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[Illustration: John Quincy Adams]
American Statesmen
STANDARD LIBRARY EDITION
[Illustration: The Home of John Quincy Adams]
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
American Statesmen
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
BY
JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
Copyright, 1882 and 1898,
By JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
Copyright, 1898,
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
_All rights reserved._
PREFACE (p. v)
Nearly sixteen years have elapsed since this book was written. In that
time sundry inaccuracies have been called to my attention, and have
been corrected, and it may be fairly hoped that after the lapse of so
long a period all errors in matters of fact have been eliminated. I am
not aware that any fresh material has been made public, or that any
new views have been presented which would properly lead to alterations
in the substance of what is herein said. If I were now writing the
book for the first time, I should do what so many of the later
contributors to the series have very wisely and advantageously done: I
should demand more space. But this was the first volume published, and
at a time when the enterprise was still an experiment insistence upon
such a point, especially on the part of the editor, would have been
unreasonable. Thus it happens that, though Mr. Adams was appointed
minister resident at the Hague in 1794, and thereafter continued in
public life, almost without interruption, until his death in (p. vi)
February, 1848, the narrative of his career is compressed within
little more than three hundred pages. The proper function of a work
upon this scale is to draw a picture of the man.
With the picture which I have drawn of Mr. Adams, I still remain
moderately contented--by which remark I mean nothing more egotistical
than that I believe it to be a correct picture, and done with whatever
measure of skill I may happen to possess in portraiture. I should like
to change it only in one particular, viz.: by infusing throughout the
volume somewhat more of admiration. Adams has never received the
praise which was his due, and probably he never will receive it. In
order that justice should be done him by the public, his biographer
ought to speak somewhat better of him than his real deserts would
require. He presents one of those cases where exaggeration is the
servant of truth; for this moderate excess of appreciation would only
offset that discount from an accurate estimate which his personal
unpopularity always has caused, and probably always will cause, to be
made. He was a good instance of the rule that the world will for the
most part treat the individual as the individual treats the world.
Adams was censorious, not to say uncharitable in the extreme, (p. vii)
always in an attitude of antagonism, always unsparing and denunciatory.
The measure which he meted has been by others in their turn meted to
him. This habit of ungracious criticism was his great fault; perhaps
it was almost his only very serious fault; it cost him dear in his
life, and has continued to cost his memory dear since his death.
Sometimes we are not sorry to see men get the punishments which they
have brought on themselves; yet we ought to be sorry for Mr. Adams.
After all, his fault-finding was in part the result of his respect for
virtue and his hatred of all that was ignoble and unworthy. If he
despised a low standard, at least he held his own standard high, and
himself lived by the rules by which he measured others. Men with
vastly greater defects have been much more kindly served both by
contemporaries and by posterity. There can be no question that Adams
deserved all the esteem which ought to be accorded to the highest
moral qualities, to very high, if a little short of the highest,
intellectual endowment, and to immense acquirements. His political
integrity was of a grade rarely seen; and, in unison with his
extraordinary courage and independence, it seemed to the average
politician actually irritating and offensive. He was in the same
difficulty in which Aristides the Just found himself. But neither (p. viii)
assaults nor political solitude daunted or discouraged him. His career
in the House of Representatives is a tale which has not a rival in
congressional history. I regret that it could not be told here at
greater length. Stubbornly fighting for freedom of speech and against
the slaveholders, fierce and unwearied in old age, falling literally
out of the midst of the conflict into his grave, Mr. Adams, during the
closing years of his life, is one of the most striking figures of
modern times. I beg the reader of this volume to put into its pages
more warmth of praise than he will find therein, and so do a more
correct justice to an honest statesman and a gallant friend of the
oppressed. Doing this, he will improve my book in the particular
wherein I think that it chiefly needs improvement.
JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
July, 1898.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
Page
Youth and Diplomacy 1
CHAPTER II.
Secretary of State and President 101
CHAPTER III.
In the House of Representatives 225
Index 309
ILLUSTRATIONS
John Quincy Adams Frontispiece
From the original painting by John Singleton
Copley, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Autograph from the Chamberlain collection,
Boston Public Library.
The vignette of Mr. Adams's home in Quincy
is from a photograph.
Page
William H. Crawford 107
From the painting by Henry Ulke, in the
Treasury Department at Washington.
Autograph from the Chamberlain collection,
Boston Public Library.
