proclamation to the Collectors of Customs in a circular, with
instructions not to enforce the penalties of the law against vessels
entering American ports on the faith of Erskine’s arrangement. This
done, Madison returned to Montpelier, August 10, leaving Erskine to
exchange apologetic but very unsatisfactory explanations with Robert
Smith and Gallatin.
The Proclamation of August 9 was sharply criticised, and with reason;
for Congress had given the President no express authority to revive
the Non-intercourse Act, and he had clearly exceeded his powers, if
not in the Proclamation which revived the Act, then certainly in the
original Proclamation of April 19, which set it aside. Even this
stretch of authority hardly equalled Gallatin’s assumption of the power
to admit what vessels he pleased without regard to the Non-intercourse
Act. Yet right or wrong the President had no choice but to use all the
powers he needed. Evidently his original mistake in opening intercourse
was a greater stretch of authority than any subsequent act could be,
except that of leaving it open after the mistake was admitted. Sullenly
and awkwardly the Government restored some degree of order to its
system, and then President and Cabinet scattered once more, leaving the
village of Washington to the solitude of August and September.
A month passed without further change, until September 5 Jackson landed
at Annapolis, whence he reached Washington September 8. He came with
his wife--a fashionable Prussian baroness with a toilette--and young
children, for whose health a Washington September was ill suited; he
came too with a carriage and liveries, coachmen and servants, and the
outfit of a long residence, as though neither he nor Canning doubted
his welcome.
Francis James Jackson had many good qualities, and was on the whole the
only English minister of his time so severely treated by the American
government as to warrant almost a feeling of sympathy. He was probably
suffering from some organic disease which made his temper irritable,
while his instructions were such as to leave him no room to show his
best capacities in his profession. In ordinary times a man of his
experience, intelligence, and marked character might have succeeded in
winning at Washington a name for ability and straightforwardness; but
he was ill fitted for the special task he had undertaken, and had no
clear idea of the dangers to which he was exposed. Gallatin expressed
the feeling of the Administration when he advised coming at once to the
point with Jackson, and bringing his negotiation to an immediate close.
Madison could not have wished to repeat his experience with Rose, or to
allow a British minister to reside at Washington for the sole purpose
of dividing American counsels and intriguing with Senator Pickering.
Had Jackson been quick in his perceptions, he would have seen early
that nothing but mortification could be in store for him; but he had
the dogged courage and self-confidence of his time, and undertook to
deal single-handed with a government and people he did not trouble
himself to understand.
The President was not in Washington when the British minister drove
into that “famous city,” as he called it, which “resembles more nearly
Hampstead Heath than any other place I ever saw.”[87] Robert Smith
apologized for the incivility of leaving him without the usual public
recognition, and explained that the risk of fever and the fatigue of
four days’ journey made the President extremely unwilling to return
before October 1, the day fixed for Jackson’s reception. Indirectly
Smith suggested that Jackson might visit the President at Montpelier,
or even begin negotiation before being officially received; but the
minister replied that he would cheerfully wait. Gallatin wrote to the
President, September 11,--
“I do not think that there is any necessity to hurry yourself
beyond your convenience in returning here. It will be as well
the 10th as the 1st of October, for I am sure, although I have
not seen Mr. Jackson and can judge only from what has passed
between him and Mr. Smith, that he has nothing to say of
importance, or pleasant.”[88]
Madison replied, proposing to set out for Washington about the 29th,
but agreeing with Gallatin that in view of “Jackson’s apparent patience
and reserve,” his disclosures “would not be either operative or
agreeable.”[89]
Whether Jackson showed patience or activity, he could not avoid giving
offence; and perhaps he did wisely to gain all the time he could,
even if he gained nothing else. Unlike some of his predecessors, he
understood how to make the best of his situation. He found amusement
for a month of idleness, even though the month was September and the
place was Washington. He took the house which Merry and Erskine had
occupied,--a house that stood amid fields looking over Rock Creek to
Georgetown:
“Erskine had let it go to such a state of ruin and dirt that it
will be several weeks before we can attempt to move into it. A
Scotchman with an American wife who would be a fine lady, are
not the best people to succeed on such an occasion.
“It is but justice to say that I have met with nothing but
the utmost civility, and with none of those hardships and
difficulties of which the Merrys so bitterly complained. The
travelling is not worse than much that I have met with before
in my life, and the accommodations are better than many I
have thought supportable. The expense is about the same as
in England, and must be considered most exorbitant when the
inferiority of their arrangements to ours and the greater
cheapness of provisions are taken into account.”[90]
As the season advanced, Jackson began to enjoy his autumn picnic on the
heath of Washington. He had an eye for the details which gave interest
to travel. “I put up a covey of partridge,” he wrote October 7, “about
three hundred yards from the House of Congress, yclept the Capitol.” He
had the merit of being first to discover what few men of his time had
the taste to feel,--that Washington was beautiful:--
“I have procured two very good saddle-horses, and Elizabeth and
I have been riding in all directions round this place whenever
the weather has been cool enough. The country has a beautifully
picturesque appearance, and I have nowhere seen finer scenery
than is composed by the Potomac and the woods and hills about
it; yet it has a wild and desolate air from being so scantily
and rudely cultivated, and from the want of population.... So
you see we are not fallen into a wilderness,--so far from it
that I am surprised no one should before have mentioned the
great beauty of the neighborhood. The natives trouble themselves
but little about it; their thoughts are chiefly of tobacco,
flour, shingles, and the news of the day. The Merrys, I suppose,
never got a mile out of Washington, except on their way to
Philadelphia.”
Part of Jackson’s leisure was employed in reading Erskine’s
correspondence, although he would have done better had he neglected
this customary duty, and had he brought to his diplomacy no more
prejudices than such as belonged to his nature and training. His
disgust with Erskine only added to his antipathy for Erskine’s objects,
methods, and friends.
“My visitors,” he wrote, “are a different set from Erskine’s, I
perceive; many of them he says he never saw. Per contra, many
of the Democrats who were his intimates never come to me, and I
am well pleased and somewhat flattered by the distinction....
Erskine is really a greater fool than I could have thought
it possible to be, and it is charity to give him _that_
name.... Now that I have gone through all his correspondence,
more than ever am I at a loss to comprehend how he could have
been allowed to remain here for the last two years.... To be
obliged to wade through such a mass of folly and stupidity, and
to observe how our country has been made, through Erskine’s
means, the instrument of these people’s cunning, is not the
least part of my annoyance. Between them our cause is vilified
indeed. The tone which Erskine had accustomed them to use with
him, and to use without any notion whatever being taken of it,
is another great difficulty I have had to overcome. Every third
word was a declaration of war.”
The month passed only too soon for Jackson’s comfort, and October 1,
punctual to his word, the President arrived. The next day Erskine
had his farewell audience, and October 3 Jackson was officially
received. Merry’s experience had not been without advantage to both
sides; and Jackson, who seemed to feel more contempt for his own
predecessors--Merry and Erskine--than for his American antagonists,
accepted everything in good part.
“Madison, the President, is a plain and rather mean-looking
little man, of great simplicity of manners, and an inveterate
enemy to form and ceremony; so much so that I was officially
informed that my introduction to him was to be considered as
nothing more than the reception of one gentleman by another, and
that no particular dress was to be worn on the occasion,--all
which I was very willing to acquiesce in. Accordingly I went in
an afternoon frock, and found the President in similar attire.
Smith, the Secretary of State, who had walked from his office to
join me, had on a pair of dusty boots, and his round hat in his
hand. When he had introduced us he retired, and the President
then asked me to take a chair. While we were talking, a negro
servant brought in some glasses of punch and a seed-cake. The
former, as I had been in conference the whole morning, served
very agreeably to wet, or whet, my whistle, and still more
strongly to contrast this audience with others I had had with
most of the sovereigns of Europe.”
Perhaps this passing allusion to previous acquaintance with “most of
the sovereigns of Europe” threw a light, somewhat too searching, into
the recesses of Jackson’s character. The weakness was pardonable, and
not specially unsuited to success in his career, but showed itself in
private as a form of self-deception which promised ill for his coming
struggle. Madison’s civility quite misled him.
“I do not know,” he wrote October 24, “that I had ever more
civility and attention shown me than at a dinner at the
President’s yesterday, where I was treated with a distinction
not lately accorded to a British minister in this country. A
foolish question of precedence, which ever since Merry’s time
has been unsettled, and has occasioned some heart-burnings among
the ladies, was also decided then by the President departing
from his customary indifference to ceremony and etiquette, and
taking Elizabeth in to dinner, while I conducted Mrs. Madison.”
Evidently this deference pleased the British minister, who saw nothing
behind it but a social triumph for himself and his wife; yet he had
already been forced to protest against the ceremonial forms with which
Madison studiously surrounded him, and had he read Shakspeare rather
than Erskine’s writings, he might have learned from Julius Cæsar the
general diplomatic law that “when love begins to sicken and decay, it
useth ever an enforced ceremony.” A man of tact would have seen that
from the moment Madison became formal he was dangerous. The dinner of
October 23 at the White House came at a moment when Jackson had been so
carefully handled and so effectually disarmed as to stand at Madison’s
mercy; and although he was allowed to please himself by taking Mrs.
Madison to dinner, the “mean-looking little man” at the head of
the table, was engaged only in thinking by what stroke the British
minister’s official life should be most quickly and quietly ended.
Jackson’s interviews with Robert Smith began immediately after the
President’s arrival in Washington. The first conversation was reported
by the British minister to his Government in language so lifelike, but
showing such astonishment on both sides at the attitude of each, as to
give it place among the most natural sketches in American diplomatic
history. After some fencing on the subject of Erskine’s responsibility,
Jackson passed to the subject of his own instructions, and remarked
that he was ordered to wait for propositions from the President.
“Here the American minister,” reported Jackson,[91] “exhibited
signs of the utmost surprise and disappointment. He seemed to be
so little prepared for this close of my conversation that he
was some time before he could recollect himself sufficiently to
give me any answer at all. Expecting to meet suggestions of a
totally different nature, and finding that what he had ready to
say to them did not suit the occasion, he seemed to require some
time and reflection to new arrange his thoughts. Accordingly
a considerable pause in our conversation took place, which at
length he broke in upon by saying: ‘Then, sir, you have no
proposal to make to us,--no explanation to give? How shall we be
able to get rid of the Non-intercourse Act?’”
Robert Smith was a wearisome burden to Madison, and his incompetence
made no agreeable object of study; but his apparent bewilderment
at Jackson’s audacity was almost as instructive as the sincere
astonishment of the Englishman at the effect of his own words. The game
of cross-purposes could not be more naturally played. Robert Smith
had been requested by Madison to ascertain precisely what Jackson’s
instructions were; and both at the first and at a second interview
he pressed this point, always trying to discover what Jackson had to
offer, while the Englishman always declined to offer anything whatever.
Two conversations satisfied the President that Jackson’s hands were
fast tied, and that he could open no door of escape. Then Madison
gently set the Secretary of State aside, and, as openly as the office
of Chief Magistrate permitted, undertook to deal with the British
minister.
October 9 the Secretary of State sent to the British Legation a
formal letter, written, like all Robert Smith’s important papers, by
the President.[92] After recapitulating the negative results reached
in the two interviews, Jackson was asked whether he had been rightly
understood; and the letter ended by saying, that, “to avoid the
misconceptions incident to oral proceeding, I have also the honor to
intimate that it is thought expedient that our further discussions on
the present occasion be in the written form.”[93]
Jackson saw a challenge in this change of attitude, and undertook to
meet it by vigorous resistance. He had no mind to be thrown on the
defensive; as he wrote to Canning, he wished to teach the American
government not to presume on his patience.
“On connecting all these circumstances,” he reported,[94]--“the
manner in which Mr. Smith had conducted our conferences; the
abruptness, especially, with which he had put an end to them;
and the style in which he announces to me, without leaving
any choice or alternative, but as the absolute decision of
his Government, ‘that it is thought expedient that our future
discussions on the present occasion’ (_i. e._, the only
occasion of doing away existing differences) ‘should be in the
written form,’--it occurred to me to be necessary to put the
matter on such a footing as to preclude, _in limine_, the
idea that every species of indirect obloquy was to be patiently
submitted to by his Majesty’s minister in this country.”
In this temper Jackson wrote a long letter, dated October 11, for
the purpose, as he reported to Canning,[95] of checking “that spirit
which can never lead to conciliation, by which America thinks herself
entitled to make her will and her view of things the criterion by
which they are to be generally approved or condemned.” Beginning with
the assertion that “there does not exist in the annals of diplomacy
a precedent” for stopping verbal communication within so few days
after the delivery of credentials, he rehearsed the story of Erskine’s
arrangement, and justified his refusal of apology or explanation.
In doing so, he allowed himself to insinuate what Canning expressly
asserted in his instructions, that Robert Smith had connived at
Erskine’s misconduct:--
“It was not known when I left England whether Mr. Erskine had,
according to the liberty allowed him, communicated to you
_in extenso_ his original instructions. It now appears
that he did not. But ... I find ... that he has submitted to
your consideration the three conditions specified in those
instructions as the ground-work of an arrangement.... Mr.
Erskine reports, _verbatim et seriatim_, your observations
upon each of the three conditions, and the reasons which induced
you to think that others might be substituted in lieu of them.
It may have been concluded between you that these latter were
an equivalent for the original conditions; but the very act of
substitution evidently shows that those original conditions were
in fact very explicitly communicated to you, and by you, of
course, laid before the President for his consideration.”
After justifying the disavowal of Erskine on the admitted ground that
he had disobeyed instructions, Jackson came to the point of his own
powers. “His Majesty has authorized me,” he said, “notwithstanding
the ungracious manner in which his former offer of satisfaction for
the affair of the ‘Chesapeake’ was received, to renew that which Mr.
Erskine was instructed to make.” As for the Orders in Council, these
had been so far modified by the blockade of April 26 as to make any
formal agreement on that subject seem unnecessary, and he reserved his
proposals until he should hear those of the President.
Two days after this letter was despatched, Robert Smith sent a civil
message that there had been no intention to stop personal intercourse;
“he should be most happy to see me whenever I would call upon him;
we might converse upon indifferent subjects; but that his memory was
so incorrect that it was on his account necessary that in making his
reports to the President he should have some written document to assist
him.”[96] With this excuse for the secretary’s sudden withdrawal from
the field the British minister contented himself until October 19, when
he received an official letter, signed as usual by Robert Smith, but
written with ability such as that good-natured but illiterate Secretary
of State never imagined himself to possess.
The American note of October 19, far too long to quote or even to
abridge, was perhaps the best and keenest paper Madison ever wrote.
His faults of style and vagueness of thought almost wholly disappeared
in the heat of controversy; his defence was cool, his attack keen, as
though his sixty years weighed lightly the day when he first got his
young antagonist at his mercy. He dealt Jackson a fatal blow at the
outset, by reminding him that in July, 1808, only the previous year,
Canning had put an end to oral communication after two interviews with
Pinkney on the subjects under negotiation. He then made three points,
well stated and easily remembered: (1) That when a government refuses
to fulfil a pledge, it owes a formal and frank disclosure of its
reasons. (2) That, in the actual situation, Mr. Erskine’s successor
was the proper channel for that disclosure. (3) That since Mr. Jackson
disclaimed authority to make either explanations or proposals, the
President could do no more than express his willingness to favor any
honorable mode of settling the matters in dispute.
In enlarging on the subjects touched by Jackson’s letter, the President
made more than one remark of the kind that most exasperated the British
minister. Since no settlement of the dispute was possible or even
desired by Jackson, such flashes of Madison’s temper were neither
harmful nor inappropriate, yet they were certainly on the verge of
insult. He told Jackson plainly that Great Britain, by retaining her
so-called retaliation after admitting that it no longer retaliated, was
guilty of deception:--
“You cannot but be sensible that a perseverance under such
circumstances in a system which cannot longer be explained by
its avowed object would force an explanation by some object not
avowed. What object might be considered as best explaining it is
an inquiry into which I do not permit myself to enter, further
than to remark that in relation to the United States it must be
an illegitimate object.”
On the other hand, Madison seemed not to resent, as warmly as he might
have done, the intimation that he had induced Erskine to violate
instructions. The President either affected not to see, or failed fully
to grasp at first, the serious scope of this charge:
“The stress you have laid on what you have been pleased to state
as the substitution of the terms finally agreed on for the terms
first proposed, has excited no small degree of surprise. Certain
it is that your predecessor did present for my consideration
the three conditions which now appear on the printed document;
that he was disposed to urge them more than the nature of two
of them (both palpably inadmissible, and one more than merely
inadmissible) could permit; and that on finding his first
proposals unsuccessful, the more reasonable terms ... were
adopted. And what, sir, is there in this to countenance the
conclusion you have drawn in favor of the right of his Britannic
Majesty to disavow the proceeding? Is anything more common in
public negotiations than to begin with a higher demand, and that
failing, to descend to a lower?”
Contenting himself with the remark that he had for the first time
learned, from Jackson’s note, the restrictions on Erskine’s authority,
the President passed to other points as though unaware that his good
faith was in question.
The letter of October 19 forced Jackson one step backward, and drove
him nearly to the wall. Obliged to choose between the avowal that he
had no proposal to make, or the assertion that he had both explanations
and proposals, he yielded, somewhat surlily, to the weakness of
offering explanations, such as they were, and of inviting proposals
eventually to be embodied in a convention. In a note dated October 23
he answered the American note of October 19.[97] If Madison had doubted
his own advantage, his doubts must have vanished in reading Jackson’s
second note, which shuffled and evaded the issues in a manner peculiar
to disconcerted men; but the most convincing proof of Jackson’s
weakness appeared in the want of judgment he showed in exposing himself
to attack at the moment when he was seeking safety. He committed the
blunder of repeating the charge that Madison was responsible for
Erskine’s violation of instructions:--
“These instructions ... were at the time, in substance, made
known to you.... So far from the terms which he was actually
induced to accept having been contemplated in that instruction,
he himself states that they were substituted by you in lieu of
those originally proposed.”
Jackson’s folly in thus tempting his fate was the more flagrant
because his private letters proved that he knew something of his true
position. “Madison is now as obstinate as a mule,” he wrote October
26.[98] “Until he gets [the absolute surrender of the Orders in
Council] he will not even accept any satisfaction for the affair of the
‘Chesapeake,’ which has been now for the third time offered to him in
vain;” and he added: “There is already a great and growing fermentation
in the United States, which shows itself in a manner highly prejudicial
to the amity and good understanding which doubtless our ministers wish
to see established between the two countries.”
A few days after writing this evidence of his own uneasiness, the
British minister received from the Department of State a third note,
dated November 1, which left no doubt that the President meant to push
his antagonist to extremes. After accepting the explanations at last
made in regard to the Orders in Council, and pointing out that they did
not apply to the case of the “Chesapeake,” Madison requested Jackson
to show his full powers, as an “indispensable preliminary to further
negotiation.” The letter was short, and ended with a stern warning:--
“I abstain, sir, from making any particular animadversions on
several irrelevant and improper allusions in your letter, not
at all comporting with the professed disposition to adjust,
in an amicable manner, the differences unhappily subsisting
between the two countries; but it would be improper to conclude
the few observations to which I purposely limit myself,
without adverting to your repetition of a language implying a
knowledge on the part of this Government that the instructions
of your predecessor did not authorize the arrangement formed
by him. After the explicit and peremptory asseveration that
this Government had no such knowledge, and that with such a
knowledge no such arrangement would have been entered into, the
view which you have again presented of the subject makes it my
duty to apprise you that such insinuations are inadmissible in
the intercourse of a foreign minister with a Government that
understands what it owes to itself.”
This letter placed Jackson in a position which he could not defend, and
from which he thought, perhaps with reason, that he could not without
disgrace retreat. The insinuations he had made were but a cautious
expression of the views he was expressly ordered to take. November 4 he
replied, with more ability than he had hitherto shown, to the letter
of November 1; but he gave himself, for a mere point of temper, into
Madison’s hands.
“I am concerned, sir, to be obliged, a second time, to appeal
to those principles of public law, under the sanction and
protection of which I was sent to this country.... You will find
that in my correspondence with you I have carefully avoided
drawing conclusions that did not necessarily follow from the
premises advanced by me, and least of all should I think of
uttering an insinuation where I was unable to substantiate a
fact. To facts, such as I have become acquainted with them, I
have scrupulously adhered; and in so doing I must continue,
whenever the good faith of his Majesty’s government is called in
question, to vindicate its honor and dignity in the manner that
appears to me best calculated for that purpose.”
When Jackson was sent to Copenhagen with a message whose general tenor
resembled that which he brought to the United States, he was fortunate
enough to be accompanied by twenty ships of the line, forty frigates,
and thirty thousand regular troops. Even with this support, if court
gossip could be believed, King George expressed to him surprise that
he had escaped being kicked downstairs. At Washington he had no other
force on his side than such as his footman or his groom could render,
and the destiny that King George predicted for him could not, by any
diplomatic weapons, be longer escaped. November 8, Secretary Smith
sent to the Legation one more note, which closed Jackson’s diplomatic
career:--
“SIR,--... Finding that in your reply of the 4th
instant you have used a language which cannot be understood but
as reiterating and even aggravating the same gross insinuation,
it only remains, in order to preclude opportunities which are
thus abused, to inform you that no further communications will
be received from you....”
CHAPTER VII.
THE effect of American conciliation upon Canning was immediate
and simple; but the effect of American defiance upon Napoleon will be
understood only by those who forget the fatigue of details in their
interest for Napoleon’s character. The Emperor’s steps in 1809 are not
easily followed. He was overburdened with labor; his motives and policy
shifted as circumstances changed; and among second-rate interests he
lost more habitually than ever the thread of his own labyrinth.
Travelling day and night from Spain in January, 1809, with the same
haste and with something of the same motive as when four years
afterward he posted back to Paris from his Russian disaster, Napoleon
appeared unexpectedly at his capital January 24. The moment was one of
crisis, but a crisis of his own making. He had suffered a political
check in Spain, which he had but partially disguised by a useless
campaign. The same spirit of universal dominion which grasped at Spain
and required the conquest of England, roused resistance elsewhere
almost as desperate as that of the Spaniards and English. Even the
American Congress repealed its embargo and poured its commerce through
so-called neutral ports into the lap of England, while at the same
moment Austria, driven to desperation, prepared to fight for a fourth
time. Napoleon had strong reasons for choosing that moment to force
Austria wholly into his system. Germany stood at his control. Russia
alone could have made the result doubtful; but the Czar was wholly
French. “M. Romanzoff,” wrote Armstrong to the State Department,[99]
“with the fatalism of the Turk, shakes his head at Austria, and asks
what has hitherto been got by opposition; calls to mind the fate of
Prussia, and closes by a pious admonition not to resist the will of
God.”
Toward Austria the Emperor directed all his attention, and rapidly
drove her government into an attitude of resistance the most spirited
and the most desperate taken by any people of Europe except Spain.
Although Austria never wearied of fighting Napoleon, and rarely fought
without credit, her effort to face, in 1809, a Power controlling the
military resources of France, Italy, and Germany, with the moral
support of Russia behind them, had an heroic quality higher than was
shown at any time by any other government in Europe. April 9 the
Austrian army crossed the Inn, and began the war. April 13 Napoleon
left Paris for the Danube, and during the next three months his hands
were full. Austria fought with an energy which put Germany and Russia
to shame.
Such a moment was ill suited for inviting negotiation on American
affairs; but Armstrong received instructions a few days after
Napoleon left Paris, and with these instructions came a copy of the
Non-intercourse Act of March 1, which, while apparently forbidding
intercourse with England and France, notified Napoleon that the United
States would no longer obey his wishes, or keep their industries
from seeking a British market through indirect channels. Armstrong
communicated this Act to the French government in the terms of his
instructions:[100]--
“The undersigned is instructed to add that any interpretation of
the Imperial Decrees of Nov. 21, 1806, and Dec. 17, 1807, which
shall have the effect of leaving unimpaired the maritime rights
of the Union, will be instantaneously followed by a revocation
of the present Act [as regards France] and a re-establishment of
the ordinary commercial intercourse between the two countries.”
May 17 Champagny, then at Munich, having received Armstrong’s letter of
April 29, notified the Minister of Marine,[101]--
“The news of this measure having received an official character
by the communication made to me by the United States minister
on the part of his Government, I think it my duty to transmit to
your Excellency a copy of the law which he has addressed to me.”
Armstrong informed Secretary Robert Smith[102] that nothing need
be expected from this step, unless it were perhaps his own summary
expulsion from France as a result of offence given either by the
Non-intercourse Act or by the language of Armstrong’s despatches
surreptitiously published. Bitterly as Armstrong detested Napoleon,
he understood but little the mind and methods of that unusual
character. Never in his career had the Emperor been busier than when
Armstrong wrote this note to Champagny, but it caught his attention
at once. He had fought one battle after another, and in five days had
captured forty thousand men and a hundred pieces of cannon; he had
entered Vienna May 10, and had taken his quarters at Schönbrunn, the
favorite palace of the Austrian emperor. There he was in a position
of no little difficulty, in spite of his military successes, when his
courier brought him despatches from Paris containing news that the
United States, March 1, had repealed the embargo, and that the British
government, April 26, had withdrawn the Orders in Council of November,
1807, and had substituted a mere blockade of Holland, France, and
Italy. The effect of these two events was greatly increased by their
coming together.
At first Napoleon seemed to feel no occasion for altering his course.
After reading Armstrong’s letter, he dictated May 18 a reply which was
to serve as the legal argument to justify his refusal of concessions.
His decrees were founded on eternal principles, and could not be
revoked:--
“The seas belong to all nations. Every vessel sailing under the
flag of any nation whatever, recognized and avowed by it, ought
to be on the ocean as if it were in its own ports. The flag
flying from the mast of a merchantman ought to be respected as
though it were on the top of a village steeple.... To insult a
merchant-vessel carrying the flag of any Power is to make an
incursion into a village or a colony belonging to that Power.
His Majesty declares that he considers the vessels of all
nations as floating colonies belonging to the said nations. In
result of this principle, the sovereignty and independence of
one nation are a property of its neighbors.”[103]
The conclusion that the sovereignty and independence of every nation
were the property of France, and that a floating colony denationalized
by the visit of a foreign officer became the property of Napoleon,
involved results too extreme for general acceptance. Arbitrary as the
Emperor was, he could act only through agents, and could not broach
such doctrines without meeting remonstrance. His dissertation on the
principles of the _jus gentium_ was sent May 18 to Champagny. Four
days afterward, May 22, Napoleon fought the battle of Essling, in which
he lost fifteen or twenty thousand men and suffered a serious repulse.
Even this absorbing labor, and the critical situation that followed,
did not long interrupt his attention to American business. May 26,
Champagny made to the Emperor a report[104] on American affairs,
taking ground altogether different from that chosen by Napoleon.
After narrating the story of the various orders, decrees, blockades,
embargoes, and non-intercourse measures, Champagny discussed them in
their practical effect on the interests and industries of France:--
“The fact cannot be disguised; the interruption of neutral
commerce which has done much harm to England has been also a
cause of loss to France. The staple products of our territory
have ceased to be sold. Those that were formerly exported are
lost, or are stored away, leaving impoverished both the owner
who produced them and the dealer who put them on the market. One
of our chief sources of prosperity is dried up. Our interest
therefore leads us toward America, whose commerce would still
furnish an ample outlet for several of our products, and
would bring us either materials of prime necessity for our
manufactures, or produce the use of which has become almost a
necessity, and which we would rather not owe to our enemies.”
For these reasons Champagny urged the Emperor not to persist in
punishing America, but to charge M. d’Hauterive, the acting Minister of
Foreign Relations at Paris, with the duty of discussing with General
Armstrong the details of an arrangement. Champagny supported his advice
by urging that England had made advances to America, had revoked
her orders of November, 1807, and seemed about to turn the French
Decrees against France. “It will always be in your Majesty’s power to
evade this result. A great step to this end will be taken when Mr.
Armstrong is made aware that your Majesty is disposed to interpret your
commercial decrees favorably for the Americans, provided measures be
taken that no tribute shall be paid to England, and that their efficacy
shall be assured. Such will be the object of M. d’Hauterive’s mission.”
Napoleon, impressed by Champagny’s reasoning, fortified by the news
that Erskine had settled the commercial disputes between England and
America, sent to Champagny the draft of a new decree,[105] which
declared that inasmuch as the United States by their firm resistance to
the arbitrary measures of England had obtained the revocation of the
British Orders of November, 1807, and were no longer obliged to pay
imposts to the British government, therefore the Milan Decree of Dec.
17, 1807, should be withdrawn, and neutral commerce should be replaced
where it stood under the Berlin Decree of Nov. 21, 1806.
This curious paper was sent June 10 to Paris for a report from
the Treasury as to its probable effects. June 13 Champagny sent
instructions to Hauterive[106] directing him to begin negotiation with
Armstrong. Far from overlooking either the intention or the effect
of the Non-intercourse Act, Champagny complained that it was unfair
to France and “almost an act of violence;” but he did not resent it.
“The Emperor is not checked by this consideration; he feels neither
prejudice nor resentment against the Americans, but he remains firm in
his projects of resisting British pretensions. The measures taken by
England will chiefly decide his measures.” Champagny explained that the
Emperor hesitated to issue the new decree already forwarded for the
inspection of the customs authorities, not because any change had taken
place in the reasons given for its policy, but because the arrangement
of Erskine was said to be disavowed.
“What has prevented the Emperor till now from coming to a
decision in this respect is the news contained in the English
journals of an arrangement between England and America, and
announced by a Proclamation of the President of the United
States, April 19, 1806. If from this act should result the
certainty that the English renounce their principle of blockade,
then the Emperor would revoke the whole of his measures relative
to neutral commerce. But the ‘Gazette de France’ of June 5, for
I have no other authority, pretends that the British ministry
refuse to sanction the arrangement concluded in America; and
the result of all this is an extreme uncertainty, which prevents
a decision as to the course proper to be taken.”
This was the situation of the American dispute June 13, 1809, at
Vienna, at the moment Canning’s disavowal of Erskine became certain.
Thus far Napoleon’s mind had passed through two changes,--the first,
in consequence of the British Order in Council of April 26, which
led him to decide on withdrawing the Milan Decree; the second, in
consequence of Erskine’s arrangement, which led him to promise America
everything she asked. The news of Canning’s refusal to carry out the
arrangement stopped Napoleon short in his career of concession; he left
the American affair untouched until after the battle of Wagram, July 6,
which was followed by the submission of Austria, July 12. The battle
of Wagram placed him in a position to defy resistance. Immediately
afterward he sent orders to Paris to stop Hauterive’s negotiation.
About the middle of July Hauterive told the American minister “that a
change had taken place in the views of the Emperor; and in particular
that a decree prepared by his orders as a substitute for those of
November, 1806, and December, 1807, and which would have been a very
material step toward accommodation, had been laid aside.”[107]
In the heat and fury of the battle of Wagram this order must have been
given, for it was known at Paris only one week afterward, and Armstrong
reported the message, July 24, as a notice that unless America resisted
the British doctrines of search and blockade she need expect no
relaxation on the part of Napoleon; while this notice was supported by
a menace that until the Emperor knew the President’s decision he would
take no step to make matters worse than they already were.[108]
If Armstrong put trust in this last promise or menace, he showed once
more his want of sympathy with the Emperor’s character. Quick to yield
before an evident disaster, Napoleon was equally quick to exhaust the
fruits of an evident victory; and the advantage he had obtained over
the United States was as decided, if not as extensive, as that which
he had gained over Austria. In one way or another America must pay for
rebellion, and she could be made to pay only by the usual process of
seizing her commerce.
June 7, while the Emperor was still hesitating or leaning to
concession, Decrès, his Minister of Marine, wrote to him that an
American schooner with a cargo of colonial produce had arrived at
San Sebastian May 20, and that more such vessels must be expected to
arrive, since the Non-intercourse Act had opened the trade to Spanish
ports. What should be done with them? The French Decrees denationalized
every vessel which went to England, or wished to go there, or had
been visited by an English cruiser, or had violated the laws of the
United States, or had incurred suspicion of fraud; but the schooner in
question was under no suspicion of fraud,--she had not been to England,
nor had she ever thought of going there; she had not been stopped by
any cruiser; she was in a Spanish port, nominally outside of French
jurisdiction, and she was authorized in going there by the law of
the United States. Here was an unforeseen case, and Decrès properly
referred it to the Emperor.[109]
Decrès’ letter reached Vienna about June 13, the day when Champagny
described the Emperor as vexed by an extreme uncertainty on American
affairs. The subject was referred to the Minister of Finance. No
decision seems to have been reached until August. Then Maret, the
Secretary of State in personal attendance on the Emperor, created Duc
de Bassano a few days later, enclosed to Champagny, August 4, the draft
of a new decree,[110] which was never published, but furnished the clew
to most of the intricate movements of Napoleon for the following year:--
“Napoleon, etc.,--considering that the American Congress by its
Act of March 1, 1809, has forbidden the entrance of its ports to
all French vessels under penalty of confiscation of ships and
cargo,--on the report of our Minister of Finance have decreed
and decree what follows:--
“Art. 1. The American schooner loaded with colonial produce and
entered at San Sebastian the 20th May, 1809, will be seized and
confiscated.
“Art. 2. The merchandise composing the cargo of the vessel
will be conveyed to Bayonne, there to be sold, and the produce
of the sale paid into the _caisse de l’amortissement_
(sinking-fund).
“Art. 3. Every American ship which shall enter the ports of
France, Spain, or Italy will be equally seized and confiscated,
as long as the same measure shall continue to be executed in
regard to French vessels in the harbors of the United States.”
Probably the ministers united in objecting to a general confiscation
founded on the phrase of a penalty which the customs laws of every
country necessarily contained. Whatever the reason, this draft rested
in the files of the office over which Champagny presided, and the
Emperor seemed to forget it; but its advantages from his standpoint
were too great to be lost, and its principle was thenceforward his
guide.
Not even Armstrong, suspicious as he was of Napoleon’s intentions,
penetrated the projected policy; yet Armstrong was by no means an
ordinary minister, and his information was usually good. At the moment
when he received what he supposed to be the promise that Napoleon would
not make matters worse until he heard what the President had to say,
Armstrong warned his Government that this assurance was intended as a
menace rather than as a pledge:[111]--
“What will satisfy him on even these points, particularly the
former, is not distinctly explained. Our creed on this subject
is one thing; that of the British government another; and the
French doctrine of visit, a third. When we speak of illegal
search, we mean that which claims the right of impressment also;
but according to the imperial decrees and their commentators,
the offence is equally great whatever may be the object of the
visit,--whether it be to demand half your crew, or to ascertain
only the port from which you sailed, the nature of your cargo,
or the character of your flag. This is pushing things to a point
whither we cannot follow them, and which, if I do not mistake,
is selected because it is a point of that description.”
Before the month of August, Napoleon reverted more energetically than
ever to his old practice and policy. Within Armstrong’s reach remained
only one influence strong enough to offer a momentary resistance to
imperial orders, and thither he turned. The kingdom of Holland was
still nominally independent, and its trade an object of interest.
While England shaped her policy to favor the licensed or smuggling
trade with Dutch ports, the United States risked their relations with
England and France by treating Holland as an independent neutral.
Yet the nominal independence of Holland was due only to the accident
that had made Louis its king, as it had made his brother Joseph king
of Spain,--not wholly with a view to please them, but also to secure
obedience to Napoleon’s orders and energy to his system. No one would
willingly deprive any member of Napoleon’s family of virtues which the
world allowed them; yet none but a Bonaparte thoroughly understood a
Bonaparte, and Napoleon’s opinion of his brothers, as their opinions
of him, stand highest in authority. Napoleon was often generous and
sometimes forbearing with his brothers, and left them no small freedom
to seek popularity at his expense; but they were nothing except as they
represented him, and their ideas of independence or of philanthropy
showed entire misunderstanding of their situation. Of all Napoleon’s
brothers, Louis was the one with whom he was most reasonably offended.
Lucien at least did not wait to be made a king before he rebelled; but
Louis accepted the throne, and then intrigued persistently against the
Emperor’s orders. From the moment he went to Holland he assumed to be
an independent monarch, devoted to winning popularity. He would not
execute the Berlin Decree until Napoleon threatened to march an army
upon him; he connived at its evasion; he issued licenses and admitted
cargoes as he pleased; and he did this with such systematic disregard
of remonstrance that Napoleon became at last angry.
July 17, some days after the battle of Wagram, the Emperor wrote from
Vienna to Louis,[112]--
“You complain of a newspaper article; it is France that has a
right to complain of the bad spirit which reigns with you.... It
may not be your fault, but it is none the less true that Holland
is an English province.”
At the same time he ordered Champagny to notify the Dutch government
officially that if it did not of its own accord place itself on the
same footing with France, it would be in danger of war.[113]
While this correspondence was still going on, Armstrong imagined that
he might obtain some advantage by visiting Holland. He amused himself
during the idle August by a journey to Amsterdam, where he obtained,
August 19, a private interview with King Louis. Three days before,
Flushing had capitulated to the English expedition which was supposed
to be threatening Antwerp. At Vienna Napoleon was negotiating for
peace, and between the obstinacy of Austria and the British attacks on
Madrid and Antwerp he found himself ill at ease. President Madison had
just issued his Proclamation of August 9 reviving the Non-intercourse
Act, which kept open the American trade with Holland. Everywhere the
situation was confused, irritable, and hard to understand. A general
system of cross-purposes seemed to govern the political movements of
the world.
King Louis told Armstrong that he was quarrelling seriously with the
Emperor on account of the American trade, but was bent on protecting
it at all hazards. This declaration to a foreign minister accredited
not to himself but to his brother, showed Louis attempting with the
aid of foreign nations a systematic opposition to Napoleon’s will.
He denounced his brother’s system as “the triumph of immorality over
justice.... The system is bad,--so bad that it cannot last; but in
the mean time we are the sufferers.” Even the British expedition to
Walcheren troubled Louis chiefly because it forced him under his
brother’s despotism. “It is an erring policy, and will have no solid
or lasting effect but that of drawing upon us a French army which will
extinguish all that is left of ancient Holland. Can it be wisdom in
England to see this country a province of France?”
With such comfort as Armstrong could draw from the knowledge that
Napoleon’s brothers were as hostile as President Madison to the
imperial system, he returned to Paris, September 6, to wait the further
development of the Emperor’s plans. He found on his arrival two notes
from Champagny at Vienna. One of these despatches expressed a civil
hope, hardly felt by the Emperor,[114] that Armstrong would not for the
present carry out his project of returning to America. The other, dated
August 22, was nothing less than a revised and permanent form of the
Emperor’s essay on the _jus gentium_, which Champagny since May
18 had kept in his portfolio.[115]
In Champagny’s hands Napoleon’s views lost freshness without gaining
legality. The “village steeple” disappeared, but with some modification
the “floating colony” remained, and the principle of free seas was
carried to its extreme results:--
“A merchant-vessel sailing with all the necessary papers
(_avec les expéditions_) from its government is a floating
colony. To do violence to such a vessel by visits, by searches,
and by other acts of an arbitrary authority is to violate the
territory of a colony; this is to infringe on the independence
of its government.... The right, or rather the pretension, of
blockading by a proclamation rivers and coasts, is as monstrous
(_révoltante_) as it is absurd. A right cannot be derived
from the will or the caprice of one of the interested parties,
but ought to be derived from the nature of things themselves. A
place is not truly blockaded until it is invested by land and
sea.”
Every one could understand that to assert such principles was an
impossibility for neutrals, and was so meant by Napoleon. He had no
thought of making demands which England could accept. The destruction
of her naval power was his favorite object after the year 1805. The
battle of Wagram confirmed him in his plan, and Louis’ opposition
counted for even less than Armstrong’s diplomacy in checking the energy
of his will. As he ordered Louis, so he ordered Madison, to obey; and
thanks to the obstinacy of Spencer Perceval, both had no choice but to
assist his scheme. As an answer to the American offer expressed in the
Non-intercourse Act, Champagny’s despatch of August 22 was final; but
to preclude a doubt, it closed by saying that the ports of Holland, of
the Elbe and the Weser, of Italy and of Spain, would not be allowed to
enjoy privileges of which French ports were deprived, and that whenever
England should revoke her blockades and Orders in Council, France would
revoke her retaliatory decrees.
Without suicide, England could hardly accept the principles required
by this note; nor had she reason to suppose that her acceptance would
satisfy Napoleon’s demands. As though to encourage her in obstinacy,
the note was printed in the “Moniteur” of October 6, by the Emperor’s
order, before it could have reached America. This unusual step served
no purpose except to give public notice that France would support
England in restricting American rights; it strengthened the hands of
Spencer Perceval and took away the last chance of American diplomacy,
if a chance still existed. Yet neither this stroke nor the severity
foreshadowed by the secret Decree of Vienna was the only punishment
inflicted by Napoleon on the United States for the Non-intercourse Act
and Erskine’s arrangement.
The principle of the Vienna Decree required confiscation of American
commerce in retaliation for penalties imposed on French ships that
should knowingly violate the Non-intercourse Act. Although this
rule and the Bayonne Decree seemed to cover all ordinary objects
of confiscation, the Emperor adopted the supplementary rule that
American merchandise was English property in disguise. In the month
of November a cotton-spinner near Paris, the head of a very large
establishment, petitioned for leave to import about six hundred
bales of American cotton. His petition was returned to him with the
indorsement: “Rejected, as the cotton belongs to American commerce.”
The severity of the refusal surprised every one the more because the
alternative was to use Portuguese--that is to say English--cotton,
or to encourage the consumption of fabrics made wholly in England,
of English materials.[116] Having decided to seize all American
merchandise that should arrive in France on private account, and having
taken into his own hands the business of selling this property as well
as of admitting other merchandise by license, Napoleon protected what
became henceforward his personal interests, by shutting the door to
competition.[117] Armstrong caught glimpses of this stratagem even
before it had taken its finished shape.
“I am privately informed,” wrote Armstrong December 10, “that
General Loison has left Paris charged to take hold of all
British property, or property suspected of being such in the
ports of Bilbao, San Sebastian, Pasages, etc. The latter part
of the rule is no doubt expressly intended to reach American
property. With the General goes a mercantile man who will be
known in the market as his friend and protégé, and who of course
will be the exclusive purchaser of the merchandise which shall
be seized and sold as British. This is a specimen at once of the
violence and corruption which enter into the present system;
and of a piece with this is the whole business of licenses, to
which, I am sorry to add, our countrymen lend themselves with
great facility.”
Under such conditions commerce between the United States and France
seemed impossible. One prohibition crowded upon another. First came
the Berlin Decree of Nov. 21, 1806, which turned away or confiscated
every American vessel voluntarily entering a British port after that
date. Second, followed the Milan Decree of Nov. 11, 1807, which
denationalized and converted into English property every American
ship visited by a British cruiser or sent into a British port, or
which had paid any tax to the British government. Third, the Bayonne
Decree of April 5, 1808, sequestered all American vessels arriving
in France subsequent to the embargo, as being presumably British
property. Fourth, the American Non-intercourse Act of March 1, 1809,
prohibited all commerce with France or her dependencies. Fifth, the
British Orders in Council of April 26, 1809, established a blockade
of the whole coast of France. Sixth, the secret Decree of Vienna, of
August, 1809, enforced in principle, sequestered every American vessel
arriving within the Emperor’s military control, in reprisal for the
Non-intercourse Act which threatened French ships with confiscation.
Yet with all this, and greatly to General Armstrong’s displeasure,
American ships in considerable numbers entered the ports of France,
and, what was still more incomprehensible, were even allowed to leave
them.
CHAPTER VIII.
UNDER these circumstances President Madison was to meet Congress; but
bad as his situation was in foreign affairs, his real troubles lay
not abroad but at home. France never counted with him as more than an
instrument to act on England. Erskine and Canning, by their united
efforts, had so mismanaged English affairs that Madison derived from
their mismanagement all the strength he possessed. The mission of
Jackson to Washington retrieved a situation that offered no other
advantage.
Jackson lost no occasion to give the President popularity.
Comprehending at last that his high tone had only helped his opponent
to carry out a predetermined course, Jackson lost self-confidence
without gaining tact. At first he sustained himself by faith in
Canning; but within a short time he heard with alarm the news from
England that Canning was no longer in office or in credit. For a
few days after the rupture he had a right to hope that the quarrel
would not be pressed to a scandal; but November 13, the “National
Intelligencer” published an official statement which embarrassed
Jackson to the last point of endurance.
“I came prepared to treat with a regular government,” he wrote
to his brother,[118] “and have had to do with a mob, and mob
leaders. That I did not show an equal facility with Erskine to
be duped by them has been my great crime.”
That Jackson should be angry was natural, and if he was abusive, he
received an ample equivalent in abuse; but his merits as a diplomatist
were supposed to be his courage and his truth, and these he could not
afford to compromise. He had neither said nor done more than stood in
his express orders. Canning’s instructions charged Madison with fraud:
“The American government cannot have believed that such an
arrangement as Mr. Erskine consented to accept was conformable
to his instructions.... They cannot by possibility have believed
that without any new motive, and without any apparent change in
the dispositions of the enemy, the British government could have
been disposed at once and unconditionally to give up the system
on which they had been acting.”
This ground Jackson had been ordered to take in any “preliminary
discussion” which might “in all probability” arise before he could
enter on the details of his negotiation. In obedience to these
instructions, and well within their limits, Jackson had gone as near
as he dared to telling the President that he alone was to blame for
the disavowal of Erskine, because Erskine’s instructions “were at the
time in substance made known” to him. In subsequently affirming that
he made no insinuation which he could not substantiate, Jackson still
kept to what he believed the truth; and he reiterated in private what
he insinuated officially, that Erskine had been “duped” by the American
government. November 16 he wrote officially to the Foreign Office that
without the slightest doubt the President had full and entire knowledge
of Erskine’s instruction No. 2.[119] These views were consistent and
not unreasonable, but no man could suppose them to be complimentary
to President Madison; yet November 13 Jackson caused his secretary,
Oakeley, to send in his name an official note to the Secretary of
State, complaining of the rupture and rehearsing the charges, with the
conclusion that “in stating these facts, and in adhering to them, as
his duty imperiously enjoined him to do, Mr. Jackson could not imagine
that offence would be taken at it by the American government, as most
certainly none could be intended on his part.”[120] He then addressed
the same counter-statement as a circular to the various British
consuls in the United States, and caused it to be printed in the
newspapers,[121]--thus making an appeal to the people against their own
Government, not unlike the more famous appeal which the French Minister
Genet made in 1793 against President Washington.