Stratford Canning 149
After a drawing (1853) by George Richmond.
Autograph from "Life of Stratford Canning."
Henry A. Wise 291
From a photograph by Brady, in the Library
of the State Department at Washington.
Autograph from the Chamberlain collection,
Boston Public Library.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS (p. 001)
CHAPTER I
YOUTH AND DIPLOMACY
On July 11, 1767, in the North Parish of Braintree, since set off as
the town of Quincy, in Massachusetts, was born John Quincy Adams. Two
streams of as good blood as flowed in the colony mingled in the veins
of the infant. If heredity counts for anything he began life with an
excellent chance of becoming famous--_non sine dîs animosus infans_.
He was called after his great-grandfather on the mother's side, John
Quincy, a man of local note who had borne in his day a distinguished
part in provincial affairs. Such a naming was a simple and natural
occurrence enough, but Mr. Adams afterward moralized upon it in his
characteristic way:--
"The incident which gave rise to this circumstance is not without
its moral to my heart. He was dying when I was baptized; and his
daughter, my grandmother, present at my birth, requested that I
might receive his name. The fact, recorded by my father at (p. 002)
the time, has connected with that portion of my name a charm
of mingled sensibility and devotion. It was filial tenderness
that gave the name. It was the name of one passing from earth to
immortality. These have been among the strongest links of my
attachment to the name of Quincy, and have been to me through
life a perpetual admonition to do nothing unworthy of it."
Fate, which had made such good preparation for him before his birth, was
not less kind in arranging the circumstances of his early training and
development. His father was deeply engaged in the patriot cause, and
the first matters borne in upon his opening intelligence concerned the
public discontent and resistance to tyranny. He was but seven years
old when he clambered with his mother to the top of one of the high
hills in the neighborhood of his home to listen to the sounds of conflict
upon Bunker's Hill, and to watch the flaming ruin of Charlestown.
Profound was the impression made upon him by the spectacle, and it was
intensified by many an hour spent afterward upon the same spot during
the siege and bombardment of Boston. Then John Adams went as a
delegate to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, and his wife and
children were left for twelve months, as John Quincy Adams says,--it
is to be hoped with a little exaggeration of the barbarity of (p. 003)
British troops toward women and babes,--"liable every hour of the day
and of the night to be butchered in cold blood, or taken and carried
into Boston as hostages, by any foraging or marauding detachment."
Later, when the British had evacuated Boston, the boy, barely nine
years old, became "post-rider" between the city and the farm, a
distance of eleven miles each way, in order to bring all the latest
news to his mother.
Not much regular schooling was to be got amid such surroundings of
times and events, but the lad had a natural aptitude or affinity for
knowledge which stood him in better stead than could any dame of a
village school. The following letter to his father is worth
preserving:--
BRAINTREE, _June the 2d, 1777_.
DEAR SIR,--I love to receive letters very well, much better than
I love to write them. I make but a poor figure at composition, my
head is much too fickle, my thoughts are running after birds'
eggs, play and trifles till I get vexed with myself. I have but
just entered the 3d volume of Smollett, tho' I had designed to
have got it half through by this time. I have determined this
week to be more diligent, as Mr. Thaxter will be absent at Court
and I Cannot pursue my other Studies. I have Set myself a Stent
and determine to read the 3d volume Half out. If I can but (p. 004)
keep my resolution I will write again at the end of the week
and give a better account of myself. I wish, Sir, you would give
me some instructions with regard to my time, and advise me how to
proportion my Studies and my Play, in writing, and I will keep
them by me and endeavor to follow them. I am, dear Sir, with a
present determination of growing better. Yours.
P.S. Sir, if you will be so good as to favor me with a Blank
book, I will transcribe the most remarkable occurrences I met
with in my reading, which will serve to fix them upon my mind.
Not long after the writing of this model epistle, the simple village
life was interrupted by an unexpected change. John Adams was sent on a
diplomatic journey to Paris, and on February 13, 1778, embarked in the
frigate Boston. John Quincy Adams, then eleven years old, accompanied
his father and thus made his first acquaintance with the foreign lands
where so many of his coming years were to be passed. This initial
visit, however, was brief; and he was hardly well established at
school when events caused his father to start for home. Unfortunately
this return trip was a needless loss of time, since within three
months of their setting foot upon American shores the two travellers
were again on their stormy way back across the Atlantic in a leaky
ship, which had to land them at the nearest port in Spain. One (p. 005)
more quotation must be given from a letter written just after the
first arrival in France:--
PASSY, _September the 27th, 1778_.