In extremely bad temper Jackson quitted the capital. His wife wrote to
her friends in joy at the prospect of shortening her stay in a country
which could offer her only the tribute of ignorant admiration; but even
she showed a degree of bitterness in her pleasure, and her comments
on American society had more value than many official documents in
explaining the attitude of England toward the United States:--
“Francis, being accustomed to treat with the civilized courts
and governments of Europe, and not with savage Democrats,
half of them sold to France, has not succeeded in his
negotiation.”[122]
At Washington she had seen few ladies besides Mrs. Madison, “une bonne,
grosse femme, de la classe bourgeoise, ... sans distinction,” and also,
to do her justice, “sans prétensions;” who did the British minister’s
wife the honor to copy her toilettes. Immediately after the rupture
Mrs. Jackson went to Baltimore, where she was received with enthusiasm
by society; but Baltimore satisfied her little better than Washington:
“Between ourselves their cuisine is detestable; coarse table-linen,
no claret, champagne and madeira indifferent.” Only as the relative
refinement of New York and Boston was reached, with the flattery
lavished upon the British minister by the Federalist society of the
commercial cities, did Mrs. Jackson and her husband in some degree
recover their composure and their sense of admitted superiority.
Incredible as the folly of a political party was apt to be, the folly
of the Federalists in taking up Jackson’s quarrel passed the limits
of understanding. After waiting to receive their tone from England,
the Federalist newspapers turned on their own path and raised the cry
that Madison had deceived Erskine, and had knowingly entered into an
arrangement which England could not carry out. The same newspapers
which in April agreed with John Randolph that Canning had obtained
through Erskine all he had ever asked or had a right to expect, averred
in October that Erskine surrendered everything and got nothing in
return. No political majority, still less a minority, could survive
a somersault so violent as this; and the Federalists found that all
their late recruits, and many friends hitherto stanch, deserted them
in the autumn elections. Throughout the country the Administration
was encouraged by great changes in the popular vote, even before the
rupture with Jackson. With confidence, Madison might expect the more
important spring elections to sweep opposition from his path. Although
a whole year, and in some cases eighteen months, must pass before a new
Congress could be chosen, the people were already near the war point.
Vermont chose a Republican governor and a legislature Republican
in both branches. In Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey the
Administration recovered more than the ground lost by the embargo.
In Maryland the feud between Samuel Smith and his opponents was
ended by a Republican majority so large that nothing could prevent
Smith’s return to the Senate, although every one knew that he would
carry on a system of personal opposition, if he dared, and that a
moderate Federalist would be less dangerous to the Administration.
In the general return of deserters to the ranks, the party would not
be too strict in its punishments; and the President set the example
by clemency to the worst offender, except John Randolph, of all the
trusted lieutenants in the party service. He held out a hand to Monroe.
Madison’s reasons for winning Monroe were strong. The more he had to do
with Robert Smith, the more intolerable became the incubus of Smith’s
incompetence. He had been obliged to take the negotiations with Erskine
and Jackson wholly on his own shoulders. The papers drafted by Smith
were, as Madison declared,[123] brought from the Department of State
in a condition “almost always so crude and inadequate that I was, in
the more important cases, generally obliged to write them anew myself,
under the disadvantage sometimes of retaining through delicacy some
mixture of his draft.” Smith had not even the virtue of dullness. He
could not be silent, but talked openly, and criticised freely the
measures of Government, especially those of commercial restriction.
Complicated with this incessant annoyance was Gallatin’s feud. The
combination of the Smiths with Giles, Leib, and Duane’s “Aurora”
against Gallatin had its counterpart in the Clintonian faction which
made Madison its target; and whenever these two forces acted together,
they made, with the Federalists, a majority of the Senate. Gallatin
saw the necessity of breaking down this combination of intrigue which
had already done incalculable harm by forcing Robert Smith into the
State Department. He foresaw the effects of its influence in weakening
the Treasury in order to expel himself. On a visit to Monticello in
August he spoke plainly to Jefferson and Madison, and pointed out the
probability that he should be forced to resign. Jefferson reflected six
weeks on this communication, and then wrote entreating him to stand
firm.[124] November 8, the day of the rupture with Jackson, Gallatin
answered Jefferson’s appeal in a long and outspoken letter evidently
meant for communication to Madison:--
“It has seemed to me from various circumstances that those who
thought they had injured were disposed to destroy, and that
they were sufficiently skillful and formidable to effect their
object. As I may not, however, perhaps, see their actions
with an unprejudiced eye, nothing but irresistible evidence
both of the intention and success will make me yield to that
consideration.... I do not ask that in the present situation
of our foreign relations the debt be reduced, but only that
it shall not be increased so long as we are not at war. I do
not pretend to step out of my own sphere and to control the
internal management of other departments; but it seems to me
that as Secretary of the Treasury I may ask, that, while peace
continues, the aggregate of the expenditure of those departments
be kept within bounds such as will preserve the equilibrium
between the national revenue and expenditure without recurrence
to loans. I cannot consent to act the part of a mere financier,
to become a contriver of taxes, a dealer of loans, a seeker of
resources for the purpose of supporting useless baubles, of
increasing the number of idle and dissipated members of the
community, of fattening contractors, pursers, and agents, and of
introducing in all its ramifications that system of patronage,
corruption, and rottenness which you so justly execrate.”
From this avowal Madison’s difficulties could be understood and his
course foreseen. Very slow to move, he was certain at last to quarrel
with the senatorial faction that annoyed him. He could not but
protect Gallatin, and dismiss Smith. At the end of the vista, however
far the distance, stood the inevitable figure of Monroe. Scarcely
another man in public life could fill precisely the gap, and none
except Armstrong could give strength to the President by joining him.
Perhaps Littleton Tazewell, another distinguished Virginian of the
same school, would have answered the President’s purpose as well as
Monroe; but probably Tazewell would have declined to accept a seat in
the Cabinet of a President whose election he had opposed.[125] Madison
decided to take the first step. He had reason to think that Monroe
repeated his course, at least to the extent of wishing reconciliation.
He authorized Jefferson to act as mediator; and the Ex-President,
who spared no effort for harmony, hastened to tell Monroe that the
government of Louisiana was still at his disposal.[126] Monroe declined
the office as being beneath his previous positions, but said that he
would have accepted the first place in Madison’s Cabinet, and was
sincere in his desire for the success of the Administration; he even
pledged his support, and intimated that he had lost favor with John
Randolph owing to, his exertions for Madison. When Jefferson reported
the result of this interview, the President replied:[127] “The state
of Colonel Monroe’s mind is very nearly what I had supposed; his
willingness to have taken a seat in the Cabinet is what I had not
supposed.” Considering the state of Monroe’s mind in 1808, Madison
might be excused for failing to see that Monroe would accept the State
Department in February, 1809. Indeed, the suddenness of the change
would have startled Monroe’s best friends; and even in December, 1809,
he would have fared ill had his remarks to Jefferson been brought to
John Randolph’s ears.
Monroe’s adhesion having been thus attested, Madison made no immediate
use of the recruit, but held him in reserve until events should
make action necessary. Perhaps this delay was one of Madison’s
constitutional mistakes, and possibly a prompt removal of Robert
Smith might have saved some of the worst disasters that befell the
Government; but in truth Madison’s embarrassments rose from causes that
only time could cure, and were inherent in American society itself. A
less competent administrative system seldom drifted, by reason of its
incompetence, into war with a superior enemy. No department of the
government was fit for its necessary work.
Of the State Department, its chief, and its long series of mortifying
disasters, enough has been said. In November, 1809, it stood helpless
in the face of intolerable insults from all the European belligerents.
Neither the diplomatic nor the consular system was better than a
makeshift, and precisely where the Government felt most need of
ministers,--at Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin, and St. Petersburg,--it
had no diplomatic and but few consular agents, even these often of
foreign allegiance.
The Treasury, hitherto the only successful Executive department, showed
signs of impending collapse, not to be avoided without sacrifices and
efforts which no one was willing to make. The accounts for the year
ending September 30 showed that while the receipts had amounted to
$9,300,000, the actual expenses had exceeded $10,600,000. The deficit
of $1,300,000, as well as reimbursements of debt to the amount of
$6,730,000, had been made good from the balance in the Treasury. The
new fiscal year began with a balance of only $5,000,000; so that
without a considerable curtailment of expenses, a loan or increased
taxation, or both, could not be avoided. Increased taxation was the
terror of parties. Curtailment of expense could be effected only on the
principle that as the government did nothing well, it might as well do
nothing. Any intelligent expenditure, no matter how large or how small,
would have returned a thousand-fold interest to the country, whatever
had been the financial cost; but the waste of money on gunboats and
useless cruisers, or upon an army so badly organized and commanded
as to be a hindrance in war, was an expense that might perhaps be
curtailed, though only by admitting political incapacity.
Naturally Gallatin threatened to resign. Even by submitting to the
Smiths, Duanes, Gileses, and Leibs, and allowing them to cut off the
sources or waste the supplies of public revenue until the government
became an habitual beggar, he could promise himself no advantage.
Never had the chance of finding an end to the public embarrassments
seemed so remote. The position in which the government stood could not
be maintained, but could be abandoned only by creating still greater
difficulties. Intended merely as a makeshift, the Non-intercourse
Act of March 1, 1809, had already proved more mischievous to America
than to the countries it purported to punish. While the three great
commercial nations--France, England, and the United States--were
forcing trade into strange channels or trying to dam its course,
trade took care of itself in defiance of war and prohibitions. As
one coast after another was closed or opened to commerce, countries
whose names could hardly be found on the map--Papenburg, Kniphausen,
Tönningen--became famous as neutrals, and their flags covered the
sea, because England and France found them convenient for purposes
of illegitimate trade. The United States had also their Papenburg.
Amelia Island and the St. Mary’s River, which divided Florida from
Georgia, half Spanish and half American waters, became the scene of a
trade that New York envied. While the shore was strewn with American
cotton and other produce waiting shipment in foreign vessels, scores
of British ships were discharging merchandise to be smuggled into the
United States, or were taking on board heavy freights of cotton or
naval stores on American account. To the United States this manner of
trading caused twofold loss. Not only were the goods charged with a
double voyage and all the costly incidents of a smuggling business, and
not only did the American ship-owner lose the freight on this American
merchandise, both outward and inward, but the United States government
collected no duties on the British goods smuggled from Amelia Island,
Bermuda, and Halifax. The Non-intercourse Act prohibited French and
British merchandise; but in disregard of the prohibition such goods
were freely sold in every shop. Erskine’s arrangement, short as it
was, brought in a fresh and large supply; custom-house oaths were
cheap; custom-house officials did not inquire closely whether cloth was
made in England, France, Holland, or Germany, or whether rum, sugar,
and coffee came from St. Kitt’s or St. Bart’s. Some sorts of English
goods, such as low-priced woollens, were necessities; and the most
patriotic citizen could hardly pay so much respect to the laws of his
country as to dispense with their use by his family, whatever he did on
his own account. Finally, a law which in the eyes of a community was
not respectable was not respected. The community had no other defence
against bad legislation; and in a democracy the spirit of personal
freedom deserved cultivation to the full as much as that of respect for
bad law. The Non-intercourse Act was not only a bad law,--the result of
admitted legislative imbecility,--but it had few or no defenders even
among those who obeyed it.
Ingenuity could hardly have invented a system less advantageous for
the government and people who maintained it. The government lost its
revenue, the shipping lost much of its freight, the people paid double
prices on imports and received half-prices for their produce; industry
was checked, speculation and fraud were stimulated, while certain
portions of the country were grievously wronged. Especially in the
Southern States all articles produced for exchange were depressed to
the lowest possible value, while all articles imported for consumption
were raised to extravagant rates. Elisha Potter, a Congressman from
Rhode Island, complained with reason that the system made the rich more
rich and the poor more poor.[128] In a crowded or in a highly organized
society such a system would probably have created a revolution; but
America had not yet reached such a stage of growth or decay, and the
worst effect of her legislation was to impoverish the government which
adopted and the class of planters who chiefly sustained it.
Gallatin best knew how much the Non-intercourse Act or any other system
of commercial restriction weakened the Treasury. He knew that neither
the President nor Congress offered the germ of a better plan. He faced
an indefinite future of weakness and waste, with a prospect of war at
the end; but this was not the worst. His enemies who were disposed to
destroy, were skilful enough to invent the means of destruction. They
might deprive him of the United States Bank, his only efficient ally;
they might reject every plan, and let the Treasury slowly sink into
ruin; they might force the country into a war for no other object than
to gratify their personal jealousies. Gallatin believed them capable of
all this, and Madison seemed to share the belief. The Treasury which
had till that time sustained the Republican party through all its
troubles, stood on the verge of disaster.
From the military and naval departments nothing had ever been
expected; but their condition was worse than their own chiefs
understood. The machinery of both broke down as Madison took control.
The navy consisted of a few cruisers and a large force of gunboats.
Neither were of immediate use; but a considerable proportion of both
were in active service, if service could be called active which chiefly
consisted in lying in harbor or fitting for harbor defence when no
enemy was expected. No sooner had Paul Hamilton succeeded Robert Smith
at the navy department than the new secretary became aware that his
predecessor had wasted a very large sum of money.[129] Hamilton made no
concealment of his opinion that gunboats were expensive beyond relation
to their value.[130] He intimated that the life of gunboats hardly
exceeded one year, and that their value depended on the correct answer
to the inquiry whether war was a defensive or aggressive operation.
This hint that gunboats could do no harm to their enemies seemed to
gain force from the suggestion that they had yet to prove their uses
for their friends; but if Jefferson’s gunboat system should prove to
be a failure, nothing would be left of the navy except a few frigates
and sloops which could hardly keep the sea in the event of war with
England. The navy was a sink of money.
The army was something worse. At least the navy contained as good
officers and seamen as the world could show, and no cruisers of their
class were likely to be more efficient than the frigates commanded
by Rodgers, Bainbridge, and Decatur, provided they could escape a
more numerous enemy; but the army was worthless throughout, and its
deficiency in equipment was a trifling evil compared with the effects
of political influence on its organization. The first attempt to
raise the army to efficiency ended in scandalous failure within a
few months. Among a thousand obstacles to any satisfactory reform in
the military service, the most conspicuous if not the most fatal was
General Wilkinson, whom President Jefferson could not and would not
sacrifice, but whose character and temper divided the army into two
hostile camps. Wade Hampton, the next general officer in rank, regarded
Wilkinson with extreme contempt, and most of the younger officers who
were not partisans of Jefferson shared Hampton’s prejudice; but July
4, 1808, a military court of inquiry formally acquitted Wilkinson of
being a Spanish pensioner. President Jefferson had already saved him
from court-martial on account of his relations with Burr, and Secretary
Dearborn restored him to command over an army whose interests required
an officer of other qualities.
When Madison and Gallatin in December, 1808, looked to a declaration
of war, their first anxiety concerned New Orleans and West Florida.
December 2, 1808, Secretary Dearborn gave Wilkinson, then at
Washington, orders to direct the new levies of troops toward New
Orleans, and to be ready to take command there in person as soon as
practicable. In pursuance of these orders, two thousand raw soldiers
were directed upon New Orleans from different quarters, and in the
midst of war preparations, Jan. 24, 1809, Wilkinson himself embarked
from Baltimore.[131] Stopping at Annapolis, Norfolk, and Charleston, he
passed six weeks on the Atlantic coast. After the overthrow of the war
policy and the close of the session he sailed March 12 from Charleston,
and in his mysterious way stopped at Havana and then at Pensacola,
“under a special mission from the Executive of the United States.”
April 19 he re-entered New Orleans, the scene of his exploits three
years before; and he returned as a victor, triumphant over Daniel Clark
and the Burr conspirators, as well as over Governor Claiborne, Wade
Hampton, and all ill-wishers in the subordinate ranks of the army, of
whom Captain Winfield Scott was one.
Wilkinson found at New Orleans, in his own words,[132]--
“A body of two thousand undisciplined recruits, men and officers
with a few exceptions sunk in indolence and dissipation; without
subordination, discipline, or police, and nearly one third of
them sick; ... without land or water transport for a single
company; medical assistance for two thousand men dependent
on two surgeons and two mates, one of the former confined to
his bed; a majority of the corps without paymasters; the
men deserting by squads; the military agent representing the
quartermaster’s department without a cent in his chest, his
bills protested, and he on the eve of shutting up his office; a
great deficiency of camp equipage; not a haversack in store; the
medicine and hospital stores scarcely sufficient for a private
practitioner.”
The General decided that, first of all, the troops must be removed from
the city and sent into camp; but rains made encampment impossible until
the river should fall, and May 12 nothing had been done excepting to
notify the Secretary of War that in the course of the following week
the General meant to select an encampment which would be so placed as
to meet an attack from every hostile quarter.[133] His decision was
made known to the Secretary of War in a letter dated May 29:--
“With the general voice of American and Creole in favor of
it, I have selected a piece of ground on the left bank of the
Mississippi, below this city about four leagues, which I find
perfectly dry at this moment, although the surface of the river,
restrained by its dykes, is in general three feet above the
level of the country. You will put your finger on the spot,
at the head of the English turn, just where the road to the
settlements on the Terre aux Boeufs leaves the river.”[134]
June 10 the main body of troops moved down the river to the new camp.
More than five hundred sick were transported with the rest, suffering
chiefly from chronic diarrhœa, bilious or intermittent fevers, and
scurvy.
Secretary Eustis, who in March succeeded Dearborn at the War
Department, being an army-surgeon by profession, noticed, before
Wilkinson’s arrival at New Orleans, the excessive proportion of troops
on the sick-list. Quickly taking alarm, he wrote April 30 directing
Wilkinson to disregard Dearborn’s previous instructions, and after
leaving a garrison of old troops at New Orleans, to transport the rest
up the river to the high ground in the rear of Fort Adams, or Natchez.
The orders were peremptory and pressing.[135]
This letter, dated April 30, should have gone, and was believed to have
gone, by the post which left Washington May 6, and reached New Orleans
May 25; another post followed a week later, and still another arrived
June 8, two days before the troops moved to Terre aux Boeufs. According
to Wilkinson the letter did not arrive by any of these mails, but came
only by the fourth post, which reached New Orleans June 14, after he
and his troops were fixed in camp. The cost of a bad character was
felt at such moments. No one believed Wilkinson; his reputation for
falsehood warranted suspicion that he had suppressed the orders in the
belief that he knew best what the troops required. Such insubordination
was no new thing on his part. Instead of expressing regret, he wrote to
Eustis that even had he received the orders of April 30 in time, he
should still “have not sought the position you recommended,” because
the labor of ascending the river would have diseased nine tenths of
the men, the expense would have exceeded twelve thousand dollars, and
the position of Fort Adams was ill-suited for the protection of New
Orleans.[136]
On the troops the first effect of their encampment was good; but
after the middle of June rains began, generally several showers on
the same day, and the camp was deep in mud. The number of sick made
proper sanitary care impossible. The police officer’s report of July
12[137] gave a revolting picture of the sanitary conditions: “The
whole camp abounds with filth and nastiness of almost every kind.” The
sick-list rose to six hundred and sixty in a force of sixteen hundred
and eighty-nine non-commissioned officers and men; in August it rose
to nine hundred and sixty-three in a total force of fifteen hundred
and seventy-four. The camp was a fever hospital, the suffering beyond
experience. Food, medicine, shelter, clothing, and care were all
wanting either to the sick or to the well:[138]--
“The sick and the well lived in the same tents; they generally
subsisted on the same provisions, were equally exposed to the
constant and incessant torrents of rain, to the scorching heat
of the sun, and during the night to the attacks of numberless
mosquitoes. They manifested the pains and sufferings they
experienced by shrieks and groans which during the silence of
the night were distinctly to be heard from one end of the line
to the other. It is my candid belief the mosquitoes produced
more mischief than any other cause. In the night the air was
filled with them, and not a man was provided with anything like
a bar or net. Thus situated, the sufferings of the unfortunate
sick can perhaps better be imagined than described.”
Before the army had been a month in camp, the officers petitioned
the General for removal. He could not but refuse. He had no means of
escape, and to do him justice, he bore with courage the consequences
of his own mistake. He did whatever occurred to him to protect his
men. Secretary Eustis took the matter less calmly. No sooner did the
secretary learn, through Wilkinson’s letters written in May, that he
seriously meant to encamp the troops at Terre aux Boeufs, than official
orders, admitting no discretion, were despatched as early as June 22
from the Department, directing that the whole force should be instantly
embarked for Natchez and Fort Adams.
The letter arrived July 19. Wilkinson dared not again disobey, although
he might be right in thinking that the risks of removal were greater
than those of remaining. Every resource of the army and navy was put
at Wilkinson’s command, and every man at Terre aux Boeufs was eager to
escape; yet week after week passed without movement. The orders which
arrived July 19 were not made public till the end of August, and only
September 14 was the camp evacuated. The effective force was then
about six hundred men in charge of nine hundred invalids. The strength
of all had been reduced, until they were unequal to the fatigues of
travel. Only one hundred and twenty-seven men died at Terre aux Boeufs
between June 10 and September 14; but two hundred and fifty died on
their way up the river, before October 31, and altogether seven hundred
and sixty-four, out of two thousand soldiers sent to New Orleans,
died within their first year of service. The total loss by death and
desertion was nine hundred and thirty-one.
Wilkinson himself was attacked by fever in passing New Orleans,
September 19, and on proceeding to Natchez soon received a summons
to Washington to answer for his conduct. Brigadier-General Wade
Hampton succeeded him in command of what troops were still alive at
New Orleans. The misfortune was compensated only by the advantage of
affording one more chance to relieve the army and the government of a
general who brought nothing but disaster.
With the four departments of Executive government in this state of
helplessness, President Madison met Congress, the least efficient body
of all.
CHAPTER IX.
THE President’s Annual Message, read November 29 before Congress,
threw no light on the situation. If Madison’s fame as a statesman
rested on what he wrote as President, he would be thought not only
among the weakest of Executives, but also among the dullest of men,
whose liveliest sally of feeling exhausted itself in an epithet, and
whose keenest sympathy centred in the tobacco crop; but no statesman
suffered more than Madison from the constraints of official dress.
The Message of 1809 hinted that England had no right to disavow her
minister’s engagement, and that Jackson’s instructions as well as his
conduct betrayed a settled intent to prevent an understanding; but
these complaints led to no corrective measures. The President professed
himself still willing to listen with ready attention to communications
from the British government through any new channel, and he seemed to
fall back on Jefferson’s “painful alternatives” of the year before,
rather than on any settled plan of his own:--
“In the state which has been presented of our affairs with the
parties to a disastrous and protracted war, carried on in a
mode equally injurious and unjust to the United States as a
neutral nation, the wisdom of the national Legislature will be
again summoned to the important decision on the alternatives
before them. That these will be met in a spirit worthy of the
councils of a nation conscious both of its rectitude and of its
rights, and careful as well of its honor as of its peace, I
have an entire confidence. And that the result will be stamped
by a unanimity becoming the occasion, and be supported by every
portion of our citizens with a patriotism enlightened and
invigorated by experience, ought as little to be doubted.”
Such political formulas, conventional as a Chinese compliment, probably
had value, since they were current in every government known to man;
but that President Madison felt entire confidence in the spirit of the
Eleventh Congress could not be wholly believed. John Randolph best
described Madison’s paper in a letter to Judge Nicholson, a few days
afterward:[139]
“I have glanced over the President’s Message, and to say the
truth it is more to my taste than Jefferson’s productions on the
same occasions. There is some cant to be sure; but politicians,
priests, and even judges, saving your honor’s presence, must
cant, ‘more or less.’”
Probably the colorless character of the Message was intended to disarm
criticism, and to prevent Randolph and the Federalists from rousing
again the passions of 1808; but sooner or later some policy must be
adopted, and although the Message suggested no opinion as to the
proper course, it warned Congress that the crisis was at hand: “The
insecurity of our commerce and the consequent diminution of the public
revenue will probably produce a deficiency in the receipts of the
ensuing year.” The moment when a Republican administration should begin
to borrow money for ordinary expenses in time of peace would mark a
revolution in the public mind.
Upon Gallatin, as usual, the brunt of unpopular responsibility fell.
His annual Report, sent to the House December 8, announced that a loan,
probably of four million dollars, would be required for the service
of 1810; that the Non-intercourse Law, as it stood, was “inefficient
and altogether inapplicable to existing circumstances;” and finally
that “either the system of restriction, partially abandoned, must be
reinstated in all its parts, and with all the provisions necessary for
its strict and complete execution, or all the restrictions, so far
at least as they affect the commerce and navigation of citizens of
the United States, ought to be removed.” This subject, said Gallatin,
required immediate attention; but in regard to the wider question of
war or peace he contented himself with a reference to his two preceding
reports.
Congress showed more than usual unwillingness to face its difficulties.
The episodes of Erskine and Jackson supplied excuse for long and
purposeless debates. In the Senate, December 5, Giles reported from
a special committee the draft of a Resolution denouncing Jackson’s
conduct as indecorous, insolent, affronting, insidious, false,
outrageous, and premeditated,--epithets which seemed to make
superfluous the approval of Madison’s course or the pledge of support
with which the Resolution ended. Giles reviewed the conduct of Jackson
and Canning, entreating the Senate to banish irritation and to restore
harmony and mutual good-will, “the most fervent prayer of one who in
the present delicate, interesting crisis of the nation feels a devotion
for his country beyond everything else on this side of heaven.”[140]
The experience of many years warranted Giles’s hearers in suspecting
that when he professed a wish for harmony, the hope of harmony must
be desperate, for his genius lay in quite another direction; and when
he laid aside partisanship, his party had reason to look for some
motive still narrower. His course quickly proved the sense in which he
understood these phrases.
January 3, 1810, the President recommended by message the enlistment
for a short period of a volunteer force of twenty thousand men, and a
reorganization of the militia; adding that it would rest with Congress
also “to determine how far further provision may be expedient for
putting into actual service, if necessary, any part of the naval
armament not now employed.” No one knew what this language meant.
Crawford of Georgia, with his usual bluntness, said:[141] “This
Message, in point of obscurity, comes nearer my ideas of a Delphic
oracle than any state paper which has come under my inspection. It
is so cautiously expressed that every man puts what construction on
it he pleases.” Giles pleased to put upon it a warlike construction.
January 10 he reported a bill for fitting out the frigates; January
13 he supported this bill in a speech which surprised Federalists and
Republicans alike, if they could be still surprised at the varieties of
Giles’s political philosophy.
“The visionary theory of energy,” said he, “was the fatal error
of the Federal party, and that error deprived it of the power
of the nation. The government being thus placed in the hands
of the Republicans, while heated by the zeal of opposition to
the Federal doctrines and flushed with their recent triumph, it
was natural for them, with the best intentions, to run into the
opposite extreme; to go too far in the relaxations of the powers
of the government, and to indulge themselves in the delightful
visions of extending the range of individual liberty.... It
was natural that in the vibration of the political pendulum,
it should go from one extreme to another; and that this has
been too much the case with the Republican administration, he
regretted to say, he feared would be demonstrated by a very
superficial review of the events of the last two or three years.”
Energy was a fatal mistake in the Federalists; relaxation was an
equally fatal mistake in the Republicans,--and the remedy was a show
of energy where energy did not exist. Giles won no confidence by thus
trimming between party principles; but when Samuel Smith argued for
Giles’s bill on grounds of economy, friends of the Administration
felt little doubt of the motives that guided both senators. Had
they declared for war, or for peace; had they proposed to build
more frigates or ships-of-the-line, or to lay up those in active
service,--had they committed themselves to a decided policy of any
kind, their motives would have offered some explanation consistent with
a public interest; but they proposed merely to fit out the frigates
while giving them nothing to do, and the Republican party, as a whole,
drew the inference that they wished to waste the public money, either
for the personal motive of driving Madison and Gallatin from office,
or for the public advantage of aiding the Federalists to weaken the
Treasury and paralyze the nation.
Crawford replied to Giles with some asperity; but although Crawford was
known to represent the Treasury, so completely had the Senate fallen
under the control of the various cabals represented by Vice-President
Clinton, Giles, Smith, and Michael Leib of Pennsylvania, with their
Federalist associates, that Crawford found himself almost alone.
Twenty-five senators supported the bill; only six voted against it.
Giles impressed the least agreeable qualities of his peculiar character
on this Senate,--a body of men easily impressed by such traits. By
a vote of twenty-four to four, they passed the Resolution in which
Giles showed energy in throwing epithets at the British government,
as they passed the bill for employing frigates to pretend energy that
was not in their intentions. No episode in the national history was
less encouraging than the conduct of Congress in regard to Giles’s
Resolution. From December 18 to January 4, the House wasted its time
and strength in proving the helplessness of Executive, Congress,
parties, and people in the grasp of Europe. With painful iteration
every Republican proved that the nation had been insulted by the
British minister; while every Federalist protested his inability to
discern the insult, and his conviction that no insult was intended.
Except as preliminary to measures of force, Giles’s Resolution showed
neither dignity nor object; yet the Republicans embarrassed themselves
with denials of the Federalist charge that such language toward a
foreign government must have a warlike motive, while the Federalists
insisted that their interests required peace.
If the Resolution[142] was correct in affirming as it did that the
United States had suffered “outrageous and premeditated insults” from
Jackson, Congress could not improve the situation by affirming the
insult without showing even the wish to resent it by means that would
prevent its repetition; but the majority saw the matter in another
light, and when the Federalists resorted to technical delays, the
Republicans after a session of nineteen hours passed the Resolution
by a vote of seventy-two to forty-one. Macon, Stanford, and the old
Republicans voted with the Federalists in the minority, while Randolph
was ill and absent throughout the debate.
The Resolution marked the highest energy reached by the Eleventh
Congress. Giles’s bill for fitting out the frigates was allowed to
slumber in committee; and a bill for taking forty thousand volunteers
for one year into government service never came to a vote in the
Senate. Congress was influenced by news from England to lay aside
measures mischievous except as a prelude to hostilities. The change of
Administration in London opened the way to new negotiations, and every
fresh negotiation consumed a fresh year.
No course would have pleased Congress so much as to do nothing at
all; but this wish could not be fully gratified. The Non-intercourse
Act of March 1, 1809, was to expire by limitation with the actual
session. As early as December 1 the House referred the matter to a
committee with Macon for its head. Macon probably went to the Treasury
for instructions. A plan drawn by Gallatin, and accepted without
opposition by the Cabinet, was reported December 19 to the House in
the form of a bill which had less the character of a Non-intercourse
than of a Navigation Act; for while it closed American ports to every
British or French vessel public and private, it admitted British and
French merchandise when imported directly from their place of origin
in vessels wholly American. The measure was as mild a protest as human
skill could devise if compared with the outrages it retaliated, but
it had the merit of striking at the British shipping interest which
was chiefly to blame for the conduct of the British government. Under
the provisions of the bill, American shipping would gain a monopoly
of American trade. Not a British vessel of any kind could enter an
American port.
Macon’s bill came before the House Jan. 8, 1810, for discussion, which
lasted three weeks. The opposition objected to the new policy for the
double reason that it was too strong and too weak. St. Loe Livermore, a
Massachusetts Federalist, began by treating the measure as so extreme
that England and France would resent it by shutting their ports to
all American ships; while Sawyer of North Carolina denounced it as
evaporating the national spirit in mere commercial regulations, when
no measure short of war would meet the evil. According as commerce
or passion weighed with the reasoners, the bill was too violent or
disgracefully feeble. Throughout the winter, these contradictory
arguments were pressed in alternation by speaker after speaker. Macon
reflected only the views of Madison and Gallatin when he replied that
if England and France should retaliate by excluding American shipping
from their ports, they would do what America wanted; for they must
then enforce the non-intercourse which the United States had found
impossible to enforce without their aid. He agreed with the war-members
that the bill showed none too much energy, but he argued that the
nation was less prepared for war than in 1808 and 1809; while as for
Jackson’s quarrels, he declined to admit that they changed the affair
one iota.
Although the two extremes still stood so far apart that their arguments
bore no relation to each other, the violence of temper which marked the
embargo dispute, and which was to mark any step toward actual measures
of force, did not appear at this session. Indeed, the Federalists
themselves were not unanimous; some of the most extreme, like Barent
Gardenier and Philip Barton Key, supported Macon’s plan, while some of
the extremists on the other side, like Troup of Georgia, voted against
it. January 29, by a vote of seventy-three to fifty-two, the House
passed the bill. The Senate soon afterward took it up; and then, as was
to be expected, the factions broke loose. February 21, at the motion of
Senator Samuel Smith, by a vote of sixteen to eleven the Senate struck
everything from the bill except the enacting clause and the exclusion
of belligerent war-vessels from United States’ harbors.
An Administration measure could not without rousing angry feelings be
so abruptly mutilated by a knot of Administration senators. Samuel
Smith’s motives, given in his own words, were entitled to proper
attention; but President Madison’s opinion on the subject, whether
correct or mistaken, had even more effect on what was to follow.
Madison believed that the rejection of the bill was an intrigue of the
Smiths for selfish or personal objects. He recorded the language which
he felt himself obliged to use on the subject, twelve months afterward,
to Robert Smith’s face:[143]--
“For examples in which he had counteracted what he had not
himself disapproved in the Cabinet, I referred to the bills
called Macon’s bills, and the Non-intercourse Bill, on the
consultation on which he appeared to concur in their expediency;
that he well knew the former, in its outline at least, had
originated in the difficulty of finding measures that would
prevent what Congress had solemnly protested against,--to wit,
a complete submission to the belligerent edicts; that the
measure was considered as better than nothing, which seemed to
be the alternative, and as part only of whatever else might in
the progress of the business be found attainable; and that he
neither objected to what was done in the Cabinet (the time and
place for the purpose), nor offered anything in the place of it,
yet it was well understood that his conversations and conduct
out of doors had been entirely of a counteracting nature;
that it was generally believed that he was in an unfriendly
disposition personally and officially; and that although in
conversations with different individuals he might not hold the
same unfavorable language, yet with those of a certain temper it
was no secret that he was very free in the use of it, and had
gone so far as to avow a disapprobation of the whole policy of
commercial restrictions from the embargo throughout.”
Robert Smith, doubtless believing that all his actions had been above
question or reproach, protested warmly against these charges of
unfriendliness and intrigue; but Madison, with a feminine faculty for
pressing a sensitive point, insinuated that in his opinion both the
Smiths were little better than they should be. “With respect to his
motives for dissatisfaction I acknowledged that I had been, for the
reasons given by him, much puzzled to divine any natural ones without
looking deeper into human nature than I was willing to do.” The meaning
of the innuendo was explained by Joel Barlow the following year in
the “National Intelligencer,” where he acted as Madison’s mouthpiece
in defending the Administration from Robert Smith’s attacks. One of
Smith’s complaints rested upon Macon’s bill. Barlow asked, “What gives
Mr. Smith a right at this day to proclaim himself in opposition to that
bill? Was it ever laid before the Cabinet and opinions taken? Did he
there oppose it? Did he not rather approve it, and give his vote for
every article? Did he ever utter a syllable against it till his more
acute brother discovered the commercial bearing that it would have upon
the house [of Smith and Buchanan], and concluded that their interest
required its rejection?”
Perhaps this explanation, however offensive to the Smiths, injured
them less than the other suspicion which had as much vogue as the
first,--that their conduct toward Macon’s bill was a part of their feud
against Gallatin, and proved their determination to oppose everything
he suggested. At the moment when Samuel Smith revolted against Macon’s
measure, Washington was filled with tales of quarrels in the Cabinet.
In truth, these reports were greatly exaggerated. Robert Smith had
not the capacity to develop or to pursue a difficult line of argument
even without opposition. Against Gallatin he could not, and as Madison
testified did not, open his mouth, nor did Gallatin or Madison ever
complain except of Smith’s silence in the Cabinet; but he talked freely
in society, and every one heard of battles supposed to be raging.
Walter Jones, one of the most respectable Virginia members, wrote to
Jefferson, February 19, imploring him to intervene:[144]--
“Before you quitted this place you knew that causes of
dissension subsisted in the Executive departments. So ominous an
event has not failed to be an object of my continued and anxious
attention, and I am now fully persuaded that these unfriendly
feelings are fast approaching to a degree of animosity that must
end in open rupture, with its very injurious consequences to
the Republican cause.... This break of harmony in the Executive
departments, added to the extreme points of difference in
opinion among the majority in Congress in relation to the great
questions of peace and war, renders the apathy and inaction of
the Republicans here extremely mortifying. I never knew them
more disconnected in sentiment and system, as probably may have
been made manifest to you by the desultory and inconclusive work
of nearly three months.... You will recollect that at the close
of the last Congress the appearance of umbrage was confined
to Mr. Gallatin and Mr. R. Smith; indeed, excepting themselves
there were no other secretaries effectively in office. It is
now supposed, and I believe with truth, that the former stands
alone against the more or less unfriendly dispositions of all
the rest. Their _main abettors_ of last spring have abated
nothing of their strong and indecent zeal.”
Upon feelings so irritable and at a moment when schism was imminent,
as Walter Jones described, the action of Samuel Smith and Michael Leib
with six or eight more Republican senators, in emasculating Macon’s
bill, left small chance of reconciliation. Giles, having declared
himself in favor of energy, did not vote at all. The debate being for
the most part not reported, the arguments of the dissenting senators
have been lost. One speaker alone broke the monotony of the discussion
by an address that marked the beginning of an epoch.
Henry Clay had been barely two weeks a senator, when, February 22, he
rose to move that the bill as amended by Samuel Smith be recommitted;
and this motion he supported by a war speech of no great length, but
full of Western patriotism.
“The conquest of Canada is in your power,” he said. “I trust
I shall not be deemed presumptuous when I state that I verily
believe that the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to
place Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet.... The withered
arm and wrinkled brow of the illustrious founders of our freedom
are melancholy indications that they will shortly be removed
from us. Their deeds of glory and renown will then be felt only
through the cold medium of the historic page; we shall want the
presence and living example of a new race of heroes to supply
their places, and to animate us to preserve inviolate what they
achieved.... I call upon the members of this House to maintain
its character for vigor. I beseech them not to forfeit the
esteem of the country. Will you set the base example to the
other House of an ignominious surrender of our rights after they
have been reproached for imbecility and you extolled for your
energy! But, sir, if we could be so forgetful of ourselves, I
trust we shall spare you [Vice-President George Clinton] the
disgrace of signing, with those hands so instrumental in the
Revolution, a bill abandoning some of the most precious rights
which it then secured.”
Other members both of the House and of the Senate had made war
speeches, and in Clay’s harangue no idea could be called original;
yet apart from the energy and courage which showed a new and needed
habit of command, these sentences of Clay’s maiden speech marked
the appearance of a school which was for fifty years to express the
national ideals of statesmanship, drawing elevation of character
from confidence in itself, and from devotion to ideas of nationality
and union, which redeemed every mistake committed in their names.
In Clay’s speech almost for the first time the two rhetorical marks
of his generation made their appearance, and during the next half
century the Union and the Fathers were rarely omitted from any popular
harangue. The ideas became in the end fetiches and phrases; but they
were at least more easily understood than the fetiches and phrases of
Jeffersonian republicanism which preceded them. Federalists used the
name of Washington in the same rhetorical manner, but they used it for
party purposes to rebuke Washington’s successors. The Union and the
Fathers belonged to no party, and might be used with equal advantage
by orators of every section. Clay enjoyed almost alone for years the
advantage of winning popularity by this simple means; but in 1810,
at least along the Atlantic coast, such appeals had little popular
success. Least of all had they weight in the Senate, which listened
unmoved to Clay’s oratory, and replied to it immediately on the same
day by passing the “ignominious surrender” of national rights by a vote
of twenty-six to seven. Giles did not vote. Samuel Smith, Leib, and
even Crawford were in the majority.
Macon’s bill came back to the House as a law for the exclusion of
British and French war-vessels from American harbors. The House
resented the treatment, and after another long debate, March 5, refused
to concur in the Senate’s amendments. By a vote of sixty-seven to
forty-seven the bill was sent back to the Senate in its original form.
A long wrangle ensued; a committee of conference failed to agree, and
March 16 the Senate was obliged to decide whether it would yield to the
House, or allow the bill to fail.
On that question Samuel Smith made a speech,[145] which he afterward
printed, and which demanded attention because it forced President
Madison into a course that exposed him to severe and perhaps deserved
criticism. The Senate was equally balanced. Samuel Smith’s voice
and vote decided the result. His reasons were such as no one could
misunderstand.
“I found in it,” said he, criticising Macon’s bill, “or
believed I did, that which would be ruinous to the commerce
of the United States, and therefore felt myself bound by the
duty I owe to my constituents to remove the veil and leave
the measure open to public view.... Is there no danger, Mr.
President, to be apprehended from the Emperor if the bill
should pass with this provision [that any British or French
ship hereafter arriving in an American harbor should with its
cargo be seized and condemned]? His character for decision is
well known. Might we not fear that he would retort our own
measure upon us by causing all the property of our merchants
now under sequestration (amounting to at least three millions
of dollars) to be condemned?... But what will England do should
this law pass? Will the King and Council retaliate our measure?
I confess, Mr. President, that I think they will.... What will
be the consequence? Ruin to your merchants and destruction to
the party which now governs this country.... But I have been
told that if England should retaliate, her retaliation would
operate as a complete non-intercourse between the two countries,
and in a way that would be effectual; and that as I had always
approved those measures, this view of the subject must meet my
approbation,--that it would precisely create that which I have
said was a powerful measure against Great Britain: to wit, an
embargo. I never will agree, Mr. President, in this side-way to
carry into execution a great national measure.”
The speech excited surprise that Samuel Smith, a man accounted shrewd,
should suppose such arguments to be decent, much less convincing. From
Federalists, who conscientiously wished submission to British policy,
Smith’s reasoning would have seemed natural; but Smith protested
against submission, and favored arming merchant-ships and providing
them with convoy,--a measure useless except to bring on war in a
“side-way.” Congress preferred to choose its own time for fighting, and
declined listening to Smith’s advice, although the Senate sustained him
in rejecting Macon’s bill. On this occasion Giles appeared, and voted
with the Administration; but sixteen senators followed Smith, while
only fifteen could be found to act in concert with the House and the
Executive.
After the Senate had thus put an end to Macon’s bill, the House after
much hesitation, March 31, put an end to Smith’s bill. After five
months of discussion Congress found itself, April 1, where it had been
in the previous November.
Rather than resume friendly relations with both belligerents without
even expressing a wish for the recovery of national self-respect, the
House made one more effort. April 7 Macon reported a new bill, which
was naturally nicknamed Macon’s bill No. 2. This measure also seems to
have had the assent of the Cabinet, but Macon himself neither framed
nor favored it. “I am at a loss to guess what we shall do on the
subject of foreign relations,” he wrote to his friend Judge Nicholson,
three days later.[146] “The bill in the enclosed paper, called Macon’s
No. 2, is not really Macon’s, though he reports it as chairman. It is
in truth Taylor’s. This I only mention to you, because when it comes to
be debated I shall not act the part of a father, but of a step-father.”
The Taylor who took this responsibility was a member from South
Carolina, whose career offered no other great distinction than the
measure which produced a war with England.
Macon’s bill No. 2 was the last of the annual legislative measures
taken by Congress to counteract by commercial interest the
encroachments of France and Great Britain. The first was the Partial
Non-intercourse Act of April, 1806; the second was the Embargo Act
with its supplements, dating from Dec. 22, 1807; the third was the
Total Non-intercourse Act of March 1, 1809; and the fourth was Macon’s
bill No. 2. Each year produced a new experiment; but the difference
could be easily remembered, for after the climax of the embargo each
successive annual enactment showed weakening faith in the policy,
until Macon’s bill No. 2 marked the last stage toward the admitted
failure of commercial restrictions as a substitute for war. Abandoning
the pretence of direct resistance to France and England, this measure
repealed the Non-intercourse Act of March 1, 1809, leaving commercial
relations with all the world as free as ever before, but authorizing
the President “in case either Great Britain or France shall, before
the 3d day of March next, so revoke or modify her edicts as that they
shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States,” to
prohibit intercourse with the nation which had not revoked its edicts.
The objections to the bill were overpowering, for its effect was
equivalent to alliance with England. Had the United States taken
active part in the war against France, they could have done Napoleon
no greater injury than by the passage of this Act, which invited Great
Britain to control American commerce for her military purposes. On the
other hand the bill conferred on the President a discretion dangerous,
unconstitutional, and unnecessary,--a power once before conferred by
the Non-intercourse Act of March 1, 1809, and then resulting in the
mistakes of Erskine’s arrangement, which seemed warning enough against
repeating the same risk.
These objections were well understood and forcibly pointed out,
while the arguments in support of the bill were melancholy in their
admissions. The records of Congress could hardly parallel the
disregard of dignity with which Taylor defended his bill in a tone
that could have been endured only by an assembly lost to the habits
of self-respect. His denunciation of war expressed party doctrine,
and he harmed no one by repeating the time-worn moral drawn from
Greece and Rome, the Persian millions, Philip of Macedon, Syracuse
and Carthage,--as though the fate of warlike nations proved that they
should have submitted to foreign outrage, or as though the world could
show either arts or liberty except such as had sprung from the cradle
of war; but feeling perhaps that classical authority proved too little
or too much, he told the House frankly why those members who like
himself opposed war found themselves unable to maintain the pledge of
resistance they had given in imposing the embargo:--
“But concerning the breaking down of the embargo! Let the truth
come out! Neither this plea nor the other miserable one of the
fear of insurrections, and what not, will do.... The embargo
repealed itself. The wants created by it to foreigners, and the
accidental failure of crops in England had reduced the thing
in one article to plain calculation. The vote of this House
to repeal the law gave from four to five dollars rise on each
barrel of flour. This was the weight that pulled us down.”
The admission could not inspire enthusiasm or raise the moral standard
of Congress; but the House accepted it, and amended the bill only by
adding fifty per cent to the existing duties on all products of Great
Britain and France. The amendment was also a business speculation, for
it was intended to protect and encourage American manufactures; but
it did not come directly from the manufacturers. Richard M. Johnson
of Kentucky moved the amendment. “Kentucky, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
and the New England Republicans,” wrote Macon,[147] “are full of
manufacturing. To these may be added some of the Virginia Republicans.
This plan is said to be a Cabinet project; if so, it satisfies me that
the Cabinet is hard pushed for a plan.”
April 19 the bill passed the House by a vote of sixty-one to forty.
The Senate referred it to a select committee with Samuel Smith at
its head,--a committee made for Smith to control. As before, he
reported the measure with its only effective provision--the additional
duty--struck out, and with the addition of a convoy-clause. The Senate,
by nineteen votes to eight, sustained Smith; nor did one New England
senator, Federalist or Republican, vote for the protection offered
by Kentucky and Virginia. The bill went to a third reading by a vote
of twenty-one to seven, and April 28, having passed the Senate as
Smith reported it without a division, was sent back to the House for
concurrence.