HONORED MAMMA,--My Pappa enjoins it upon me to keep a Journal, or
a Diary of the Events that happen to me, and of objects that I
see, and of Characters that I converse with from day to day; and
altho' I am Convinced of the utility, importance and necessity of
this Exercise, yet I have not patience and perseverance enough to
do it so Constantly as I ought. My Pappa, who takes a great deal
of pains to put me in the right way, has also advised me to
Preserve Copies of all my letters, and has given me a Convenient
Blank Book for this end; and altho' I shall have the
mortification a few years hence to read a great deal of my
Childish nonsense, yet I shall have the Pleasure and advantage of
Remarking the several steps by which I shall have advanced in
taste, judgment and knowledge. A Journal Book and a letter Book
of a Lad of Eleven years old Can not be expected to Contain much
of Science, Literature, arts, wisdom, or wit, yet it may serve to
perpetuate many observations that I may make, and may hereafter
help me to recollect both persons and things that would other
ways escape my memory.
He continues with resolutions "to be more thoughtful and industrious
for the future," and reflects with pleasure upon the prospect that
his scheme "will be a sure means of improvement to myself, and (p. 006)
enable me to be more entertaining to you." What gratification must
this letter from one who was quite justified in signing himself her
"dutiful and affectionate son" have brought to the Puritan bosom of
the good mother at home! If the plan for the diary was not pursued
during the first short flitting abroad, it can hardly be laid at the
door of the "lad of eleven years" as a serious fault. He did in fact
begin it when setting out on the aforementioned second trip to Europe,
calling it
A JOURNAL BY J. Q. A.,
_From America to Spain._
Vol. I.
Begun Friday, 12 of November, 1779.
The spark of life in the great undertaking flickered in a somewhat
feeble and irregular way for many years thereafter, but apparently
gained strength by degrees until in 1795, as Mr. C. F. Adams tells us,
"what may be denominated the diary proper begins," a very vigorous
work in more senses than one. Continued with astonishing persistency
and faithfulness until within a few days of the writer's death, the
latest entry is of the 4th of January, 1848. Mr. Adams achieved many
successes during his life as the result of conscious effort, but (p. 007)
the greatest success of all he achieved altogether unconsciously. He
left a portrait of himself more full, correct, vivid, and picturesque
than has ever been bequeathed to posterity by any other personage of
the past ages. Any mistakes which may be made in estimating his mental
or moral attributes must be charged to the dulness or prejudice of the
judge, who could certainly not ask for better or more abundant
evidence. Few of us know our most intimate friends better than any of
us may know Mr. Adams, if we will but take the trouble. Even the brief
extracts already given from his correspondence show us the boy; it
only concerns us to get them into the proper light for seeing them
accurately. If a lad of seven, nine, or eleven years of age should
write such solemn little effusions amid the surroundings and
influences of the present day, he would probably be set down justly
enough as either an offensive young prig or a prematurely developed
hypocrite. But the precocious Adams had only a little of the prig and
nothing of the hypocrite in his nature. Being the outcome of many
generations of simple, devout, intelligent Puritan ancestors, living
in a community which loved virtue and sought knowledge, all inherited
and all present influences combined to make him, as it may be put (p. 008)
in a single word, sensible. He had inevitably a mental boyhood and
youth, but morally he was never either a child or a lad; all his
leading traits of character were as strongly marked when he was seven
as when he was seventy, and at an age when most young people simply
win love or cause annoyance, he was preferring wisdom to mischief, and
actually in his earliest years was attracting a certain respect.
These few but bold and striking touches which paint the boy are
changed for an infinitely more elaborate and complex presentation from
the time when the Diary begins. Even as abridged in the printing, this
immense work ranks among the half-dozen longest diaries to be found in
any library, and it is unquestionably by far the most valuable.
Henceforth we are to travel along its broad route to the end; we shall
see in it both the great and the small among public men halting onward
in a way very different from that in which they march along the
stately pages of the historian, and we shall find many side-lights, by
no means colorless, thrown upon the persons and events of the
procession. The persistence, fulness, and faithfulness with which it
was kept throughout so busy a life are marvellous, but are also highly
characteristic of the most persevering and industrious of men. (p. 009)
That it has been preserved is cause not only for thankfulness but
for some surprise also. For if its contents had been known, it is
certain that all the public men of nearly two generations who figure
in it would have combined into one vast and irresistible conspiracy to
obtain and destroy it. There was always a superfluity of gall in the
diarist's ink. Sooner or later every man of any note in the United
States was mentioned in his pages, and there is scarcely one of them,
who, if he could have read what was said of him, would not have
preferred the ignominy of omission. As one turns the leaves he feels
as though he were walking through a graveyard of slaughtered
reputations wherein not many headstones show a few words of measured
commendation. It is only the greatness and goodness of Mr. Adams
himself which relieve the universal atmosphere of sadness far more
depressing than the melancholy which pervades the novels of George
Eliot. The reader who wishes to retain any comfortable degree of
belief in his fellow men will turn to the wall all the portraits in
the gallery except only the inimitable one of the writer himself. For
it would be altogether too discouraging to think that so wide an
experience of men as Mr. Adams enjoyed through his long, varied, and
active life must lead to such an unpleasant array of human faces (p. 010)
as those which are scattered along these twelve big octavos.
Fortunately at present we have to do with only one of these
likenesses, and that one we are able to admire while knowing also that
it is beyond question accurate. One after another every trait of Mr.
Adams comes out; we shall see that he was a man of a very high and
noble character veined with some very notable and disagreeable
blemishes; his aspirations were honorable, even the lowest of them
being more than simply respectable; he had an avowed ambition, but it
was of that pure kind which led him to render true and distinguished
services to his countrymen; he was not only a zealous patriot, but a
profound believer in the sound and practicable tenets of the liberal
political creed of the United States; he had one of the most honest
and independent natures that was ever given to man; personal integrity
of course goes without saying, but he had the rarer gift of an
elevated and rigid political honesty such as has been unfrequently
seen in any age or any nation; in times of severe trial this quality
was even cruelly tested, but we shall never see it fail; he was as
courageous as if he had been a fanatic; indeed, for a long part of his
life to maintain a single-handed fight in support of a despised or
unpopular opinion seemed his natural function and almost exclusive
calling; he was thoroughly conscientious and never knowingly did (p. 011)
wrong, nor even sought to persuade himself that wrong was right;
well read in literature and of wide and varied information in nearly
all matters of knowledge, he was more especially remarkable for his
acquirements in the domain of politics, where indeed they were vast
and ever growing; he had a clear and generally a cool head, and was
nearly always able to do full justice to himself and to his cause; he
had an indomitable will, unconquerable persistence, and infinite
laboriousness. Such were the qualities which made him a great
statesman; but unfortunately we must behold a hardly less striking
reverse to the picture, in the faults and shortcomings which made him
so unpopular in his lifetime that posterity is only just beginning to
forget the prejudices of his contemporaries and to render concerning
him the judgment which he deserves. Never did a man of pure life and
just purposes have fewer friends or more enemies than John Quincy
Adams. His nature, said to have been very affectionate in his family
relations, was in its aspect outside of that small circle singularly
cold and repellent. If he could ever have gathered even a small
personal following his character and abilities would have insured him
a brilliant and prolonged success; but, for a man of his calibre (p. 012)
and influence, we shall see him as one of the most lonely and desolate
of the great men of history; instinct led the public men of his time
to range themselves against him rather than with him, and we shall
find them fighting beside him only when irresistibly compelled to do
so by policy or strong convictions. As he had little sympathy with
those with whom he was brought in contact, so he was very uncharitable
in his judgment of them; and thus having really a low opinion of so
many of them he could indulge his vindictive rancor without stint; his
invective, always powerful, will sometimes startle us by its venom,
and we shall be pained to see him apt to make enemies for a good cause
by making them for himself.
This has been, perhaps, too long a lingering upon the threshold. But
Mr. Adams's career in public life stretched over so long a period that
to write a full historical memoir of him within the limited space of
this volume is impossible. All that can be attempted is to present a
sketch of the man with a few of his more prominent surroundings
against a very meagre and insufficient background of the history of
the times. So it may be permissible to begin with a general outline of
his figure, to be filled in, shaded, and colored as we proceed. At
best our task is much more difficult of satisfactory achievement (p. 013)
than an historical biography of the customary elaborate order.