Irritated though the House was by the Senate’s hostility to every
measure which had support from the Treasury or was calculated to give
it support, the members were for the most part anxious only to see
the session ended. No one cared greatly for Macon’s bill No. 2 in any
shape. The House refused to accept the Senate’s amendments, and found
itself May 1 within a few hours of adjournment, and within the same
time of seeing the Non-intercourse Act expire, without having made
provision for the commercial relations that were to follow. Perhaps
Congress might have shown wisdom by doing nothing; but the instinct
to do something was strong, and party feeling mixed with the sense
of responsibility. At five o’clock in the afternoon committees of
conference were appointed, and at the evening session, Samuel Smith
having abandoned his convoy-clause, the House gave up its extra duties
and the bill came to its passage. All the Federalists voted against it
with Macon, Randolph, and Matthew Lyon,--a minority of twenty-seven.
Sixty-four Republicans recorded themselves in its favor, and made the
bill a law.
CHAPTER X.
RANDOLPH, who had been ill at home during the winter of 1809–1810,
appeared in public affairs only after the debates were mostly
ended. March 22 he moved a Resolution that the military and naval
establishments ought to be reduced. He wished to bring Madison’s
administration back to the point where Jefferson’s administration eight
years before had begun; and in truth the country could choose only
between the practices of 1801 and those of 1798. Randolph, who shunned
no assumption of fact which suited his object, asked the House whether
any one “seriously thought of war, or believed it a relation in which
we could be placed”:--
“With respect to war we have--thank God!--in the Atlantic a
fosse wide and deep enough to keep off any immediate danger
to our territory. The belligerents of Europe know as well
as we feel that war is out of the question. No, sir! if
our preparation was for battle, the State physicians have
mistaken the state of the patient. We have been embargoed and
non-intercoursed almost into a consumption, and this is not the
time for battle.”
Randolph easily proved the need of retrenchment. His statements
were not to be denied. President Washington, with a gross income of
fifty-eight million dollars in eight years, spent eleven millions
and a quarter on the army and navy. John Adams in four years spent
eighteen millions, and was supposed to have been driven from office
for extravagance. President Jefferson in his first four years cut down
these expenses to eight million, six hundred thousand dollars; in his
second term he raised them again to sixteen millions, or nearly to
the point reached by John Adams at a time of actual hostilities with
France,--although President Jefferson relied not on armaments, but
on peaceable coercion, which cost very large sums besides. At last
the country had reached a point where, after refusing either to fight
its enemies or resent its injuries, it had begun to run in debt for
armaments it would not use. This waste needed to be stopped.
Three fourths of the Republican party and all the Federalists were of
the same mind with Randolph,--that an army led by Wilkinson and a navy
of gunboats, when the country refused to fight under any provocation,
were not worth maintaining; and when Eppes of Virginia, April 14,
brought forward the budget for the coming year, he started by assuming
that the military and naval expenditure might be reduced three million
dollars, which would still leave a deficiency of two millions and
a half, and would require an increase of customs-duties. If three
millions and a half could be saved, members wanted to know why the
whole military and naval expenditure, which had required only six
millions in 1809, might not be cut off.
Macon, who supported Randolph with the ardor of 1798, urged nothing
less than this sweeping reform.
“If the army were disbanded and the navy sold,” he argued,[148]
“we should not perhaps want half a million,--not a million and
a half, on the outside. That might be obtained by loans payable
at short date.... You must get clear of the navy-yards; if you
do not put them down, unquestionably they will put you down. How
is it with the army? Has it been employed to more advantage? Its
situation is too melancholy to be spoken of; and if anything
could disgust the people of the territory we acquired some years
since, it must be the management of that army, for however much
they hear of our good government, after such a specimen they
must have a despicable opinion of it indeed.... I will not
raise a tax of a cent to support the present plan. I have no
hesitation in saying that I shall feel bound to vote down the
additional force of six thousand men whenever the subject shall
come before us. I voted for it; but found that then, as now, we
talk a great deal about war, and do nothing.”
Not a member supported Eppes’s motion for increased taxes. Democrats
and Federalists, one after another, rose to oppose an increase, and to
favor disbanding the additional army.
“I shall certainly vote to reduce the army of the United
States,” said Burwell of Virginia;[149] “and if the House should
decide that it will not employ the navy of the United States
in the protection of commerce, I shall certainly vote also
to reduce the naval establishment. I am perfectly convinced
that the circumstances under which I voted for the increase
of the army and navy have passed away; and as our revenue has
diminished, I shall vote for a reduction of our expenses.... So
far from considering the country in a deplorable situation, as
my colleague (Mr. Randolph) has represented it, I think that
in many points of view we have every reason to congratulate
ourselves. It is a singular phenomenon to see any nation
enjoying peace at this time. This exemption from the general lot
claims the gratitude of every man in the country. So far as I
am concerned in the affairs of the nation, I have but a single
object in view,--namely, to preserve peace; and my votes are
predicated on that ground.”
The war men voted with the peace men for reasons given by Troup of
Georgia:[150]--
“I am as well convinced of the fact as that I am now addressing
you, that the people will not consent to pay an additional
tax for the support of armies and navies raised to oppose the
injurious acts of the belligerents against our rights, after we
have abandoned those rights and dishonorably withdrawn from the
contest.”
After much contradictory talk of this kind, Nelson of Maryland told the
House that they were behaving like schoolboys.
“It is a perfect child’s game,” said he.[151] “At one session we
pass a law for raising an army, and go to expense; in another
year, instead of raising money to pay the expense by the means
in our power, we are to disband the army we have been at so
much pains to raise. We shall well deserve the name of children
instead of men if we pursue a policy of this kind.”
The warning had no perceptible weight with the House, where the peace
party were in a majority and the war party were in a passion, not with
the foreign enemy, but with their neighbors and friends. Richard M.
Johnson almost avowed that he should vote for reducing army and navy in
order to punish the men who had made them useless:--
“To our humiliation and everlasting degradation we have refused
to use the means in our power to induce foreign nations to do
us justice.... The annals of human nature have not given to
the world the sad example of a nation so powerful, so free,
so intelligent, so jealous of their rights and at the same
time so grossly insulted, so materially injured, under such
extraordinary forbearance.... We are afraid to trust ourselves,
and we pretend that we are afraid to trust the people. My
hopes have rested and always will rest upon the people; they
constitute my last hope. We may disgrace ourselves, but the
people will rise in the majesty of their strength, and the world
will be interested in the spectacle.”
With the advocates of war in a temper so unmanageable, and the
advocates of peace in a majority so decisive, the House showed
unanimity by passing in committee, without a dissenting voice, a
Resolution that the military and naval establishments ought to be
reduced. April 16 this vote was reached in committee; and the next day,
by a vote of sixty to thirty-one, the Resolution was formally adopted
by the House. Of the minority, two thirds were Northern men and all
were Republicans.
In obedience to the order, Randolph promptly reported a bill for
reducing the navy.[152] All the gunboats, all but three of the
frigates, and all other armed vessels--three only excepted--were to
be sold, their officers and crews discharged; the navy-yards, except
at Boston, New York, and Norfolk, to be disused, and the marine corps
reduced to two companies. A few days later, April 24, Smilie of
Pennsylvania reported a bill for a similar reduction of the military
establishment to three regiments. These measures seemed to carry out
the express will and orders of the House; but no sooner did the House
go into committee than the members astonished themselves by striking
out each section in succession. Gunboats, frigates, navy-yards, and
marines, each managed in turn to obtain a majority against reduction.
Then Randolph rose,--not in wrath, for he spoke with unusual calm, but
with a force which warranted the sway he so often exercised over men
whose minds were habitually in doubt. He had ever believed, he said,
that the people of the United States were destined to become a great
naval power, but if anything could prevent this result it would be the
premature attempts of the last two Administrations to force it. A naval
power necessarily grew out of tonnage and seamen, but both tonnage and
seamen had been systematically discouraged:--
“It has always been understood, according to my view of the
subject, that one of the principal uses of a navy was to protect
commerce; but our political rule for some time past has been
that of inverse proportion, and we have discovered that commerce
is the natural protector of a navy.”
The inconsistency of Jefferson’s principles and practice was a target
which could be hit by the most inexperienced marksman, but Randolph
struck it with something more solid than an epigram when he discussed
its expense.
“Against the administration of Mr. Adams,” he said, “I, in
common with many others, did and do yet entertain a sentiment
of hostility, and have repeatedly cried out against it
for extravagance and for profusion and for waste--wanton
waste--of the public resources. I find, however, upon
consideration,--whether from the nature of men, or from the
nature of things, or from whatever other cause,--that that
Administration, grossly extravagant as I did then and still
do believe it to have been, if tried by the criterion of the
succeeding one, was a pattern of retrenchment and economy.”
In order to prove this charge he attacked Robert Smith’s administration
of the navy, asserting that while in 1800 each seaman cost about four
hundred and seventy-two dollars a year, in 1808 each seaman cost nearly
nine hundred dollars a year; and that the same excess existed in regard
to officers, marines, clothing, and provisions:--
“Yes, sir! we have economized until we absolutely have reduced
the annual cost of a seaman from $472--as it was under the very
wasteful expenditure of Mr. Adams’s administration--down to the
moderate sum of $887. We have economized until a paltry fleet
consisting of vessels built to our hand, to say nothing of
those that have been sold, and the warlike stores of which have
been retained and preserved,--which fleet was built, equipped,
and every cannon and implement of war purchased under the old
Administration,--has cost us twelve million dollars, when it
cost the preceding Administration but nine millions.”
Only one member replied on behalf of the Government to these
criticisms. Burwell Bassett of the naval committee ventured somewhat
timidly to defend, not so much Robert Smith as Secretary Hamilton, who,
he said, had reduced expenses at the navy-yard about one third. Most
of the frigates had been so thoroughly repaired as to be more valuable
than when first built. In the navy-yard itself everything was in good
condition and well conducted. Bassett’s testimony hardly met Randolph’s
charges, but the House sustained him on every point; and Boyd of New
Jersey so far forgot the respect due to a former vote, in which the
House had resolved by a majority of two to one that the army and navy
ought to be reduced, as to say that never since the government was
formed had so preposterous a proposition been offered. The end of the
session arrived before the discussion ceased.
The same inability to act, even where no apparent obstacle existed,
was shown in regard to the United States Bank, whose charter, granted
for twenty years by the First Congress in February, 1791, was to
expire March 4, 1811. In the days of Federalist sway the Republicans
had bitterly opposed the Bank and denied the constitutional power
of Congress to grant the charter; but during the eight years of
Jefferson’s rule the Bank had continued without a question to do the
financial work of government, and no other agency existed or could be
readily created capable of taking the place of this machine, which,
unlike any other in the government, worked excellently well.
If its existence was to be continued, public interest required that
the Act should be passed at this session, since the actual charter was
to expire in ten months. If a new charter was to be refused, public
interest required even more urgently that ample warning of so radical
a change should be given, that the Treasury might not be suddenly
crippled or general bankruptcy be risked without notice.
No complaint of any kind was at that time made against the Bank; no
charge was brought against it of interference in politics, of corrupt
influence, or of mismanagement. Gallatin was known to favor it; the
President was not hostile, nor was any influence in the government
opposed; the Federalists who had created were bound to support it; and
except for the principles of some Southern Republicans who regarded
functions of government as germs of despotism, every political faction
in the country seemed consenting to the charter. January 29 the
subject was referred to a special committee. The committee reported a
Resolution, and in due course John Taylor of South Carolina brought in
a bill, the result of negotiations between the Treasury and the Bank,
granting a new charter on condition that the Bank should increase its
capital two-and-a-half million dollars, half of which should be paid
outright to the government; that, further, the Bank should bind itself
to lend the government at three months’ notice any amount not exceeding
in the whole five million dollars at a rate not exceeding six per cent;
that on all government deposits above the sum of three millions, which
should remain for one year, the Bank should pay interest at the rate
of three per cent; and that the government should have the right at
any time to increase the capital stock, and subscribe and own the new
stock to a fixed amount. These terms were especially valuable at the
moment, because they assisted the Treasury to meet an actual deficit,
and provided, as far as human foresight went, for financial dangers
that might rise from further foreign troubles. No serious opposition
showed itself. April 21 the House, by a majority of seventy-five to
thirty-five, voted to accept the price fixed for the charter; but the
session closed without further action.
When Congress adjourned, May 2, 1810, the result attained during
five months passed in continuous labor amounted to little more than
the constitutional necessities of government,--the appropriation
bills; a loan for five million dollars; an Act for taking a census of
persons; an Act appropriating sixty thousand dollars toward making
the Cumberland Road; an appropriation of five thousand dollars for
experiments on Fulton’s torpedoes; in regard to foreign affairs,
Giles’s Resolution blaming the conduct of the British minister,
and Macon’s or Taylor’s Act, which condoned that conduct. The old
Non-intercourse Act of March 1, 1809, expired by limitation with the
expiring Congress May 1, 1810.
“We adjourned last night,” wrote Randolph to Nicholson the next
day,[153] “a little after twelve, having terminated a session of
more than five months by authorizing a loan of as many millions,
and--all is told. The incapacity of Government has long ceased
to be a laughing matter. The Cabinet is all to pieces, and the
two Houses have tumbled about their own ears.”
With all Randolph’s faults, he had more of the qualities, training,
and insight of a statesman than were to be found elsewhere among the
representatives in the Eleventh Congress; and although himself largely
the cause of the chaos he described, he felt its disgraces and dangers.
Society in general troubled itself little about them. The commercial
class, pleased to be freed from restraints, and the agricultural
class, consoled by the fair prices of their produce, thought as little
as possible about their failure in government; what was called good
society for the most part drew a bitter pleasure from it. Yet beneath
the general physical contentment almost equally general moral disgust
existed and made itself felt. President Madison, who was in the
best position to gauge popular opinion, began to suspect the hardly
perceptible movement of a coming tide. After the adjournment he wrote
to William Pinkney at London:[154]--
“Among the inducements to the experiment of an unrestricted
commerce now made were two which contributed essentially to
the majority of votes in its favor,--first, a general hope,
favored by daily accounts from England, that an adjustment
of differences there, and thence in France, would render the
measure safe and proper; second, a willingness in not a few
to teach the advocates for an open trade the folly as well
as degradation of their policy.... It will not be wonderful,
therefore, if the passive spirit which marked the late session
of Congress should at the next meeting be roused to the opposite
point, more especially as the tone of the nation has never been
so low as that of its representatives.”
Madison still held to his favorite doctrine, and meant no more by his
warning than that the Eleventh Congress might be expected to reimpose
measures of commercial restriction:--
“The experiment [of free commerce] about to be made will
probably open too late the eyes of the people to the expediency
and efficacy of the means [the embargo] which they have suffered
to be taken out of the hands of the Government and to be
incapacitated for future use.”[155]
This condolence with Jefferson over the fate of their experiment
showed the direction toward which Madison’s eyes were still turned;
but, though a firm believer in his own theory of peaceable coercion,
he was ready and had always been ready to accept and carry out any
stronger scheme that Congress might prefer. He had no definite plan of
his own; he clung to the idea that England and France could be brought
by patience to respect neutral claims of right; but he felt that the
actual submission made by Congress was apparent rather than real, and
might be followed within a year by renewed resistance.
Meanwhile nothing could be more dangerous to the Americans than the
loss of self-respect. The habit of denouncing themselves as cowards
and of hearing themselves denounced as a race that cared only for
money tended to produce the qualities imputed. Americans of 1810
were persuaded that they could not meet Englishmen or Frenchmen
on equal terms, man against man, or stand in battle against the
veterans of Napoleon or Nelson. The sense of national and personal
inferiority sank astonishingly deep. Reasonable enough as regarded
the immense superiority of Europe in organization, it passed bounds
when it condemned everything American as contemptible, or when the
Federalist gentry refused to admit the Democrats of Pennsylvania or
the Republicans of Virginia or the Government at Washington into the
circle of civilized life. Social self-abasement never went so far as in
its efforts to prove to Francis James Jackson, the British minister,
that he was right in treating the national government with contempt.
Englishman as Jackson was, and ready to assume without question every
claim of superiority that might be made for his country or his class,
he was surprised at the force of American allegiance to himself. As he
travelled northward, after his dismissal from Washington, his private
letters gave a strange idea of the chaos in American society. He wrote
from Philadelphia,--
“The tide has turned completely in our favor. At Washington
they are in a state of the most animated confusion, the Cabinet
divided, and the Democratic party going various ways.... Their
foreign politics embarrass them even more than home ones.
One moment they want another embargo; the next, to take off
the restrictions; then, to arm their merchantmen; and next,
to declare war. In short, they do not know what to be at....
Notwithstanding all that has passed,--which would fill volumes
to relate in full,--and the Government being at open war with
me, ‘the respectability’ has been both here and at Baltimore so
anxious to show that they did not share the sentiments of the
Democrats that we have had throngs of visitors and innumerable
invitations that we could not accept, though we have dined at
home but twice during the month we have been here. To prevent
this, the savages have threatened in one of their papers to tar
and feather every man who should ask me to his house.”[156]
Pleased with his social success at Baltimore and Philadelphia, Jackson
found New York and New England fairly delightful. His vogue in
Baltimore and Philadelphia meant little more than curiosity to see his
wife and her toilettes; but as he approached New England he became a
personage in politics, and received attentions such as he could hardly
have expected even from those European courts whose civility lingered
in his mind. February 25 he wrote from New York:[157]--
“As we get farther north and east, the said Yankees improve very
much. New York is a fine town, unlike any other in America,
and resembling more the best of our country towns, with the
additional advantage of the finest water that can be imagined.
There is as much life and bustle as at Liverpool or any other
of our great commercial towns; and like them New York has
inhabitants who have made and are making rapid and brilliant
fortunes by their enterprise and industry.... We have met with
unbounded civility and good-will, and may be said to live here
in triumph. We are now engaged to dinner every day but two,
till the end of the first week in March.... The governor of
Massachusetts has written to me to invite me to Boston, where,
he says, he and many others will be happy to receive me. That
State, which is one of the most populous and enlightened of the
States of the Union, and, as you know, is the birthplace of
American independence, has done more toward justifying me to the
world than it was possible from the nature of things that I or
any other person could do in the present stage of the business.
The legislature, which is not a mob like many that have passed
resolutions, has agreed to a report of a joint committee,
and passed resolutions in conformity with it, exculpating me
altogether, and in the most direct manner censuring the conduct
of the President and of the general government.”
Boston newspapers of Feb. 9, 1810, contained the report and resolutions
in which the Massachusetts legislature, by a vote of two hundred
and fifty-four to one hundred and forty-five, declared that “they
can perceive no just or adequate cause” for breaking relations with
the British minister, F. J. Jackson; and this challenge to their
own Government, backed by Governor Gore’s invitation of Jackson to
Boston, was intended to carry political weight, even to the extent of
forcing Madison to renew political relations, as he had been forced to
resume commercial relations, with England. Had public opinion taken
the intended course, Jackson’s visit to Boston would have marked a
demonstration of popular feeling against the national government; nor
were the Federalists in any way parties consenting to the defeat of
the scheme. The measures adopted by the Massachusetts legislature in
February came before the people at the State election early in April,
only six weeks after the General Court and Governor Gore had condemned
Madison. More than ninety thousand votes were cast, and the Republican
party, by a majority of about two thousand, not only turned Governor
Gore out of office, but also chose a General Court with a Republican
majority of twenty. At the same time similar changes of public opinion
restored New Hampshire to Republican control, and strengthened the
Republicans in New York and the Middle States. Not a doubt could exist
that the country sustained Madison, and that Jackson was not only an
object of decided unpopularity in America, but was far from being
favored in England. The advantage to be derived from his visit to
Boston was no longer evident, and after Governor Gore ceased to hold
office, the good taste of acting on an invitation thus practically
withdrawn seemed doubtful; but Jackson was not daunted by doubts.
Holding the promise of his Government that his mission should last
at least a year, Jackson beguiled the interval by such amusements as
offered themselves. In May he retired to a country-house on the North
River, about eight miles above New York, where he caught a glimpse of
an American invention which, as he had the good sense to suspect, was
more important than all the diplomatic quarrels in which he had ever
engaged:--
“One of the curiosities that we daily see pass under our windows
is the steamboat,--a passage-vessel with accommodation for near
a hundred persons. It is moved by a steam-engine turning a wheel
on either side of it, which acts like the main wheel of a mill,
and propels the vessel against wind and tide at the rate of four
miles an hour. As soon as it comes in sight there is a general
rush of our household to watch and wonder till it disappears.
They don’t at all know what to make of the unnatural monster
that goes steadily careering on, with the wind directly in its
teeth as often as not. I doubt that I should be obeyed were I to
desire any one of them to take a passage in her.”[158]
After thus entertaining himself on the Hudson, the British minister
made his triumphal trip to Boston early in June, where he found
a gratifying welcome from society if not from the governor and
legislature:--
“At Boston, ‘the headquarters of good principles,’ we were
feasted most famously, and I made there many interesting
acquaintances. After living nine days in clover at about
eighteen of the principal houses,--having never less than
two engagements per day,--they gave me on the 10th a public
dinner, at which near three hundred persons were present, and
where we had toasts and cheering and singing in the best style
of Bishopsgate Street or Merchant Taylor’s Hall. A party of
gentlemen met me at the last stage on entering Boston, and
accompanied me to the first on my departure. At another public
dinner I was invited to on the 4th of June (the Ancient and
Honorable Artillery election dinner), and at which the governor,
who is a Democrat, was present, the clergy, the magistrates, the
heads of the University of Cambridge, and the military came to
the top of the room in their respective bodies to be introduced
to and to compliment me. There is at Washington in consequence
much ‘wailing and gnashing of teeth.’”
At the public dinner given to Jackson June 11, after the guest of the
evening had retired, Senator Pickering gave a toast which became a
party cry: “The world’s last hope,--Britain’s fast-anchored isle!”[159]
From the moment the State officials withdrew from the reception, little
importance attached to the private acts of a society which might easily
look with interest at the rare appearance of a British minister in
Boston; but the political and social feeling was the same as though
Governor Gore were still in power, and created natural disgust among
Republicans, who believed that their Federalist opponents aimed at a
dissolution of the Union and at a retreat within the protection of
Great Britain. If such ideas existed, they showed themselves to Jackson
in no recorded form. His visit to Boston was a social amusement; and he
regarded it, like the conduct of Congress, as a triumph to himself only
because it increased the mortifications of President Madison, which
counterbalanced in some degree his own want of energetic support from
Canning’s successor at the Foreign Office.
The history of Jackson and his mission did not quite end with his
departure from Boston in June, 1810, under escort of a mounted
procession of Boston Federalists. He thence went to Niagara,--a
difficult journey; and descending to Montreal and Quebec, returned to
Albany, where he had the unusual experience of seeing himself burned in
effigy.
During all these wanderings he was a victim to the constant annoyance
of being able to quarrel neither with President Madison nor with his
new official chief, who showed a wish to quarrel as little as possible.
Jackson was as willing to find fault with one Government as with the
other.
“I look forward with full confidence,” he wrote to his
brother,[160] “for a full approbation of what I have done.
Ministers cannot disapprove of though they may be sorry for it;
and if they are sorry, it must be for the trouble it occasions
them, for as I have told them there is no loss of any adjustment
of difficulties, that being impracticable with this country upon
the principles of my instructions. I hope they are adopting the
line that I recommended to them,--that of procrastinating any
decision whatever; but they might as well have told me so for
my own guidance and information, instead of leaving me a prey
to all the lies and misrepresentations which the Democrats have
found it necessary to propagate on the subject for election
purposes. It would be an absolute disgrace to the country, and
would produce an impression never to be got over here,--the ill
effects of which in all future transactions we should not fail
to be made sensible of,--if another minister were to be sent out
without some sort of satisfaction being taken or received for
the treatment I have experienced. They ought to insist on my
being reinstated.”
The British government held a different opinion; and accordingly, at
the expiration of his stipulated twelve months, Sept. 16, 1810, Jackson
set sail for Europe, leaving J. P. Morier in charge of the British
legation at Washington.
CHAPTER XI.
IF the Non-intercourse Act of March 1, 1809, irritated Napoleon,
Macon’s Act of May 1, 1810, might be expected to work in a manner still
more active.
The story has shown that Napoleon, toward the end of the year 1809,
felt many difficulties in giving new shape to his American policy after
it had been ruined by the Non-intercourse Act. His fixed idea required
the seizure of every American ship in Europe beyond the borders of
France, as he had for years seized American ships in his own ports. In
part this wish sprang from the Continental system, and was excused to
some extent by the plea that American commerce could be carried on only
under British protection; in part the seizure of American ships was a
punishment for defying the Emperor’s orders; and in part it was due to
his necessities of finance.
December 19, 1809, Napoleon wrote a brief order to Berthier, ordering
the seizure of all American vessels in the Spanish ports within his
control;[161] vessels and cargoes, he said, were to be considered good
prize. Having taken this measure, he called a council of ministers for
the next day, and ordered Maret to bring there “everything relating to
the judgments of the prize-court; to the merchandise sequestered in the
ports, which is spoiling. If you have not all the information, ask the
Minister of Finance.”[162]
The meaning of this preparation was to be sought in the Cabinet
itself, and in the Emperor’s surroundings. Peace with Austria left
many vexations in Napoleon’s path. Perhaps the unhappy situation of
his brother Joseph at Madrid troubled him less than the difficulty of
reconciling the Empress Josephine to a divorce, or the mortifications
of negotiating for a wife among Russian, German, and Austrian
princesses; but annoyances like these, though serious for ordinary
men, could not be compared with the constant trouble created by the
Continental system of commercial restrictions and the want of money it
caused. Threatened with financial difficulties, and obliged to study
economies as well as to press contributions of war, the Emperor found
himself met by something resembling opposition among his own ministers.
As was his habit, he yielded at first to the advice he disliked, and
promised to do something for French industry. In November he appointed
a new Minister of the Interior, Montalivet, and lectured him on the
slowness of his bureaus in acting for the good of commerce.[163] From
such a mouth such a lesson startled the hearer, and Montalivet threw
himself with zeal into the prescribed work. To Fouché the Emperor read
another lecture compared with which the discourse to Montalivet was
commonplace. Fouché, a pronounced opponent of Napoleon’s commercial
restrictions, during the Emperor’s absence in Austria distributed too
freely his licenses for foreign trade: “I recognize always the same
course in your acts,” Napoleon wrote him. “You have not enough legality
in your head.”[164]
While thus teaching one minister to cherish commerce, and another
to respect legality, the Emperor listened to Champagny, who lost no
chance of advising the encouragement of neutral trade; and these three
ministers--Champagny, Fouché, and Montalivet--found a strong ally
in the Minister of the Treasury, Mollien, who has left the recorded
opinion that the Imperial system of commercial restriction was “the
most disastrous and the most false of fiscal inventions.”[165] The bias
of Decrès, the Minister of Marine, may be inferred from a story told
by Marshal Marmont,[166] who, coming to Paris at the close of 1809,
called on his old friend and talked with the enthusiasm of a successful
soldier about the Emperor. “Well, Marmont,” replied Decrès, “you are
pleased at being made a marshal; you see everything in bright colors.
Do you want me to tell you the truth and to unveil the future? The
Emperor is mad--absolutely mad! He will upset us all, and everything
will end in a terrible disaster.” Taken in connection with King Louis’
attitude in Holland, the Cabinet opposition of December, 1809, amounted
to rebellion against Napoleon’s authority.
At the Cabinet council of December 20 Montalivet made a written report
on the subject of American cotton, which threw so much blame on the
Imperial policy as to call a written contradiction from Napoleon.
“An American vessel,” the Emperor replied the next day,[167] “coming
from Louisiana to France will be well received here, no act of the
government forbidding the admission of American ships into French
ports.” The Americans, he explained, had prohibited commerce with
France while permitting it with Holland, Spain, and Naples; and
in consequence “his Majesty has used his right of influence over
his neighbors because he was unwilling that they should be treated
differently from France, and he has sequestered the ships destined for
their ports;” but no such provision had been made against American
ships entering French ports.
Naturally piqued at an Imperial assertion that he had shown ignorance
of facts that deeply concerned his department, Montalivet sent to the
Treasury for information, with which, a few days afterward, he routed
the Emperor from the field. Unable to answer him, Napoleon referred his
report to Gaudin, Minister of Finance, with a curious marginal note,
which showed--what his ministers evidently believed--that the Emperor
understood neither the workings of his own system nor the laws of the
United States:--
“Referred to the Minister of Finance to make me a report on
this question: (1) How is it conceivable that American ships
come from America in spite of the embargo? (2) How distinguish
between ships coming from America and those coming from London?”
Armstrong obtained immediate and accurate knowledge of this struggle
in council. Only a week after the Emperor wrote his note on the
margin of Montalivet’s report, Armstrong sent home a despatch on the
subject:[168]--
“The veil which for some weeks past has covered the proceedings
of the Cabinet with regard to neutral commerce is now so far
withdrawn as to enable us to see with sufficient distinctness
both the actors and the acting. The Ministers of Police and of
the Interior (Fouché and Montalivet) have come out openly and
vigorously against the present anti-commercial system, and have
denounced it as ‘one originating in error and productive only
of evil, and particularly calculated to impoverish France and
enrich her enemy.’ While they have held this language in the
Cabinet they have held one of nearly the same tenor out of it,
and have added (we may suppose on sufficient authority) the
most solemn assurances that the Emperor ‘never meant to do more
than to prevent the commerce of the United States from becoming
_tributary_ to Great Britain; that a new decision would
soon be taken by him on this subject, and that from this the
happiest results were to be expected.’”
As though to prevent President Madison from showing undue elation at
this announcement for the fiftieth time that the happiest results
were to be expected from the future, Armstrong wrote another letter,
four days afterward,[169] on the new confiscations and their cause.
Frenchmen he said would reason thus: “There is a deficit of fifty
millions in the receipts of last year. This must be supplied. Why not
then put our hands into the pockets of your citizens once more, since,
as you continue to be embroiled with Great Britain, we may do it with
impunity.” Armstrong was angry, and could not analyze to the bottom
the Emperor’s methods or motives. Thiers, in later years having the
advantage of studying Napoleon’s papers, understood better the nature
of his genius. “To admit false neutrals in order to confiscate them
afterward, greatly pleased his astute (_rusé_) mind,” wrote the
French historian and statesman,[170] “little scrupulous in the choice
of means, especially in regard to shameless smugglers who violated
at once the laws of their own country and those of the country that
consented to admit them.” This description could not properly be
applied to Americans, since they violated neither their own law nor
that of France by coming to Amsterdam, San Sebastian, and Naples;
but Thiers explained that the Emperor considered all Americans as
smugglers, and that he wrote to the Prussian government: “Let the
American ships enter your ports! Seize them afterward. You shall
deliver the cargoes to me, and I will take them in part payment of the
Prussian war-debt.”[171] Meanwhile the confiscation of American ships
helped in no way the objects promised by Napoleon to Montalivet and
Fouché. At a loss to invent a theory on which neutrals could be at the
same time plundered and encouraged, the Emperor referred the subject
to Champagny, January 10, in an interesting letter.[172] He called for
a complete history of his relations with the United States since the
treaty of Morfontaine. He ordered the recall of Turreau, in whom he
said he had little confidence, and who should be replaced by a more
adroit agent:--
“Have several conferences, if necessary, with the American
minister as well as with the Secretary of Legation who has just
come from London; in short, let me know your opinion on the
measures proper to be taken to get out of the position we are in
(_pour sortir de la position où nous nous trouvons_).”
“All the measures I have taken, as I have said several times,
are only measures of reprisal.... It was only to the new
extension given to the right of blockade that I opposed the
Decree of Berlin; and even the Decree of Berlin ought to be
considered as a Continental, not as a maritime blockade, for it
has been carried out in that form. I regard it, in some sort,
only as a protest, and a violence opposed to a violence.... Down
to this point there was little harm. Neutrals still entered
our ports; but the British Orders in Council necessitated my
Milan Decree, and from that time there were no neutrals.... I
am now assured that the English have given way; that they no
longer levy taxes on ships. Let me know if there is an authentic
act which announces it, and if there is none, let me know if
the fact is true; for once I shall be assured that a tax on
navigation will not be established by England, I shall be able
to give way on many points.”
All Napoleon’s ministers must have known that these assertions of his
commercial policy were invented for a momentary purpose. He had himself
often declared, and caused them to declare, that his Continental
system, established by the Berlin Decree and enforced before the Orders
in Council were issued, had a broad military purpose quite independent
of retaliation,--that it was aimed at the destruction of England’s
commerce and resources. As for his profession of ignorance that England
had abandoned her transit duties on neutral merchandise, every minister
was equally well aware that only six months before, the Emperor had
discussed with them the measures to be taken in consequence of that
abandonment; had sent them the draft of a new decree founded upon it,
and had finally decided to do nothing only because England had again
quarrelled with America over Erskine’s arrangement. The pretexts
alleged by Napoleon were such as his ministers could not have believed;
but they were satisfied to obtain on any grounds the concessions they
desired, and Champagny--or as he was thenceforward called, the Due de
Cadore--sent to Armstrong for the information the Emperor professed to
want.
January 18, M. Petry, at the order of Cadore, called on the American
minister, and requested from him a written memorandum expressing the
demands of his Government. Armstrong drew up a short minute of the
provisions to be made the material of a treaty.[173] The first Article
required the restoration of sequestered property; the next stipulated
that any ship which had paid tribute to a foreign Power should be
liable to confiscation, but that with this exception commerce should
be free. Cadore sent this paper to the Emperor, and within a few hours
received a characteristic reply.
“You must see the American minister,” wrote Napoleon.[174]
“It is quite too ridiculous (_par trop ridicule_) that
he should write things that no one can comprehend. I prefer
him to write in English, but fully and in a manner that we can
understand. [It is absurd] that in affairs so important he
should content himself with writing letters of four lines....
Send by special courier a cipher despatch to America to let it
be understood that that government is not represented here; that
its minister does not know French; is a morose man with whom one
cannot treat; that all obstacles would be raised if they had
here an envoy to be talked with. Write in detail on this point.”
Petry returned to Armstrong with the condemned paper, and received
another, somewhat more elaborate, but hardly more agreeable to the
Emperor. January 25, Cadore himself sent for the American minister, and
discussed the subject. The Emperor, he said, would not commit himself
to the admission of colonial produce; he wished to restrict American
commerce to articles the growth or manufacture of the two countries;
he would not permit his neighbors to carry on a commerce with America
which he denied to himself; but the “only condition required for the
revocation by his Majesty of the Decree of Berlin will be a previous
revocation by the British government of her blockade of France, or part
of France (such as the coast from the Elbe to Brest, etc.), of a date
anterior to that of the aforesaid decree; and if the British government
would then recall the Orders in Council which had occasioned the Decree
of Milan, that decree should also be annulled.” This pledge purported
to come directly from the Emperor, and at Armstrong’s request was
repeated in the Emperor’s exact words.[175]
Neither the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of the Treasury,
nor the Emperor in these discussions alluded to the proposed Decree of
Vienna, the draft of which was sent to Paris in August, confiscating
all American ships in reprisal for the seizures of French ships
threatened by the Non-intercourse Act. Although that decree was the
point which the Emperor meant to reach, not until January 25--when
Champagny, after dismissing Armstrong, reported the interview to
Napoleon, bringing with him at the Emperor’s request the text of the
Non-intercourse Act--did the Emperor at last revert to the ideas of the
Vienna Decree. The long hesitation proved how little satisfactory the
plea of retaliation was; but no other excuse could be devised for a
measure which Napoleon insisted upon carrying out, and which Champagny
had no choice but to execute. The Emperor dictated the draft of a
note,[176] in which the principles of confiscation were to be laid
down:--
“If American ships have been sequestered in France, France only
imitates the example given her by the American government; and
the undersigned recalls to Mr. Armstrong the Act of Congress of
March 1, 1809, which orders in certain cases the sequestration
and confiscation of French ships, excludes them from American
ports, and interdicts France to the Americans. It is in
reprisal of this last provision that the American ships have
been seized in Spain and Naples. The league against England,
which has the cause of neutrals for its object, embraces now
all the Continental peoples, and permits none of them to enjoy
commercial advantages of which France is deprived. France will
permit it in no place where her influence extends; but she is
ready to grant every favor to the ships of a neutral Power which
shall not have subjected themselves to a tribute, and shall
recognize only the laws of their own country, not those of a
foreign government.... If the Minister of the United States has
the power to conclude a convention proper to attain the object
indicated, the undersigned is ordered to give all his care to
it, and to occupy himself upon it without interruption.”
Perhaps this was the only occasion in Napoleon’s life when he stood
between a nation willing to be robbed and a consciousness that to rob
it was a blunder. The draft of his note showed his embarrassment.
Remarkable in many ways, it required special notice in two points. The
proposed Vienna Decree confiscated American ships because French ships
were forbidden under threat of confiscation to enter American ports.
The note of January 25 suggested a variation from this idea. American
ships were to be confiscated everywhere except in France, because they
were forbidden to enter France. As they were also confiscated in France
because they were forbidden to leave America, the Emperor had nothing
more to demand. His reasoning was as convincing as a million bayonets
could make it; but perhaps it was less Napoleonic than the avowal that
for six months the Emperor had been engaged in inveigling American
property into neutral ports in order that he might seize it.
Apparently Cadore still raised obstacles to the Emperor’s will. For
some three weeks he held this note back, and when at last, February
14, he sent it to Armstrong, he made changes which were not all
improvements in the Emperor’s text. Indeed, Napoleon might reasonably
have found as much fault with Champagny as he found with some of his
generals, for failing to carry out the orders he dictated:--
“His Majesty could place no reliance on the proceedings of
the United States, who, having no ground of complaint against
France, comprised her in their acts of exclusion, and since
the month of May have forbidden the entrance of their ports to
French vessels, under the penalty of confiscation. As soon as
his Majesty was informed of this measure, he considered himself
bound to order reprisals on American vessels, not only in his
territory, but likewise in the countries which are under his
influence. In the ports of Holland, of Spain, of Italy, and of
Naples, American vessels have been seized because the Americans
have seized French vessels.”
After such long discussions and so many experiments, Napoleon had
become reckless of appearances when he allowed his foreign secretary
to send this note of Feb. 14, 1810, in which every line was a
misstatement, and every misstatement, as far as concerned America,
was evident in its purpose; while apart from these faults, the note
erred in trying to cover too much ground of complaint against the
United States. Napoleon had, in the projected Decree of Vienna,
ordered retaliation everywhere for the confiscation threatened by the
Non-intercourse Act. Made to feel the impossibility of this course,
he changed his ground, continuing to confiscate American ships in
France under the old Bayonne Decree, and ordering the sequestration of
American ships throughout the rest of Europe on the plea that other
countries must not enjoy a commerce interdicted to France. Cadore’s
note abandoned this ground again, in order to return to the doctrine of
the projected Vienna Decree; and in the effort to give it a color of
reason, he asserted that the Americans had seized French vessels.
Such a letter was a declaration of war six months after beginning
hostilities; and it made no offer of peace except on condition that the
United States should pledge themselves to resist every British blockade
which was not real in the sense defined by Napoleon. Armstrong wrote to
his Government, in language as strong as he could use, that nothing was
to be expected from a policy that had no other foundation than force
or fraud. His angry remonstrances had embroiled him with the Emperor,
and he was on the point of quitting France. Under such circumstances
he did not insist on breaking off further conversations with Petry,
but February 25 he positively assured Petry that neither would the
President and Senate ratify, nor would he himself as negotiator accept,
a treaty in any form which did not provide reparation for the past as
well as security for the future;[177] and March 10 he replied to the
Duc de Cadore in what the Emperor would have called a morose tone,
denying every assertion made in Cadore’s note,--reminding Cadore that
the Emperor had received knowledge of the Non-intercourse Act at the
time of its passage without a sign of protest or complaint; and,
finally, renewing his old, longstanding grievances against “the daily
and practical outrages on the part of France.”[178]
When the Emperor received Armstrong’s letter, which was excessively
strong, and ended in a suggestion that Napoleon was trying to cover
theft by falsehood, he showed no sign of anger, but became almost
apologetic, and wrote to Cadore,[179]--
“Make a sketch of a reply to the American minister. It will be
easy for you to make him understand that I am master to do here
what America does there; that when America embargoes French
ships entering her ports, I have the right to reciprocate.
You will explain to him how that law came to our knowledge
only a short time ago, and only when I had knowledge of it did
I immediately prescribe the same measure; that a few days
before, I was busying myself with provisions for raising the
actual prohibitions on American merchandise, when the course of
commerce (_la voie du commerce_) made known to me that our
honor was involved, and that no compromise was possible; that I
conceive America as entitled to prevent her ships from coming to
England and France; that I approved this last measure, though
there was much to be said about it; but that I cannot recognize
that she should arrogate the right of seizing French ships in
her ports without putting herself in the case of incurring
reciprocity.”
One must answer as one can the question why Cadore, who had in
his hands Armstrong’s letter of April 29, 1809,[180] officially
communicating the Non-intercourse Act, should not have suggested
to Napoleon that some limit to his failings of memory ought to
be observed. Napoleon’s memory was sometimes overtasked by the
mass of details he undertook to carry in his mind, but a striking
incident always impressed itself there. Mme. de Rémusat[181] told
how Grétry, who as member of the Institute regularly attended the
Imperial audiences, was almost as regularly asked by Napoleon, “Who
are you?” Tired at last of this rough question, Grétry replied by
an answer equally blunt: “Sire, toujours Grétry;” and thenceforward
the Emperor never failed to remember him. The United States in a
similar tone recalled their affairs to the Emperor’s memory by the
Non-intercourse Act; but had this “toujours Grétry” not been enough,
Napoleon’s financial needs also made him peculiarly alive to every
event that could relieve them, and his correspondence proved that the
Non-intercourse Act as early as May, 1809, impressed him deeply. Yet in
March, 1810, he not only convinced himself that this Act had just come
to his knowledge, producing in him an outburst of national dignity,
but he also convinced his Minister of Foreign Relations, who knew the
contrary, that these impressions were true, and made him witness them
by his signature.
Acting without delay on the theory of sudden passion, the Emperor
signed, three days afterward, March 23, a decree known as the Decree
of Rambouillet, in which the result of these long hesitations was at
last condensed.[182] This document was a paraphrase of the projected
Decree of Vienna of Aug. 4, 1809; and it showed the tenacity with which
Napoleon, while seeming to yield to opposition, never failed to return
to a purpose and effect its object. In order to carry out the Decree of
Vienna in that of Rambouillet he was forced into a _coup d’état_.
He had not only to expel his brother Louis from Holland, and annex
Holland to France, but also to drive his ablest minister, Fouché, from
the Cabinet.
Of the steps by which he accomplished his objects, something can
be seen in his letters; of his motives, no doubt ever existed.
Armstrong described them in strong language; but his language was
that of a party interested. Thiers recounted them as a panegyric,
and his language was even clearer than Armstrong’s. He made nothing
of the Emperor’s pretence that his seizures were in reprisal for the
Non-intercourse Act. “This was an official reason (_une raison
d’apparat_),” said Thiers.[183] “He was in search of a specious
pretext for seizing in Holland, in France, in Italy, the mass of
American ships which smuggled for the English, and which were within
his reach. He had actually sequestered a considerable number; and
in their rich cargoes were to be found the means of furnishing his
Treasury with resources nearly equal to those procured for him by the
contributions of war imposed on the vanquished.”
The system of treating the United States as an enemy conquered in war
rested on a foundation of truth; and as usual with conquered countries
it met with most resistance, not from them but from bystanders. The
Emperor of Russia, the kings of Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, the
Hanse Towns, and King Louis of Holland were the chief obstacles to the
success of the scheme to which they were required to be parties. King
Louis of Holland refused to seize the American ships at Amsterdam, and
forced his brother to the conclusion that if nothing else could be
done, Holland must be annexed to France.
For many reasons the annexation of Holland met with little favor in the
Emperor’s family and among his Council. Chief among its opponents was
Fouché, who sacrificed himself in his efforts to prevent it. Driven to
the conviction that nothing but peace with England could put an end to
the Emperor’s experiments on the welfare of France, Fouché resolved
that peace should be made, and invented a scheme for bringing it about.
As Minister of Police he controlled secret means of intrigue, and
probably he acted without concert with his colleagues; but the motives
which guided him were common to almost all Napoleon’s Cabinet. The
only difference between ministers was, that while Cadore, Montalivet,
Mollien, and Decrès stopped their opposition when it became dangerous,
Fouché undertook to act.
Something of this came to Armstrong’s ears. As early as January 10[184]
he reported a remark which he could not understand. “‘Do not believe,’
said a minister to me the other day, ‘that peace between us and England
is impossible. If we offer to her the commerce of the world, can she
resist it?’” Unknown to Armstrong, Napoleon had already made an advance
to England. For this purpose he employed Labouchere, the chief banker
of Holland, whose association with the Barings of London fitted him
to act as an intermediary. The message sent by the Emperor through
Labouchere could hardly be called an offer of terms; it amounted only
to a threat that unless England made peace Holland should be annexed
to France, and every avenue of illicit commerce in northern Europe
should be stopped. In itself this message could hardly serve as ground
for a treaty; but Fouché, without the Emperor’s knowledge, sent to
London at the same time, about January 18, a secret agent named Fagan,
to suggest that if Great Britain would abandon Spain, France would join
in creating from the Spanish-American colonies a monarchy for Ferdinand
VII., and from Louisiana, at the expense of the United States, a
kingdom for the French Bourbons.[185]
This last idea bore on its face the marks of its origin. Fouché had
listened to Aaron Burr, who after years of effort reached Paris, and
presented to the government a memoir showing that with ten thousand
regular troops, and a combined attack from Canada and Louisiana, the
destruction of the United States was certain.[186] The scheme for
placing the Spanish Bourbons on a Spanish-American throne probably came
from the same Ouvrard whom Napoleon imprisoned at Vincennes, and whom
Fouché took into favor.
Labouchere and Fagan went to England, and early in February had
interviews with the British ministers, who quickly dismissed them. The
only impression made on the British government by the double mission
was one of perplexity at the object of an errand which appeared too
absurd for discussion. The two agents returned to the Continent, and
reported the result of their journey. Meanwhile Napoleon ordered
Marshal Oudinot to march his army-corps into Holland, a step which
brought King Louis to immediate submission. “I promise you,” wrote
Louis, “to follow faithfully all the engagements you shall impose upon
me. I give you my word of honor to follow them faithfully and loyally
from the moment I shall have undertaken them.”[187] While Cadore was
still negotiating with Armstrong for an arrangement with America, he
was also employed in framing a treaty with Louis, which exacted the
seizure of all American ships and merchandise in Dutch ports.[188]
Louis came to Paris, and March 16 signed the treaty which by a secret
stipulation provided for the seizure of American property.[189]
Matters stood thus April 1, 1810, when the ceremonies of the Imperial
marriage interrupted for the moment further action. Napoleon had
carried his point in regard to the punishment of America; but the
difficulties he had already met were trifling compared with the
difficulties to come.