During his second visit to Europe, our mature youngster--if the word
may be used of Mr. Adams even in his earliest years--began to see a
good deal of the world and to mingle in very distinguished society.
For a brief period he got a little schooling, first at Paris, next at
Amsterdam, and then at Leyden; altogether the amount was
insignificant, since he was not quite fourteen years old when he
actually found himself engaged in a diplomatic career. Francis Dana,
afterward Chief Justice of Massachusetts, was then accredited as an
envoy to Russia from the United States, and he took Mr. Adams with him
as his private secretary. Not much came of the mission, but it was a
valuable experience for a lad of his years. Upon his return he spent
six months in travel and then he rejoined his father in Paris, where
that gentleman was engaged with Franklin and John Jay in negotiating
the final treaty of peace between the revolted colonies and the mother
country. The boy "was at once enlisted in the service as an additional
secretary, and gave his help to the preparation of the papers
necessary to the completion of that instrument which dispersed all
possible doubt of the Independence of his Country."
On April 26, 1785, arrived the packet-ship Le Courier de L'Orient, (p. 014)
bringing a letter from Mr. Gerry containing news of the appointment of
John Adams as Minister to St. James's. This unforeseen occurrence made
it necessary for the younger Adams to determine his own career, which
apparently he was left to do for himself. He was indeed a singular
young man, not unworthy of such confidence! The glimpses which we get
of him during this stay abroad show him as the associate upon terms of
equality with grown men of marked ability and exercising important
functions. He preferred diplomacy to dissipation, statesmen to
mistresses, and in the midst of all the temptations of the gayest
capital in the world, the chariness with which he sprinkled his wild
oats amid the alluring gardens chiefly devoted to the culture of those
cereals might well have brought a blush to the cheeks of some among
his elders, at least if the tongue of slander wags not with gross
untruth concerning the colleagues of John Adams. But he was not in
Europe to amuse himself, though at an age when amusement is natural
and a tinge of sinfulness is so often pardoned; he was there with the
definite and persistent purpose of steady improvement and acquisition.
At his age most young men play the cards which a kind fortune puts
into their hands, with the reckless intent only of immediate gain, (p. 015)
but from the earliest moment when he began the game of life Adams
coolly and wisely husbanded every card which came into his hand, with
a steady view to probable future contingencies, and with the resolve
to win in the long run. So now the resolution which he took in the
present question illustrated the clearness of his mind and the
strength of his character. To go with his father to England would be
to enjoy a life precisely fitted to his natural and acquired tastes,
to mingle with the men who were making history, to be cognizant of the
weightiest of public affairs, to profit by all that the grandest city
in the world had to show. It was easy to be not only allured by the
prospect but also to be deceived by its apparent advantages. Adams,
however, had the sense and courage to turn his back on it, and to go
home to the meagre shores and small society of New England, there to
become a boy again, to enter Harvard College, and come under all its
at that time rigid and petty regulations. It almost seems a mistake,
but it was not. Already he was too ripe and too wise to blunder. He
himself gives us his characteristic and sufficient reasons:--
"Were I now to go with my father probably my immediate
satisfaction might be greater than it will be in returning (p. 016)
to America. After having been travelling for these seven years
almost and all over Europe, and having been in the world and among
company for three; to return to spend one or two years in the
pale of a college, subjected to all the rules which I have so long
been freed from; and afterwards not expect (however good an opinion
I may have of myself) to bring myself into notice under three or
four years more, if ever! It is really a prospect somewhat
discouraging for a youth of my ambition, (for I have ambition
though I hope its object is laudable). But still
'Oh! how wretched
Is that poor man, that hangs on Princes' favors,'
or on those of any body else. I am determined that so long as I
shall be able to get my own living in an honorable manner, I will
depend upon no one. My father has been so much taken up all his
lifetime with the interests of the public, that his own fortune
has suffered by it: so that his children will have to provide for
themselves, which I shall never be able to do if I loiter away my
precious time in Europe and shun going home until I am forced to
it. With an ordinary share of common sense, which I hope I enjoy,
at least in America I can live _independent_ and _free_; and
rather than live otherwise I would wish to die before the time
when I shall be left at my own discretion. I have before me a
striking example of the distressing and humiliating situation a
person is reduced to by adopting a different line of conduct, and
I am determined not to fall into the same error."