CHAPTER XII.
Napoleon set out, April 27, with his new Empress on a wedding journey
to Holland. In the course of his journey an accident revealed to him
the secret correspondence which Fouché had conducted through Fagan
with the British government. Nothing criminal was alleged, nor was it
evident that the Minister of Police had acted contrary to the Emperor’s
admitted wishes; but since the fall of Talleyrand, Fouché alone had
considered himself so necessary to the Imperial service as to affect
independence, and the opportunity to discipline him could not be lost.
June 3 he was disgraced, and exiled to Italy. General Savary, Duc de
Rovigo, succeeded him as Minister of Police.
The fate of King Louis was almost equally swift. When he returned to
Holland after promising entire submission and signing the treaty of
March 16, he could not endure the disgrace of carrying his pledges
into effect. He tried to evade the surrender of the American ships,
and to resist the military occupation of his kingdom. He showed
public sympathy with the Emperor’s opponents, and with riotous
popular proceedings at Amsterdam. Once more the Emperor was obliged
to treat him as an enemy. June 24 the French troops were ordered
to occupy Amsterdam, and July 3 Louis, abdicating his throne, took
refuge in Germany. July 8 Napoleon signed a Decree annexing Holland to
France.[190]
The United States at the same time received their punishment for
opposing the Imperial will. The Decree of Rambouillet, though signed
March 23, was published only May 14, when the sequestrations previously
made in Holland, Spain, Italy, and France became in a manner legalized.
The value of the seizures in Holland and Spain was estimated by the
Emperor in arranging his budget for the current year as follows:[191]
American cargoes previously seized at Antwerp, two million dollars;
cargoes surrendered by Holland, two million four hundred thousand
dollars; seizures in Spain, one million six hundred thousand dollars.
In this estimate of six million dollars the seizures in France,
Denmark, Hamburg, Italy, and Naples were not included. The American
consul at Paris reported to Armstrong that between April 1809 and April
1810 fifty-one American ships had been seized in the ports of France,
forty-four in the ports of Spain, twenty-eight in those of Naples,
and eleven in those of Holland.[192] Assuming an average value of
thirty thousand dollars, these one hundred and thirty-four American
ships represented values exceeding four millions. Adding to Napoleon’s
estimate of six millions the Consul’s reported seizure of seventy-nine
ships in France and Naples, a sum of nearly $8,400,000 was attained. In
this estimate the seizures at Hamburg, in Denmark, and in the Baltic
were not included. On the whole the loss occasioned to Americans could
not be estimated at less than ten millions, even after allowing for
English property disguised as American. The exports from the United
States during the six months after the embargo amounted to fifty-two
million dollars,[193] exclusive of the ships; and as England offered a
less profitable market than the Continent, one fifth of this commerce
might easily have fallen into Napoleon’s hands. Twenty years afterward
the government of France paid five million dollars as indemnity for
a portion of the seizures, from which Napoleon by his own account
received not less than seven millions.
Profitable as this sweeping confiscation was, and thoroughly as
Napoleon overbore opposition in his family and Cabinet, such measures
in no way promised to retrieve the disaster his system suffered from
the defection of America. While England protected American ships in
their attempts to counteract his system in Spain, Holland, and in the
Baltic, the Emperor regarded American trade as identical with British,
and confiscated it accordingly; but by doing so he exhausted his means
of punishment, and since he could not march armies to New York and
Baltimore as he marched them to Amsterdam and Hamburg, he could only
return on his steps and effect by diplomacy what he could not effect by
force. The Act of March 1, 1809, was a thorn in his side; but the news
which arrived toward the end of June, 1810, that Congress had repealed
even that slight obstacle to trade with England made some corrective
action inevitable. The Act of May 1, 1810, struck a blow at the Emperor
such as no Power in Europe dared aim, for it threw open to British
trade a market in the United States which would alone compensate
England for the loss of her trade with France and Holland. Macon’s Act
made the Milan Decree useless.
Napoleon no sooner learned that Congress had renewed intercourse
with England and France, than he wrote an interesting note[194] to
Montalivet dated June 25, the day after he ordered his army to seize
Amsterdam.
“The Americans,” he said, “have raised the embargo on their
ships so that all American ships can leave America to come to
France; but those which should come here would be sequestered,
because all would either have been visited by English ships or
would have touched in England. It is therefore probable that no
American ship will come into our ports without being assured of
what France means to do in regard to them.”
France could evidently do one of three things,--either avowedly
maintain her decrees, or expressly revoke them, or seem to revoke them
while in fact maintaining them. The process by which Napoleon made his
choice was characteristic.
“We may do two things,” he continued,--“either declare that the
Decrees of Berlin and Milan are repealed, and replace commerce
where it formerly was; or announce that the Decrees will be
repealed September 1, if on that date the English have repealed
the Orders in Council. Or the English will withdraw their Orders
in Council, and then we shall have to ascertain whether the
situation that follows will be advantageous to us.”
Assuming that the decrees and orders were withdrawn, and American ships
admitted as neutrals, the Emperor explained how he should still enforce
his system as before:--
“This situation will have no influence on the customs
legislation, which will always regulate arbitrarily duties
and prohibitions. The Americans will be able to bring sugar
and coffee into our ports,--the privateers will not stop them
because the flag covers the goods; but when they come into a
port of France or a country under the influence of France, they
will find the customs legislation, by which we shall be able
to say that we do not want the sugar and coffee brought by the
Americans because they are English merchandise; that we do not
want tobacco, etc.; that we do not want such or such goods,
which we can as we please class among prohibited goods. Thus it
is evident that we should commit ourselves to nothing.”
Again and again, orally and in writing, in the presence of the whole
Council and in private to each minister, the Emperor had asserted
positively and even angrily that “all the measures I have taken, as
I have said several times, are only measures of reprisal;” yet after
assuming that his reprisals had succeeded, and that England had
withdrawn her orders as France should have withdrawn her decrees, he
told Montalivet, as though it were a matter of course, that he should
carry out the same system by different means. This method of fighting
for the rights of neutrals differed but little, and not to advantage,
from the British method of fighting against them.
The Emperor put his new plan in shape. He proposed to recognize neutral
rights by issuing licenses under the name of permits for a score of
American vessels, and for the introduction of Georgia cotton, the
article for which Montalivet made his long struggle. This measure was
to be so organized that the shipments could take place only in a single
designated port of America, only with certificates of origin delivered
by a single French consul also to be designated; that the ship could
enter only at one or two designated ports of France; that independently
of the certificates of origin a cipher-letter should be written to the
Minister of Foreign Relations by the consul who should have given them;
finally, that the ships should be required to take in return wines,
cognac, silks, and other French goods for the value of the cargo.
Deep was Armstrong’s disgust when an Imperial Decree[195] appeared,
dated July 15, authorizing licenses for thirty American ships to sail
from Charleston or New York under the rigorous conditions detailed by
this note; but the thirty licenses were merely a beginning. Once having
grasped the idea that something must be done for French industry,
the Emperor pressed it with his usual energy and with the usual
results. During the months of June and July, while annexing Holland
to his empire, he worked laboriously on his new commercial system.
He created a special Council of Commerce, held meetings as often as
twice a week, and issued decrees and orders by dozens. The difficulty
of understanding his new method was great, owing to a duplication
of orders not unusual with him; the meaning of a public decree was
affected by some secret decree or order not made public, and as never
failed to happen with his civil affairs, the whole mass became confused.
Apparently the new system[196] rested on a decree of July 25, 1810,
which forbade any ship whatever to leave a French port for a foreign
port without a license; and this license, in the Emperor’s eyes, gave
the character of a French ship to the licensed vessel,--“that is to
say, in two words, that I will have no neutral vessel; and in fact
there is none really neutral,--they are all vessels which violate the
blockade and pay ransom to the English.” In other words the Emperor’s
scheme was founded on his Berlin and Milan Decree and left them intact
except within the operation of the licenses. “For these [licensed]
ships,” he said,[197] “the Decrees of Berlin and Milan are null and
void; ... my licenses are a tacit privilege of exemption from my
decrees, on condition of conforming to the rules prescribed by the
said licenses.” The licenses themselves were classified in thirty
different series,[198]--for the ocean, the Mediterranean, England,
etc.,--and prescribed the cargoes to be carried both on the inward
and outward voyages.[199] They made no distinction between neutrals
and enemies; the license that authorized a voyage from London was the
same, except for its scries, as that which covered a cargo of cotton
from Charleston; and such distinction as appeared, was limited to
imposing on the neutral additional trouble to prove that his goods
were not English. In theory the import of such British merchandise
as would relieve England’s distress was forbidden, and the export of
French merchandise was encouraged, not only in order to assist French
industry, but also in order to drain England of specie. Especially the
sugar, coffee, and cotton of the colonies were prohibited; but when
captured by privateers or confiscated on land, colonial produce was
first admitted to the custom-house at a duty of fifty per cent, and
then sold for the benefit of the Imperial treasury.
This system and tariff Napoleon imposed on all the countries subject to
his power, including Switzerland, Naples, Hamburg, and the Hanse Towns;
while he exerted all his influence to force the same policy on Prussia
and Russia. As far as concerned the only neutral, the United States,
the system classified American ships either as English when unlicensed,
or as French when licensed; it imposed Imperial functions inconsistent
with local law on the French consuls in America, and violated both
international and municipal law only to produce another form of the
Berlin and Milan Decrees, in some respects more offensive than the
original.
The character and actions of Napoleon were so overpowering that history
naturally follows their course rather than the acts of the undecided
and unenergetic governments which he drove before him; and for this
reason the replies made by Secretary Robert Smith to the flashes of
Imperial temper or policy have not hitherto been noticed. In truth,
Secretary Smith made no attempt to rival Napoleon in originality or
in vigor of ideas or expression. Neither his genius nor that of
Madison shone bright in the lurid glare of the Emperor’s planet. When
Champagny’s letter of Aug. 22, 1809, reached Washington with its novel
views about floating colonies, rights of search, identity of blockade
with siege, and warning of confiscations in Holland, Spain, and Italy,
President Madison, replying through Robert Smith, Dec. 1, 1809,
contented himself with silence in regard to the threats, and with a
mild dissent from the Emperor’s exposition of the _jus gentium_.
“However founded the definition of M. Champagny may be in reason and
general utility, and consequently however desirable to be made the
established law on the subject of blockades, a different practice has
too long prevailed among all nations, France as well as others, and is
too strongly authenticated by the writers of admitted authority, to be
combated by the United States.”
A touch of Madison’s humor brightened the monotony of these
commonplaces, but was not granted the freedom which the subject
might have allowed. The President felt no wish to dwell on what was
unreasonable or violent in Napoleon’s conduct. He passed lightly
over the floating colony, ignored the threatened seizure of American
commerce, and fastened on the closing paragraph of Champagny’s note,
which promised that if England would revoke her blockades, the decrees
of France should fall of themselves. This proposition, defined by
Champagny and commented by Armstrong, required that England should
admit the whole doctrine of floating colonies and siege-blockades.
Madison knew it to be impracticable and deceptive; but he was not bound
to go beyond the letter of the pledge, and although he declined to
admit Napoleon among those “writers of admitted authority” whose law
prevailed among nations, he instructed Armstrong to act without delay
in the sense of Champagny’s suggestion.
“You will of course,” wrote Secretary Smith to Armstrong, Dec.
1, 1809, “understand it to be wished that you should ascertain
the meaning of the French government as to the condition on
which it has been proposed to revoke the Berlin Decree. On the
principle which seems to be assumed by M. Champagny, nothing
more ought to be required than a recall by Great Britain of her
proclamation or illegal blockades which are of a date prior to
that of the Berlin Decree, or a formal declaration that they are
not now in force.”[200]
January 25, 1810, Armstrong asked Cadore the question thus dictated,
and received for answer that the Emperor required only the revocation
of the British blockades as a condition of recalling the Decree of
Berlin,--a reply which Armstrong communicated the same day to Minister
Pinkney at London. No further instructions from Washington seem to
have reached the United States Legation at Paris until news arrived
that on May 1 the Non-intercourse Act had been repealed. No official
information of the repeal was received by Armstrong, but an American
who brought despatches from Pinkney in London brought also a printed
copy of the Act of May 1, 1810. In the want of official advices,
probably July 9, Armstrong communicated the Act of May 1 to the Duc
de Cadore in the unofficial form of a newspaper. Cadore replied that
being so entirely unofficial, it could not be made the ground-work of
any government proceeding;[201] but he took it to the Emperor, and
Armstrong waited for some striking exhibition of displeasure.
From that moment Armstrong’s relations with Cadore became mysterious.
Something unrecorded passed between them, for, July 19 Napoleon ordered
Cadore to write to the French ambassador at St. Petersburg a message
for the American minister at that Court:[202]--
“Charge the Duc de Vicence to tell Mr. Adams that we have here
an American minister who says nothing; that we need an active
man whom one can comprehend, and by whose means we could come to
an understanding with the Americans.”[203]
For three weeks Napoleon made no decision on the subject of the
American Act; then, after settling the annexation of Holland, he wrote
to Cadore July 31:[204]--
“After having much reflected on the affairs of America, I have
thought that to repeal my Decrees of Berlin and Milan would have
no effect; that it would be better for you to make a note to Mr.
Armstrong by which you should let him know that you have put
under my eyes the details contained in the American newspaper;
that I should have liked to have a more official communication,
but that time passes, and that,--since he assures me we may
regard this as official,--he can consider that my Decrees of
Berlin and Milan will have no effect, dating from November 1;
and that he is to consider them as withdrawn in consequence
of such Act of the American Congress, on condition that (_à
condition que_) if the British Council does not withdraw its
Orders of 1807, the United States Congress shall fulfil the
engagement it has taken to re-establish its prohibitions on
British commerce. This appears to me more suitable than a decree
which would cause a shock (_qui ferait secousse_) and would
not fulfil my object. This method appears to me more conformable
to my dignity and to the seriousness of the affair.”
The Emperor himself, August 2, dictated the letter,--the most
important he ever sent to the United States government. During the
next three days he made numerous changes in the draft; but at last it
was signed and sent to the American Legation.[205] Upon that paper,
long famous as Cadore’s letter of Aug. 5, 1810, turned the course
of subsequent events; but apart from its practical consequences the
student of history, whether interested in the character of Napoleon
or of Madison, or in the legal aspects of war and peace, or in the
practice of governments and the capacity of different peoples for
self-government, could find few examples or illustrations better suited
to his purpose than the letter itself, the policy it revealed, and the
manner in which it was received by the United States and Great Britain.
Cadore began by saying that he had communicated to the Emperor the
newspaper containing the Act of Congress of May 1. The Emperor could
have wished that all the acts of the United States government which
concerned France had always been officially made known to him:--
“In general, he has only had indirect knowledge of them after a
long interval of time. From this delay serious inconveniences
have resulted which would not have existed had these acts been
promptly and officially communicated.
“The Emperor applauded the general embargo laid by the United
States on all their vessels, because that measure, if it
has been prejudicial to France, had in it at least nothing
offensive to her honor. It has caused her to lose her colonies
of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Cayenne; the Emperor has not
complained of it. He has made this sacrifice to the principle
which has determined the Americans to lay the embargo.... The
Act of March 1 [1809] raised the embargo and substituted for
it a measure the most injurious to the interests of France.
This Act, of which the Emperor knew nothing until very lately,
interdicted to American vessels the commerce of France at the
time it authorized that to Spain, Naples, and Holland,--that is
to say, to the countries under French influence,--and denounced
confiscation against all French vessels which should enter the
ports of America. Reprisal was a right, and commanded by the
dignity of France,--a circumstance on which it was impossible
to make a compromise (_de transiger_). The sequestration
of all the American vessels in France has been the necessary
consequence of the measure taken by Congress.”
This preamble, interesting for the novelty of its assertions both
of fact and law, led to the conclusion that the Act of May 1, 1810,
was a retreat from the Act of March 1, 1809, and warranted France in
accepting the offer extended by both laws to the nation which should
first “cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States.”
“In this new state of things,” concluded Cadore, “I am
authorized to declare to you, sir, that the Decrees of Berlin
and Milan are revoked, and that after November 1 they will cease
to have effect,--it being understood (_bien entendu_) that
in consequence of this declaration the English are to revoke
their Orders in Council, and renounce the new principles of
blockade which they have wished to establish; or that the United
States, conformably to the Act you have just communicated, cause
their rights to be respected by the English.”
No phraseology could have more embarrassed President Madison, while,
as Napoleon had remarked to Montalivet a few days before, “it is
evident that we commit ourselves to nothing.”[206] So closely was the
Imperial promise imitated from that given by Erskine that the President
could hardly reject it, although no American merchant would have
risked so much as a cargo of salt-fish on a pledge of such a kind from
such a man. As though to warn the Americans, Napoleon added personal
assurances that gave to the whole proceeding an unpleasant air of
burlesque:--
“It is with the most particular satisfaction, sir, that I make
known to you this determination of the Emperor. His Majesty
loves the Americans. Their prosperity and their commerce are
within the scope of his policy. The independence of America
is one of the principal titles of glory to France. Since that
epoch the Emperor is pleased in aggrandizing the United States;
and under all circumstances that which can contribute to the
independence, to the prosperity, and to the liberty of the
Americans the Emperor will consider as conformable with the
interests of his Empire.”
One might doubt whether Napoleon or Canning were the more deficient in
good taste; but Americans whose nerves were irritated to fury by the
irony of Canning, found these expressions of Napoleon’s love rather
absurd than insulting. So little had the mere fact of violence to
do with the temper of politics, compared with the sentiments which
surrounded it, that Napoleon could seize without notice ten million
dollars’ worth of American property, imprisoning the American crews
of two or three hundred vessels in his dungeons, while at the same
instant he told the Americans that he loved them, that their commerce
was within the scope of his policy, and as a climax avowed a scheme to
mislead the United States government, hardly troubling himself to use
forms likely to conceal his object; yet the vast majority of Americans
never greatly resented acts which seemed to them like the exploits of
an Italian brigand on the stage. Beyond doubt, Napoleon regarded his
professions of love and interest not as irony or extravagance, but as
adapted to deceive. A few weeks earlier he sent a message to the Czar
of Russia, who asked him to disavow the intention of restoring the
kingdom of Poland. “If I should ever sign,” replied Napoleon,[207] “a
declaration that the kingdom of Poland shall never be restored, it
would be for the reason that I intended to restore it,--a trap I should
set for Russia;” and in signing a declaration to the President that his
decrees were repealed, he set a trap for the United States, which he
baited with professions of love that to a more refined taste would have
seemed fatal to his object.
This mixture of feline qualities,--energy, astuteness, secrecy, and
rapidity,--combined with ignorance of other natures than his own, was
shown in the act with which he concluded his arrangements of Aug.
5, 1810. About a fortnight before, by a secret decree dated July
22, 1810,[208] he had ordered the proceeds of the American cargoes
seized at Antwerp and in Dutch and Spanish ports, valued by him at
six million dollars, to be turned into the Treasury as a part of his
customs revenue devoted to the service of 1809–10. In French ports he
held still some fifty ships in sequestration. Cadore’s letter of August
5 mentioned these ships as sequestered,--a phrase implying that they
would be held subject to future negotiation and decision, liable to be
returned to their owners; yet on the same day Napoleon signed another
secret decree[209] which condemned without hearing or judgment all the
ships and cargoes declared to be still in sequestration by the letter
that could hardly have yet been sent from Cadore’s office. Every vessel
which had arrived in French ports between May 20, 1809, and May 1,
1810, suffered confiscation by this decree, which further ordered that
the American crews should be released from the dungeons where they were
held as prisoners of war, and that from August 5 to November 1, 1810,
American ships should be allowed to enter French ports, but should not
discharge their cargoes without a license.
The Decree of August 5 was never made public. Armstrong indeed
employed the last hours of his stay in Paris in asking whether the
French government meant to admit further negotiation about these
seizures,[210] and Cadore replied that the law of reprisals was
final;[211] but when Albert Gallatin, as minister at Paris some
ten years afterward, happened to obtain a copy of the document,
he expressed his anger at its secrecy in language such as he used
in regard to no other transaction of his public life. “No one can
suppose,” he wrote,[212] “that if it had been communicated or published
at the same time, the United States would with respect to the promised
revocation of the Berlin and Milan Decrees have taken that ground which
ultimately led to the war with Great Britain. It is indeed unnecessary
to comment on such a glaring act of combined injustice, bad faith, and
meanness as the enacting and concealment of that decree exhibits.”
These epithets would not have disturbed Napoleon. Politics were to
him a campaign, and if his opponents had not the sense to divine his
movements and motives, the disgrace and disaster were none of his.
More mysterious than the conduct of Napoleon was that of Armstrong.
Contenting himself with whatever the Emperor ordered, he refrained in
his despatches from saying more than was necessary for the record.
He protected himself from Napoleon’s personal attack by sending to
the Duc de Cadore an undated letter,[213] referring to the archives
of Cadore’s department for proof that every public measure of the
United States had been promptly and officially communicated to the
French government; but he wrote home no report of any conference with
Cadore, he expressed no opinion as to the faith of the Emperor’s
promise, made no further protest against the actual reprisals, and
required no indemnity for past spoliations. In fact, no action was
asked from him; but he lent himself readily to the silence that was
needed. Cadore reported[214] to the Emperor that Armstrong “before
his departure wishes to open (_engager_) none of those difficult
questions which he foresees must rise between the two governments, in
order to arrive in America without having seen the fading of the glory
he attaches to having obtained the Note of August 5.” Too happy in
the good fortune that threw an apparent triumph into his hands at the
moment when he was ending his diplomatic career in disgust, he felt
anxious only to escape before another turn of the wheel should destroy
his success. He remained in Paris more than a month after receiving
Cadore’s letter of August 5, but reserved for a personal interview
whatever information he had to give the President; and his letters,
like his despatches, expressed no inconvenient opinions. Sept. 12,
1810, his long and extremely interesting mission ended, and he quitted
Paris on his homeward journey, leaving the Legation in charge of
Jonathan Russell of Rhode Island. Armstrong’s last official act was to
write from Bordeaux a letter to Pinkney at London, declaring that the
conditions imposed by Napoleon on the repeal of his decrees were “not
_precedent_, as has been supposed, but _subsequent_.”[215]
CHAPTER XIII.
WHILE Napoleon labored to reconstruct his system mutilated
by American legislation, the Government of Great Britain sank lower
and lower toward disappearance, while the star of Spencer Perceval
shone alone with dull lustre on the British horizon. When the
Portland ministry went to pieces in September, 1809, Perceval became
of necessity master of the empire. Canning had quarrelled with him,
and refused office except as prime minister. Castlereagh had been so
lately disgraced that he could bring only weakness to the Government
if he rejoined it. Both Castlereagh and Sidmouth refused to serve with
Canning on any terms. The Whigs, represented by Lord Grenville and Lord
Grey, were excluded by the King’s prejudices, by their own pledges to
the Irish Catholics, and by the great preponderance of Tory opinion in
the country. The Duke of Portland was dying; King George himself was
on the verge of insanity, and every one supposed that the Prince of
Wales, if he became regent, would at once appoint a ministry from among
his Whig friends. This stalemate, where every piece on the chessboard
stood in the way of its neighbor, and none could move while the King
and Spencer Perceval remained, seemed likely to end in the destruction
of the British empire. An economist wiser and better educated than
Napoleon might easily have inferred, as he did, that with time England
must succumb.
Perceval and his remaining friends--Liverpool, Bathurst, Eldon--looked
about them for allies. They would not, indeed they could not, surrender
the government to others, for no one offered to take it. In the House
of Lords they were strong, but in the Commons they had no speaker
except Perceval, while the opposition was strengthened by Canning, and
Castlereagh could not be safely reckoned as more than neutral. They
sought for allies both old and young in the Commons, but their search
was almost fruitless. They could find only young Viscount Palmerston,
about five-and-twenty years of age, who took the subordinate place of
Secretary at War.
Nothing remained but to carry on the government by the Peers, with
Perceval as its only important representative in the Commons. The Lord
Hawkesbury of 1802, who had become Lord Liverpool at his father’s
death, and was actually head of the Home Office, succeeded Castlereagh
as head of the War Department. Spencer Perceval took the Duke of
Portland’s place as first Lord of the Treasury, retaining his old
functions as Chancellor of the Exchequer. These changes brought no new
strength into the Cabinet; but Canning’s place at the Foreign Office
remained to be filled, and common consent fixed upon one person as
alone competent to bring with him to the position a weight of character
that could overbalance the losses the Cabinet had suffered.
This person, hitherto unmentioned, was Richard Colley Wesley, or
Wellesley, born in Ireland in 1760, eldest son of the first Earl of
Mornington, whose younger son Arthur was born in 1769. Another brother,
Henry, born in 1773, rose to high rank in diplomacy under the later
title of Lord Cowley. In 1809 these three brothers were all actively
employed in the public service; but the foremost of the three was the
eldest, the Marquess Wellesley, whose reputation still overshadowed
that of Arthur, then just called to the peerage Sept. 4, 1809, as
Viscount Wellington of Talavera, in reward of his recent battle with
Marshal Victor.
An Irish family neither wealthy nor very distinguished, the Wellesleys
owed their success to their abilities. The second Lord Mornington,
Marquess Wellesley, sprang into fame as a favorite of William Pitt,
who showed his power by pushing young men like Richard Wesley and
George Canning into positions of immense responsibility. Perhaps the
favor shown to the former may in part have had its source in some
resemblance of character which caused Pitt to feel a reflection of
himself, for Mornington was a scholar and an orator. His Latin verses
were an ornament of Eton scholarship; his oratory was classic like his
verses; and his manners suited the scholarship of his poetry and the
Latinity of his orations. Lord Mountmorris, one of his antagonists in
the Irish Parliament of 1783, ridiculed his rhetoric: “If formidable
spectres portending the downfall of the Constitution were to appear in
this House, I admit that the noble Lord is frightened with becoming
dignity. The ancient Roscius or the modern Garrick could not stand with
a better grace at the appearance of a spectre.” The orator whose air
of dignity Lord Mountmorris thought so studied was then twenty-three
years old, and apparently never changed his manner. In the British
Parliament, thirteen years afterward, Sheridan described him as
presenting the same figure that Mountmorris laughed at. “Exactly two
years ago,” said Sheridan in 1796, “I remember to have seen the noble
Lord with the same sonorous voice, the same placid countenance, in the
same attitude, leaning gracefully upon the table, and giving an account
from shreds and patches of Brissot that the French republic would last
but a few months longer.” The aristocratic affectations, if they were
affectations, of Lord Mornington were conspicuous; but no man could
safely laugh at one of the Wellesleys. In 1797 Mr. Pitt suddenly sent
this ornament of the peerage to India as governor-general, and the
world learned that since the time of Clive no surer or bolder hand had
guided the empire of England in the East.
When he took charge of the Indian government, French influence
contested his own at more than one court of the powerful native
princes, while his resources were neither great nor easily
concentrated. During the eight years of his sway he extirpated French
influence; crushed the power of Tippoo Sultaun; conquered the empire
of Mysore, which had again and again won victories over English armies
within sight of Madras; broke up the Mahratta confederacy; and doubled
the British territory in India, besides introducing or planning many
important civil reforms. He shocked the Court of Directors by arbitrary
rule, extravagance in finance, and favoritism toward his younger
brothers; but success was the decisive answer to hostile criticism,
and even fanatics could hardly affirm that a governor-general, though
he might have every virtue, was fit for his place if he refused the
services of Arthur Wellesley when they might be had for the asking.
When Lord Wellesley, created an Irish marquess and English baron,
returned to England in 1806, he came home with the greatest name
in the empire next to that of Pitt.[216] He was asked to join the
Portland Administration, but declined. Canning was said to have taken
offence at his refusal;[217] but at last in disgust with Perceval,
Canning connected himself more closely than ever with the Marquess,
doubtless in the hope of forcing Castlereagh out in order to bring
Wellesley in.[218] At Canning’s request in April, 1809, the Marquess
was appointed to the important and difficult post of Ambassador
Extraordinary to the Supreme Junta of Spain, then at Seville; while
at the same time his brother Arthur was made general-in-chief in the
Peninsula. Lord Wellesley went to Spain with the understanding that he
was soon to return and enter the Cabinet.[219] In October he learned
that Canning had broken up the Cabinet, and that while Canning himself
on one side expected the Wellesleys’ support, Perceval on the other was
begging for it, and the Whigs were waiting with open arms to welcome
their alliance. Canning’s duel took place Sept. 21, 1809. October 5
Spencer Perceval wrote to Wellesley at Seville, asking him to accept
the Foreign Office; while at the same time Canning informed the King
that Lord Wellesley would retire from office with himself.
In such a situation the most astute politician could not trust his
own judgment. No one could say whether Wellesley’s strength would
invigorate the Government, or whether Perceval’s weakness would exhaust
Wellesley as it had exhausted Canning. Canning and Wellesley held
the same estimate of Perceval. Canning had succeeded only in ruining
himself by struggling to rid the Government of that incubus, as he
regarded it, and Wellesley had no better right to expect success. On
the other hand, if the Marquess should join the Government he might
assist his brother Arthur, who needed support at home. Probably this
idea turned the scale; at all events Wellesley accepted Perceval’s
offer, and gave his Administration a chance of life.
Wellesley could have had no hope of effecting any considerable object
except by carrying out Canning’s scheme, which required that Spencer
Perceval should be forced from power before the Government could be
placed on a strong foundation. His first experiences showed him the
difficulties in his way.
December 6, 1809, the Marquess was sworn as Secretary of State. A
few days afterward he appointed his brother Henry to the post he
had himself vacated, of Envoy to the Spanish Junta at Seville. The
favoritism was unfortunate, but Wellesley troubled himself little about
odium; his single thought was to support his “brother Arthur,” while
England was far from showing equal zeal in Arthur’s support. In spite
of the success at Talavera, Lord Wellington had been obliged to retreat
into Portugal; the Spanish army led by inferior generals ventured to
march on Madrid, and November 19 was annihilated by the French at
Ocaña, some fifty miles south of that city, leaving the whole south
and east of Spain unprotected. The French were certain to reoccupy
Seville if not to attack Cadiz. Affairs in the Peninsula were at least
as unpromising as they had ever been, and Englishmen might be excused
for doubting the policy of wasting British resources in fretting one
extremity of Napoleon’s enormous bulk.
While the Wellesley interest concentrated on the Peninsula, the Foreign
Office was interested in wider fields. The new secretary was expected
to devise some system of trade with the Spanish-American colonies
which should meet approval from the Junta, jealous with good reason
of any foreign interference with Mexico and Peru; but above all he
was required to take in hand the quarrel with the United States, and
if possible to retrieve the mistakes of Canning. He had been only a
few weeks in office when news arrived that President Madison refused
to hold further relations with F. J. Jackson, the British minister,
and that Madison and Jackson were only agreed in each requiring the
punishment of the other. Pinkney soon appeared at the Foreign office
with a request for Jackson’s recall.
Lord Wellesley was in character to the full as arbitrary as George
Canning. Seven years of imperial power in India had trained him
in habits of autocratic authority; but he was a man of breeding,
courteous, dignified, and considerate of others’ dignity. In India he
had shown what Canning thought himself to possess,--the hand of iron
in the velvet glove. Without a tinge of Canning’s besetting vice, the
passion to be clever, Wellesley never fell into the fault of putting
sarcasms or epigrams into his state papers. So little offensive was
he in manner, that although he brought about a war between England and
the United States no American held him as an enemy, or retained so much
ill-feeling toward him as to make even his name familiar to American
ears. In truth his subordinate position in the Government prevented
the exercise of his powers, and left him no opportunity to develop the
force of that character which had crushed Tippoo Sultaun and tamed the
Mahrattas. His colleagues allowed him to show only the weaknesses of a
strong nature, which may have been increased to vices by the exhaustion
of eight years’ severe labor in an Indian climate. What he might have
done had he taken Perceval’s place no one can say; what he did or
failed to do is more easily told.
When Pinkney came to explain the President’s action and wishes in
regard to Jackson, Wellesley, in a manner that seemed to the American
minister both frank and friendly, showed only the wish to conciliate.
In a short time Pinkney became so intimate with the new Foreign
Secretary as to excite comment. Nothing could be more encouraging
than his reports to the President of the change in disposition which
had come over the Foreign Office. Jan. 2, 1810, Pinkney, in a long
note, explained to Wellesley the President’s reasons for breaking off
relations with Jackson.[220] His tone was conciliatory, professing
only the wish for friendly accommodation; and Wellesley on his side
not only received the note without objection, but encouraged the hope
that the President’s wishes would be gratified. Pinkney reported that
in conversation Lord Wellesley had promised at once to send out a new
envoy of diplomatic rank; to lose no time in settling the “Chesapeake”
affair; and afterward to take up the commercial questions which
had made the substance of Monroe’s treaty three years before. The
cordiality of these promises satisfied Pinkney that they were not meant
to deceive. If any one was deceived, the victim was not Pinkney but
Wellesley himself, who overrated his own power and underrated the inert
resistance of Spencer Perceval and the army of selfish interests at his
back. Even Jackson’s affair was not easily managed. Jackson could not
be disavowed, for he had done nothing more than his orders required him
to do; nor could a new minister be appointed until the year elapsed
which Canning promised for the term of Jackson’s mission. Between
Canning on one side and Perceval on the other, Wellesley found himself
unable to act, and resorted to delays.
Not until March 14 did Pinkney receive the promised reply[221] to his
note of January 2; and this reply was not all that Wellesley had given
him to expect. Compared with Canning’s notes, Wellesley’s letter might
be called affectionate; but it was less definite than Pinkney would
have liked. His Majesty, said Wellesley, regretted that the President
should have interrupted communications before his Majesty could
manifest his invariable disposition to maintain the relations of amity
with the United States. Mr. Jackson had most positively assured his
Government that it was not his purpose to give offence by anything he
said or did; in such cases the usual course would have been to convey
a formal complaint, which would have prevented the inconvenience of a
suspension of relations. Yet his Majesty, always disposed to pay the
utmost attention to the wishes and sentiments of States in amity with
him, had directed the return of Mr. Jackson, though without marking his
conduct with any expression of displeasure, inasmuch as Mr. Jackson’s
“integrity, zeal, and ability have long been distinguished in his
Majesty’s service,” and he seemed to have committed no intentional
offence on the present occasion. Jackson was ordered to deliver his
charge into the hands of a properly qualified person, while his Majesty
“would receive, with sentiments of undiminished amity and good-will,
any communication which the Government of the United States may deem
beneficial to the mutual interests of both countries.”
This was but Canning once more, without the sarcasm. With his grand
air of sultan and viceroy, Wellesley ignored the existence of
complaints, and professed himself “ready to receive, with sentiments
of undiminished amity and good-will, any communication which the
Government of the United States may deem beneficial;” but when his
course led, two years afterward, to the only communication which
could logically result,--a declaration of war,--Wellesley declared in
Parliament[222] “that a more unjust attack was never made upon the
peace of any nation than that of the American government upon England;”
and that “the American government had been long infected with a deadly
hatred toward this country, and (if he might be allowed an unusual
application of a word) with a deadly affection toward France.” He
blamed only his own colleagues, who “ought in fact to have expected and
been fully prepared for war with America.”
That the American government and people were infected with a deadly
hatred toward England, if not already true, was becoming true with a
rapidity which warranted Wellesley in taking it for fact, if he could
do nothing to prevent it; but he should at least have explained the
reasons why his colleagues, who in his opinion showed culpable neglect,
failed to expect war or to prepare for it. In truth his colleagues
had as little reason to expect war with America as he had to charge
the American government with “deadly affection” toward France. They
would do nothing to conciliate the United States because they had what
seemed the best ground for thinking that the United States were already
conciliated, and that the difficulties between America and France were
such as to prevent America from quarrelling with England. Wellesley’s
note was written March 14; Louis of Holland, March 16, signed the
treaty obliging him to seize the American ships in his ports; Napoleon
signed, March 23, the Rambouillet Decree. In every country within
French control Napoleon was waging avowed war against the United States
in retaliation for the Non-intercourse Act; while in America, March 31,
Congress abandoned the idea of even a Navigation Act against England,
and May 1 restored relations with her, without asking an equivalent or
expressing unfriendly feeling. Under such circumstances, ministers more
intelligent than Spencer Perceval were warranted in thinking that the
part of wisdom was to leave American affairs alone.
The point was all-important in the story of the war. Governments rarely
succeed in forethought, and their favorite rule is to do nothing
where nothing need be done. Had the British government expected war,
even Spencer Perceval would have bestirred himself to prevent it; but
ministers neither expected nor had reason to expect hostilities. On the
contrary, the only bright spot in Perceval’s horizon was the United
States, where his influence seemed paramount. The triumph of Perceval’s
policy there gave him strength at home to disregard Wellesley’s
attempts at domination. An intelligent by-stander, through whom Lord
Wellesley kept up relations with the Whigs, wrote, May 1, to the
Marquess of Buckingham a letter,[223] which threw light on the ideas
then influencing Wellesley:--
“The only hope Perceval can naturally have is in the turn which
peace, or rather accommodation, with America may give the public
mind; as also the successes in Spain against France which may
be looked for. The former, in my opinion, as well from the
devotion of Pinkney to Lord Wellesley as the late rapacious act
of Bonaparte, may be looked on as certain.”
This letter, showing the certainty felt by all parties in American
friendship, happened to be written on the day when the President
signed the Act restoring commercial relations. After all that had
occurred,--seizures, blockades, impressments, and Orders in Council;
the “Chesapeake” affair, Rose’s mission, Canning’s letters, Erskine’s
arrangement, and Jackson’s dismissal,--the British government counted
its American policy as its chief success, and had the strongest reasons
for doing so. American legislation was controlled by British influence,
and Napoleon reasonably thought that neither robbery nor magnanimity
would affect the result.
The Marquess of Buckingham’s friend gave him exact information, as the
news a few weeks later, of the Act of May 1, proved; but evidence much
more convincing of the confidence felt by ministers in the attitude
of America was given by George Canning, who claimed the credit for
having brought about that settlement which gave a new lease of life to
the Perceval Administration. June 15, a week before Parliament rose,
Canning spoke.[224]
“The recent proceedings of Congress,” he said, “have effected so
much of what it was the anxious wish of the Government of which
I was a member to attain, that I trust all our difficulties
with America may be speedily adjusted. In truth I had never
much doubt upon my mind that America, if left to her own policy
and to the effect of those discussions which would take place
in her own legislatures, general and provincial, would at no
distant period arrive at that point at which, by the late Act of
Congress, she appears to have arrived. No man is more anxious
than I am for an amicable accommodation with that Power; but
I trust at the same time that the change in the policy of the
United States has not been effected by any improper concessions
on our part,--a circumstance which I can fully disclaim during
the period that I remained in office. I should rather hope that
it has been the consequence of a determined adherence to that
system which has been so often declaimed against in this House,
but which has proved as clearly beneficial to the commercial
interests as it has been consistent with the political dignity
of this nation.”
While it was possibly true, or soon became true, that the United States
were, as Wellesley afterward alleged, infected by a deadly hostility
to England, neither Wellesley nor Canning, nor any other English
statesman in the year 1810, suspected the strength of that passion, or
dreamed of shaping a policy to meet the hatred which ought to have been
constantly in their minds. Wellesley’s personal wishes were not easy
to fathom, but they probably leaned, under Pinkney’s influence, toward
conciliation. His actual measures showed a want of decision, or a
degree of feebleness, unsuspected in his character.
Quite early in Wellesley’s career as Foreign Secretary, an opportunity
occurred to test his energies. January 25, 1810,[225] Armstrong sent to
Pinkney a copy of Napoleon’s offer to withdraw the Decree of Berlin,
if England would withdraw her previous blockade of the coast from Elbe
to Brest. Nothing could be easier for England. The blockade of May
16, 1806, had been invented by Charles James Fox at the beginning of
his short Administration as an act of friendship toward the United
States, in order to evade the application of Sir William Scott’s legal
principles; it was strictly enforced only between Ostend and the Seine,
a short strip of coast within the narrow seas completely under British
control, and in part visible from British shores, while the subsequent
Orders in Council had substituted a series of other measures in place
of this temporary device, until at last the blockade of Holland and
the Empire, from the river Ems to Trieste,--in which, April 26, 1809,
the restrictive system of England was merged,--seemed to sweep away
all trace of the narrower restraint. No one but Sir William Scott
could say with certainty, as matter of law, whether Fox’s blockade
was or was not in force; but for years past England had established a
depot at Helgoland in the mouth of the Elbe, for no other purpose than
to violate its own blockade by smuggling merchandise into Germany,
Denmark, and Holland. From every point of view the continued existence
of Fox’s blockade seemed impossible to suppose.
February 15 Pinkney wrote to Wellesley, asking whether that or any
other blockade of France previous to January, 1807, was understood
to be in force.[226] March 2 Wellesley replied that the restrictions
imposed in May, 1806, “were afterward comprehended in the Order
of Council of Jan. 7, 1807, which order is still in force.”[227]
This reply encouraged Pinkney to infer that Fox’s blockade had
merged in Howick’s Order in Council. March 7 he wrote again to the
Marquess,[228]--
“I infer ... that the blockade ... is not itself in force, and
that the restrictions which it established rest altogether, so
far as such restrictions exist at this time, upon an Order or
Orders in Council issued since the first day of January, 1807.”
To this easy question, which seemed hardly worth answering in the
negative, Wellesley replied, March 26,[229]
“The blockade notified by Great Britain in May, 1806, has
never been formally withdrawn. It cannot, therefore, be
accurately stated that the restrictions which it established
rest altogether on the Order of Council of Jan. 7, 1807; they
are comprehended under the more extensive restrictions of that
Order.”
This explanation, however satisfactory it might be to the admiralty
lawyer who may have framed it, conveyed no clear idea to the diplomatic
mind. The question whether the blockade of 1806 was or was not still in
force remained obscure. Pinkney thought it not in force, and wrote to
Armstrong,[230]--
“Certainly the inference is that the blockade of 1806 is
virtually at an end, being merged and comprehended in an Order
in Council issued after the date of the Edict of Berlin. I am,
however, about to try to obtain a formal revocation of that
blockade, and of that of Venice [July 27, 1806], or at least a
precise declaration that they are not in force.”
His hopes were not strong, but he returned patiently to his task,
and April 30 wrote a third letter to Lord Wellesley,[231] in which
he recited Napoleon’s promise in full, and begged Wellesley to say
“whether there exists any objection on the part of his Majesty’s
government to a revocation, or to a declaration that they are no longer
in force, of the blockades in question, especially that of May, 1806.”
Already Pinkney had waited nearly three months for a plain answer
to a question which ought certainly to have received a satisfactory
reply within a week. He was destined to wait longer; indeed, the
United States waited two years for their answer before they declared
war. The reason for this incomprehensible behavior, at a moment when
America was thought to be friendly, cannot be fully explained; but
evidence published in his brother’s papers seems to show that Marquess
Wellesley favored giving up not only Fox’s blockade, but also the
principle of commercial restrictions represented both in the Orders of
November, 1807, and in the blockade of April, 1809. “He only agreed
with his colleagues in the legality and propriety of the orders when
first enacted. He contended that they had ceased to be applicable to
the state of affairs; that they had become inexpedient with regard to
England, and would certainly produce a war with America.”[232] That he
insisted on this opinion in the Cabinet, or forced an issue with his
colleagues on the point, is not to be supposed; but without doubt the
treatment his opinions and authority received in the Cabinet was the
cause of his strange conduct toward the American minister.
Pinkney’s last letter about Fox’s blockade was dated April 30. As early
as April 25 every well-informed man in London knew that Wellesley
was on bad terms with his colleagues. The Marquess of Buckingham’s
correspondent had the news from Wellesley’s own mouth:[233]--
“Lord Wellesley complains that he has no weight whatever in
Council; that there is nothing doing there which marks energy
or activity; that the affairs of the country are quite at a
standstill, and are likely to remain so; and that so little
is his private interest in any of the departments, that
since his accession to office he has not been able to make an
exciseman.... Add to all this that he hates, despises, and
is out of friendship or even intimacy with every one of his
colleagues at this moment.”[234]
Two years afterward the Marquess repeated the same story in
public:[235]--
“Lord Wellesley,” he declared, speaking in the third person,
“had repeatedly, with great reluctance, yielded his opinions to
the Cabinet on many other important points [besides the war in
the Peninsula]. He was sincerely convinced by experience that in
every such instance he had submitted to opinions more incorrect
than his own, and had sacrificed to the object of accommodation
and temporary harmony more than he could justify in point of
strict public duty. In fact he was convinced by experience
that the Cabinet neither possessed ability nor knowledge to
devise a good plan, nor temper and discernment to adopt what
he now thought necessary, unless Mr. Perceval should concur
with Lord Wellesley. To Mr. Perceval’s judgment or attainments
Lord Wellesley, under the same experience, could not pay any
deference without injury to the public service.”
Probably Wellesley did not conceal in Council the opinion of his
colleagues which he freely expressed in society. In every way they
annoyed him. A scholar, who prided himself on his classical studies and
refined tastes, he found these colleagues altering his state papers
and criticising his style. “He had thought he was among a Cabinet
of statesmen,” he said; “he found them a set of critics.” His own
criticisms occasionally touched matters more delicate than style. Once
at a Cabinet meeting Lord Westmoreland, the Privy Seal, put his feet on
the table while Wellesley was talking. The Foreign Secretary stopped
short. “I will go on with my remarks,” he said, “when the noble Lord
resumes a more seemly attitude.”
Americans could hardly be blamed for holding a low opinion of this
Administration, when most intelligent Englishmen held the same. If
Whigs or Liberals like Grenville, Brougham, and Sydney Smith were
prejudiced critics, this charge could hardly be brought against
Canning; but if Canning’s opinion were set aside, the Wellesleys at
least being identified with his administration had every reason to
wish Perceval success. How the Marquess hated and despised Perceval;
how he struggled to get rid of him, and strained every nerve to bring
Canning, Castlereagh, Sidmouth, Grey, or Grenville into the Government
as a counter-balancing influence, can be read in the biographies of all
these men, and of many less famous. London echoed with the Marquess’s
deep disgust; every man of fair parts in England sympathized with
it, unless his personal interests or feelings bound him to blind
devotion. The yoke hung heavy on Whigs and Tories alike. Even Lord
Sidmouth rebelled against the commercial system to which Perceval clung
more desperately than to his offices or power. “Of that destructive
system,” wrote Sidmouth in the summer of 1810,[236] “all are weary,
‘praeter atrocem animum Catonis.’”
Even Henry Wellesley, at Seville and Cadiz, felt the same heavy-hand
deadening the effect of every effort, and longed to do at Cadiz what
Erskine had done at Washington. March 4, 1810,[237] Perceval wrote to
Lord Wellesley begging him to instruct his brother Henry to obtain
from the Spanish Junta exclusive or at least special privileges in the
trade of the Spanish colonies, such as would admit British consuls to
the chief places of South America, and “give us a decided benefit and
preference in the trade.” Of course this preference was to be granted
at the expense of the United States, the solitary rival of England in
those waters, but “as nearly hostile to Spain as she can be without
actually declaring war against her.” Soon afterward the “Espagnol,”
a Spanish periodical published in England, applauded revolutionary
movements in Caracas and Buenos Ayres, while it asserted the
impossibility of preventing the spread of the spirit of independence in
the Spanish-American colonies.
“You can have no idea,” wrote Henry Wellesley from Cadiz, August
31, to his brother Arthur,[238] “of the ferment occasioned here
by this article, which is attributed to the Government,--as
it is supposed, and I believe justly, that the ‘Espagnol’ is
patronized by the Government, and contains its sentiments with
regard to the occurrences in Spain and the measures necessary in
the present crisis of her affairs.... It is wonderful that they
cannot be satisfied in England with a commercial arrangement
which would be attended with immense advantages to ourselves,
and would likewise be greatly beneficial to Spain. I apprehend
this to be the true spirit of all commercial treaties; and why
are we to take advantage of the weakness of Spain to endeavor to
impose terms upon her which would be ruinous and disgraceful? I
have it in my power to conclude to-morrow a commercial treaty
which, without breaking in upon the Spanish colonial laws, would
pour millions into the pockets of our merchants, and be equally
advantageous to the resources; but this will not do, and we must
either have the trade direct with the colonies, or nothing.
However, I have received my answer, and the Government will not
hear of opening the trade.”
The coincidence of opinion about Spencer Perceval extended everywhere,
except among the Church of England clergy, the country squires, the
shipping interests, the Royal household at Windsor, and the Federalists
of Boston and Connecticut. As though to make him an object of
execration, the long-threatened storm burst on the trade and private
credit of Great Britain. For some eighteen months gold stood at a
premium of about fifteen per cent; the exchanges remained steadily
unfavorable, while credit was strained to the utmost, until in July,
1810, half the traders in England, and private banks by the score,
were forced to suspend payment. Never before, and probably never since,
has England known such a fall in prices and destruction of credit.[239]
This was the impending situation when Parliament adjourned, June 21,
with no bright spot on its horizon but the supposed friendship of
America. Meanwhile Pinkney wearied Wellesley for an answer to the
question whether Fox’s blockade was in force. June 10, June 23, and
finally August 6, he renewed his formal request. “No importunity had
before been spared which it became me to use.”[240] He was met by the
same torpor at every other point. Wellesley promised to name a new
minister to Washington, but decided upon none. He invited overtures in
regard to the “Chesapeake” affair, but failed to act on them. Rumor
said that he neglected business, came rarely to Cabinet meetings, shut
himself in his own house, saw only a few friends, and abandoned the
attempt to enforce his views. He resolved to retire from the Cabinet,
in despair of doing good, and waited only for the month before the next
meeting of Parliament, which he conceived to be the most proper time
for declaring his intention.[241]
In the midst of this chaos, such as England had rarely seen, fell
Cadore’s announcement of August 5 that the Imperial Decrees were
withdrawn, _bien entendu_ that before November 1 England should
have abandoned her blockades, or America should have enforced her
rights. Pinkney hastened to lay this information before Lord Wellesley,
August 25, and received the usual friendly promises, which had ceased
to gratify him. “I am truly disgusted with this,” he wrote home, August
29,[242] “and would, if I followed my own inclination, speedily put
an end to it.” Two days afterward he received from Wellesley a civil
note,[243] saying that whenever the repeal of the French Decrees should
actually have taken effect, and the commerce of neutral nations should
have been restored to the condition in which it previously stood,
the system of counteraction adopted by England should be abandoned.
This reply, being merely another form of silence, irritated Pinkney
still more, while his instructions pressed him to act. He waited until
September 21, when he addressed to Wellesley a keen remonstrance. “If
I had been so fortunate,” he began,[244] “as to obtain for my hitherto
unanswered inquiry the notice which I had flattered myself it might
receive, and to which I certainly thought it was recommended by the
plainest considerations of policy and justice, it would not perhaps
have been necessary for me to trouble your Lordship with this letter;”
and in this tone he went on to protest against the “unwarrantable
prohibitions of intercourse rather than regular blockades,” which had
helped in nearly obliterating “every trace of the public law of the
world”:--
“Your Lordship has informed me in a recent note that it is
‘his Majesty’s earnest desire to see the commerce of the world
restored to that freedom which is necessary for its prosperity;’
and I cannot suppose that this freedom is understood to be
consistent with vast constructive blockades which may be so
expanded at pleasure as, without the aid of any new device, to
oppress and annihilate every trade but that which England thinks
fit to license. It is not, I am sure, to _such_ freedom
that your Lordship can be thought to allude.”
The Marquess of Buckingham’s well-advised correspondent some weeks
afterward[245] remarked that “Pinkney, who was at first all sweetness
and complaisance, has recently exhibited in his communications with
Lord Wellesley an ample measure of republican insolence.” Sweetness
and insolence were equally thrown away. Pinkney’s letter of September
21, like most of his other letters, remained unanswered; and before
November 1, when Napoleon’s term for England’s action expired, a new
turn of affairs made answer impossible. The old King was allowed to
visit the death-bed of his favorite daughter the Princess Amelia; he
excited himself over her wishes and farewells, and October 25 his mind,
long failing, gave way for the last time. His insanity could not be
disguised, and the Government fell at once into confusion.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE summer of 1810 was quiet and hopeful in America. For
the first time since December, 1807, trade was free. Although little
immigration occurred, the census showed an increase in population
of nearly thirty-seven per cent in ten years,--from 5,300,000 to
7,240,000, of which less than one hundred thousand was due to the
purchase of Louisiana. Virginia and Massachusetts still fairly held
their own, and New York strode in advance of Pennsylvania, while the
West gained little relative weight. Ohio had not yet a quarter of a
million people, Indiana only twenty-four thousand, and Illinois but
twelve thousand, while Michigan contained less than five thousand. The
third census showed no decided change in the balance of power from any
point of view bounded by the usual horizon of human life. Perhaps the
growth of New York city and Philadelphia pointed to a movement among
the American people which might prove more revolutionary than any
mere agricultural movement westward. Each of these cities contained a
population of ninety-six thousand, while Baltimore rose to forty-six
thousand, and Boston to thirty-two thousand. The tendency toward city
life, if not yet unduly great, was worth noticing, especially because
it was confined to the seaboard States of the North.
The reason of this tendency could in part be seen in the Treasury
reports on American shipping, which reached in 1810 a registered
tonnage of 1,424,000,--a point not again passed until 1826. The
registered foreign tonnage sprang to 984,000,--a point not again
reached in nearly forty years. New vessels were built to the amount
of one hundred and twenty-seven thousand tons in the year 1810.[246]
The value of all the merchandise exported in the year ending Sept.
30, 1810, amounted to nearly sixty-seven million dollars, and of
this sum about forty-two millions represented articles of domestic
production.[247] Except in the year before the embargo this export
of domestic produce had never been much exceeded.[248] The imports,
as measured by the revenue, were on the same scale. The net
customs-revenue which reached $16,500,000 in 1807, after falling
in 1808 and 1809 to about $7,000,000, rose again to $12,750,000 in
1810.[249] The profits of the export and import business fell chiefly
to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, where the shipping
belonged; and these cities could not fail to attract labor as well
as capital beyond the degree that a conservative republican of the
Revolutionary time would have thought safe.
More than half of these commercial exchanges were with England or her
dependencies. Great Britain and her American colonies, Portugal and
Spain in her military protection, and British India consumed at least
one half of the exports; while of the net revenue collected on imports,
Gallatin estimated six and a half millions as derived from articles
imported from Great Britain and the British dependencies, all other
sources supplying hardly six millions.[250] The nature of these imports
could be only roughly given. In general, sugar, molasses, coffee,
wines, silk, and tea were not British; but manufactures of cotton,
linen, leather, paper, glass, earthen-ware, iron, and other metals came
chiefly from Great Britain. To the United States this British trade
brought most of the articles necessary to daily comfort in every part
of the domestic economy. The relief of recovering a full and cheap
supply exceeded the satisfaction of handsome profits on the renewed
trade. Experience of the hourly annoyance, expense, and physical
exposure caused by deprivation of what society considered necessities
rendered any return to the restrictive system in the highest degree
unwise, especially after the eastern people acquired conviction that
the system had proved a failure.
Thus the summer passed with much of the old contentment that marked
the first Administration of Jefferson. Having lost sight of national
dignity, the commercial class was contented under the protection of
England; and American ships in the Baltic, in Portugal, and in the West
Indies never hesitated to ask and were rarely refused the assistance of
the British navy. From time to time a few impressments were reported;
but impressment had never been the chief subject of complaint, and
after the withdrawal of the frigates blockading New York, little was
heard of British violence. On the other hand, Napoleon’s outrages
roused great clamor in commercial society, and his needless harshness
to every victim, from the Pope to the American sailors whom he shut up
as prisoners of war, went far to palliate British offences in the eyes
of American merchants.
News of Napoleon’s seizures at San Sebastian arrived before the
adjournment of Congress May 1; and as fresh outrages were reported
from every quarter by every new arrival, and as Cadore’s letters
became public, even Madison broke into reproaches. May 25 he wrote to
Jefferson:[251] “The late confiscations by Bonaparte comprise robbery,
theft, and breach of trust, and exceed in turpitude any of his
enormities not wasting human blood.” These words seemed to show intense
feeling, but Madison’s temper indulged in outbursts of irritability
without effect on his action; in reality, his mind was bent beyond
chance of change on the old idea of his Revolutionary education,--that
the United States must not regard France, but must resist Great Britain
by commercial restrictions. “This scene on the Continent,” he continued
to Jefferson, “and the effect of English monopoly on the value of our
produce are breaking the charm attached to what is called free-trade,
foolishly by some and wickedly by others.” He reverted to his life-long
theory of commercial regulations.
A few days afterward Madison wrote to Armstrong fresh instructions
founded on the Act of May 1, which was to be the new diplomatic guide.
These instructions,[252] dated June 5, were of course signed by the
Secretary of State, Robert Smith, who afterward claimed credit for
them; but their style, both of thought and expression, belonged to
Madison. Even the unfailing note of his mind--irritability without
passion--was not wanting. He would wait, he said, for further advices
before making the proper comments on Cadore’s letter of February 14 and
on its doctrine of reprisals. “I cannot, however, forbear informing
you that a high indignation is felt by the President, as well as
by the public, at this act of violence on our property, and at the
outrage both in the language and in the matter of the letter of the
Duc de Cadore.” Turning from this subject, the despatch requested that
Napoleon would make use of the suggestion contained in the Act of May
1, 1810. “If there be sincerity in the language held at different
times by the French government, and especially in the late overture,
to proceed to amicable and just arrangements in case of our refusal
to submit to the British Orders in Council, no pretext can be found
for longer declining to put an end to the decrees of which the United
States have so justly complained.” One condition alone was imposed on
Armstrong preliminary to the acceptance of French action under the law
of May 1, but this condition was essential:
“If, however, the arrangement contemplated by the law should
be acceptable to the French government, you will understand it
to be the purpose of the President not to proceed in giving
it effect in case the late seizure of the property of the
citizens of the United States has been followed by an absolute
confiscation, and restoration be finally refused. The only
ground short of a preliminary restoration of the property on
which the contemplated arrangement can be made will be an
understanding that the confiscation is reversible, and that
it will become immediately the subject of discussion with a
reasonable prospect of justice to our injured citizens.”
The condition thus prescribed seemed both reasonable and mild in
view of the recent and continuous nature of the offence; but Madison
could not, even if he would, allow his own or public attention to be
permanently diverted from England. As early as June 22 he had begun to
reconstruct in his own mind the machinery of his restrictive system.
“On the first publication of the despatches by the ‘John Adams,’”
he wrote to Jefferson,[253] “so strong a feeling was produced by
Armstrong’s picture of the French robbery that the attitude in which
England was placed by the correspondence between Pinkney and Wellesley
was overlooked. The public attention is beginning to fix itself on the
proof it affords that the original sin against neutrals lies with Great
Britain; and that while she acknowledges it, she persists in it.”
The theory of original sin led to many conclusions hard to reconcile;
but, as regarded Napoleon, Madison’s idea seemed both sensible and
dignified,--that England’s original fault in no way justified the
recent acts of France, which were equivalent to war on the United
States, not as one among neutrals, but as a particular enemy.
Fresh instructions to Armstrong, dated July 5,[254] reiterated the
complaints, offers, and conditions of the despatch sent one month
before. Especially the condition precedent to action under the law of
May 1 was repeated with emphasis:--
“As has been heretofore stated to you, a satisfactory provision
for restoring the property lately surprised and seized, by the
order or at the instance of the French government, must be
combined with a repeal of the French edicts with a view to a
non-intercourse with Great Britain, such a provision being an
indispensable evidence of the just purpose of France toward the
United States. And you will moreover be careful, in arranging
such a provision for that particular case of spoliations, not
to weaken the ground on which a redress of others may be justly
pursued.”
The instructions of June 5 and July 5 went their way; but although
Armstrong duly received them, and wrote to Cadore a letter evidently
founded on the despatch of June 5, he made no express allusion to his
instructions in writing either to the French government or to his
own. Although he remained in Paris till September 12, and on that day
received from Cadore an explicit avowal that the sequestered property
would not be restored, but that “the principles of reprisal must be the
law,” he made no protest.
Equally obscure was the conduct of Madison. Cadore’s letter of
August 5 announcing that the French Decrees were withdrawn, on the
understanding that the United States should by November 1 enforce their
rights against England, reached Washington September 25, but not in
official form. Nothing is known of the impression it produced on the
Cabinet; nothing remains of any discussions that ensued. If Gallatin
was consulted, he left no trace of his opinion. Hamilton and Eustis had
little weight in deciding foreign questions. Robert Smith within a
year afterward publicly attacked the President for the course pursued,
and gave the impression that it was taken on Madison’s sole judgment.
The President’s only authority to act at all without consulting
Congress depended on the words of the law of May 1: “In case either
Great Britain or France shall, before the third day of March next, so
revoke or modify her edicts as that they shall cease to violate the
neutral commerce of the United States, which fact the President of the
United States shall proclaim by proclamation,” the non-intercourse
of March 1, 1809, should at the end of three months revive against
the nation which had not revoked its edicts. Under this authority,
President Madison was required by Cadore’s letter to proclaim that
France had revoked or modified her edicts so that they ceased to
violate the neutral commerce of the United States.
Madison was doubtless a man of veracity; but how was it possible that
any man of veracity could proclaim that France had revoked or modified
her edicts so that they ceased to violate the neutral commerce of the
United States when he had every reason to think that at least the
Bayonne Decree, barely six months old, would not be revoked, and when
within a few weeks he had officially declared that the revocation of
the Bayonne Decree was “an indispensable evidence of the just purpose
of France” preliminary to a non-intercourse with England? If the
President in June and July thought that provision indispensable to
the true intent of the law which he aided in framing, he would assume
something more than royal dispensing power by setting the indispensable
provision aside in November.
This objection was light in comparison with others. The law required
the President to proclaim a fact,--that France had revoked or modified
her decrees so that they ceased to violate the commerce of America. Of
this fact Cadore’s letter was the only proof; but evidently Cadore’s
letter pledged the Emperor to nothing. “I am authorized to declare
to you,” wrote Cadore, “that the Decrees of Berlin and Milan are
revoked, and that after November 1 they will cease to have effect,
on the understanding that in consequence of this declaration ... the
United States, conformably to the Act you have just communicated, shall
cause their rights to be respected by the English.” Napoleon not only
reserved to himself the right of judging whether the measures to be
taken by the United States should “cause their rights to be respected,”
but in doing so he reversed the process prescribed by the Act, and
required the President to enforce his rights before the Emperor should
withdraw his decrees.
From the standpoint of morality, perhaps the most serious objection of
all was the danger of sacrificing national and personal self-respect
by affecting to regard as honest a promise evidently framed to
deceive, and made by a man whom Madison habitually characterized in
terms that implied, to speak mildly, entire want of confidence. If
America would consent to assert her rights against England in no way
more straightforward than this, she might perhaps recover her neutral
profits, but hardly her national self-respect.
A few months afterward, when Robert Smith gave to the world the amusing
but not wholly new spectacle of a Secretary of State attacking his
own President for measures signed by his own name, Joel Barlow wrote
for the “National Intelligencer” a defence of the President’s course,
in which he gave reasons supplied by Madison himself for holding that
Cadore’s letter satisfied the conditions of Macon’s Act.
To the first objection, founded on the Rambouillet and Bayonne
Decrees, Barlow replied that the American government had habitually
distinguished between maritime edicts violating neutral rights
and municipal edicts attacking private property. “We could not in
strictness arraign such municipal spoliations under the head of
violations of our _neutral_ rights, nor of consequence regard
them as contemplated by the Acts of Congress defining the acts
whose revocation would satisfy the conditions of that Act.” This
reasoning, though not quite convincing, might have had weight but for
two objections. First, the President himself, in June and July, had
declared these municipal spoliations to be contemplated by Macon’s Act
as “an indispensable evidence of the just purpose of France;”[255]
and, second, the President in November notified Armstrong, that,[256]
“in issuing the proclamation, it has been presumed that the requisition
contained in that letter [of July 5] on the subject of the sequestered
property will have been satisfied.” Barlow’s idea of a municipal
spoliation, independent of the _jus gentium_, was an afterthought
intended to hide a miscalculation.
One other argument was advanced by Barlow. Erskine’s arrangement having
been accepted without question of previous British spoliations, not
only did impartiality require the same treatment for France, but a
different rule “would have led to the embarrassment of obliging the
Executive, in case the British government should be desirous of opening
a free trade with the United States by repealing its orders, to make
it a prerequisite that Great Britain also should indemnify for her
respective spoliations.”
Such a prerequisite would have been proper, and ought to have been
imposed; but Barlow’s argument was again answered by the President
himself, who actually insisted on the demand against France, and
assumed the demand to be satisfied. If this was partiality to England,
the President was guilty of it. Probably at the time he saw reasons for
thinking otherwise. The secrecy, the continuance, the pretext of the
French seizures, their municipal and vindictive character and direct
Imperial agency seemed to set them apart from those of England, which,
although equally illegal, were always in the form of lawful trial and
condemnation.
The same argument of impartiality served to justify immediate action
on Cadore’s offer as on Erskine’s, without waiting for its execution.
That one admitted mistake excused its own repetition in a worse form
was a plea not usually advanced by servants, either public or private;
but in truth Erskine’s pledge was distinct and unconditional, while
Cadore’s depended on the Emperor’s satisfaction with a preliminary act.
Had Erskine made his arrangement conditional on Canning’s approval of
the President’s measures, Madison would certainly have waited for that
approval before acting under the law; and after the disastrous results
of precipitancy in 1809, when no one questioned Erskine’s good faith,
wisdom called for more caution rather than less in acting, in 1810, on
an offer or a pledge from a man in whom no one felt any confidence at
all.
In truth, Madison’s course in both cases was due not to logic, but
to impatience. As Barlow admitted: “We know it had been the aim of
our government for two or three years to divide the belligerents by
inducing one or the other of them to revoke its edicts, so that the
example would lead to a revocation by the other, or our contest be
limited to a single one.” Madison gave the same reason in a letter
of October 19 to Jefferson:[257] “We hope from the step the advantage
at least of having but one contest on our hands at a time.” He was
mistaken, and no one expressed himself afterward in language more
bitter than he used against Napoleon for conduct that deceived only
those who lent themselves to deception.
October 31, Robert Smith sent for Turreau and gave him notice of the
decision reached by the President and Cabinet:[258]--
“The Executive,” said Robert Smith, “is determined not to suffer
England longer to trammel the commerce of the United States,
and he hopes to be sustained by Congress. If, then, England
does not renounce her system of paper-blockades and the other
vexations resulting from it, no arrangement with that Power is
to be expected; and consequently you will see, in two days, the
President’s proclamation appear, founded on the provisions of
the law requiring the non-intercourse to be enforced against
either nation which should fail to revoke its edicts after the
other belligerent had done so.... Although we have received
nothing directly from Mr. Armstrong on this subject, which is
doubtless very extraordinary, we consider as sufficient for the
Government’s purposes the communication he made to Mr. Pinkney,
which the latter has transmitted to us.”
The next day Robert Smith made some further interesting remarks.[259]
“The Executive thinks,” he said, “that the measures he shall take in
case England continues to restrict our communications with Europe will
lead necessarily to war,” because of the terms of the non-intercourse.
“We have with us a majority of Congress, which has much to retrieve,
and has been accused of weakness by all parties.”
On leaving Smith, Turreau went to see Gallatin, “whose opinion in the
Cabinet is rarely favorable to us.”
“Mr. Gallatin (by the way long since on bad terms with Mr.
Smith) told me that he believed in war; that England could not
suffer the execution of measures so prejudicial to her, and
especially in the actual circumstances could not renounce the
prerogatives of her maritime supremacy and of her commercial
ascendency.”
Both Smith and Gallatin evidently expected that war was to result, not
from the further action of the United States, but from the resentment
and retaliation of England. They regarded the non-intercourse as a
measure of compulsion which would require England either to resent it
or to yield.
Having decided to accept Cadore’s letter as proof that an actual repeal
of the French Decrees, within the meaning of the Act of Congress,
had taken place November 1, the President issued, November 2, his
proclamation declaring that “it has been officially made known to
this Government that the said edicts of France have been so revoked
as that they ceased, on the said first day of the present month, to
violate the neutral commerce of the United States;” and simultaneously
Gallatin issued a circular to the collectors of customs, announcing
that commercial intercourse with Great Britain would cease Feb. 2, 1811.
By this means Madison succeeded in reverting to his methods of peaceful
coercion. As concerned England, he could be blamed only on the ground
that his methods were admittedly inadequate, as Gallatin, only a year
before, had officially complained. Toward England the United States had
stood for five years in a position which warranted them in adopting any
measure of reprisal. The people of America alone had a right to object
that when Madison began his attack on England by proclaiming the French
Decrees to be revoked, he made himself a party to Napoleon’s fraud, and
could scarcely blame the Federalists for replying that neither in honor
nor in patriotism were they bound to abet him in such a scheme.
The Proclamation of Nov. 2, 1810, was not the only measure of the
autumn which exposed the President to something more severe than
criticism. At the moment when he challenged a contest with England on
the assertion that Napoleon had withdrawn his decrees, Madison resumed
his encroachments on Spain in a form equally open to objection.
The chaos that reigned at Madrid and Cadiz could not fail to make
itself felt throughout the Spanish empire. Under British influence,
Buenos Ayres in 1810 separated from the Supreme Junta, and drove out
the viceroy whom the Junta had appointed. In April of the same year
Caracas followed the example, and entered into a treaty with England,
granting commercial preferences equally annoying to the Spaniards and
to the United States. Miranda reappeared at the head of a revolution
which quickly spread through Venezuela and New Grenada. A civil war
broke out in Mexico. Even Cuba became uneasy. The bulky fabric of
Spanish authority was shaken, and no one doubted that it must soon fall
in pieces forever.
England and the United States, like two vultures, hovered over the
expiring empire, snatching at the morsels they most coveted, while
the unfortunate Spaniards, to whom the rich prey belonged, flung
themselves, without leadership or resources, on the ranks of Napoleon’s
armies. England pursued her game over the whole of Spanish America,
if not by government authority, more effectively by private intrigue;
while the United States for the moment confined their activity to a
single object, not wholly without excuse.
As long as Baton Rouge and Mobile remained Spanish, New Orleans was
insecure. This evident danger prompted Madison, when Secretary of
State, to make a series of efforts, all more or less unfortunate, to
gain possession of West Florida; and perhaps nothing but Napoleon’s
positive threat of war prevented the seizure of Baton Rouge during
Jefferson’s time. After that crisis, the subject dropped from
diplomatic discussion; but as years passed, and Spanish power waned,
American influence steadily spread in the province. Numerous Americans
settled in or near the district of West Feliciana, within sight of
Fort Adams, across the American border. As their number increased, the
Spanish flag at Baton Rouge became less and less agreeable to them; but
they waited until Buenos Ayres and Caracas gave notice that Spain could
be safely defied.
In the middle of July, 1810, the citizens of West Feliciana appointed
four delegates to a general convention, and sent invitations to the
neighboring districts inviting them to co-operate in re-establishing
a settled government. The convention was held July 25, and consisted
of sixteen delegates from four districts, who organized themselves as
a legislature, and with the aid or consent of the Spanish governor
began to remodel the government. After some weeks of activity they
quarrelled with the governor, charged him with perfidy, and suddenly
assembling all the armed men they could raise, assaulted Baton Rouge.
The Spanish fort, at best incapable of defence, was in charge of young
Louis Grandpré, with a few invalid or worthless soldiers. The young man
thought himself bound in honor to maintain a trust committed to him;
he rejected the summons to surrender, and when the Americans swarmed
over the ruinous bastions they found Louis Grandpré alone defending his
flag. He was killed.
After capturing Baton Rouge, the Americans held a convention, which
declared itself representative of the people of West Florida, and
September 26 issued a proclamation, which claimed place among the
curious products of that extraordinary time. “It is known to the
world,” began this new declaration of independence,[260] “with how
much fidelity the good people of this territory have professed and
maintained allegiance to their legitimate sovereign while any hope
remained of receiving from him protection for their property and
lives.” The convention had acted in concert with the Spanish governor
“for the express purpose of preserving this territory, and showing our
attachment to the government which had heretofore protected us;” but
the governor had endeavored to pervert those concerted measures into
an engine of destruction; and therefore, “appealing to the Supreme
Ruler of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, we do solemnly
publish and declare the several districts composing the territory of
West Florida to be a free and independent State.”
A few days afterward the convention, through its president, wrote to
the Secretary of State, Robert Smith, urging the annexation of the new
territory to the United States, but claiming all the public lands in
the province for “the people of this Commonwealth, who have wrested
the government and country from Spain at the risk of their lives and
fortunes.”[261] These words accorded ill with their appeal to the
Supreme Ruler of the world for the rectitude of their intentions,
and their protest of “our inviolable fidelity to our king and parent
country while so much as a shadow of legitimate authority remained to
be exercised over us.” Yet neither with nor without their elaborate
machinery of legitimate revolution could Madison have anything to do
with them. Innumerable obstacles stood in his way. They declared the
independence of territory which he had long since appropriated to the
United States. This course alone withheld Madison from recognizing
the new State; but other difficulties forbade any action at all. The
Constitution gave the President no power to use the army or navy of
the United States beyond the national limits, without the authority
of Congress; and although extreme emergency might have excused the
President in taking such action, no emergency existed in October, 1810,
since Congress would meet within six weeks, and neither Spain, France,
nor England could interfere in the interval. The President’s only legal
course was to wait for Congress to take what measures seemed good.
Madison saw all this, but though aware of his want of authority, felt
the strongest impulse to act without it. He described his dilemma to
Jefferson in a letter written before he received the request for
annexation, then on its way from Baton Rouge:[262]--
“The crisis in West Florida, as you will see, has come home
to our feelings and interests. It presents at the same time
serious questions as to the authority of the Executive, and
the adequacy of the existing laws of the United States for
territorial administration. And the near approach of Congress
might subject any intermediate interposition of the Executive to
the charge of being premature and disrespectful, if not of being
illegal. Still, there is great weight in the considerations that
the country to the Perdido, being our own, may be fairly taken
possession of, if it can be done without violence; above all,
if there be danger of its passing into the hands of a third and
dangerous party.”
Casuistry might carry the United States government far. The military
occupation of West Florida was an act of war against Spain. “From
present appearances,” continued Madison, “our occupancy of West Florida
would be resented by Spain, by England, and by France, and bring on,
not a triangular, but quadrangular contest.” Napoleon himself never
committed a more arbitrary act than that of marching an army, without
notice, into a neighbor’s territory, on the plea that he claimed it as
his own. None of Madison’s predecessors ventured on such liberties with
the law; none of his successors dared imitate them, except under the
pretext that war already existed by the act of the adverse government.
Madison was regarded by his contemporaries as a precise, well-balanced,
even a timid man, argumentative to satiety, never carried away by
bursts of passion, fretful rather than vehement, pertinacious rather
than resolute,--a character that seemed incapable of surprising the
world by reckless ambition or lawless acts; yet this circumspect
citizen, always treated by his associates with a shade of contempt
as a closet politician, paid surprisingly little regard to rules
of consistency or caution. His Virginia Resolutions of 1798, his
instructions in the Louisiana purchase, his assumption of Livingston’s
claim to West Florida, his treatment of Yrujo, his embargo policy,
his acceptance of Erskine’s arrangement, his acceptance of Cadore’s
arrangement, and his occupation of West Florida were all examples of
the same trait; and an abundance of others were to come. He ignored
caution in pursuit of an object which seemed to him proper in itself;
nor could he understand why this quiet and patriotic conduct should
rouse tempests of passion in his opponents, whose violence, by
contrast, increased the apparent placidity of his own persistence.
Forestalling the action of Congress which was to meet within five
weeks, President Madison issued, Oct. 27, 1810, a proclamation
announcing that Governor Claiborne would take possession of West
Florida to the river Perdido, in the name and behalf of the United
States. This proclamation, one of the most remarkable documents in the
archives of the United States government, began by reasserting the
familiar claim to West Florida as included in the Louisiana purchase:--
“And whereas the acquiescence of the United States in the
temporary continuance of the said territory under the Spanish
authority was not the result of any distrust of their title, as
has been particularly evinced by the general tenor of their laws
and by the distinction made in the application of those laws
between that territory and foreign countries, but was occasioned
by their conciliatory views, and by a confidence in the justice
of their cause, and in the success of candid discussion and
amicable negotiation with a just and friendly Power; ...
considering, moreover, that under these peculiar and imperative
circumstances a forbearance on the part of the United States
to occupy the territory in question, and thereby guard against
the confusions and contingencies which threaten it, might be
construed into a dereliction of their title or an insensibility
to the importance of the stake; considering that in the hands
of the United States it will not cease to be a subject of fair
and friendly negotiation and adjustment; considering finally
that the Acts of Congress, though contemplating a present
possession by a foreign authority, have contemplated also an
eventual possession of the said territory by the United States,
and are accordingly so framed as in that case to extend in their
operation to the same,”--
Considering all these reasons, substantially the same self-interest
by which France justified her decrees, and England her impressments,
the President ordered Governor Claiborne, with the aid of the United
States army, to occupy the country and to govern it as a part of his
own Orleans territory.[263] By a letter of the same date the Secretary
of State informed Claiborne, that, “if contrary to expectation, the
occupation of this [revolutionized] territory should be opposed by
force, the commanding officer of the regular troops on the Mississippi
will have orders from the Secretary of War to afford you, upon your
application, the requisite aid.... Should however any particular place,
however small, remain in possession of a Spanish force, you will not
proceed to employ force against it, but you will make immediate report
thereof to this Department.”[264] Having by these few strokes of his
pen authorized the seizure of territory belonging to “a just and
friendly Power,” and having legislated for a foreign people without
consulting their wishes, the President sent to the revolutionary
convention at Baton Rouge a sharp message through Governor Holmes of
the Mississippi territory, to the effect that their independence was
an impertinence, and their designs on the public lands were something
worse.[265]
A few days after taking these measures, Robert Smith explained their
causes to Turreau in the same conversation in which he announced
the decision to accept Cadore’s letter as the foundation of
non-intercourse with England. The wish to preclude British occupation
of Florida was the motive alleged by Smith for the intended occupation
by the United States.[266]
“As for the Floridas, I swear, General, on my honor as a
gentleman,” said Robert Smith to Turreau, October 31, “not
only that we are strangers to everything that has happened,
but even that the Americans who have appeared there either as
agents or leaders are enemies of the Executive, and act in
this sense against the Federal government as well as against
Spain.... Moreover these men and some others have been led into
these measures by the hope of obtaining from a new government
considerable concessions of lands. In any case you will soon
learn the measures we have taken to prevent the English from
being received at Baton Rouge as they have been at Pensacola,
which would render them absolute masters of our outlets by
the Mobile and Mississippi. We hope that your Government will
not take it ill that we should defend the part of Florida in
dispute between Spain and us; and whether our pretensions are
well-founded or not, your interest, like ours, requires us to
oppose the enterprises of England in that country.”
Claiborne took possession of the revolutionized districts December 7,
and the Spanish governor at Mobile was not sorry to see the insurgents
so promptly repressed and deprived of their expected profits. Yet
Claiborne did not advance to the Perdido; he went no farther than the
Pearl River, and began friendly negotiations with Governor Folch at
Mobile for delivery of the country still held by the Spaniards between
the Pearl and the Perdido. Governor Folch had none but diplomatic
weapons to use in his defence, but he used these to save that portion
of the province for some years to Spain.
The four districts west of the Pearl River were organized by Claiborne
as a part of the territory of Orleans, in which shape, the President’s
proclamation had said, “it will not cease to be a subject of fair
and friendly negotiation and adjustment” with Spain. Within a few
weeks the President announced to Congress in his Annual Message that
“the legality and necessity of the course pursued” required from the
Legislature “whatever provisions may be due to the essential rights and
equitable interests of the people thus brought into the bosom of the
American family.” The difficulty of reconciling two such assertions
perplexed many persons who in the interests of law and of society
wished to understand how a people already brought into the bosom of
the American family could remain a subject of fair negotiation with a
foreign Power. The point became further complicated by the admission of
Louisiana as a State into the Union, with the four districts which were
“to be a subject of fair and friendly negotiation.”
The first result of these tortuous proceedings was to call a protest
from Morier, the British chargé at Washington, who wrote to the
Secretary of State, December 15, a letter[267] containing one
paragraph worth noting:--
“Would it not have been worthy of the generosity of a free
nation like this, bearing, as it doubtless does, a respect for
the rights of a gallant people at this moment engaged in a noble
struggle for its liberty,--would it not have been an act on
the part of this country dictated by the sacred ties of good
neighborhood and friendship which exist between it and Spain, to
have simply offered its assistance to crush the common enemy of
both, rather than to have made such interference the pretext for
wresting a province from a friendly Power, and that at the time
of her adversity?”
Spain had little reason to draw distinctions between friends, allies,
and enemies. She could hardly stop to remember that the United States
were filching a petty sand-heap in a remote corner of the world, at a
time when England was “wresting” not one but all the splendid American
provinces from their parent country, and when France was kneeling on
the victim’s breast and aiming stab after stab at her heart.
CHAPTER XV.
THE elections for the Twelfth Congress, as far as they took
place in 1810, showed a change in public opinion, and not only reduced
the Federalists to their old rank of a faction rather than a party,
but also weakened the conservative Republicans of Jefferson’s school;
while the losses of both strengthened a new party, which called itself
Republican, but favored energy in government. Henry Clay and William
Lowndes, John C. Calhoun and Felix Grundy, Langdon Cheves and Peter B.
Porter, whatever they might at times say, cared little for Jeffersonian
or Madisonian dogmas. The election which decided the character of
the Twelfth Congress, by choosing men of this character to lead it,
decided also the popular judgment on the Eleventh Congress, which had
as yet run only half its course. Rarely in American history has any
particular Congress been held in high popular esteem, but seldom if
ever was a Congress overwhelmed by contempt so deep and general as that
which withered the Eleventh in the midst of its career. Not only did
Republicans and Federalists think alike for once, but even among the
members themselves no one of weight had a good word to say of the body
to which he belonged.
Quick to feel a popular rebuke, Congressmen submitted to punishment,
and obeyed the orders they would rather have resisted; but their work
in such a temper was sure to be done without good-will or good faith,
for a body which had lost its own respect could hardly respect its
successor. The American system of prolonging the existence of one
Legislature after electing another, never worked worse in practice
than when it allowed this rump Congress of 1809, the mere scourings
of the embargo, to assume the task of preparing for the War of 1812,
to which it was altogether opposed and in which it could not believe.
No Congress had been confronted by greater perplexities. President
Madison submitted to it a number of Executive acts more than doubtful
in legality, which must all be approved; and these measures, when
approved, led to a policy of war with England and Spain, which required
great increase of Executive strength, careful reorganization of the
Executive machinery, especially great care of the national credit and
of its chief financial agents,--political duties of extreme difficulty
and delicacy.
President Madison’s Annual Message, December 5, called attention to
such business as he wished to present. Naturally, the revocation of
the French Decrees took the first place. The President assumed that
the revocation was complete, and that his proclamation was issued
in regular course, “as prescribed by law,” the President having
no discretion; but he admitted disappointment that the sequestered
property had not been restored. “It was particularly anticipated that,
as a further evidence of just disposition toward them, restoration
would have been immediately made of the property of our citizens,
seized under a misapplication of the principle of reprisals, combined
with a misconstruction of a law of the United States. This expectation
has not been fulfilled.” England had not yet relinquished her
illegitimate blockades, and she avowed that the blockade of May, 1806,
was comprehended in the subsequent Orders in Council; the withdrawal of
that blockade had therefore been required by the President as one of
the conditions of renewing intercourse with Great Britain. The state of
the Spanish monarchy had produced a change in West Florida, a district
“which though of right appertaining to the United States had remained
in the possession of Spain, awaiting the result of negotiations for its
actual delivery to them.” The Spanish authority being subverted, the
President did not delay taking possession; “the legality and necessity
of the course pursued assure me of the favorable light in which it will
present itself to the Legislature.”
If this sketch of foreign affairs lacked perfect candor, the view
of domestic concerns gave matter for other doubts. “With the Indian
tribes,” said the Message, “the peace and friendship of the United
States are found to be so eligible that the general disposition to
preserve both continues to gain strength.” The story of Tippecanoe and
Tecumthe soon threw new light on this assertion. To Indian friendship
domestic prosperity succeeded, and the Message praised the economy
and policy of manufactures. “How far it may be expedient to guard the
infancy of this improvement in the distribution of labor by regulations
of the commercial tariff, is a subject which cannot fail to suggest
itself to your patriotic reflections.” A navigation law was also
required to place American shipping on a level of competition with
foreign vessels. A national university “would contribute not less to
strengthen the foundations than to adorn the structure of our free
and happy system of government.” Further means for repressing the
slave-trade were required. Fortifications, arms, and organization of
the militia were to be provided. The Military School at West Point
needed enlargement.
Congress found more satisfaction in Gallatin’s Annual Report, sent to
Congress a week afterward, than they could draw from Madison’s Message,
for Gallatin told them that he had succeeded in bringing the current
expenses within the annual income; and only in case they should decide
to prohibit the importation of British goods after Feb. 2, 1811, should
he need further legislation both to make good the revenue and to
enforce the prohibition.
Congress lost no time. West Florida called first for attention; and
Senator Giles, December 18, reported a bill extending the territory
of Orleans to the river Perdido, in accordance with the President’s
measures. In the debate which followed, Federalist senators attacked
the President for exceeding the law and violating the Constitution.
Their argument was founded on the facts already told, and required
nothing more to support it; but the defence had greater interest, for
no one could foretell with certainty by what expedient senators would
cover an Executive act which, like the purchase of Louisiana itself,
had best be accepted in silence as plainly beyond the Constitution.
Henry Clay acted as the President’s champion, and explained on his
behalf that the Act of Oct. 31, 1803, authorizing the President to
occupy the ceded territory of Louisiana, was still in force, although
regular possession to the Iberville had been taken, Dec. 20, 1803, in
pursuance of that Act, without further demand on the part of the United
States, and although the Act of March 20, 1804, providing for the
temporary government of the territory, declared that “the Act passed
the 31st day of October ... shall continue in force until the 1st day
of October, 1804.” In face of this double difficulty,--the exhaustion
of the power and its express limitation,--Clay asserted that the power
had not been exhausted, and that the limitation, though apparently
general, was intended only for the provisional government established
by another portion of the Act of 1803. He produced in his support the
Act of Feb. 24, 1804, empowering the President, to erect West Florida
into a collection district whenever he deemed it expedient. “These
laws,” continued Clay, “furnish a legislative construction of the
treaty correspondent with that given by the Executive, and they vest in
this branch of the government indisputably a power to take possession
of the country whenever it might be proper in his discretion.”
Congress approved this opinion, which was in truth neither weaker nor
stronger than the arguments by which the Louisiana purchase itself had
been sustained. Fate willed that every measure connected with that
territory should be imbued with the same spirit of force or fraud which
tainted its title. The Southern States needed the Floridas, and cared
little what law might be cited to warrant seizing them; yet a Virginia
Republican should have been startled at learning that after October,
1803, every President, past or to come, had the right to march the
army or send the navy of the United States at any time to occupy not
only West Florida, but also Texas and Oregon, as far as the North Pole
itself, since they claimed it all, except the Russian possessions, as a
part of the Louisiana purchase, with more reason than they claimed West
Florida.
As usual, the most pungent critic of Republican doctrines was
Senator Pickering, who if he could not convince, could always annoy
the majority. He replied to Clay, and in the course of his speech
read Talleyrand’s letter of Dec. 21, 1804, which put an end to
Monroe’s attempt to include West Florida in the Louisiana purchase.
Nothing could be more apt; but nothing could be more annoying to
the Administration, for Talleyrand’s letter was still secret.
Confidentially communicated with other papers to Congress by Jefferson,
Dec. 6, 1805, the injunction of secrecy had never been removed, and the
publication tended to throw contempt on Madison not only for his past
but particularly for his present dalliance with Napoleon. Pickering
could charge, with more than usual appearance of probability, that West
Florida was to be Madison’s reward for accepting the plainly deceptive
pledge of Cadore’s letter of August 5. The Senate, with some doubts,
resented Pickering’s conduct to a moderate extent. Samuel Smith moved
it to be “a palpable violation of the rules;” and with the omission
of “palpable,” the resolution was adopted. The deference to Executive
authority which allowed so important a paper to be suppressed for five
years showed more political sagacity than was proved in censuring
Pickering by a party vote, which he would regard as a compliment,
because he read a document that the Administration should have been
ashamed not to publish and resent.
The interlude helped only to embarrass the true question,--what should
be done with West Florida. President Madison’s doctrine, embodied
in Giles’s bill, carried out the Livingston-Monroe theory that West
Florida belonged to Louisiana. In theory, this arrangement might answer
the purpose for which it was invented; but in fact West Florida did not
belong to Louisiana, either as a Spanish or as an American province,
and could not be treated as though it did. If Mobile Bay and the Gulf
coast as far as the Perdido belonged to Louisiana, the territory
afterward divided into the States of Alabama and Mississippi had no
outlet to the gulf. Georgia would never consent to such treatment,
merely to support President Madison in alleging that West Florida was
occupied by him as a part of the Orleans territory. Senator Giles’s
bill was silently dropped.
The Senate reached this point December 31, but meanwhile the House
reached the same standstill from another side. December 17 the Speaker
appointed a committee, with Macon at its head, to report on the
admission of Orleans territory as a State. The admission of the State
of Louisiana into the Union was for many reasons a serious moment in
American history; but one of its lesser incidents was the doubt which
so much perplexed the Senate, whether Louisiana included West Florida.
If this was the case, then by the third article of the treaty of
purchase the inhabitants of Mobile and the district between Mobile and
Baton Rouge, without division, should be “incorporated in the Union of
the United States, and admitted as soon as possible” to the Union as
part of the territory of Orleans. This was the opinion of Macon and
his committee, as it had been that of Giles and his committee, and
of the President and his Cabinet. December 27 Macon reported a bill
admitting Louisiana, with West Florida to the Perdido, as a State;
but no sooner did the debates begin, than the Georgians for the first
time showed delicacy in regard to the rights of Spain. Troup could not
consent to include in any State this territory “yet in dispute and
subject to negotiation.” Bibb held the same misgivings: “The President
by his proclamation, although he had required its occupation, had
declared that the right should be subject to negotiation; now, if it
became a State, would not all right of negotiation be taken from the
President?” To prevent this danger, Bibb moved that West Florida, from
the Iberville to the Perdido, should be annexed to the Mississippi
Territory or made a separate government.
On the other hand, Rhea of Tennessee held that no other course was open
to Congress than to admit the Orleans territory in its full extent as
ceded by France, according to the President’s assertion. The treaty
was peremptory, and Congress was bound by it to annex no part of the
Orleans purchase to a pre-existing territory. West Florida belonged to
Louisiana, and could not lawfully be given to Mississippi.
The House tried as usual to defer or compromise its difficulty. January
9, Macon’s bill was so amended as to withdraw West Florida from its
operation; but when on the following day two members in succession
asked the House to provide a government for West Florida, the House
referred the motions back to the committee, and there the matter
rested. No man knew whether West Florida belonged to Louisiana or not.
If the President was right, Mobile and all the Gulf shore to a point
within ten miles of Pensacola, although still held by the Spaniards,
made part of the State of Louisiana, and even an Act of Congress
could not affect it; while if this was not the case, the President in
ordering the seizure of West Florida had violated the Constitution and
made war on Spain.
Hardly had the House admitted its helplessness in the face of this
difficulty, when it was obliged to meet the larger issue involved in
the Louisiana affair; for Jan. 14, 1811, Josiah Quincy, with extreme
deliberation, uttered and committed to writing a sentence which
remained long famous:--
“If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is
virtually a dissolution of this Union; that it will free the
States from their moral obligation; and, as it will be the right
of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare
for a separation,--amicably if they can, violently if they must.”
The Speaker decided this language to be disorderly; but the House, by
a vote of fifty-six to fifty-three, reversed the ruling, and Quincy
went on arguing, as Jefferson had argued eight years before, that the
introduction of new States, outside the original Union, was no part of
the compact, and must end in overwhelming the original partners.
Quincy’s protest wanted only one quality to give it force. He spoke
in the name of no party to the original compact. His own State of
Massachusetts assented to the admission of Louisiana, and neither the
governor nor the legislature countenanced the doctrine of Quincy and
Pickering. If the partners themselves made no protest, the act had all
the legality it needed, in the absence of appeal to higher authority;
but it consummated a change in the nature of the United States
government, and its results, however slow, could not fail to create
what was in effect a new Constitution.