It is needless to comment upon such spirit and sense, or upon (p. 017)
such just appreciation of what was feasible, wise, and right for him,
as a New Englander whose surroundings and prospects were widely
different from those of the society about him. He must have been
strongly imbued by nature with the instincts of his birthplace to
have formed, after a seven years' absence at his impressible age, so
correct a judgment of the necessities and possibilities of his own
career in relationship to the people and ideas of his own country.
Home accordingly he came, and by assiduity prepared himself in a very
short time to enter the junior class at Harvard College, whence he was
graduated in high standing in 1787. From there he went to Newburyport,
then a thriving and active seaport enriched by the noble trade of
privateering in addition to more regular maritime business, and entered
as a law student the office of Theophilus Parsons, afterwards the
Chief Justice of Massachusetts. On July 15, 1790, being twenty-three
years old, he was admitted to practice. Immediately afterward he
established himself in Boston, where for a time he felt strangely
solitary. Clients of course did not besiege his doors in the first
year, and he appears to have waited rather stubbornly than cheerfully
for more active days. These came in good time, and during the (p. 018)
second, third, and fourth years, his business grew apace to encouraging
dimensions.
He was, however, doing other work than that of the law, and much more
important in its bearing upon his future career. He could not keep his
thoughts, nor indeed his hands, from public affairs. When, in 1791,
Thomas Paine produced the "Rights of Man," Thomas Jefferson acting as
midwife to usher the bantling before the people of the United States,
Adams's indignation was fired, and he published anonymously a series
of refuting papers over the signature of Publicola. These attracted
much attention, not only at home but also abroad, and were by many
attributed to John Adams. Two years later, during the excitement
aroused by the reception and subsequent outrageous behavior here of
the French minister, Genet, Mr. Adams again published in the Boston
"Centinel" some papers over the signature of Marcellus, discussing
with much ability the then new and perplexing question of the
neutrality which should be observed by this country in European wars.
These were followed by more, over the signature of Columbus, and
afterward by still more in the name of Barnevelt, all strongly
reprobating the course of the crazy-headed foreigner. The writer was
not permitted to remain long unknown. It is not certain, but it (p. 019)
is highly probable, that to these articles was due the nomination
which Mr. Adams received shortly afterward from President Washington,
as Minister Resident at the Hague. This nomination was sent in to the
Senate, May 29, 1794, and was unanimously confirmed on the following
day. It may be imagined that the change from the moderate practice of
his Boston law office to a European court, of which he so well knew
the charms, was not distasteful to him. There are passages in his
Diary which indicate that he had been chafing with irrepressible
impatience "in that state of useless and disgraceful insignificancy,"
to which, as it seemed to him, he was relegated, so that at the age of
twenty-five, when "many of the characters who were born for the
benefit of their fellow creatures, have rendered themselves conspicuous
among their contemporaries, ... I still find myself as obscure, as
unknown to the world, as the most indolent or the most stupid of human
beings." Entertaining such a restless ambition, he of course accepted
the proffered office, though not without some expression of unexplained
doubt. October 31, 1794, found him at the Hague, after a voyage of
considerable peril in a leaky ship, commanded by a blundering captain.
He was a young diplomat, indeed; it was on his twenty-seventh (p. 020)
birthday that he received his commission.
The minister made his advent upon a tumultuous scene. All Europe was
getting under arms in the long and desperate struggle with France.
Scarcely had he presented his credentials to the Stadtholder ere that
dignitary was obliged to flee before the conquering standards of the
French. Pichegru marched into the capital city of the Low Countries,
hung out the tri-color, and established the "Batavian Republic" as the
ally of France. The diplomatic representatives of most of the European
powers forthwith left, and Mr. Adams was strongly moved to do the same,
though for reasons different from those which actuated his compeers.
He was not, like them, placed in an unpleasant position by the new
condition of affairs, but on the contrary he was very cordially
treated by the French and their Dutch partisans, and was obliged to
fall back upon his native prudence to resist their compromising
overtures and dangerous friendship. Without giving offence he yet kept
clear of entanglements, and showed a degree of wisdom and skill which
many older and more experienced Americans failed to evince, either
abroad or at home, during these exciting years. But he appeared to be
left without occupation in the altered condition of affairs, and (p. 021)
therefore was considering the propriety of returning, when advices
from home induced him to stay. Washington especially wrote that he
must not think of retiring, and prophesied that he would soon be
"found at the head of the diplomatic corps, be the government
administered by whomsoever the people may choose." He remained,
therefore, at the Hague, a shrewd and close observer of the exciting
events occurring around him, industriously pursuing an extensive
course of study and reading, making useful acquaintances, acquiring
familiarity with foreign languages, with the usages of diplomacy and
the habits of distinguished society. He had little public business to
transact, it is true; but at least his time was well spent for his own
improvement.