The House, without further delay, passed the bill by a vote of
seventy-seven to thirty-six. After some amendment by the Senate, and
dispute between the Houses, the bill was sent to the President, and
Feb. 20, 1811, received his signature. The Act fixed the Iberville
and the Sabine for the eastern and western boundaries of the new
State. Meanwhile West Florida remained, till further legislation, a
part of Orleans Territory for all purposes except those of admission
into the Union; and, according to the view implied by the action of
Executive and Legislature, the President retained power to order the
military occupation of Texas under the Act of Oct. 31, 1803, subject to
government afterward, like West Florida, by the proconsular authority
of the Executive.
As though the Florida affair needed still further complication,
the President, January 3, sent to Congress a secret message asking
authority to seize East Florida:--
“I recommend ... the expediency of authorizing the Executive
to take temporary possession of any part or parts of the said
territory, in pursuance of arrangements which may be desired by
the Spanish authorities.... The wisdom of Congress will at the
same time determine how far it may be expedient to provide for
the event of a subversion of the Spanish authorities within the
territory in question, and an apprehended occupancy thereof by
any other foreign Power.”
In secret session Congress debated and passed an Act, approved Jan.
15, 1811, authorizing the President to take possession of East
Florida, in case the local authority should consent or a foreign Power
should attempt to occupy it. The President immediately appointed two
commissioners to carry the law into effect. The orders he gave them,
the meaning they put on these orders, the action they took, and the
President’s further measures were to form another remarkable episode in
the complicated history of Florida.
Congress next turned to the charter of the United States Bank; but
if it succumbed before West Florida, it was helpless in dealing with
finance. Long hesitation had ended by creating difficulties. Local
interests hostile to the Bank sprang into existence. In many States
private banks were applying for charters, and preparing to issue notes
in the hope of seizing their share of the profits of the United States
Bank. The influence of these new corporations was great. They induced
one State legislature after another to instruct their senators on the
subject. That Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Maryland should wish to
appropriate the profits of the National Bank was not surprising, but
that Virginia and Kentucky should make themselves instruments of the
capitalist States showed little knowledge of their true interests. As
the crisis came near, the struggle became hotter, until it rivalled the
embargo excitement, and every hour of delay increased the vehemence of
opposition to the charter.
The Bank was vulnerable on more than one side. Largely owned in
England, it roused jealousy as a foreign influence. Congress could
hardly blame this ownership, since Congress itself, in 1802, aided
President Jefferson in selling to the Barings, at a premium of
forty-five per cent, the two thousand two hundred and twenty Bank
shares still belonging to the government. The operation brought to
the Treasury not only a profit of four hundred thousand dollars in
premiums, but also about thirteen hundred thousand dollars of British
capital to be used for American purposes. Fully two thirds of the
Bank stock, amounting to ten million dollars, were owned in England;
all the five thousand shares originally subscribed by the United
States government had been sold to England; and as the Bank was a
mere creature of the United States government, these seven millions
of British capital were equivalent to a score of British frigates or
regiments lent to the United States to use against England in war. By
returning them, the United States seriously weakened themselves and
strengthened their enemy.
Unfortunately this interest was national. Local interests felt that
Englishmen received profits which should belong to Americans; and
capitalists in general were not inclined to lower their profits
by inviting foreign capital into the country unless they shared
its returns. The second misfortune of the Bank was that of being a
Federalist creation, chiefly used for the benefit of Federalists, who
owned most of the active capital in the country. The third objection
went deeper. The Bank was the last vestige of strong government created
by the Federalists,--a possible engine of despotism; and no one could
deny that if decentralization was wise, the Bank should be suppressed.
Finally, the Bank was a bulwark to Gallatin; its destruction would
weaken Madison and drive Gallatin from office.
Doubtless the objections to the Bank were so strong as some day to
become fatal. In a society and government so little developed as those
of America, a National Bank was out of keeping with other institutions.
Even in England and France these banks exercised more influence over
the Treasury than was proper; and in America, if once the Bank should
unite in political sympathy with the Government, it might do no little
harm. The necessity for such an institution was merely one of the
moment, but in the period of national history between 1790 and 1860,
the year 1811 was perhaps the only moment when destruction of the Bank
threatened national ruin. A financial cataclysm had prostrated credit
from St. Petersburg to New Orleans. Prices were nominal. England owed
America large sums of money, but instead of discharging the debt, she
was trying to escape payment and withdraw specie. Already the supply of
specie in the United States was insufficient to sustain the bank-note
circulation. In New York city the State banks were supposed to hold not
more than half a million dollars, and in Pennsylvania not much more
than a million; while the Bank of the United States had lost three and
a half millions in eleven months, and had but five and a half millions
left.[268]
Meanwhile the State banks not only expanded their issues, but also
rapidly increased in number. Suppression of the National Bank could not
fail to stimulate this movement. “The banks established by the State
legislatures will scramble for the privilege of filling the chasm to
be made by the destruction of the Bank of the United States. Already
are they preparing for the patriotic endeavor. Our State legislatures
are to be importuned to become bank jobbers and joint undertakers and
copartners in the enterprise.”[269] Nothing could prevent expansion of
credit, drain of specie, bankruptcy and confusion of the currency; and
this was to be done at the time the country entered into a war with
the only Power whose influence could shake the Union to its foundation.
Madison stood aloof, and left on Gallatin the burden of the struggle;
but Gallatin’s energies and influence could do little with the Eleventh
Congress. He was strongest in the House; but there the debate, after
many speeches, ended, January 24, by a vote of sixty-five to sixty-four
in favor of indefinite postponement, and by common consent all parties
waited for the Senate to decide. The omen was not happy for the
Treasury.
Gallatin had at last found a capable senator to support him. The
political fortunes of William Henry Crawford, which ended only at the
threshold of the White House, drew no small part of their growth from
his courageous defence of the Treasury during these chaotic years.
Crawford showed the faults of a strong nature,--he was overbearing,
high-tempered, and his ambition did not spurn what his enemies called
intrigue; but he possessed the courage of Henry Clay, with more than
Clay’s intelligence, though far less than his charm. Crawford was never
weak, rarely oratorical; and if he was ever emotional he reserved his
emotion for other places than the Senate. “One man at last appeared
who filled my expectations,” wrote Gallatin many years afterward
to an old and intimate friend.[270] “This was Mr. Crawford, who
united to a powerful mind a most correct judgment and an inflexible
integrity,--which last quality, not sufficiently tempered by indulgence
and civility, has prevented his acquiring general popularity.” February
5 he introduced into the Senate a bill continuing the old Bank charter
for twenty years on certain conditions; and February 11 he supported
the bill in a speech remarkable for the severity of its truths. He
began by challenging the Constitution itself:--
“Upon the most thorough examination [of the Constitution] I
am induced to believe that many of the various constructions
given to it are the result of a belief that it is absolutely
perfect. It has become so extremely fashionable to eulogize
this Constitution, whether the object of the eulogist is the
extension or contraction of the powers of the government, that
whenever its eulogium is pronounced I feel an involuntary
apprehension of mischief.”
Upon the party theory that Congress could exercise no implied
power, and therefore could not charter a corporation, Crawford fell
energetically, until he came in contact with the instructions of State
legislatures, which he swept out of his path with actual contempt:--
“What is the inducement with these great States to put down
the Bank of the United States? Their avarice combined with
their love of domination!... The great commercial States are to
monopolize the benefits which are to arise from the deposits of
your public money. The suppression of this Bank will benefit
none of the interior or smaller States in which there is little
or no revenue collected. As the whole benefit is to be engrossed
by three or four of the great Atlantic States, so the whole of
the power which the dissolution of this Bank will take from the
national government will be exclusively monopolized by the same
States.”
Under Gallatin’s teaching, Crawford bade fair to make himself, what
the South so greatly needed, a statesman who understood its interests;
but he was far in advance of his people. The society from which he
sprang was more correctly represented by Giles, who answered him in
the manner for which the Virginia senator had acquired unpleasant
notoriety. February 14 John Randolph, who with all his faults was not
so factious as to join in the scheme of the State banks, wrote to his
friend Nicholson:[271] “Giles made this morning the most unintelligible
speech on the Bank of the United States that I ever heard.” Never had
Giles taken more trouble to be judicial, candid, and temperate; no one
could have admitted with more impartiality the force of his opponent’s
arguments; but his instincts, stronger than his logic, compelled him to
vote against the Bank. The conclusion was as certain as the process was
vague.
Henry Clay, who followed on the same side, ironically complimented
the Virginia senator, who had “certainly demonstrated to the
satisfaction of all who heard him both that it was constitutional and
unconstitutional, highly proper and improper, to prolong the charter
of the Bank;” but Clay’s irony was as unfortunate as Giles’s logic. The
sarcasm thrown at Giles recoiled on Clay himself, for he passed the
rest of his life in contradicting and repenting the speech he made at
this moment, in which he took ground against the power of Congress to
create corporations. “The power to charter companies is not specified
in the grant, and, I contend, is of a nature not transferable by mere
implication. It is one of the most exalted attributes of sovereignty.”
The legislation of twenty years which enforced the opposite opinion
he swept aside in his peculiar manner. “This doctrine of precedents,
applied to the legislature, appears to me to be fraught with the most
mischievous consequences.” With more than his ordinary self-confidence,
he affirmed that the Treasury could be as well conducted without as
with the Bank; and he closed with a burst of rhetoric hardly to be
paralleled in his oratory, by holding the Bank responsible for not
preventing Great Britain from attacking the “Chesapeake,” impressing
American seamen, and issuing the Orders in Council.
Clay’s excuse for extravagances like these was neither his youth nor
his ignorance of affairs nor his obedience to instructions, nor yet a
certain want of tact which made him through life the victim of needless
mistakes, but was rather the simple repentance with which, within five
years, he threw himself on the mercy of the public, admitting that had
he foreseen the effect of his course he would have acted in a very
different way.[272] Even for Giles some apology might be made, for no
one could deny that consistency required him to vote as he did, and he
could appeal to the record in his defence. The worst offender was not
Giles or Clay, but Samuel Smith.
When Crawford flung so freely his charges of avarice and ambition
about the Senate chamber, he had Samuel Smith directly in his eye; for
Smith’s action was avowedly controlled by his interests, and since his
speech on Macon’s bill his attitude toward public measures was better
understood than before. No one could conceive Smith to be influenced by
conscientious scruples about implied powers, but many persons besides
Madison and Gallatin believed him to be selfish and grasping. Baltimore
favored State banks, and Smith lent his reputation as a business man to
the service of local politics and interests, except so far as in doing
this he aimed at the overthrow of Gallatin. He gave what amounted to a
pledge of his character as a merchant to the assertion that the State,
banks were better, safer, and more efficient agencies for the Treasury
than the Bank of the United States could possibly be. In making
the speech which advanced these doctrines, he threw out an express
challenge to Gallatin. “The secretary is considered by his friends a
very great man in fiscal operations; in commercial matters I may be
permitted to have opinions of my own.” As a commercial authority he
asserted that government had much greater control over the State banks
than over the United States Bank; that more confidence could be put
in the security of the State banks than in that of the National Bank;
that they could more easily effect the necessary exchanges; that they
were as prudently conducted; that the National Bank did not act as a
check upon them, but they acted as a check upon it; that the ordinary
and extraordinary business of the Treasury could be as effectually
and securely done by the State banks; and that the liquidation of
the United States Bank would “be remembered nine days and not much
longer.” When five years afterward the fallacy of these opinions became
too notorious for question, Smith did not, like Clay, throw himself
on the justice of his country or admit his errors, but he voted to
re-establish the Bank in a far more extensive form, and took the ground
that it was the only means of repairing mistakes which he had been a
principal agent in making.
The other speeches made in this debate, although quite equal in
ability to these, carried less political weight, for they implied less
factiousness. One remained, which excited no small curiosity and some
amusement.
When the Senate, February 20, divided on the motion to strike out the
enacting clause, seventeen senators voted for the Bank and seventeen
voted against it. Nine Northern senators voted in its favor, including
seven of the ten from New England, and nine on the opposite side.
Eight Southern senators voted one way, and eight the other. Of the
twenty-seven Republican senators, seventeen voted against the Bank, and
ten in its favor; while the three senators who were supposed to be in
personal opposition to the President--Giles, Samuel Smith, and Michael
Leib--all voted in opposition. The force of personal feeling was
credited with still another vote; for when the result was announced,
the Vice-President, George Clinton, whose attitude was notorious, made
a short address to the effect that “the power to create corporations is
not expressly granted; it is a high attribute of sovereignty, and in
its nature not accessorial or derivative by implication, but primary
and independent.” On this ground he threw his casting vote against the
bill.
So perished the first Bank of the United States; and with its
destruction the Federalist crisis, so long threatened, began at last to
throw its shadow over the government.
CHAPTER XVI.
WHILE Congress recoiled from the problem of West Florida, and
by a single voice decreed that the United States Bank should cease to
exist, nothing had yet been decided in regard to England and France.
This delay was not due to negligence. From the first day of the session
anxiety had been great; but decision, which even in indifferent matters
was difficult for the Eleventh Congress, became impossible in so
complicated a subject as that of foreign relations. The President’s
proclamation named Feb. 2, 1811, as the day when intercourse with
England was to cease. Congress had been six weeks in session, and had
barely a fortnight to spare, when at last the subject was brought
before the House, January 15, by John W. Eppes of Virginia, chairman of
the committees of Ways and Means and Foreign Relations, who reported
a bill for regulating commercial intercourse with Great Britain. As
a third or fourth commercial experiment,--a companion to the partial
Non-intercourse Act of April, 1806; the embargo of December, 1807; and
the total Non-intercourse Act of March, 1809,--the new bill promised
more discontent in America than it was ever likely to create in
England. The measure was not a non-intercourse, but a non-importation,
severe and searching, in some ways almost as violent as the embargo;
and was to be passed by a Congress elected expressly for the purpose of
repealing the embargo.
The proposed bill lay on the Speaker’s table. February approached, and
still Congress did nothing; yet this delay substituted in place of the
Constitution a system of government by proclamation. In two instances
involving not only foreign war, but also more than half the foreign
trade and several principles of fundamental law, the country depended
in February, 1810, on two Executive proclamations, which rested on two
assertions of fact that no one believed to be true. In spite of Madison
and his proclamations, West Florida was not a part of Louisiana;
Napoleon had not withdrawn his decrees,--and Congress was unwilling to
support either assertion.
Unless the Berlin and Milan Decrees were repealed Nov. 1, 1810, as
Cadore’s letter was held to promise, neither President nor Congress
could reasonably take the ground that Cadore’s letter, of itself,
revived the non-intercourse against England. The United States had the
right to make war on England with or without notice, either for her
past spoliations, her actual blockades, her Orders in Council other
than blockades, her Rule of 1756, her impressments, or her attack on
the “Chesapeake,” not yet redressed,--possibly also for other reasons
less notorious; but the right to make war did not carry with it the
right to require that the world should declare to be true an assertion
which the world knew to be false. Unless England were a shrew to be
tamed, President Madison could hardly insist on her admitting the sun
to be the moon; and so well was Congress aware of this difficulty that
it waited in silence for two months, until, February 2, the President’s
proclamation went into effect; while the longer Congress waited, the
greater became its doubts.
Only one proof could be admitted as sufficient evidence that the French
Decrees were repealed. The Emperor had violated American rights by
decree, and until he restored them by decree no municipal order of
his subordinates could replace the United States in the position they
claimed. For this reason the President and Congress waited anxiously
for news from Paris to November 1, when the decree of appeal should
have issued. The news came, but included no decree. The President then
assumed that at least the Decrees of Berlin and Milan would not be
enforced in France after November 1; but letters from Bordeaux, dated
Dec. 14, 1810, brought news that two American vessels which entered
that port about December 1 had been sequestered. No other American
vessels were known to have arrived in French ports except with French
licenses.
This intelligence was a disaster. The President communicated it to
Congress in a brief message;[273] January 31; and so serious was
its effect that on February 2, when the non-intercourse revived by
proclamation, Eppes rose in the House and moved to recommit his bill
on the ground that the behavior of France gave no excuse for action
against England. “The non-intercourse went into operation to-day,” he
said. “It had been considered by the Committee of Foreign Relations
that in the present state of our affairs it would be better to provide
for the relief of our own citizens and suspend the passage of the law
for enforcing the non-intercourse until the doubts hanging over our
foreign relations were dissipated.”
The opposition would have done well to let Eppes struggle with his
difficulties as he best could without interference; but Randolph, who
liked to press an advantage, professing a wish to relieve the President
“from the dilemma in which he must now stand,” moved the repeal of the
Non-intercourse Act of March 1, 1809,--a step which if taken would have
repealed also the President’s proclamation. The motion brought on a
premature debate. Out-reasoned, out-manœuvred, and driven to the wall,
the Republicans could only become dogged and defiant. They took the
ground that retreat was impossible. Eppes avowed that he considered the
national faith pledged to France; and although he would not enforce the
non-intercourse against England until he had certain knowledge that
the French Decrees were withdrawn, he must have unequivocal evidence
that France had “violated the faith pledged to this nation” before
he would vote to repeal the law. Apologetic throughout, he admitted
that indemnity for the French seizures had always been considered an
essential part of any arrangement with Napoleon, yet held that the
national faith was pledged to that arrangement, although an essential
part of the Emperor’s obligation was omitted. Every speaker on the
Republican side, with the exception of Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill of
New York, asserted with increasing vehemence that the Act of May
1, 1810, created a contract with France, made perfect by Cadore’s
letter of August 5. This legal view of Napoleonic statesmanship had
much force with the Republican lawyers of the Eleventh Congress,
although its necessary consequence followed its announcement; for
since law, whatever lawyers might sometimes seem to assert, was not
politics,--differing especially in the point that law had a sanction of
force, while international politics had none,--and since Napoleon could
in no way be controlled by any sanction, and still less be trusted, the
so-called contract, while binding on America, in no way bound France.
Even Langdon Cheves, the new member from South Carolina, maintained
that the United States could no longer break their compact with the
Emperor. “Was it not better,” he asked, “that the nation should
preserve all it had left,--its good faith? Its property and honor
had been sacrificed, and all that was left was its good faith.”
Cheves admitted that his doctrine of “good faith” had an ulterior
motive, which was to force a conflict with England. “He had never
been satisfied with the wisdom or propriety of the law of May last in
any other view than one. He believed it would make the country act a
part worthy of its character; it would precipitate us on a particular
enemy,--and this, he believed, the country required.” He went so far as
to assert “that the decrees were removed, and that if the violation of
our rights continued to-morrow, yet the decrees were so revoked on the
1st of November last as that they did cease to violate our commerce.
If our rights are now violated, it is a violation independent of the
decrees, by the mere will of an arbitrary and powerful government.”
Rhea of Tennessee went further still. “If any compact,” said he, “can
be of greater dignity than a treaty, the law of May 1, made by the
constituted authorities of the United States, and agreed to and acted
on by the constituted authorities of France, forms that compact.”
When one nation is agreed in the policy of fighting another any pretext
will answer, and Government need not even be greatly concerned to give
any reason at all; but in the condition of America in 1810, grave
dangers might result from setting aside the four or five just issues
of war with England in order to insist on an issue that revolted
common-sense. If ingenuity had been provoked to suggest the course
which would rouse most repugnance in the minds of the largest possible
number of Americans, no device better suited for its purpose than the
theory of Eppes, Cheves, and Rhea could have been proposed; and if
they wished to exasperate the conscience of New England in especial
to fanatical violence, they came nearest their end by insisting on an
involuntary, one-sided compact, intended to force Massachusetts and
Connecticut to do the will of the man whom a majority of the people in
New England seriously regarded as anti-Christ. Even on the floor of the
House no Republican could stand a moment before John Randolph without
better protection than this compact with France, which France herself
did not recognize.
“This is the 2d of February,” said Randolph. “The time
has arrived, the hour now is, when gentlemen by their own
arguments, if their arguments be just, are bound to fulfil the
contract, which I do not undertake to expound, but which they
say has been made--certainly in a manner very novel to our
Constitution--between the House of Representatives on the one
hand and Bonaparte on the other,--a bargain which, like the
bargains of old with the Devil, there is no shaking off. It is a
bargain which credulity and imbecility enter into with cunning
and power.... I call upon gentlemen to make good their promise
to his Majesty the Emperor of the French and King of Italy; to
redeem their pledge; to cut off in fact nearly the whole of our
existing trade in return for the liberty of trading by license
from the three favored ports which it has pleased his Imperial
Majesty to privilege. No man believes--I beg pardon, sir; I
was going to say, but I will not, that no man believes one
syllable of this breach of faith on our part. I have too much
confidence in the honor of gentlemen not to be convinced that
they have persuaded themselves to this effect, although it is
incomprehensible to me. Bound, sir, to whom? To Bonaparte? Bound
to Shylock? Bound to render up not only the pound of flesh, but
every jot of blood in the Constitution? Does he come forward
with his pockets swelled with American treasure; do his minions,
fattened upon our soil, whether obtained by public rapine or
private extortion, do they come forward, calling upon us to
make sacrifices of our best interest on the shrine of their
resentments, in the name, too, of good faith?”
The majority showed its usual weakness in debate, but rejected
Randolph’s motion by a vote of sixty-seven to forty-five; and after
rejecting it, knew not what to do. Eppes reported a new bill to suspend
for a time the operation of the non-intercourse, and a new debate
began. February 9 Eppes rejoiced the House by opening a fresh hope of
some decided policy. A new French minister was soon to arrive in place
of Turreau, and further legislation must wait his arrival.
“He has left France,” said Eppes, “at a time to bring us certain
information on this question. I have no wish to enter on this
interesting question with a bandage round my eyes. Whether
France has complied with her engagements, whether France has
failed in her engagements, cannot be a subject of ingenious
speculation many days longer.”
Further proceedings were suspended until Congress should learn what
Napoleon’s agent would say.[274]
The new minister arrived almost immediately. Unlike Turreau, Serurier
was a diplomate by profession. He had last served as French minister
at the Hague, where, by no fault of his own, he drove King Louis of
Holland from his throne. February 16 he was presented to the President,
and the next day had a long interview with Robert Smith, who learned
that he brought no instructions or information of any kind on the one
subject that engrossed diplomatic attention. The scene with Francis
James Jackson was repeated with the French minister. Again and again
Smith pressed his inquiries, which Serurier politely declined to answer
except by resenting any suggestion that the Emperor would fail to keep
his word.[275]
After this interview, on the same day, the President apparently held
a Cabinet meeting, and probably also consulted certain party leaders
in Congress; but no record of such conferences has been preserved, nor
is anything known of the arguments that ended in the most hazardous
decision yet risked. If disagreement took place,--if Gallatin, Eppes,
Robert Smith, or Crawford remonstrated against the course pursued, not
a whisper of their arguments was heard beyond the Cabinet. Serurier
himself is the only authority for inferring that some conference was
probably held; but he knew so little, that in giving to his Government
an account of his first day in Washington he closed the despatch by
reporting in a few lines the decision, of which he could have hardly
suspected the importance. His interview with Robert Smith took place
on the morning of February 17; the afternoon was probably passed by the
President and Cabinet in conference; in the evening Mrs. Madison held a
reception, where Serurier was received with general cordiality:--
“In coming away, Mr. Smith--probably intending to say something
agreeable, and something that I might regard as the effect of
our first conversations--assured me that he was authorized to
give me the pledge that if (_pour peu que_) England should
show the least new resistance to the withdrawal of her orders,
the Government had decided to increase the stringency of the
non-intercourse, and to give that measure all the effect it
ought to have.”
The decision to enforce and re-enforce the non-intercourse against
England implied that the President considered Napoleon’s Decrees to
be withdrawn. February 17, at latest, the decision was made. February
19 the President sent to Congress a Message containing two French
documents.[276] The first was a letter, dated December 25, from the
Duc de Massa, Minister of Justice, to the President of the Council of
Prizes, which recited the words of Cadore’s letter and the measures
taken by the American government in consequence, and ordered that all
captured American vessels should thenceforward not be judged according
to the principles of the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, which “shall
remain suspended;” but such captured vessels should be sequestrated,
“the rights of the proprietors being reserved to them until the 2d of
February next, the period at which the United States, having fulfilled
the engagement to cause their rights to be respected, the said captures
shall be declared null by the Council.” The second letter, of the same
date, was written by Gaudin, Duc de Gaete, Minister of Finance, to the
Director-General of the Customs, directing him thenceforward not to
enforce the Berlin and Milan Decrees against American vessels.
On these letters, not on any communications from Scrurier, the
President rested his decision that the Decrees of Berlin and Milan were
so revoked as no longer to violate the neutral commerce of the United
States. Obviously they failed to prove more than that the decrees
were partially suspended. According to these orders the decrees were
not under any circumstances to be revoked, but their operation upon
American commerce in France was to cease in case the Emperor should
be satisfied that America had previously enforced against England
the principles of the decrees. This was the converse of the American
demand, and was in effect the attitude of England. The same packet
which brought Jonathan Russell’s despatch containing the two letters of
the French ministers brought also the “Moniteur” of December 15, which
contained the Duc de Cadore’s official Report on Foreign Relations,--a
paper understood to express the Emperor’s own language, and to be
decisive as to the meaning of his foreign policy:--
“Sire, as long as England shall persist in her Orders in
Council, your Majesty will persist in your decrees; will oppose
the blockade of the Continent to the blockade of the coast, and
the confiscation of British merchandise on the Continent to the
pillage on the seas. My duty obliges me to say to your Majesty,
You cannot henceforward hope to recall your enemies to more
moderate ideas except by perseverance in this system.”
These documents, combined with a knowledge of the license system,
showed the true scope and meaning of Cadore’s pledge so clearly as
to leave no possibility of doubt. If America chose to accept these
limitations of her neutral rights, she was at liberty to do so; but she
could hardly require England to admit that the Berlin and Milan Decrees
were in any sense revoked because American ships were thenceforward to
be admitted to France subject to the system of those decrees. Napoleon
concealed neither his policy nor his motives, and as these did not
warrant the assertion that France had ceased to violate the neutral
rights of America, President Madison was obliged to assume that the
Emperor meant to do more. A month after his decision was made, he
wrote to Jefferson a letter of speculation as to the reasons that
prevented the Emperor from taking the action assumed to belong to his
plans:[277]--
“It is, as you remark, difficult to understand the meaning
of Bonaparte toward us. There is little doubt that his want
of money and his ignorance of commerce have had a material
influence. He has also distrusted the stability and efficacy of
our pledge to renew the non-intercourse against Great Britain,
and has wished to execute his in a manner that would keep pace
only with the execution of ours, and at the same time leave
no interval for the operation of the British Orders without a
counter-operation in either his or our measures. In all this his
folly is obvious.”
Such language was not only inconsistent with the doctrine that the
French Decrees stood repealed in such a manner as no longer to
violate American commerce, but it also showed that Madison deceived
himself as to Napoleon’s character and his policy. Of all theories
on which to found political action, the least reasonable was that of
assuming Napoleon to be foolish; yet his “obvious folly” was Madison’s
explanation of an ingenious and successful device to enforce the
Continental system.
Having adopted a policy, Madison could not but carry it to its
practical results. Robert Smith came to him February 20 with the
draft of a note addressed to Serurier, asking for information as to
the withdrawal of the decrees,--a course similar to that adopted with
Jackson. “I was, to my astonishment, told by him that it would not be
expedient to send to Mr. Serurier any such note. His deportment during
this interview evinced a high degree of disquietude, which occasionally
betrayed him into fretful expressions.”[278]
Smith did not understand the uselessness of asking Serurier for
information he could not give, after deciding to act on such
information as though it had been given. Although every one knew
privately that Serurier would say nothing on the subject, the President
could not afford to give the silence official emphasis; and he probably
regarded Smith’s attempt to do so as a part of his general effort to
discredit the whole system of commercial restrictions. The proposed
letter to Serurier could be of no use except to embarrass Congress in
legislating against England. Already the first steps for this purpose
had been arranged, and the next day, February 21, Eppes moved in the
House to amend his bill by substituting two new sections, which revived
the non-intercourse of March, 1809, against England in respect to all
vessels which left a British port after Feb. 2, 1811, and forbade the
courts to entertain the question whether the French edicts were or were
not revoked.
Nothing short of a revolution in the form of government could force
such a bill through Congress at so late an hour; but the Republican
party having decided on the measure, did not shrink from employing the
means.
February 23 the House went into committee and took up Eppes’s new
bill. That it was unsatisfactory could not be denied. Robert Wright of
Maryland--a new member, of the war party--moved to amend by requiring
from England an arrangement about impressments as an additional
condition of restoring intercourse, and had the Government intended to
make war its ultimate object it would have adopted Wright’s motion; but
the House had no such object. Impressment was not one of the grievances
which of late had been urged against England; indeed, the subject had
somewhat fallen out of sight, and so little did the House care to
insist upon it, that only twenty-one votes supported Wright’s motion.
On the other hand, the conduct of France was hotly discussed, but only
by Federalists. The Republicans sat silent.
After one day’s debate the bill was reported, and February 26 the
true struggle began. The House sat eighteen hours, while the minority
consumed time by long speeches and dilatory motions. During the last
four hours no quorum was present, and the Speaker decided that in the
absence of a quorum no compulsory process could be issued. When the
House reassembled at half-past ten on the morning of February 27, long
speeches were resumed. The evening session began at six o’clock, when
on both sides patience was exhausted. Randolph made two successive
motions to postpone. Eppes declared that Randolph’s motive was to delay
and defeat the bill; Randolph retorted by the lie direct, and for a
time the House fell into confusion, while Eppes wrote a challenge on
the spot, and sent it by Richard M. Johnson to Randolph, who left the
House to instruct his second.
Until half-past two o’clock in the morning of February 28 time was
consumed in these tactics,--about eighty members being present, and
the majority keeping silence. At that hour Barent Gardenier was on the
floor making another diffuse harangue, when Thomas Gholson of Virginia
called for the previous question on the last motion before the House.
According to the rules, Speaker Varnum stated the motion: “Shall the
main question be now put?” It was decided in the affirmative. Gardenier
immediately attempted to speak on the main question, when Gholson
called him to order. Then followed the _coup d’état_.
“The Speaker decided that according to the late practice of the
House it was in order to debate the main question after the
previous question had been taken. He said that this practice had
been established by the House by a decision two years ago, in
opposition to an opinion which he himself had always entertained
and had then declared. His decision on that occasion was
reversed, and he felt himself bound by that expression of the
House.”
Gholson appealed. The Speaker decided that the appeal was debatable,
but his decision was reversed by a vote of sixty-six to thirteen. The
House then, without a division, reversed his first ruling, and ordered
that thenceforth, after the motion for the previous question should
have been decided in the affirmative, the main question should not be
debated.
By this means and by persistent silence the majority put an end to
debate. When Randolph returned to the hall and heard what had been
done, he burst into reproaches that the House had disgraced itself;
but his outcry, which like his language to Eppes was attributed to
drink, received no answer except cries to order. Further resistance was
not carried to extremes; perhaps the dilatory tactics of later times
were hardly applicable to so small a body as the House of 1811, or
needed time for development; at all events the bill was forced to its
passage, and at about five o’clock on the morning of February 28 the
House passed it by a vote of sixty-four to twelve. March 2 it passed
the Senate, and was approved by the President. Of all the Republicans,
Macon alone in the House and Bradley of Vermont in the Senate voted
against it. Matthew Lyon, who also opposed it, left the House in
disgust without voting.
The rule of the previous question thus adopted has been the subject
of much criticism, and doubtless tended among other causes to affect
the character of the House until in some respects it became rather a
court of registration than a deliberative body. With few exceptions
in history, this result has proved inevitable in large assemblies
whose cumbrous inefficiency has obstructed public needs or interests;
and perhaps the House of Representatives in 1811 was not to blame for
seeking to correct vices inherent in its character. Such great and
permanent changes implied a sufficient cause behind them, even though
they led to worse evils. The previous question was a rude expedient for
removing wanton obstruction, and might have been the source of benefit
rather than of injury to the public service had the House succeeded
in giving its new character systematic improvement; but in American
history the previous question became an interesting study, because it
marked deterioration. Of all the defences provided by the Constitution
for special or feeble interests, the right of debate was supposed to
be the most valuable; and nowhere was this right so necessary as in
Congress. Not even in the courts of justice was deliberation more
essential than in the House of Representatives. The Republicans came
into office in 1801 to protect special and feeble interests, and had
no other reason for existence than as the enemies of centralized
power; yet circumstances drove them to impose silence on the voice
of a minority that wanted only to prevent an improper act, and they
did so by methods substantially the same as those used by Cromwell or
Napoleon. In neither case was the minority consulted or its protest
regarded. The difference was rather in the character of the actors. The
great usurpers of history had in one sense a sufficient motive, for
they needed the power they seized, and meant to use it. The Republican
majority in the Eleventh Congress neither needed power nor meant to use
it. Their object was not to strengthen government, or to prepare for
war, or even to suppress popular liberties for their own pleasure, but
merely to carry out an Executive scheme which required no haste, and
was to be followed by no strong measures. As far as human intelligence
could be called blind, the intelligence which guided the House was the
blind instinct of power.
The same instinct was shown in the behavior of Congress toward other
matters of legislation. Under Executive pressure, the Acts authorizing
or approving the seizure of East and West Florida, the admission of
Louisiana as a State, and the revival of non-intercourse against
England were passed; and this series of measures seemed to a large
minority a domestic revolution preliminary to foreign war. Naturally
the Federalists and independent Republicans looked for the measures
to be taken in order to meet or to escape the dangers thus invited.
The Federalists had no small share of English respect for whatever was
fixed, and they needed only to be satisfied that the Union was strong
in order to yield whatever obedience it required; but they wondered how
Madison with his weak Cabinet and Eppes with his still less intelligent
majority meant to create and handle the weapons that were to drive Old
England from the ocean and to hold New England on the land. They could
not believe that a government would fling itself headlong out of the
window in order to oblige the people to save it from breaking its neck.
So far from grasping at weapons, Congress and the Executive seemed bent
only on throwing away the weapons they held. The Bank perished almost
with the same breath that revived the non-intercourse against England.
By abolishing the Bank, Congress threw away a large sum of money which
Gallatin hoped to employ for his current demand and for possible war.
By forbidding the importation of English merchandise, Congress further
struck off one half the annual revenue. Gallatin foresaw the danger to
the Treasury long before it was realized, and January 28 wrote a letter
to Eppes advising a general increase of duties on such importations
as might be permitted by law. February 6 Eppes reported from the Ways
and Means Committee a bill to this effect; but the House failed to act
upon it. Congress would consent to no new taxation; and as the Treasury
could not be allowed to fail in its engagements, the House authorized a
loan of five million dollars.
Such financial expedients looked toward any result except a policy of
vigor, and the rest of the winter’s legislation bore out the belief
that no vigor was in the mind of Government. The Tenth Congress had
increased the military establishment, until in 1808 the appropriations
exceeded $4,700,000. The Eleventh Congress reduced them in 1809–1810
to about $3,100,000; in 1811 Congress appropriated barely $3,000,000.
The naval appropriations in 1809 reached nearly $3,000,000; in 1810
they were reduced to about $1,600,000; in 1811 Congress appropriated
$1,870,000. Even in a time of profound peace, when no thought of war
disturbed the world, such armaments would have been hardly sufficient
for purposes of police on the coasts and in the territories.
A short debate took place at the last moment of the session, on a
bill authorizing the President to accept a corps of fifty thousand
volunteers. The measure had been reported by Crawford of Georgia in the
Senate, from a committee appointed to consider the occupation of West
Florida. March 1 the Senate passed the bill without a division, for it
implied neither a new principle nor any necessary expense; while the
President, without such authority, would find himself helpless to deal
with any trouble that might arise from the affairs of Florida. When the
bill reached the House, John Dawson of Virginia urged its adoption;
“it was incumbent on them,” he said, “to do something to provide for
defence.” Matthew Lyon said he had frequently voted for such bills
when there was no prospect of war; “and now, when we were going to war
[with Spain], and giving the provocation ourselves, he was of opinion
it ought to be passed.” The House, without a division, indefinitely
postponed the bill; and thus refusing to do more business of any kind,
toward midnight of Sunday, March 3, the Eleventh Congress expired,
leaving behind it, in the minds of many serious citizens, the repute
of having brought Government to the last stage of imbecility before
dissolution.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE government of the United States reached, March 4, 1811,
the lowest point of its long decline. President Madison had remained so
passive before domestic faction, while so active in foreign affairs,
that the functions of government promised to end in confusion. Besides
the greater failures of the last session, more than one personal slight
had been inflicted on the President. He obtained the confirmation of
Joel Barlow as Armstrong’s successor at Paris, by a vote of twenty-one
to eleven in the Senate; but when he nominated Alexander Wolcott
of Connecticut to succeed Justice Cushing on the Supreme Bench, he
met a sharp rebuff. The selection was far from brilliant, but New
England offered no great choice among Republicans suited to the
bench. Sullivan was dead; Levi Lincoln declined the office; Barnabas
Bidwell, detected in a petty defalcation, had absconded to Canada;
Joseph Story, still a young man, only thirty-one years of age, was
obnoxious to many Republicans on account of his hostility to the
embargo, and particularly to Jefferson, who took personal interest in
this appointment.[279] The President could think of no one who brought
stronger recommendations than Wolcott, and accordingly sent his name
to the Senate. A few days afterward John Randolph wrote to his friend
Nicholson,[280]--
“The Senate have rejected the nomination of Alexander Wolcott
to the bench of the Supreme Court, twenty-four to nine. The
President is said to have felt great mortification at this
result. The truth seems to be that he is President _de
jure_ only. Who exercises the office _de facto_ I know
not, but it seems agreed on all hands that ‘there is something
behind the throne greater than the throne itself.’”
February 21 the President nominated J. Q. Adams, then absent as
minister at St. Petersburg, to the same place, and the Senate
unanimously confirmed the appointment. The rejection of Wolcott had no
meaning further than showing the opinion held by the Republican party
of their President’s judgment.
“Our Cabinet presents a novel spectacle in the world;” continued
Randolph. “Divided against itself, and the most deadly animosity
raging between its principal members,--what can come of it but
confusion, mischief, and ruin? Macon is quite out of heart.”
Gallatin was also out of heart. The conduct of Duane and his “Aurora”
put additional venom into the wounds made by the session. Commonly
some foundation of truth or probability lay beneath political attacks;
some show of evidence or some responsible voucher was alleged if not
produced, and the charges against public men, to be accepted, were
shaped to suit the known character and habits of the victims; but
this was not the case with Duane’s assertions of Gallatin’s wealth,
speculations, embezzlements, and secret intrigues. Duane assumed the
truth of his own inventions, and although few persons might be so
credulous as to believe him, many were so far influenced as to draw
aside and leave Gallatin and the Smiths to fight out their battles as
they liked. This withdrawal of active support chiefly weakened the
Administration. President Madison had no hold over his friends so long
as he refused to declare whom he regarded as friends. He lost not only
the Smiths, but also Gallatin, by standing aloof.
“Things as they are cannot go on much longer,” wrote Randolph,
February 17. “The Adminstration are now in fact aground at the
pitch of high tide, and a spring tide too. Nothing then remains
but to lighten the ship, which a dead calm has hitherto kept
from going to pieces. If the cabal succeed in their present
projects, and I see nothing but promptitude and decision that
can prevent it, the nation is undone.”
This judgment was so far true that none but persons hostile to all
central government could look toward the future without alarm; for
if the system continued in the future to lose energy as in the ten
years past, the time was not far distant when the country must revert
to the old Confederation, or to ties equally weak. Such a result was
the outcome of Randolph’s principles, and he should have welcomed
it; but Randolph was a creature of emotions; with feminine faults
he had feminine instincts and insight, which made him often shrink
from results of his own acts. At this crisis he showed more political
judgment than could be expected from wiser men. Though a Republican
of the narrowest Virginia creed, he would take part with none of the
factions that racked the government. He opposed vehemently not only the
legislative assertion that the French Decrees were withdrawn, but also
the legislative violence that overthrew the constitution of the House
by means of the previous question. If Randolph was wrong on either of
these points, he was at least wrong in company with history itself.
He favored his old policy of peace, economy, and a decentralized
government, and lost his temper with his colleague Eppes, to the verge
of a duel; but for this course he was little to be blamed, since the
policy was that of his party, and the contest was not of his making.
He gave to Gallatin all the support he had to give. Though more deeply
committed than any regular party man to the Constitutional doctrines of
narrow construction, he voted with the friends of the Bank. “Randolph’s
opinion on the bill to renew the charter of the United States Bank
is, I believe, unknown to every person except himself,” wrote Macon,
February 20,[281]--although Macon, himself opposed to the Bank,
was Randolph’s intimate friend. Disgusted with the factiousness of
others, Randolph became almost statesmanlike, and for a brief moment
showed how valuable he might have been had his balance equalled his
intelligence.
Randolph had long since ceased to hold direct relations with Gallatin,
but neither then nor ever afterward did he doubt that Gallatin was
the only capable character in the Government, and that he must be
supported. “The cabal,” whose influence excited disgust in his mind
as it did in that of Macon, ought to be put down, and Randolph said
plainly to Gallatin’s friends that the President must be compelled
to do it.[282] This dreaded cabal drew life only from the President
himself; in any other sense it was a creature of the imagination.
So little did Randolph and Macon know about it that they called its
members “the invisibles,” and puzzled themselves to account for the
influence it appeared to exert. In truth, the cabal had no strength
that warranted the alarm it roused. Samuel Smith’s abilities have shown
themselves in the story. Few men of the time stand more definitely
imaged than he in speeches, letters, intrigues, and ambitions, for
the exactest measurement; but measured in whatever way he pleased,
he was rather mischievous than alarming. His brother Robert, whom he
had made Secretary of State, was a mere instrument. Giles possessed
more ability, but could never become the leader of a party, or win the
confidence of the public. Vice-President Clinton and his friends were
an independent faction, ready to coalesce with the Smiths and Giles
for any personal objects; but they had little more capacity than the
Marylanders. Michael Leib and Duane of the “Aurora” were more useful
as intriguers, because they had less to lose; but they were also more
dangerous to their friends. Seven or eight Federalist senators also
could be depended upon as allies for all ordinary purposes of faction.
Yet in such a combination no solidarity existed; no common head, no
plan, no object held its members together. The persons engaged in this
petty and vexatious war on the Administration could not invent a scheme
of common action, or provide a capable leader, or act in unison on any
two measures. As Randolph justly said:[283]
“I am satisfied that Mr. Gallatin, by a timely resistance to
their schemes, might have defeated them and rendered the whole
cabal as impotent as Nature would seem to have intended them to
be; for in point of ability (capacity for intrigue excepted),
they are utterly contemptible and insignificant.”
Randolph had ruined himself by impetuosity; his only idea of resistance
implied violence. Gallatin never used the knife except when every other
means had been tried; but when he did so, his act was proof that no
other outlet could be opened by the clearest head and the most patient
temper of his time. For two years he had waited, while the problem he
placed before Madison and Jefferson in 1809 became more perplexed and
less soluble with every month; but when the Eleventh Congress expired,
he reached the same conclusion with Randolph, that promptitude and
decision could alone save Madison. Acting on this belief, he wrote a
letter of resignation.[284]
“It appears to me,” he told the President, “that not only
capacity and talents in the Administration, but also a perfect
heartfelt cordiality among its members, are essentially
necessary to command the public confidence, and to produce
the requisite union of views and action between the several
branches of government. In at least one of these points your
present Administration is defective; and the effects, already
sensibly felt, become every day more extensive and fatal. New
subdivisions and personal factions, equally hostile to yourself
and the general welfare, daily acquire additional strength.
Measures of vital importance have been and are defeated; every
operation, even of the most simple and ordinary nature, is
prevented or impeded; the embarrassments of government, great
as from foreign causes they already are, are unnecessarily
increased; public confidence in the public councils and in the
Executive is impaired,--and every day seems to increase every
one of these evils. Such a state of things cannot last; a
radical and speedy remedy has become absolutely necessary.”
Gallatin’s resignation obliged the President to act. How long he might
still have waited had Gallatin taken no step, only those can say who
best understand the peculiarities of his temper; but in any case he
could hardly have much longer postponed a crisis. Not only were his
ablest supporters, like Crawford, as impatient as Randolph of the
situation, but his own personal grievances were becoming intolerable.
He could acquiesce with patience while Gallatin and the Treasury were
sacrificed; but he could not bear to be crossed in his foreign policy,
or to be opposed on his sensitive point,--the system of commercial
restrictions. Gallatin probably liked the non-intercourse as little
as it was liked by the Smiths; but he did not, as a Cabinet minister,
intrigue against the President’s policy, while Robert and Samuel Smith
did little else.
When Gallatin, probably March 5, sent, or brought, his resignation to
the White House, Madison declined to accept it, and at once authorized
Gallatin to sound James Monroe on the offer of the State Department.
Gallatin sent for Richard Brent, Giles’s colleague in the Senate, who
wrote to Monroe March 7. Brent’s letter, followed by others, opened
another act in the political drama, for it made Monroe Secretary of
State and President of the United States, and prolonged the Virginia
dynasty for eight years; but in order to reach this result, Monroe
himself had to thread more than one dark and dangerous passage, which
would have wrecked the fortunes of any man not born to carry a charmed
political life.
Monroe’s return to the paths of promotion had been steady and even
rapid. In 1808 he was the rival candidate for the Presidency, on the
ground that he leaned toward reconciliation with England, while Madison
leaned toward France. Without wholly abandoning this attitude, Monroe
was invited to become the Republican governor of Virginia; and when
attacked for his want of sympathy with Madison, he made explanations,
both public and private, which so much irritated his old friend John
Randolph as to draw from him a letter, Jan. 14, 1811,[285] telling
Monroe of reports industriously circulated, “that in order to promote
your election to the chief magistracy of this Commonwealth, you
have descended to unbecoming compliances with the members of the
Assembly, not excepting your bitterest personal enemies; that you
have volunteered explanations to them of the differences heretofore
subsisting between yourself and the Administration which amount to
a dereliction of the ground which you took after your return from
England, and even of your warmest personal friends.” The charge was
never answered to Randolph’s satisfaction.[286] Monroe could not
publicly avow that he had made a succession of mistakes, partly under
Randolph’s influence, which he wished to correct and forget; but on
this tacit understanding he was elected governor of Virginia, and for
the rest of his life became to John Randolph an object of little esteem
considering the confidence and admiration he had so long inspired.
More than most men, Randolph could claim the merits of his own defects.
If he was morbidly proud and sensitive, he was at least quick to
understand when he had lost a friend. Of him Monroe rid himself
without trouble; but Monroe labored under the misfortune that his other
oldest and best friends were of the same political stamp. Chief among
these, the Mentor of Virginia politics, was John Taylor of Caroline,--a
man whose high character, consistent opinions, and considerable
abilities made him a valuable ally. Another was Littleton Walker
Tazewell. To them, after the rupture with Randolph, Monroe wrote,
excusing his course in becoming the Republican candidate for governor,
and reasserting in sufficiently strong terms his want of confidence in
President Madison:[287]--
“I fear, if the system of policy which has been so long
persevered in, after so many proofs of its dangerous tendency,
is still adhered to, that a crisis will arise the dangers of
which will require all the virtue, firmness, and talents of our
country to avert. And that it will be persevered in seems too
probable while the present men remain in power.... And if the
blame of improvident and injudicious measures is ever to attach
to them among the people, it must be by leaving to the authors
of those measures the entire responsibility belonging to them.”
Within six weeks after this letter had been written, Monroe was asked
to join the men in power, and to share the blame of those “improvident
and injudicious measures,” the responsibility for which ought, as he
conceived, to be left entirely to their authors. He wrote at once
to Colonel Taylor for advice; and the reply threw much light on
the personal and public motives supposed to guide the new Secretary
of State. Colonel Taylor advised Monroe to accept the President’s
invitation, for several reasons.[288] Assuming that Monroe was to
succeed Madison as the next Republican candidate for the Presidency,
he took for granted that Monroe was to follow the lines of his old
opinions, and to correct Madison’s leanings toward France.
“Our foreign relations,” continued Taylor, “seem to be drawing
to a crisis, and you ought to be in the public eye when it
happens, for your own sake, independently of the services you
can render your country. It is probable that this crisis will
occur on a full discovery that France will not do our commerce
any substantial good without an equivalent which would amount
to its destruction. So soon as this discovery is made, the
Government, in all its departments, will alter its policy, and
your occupancy of a conspicuous station will shed upon you the
glory of its having come round to your opinion.”
Colonel Taylor gave no thought to the opposite possibility that Monroe
might come round to the opinion of the Government; yet his argument
seemed to place Monroe in a position where, if he could not convert
Madison, he would have no choice but to let Madison convert him.
“This offer to you is an indication of a disposition in
Mr. Madison to relieve himself of the burden [of certain
persons and measures]; and if you suffer yourself to lose the
benefit of this disposition, another will gain it to your
inestimable injury. Suppose this other should be a competitor
for the Presidency, will it not be a decisive advantage over
you? General Armstrong is probably taking measures for this
object.... One consideration of great weight is that the public
think you an honest man. If this opinion is true, the acceptance
seems to be a duty toward relieving it from the suspicion
that there are too many avaricious or ambitious intriguers of
apparent influence in the government. I suppose the President
and Gallatin (whom I know) to be wholly guided by what they
think to be the public good; and should you happen to concur
with them, it will abate much of the jealousy (though I hope
it will never be smothered) with which Executive designs are
viewed; and to moderate it, under the perilous situation of the
country, is in my view desirable.”
The country reached a perilous pass when John Taylor of Caroline made
plans to strengthen the Executive; but he could not have calculated
on Monroe’s readiness to follow this course so far as it ended in
leading him. Taylor’s advice threw Monroe into the full current of
Executive influence. Alliance with Madison and Gallatin, rupture with
France, antagonism to the Smiths and Clintons, jealousy of Armstrong,
and defiance of Duane were sound policy, and united honesty with
self-interest; but their success depended on elements that Taylor could
not measure.
That Monroe shared these views, that they were in fact the common
stock of his personal party, might be seen not only in his previous
letters, but even more in his reply to Senator Brent,[289] written
March 18.
“You intimate,” said Monroe to Brent, “that the situation of
the country is such as to leave me no alternative. I am aware
that our public affairs are far from being in a tranquil and
secure state. I may add that there is much reason to fear that
a crisis is approaching of a very dangerous tendency,--one
which menaces the overthrow of the whole Republican party. Is
the Administration impressed with this sentiment, and prepared
to act on it? Are things in such a state as to allow the
Administration to take the whole subject into consideration,
and to provide for the safety of the country and of free
government by such measures as circumstances may require, and a
comprehensive view of them suggest? Or are we pledged by what is
already done to remain spectators of the interior movement, in
the expectation of some change abroad as the ground on which we
are to act? I have no doubt, from my knowledge of the President
and Mr. Gallatin,--with the former of whom I have been long
and intimately connected in friendship, and for both of whom,
in great and leading points of character, I have the highest
consideration and respect,--that if I came into the Government
the utmost cordiality would subsist between us, and that any
opinions which I might entertain and express respecting our
public affairs would receive, so far as circumstances would
permit, all the attention to which they might be entitled;
but if our course is fixed, and the destiny of our country
dependent on arrangements already made, I do not perceive how it
would be possible for me to render any service at this time in
the general government.”
If the President’s proclamation of Nov. 2, 1810, and the Act of
Congress passed March 2, 1811, three weeks before Monroe wrote
this letter, had not fixed the course and destiny of the country,
instructions to Pinkney and Jonathan Russell--on which those two
agents had already acted, and which would be the first papers to
be read by Monroe as Secretary of State--seemed certainly to fix
beyond recall the course about which Monroe inquired. Even a man more
liberal than Madison in professions might have hesitated to say that
the future secretary was free to break with France, or to enter on
other arrangements with England than those already imposed. Monroe’s
letter implied disapproval of the course hitherto taken, and a wish,
if possible, to change it. Madison was well acquainted not only with
Monroe’s opinions on foreign affairs, but also with those of Monroe’s
friends, who held that the course taken by the President ought to be
reversed; and with this knowledge of all the circumstances Madison
replied[290] to Monroe’s inquiry:--
“With the mutual knowledge of our respective views of the
foreign as well as domestic interests of our country, I see
no serious obstacle on either side to an association of our
labors in promoting them. In the general policy of avoiding war
by a strict and fair neutrality toward the belligerents, and of
settling amicably our differences with both,--or with either, as
leading to a settlement with the other,--or, that failing, as
putting us on better ground against him, there is and has been
an entire concurrence among the most enlightened who have shared
in the public councils since the year 1800.... In favor of a
cordial accommodation with Great Britain there has certainly
never ceased to be a prevailing disposition in the Executive
councils since I became connected with them. In the terms of
accommodation with that as with other Powers, differences of
opinion must be looked for, even among those most agreed on
the same general views. These differences, however, lie fairly
within the compass of free consultation and mutual concession
as subordinate to the unity belonging to the Executive
department. I will add that I perceive not any commitments,
even in the case of the abortive adjustment with that Power,
that could necessarily embarrass deliberations on a renewal of
negotiations.”
From these letters, the attitude of Monroe in entering Madison’s
Cabinet may be understood. Committed to the doctrine that Madison
had leaned toward France, and that this bias should be corrected,
Monroe and his personal party looked on Madison’s offer of the State
Department as the pledge of a change in policy which should have a
rupture with France for its immediate object, and the Presidency for
its ultimate reward. Madison, on his side, understanding this scheme
saw no objection to it, and was unconscious of having committed the
government to any position that could necessarily embarrass Monroe.
Monroe’s acceptance of this situation was as natural as his refusal
would have been surprising, for no man who wanted office, and who
saw the Presidency in his grasp, could be required to show rigorous
consistency. Madison’s attitude was somewhat different; and his
assurance, in March, 1811, that he saw no commitment which could
necessarily embarrass Monroe in renewing negotiations with England,
showed not only that Madison, notwithstanding Robert Smith’s assertions
to Turreau, still counted on no war with England, but felt no suspicion
that his measures within little more than a twelvemonth would lead him
to a recommendation of war. The policy of commercial restrictions still
satisfied his mind.
Madison was not alone in this ignorance. Monroe himself, still
less conscious than Madison of a war spirit, expected to reach the
Presidency by conciliating England. Even Robert Smith, to the surprise
of the world, posed as the victim of his hostility to France, and hoped
to become the centre of a combination of Smiths, Clintons, Federalists,
and Duane Pennsylvanians, who charged that Madison was less friendly to
England than he might have been. The President suffered much annoyance
from the Smiths because he could not disprove their assertions or
demonstrate his good-will for Great Britain.
As soon as Madison learned through Senator Brent that Monroe made
no serious difficulty in accepting the State Department, he sent for
Robert Smith. A faithful account of the conversations that followed
would add vivacity to the story, for Madison seemed at times to enjoy
commenting not only on the acts of his opponents, but also on their
motives; while Robert Smith, being easily disconcerted and slow in
defence or attack, offered a tempting mark for arrows of temper. The
first interview took place March 23,[291] and Madison made a long
memorandum of what passed.
“I proceeded to state to him,” recorded Madison,[292] “that
it had long been felt and had at length become notorious that
the administration of the Executive department labored under a
want of the harmony and unity which were equally necessary to
its energy and its success; that I did not refer to the evil
as infecting our Cabinet consultations, where there had always
been an apparent cordiality and even a sufficient concurrence
of opinion, but as showing itself in language and conduct out
of doors, counteracting what had been understood within to
be the course of the Administration and the interest of the
public; that truth obliged me to add that this practice, as
brought to my view, was exclusively chargeable on him; and
that he had not only counteracted what had been the result of
consultations apparently approved by himself, but had included
myself in representations calculated to diminish confidence in
the administration committed to me.”
Robert Smith protested, in his somewhat incoherent way, against the
truth of this charge; and the President, roused by resistance, spoke
with more preciseness, instancing Smith’s conduct in regard to Macon’s
bills in 1810, as evidence of the secretary’s bad faith.
“With respect to his motives for dissatisfaction, I acknowledged
that I had been, for the reasons given by him, much puzzled
to divine any natural ones, without looking deeper into human
nature than I was willing to do; ... that whatever talents he
might possess, he did not, as he must have found by experience,
possess those adapted to his station; ... that the business of
the Department had not been conducted in the systematic and
punctual manner that was necessary, particularly in the foreign
correspondence, and that I had become daily more dissatisfied
with it.”
The man must have been easy-tempered who could listen to these comments
on conduct, motives, and abilities without sign of offence; but Robert
Smith showed no immediate resentment, for when the President closed
by offering to send him to St. Petersburg to succeed J. Q. Adams,
who was to take Justice Cushing’s place on the Supreme Bench, Smith
showed no unwillingness, although he avowed his preference for the
other vacancy on the bench soon to be caused by Justice Chase’s death,
or for the English mission left vacant by Pinkney’s return. Madison
declined to encourage these ambitions, and Smith retired to consider
the offer of St. Petersburg. For several days the President supposed
the arrangement to be accepted; but meanwhile Robert Smith consulted
his friends, who held other views on the subject of his dignity and
deserts. When he next saw the President he declined the mission,
declaring that acceptance would be only indirect removal from office,
the result of “a most shameful intrigue.” After trying in vain the
characteristic task of convincing him that he altogether exaggerated
his own consequence, Madison accepted his resignation and left him to
carry out his threat of appealing to the country. “He took his leave
with a cold formality,” concluded Madison, “and I did not see him
afterward.”
For ten years Robert Smith had been one of the most powerful influences
in politics, trusted with the highest responsibilities and duties,
seeming more than any other single Cabinet officer to affect the course
of public affairs; when at a breath from the President his official
life was snuffed out, his reputation for ability vanished, and the
Republican party, which had so long flattered him, suddenly learned
to belittle his name. Under the shadow of monarchical or absolute
governments such tales of artificial greatness were common, and their
moral was worn thin by ages of repetition; but in the democratic United
States, and from the bosom of Jefferson’s political family, this
experience of Robert Smith was a singular symptom.
Never again did this genial gentleman sun himself in the rays of
Executive power, or recover the smallest share of influence. He
returned to Baltimore, where he lived thirty years longer without
distinguishing himself; but about three months after his retirement
from office, in the month of June, 1811, he published an Address to the
People, charging President Madison with offences more or less grave,
and surprising every one by representing himself as having persistently
but vainly opposed Madison’s fixed purpose of making a virtual alliance
with France. The evidence of the late Secretary of State, who might
reasonably be thought the best informed and most competent judge,
confirmed the Federalist and British theory that Madison was under
secret pledges to Napoleon. So gravely did it compromise Madison that
he caused Joel Barlow to write a semi-official reply in the “National
Intelligencer;” and although Barlow wrote in a bad temper, Madison
himself wrote privately in a worse.
“You will have noticed in the ‘National Intelligencer,’” he
told Jefferson July 8,[293] “that the wicked publication of Mr.
Smith is not to escape with impunity. It is impossible, however,
that the whole turpitude of his conduct can be understood
without disclosures to be made by myself alone, and of course,
as he knows, not to be made at all. Without these his infamy is
daily fastening upon him, leaving no other consolation than the
malignant hope of revenging his own ingratitude and guilt on
others.”
Robert Smith hardly deserved such invective. If the taunts of Madison,
Barlow, and the Republican press and party at his incompetence were
well-founded, the party had only itself to blame for putting such a man
in so high a position. If triumphant in nothing else, Smith overthrew
both Madison and Barlow by the retort with which he met their sneers,
and retaliated the charge of incompetence.
“This advocate,” replied Smith (in the “Baltimore American”)
to Barlow (in the Washington “Intelligencer”), “would have us
believe that many persons both in and out of Congress thought
that Mr. Smith from want of talents and integrity was quite
unfit for the Department of State, and that his appointment
was the effect of an intrigue. Were there any truth in this
remark, it could not fail to convince every person of the utter
unfitness of Mr. Madison himself for _his_ office. It in
plain English says that from the officious persuasion of a
few intriguers he had appointed to the most important and the
highest station in the government a person without talents and
without integrity; and this person not a stranger, respecting
whom he might have been misled, but one who had been his
colleague in office during the long term of eight years, and
of whose fitness he of course had better means of judging than
any other person or persons whatever; nay, more,--to this same
person, without talents or integrity, was offered by Mr. Madison
not only the mission to Russia, but the important office of the
Treasury Department.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
APRIL 1, 1811, Monroe took charge of the State Department. The
first person to claim his attention was the French Emperor, and Monroe
had reasons for knowing that diplomatists of reputed sagacity found use
for uninterrupted attention when they undertook to deal with Napoleon.
Monroe stood in a situation of extreme difficulty, hampered not only
by the pledges of his own government, but still more by the difficulty
of dealing at all with the government of France. When Armstrong
quitted Paris in September, 1810, being obliged to fix upon some
American competent to take charge of the legation at Paris, he chose
Jonathan Russell. The selection was the best he could make. Jonathan
Russell possessed advantages over ordinary ministers coming directly
from America. A native of Rhode Island, educated at Brown University,
after leaving college he followed the business of a merchant, and in
November, 1809, sailed from Boston in a ship of his own, which arrived
at Tönning in Denmark only to be at once sequestered under Napoleon’s
Decrees. He passed several months in efforts to recover the property,
and acquired experience in the process. About forty years old, and
more or less acquainted with the people, politics, and languages of
Europe, he was better fitted than any secretary of legation then abroad
for the burden that Armstrong had found intolerable; yet the oldest and
ablest diplomatist America ever sent to Europe might have despaired
of effecting any good result with such means as were at the disposal
of this temporary agent, who had not even the support of a direct
commission from the President.
Russell felt the embarrassment of the position he was called to fill.
Armstrong departed September 12, bearing Cadore’s promise that the
decrees should cease to operate November 1, and saying as little as
possible of a condition precedent. The 1st of November came, and
Russell asked the Duc de Cadore whether the revocation had taken place;
but a month passed without his receiving an answer. December 4, 1810,
Russell wrote to the Secretary of State,[294]--
“No one here except the Emperor knows if the Berlin and Milan
Decrees be absolutely revoked or not; and no one dares inquire
of him concerning them. The general opinion of those with whom
I have conversed on the subject is that they are revoked. There
are indeed among those who entertain this opinion several
counsellors of State; but this is of little importance, as the
construction which the Emperor may choose to adopt will alone
prevail.”
At about the same time Russell wrote to Pinkney at London a letter[295]
expressing the opinion that, as the decrees had not been executed for
one entire month against any vessel arriving in France, this fact
created a presumption that the decrees were repealed. He could not be
blamed for an opinion so cautious, yet he was mistaken in committing
himself even to that extent, for he learned a few days afterward that
two American vessels had been seized at Bordeaux, and he found himself
obliged to write the Duc de Cadore a strong remonstrance on the ground
that as this was the first case that had occurred since November
1 to which the decrees could have applied, the seizures created
a presumption that the decrees were not repealed.[296] Russell’s
instructions from America, including the President’s proclamation of
November 2, arrived three days later, December 13, requiring him to
assume the revocation of the decrees; but only two days after receiving
them, he read in the “Moniteur” of December 15 Cadore’s official report
to the Emperor declaring that the decrees would never be revoked as
long as England maintained her blockades; and again, December 17, he
found in the same newspaper the Count de Semonville’s official address
before the Senate, declaring that the Decrees of Berlin and Milan
should be the “palladium of the seas.”
Yet Russell’s position was not quite so desperate as it seemed.
Certainly the decrees were not revoked; but he had a fair hope of
obtaining some formal act warranting him in claiming their revocation.
Although Napoleon’s motives often seemed mysterious except to men
familiar with his mind, yet one may venture to guess, since guess
one must, that he had looked for little success from the manœuvre
of announcing the revocation of his decrees as concerned the United
States. Perhaps he dictated Cadore’s letter of August 5 rather in order
to prevent America from declaring war against himself than in the
faith that a trick, that to his eye would have been transparent, could
effect what all his efforts for ten years past had failed to bring
about,--a war between the United States and Great Britain. The Emperor
showed certainly almost as lively surprise as pleasure, when December
12 he received the President’s proclamation of November 2, reviving
the non-intercourse against England. His pleasure was the greater when
he learned that President Madison had adopted his suggestion not only
in this instance, but also in requiring of England the withdrawal of
Fox’s blockade of 1806 as a _sine qua non_ of any future renewal
of commerce. Delighted with his success, not only did the Emperor take
no offence at the President’s almost simultaneous proclamation for the
seizure of West Florida, but rather his first impulse was to lose not
a moment in fixing Madison in his new attitude. He wrote a hurried
letter[297] on the instant to Cadore, ordering him if possible to send
fresh instructions to Serurier, who was already on his way to succeed
Turreau as French minister at Washington:--
“Send me the draft of a despatch for M. Serurier, if he is still
at Bayonne.... You will show in this letter the satisfaction I
have felt in reading the last letters from America. You will
give the assurance that if the American government is decided
to maintain the independence of its flag, it will find every
kind of aid and privileges in this country. Your letter will
of course be in cipher. In it you will make known that I am
in no way opposed to the Floridas as becoming an American
possession; that I desire, in general, whatever can favor
the independence of Spanish America. You will make the same
communication to the American _chargé d’affaires_, who will
write in cipher to his Government that I am favorable to the
cause of American independence; and that as we do not found our
commerce on exclusive pretensions, I shall see with pleasure the
independence of a great nation, provided it be not under the
influence of England.”
This hasty note still throws out flashes of the fire that consumed
the world. Silent as to the single question that America wanted him
to answer, the Emperor not only resumed his old habit of dangling
the Floridas before the President’s eyes, but as though he were glad
to escape from every Spanish tie, he pressed on Madison the whole of
Spanish America. Once more one is reduced to guess at the motive of
this astonishing change. No one knew better than Napoleon that the
independence of Spanish America could benefit England alone; that
England had fought, intrigued, and traded for centuries to bring this
result about, and that the United States were altogether unable to
contest English influence at any point in Central and South America.
He knew, too, that the permanent interests of France could only be
injured by betraying again the Spanish empire, and that nothing could
exceed the extravagance of intriguing for the revolt of Mexico and
Peru while his armies were exhausting themselves in the effort to make
his own brother King of Spain. Such sudden inconsistencies were no new
thing in Napoleon’s career. The story of the Floridas repeated the
story of Louisiana. As in 1803 Napoleon, disgusted with his failure at
St. Domingo, threw Louisiana to Jefferson, so in 1810, disgusted with
his failure at Madrid, he threw Spanish America in a mass to Madison.
What was more serious still, as in 1803 Germany could foresee that she
must pay on the Rhine for the losses of France at St. Domingo and New
Orleans, so in 1810 the Czar Alexander already could divine that the
compensation which Napoleon would require for Mexico and Peru would
lie somewhere in the neighborhood of Poland. Thus much at least had
been gained for the United States and England. Napoleon took no more
interest in the roads to Lisbon and Cadiz, and studied only those that
led to Wilna, Moscow, and St. Petersburg.
Read in this sense, Napoleon’s instructions to Cadore and Serurier told
most interesting news; but on the point likely to prove a matter of
life and death to Madison, the Emperor spoke so evasively as to show
that he meant to yield nothing he could retain. He ordered Cadore to
talk with Jonathan Russell about commercial matters:--
“Have a conference with this _chargé d’affaires_ in order
to understand thoroughly what the American government wants. You
will tell him that I have subjected ships coming from America
to certain formalities; that these formalities consist of a
letter in cipher, joined with licenses, which prove that the
ship comes from America and has been loaded there, but that
I cannot admit American ships coming from London, since this
would upset my system; that there is no way of knowing the fact
[of their American character], and that there are shipowners
who for mercantile objects foil the measures of the American
government; in short, that I have made a step; that I will wait
till February 2 to see what America will do, and that in the
mean time I will conduct myself according to circumstances,
but so as to do no harm to ships really coming from America;
that the question is difficult, but that he should give the
positive assurance to his Government of my wish to favor it in
everything; that he knows, moreover, that several ships coming
from America since the last measures were known have obtained
permission to discharge their cargoes in France; finally,
that we cannot consider as American the ships convoyed to the
Baltic, which have double papers, etc. It would be well if you
could engage this _chargé_ to answer you by a note, and
to agree that he disowns the American ships which navigate the
Baltic. This would be sent to Russia, and would be useful. In
general, employ all possible means of convincing this _chargé
d’affaires_, who I suppose speaks French, of the particularly
favorable disposition I feel toward the Americans; that the real
embarrassment is to recognize true Americans from those who
serve the English; and that I consider the step taken by the
American government as a first step taken toward a good result.”
When Napoleon used many words and became apologetic, he was least
interesting, because his motives became most evident. In regard to
America, he wished to elude an inconvenient inquiry whether the
Berlin and Milan Decrees were or were not revoked. Consequently he
did not mention those decrees, although credulity itself could not
have reconciled his pledge to wait until February 2, with his official
assertion of August 5 that the decrees would be withdrawn on November
1. Such a course was fatal to Madison, for it forced him to appear as
accepting the Berlin and Milan Decrees after so long protesting against
them. So justly anxious was the President to protect himself from this
risk, that in sending to Russell the Non-intercourse Proclamation
of November 2 he warned the _chargé_ against the doctrine of a
condition precedent involved in Cadore’s “bien entendu.” The Emperor
was to understand that the United States acted on the ground that
“bien entendu” did not mean “condition precedent.”[298] “It is to be
remarked, moreover, that in issuing the Proclamation, it has been
presumed that the requisition ... on the subject of the sequestered
property will have been satisfied.”
December 13, at the moment when Napoleon was writing his instructions
to Cadore, Jonathan Russell was reading the instructions of
President Madison. No diplomatist could have found common ground on
which to reconcile the two documents. Madison’s knowledge of the
Napoleonic idiom was certainly incomplete. Whatever “bien entendu”
meant in the dictionaries, it meant in Napoleon’s mouth the words
“on condition,”--and something more. In further assuming that the
sequestered property had been restored, President Madison might with
equal propriety have assumed that it had never been seized. Russell did
what he could to satisfy Madison’s wishes, but he could not hope to
succeed.
Bound by these instructions to communicate the President’s proclamation
in language far from according with Napoleon’s ideas, Russell wrote to
Cadore, December 17, a note,[299], in which he not only repeated the
President’s assumptions in regard to the revocation of the decrees,
but also ventured beyond the scope of his instructions: he demanded an
explanation of the language used by Cadore himself in his report to the
Emperor, and by Semonville in the Senate. As though such a demand under
such circumstances were not indiscreet enough, Russell strengthened
the formal and perfunctory protests of the President by adding an
assurance of his own that the United States, after cutting off their
own intercourse with England, would not consent to “any commercial
intercourse whatever, under licenses or otherwise, between France and
her enemy.”
Russell’s note of December 17 was never answered by the French
government, and, as was equally natural, it was never published by
the President or made known to Congress. Fortunately for Russell,
the Emperor was in good humor, and Cadore was in haste to convey his
master’s wishes to the American _chargé d’affaires_. December
22 Russell was summoned to the minister, and a very interesting
interview took place. Cadore gently complained of the tone in which
Russell’s note had been written, but put into his hands, as its result
and answer, the two letters written by the ministers of Justice and
Finance,--which allowed American vessels to enter French ports, subject
only to provisional sequestration, until February 2, at which time
all vessels sequestered since November 1 would be restored. “When I
had read these letters,” reported Russell,[300] “I returned them to
the Duke of Cadore, and expressed to him my regret that the general
release of American vessels detained under the Berlin and Milan Decrees
should be deferred until the 2d of February, as this delay might throw
some doubt on the revocation of those decrees.” Cadore replied that
the time thus taken was intended to afford an opportunity for forming
some general rule by which the character of the property could be
decided. Russell then complained that by assigning the second day of
February,--the very day on which the non-intercourse with England would
be revived,--this event was made to appear as a condition precedent to
the abrogation of the French edicts; and thereby the order in which the
measures of the two governments ought to stand was reversed. In reply
Cadore repeated the general assurances of the friendly disposition
of the Emperor, and that he was determined to favor the trade of the
United States so far as it did not cover or promote the commerce of
England. He said the Berlin and Milan Decrees, “inasmuch as they
related to the United States,” were at an end; that the Emperor was
pleased with what the United States had already done, but that he could
not “throw himself into their arms” until they had accomplished their
undertaking.
Nothing could be more gentle than this manner of saying that the
revocation of November 1 was and was not founded on a condition
precedent; that the decrees themselves were and were not revoked; but
when Russell still pressed for a categorical answer, Cadore declared at
last, “with some vivacity, that the Emperor was determined to persevere
in his system against England; that he had overturned the world in
adopting this system, and that he would overturn it again to give it
effect.” On the third point Cadore was equally unyielding. Not a word
could Russell wring from him in regard to the confiscated property of
American merchants. “His omission to notice the last is more to be
lamented, as I have reason to believe that this conversation was meant
to form the only answer I am to receive to the communications which I
have addressed to him.”
The conduct of Cadore warranted Russell’s conclusion that “upon the
whole this interview was not calculated to increase my confidence in
the revocation of the decrees.” Although President Madison reached a
different conclusion, and on the strength of this conference caused
Congress to adopt the Non-Intercourse Act of March 2, Russell’s opinion
could not be disputed. At the end of another week Cadore sent word
that one of the American vessels, the “Grace Ann Greene,” arrived at
Marseilles since November 1, had been released; and Russell wrote to
Pinkney that this release might be considered conclusive evidence of
the revocation.[301] A month afterward he wrote to the Secretary of
State on the same subject in a different tone,[302] saying that the
United States had not yet much cause to be satisfied; that no vessel
arrived since November 1 had been permitted to discharge her cargo, and
that tedious delays were constantly interposed. As for the property
confiscated before November 1, Russell avowed himself afraid to make
the reclamation ordered by the President: “I ascertained indirectly
that a convention to this effect would not be entered into at this
moment; and I thought it indiscreet to expose the United States, with
all the right on their side, to a refusal.” No action of the United
States, he feared, could redeem the unfortunate property.[303]
Failure on these points was accompanied by a promise of success on
others. The President had remonstrated against the Emperor’s scheme
of issuing licenses through the French consuls to vessels in ports
of the United States; and Russell wrote to Cadore, Jan. 12, 1811,
that such consular superintendence was inadmissible, and would not be
permitted.[304] January 18 Cadore returned an answer, evidently taken
from the Emperor’s lips:[305]--
“I have read with much attention your note of January 12,
relative to the licenses intended to favor the commerce of the
Americans in France. This system had been conceived before the
revocation of the Decrees of Berlin and Milan had been resolved
on. Now circumstances are changed by the resolution taken by the
United States to cause their flag and their independence to be
respected. That which has been done before this last epoch can
no longer serve as a rule under actual circumstances.”
Although this letter said that the Berlin and Milan Decrees were
repealed,--not on Nov. 1, 1810, but at some indeterminate time
afterward, in consequence of the President’s proclamation of November
2,--yet it officially declared that whatever the date might be, on
January 18, when Cadore wrote, the revocation was complete. Russell
sent the letter to the President, and the President sent it nearly ten
months afterward to Congress as proof that the decrees were revoked.
He could not send, for he could not know, another letter written by
Cadore to Serurier three weeks later, which instructed him to the
contrary:[306]--
“I send you the copy of a letter addressed by me to Mr. Russell,
January 18, on the permits that had been at first delivered
to American ships. I cannot assure you that the permits are
no longer to be issued, although this letter gives it to be
understood in an explicit manner. Continue to conduct yourself
with the reserve heretofore recommended to you, and compromise
yourself by no step and by no official promise. Circumstances
are such that no engagement can be taken in advance. It is at
the date of February 2 that the United States were to execute
their act of non-intercourse against England; but before being
officially informed in France of what they have done at that
time, we cannot take here measures so decisive in favor of the
Americans as after news to February 2 shall have arrived from
America. This motive will serve to explain to you whatever
uncertainty may appear in the conduct of France toward the
United States.”
From these official instructions the facts were easy to understand.
The decrees had not been revoked on Aug. 5 or Nov. 1, 1810; they were
not revoked Jan. 18, 1811; they were not to be revoked on February 2;
but the Emperor would decide in the spring, when news should arrive
from America, whether he would make permanent exceptions in favor of
American commerce. In principle, the decrees were not to be revoked at
all.
For four years President Madison had strenuously protested that France
and England must withdraw their decrees as a condition precedent to
friendly relations with America. For four years Napoleon had insisted
that America should submit to his decrees as a condition precedent
to friendly relations with France. February 2, 1811, he carried his
point. The decisive day passed without action on his part. Six weeks
followed, but March 15 Russell still wrote to the Secretary of State
as doubtfully as he wrote in the previous December:[307] “The temper
here varies in relation to us with every rumor of the proceedings of
our government. One day we are told that the Emperor has learned that
the Non-intercourse Law will be severely executed,--that he is in good
humor, and that everything will go well; the next day it is stated that
he has heard something which has displeased him, and that the American
property lately arrived in this country is in the utmost jeopardy.
Every general plan here is evidently suspended until the course we may
elect to pursue be definite and certain.”
Russell made no further attempt to maintain the fact of revocation.
Indeed, if the decrees were revoked, American rights were more
lawlessly violated than before. As ship after ship arrived from the
United States, he saw each taken, under one pretext or another, into
the Emperor’s keeping:--
“To countenance delay, no doubt, a new order was issued to the
custom-houses on the 18th ult., that no vessels not having
licenses, coming from foreign countries, be admitted without
the special authority of the Emperor. This indeed makes the
detention indefinite, as when once a case is before the Emperor
it can no longer be inquired after, much less pressed, and it is
impossible to say when it may attract the Imperial attention. It
is my belief that our property will be kept within the control
of this government until it be officially known here that the
Non-intercourse Act against England went into operation with
undiminished rigor on the 2d of February.”
Under such circumstances, the idea that the United States were bound
by a contract with France--the principle on which Congress legislated
in the month of February--had no meaning to Jonathan Russell at Paris,
where as late as April 1 not a step had yet been taken toward making
the contract complete. “I trust,” wrote Russell, March 15, “that I
shall not be understood in anything which I have written in this
letter to urge any obligation on the United States to execute _at
all_ the Non-intercourse Law; this obligation is certainly weakened,
if not destroyed, by the conduct of the Government here.”
Russell never misunderstood the situation or misled his Government.
Although Napoleon’s habit of deception was the theme of every historian
and moralist, the more remarkable trait was his frequent effort to
avoid or postpone an evidently necessary falsehood, and, above all, his
incapacity to adhere to any consistent untruth. Napoleon was easily
understood by men of his own stamp; but he was not wholly misunderstood
by men like Armstrong and Russell. He did not choose to revoke the
decrees, and he made no secret of his reasons even to the American
government.
In the spring of 1811 the Emperor was surrounded by difficulties
caused by his interference with trade. The financial storm which
overspread England in 1810 extended to France in the following winter,
and not only swept away credit and capital throughout the empire,
but also embarrassed Napoleon’s finances and roused fresh resistance
to his experiments on commerce. The resistance irritated him, and he
showed his anger repeatedly in public. At the Tuileries, March 17, he
addressed some deputies of the Hanseatic League in a tone which still
betrayed an effort at self-control:[308]--
“The Decrees of Berlin and Milan are the fundamental laws of
my empire. They cease to have effect only for nations that
defend their sovereignty and maintain the religion of their
flag. England is in a state of blockade for nations that submit
to the decrees of 1806, because the flags so subjected to
English laws are denationalized; they are English. Nations on
the contrary that are sensible of their dignity, and that find
resources enough in their courage and strength for disregarding
the blockades by notice, commonly called paper blockades,
and enter the ports of my empire, other than those really
blockaded,--following the recognized usage and the stipulations
of the Treaty of Utrecht,--may communicate with England; for
them England is not blockaded. The Decrees of Berlin and Milan,
founded on the nature of things, will form the constant public
law of my empire during the whole time that England shall
maintain her Orders in Council of 1806 and 1807, and shall
violate the stipulations of the Treaty of Utrecht in that
matter.”
The sudden appearance of the Treaty of Utrecht had an effect of comedy;
but the speech itself merely reasserted the rules of 1806 and 1807,
which time had not made more acceptable to neutrals. Again and again,
by every means in his power and with every accent of truth, Napoleon
asserted that his decrees were not and never should be revoked, nor
should they be even suspended except for the nations that conformed to
them. Though America had rejected this law in 1807, she might still
if she chose accept it in 1811; but certainly she could not charge
Napoleon with deception or concealment of his meaning. A week after
the address to the Hanseatic deputies, on Sunday, March 24, he made
another and a more emphatic speech. The principal bankers and merchants
of Paris came to the Tuileries to offer their congratulations on the
birth of a son. Napoleon harangued them for more than half an hour in
the tone he sometimes affected, of a subaltern of dragoons,--rude,
broken, and almost incoherent, but nervous and terrifying:--
“When I issued my Decrees of Berlin and Milan, England laughed;
you made fun of me; yet I know my business. I had maturely
weighed my situation with England; but people pretended that I
did not know what I was about,--that I was ill-advised. Yet see
where England stands to-day!... Within ten years I shall subject
England. I want only a maritime force. Is not the French empire
brilliant enough for me? I have taken Holland, Hamburg, etc.,
only to make my flag respected. I consider the flag of a nation
as a part of herself; she must be able to carry it everywhere,
or she is not free. That nation which does not make her flag
respected is not a nation in my eyes. The Americans--we are
going to see what they will do. No Power in Europe shall trade
with England. Six months sooner or later I shall catch up with
it (_je l’attendrai_),--my sword is long enough for that.
I made peace at Tilsit only because Russia undertook to make
war on England. I was then victorious. I might have gone to
Wilna; nothing could stop me but this engagement of Russia....
At present I am only moderately desirous of peace with England.
I have the means of making a navy; I have all the products of
the Rhine; I have timber, dock-yards, etc.; I have already said
that I have sailors. The English stop everything on the ocean;
I will stop everything I find of theirs on the Continent. Their
Miladies, their Milords,--we shall be quit! (_Leurs Miladies,
leurs Milords--nous serons à deux de jeu!_)”
This hurried talk, which was rather a conversation than a speech,
lasted until the Emperor’s voice began to fail him. He flung defiance
in the face of every nation in the Christian world, and announced in
no veiled terms the coming fate of Russia. His loquacity astounded
his hearers, and within a few days several reports of what he said,
differing in details, but agreeing in the main, were handed privately
about Paris, and were on their way to St. Petersburg, London, and
New York[309]. One account varied in regard to the words used about
America:--
“The Decrees of Berlin and Milan are the fundamental laws of my
empire,” began the second report. “As for neutral navigation, I
regard the flag as an extension of territory; the Power which
lets it be violated cannot be considered neutral. The lot of
American commerce will be soon decided. I will favor it if the
United States conform to those decrees; in the contrary case,
their ships will be excluded from the ports of my empire.”
Russell sent to Monroe these private accounts, adding a few details to
show more exactly the Emperor’s meaning. Writing April 4, he said that
no American vessel had been allowed an entry since February 4 unless
carrying a license; that a secret order had then been given to the
custom-house to make no reports on American cases; that the Council of
Prizes had suspended its decisions; and that, notwithstanding Cadore’s
promise, licenses were still issued. “If the license system,” concluded
Russell, “were concerned, as the Duke of Cadore suggests, to favor
American commerce during the existence only of the Berlin and Milan
Decrees, it is probably necessary to infer from the excuse of that
system the continuance of those decrees.”
Left without powers or instructions, Russell could thenceforward do
nothing. Remonstrance was worse than useless. “A representation of
this kind,” he wrote, “however mildly it might portray the unfriendly
and faithless conduct of this Government, might have hastened a crisis
which it does not become me to urge.”
At length, April 25, despatches arrived from America enclosing the
Non-intercourse Act of March 2 and the secret Act for taking possession
of Florida. The President’s accompanying instructions[310] ordered
Russell to explain that the different dates fixed by the Proclamation
and by the Act for enforcing the non-intercourse against England
were owing to the different senses in which Cadore’s letter had been
construed in France and America,--the President having assumed
that the decrees would have been extinct Nov. 1, 1810, while the
French government, “as appears from its official acts, admits only a
suspension with a view to a subsequent cessation.” These instructions,
as well as Russell’s despatches for the most part, were never
communicated to Congress.
April 17, a week before these documents arrived, Napoleon made a sudden
change in his Cabinet, by dismissing Cadore and appointing Hugues
Maret, Duc de Bassano, as his Minister of Foreign Affairs. No one knew
the cause of Cadore’s fall. He was mild, modest, and not given to
display. He “lacked conversation,” Napoleon complained. Probably his
true offence consisted in leaning toward Russia and in dislike for the
commercial system, while Maret owed promotion to opposite tendencies.
Maret’s abilities were undoubted; his political morality was no worse
than that of his master, and perhaps no better than that of Cadore or
of Talleyrand whom he hated.[311] He could hardly be more obedient
than Cadore; and as far us America was concerned, he could do no more
mischief.
When Russell repaired to the Foreign Office, April 28, he was received
by the new minister, who availed himself of his inexperience to ask
many questions and to answer none. Russell had a long interview with
no results; but this delay mattered little, for the Emperor needed no
information. No sooner had he received the Non-intercourse Act of
March 2 than he ordered his ministers to make a report on the situation
of American commerce.[312] The order was due not so much to a wish of
hearing what his ministers had to say as of telling them what they were
to report:--
“The United States have not declared war on England, but they
have recognized the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, since they
have authorized their citizens to trade with France, and have
forbidden them every relation with England. In strict public
right, the Emperor ought to exact that the United States should
declare war against England; but after all it is in some sort to
make war when they consent that the Decree of Berlin should be
applied to ships which shall have communicated with England. On
this hypothesis, one would say: ‘The Decrees of Berlin and Milan
are withdrawn as regards the United States; but as every ship
which has touched in England, or is bound thither, is a vagrant
that the laws punish and confiscate, it may be confiscated in
France.’ If this reasoning could be established, nothing would
remain but to take precautions for admitting none but American
products on American ships.”
This view of the contract to which American faith was bound, though
quite the opposite of Madison’s, was liberal compared with its
alternative:--
“Finally, if it should be impossible to trace out a good theory
in this system, the best would be to gain time, leaving the
principles of the matter a little obscure until we see the
United States take sides; for it appears that that Government
cannot remain long in its actual situation toward England, with
whom it has also political discussions concerning the affairs of
Spanish America.”
The Emperor’s will was law. The Council set itself accordingly to
the task of “leaving the principles of the matter a little obscure”
until the United States should declare war against England; while the
Emperor, not without reason, assumed that America had recognized the
legality of his decrees.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE Emperor’s decision was made known to the American government by a
letter[313] from Bassano to Russell, dated May 4, 1811, almost as curt
as a declaration of war:--
“I hasten to announce to you that his Majesty the Emperor has
ordered his Minister of Finance to authorize the admission of
the American cargoes which had been provisionally placed in
deposit on their arrival in France. I have the honor to send
you a list of the vessels to which these cargoes belong; they
will have to export their value in national merchandise, of
which two thirds will be in silks. I have not lost a moment in
communicating to you a measure perfectly in accord with the
sentiments of union and of friendship which exist between the
two Powers.”
This was all. No imperial decree of repeal was issued or suggested.
President Madison cared little for the released ships; he cared
only for the principle involved in the continued existence of the
decrees, and Bassano’s letter announced by silence, as distinctly as
it could have said in words, that the principle of the decrees was
not abandoned. Such were Napoleon’s orders; and in executing them
Bassano did not, like Cadore or Talleyrand, allow himself the license
of softening their bluntness. Russell knew the letter to be fatal to
any claim that the French decrees were withdrawn, but he could do
nothing else than send it to London as offering, perhaps, evidence of
the “actual relations growing out of the revocation of the Berlin and
Milan Decrees.”[314] He wrote to Bassano a letter asking the release of
the American vessels captured and brought into French ports as prizes
since November 1, but he obtained no answer.[315] A month afterward
he wrote again, remonstrating against the excessive tariff duties and
the requirement that American vessels should take two thirds of their
return cargoes in French silks; but this letter received as little
notice as the other. Russell had the mortification of knowing, almost
as well as Bassano himself, the motives that guided the Emperor; and
July 13 he recited them to the President in language as strong as
propriety allowed:[316]--
“The temper here toward us is professedly friendly, but
unfortunately it is not well proved to be so in practice. It
is my conviction, as I before wrote you, that the great object
of the actual policy is to entangle us in a war with England.
They abstain therefore from doing anything which would furnish
clear and unequivocal testimony of the revocation of their
decrees, lest it should induce the extinction of the British
orders and thereby appease our irritation against their enemy.
Hence, of all the captured vessels since November 1, the
three which were liberated are precisely those which had not
violated the decrees. On the other hand, they take care, by not
executing these decrees against us, to divert our resentment
from themselves. I have very frankly told the Duke of Bassano
that we are not sufficiently dull to be deceived by this kind
of management. He indeed pretends that they are influenced by
no such motive; and whenever I speak to him on the subject,
he reiterates the professions of friendship, and promises to
endeavor to obtain the release of the remainder of our vessels
captured since November 1. I fear, however, that he will not
succeed.”
Even in case of war with England, Russell warned the President to look
for no better treatment from Napoleon, who might then consider America
as “chained to the imperial car, and obliged to follow whithersoever it
leads.” He pointed out that concessions had never produced any return
from the Emperor except new exactions and new pretensions. If war with
England became inevitable, care must be taken to guard against the
danger that France should profit by it. French trade was not worth
pursuing. The tariff on imports, reinforced by the restrictions on
exports, created a practical non-intercourse.
Napoleon’s writings furnish evidence that the Emperor’s chief object
was not so much to entangle America in war with England as to maintain
the decrees which he literally overturned the world to enforce. When he
suspended their enforcement against American ships in his own ports, he
did so only because his new customs’ regulations had been invented to
attain by other means the object of the decrees. When he affirmed and
reaffirmed that these decrees were the fundamental law of his empire,
he told a truth which neither England nor America believed, but to
which he clung with energy that cost him his empire.
Russell made no more efforts, but waited impatiently for the arrival
of Joel Barlow, while Napoleon bethought himself only of his favorite
means for quieting Madison’s anger. August 23 the Emperor ordered[317]
Bassano to give his minister at Washington instructions calculated to
sharpen the cupidity of the United States. Serurier was to be active in
effecting the independence of Spanish America, was to concert measures
for that purpose with the President, promise arms and supplies, employ
the American government and American agents for his objects, and in
all respects give careful attention to what passed in the colonies;
yet in regard to Florida, the only Spanish colony in which Madison
took personal interest, Napoleon hinted other views to Bassano in a
message[318] too curious for omission.
“You spoke to me this morning,” he wrote August 28, “of
instructions received by the American _chargé_ on the
affair of Florida. You might insinuate the following idea,--that
in consideration of some millions of piastres, Spain in her
present condition of penury would cede the Floridas. Insinuate
this, while adding that though I do not take it ill that America
should seize the Floridas, I can in no way interfere, since
these countries do not belong to me.”
With this touch of character, the great Emperor turned from American
affairs to devote all his energies to matters about the Baltic. Yet
so deeply were American interests founded in the affairs of Europe
that even in the Baltic they were the rock on which Napoleon’s destiny
split; for the quarrels which in the summer of 1811 became violent
between France and the two independent Baltic Powers--Russia and
Sweden--were chiefly due to those omnipresent American ships, which
throve under pillage and challenged confiscation. Madison’s wisdom in
sending a minister to St. Petersburg was proved more quickly than he
could have expected. Between March 1 and Nov. 1, 1811, at one of the
most critical moments in the world’s history, President Madison had
no other full minister accredited in Europe than his envoy to Russia;
but whatever mortifications he suffered from Napoleon, were more than
repaid by means of this Russian mission.
The new minister to Russia, J. Q. Adams, sailed from Boston August 5,
1809, and on arriving at Christiansand in Norway, September 20, he
found upward of thirty masters of American vessels whose ships had
been seized by Danish privateers between April and August, and were
suffering trial and condemnation in Danish prize courts. He reported
that the entire number of American ships detained in Norway and Denmark
was more than fifty, and their value little less than five million
dollars.[319] The Danes, ground in the dust by England and France,
had taken to piracy as their support; and the Danish prize-courts,
under the pressure of Davout, the French general commanding at
Hamburg, condemned their captures without law or reason. Adams made
what remonstrance he could to the Danish government, and passed on to
Cronstadt, where he arrived Oct. 21, 1809. He found a condition of
affairs in Russia that seemed hopeless for the success of his mission.
The alliance between Russia and France had reached its closest point.
Russia had aided Napoleon to subdue Austria; Napoleon had aided Russia
to secure Finland. At his first interview with the Russian Foreign
Minister, Adams received official information of these events; and
when he called attention to the conduct of the Danish privateers,
Count Roumanzoff, while expressing strong disapprobation of their
proceedings, added that a more liberal system was a dream.[320]
The Foreign Minister of Russia, Count Roumanzoff, officially known
as Chancellor of the Empire, and its most powerful subject, favored
the French alliance. From him Adams could expect little assistance in
any case, and nothing but opposition wherever French interests were
involved. Friendly and even affectionate to America as far as America
was a rival of England, Roumanzoff could do nothing for American
interests where they clashed with those of France; and Adams soon
found that at St. Petersburg he was regarded by France as an agent of
England. He became conscious that French influence was unceasingly at
work to counteract his efforts in behalf of American interests.