An episode in his life at the Hague was his visit to England, where he
was directed to exchange ratifications of the treaty lately negotiated
by Mr. Jay. But a series of vexatious delays, apparently maliciously
contrived, detained him so long that upon his arrival he found this
specific task already accomplished by Mr. Deas. He was probably not
disappointed that his name thus escaped connection with engagements so
odious to a large part of the nation. He had, however, some further
business of an informal character to transact with Lord Grenville, (p. 022)
and in endeavoring to conduct it found himself rather awkwardly placed.
He was not minister to the Court of St. James, having been only
vaguely authorized to discuss certain arrangements in a tentative way,
without the power to enter into any definitive agreement. But the
English Cabinet strongly disliking Mr. Deas, who in the absence of Mr.
Pinckney represented for the time the United States, and much
preferring to negotiate with Mr. Adams, sought by many indirect and
artful subterfuges to thrust upon him the character of a regularly
accredited minister. He had much ado to avoid, without offence, the
assumption of functions to which he had no title, but which were with
designing courtesy forced upon him. His cool and moderate temper,
however, carried him successfully through the whole business, alike in
its social and its diplomatic aspect.
Another negotiation, of a private nature also, he brought to a
successful issue during these few months in London. He made the
acquaintance of Miss Louisa Catherine Johnson, daughter of Joshua
Johnson, then American Consul at London, and niece of that Governor
Johnson, of Maryland, who had signed the Declaration of Independence
and was afterwards placed on the bench of the Supreme Court of (p. 023)
the United States. To this lady he became engaged; and returning
not long afterward he was married to her on July 26, 1797. It was a
thoroughly happy and, for him, a life-long union.
President Washington, toward the close of his second term, transferred
Mr. Adams to the Court of Portugal. But before his departure thither
his destination was changed. Some degree of embarrassment was felt
about this time concerning his further continuance in public office,
by reason of his father's accession to the Presidency. He wrote to his
mother a manly and spirited letter, rebuking her for carelessly
dropping an expression indicative of a fear that he might look for
some favor at his father's hands. He could neither solicit nor expect
anything, he justly said, and he was pained that his mother should not
know him better than to entertain any apprehension of his feeling
otherwise. It was a perplexing position in which the two were placed.
It would be a great hardship to cut short the son's career because of
the success of the father, yet the reproach of nepotism could not be
lightly encountered, even with the backing of clear consciences.
Washington came kindly to the aid of his doubting successor, and in a
letter highly complimentary to Mr. John Quincy Adams strongly urged
that well-merited promotion ought not to be kept from him, (p. 024)
foretelling for him a distinguished future in the diplomatic service.
These representations prevailed; and the President's only action as
concerned his son consisted in changing his destination from Portugal
to Prussia, both missions being at that time of the same grade, though
that to Prussia was then established for the first time by the making
and confirming of this nomination.
To Berlin, accordingly, Mr. Adams proceeded in November, 1797, and had
the somewhat cruel experience of being "questioned at the gates by a
dapper lieutenant, who did not know, until one of his private soldiers
explained to him, who the United States of America were." Overcoming
this unusual obstacle to a ministerial advent, and succeeding, after
many months, in getting through all the introductory formalities, he
found not much more to be done at Berlin than there had been at the
Hague. But such useful work as was open to him he accomplished in the
shape of a treaty of amity and commerce between Prussia and the United
States. This having been duly ratified by both the powers, his further
stay seemed so useless that he wrote home suggesting his readiness to
return; and while awaiting a reply he travelled through some portions
of Europe which he had not before seen. His recall was one of the (p. 025)
last acts of his father's administration, made, says Mr. Seward,
"that Mr. Jefferson might have no embarrassment in that direction,"
but quite as probably dictated by a vindictive desire to show how wide
was the gulf of animosity which had opened between the family of the
disappointed ex-President and his triumphant rival.