Adams’s surprise was the greater when, with the discovery of this
immense obstacle, he discovered also an equally covert influence at
work in his favor, and felt that the protection was stronger than
the enmity. Before many months had passed, he found himself winning
successes that could be explained only by the direct interposition of
the Czar against the resistance of Roumanzoff and the ambassador of
France. In the mysterious atmosphere of the Russian court, the effect
of wielding this astounding power might well have turned his head; but
Adams hardly realized his position. At the outset, obliged to ask the
Czar’s interference on behalf of the plundered American merchants in
Denmark, he could regard himself only as performing an official duty
without hope of more than a civil answer. This was in fact the first
result of the request; for when, Dec. 26, 1809, he opened the subject
to Roumanzoff, the chancellor gave him no encouragement. The Danes,
he said, had been forced by France to do what they were doing. France
viewed all these American ships as British; and “as this was a measure
emanating from the personal disposition of the Emperor of France, he
was apprehensive there existed no influence in the world of sufficient
efficacy to shake his determination.”[321] Adams resigned himself to
this friendly refusal of a request made without instructions, and
implying the personal interference of the Czar with the most sensitive
part of Napoleon’s system.
Three days afterward, December 29, Adams saw Roumanzoff again, who told
him, with undisguised astonishment, that he had reported to the Czar
the American minister’s request for interference in Denmark and his own
refusal; and that the Czar had thought differently, and had “ordered
him immediately to represent to the Danish government his wish that the
examination might be expedited, and the American property restored as
soon as possible; which order he had already executed.”[322]
If Adams had consciously intrigued for a rupture between France and
Russia, he could have invented no means so effective as to cause the
Czar’s interference with Napoleon’s control of Denmark; but Adams’s
favor was far from ending there. The winter of 1809–1810 passed
without serious incident, but when spring came and the Baltic opened,
the struggle between France and the United States at St. Petersburg
began in earnest. Adams found himself a person of much consequence.
The French ambassador, Caulaincourt, possessed every advantage that
Napoleon and Nature could give him. Handsome, winning, and in all ways
personally agreeable to the Czar, master of an establishment more
splendid in its display than had been before known even at the splendid
court of St. Petersburg, he enjoyed the privilege, always attached to
ambassadors, of transacting business directly with the Czar; while the
American minister, of a lower diplomatic grade, far too poor to enter
upon the most modest social rivalry, labored under the diplomatic
inferiority of having to transact business only through the worse than
neutral medium of Roumanzoff. Caulaincourt made his demands and urged
his arguments in the secrecy that surrounded the personal relation of
the two Emperors, while Adams could not even learn, except indirectly
after much time, what Caulaincourt was doing or what arguments he used.
Already in April, 1810, Adams reported[323] to his Government that the
commercial dispute threatened a rupture between France and Russia.
On one hand, Napoleon’s measures would prove ineffectual if Russia
admitted neutral vessels, carrying as they would cargoes more or
less to the advantage of England; on the other, Russia must become
avowedly bankrupt if denied exports and restricted to imports of French
luxuries, such as silks and champagnes, to be paid in specie. Russia,
at war with Turkey and compelled to maintain an immense army with a
depreciated currency, must have foreign trade or perish.
Napoleon wanted nothing better than to cripple Russia as well as
England, and was not disposed to relax his system for the benefit of
Russian military strength. During the summer of 1810 he redoubled his
vigilance on the Baltic. Large numbers of vessels, either neutral or
pretending to be neutral, entered the Baltic under the protection of
the British fleet. Napoleon sent orders that no such vessels should be
admitted. June 15 Denmark issued an ordinance prohibiting its ports to
all American vessels of every description, and August 3 another to the
same effect for the Duchy of Holstein. July 19 a similar ordinance was
published by Prussia, and July 29 Mecklenburg followed the example.
The same demand came from Caulaincourt to the Czar, and the French
ambassador pressed it without intermission and without disguising the
dangers which it involved to the peace of Europe. Alexander’s reply
never varied.
“I want to run no more risks,” he told Caulaincourt.[324] “To
draw nearer England I must separate from France and risk a new
war with her, which I regard as the most dangerous of all wars.
And for what object? To serve England; to support her maritime
theories which are not mine? It would be madness on my part!...
I will remain faithful to this policy. I will remain at war with
England. I will keep my ports closed to her,--to the extent,
however, which I have made known, and from which I cannot
depart. In fact I cannot, as I have already told you, prohibit
all commerce to my subjects, or forbid them to deal with the
Americans.... We must keep to these terms, for I declare to you,
were war at our doors, in regard to commercial matters I cannot
go further.”
Thus the American trade became the apparent point of irritation between
Alexander and Napoleon. The Russians were amused by Cadore’s letter
to Armstrong of August 5, saying that the decrees were revoked, and
that Napoleon loved the Americans; for they knew what Napoleon had
done and was trying to do on the Baltic. The Czar was embarrassed and
harassed by the struggle; for the American ships, finding themselves
safe in Russian ports, flocked to Archangel and Riga, clamoring for
special permission to dispose of their cargoes and to depart before
navigation closed, while Napoleon insisted on their seizure, and left
no means untried of effecting it. He took even the extravagant step of
publicly repudiating the very licenses he was then engaged in forcing
American ships to carry. July 10, 1810, the “Moniteur” published an
official notice that the certificates of French consuls in the United
States carried by American vessels in the Baltic were false, “and that
the possessors of them must be considered as forgers,” inasmuch as
the French consuls in America had some time before ceased to deliver
any such certificates; and not satisfied with this ministerial act,
Napoleon wrote with his own hand to the Czar that no true American
trade existed, and that not a single American ship, even though
guaranteed by his own licenses, could be received as neutral.
In the heat of this controversy Adams was obliged to ask, as a favor to
the United States, that special orders might be given on behalf of the
American vessels at Archangel. As before, Roumanzoff refused; and once
more the Czar directed that the special orders should be given.[325]
This repeated success of the American minister in overriding the
established rules of the government, backed by the whole personal
influence of Napoleon, made Roumanzoff uneasy. Friendly and even
confidential with Adams, he did not disguise his anxiety; and while
he warned the American minister that Cadore’s letter of August 5 had
made no real change in Napoleon’s methods or objects, he added that
the Americans had only one support, and this was the Czar himself,
but that as yet the Czar’s friendship was unshaken. “Our attachment
to the United States is obstinate,--more obstinate than you are aware
of.”[326]
Adams then saw the full bearing of the struggle in which he was
engaged; his sources of information were extended, his social relations
were more intimate, and he watched with keen interest the effect of
his remonstrances and efforts. He had every reason to be anxious, for
Napoleon used diplomatic weapons as energetically as he used his army
corps. Only ten days after Roumanzoff made his significant remark about
the Czar’s obstinacy, Napoleon sent orders to Prussia, under threat of
military occupation, to stop all British and colonial merchandise; and
the following week, October 23, he wrote with his own hand to the Czar
a letter of the gravest import:[327]--
“Six hundred English merchant-vessels which were wandering in
the Baltic have been refused admission into Mecklenburg and
Prussia, and have turned toward your Majesty’s States.... All
this merchandise is on English account. It depends on your
Majesty to obtain peace [with England] or to continue the war.
Peace is and must be your desire. Your Majesty is certain to
obtain it by confiscating these six hundred ships or their
cargoes. Whatever papers they may have, under whatever names
they may be masked,--French, German, Spanish, Danish, Russian,
Swedish,--your Majesty may be sure that they are English.”
If Napoleon aimed at crippling Russia by forcing her into the
alternative of bankruptcy for want of commerce or invasion as the
penalty of trade, he followed a clear and skilful plan. Roumanzoff
answered his appeal by pleading that Russia could not seize neutral
property, and would not harm England even by doing so. November 4, two
days after President Madison proclaimed the revocation of the French
Decrees, Napoleon dictated his reply to Roumanzoff’s argument:[328]--
“As for the principle advanced,--that though wishing war on
England we do not wish to wage it on neutrals,--this principle
arises from an error. The English want no neutrals and suffer
none; they allow the Americans to navigate, so far as they
carry English merchandise and sail on English account; all the
certificates of French consuls and all other papers with which
they are furnished are false papers. In short, there is to-day
no neutral, because the English want none, and stop every vessel
not freighted on their account. Not a single vessel has entered
the ports of Russia with so-called American papers which has not
come really from England.”[329]
Armstrong, quitting Paris Sept. 10, 1810, wrote to Madison in his last
despatch a few significant words on the subject,[330] suggesting that
Napoleon’s true motive in reviving the energy of his restrictions
on commerce was, among others, the assistance it lent to his views
and influence on the Baltic. No other explanation was reasonable.
Napoleon intended to force Russia into a dilemma, and he succeeded.
The Czar, pressed beyond endurance, at last turned upon Napoleon with
an act of defiance that startled and delighted Russia. December 1
Roumanzoff communicated to Caulaincourt the Czar’s refusal to seize,
confiscate, or shut his ports against colonial produce.[331] At about
the same time the merchants of St. Petersburg framed a memorial to the
Imperial council, asking for a general prohibition of French luxuries
as the only means of preventing the drain of specie and the further
depreciation of the paper currency. On this memorial a hot debate
occurred in the Imperial council. Roumanzoff opposed the measure as
tending to a quarrel with France; and when overruled, he insisted on
entering his formal protest on the journal.[332] The Czar acquiesced in
the majority’s decision, and December 19 the Imperial ukase appeared,
admitting American produce on terms remarkably liberal, but striking a
violent blow at the industries of France.
Napoleon replied by recalling Caulaincourt and by sending a new
ambassador, Count Lauriston, to St. Petersburg, carrying with his
credentials an autograph letter to the Czar.[333]
“Your Majesty’s last ukase,” said this letter, “in substance,
but particularly in form, is directed specially against
France. In other times, before taking such a measure against my
commerce, your Majesty would have let me know it, and perhaps I
might have suggested means which, while accomplishing your chief
object, might still have prevented it from appearing a change of
system in the eyes of France. All Europe has so regarded it; and
already, in the opinion of England and of Europe, our alliance
exists no longer. If it were as entire in your Majesty’s heart
as in mine, this general impression would be none the less a
great evil.... For myself, I am always the same; but I am struck
by the evidence of these facts, and by the thought that your
Majesty is wholly disposed, as soon as circumstances permit it,
to make an arrangement with England, which is the same thing as
to kindle a war between the two empires.”
Adams’s diplomatic victory was Napoleonic in its magnitude and
completeness. Even Caulaincourt, whom he overthrew, good-naturedly
congratulated him after he had succeeded, against Caulaincourt’s utmost
efforts, in saving all the American ships. “It seems you are great
favorites here; you have found powerful protection,” said the defeated
ambassador.[334] The American minister felt but one drawback,--he could
not wholly believe that his victory was sure. Anxious by temperament,
with little confidence in his own good fortune,--fighting his battles
with energy, but rather with that of despair than of hope,--the younger
Adams never allowed himself to enjoy the full relish of a triumph
before it staled, while he never failed to taste with its fullest
flavor, as though it were a precious wine, every drop in the bitter cup
of his defeats. In this, the most brilliant success of his diplomatic
career, he could not be blamed for doubting whether such fortune could
last. That the Czar of Russia should persist in braving almost sure
destruction in order to defend American rights which America herself
proclaimed to be unassailed, passed the bounds of fiction.
Yet of all the facts with which Monroe, April 1, 1811, had to deal,
this was the most important,--that Russia expected to fight France
in order to protect neutral commerce. Already, Dec. 27, 1810, Adams
notified his Government that Russia had determined to resist to the
last, and that France had shown a spirit of hostility that proved
an intention to make war. A few weeks later he wrote that military
movements on both sides had begun on such a scale that the rumor of war
was universal.[335] Napoleon’s harangue of March 24, 1811, to the Paris
Chamber of Commerce was accepted in Russia as the announcement of a
coming declaration, and the Russians waited uneasily for the blow to be
struck which the Czar would not himself strike.
They waited, but Napoleon did not move. Hampered by the Spanish
war and by the immense scale on which a campaign in Russia must be
organized, he consumed time in diplomatic remonstrances which he
knew to be useless. April 1, 1811, a week after his tirade to the
Paris merchants, he dictated another lecture to the Czar, through
Count Lauriston:[336] “Doubtless the smugglers will try every means
of forming connections with the Continent; but that connection I will
cut, if necessary, with the sword. Until now I have been indulgent; but
this year I am determined to use rigor toward those who are concerned
in contraband.” A great convoy, he said, was at that moment collecting
in English ports for the Baltic; but the goods thus introduced would
be everywhere seized, “even in Russia, whatever might be said to the
contrary, because the Emperor Alexander has declared his wish to remain
at war with the English as the only means of maintaining the peace of
the Continent.” A few days afterward, April 5, Cadore was ordered to
write again:[337] “It is probable that the least appearance of a peace
with England will be the signal of war unless unforeseen circumstances
lead the Emperor to prefer to gain time.” Alexander wished the moral
advantage of appearing to be attacked, and he allowed Napoleon to
gain time in these pretended remonstrances. Roumanzoff replied to
them as seriously as though they were seriously meant. Once he quoted
the American minister as authority for the genuine character of the
admitted vessels. Napoleon treated the appeal with contempt:[338]
“Let him know that there are no American ships; that all pretended
American ships are English, or freighted on English account; that the
English stop American vessels and do not let them navigate; that if the
American minister sustains the contrary, he does not know what he is
talking about.”
The American minister no longer needed to sustain the contrary; he had
passed that stage, and had to struggle only with the completeness of
his success. Although a large British squadron kept the Baltic open
to commerce, few British merchantmen visited those waters in 1811.
Their timidity was due to the violence with which Napoleon had seized
and destroyed British property in 1810 wherever he found it, without
respecting his own licenses. In consequence of British abstention,
American vessels swarmed in Russian ports. In July, 1811, Adams wrote
that two hundred American ships had already arrived,[339] and that
Russia was glutted with colonial goods until the cargoes were unsalable
at any price, while the great demand for return cargoes of Russian
produce had raised the cost of such articles to extravagance. America
enjoyed a monopoly of the Baltic trade; and Adams’s chief difficulty,
like that of Napoleon, was only to resist the universal venality which
made of the American flag a cover for British smuggling. Adams seemed
unable to ask a favor which the Czar did not seem eager to grant; for
in truth the result of admitting American ships pleased the friendly
Czar and his people, who obtained their sugar and coffee at half cost,
and sold their hemp and naval stores at double prices.
The Russians knew well the price they were to pay in the end, but in
the mean time Napoleon became more and more pacific. If war was to
come in 1811, every one supposed it would be announced in the French
Emperor’s usual address to his legislative body, which opened its
session June 16. The Address was brought in hot haste by special
courier to St. Petersburg; but to the surprise of every one it
contained no allusion to Russia. As usual, Napoleon pointed in the
direction he meant not to take, and instead of denouncing Russia, he
prophesied disaster to the victorious English in Spain:--
“When England shall be exhausted; when she shall have felt at
last the evils that she has for twenty years poured with so much
cruelty over the Continent; when half of her families shall be
covered by the funeral veil,--then a thunder-stroke will end the
peninsula troubles and the destinies of her armies, and will
avenge Europe and Asia by closing this second Punic war.”
This Olympian prophecy meant only that Napoleon, for military reasons,
preferred not to invade Russia until 1812. As the question of neutral
trade was but one of the pretexts on which he forced Russia into war,
and as it had served its purpose, he laid it aside. He closed the
chapter August 25 by directing his ambassador, Lauriston, to cease
further remonstrance.[340] One hundred and fifty ships, he said, under
false American colors had arrived in Russia; the projects of Russia
were unmasked; she wanted to renew her commerce with England; she no
longer preserved appearances, but favored in every way the English
trade; further remonstrance would be ridiculous and diplomatic notes
useless.
War for the spring of 1812 was certain. So much harm, at least, the
Americans helped to inflict on Napoleon in return for the millions he
cost them; but even this was not their whole revenge.
The example of Russia found imitation in Sweden, where Napoleon
was most vulnerable. Owing to a series of chances, Bernadotte, who
happened to command the French army corps at Hamburg, was made Prince
of Sweden in October, 1810, and immediately assumed the government of
the kingdom. Bernadotte as an old republican, like Lucien Bonaparte,
never forgave Napoleon for betraying his party, and would long since
have been exiled like Moreau had he not been the brother-in-law of
Joseph and a reasonably submissive member of the Imperial family.
Napoleon treated him as he treated Louis, Lucien, Joseph, Jerome,
Eugene, and Joachim Murat,--loading them with dignities, but exacting
blind obedience; and instantly on the new king’s accession, the French
minister informed him that he must within five days declare war on
England. Bernadotte obeyed. Napoleon next required the confiscation of
English merchandise and the total stoppage of relations between Sweden
and England.[341] As in the case of Holland and the Baltic Powers, this
demand included all American ships and cargoes, which amounted to one
half of the property to be seized. Bernadotte either could not or would
not drag his new subjects into such misery as Denmark and Holland were
suffering; and within five months after his accession, he already found
himself threatened with war. “Tell the Swedish minister,” said Napoleon
to Cadore,[342] “that if any ship loaded with colonial produce--be
it American or Danish or Swedish or Spanish or Russian--is admitted
into the ports of Swedish Pomerania, my troops and my customs officers
shall immediately enter the province.” Swedish Pomerania was the old
province still held by Sweden on the south shore of the Baltic, next to
Mecklenburg; and Stralsund, its capital, was a nest of smugglers who
defied the Emperor’s decrees.
In March, 1811, Davout, who commanded at Hamburg, received orders[343]
to prepare for seizing Stralsund at the least contravention of the
commercial laws. Bernadotte’s steps were evidently taken to accord
with those of the Czar Alexander; and at last Napoleon found himself
in face of a Swedish as well as a Russian, Spanish, and English war.
In the case of Russia, American commerce was but one though a chief
cause of rupture; but in the case of Sweden it seemed to be the only
cause. In August, Napoleon notified the Czar of his intentions against
Stralsund; in November, he gave the last warning to Sweden,--and
in both cases he founded his complaints on the toleration shown to
American commerce by Bernadotte. Nov. 3, 1811, he wrote to Bassano: “If
the Swedish government does not renounce the system of escorting by its
armed ships the vessels which English commerce covers with the American
flag, you will order the _chargé d’affaires_ to quit Stockholm
with all the legation.” He returned again and again to the grievance:
“If Sweden does not desist from this right of escorting American ships
which are violating the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, and maintains the
pretension to attack my privateers with her ships-of-war, the _chargé
d’affaires_ will quit Stockholm. I want to preserve peace with
Sweden,--this wish is palpable,--but I prefer war to such a state of
peace.”[344]
Once more the accent of truth sounded in these words of Napoleon.
He could not want war with Sweden, but he made it because he could
not otherwise enforce his Berlin and Milan Decrees against American
commerce. Although a part of that commerce was fraudulent, Napoleon,
in charging fraud, wished to condemn not so much the fraudulent as
the genuine. In order to enforce his Berlin and Milan Decrees against
American commerce, he was, as Cadore had threatened, about to overturn
the world.
This was the situation when Joel Barlow, the new American minister to
France, arrived at Paris Sept. 19, 1811, bringing instructions dated
July 26, the essence of which was contained in a few lines.[345]
“It is understood,” said the President, “that the blockade
of the British Isles is revoked. The revocation having been
officially declared, and no vessel trading to them having been
condemned or taken on the high seas that we know of, it is fair
to conclude that the measure is relinquished. It appears, too,
that no American vessel has been condemned in France for having
been visited at sea by an English ship, or for having been
searched or carried into England, or subjected to impositions
there. On the sea, therefore, France is understood to have
changed her system.”
Of all the caprices of politics, this was the most improbable,--that
at the moment when the Czar of Russia and the King of Sweden were
about to risk their thrones and to face the certain death and ruin of
vast numbers of their people in order to protect American ships from
the Berlin and Milan Decrees, the new minister of the United States
appeared in Paris authorized to declare that the President considered
those decrees to be revoked and their system no longer in force!
END OF VOL. V.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Diary of J. Q. Adams, March 4, 1809; i. 544.
[2] Diary of J. Q. Adams, i. 544.
[3] W. C. Nicholas to ----. Nicholas MSS.
[4] Robert Smith’s Address to the People, June 7, 1811.
[5] First Administration of Jefferson, vol. i. p. 188.
[6] Gallatin to Jefferson, Nov. 8, 1809; Adams’s Gallatin, p. 408.
[7] Madison to Henry Lee, February, 1827; Works, iii. 562, 564.
[8] National Intelligencer, July, 1811.
[9] Gallatin to Samuel Smith, June 26, 1809; Adams’s Gallatin, p. 402.
[10] Henry to Craig, March 13, 1809; State Papers, iii. 550.
[11] State Papers, Commerce and Navigation, pp. 897, 898.
[12] Gallatin’s Report, April 17, 1810; State Papers, Finance, ii. 427.
[13] Gallatin’s Report, April 17, 1810; State Papers, Finance, ii. 435.
[14] Gallatin’s Report, April 17, 1810; State Papers, Finance, ii. 436.
[15] Gallatin’s Report, April 17, 1810; State Papers, Finance, ii. 428.
[16] Gallatin’s Report, April 17, 1810; State Papers, Finance, ii. 439.
[17] History of First Administration of Jefferson, i. 224.
[18] Correspondance de Napoléon, xxxii. 265, 272, 359–370.
[19] Correspondance de Napoléon, xxxii. 366.
[20] Napoleon to Jerome, 16 Janvier, 1809; Correspondance, xviii. 237.
[21] Correspondance, xviii. 225.
[22] Correspondance, xviii. 227.
[23] Armstrong to Madison, Oct. 25, 1808; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[24] Armstrong to Madison, Nov. 24, 1808; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[25] Gallatin’s Writings, ii. 490.
[26] Armstrong to Madison, Jan. 2, 1809; MSS. State Department Archives.
[27] Champagny to Turreau, Dec. 10, 1808; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.
[28] Turreau to Champagny, 19 March, 1809; Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[29] Erskine to Canning, March 17, 1809; MSS. British Archives.
[30] Turreau to Champagny, 15 April, 1809; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.
[31] Turreau to Champagny, 20 April, 1809; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.
[32] Turreau to Champagny, 22 April, 1809; Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[33] Turreau to Champagny, 1 June, 1809; Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
Cf. Madison to Jefferson, May 1, 1809; Writings, ii. 440.
[34] Act of Geo. III. 1808; Cap. xxvi. American State Papers, iii. 274.
[35] Pinkney to Madison, Dec. 25, 1808; Wheaton’s Pinkney.
[36] Pinkney to Canning, Dec. 28, 1808; State Papers, iii. 240.
[37] Canning to Perceval, Dec. 31, 1808; Perceval MSS.
[38] Tooke’s History of Prices, i. 274–279.
[39] Brougham to Grey, Nov. 25, 1809, Brougham’s Memoirs, i. 417;
Temple’s Courts and Cabinets, iv. 276, 283; Canning to the Duke of
Portland, March 24, 1809; Walpole’s Spencer Perceval, i. 347, 350.
[40] Canning to Erskine, Jan. 23, 1809; Cobbett’s Debates, xvii, cxix.
[41] Pinkney to Madison, Jan. 23, 1809; Wheaton’s Pinkney, p. 420.
[42] Cobbett’s Debates, xii. 25.
[43] Cobbett’s Debates, p. 69.
[44] Pinkney to Madison, Jan. 23, 1809; Wheaton’s Pinkney, p. 423.
[45] Brief Account, etc., Jan. 23, 1809; State Papers, iii. 299.
[46] Pinkney to Madison, Jan. 23, 1809; Wheaton’s Pinkney, p. 424.
[47] Pinkney to R. Smith, June 6, 1809; State Papers, iii. 303.
[48] Canning to Erskine, Jan. 23, 1809; American State Papers, iii. 300.
[49] Second Administration of Jefferson, vol. iv. pp. 388–389.
[50] Pinkney to R. Smith, June 23, 1809; State Papers, iii. 303.
[51] W. H. Fremantle to the Marquis of Buckingham, Feb. 16, 1809;
Courts and Cabinets of George III., iv. 318.
[52] Cobbett’s Debates, xii. 771–803.
[53] Cobbett’s Debates, xiii. App. no. 2, xxxi.
[54] Order in Council of April 26, 1809; State Papers, iii. 241.
[55] Pinkney to Madison, May 3, 1809; Wheaton’s Pinkney, p. 428.
[56] Pinkney to R. Smith, May 1, 1809. MSS. State Dep. Archives.
[57] Erskine to Canning, April 18, 1809; Cobbett’s Debates, xvii.
Appendix, cxlvii.
[58] Erskine to R. Smith, April 17, 1809; State Papers, iii. 295.
[59] Robert Smith’s Address to the People, 1811.
[60] Erskine to Canning, Aug. 3, 1809; Cobbett’s Debates, xvii. clvi.
[61] Erskine to Canning, April 30, 1809; Aug. 7, 1809. Erskine to
Robert Smith, Aug. 14, 1809. Cobbett’s Debates, xvii. cli. clxx. State
Papers, iii. 305.
[62] Turreau to Champagny, 1 June, 1809; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.
[63] Madison to Jefferson, April 24, 1809; Madison’s Writings, ii. 439.
[64] Annals of Congress, 1809–1810, p. 210.
[65] Madison to Jefferson, June 12, 1809; Madison’s Writings, ii. 443.
[66] Message of June 15, 1809; State Papers, iii. 297.
[67] Madison to Jefferson, June 20, 1809; Madison’s Writings, ii. 443.
[68] Turreau to Smith, June 14, 1809. John Graham to the editors of the
Federal Republican, Aug. 31, 1813. Niles, v. 37–40.
[69] Turreau to Champagny, 14 June, 1809; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.
[70] Ryland to Henry, May 1, 1809; State Papers, iii. 552.
[71] Canning to Erskine, May 22, 1809; Cobbett’s Debates, xvii. App.
cxxvii.
[72] Canning to Erskine, May 23, 1809; MSS. British Archives.
[73] Pinkney to Robert Smith, June 23, 1809; State Papers, iii. 303.
[74] The Courier, May 26, 1809.
[75] Erskine to Canning, Aug. 7, 1809; Cobbett’s Debates, xvii App.
clx.-clxiii.
[76] Pinkney to R. Smith, May 28, 1809; MSS. State Department Archives.
[77] Pinkney to Madison, Dec. 10, 1809; Wheaton’s Pinkney, p. 434.
[78] Pinkney to R. Smith, June 23, 1809; MSS. State Department Archives.
[79] Bath Archives; Diaries and Letters of Sir George Jackson, ii. 447.
[80] Bath Archives; Diaries and Letters of Sir George Jackson, Second
Series, i. 109.
[81] Bath Archives; Diaries and Letters of Sir George Jackson, Second
Series, i. 24, 46.
[82] Canning to F. J. Jackson, Nos. 1–5, July 1, 1809; MSS. British
Archives, America, vol. xcv.
[83] Gallatin to Montgomery, July 27, 1809; Adams’s Gallatin, p. 395.
[84] Gallatin to Montgomery, July 27, 1809; Adams’s Gallatin, p. 395.
[85] Madison to Galatin, July 28, 1809; Gallatin’s Works, i. 454.
[86] Madison to Jefferson, Aug. 3, 1809; Madison’s Works, ii. 449.
[87] Bath Archives; Second Series, i. 9.
[88] Gallatin to Madison, Sept. 11, 1809; Works i. 461.
[89] Gallatin’s Works, i. 462.
[90] F. J. Jackson to Mrs. Jackson, Oct. 7, 1809; Bath Archives, Second
Series, i. 17.
[91] Jackson to Canning, Oct. 17, 1809; MSS. British Archives.
[92] Madison’s Works, ii. 499.
[93] Secretary of State to Mr. Jackson, Oct. 9, 1809; State Papers,
iii. 308.
[94] Jackson to Canning, Oct. 18, 1809; MSS. British Archives.
[95] Jackson to Canning, Oct. 18, 1809; MSS. British Archives.
[96] Jackson to Canning, Oct. 18, 1809; MSS. British Archives.
[97] Jackson to the Secretary of State, Oct. 23, 1809; State Papers,
iii. 315.
[98] Bath Archives, Second Series. i. 28.
[99] Armstrong to R. Smith, Feb. 16, 1809; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[100] Armstrong to Champagny, April 29, 1809; State Papers, iii. 324.
[101] Champagny to Decrès, 17 May, 1809; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.
[102] Armstrong to R. Smith, April 27, 1809; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[103] Correspondance, xix. 21.
[104] Champagny to Napoleon, May 26, 1809; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.
[105] Napoleon to Champagny, June 10, 1809; Correspondance, xix. 95.
[106] Champagny to Hauterive, June 13, 1809; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.
[107] Armstrong to R. Smith, July 22, 1809; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[108] Armstrong to R. Smith, July 24, 1809; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[109] Rapport a l’Empereur par le Ministre de la Marine, 7 Juin, 1809.
Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.
[110] Décret Impérial; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS. vol. lxii. (États
Unis), pièce 166.
[111] Armstrong to R. Smith, July 24, 1809; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[112] Correspondance, xix. 261.
[113] Correspondance, xix. 261.
[114] Napoleon to Champagny, 21 August, 1809; Correspondance, xix. 375.
[115] Correspondance de Napoléon, xix. 374; State Papers, iii. 325.
[116] Armstrong to R. Smith, Nov. 18, 1809; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[117] Mémoires de Mollien, iii. 133–135.
[118] Bath Archives, Second Series, i. 44.
[119] Jackson to Bathurst, Nov. 16, 1809; MSS. British Archives.
[120] Mr. Oakeley to the Secretary of State, Nov. 13, 1809; State
Papers, iii. 319.
[121] National Intelligencer, Nov. 22, 1809.
[122] Bath Archives, i. 56.
[123] Works, ii. 499.
[124] Jefferson to Gallatin, Oct. 11, 1809; Works, v. 477.
[125] Grigsby’s Tazewell, p. 87.
[126] Jefferson to Madison, Nov. 30, 1809; Works, v. 481. Cf. Monroe to
Colonel Taylor, Feb. 25, 1810; Monroe MSS. State Department Archives.
[127] Madison to Jefferson, Dec. 11, 1809; Works, ii. 460.
[128] Annals of Congress, 1809–1810, p. 1263.
[129] _Infra_, chap. x.
[130] Secretary Hamilton to Joseph Anderson, June 6, 1809; State
Papers, Naval Affairs, p. 194.
[131] Wilkinson’s Memoirs, ii. 344.
[132] Wilkinson’s Memoirs, ii. 346.
[133] Wilkinson’s Memoirs, ii. 351.
[134] Wilkinson’s Memoirs, ii. 358.
[135] State Papers, Military Affairs, i. 269.
[136] State Papers, Military Affairs, i. 269.
[137] Wilkinson’s Memoirs, ii. Appendix cvii.
[138] Deposition of John Darrington, Captain Third Infantry; State
Papers, Military Affairs, i. 282.
[139] Randolph to Nicholson, Dec. 4, 1809; Nicholson MSS.
[140] Annals of Congress, 1809–1810, p. 509.
[141] Annals of Congress, 1809–1810, p. 544.
[142] Resolution approved Jan. 12, 1810; Annals of Congress, 1809–1810,
p. 2590.
[143] Madison’s Works, ii. 498.
[144] Walter Jones to Jefferson, Feb. 19, 1810; Jefferson MSS.
[145] Annals of Congress, 1809–1810, p. 602.
[146] Nicholson MSS.
[147] Macon to Nicholson, April 21, 1810; Nicholson MSS.
[148] Annals of Congress, 1809–1810, p. 1828.
[149] Annals of Congress, 1809–1810, pp. 1855–1857.
[150] Annals of Congress, 1809–1810, pp. 1862.
[151] Annals of Congress, 1809–1810, p. 1864.
[152] Annals of Congress, 1809–1810, p. 1933.
[153] Nicholson MSS.
[154] Madison to Pinkney, May 23, 1810; Works, ii. 474.
[155] Madison to Jefferson, April 23, 1810; Works, ii. 472.
[156] Bath Archives, Second Series, i. 78.
[157] Bath Archives, Second Series, i. 82.
[158] Bath Archives, Second Series, i. 118.
[159] Upham’s Life of Pickering, iv. 172.
[160] Bath Archives, Second Series, i. 109.
[161] Napoleon to the Prince of Neuchatel, Dec. 19, 1809;
Correspondence, xx. 78.
[162] Napoleon to Maret, Dec. 19, 1809; Correspondance, xx. 77.
[163] Note pour le Comte de Montalivet, 16 Nov. 1809; Correspondance,
xx. 35.
[164] Napoleon to Fouché, Sept. 29, 1809; Correspondance, xix. 535.
[165] Mémoires, iii. 134.
[166] Mémoires de Marmont, iii. 336.
[167] Note pour le Ministre de l’Intérieur, 21 Dec. 1809;
Correspondance, xx. 81.
[168] Armstrong to R. Smith, Jan. 6, 1810; MSS State Department
Archives.
[169] Armstrong to R. Smith, Jan. 10, 1810; MSS. State Department
Archives. Cf. Thiers’ Empire, xii. 45
[170] Thiers, xii. 48, 49.
[171] Thiers, xii. 50.
[172] Napolean to Champagny, Jan. 10, 1810; Correspondance, xx. 109.
[173] Armstrong to R. Smith, Jan. 28, 1810; Document G. MSS. State
Department Archives.
[174] Napoleon to Champagny, Jan. 19, 1810; Correspondance, xx. 132.
[175] Note Pour le Général Armstrong, 25 Jan., 1810. Correspondance,
xx. 141.
[176] Projet de Note, Jan. 25, 1810; Correspondance, xx. 141.
[177] Armstrong to R. Smith, Feb. 25, 1810; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[178] Armstrong to Cadore, March 10, 1810; State Papers, iii. 381.
[179] Napoleon to Cadore, March 20, 1810; Correspondance, xx. 273.
[180] State Papers, iii. 324. See _supra_, p. 135.
[181] Mémoires, ii. 77.
[182] State Papers, iii. 384.
[183] Empire, xii. 45.
[184] Armstrong to R. Smith, Jan. 10, 1810; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[185] Thiers, xii. 126.
[186] Armstrong to R. Smith, July 18, 1810; MSS. State Department
Archives. Cf. Correspondance de Napoleon, xx. 450, 451, _note_.
[187] Thiers, xii. 117.
[188] Napoleon to Champagny, Feb. 22, 1810; Correspondance, xx. 235.
[189] Thiers, xii. 117.
[190] Napoleon to Decrès, 8 July 1810. Correspondance, xx. 450.
[191] Note, July 5, 1810; Correspondance, xx. 444.
[192] Rapport à l’Empereur, 25 Août, 1810; Archives des Aff. Étrs. MSS.
[193] Gallatin to the Speaker, Feb. 7, 1810; State Papers, Commerce and
Navigation, i. 812.
[194] Notes pour le Ministre de l’Intérieur, 25 Juin, 1810;
Correspondance, xx. 431.
[195] State Papers, iii. 400.
[196] Napoleon to Prince Lebrun, Aug. 20, 1810; Correspondance, xxi. 53.
[197] Napoleon to Eugene Napoleon, Sept. 19, 1810; Correspondance, xxi.
134.
[198] Napoleon to Montalivet, Aug. 10, 1810; Correspondance, xxi. 29.
[199] Napoleon to Montalivet, Aug. 11, 1810; Correspondance, xxi. 35.
[200] Robert Smith to Armstrong, Dec. 1, 1810; State Papers, iii. 326.
[201] Armstrong to Robert Smith, July 10, 1810; MSS State Department
Archives.
[202] Napoleon to Champagny, 19 July, 1810; Correspondance, xx. 505.
[203] Napoleon to Champagny, 13 July, 1810; Correspondance, xx. 554.
[204] Correspondance, xxi. 1.
[205] Cadore to General Armstrong, Aug. 5, 1810; State Papers, iii. 386.
[206] Notes, etc., June 25, 1810; Correspondance, xx. 431.
[207] Napoleon to Caulaincourt, July 1, 1810; Correspondance, xx. 158.
[208] Gallatin’s Writings, ii. 211.
[209] Gallatin’s Writings, ii. 198.
[210] Armstrong to Cadore, Sept. 7, 1810; State Papers, iii. 388.
[211] Cadore to Armstrong, Sept. 12, 1810; State Papers, iii. 388.
[212] Gallatin to J. Q. Adams, Sept. 15, 1821; Gallatin’s Writings, ii.
196.
[213] State Papers, iii. 387.
[214] Rapport à l’Empereur, Août, 1810; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.
vol. lxiv. pièce 81.
[215] Armstrong to Pinkney, Sept. 29, 1810; State Papers, iii. 386.
[216] Memoirs of R. Plumer Ward, i. 424.
[217] Buckingham Memoirs, iv. 390.
[218] Wellington to Wellesley, Oct. 5, 1809; Supplementary Despatches,
vi. 386.
[219] Buckingham Memoirs, iv. 392.
[220] Pinkney to Wellesley, Jan. 2, 1810; State Papers, iii. 352.
[221] State Papers, iii. 355.
[222] Cobbett’s Debates, Nov. 30, 1812; xxiv. 33, 34.
[223] Buckingham Memoirs, iv. 438.
[224] Cobbett’s Debates, xvii. 742.
[225] Armstrong to Pinkney, Jan. 25, 1810; State Papers, iii. 350.
[226] Pinkney to Wellesley, Feb. 15, 1810; State Papers, iii. 350.
[227] Wellesley to Pinkney, March 2, 1810; State Papers, iii. 350.
[228] Pinkney to Wellesley, March 7, 1810; State Papers, iii. 350.
[229] Wellesley to Pinkney, March 26, 1810; State Papers, iii. 356.
[230] Pinkney to Armstrong, April 6, 1810; State Papers, iii. 355.
[231] Pinkney to Wellesley, April 30, 1810; State Papers, iii. 357.
[232] Memorandum; Supplementary Despatches, vii. 264.
[233] Cf. Lewis’s Administrations, 323, _note_.
[234] Buckingham Memoirs, iv. 435.
[235] Statement, etc.; Cobbett’s Debates, xxiii. 367, _note_.
[236] Pellew’s Sidmouth, ii. 507.
[237] Walpole’s Perceval, ii. 114.
[238] Wellington’s Supplementary Despatches, vi. 583.
[239] Tooke’s History of Prices.
[240] Pinkney to Robert Smith, Aug. 14, 1810; State Papers, iii. 363.
[241] Memorandum; Supplementary Despatches of Lord Wellington, vii. 266.
[242] State Papers, iii. 366.
[243] Wellesley to Pinkney, Aug. 31, 1810; State Papers, iii. 366.
[244] Pinkney to Wellesley, Sept. 21, 1810; State Papers, iii. 368.
[245] Buckingham Memoirs, iv. 482.
[246] Statement, etc., Dec. 16, 1811; State Papers, Commerce and
Navigation, i. 876.
[247] Gallatin to the Speaker, Feb. 6, 1811; State Papers, Commerce and
Navigation, i. 866.
[248] Statement, etc., Dec. 16, 1811; State Papers, Commerce and
Navigation, i. 929.
[249] Statement, etc., Feb. 28, 1812; State Papers, Commerce and
Navigation, ii. 542–552.
[250] Report on the Finances, Nov. 25, 1811; State Papers, Finance, ii.
495.
[251] Madison’s Works, ii. 477.
[252] State Papers, iii. 384.
[253] Madison’s Works, ii. 480.
[254] State Papers, iii. 385.
[255] Cf. Speech of Mr. Eppes, Feb. 2, 1811; Annals of Congress,
1810–1811, 866.
[256] Robert Smith to Armstrong, Nov. 2, 1810; State Papers, iii. 389.
[257] Works, ii. 484.
[258] Turreau to Champagny, 1 November, 1810 (No. 1); Archives des Aff.
Étr. MSS.
[259] Turreau to Champagny, 2 November, 1810 (No. 6); Archives des Aff.
Étr. MSS.
[260] State Papers, iii. 396.
[261] State Papers, iii. 395.
[262] Madison to Jefferson, Oct. 19, 1810; Works, ii, 484.
[263] Proclamation, etc., Oct. 27, 1810; State Papers, iii. 397.
[264] Secretary of State to Governor Claiborne, Oct. 27, 1810; State
Papers, iii. 396.
[265] Secretary of State to Governor Holmes, Nov. 15, 1810; State
Papers, iii. 398.
[266] Turreau to Champagny, 1 Nov. 1810 (No. 2); Archives des Aff. Étr.
MSS.
[267] Morier to Robert Smith, Dec. 15, 1810; State Papers, iii. 399.
[268] Speech of Mr. Tallmadge of Connecticut, Jan. 23, 1811; Annals of
Congress, 1810–1811, p. 784.
[269] Speech of Jonathon Fisk of New York, Jan. 17, 1811; Annals of
Congress, 1810–1811, p. 612.
[270] Adam’s Gallatin, p. 598.
[271] Adam’s Gallatin, p. 430.
[272] Address to Constituents; Annals of Congress, 1815–1816, p. 1193.
[273] State Papers, iii. 390.
[274] Robert Smith’s Address to the People, June 7, 1811.
[275] Serurier to Maret, Feb. 17 1811; archives des. Aff. Étr. MSS.
[276] State Papers, iii. 393.
[277] Madison to Jefferson, March 18, 1811; Works, ii. 490.
[278] Address to the People of the United States, by Robert Smith, 1811.
[279] Jefferson to Madison, Sept. 27, 1810; Works, v. 548.
[280] Adams’s Gallatin, p. 430.
[281] Macon to Nicholson, Feb. 20, 1811; Nicholson MSS.
[282] Adams’s Gallatin, p. 431.
[283] Adams’s Gallatin, p. 432.
[284] Adams’s Gallatin, p. 434.
[285] Adams’s Randolph, p. 243.
[286] Monroe to Randolph, Feb. 13, 1811; Monroe MSS.
[287] Monroe to Tazewell, Feb. 6, 1811; Monroe MSS.
[288] Colonel Taylor to Monroe, March 24, 1811; Monroe MSS. State
Department Archives.
[289] Adams’s Gallatin, p. 435; Gallatin’s Writings, i. 497.
[290] Madison to Monroe, March 26, 1811; Monroe MSS State Department
Archives.
[291] Serurier to Champagny, March 26, 1811; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.
[292] Madison’s Works, ii. 494.
[293] Madison’s Works, ii. 513.
[294] Russell to Robert Smith, Dec. 4, 1810; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[295] Russell to Pinkney, Dec. 1, 1810; State Papers, iii. 390.
[296] Russell to Cadore, Dec. 10, 1810; State Papers, iii. 391.
[297] Napoleon to Champagny, Dec. 13, 1810; Correspondance xxi. 316.
[298] Smith to Armstrong, Nov. 2, 1810; State Papers, iii. 389.
[299] Russell to Cadore, Dec. 17, 1810; MSS. State Department Archives.
[300] Russell to Robert Smith, Dec. 29, 1810; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[301] Russell to Pinkney, Dec. 30, 1810; State Papers, iii. 417.
[302] Russell to Robert Smith, Jan. 28, 1811; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[303] Russell to Robert Smith, Feb. 13, 1811; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[304] State Papers, iii. 501.
[305] Ibid.
[306] Champagny to Serurier, Feb. 9, 1811; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.
[307] Russell to Robert Smith, March 15, 1811; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[308] Correspondance, xxi. 284.
[309] Russell to Robert Smith, April 4, 1811; MSS. State Department
Archives. Cf. Thiers’s Empire, xiii. 27–33.
[310] Robert Smith to Russell, March 5, 1811; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[311] Maret, Duc de Bassano; Par Ernouf., 285–299.
[312] Note dictée en Conseil, 29 avril, 1811; Correspondance xxii 122.
[313] Duke of Bassano to Mr. Russell, May 4, 1811; State Papers, iii.
505.
[314] Russell to J. S. Smith, May 10, 1811; State Papers, iii. 502.
[315] Russell to Bassano, May 11, 1811; State Papers, iii. 506.
[316] Russell to Monroe, July 13, 1811; MSS. State Department Archives.
[317] Napoleon to Maret, Aug. 23, 1811; Correspondance, xxii. 432.
[318] Napoleon to Maret, Aug. 28, 1811; Correspondance, xxii. 448.
[319] J. Q. Adams to R. Smith, Oct. 4, 1809; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[320] J. Q. Adams to R. Smith, Oct. 26, 1809; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[321] Diary of J. Q. Adams, Dec. 26, 1809, ii. 83, 87. Adams to R.
Smith, Jan. 7, 1810; MSS. State Department Archives.
[322] Diary, ii. 88.
[323] Adams to R. Smith, April 19, 1810; MSS. State Department Archives.
[324] Thiers’s Empire, xiii. 56.
[325] Diary, ii. 143–160. Adams to R. Smith, Sept. 5, 1810; MSS. State
Department Archives.
[326] Diary, Oct. 9, 1810, ii. 180–181. Adams to R. Smith, Oct. 12,
1810; MSS. State Department Archives.
[327] Correspondance, xxi. 233, 234.
[328] Napoleon to Champagny, Nov. 4, 1810; Correspondance, xxi. 252.
[329] Cadore to Kourakine, 2 Dec., 1810; Correspondance, xxi. 297.
[330] Armstrong to Smith, Sept. 10, 1810; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[331] Adams to Robert Smith, Dec. 17, 1810; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[332] Adams to Robert Smith, Jan. 27, 1811; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[333] Napoleon to Alexander, Feb. 28, 1811; Correspondance, xxi. 424.
[334] Diary, Feb. 15, 1811, ii. 226.
[335] Adams to Robert Smith, Feb. 12, 1811; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[336] Napoleon to Champagny, April 1, 1811; Correspondance, xxii. 3.
[337] Napoleon to Champagny, April 5, 1811; Correspondance, xxii. 28.
[338] Napoleon to Maret, July 15, 1811; Correspondance, xxii. 327.
[339] Adams to Monroe, July 22, 1811; MSS. State Department Archives.
[340] Napoleon to Maret, Aug. 25, 1811; Correspondence, xxii. 441.
[341] Napoleon to Alquier, Dec. 22, 1810; Correspondance, xxi. 328.
[342] Napoleon to Champagny, March 25, 1811; Correspondance, xxi. 510.
[343] Correspondance, xxi. 506.
[344] Napoleon to Maret, Nov. 3, 1811; Correspondance, xxii. 552.
[345] Monroe to Barlow, July 26, 1811; State Papers, iii. 510.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the
original.
3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.
4. Italics are shown as _xxx_.
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