Mr. Adams, immediately upon his arrival at home, prepared to return to
the practice of his profession. It was not altogether an agreeable
transition from an embassy at the courts of Europe to a law office in
Boston, with the necessity of furbishing up long disused knowledge,
and a second time patiently awaiting the influx of clients. But he
faced it with his stubborn temper and practical sense. The slender
promise which he was able to discern in the political outlook could
not fail to disappoint him, since his native predilections were
unquestionably and strongly in favor of a public career. During his
absence party animosities had been developing rapidly. The first great
party victory since the organization of the government had just been
won, after a very bitter struggle, by the Republicans or Democrats, as
they were then indifferently called, whose exuberant delight found its
full counterpart in the angry despondency of the Federalists. That
irascible old gentleman, the elder Adams, having experienced a (p. 026)
very Waterloo defeat in the contest for the Presidency, had ridden
away from the capital, actually in a wild rage, on the night of the 3d
of March, 1801, to avoid the humiliating pageant of Mr. Jefferson's
inauguration. Yet far more fierce than this natural party warfare was
the internal dissension which rent the Federal party in twain. Those
cracks upon the surface and subterraneous rumblings, which the
experienced observer could for some time have noted, had opened with
terrible uproar into a gaping chasm, when John Adams, still in the
Presidency, suddenly announced his determination to send a mission to
France at a crisis when nearly all his party were looking for war.
Perhaps this step was, as his admirers claim, an act of pure and
disinterested statesmanship. Certainly its result was fortunate for
the country at large. But for John Adams it was ruinous. At the moment
when he made the bold move, he doubtless expected to be followed by
his party. Extreme was his disappointment and boundless his wrath,
when he found that he had at his back only a fraction, not improbably
less than half, of that party. He learned with infinite chagrin that
he had only a divided empire with a private individual; that it was
not safe for him, the President of the United States, to originate
any important measure without first consulting a lawyer quietly (p. 027)
engaged in the practice of his profession in New York; that, in short,
at least a moiety, in which were to be found the most intelligent
members, of the great Federal party, when in search of guidance,
turned their faces toward Alexander Hamilton rather than toward John
Adams. These Hamiltonians by no means relished the French mission, so
that from this time forth a schism of intense bitterness kept the
Federal party asunder, and John Adams hated Alexander Hamilton with a
vigor not surpassed in the annals of human antipathies. His rage was
not assuaged by the conduct of this dreaded foe in the presidential
campaign; and the defeated candidate always preferred to charge his
failure to Hamilton's machinations rather than to the real will of the
people. This, however, was unfair; it was perfectly obvious that a
majority of the nation had embraced Jeffersonian tenets, and that
Federalism was moribund.
To this condition of affairs John Quincy Adams returned. Fortunately
he had been compelled to bear no part in the embroilments of the past,
and his sagacity must have led him, while listening with filial
sympathy to the interpretations placed upon events by his incensed
parent, yet to make liberal allowance for the distorting effects (p. 028)
of the old gentleman's rage. Still it was in the main only natural for
him to regard himself as a Federalist of the Adams faction. His
proclivities had always been with that party. In Massachusetts the
educated and well-to-do classes were almost unanimously of that way of
thinking. The select coterie of gentlemen in the State, who in those
times bore an active and influential part in politics, were nearly all
Hamiltonians, but the adherents of President Adams were numerically
strong. Nor was the younger Adams himself long left without his
private grievance against Mr. Jefferson, who promptly used the
authority vested in him by a new statute to remove Mr. Adams from the
position of commissioner in bankruptcy, to which, at the time of his
resuming business, he had been appointed by the judge of the district
court. Long afterward Jefferson sought to escape the odium of this
apparently malicious and, for those days, unusual action, by a very
Jeffersonian explanation, tolerably satisfactory to those persons who
believed it.
On April 5, 1802, Mr. Adams was chosen by the Federalists of Boston to
represent them in the State Senate. The office was at that time still
sought by men of the best ability and position, and though it was
hardly a step upward on the political ladder for one who had
represented the nation in foreign parts for eight years, yet (p. 029)
Mr. Adams was well content to accept it. At least it reopened the door
of political life, and moreover one of his steadfast maxims was never
to refuse any function which the people sought to impose upon him. It
is worth noting, for its bearing upon controversies soon to be
encountered in this narrative, that forty-eight hours had not elapsed
after Mr. Adams had taken his seat before he ventured upon a display
of independence which caused much irritation to his Federalist
associates. He had the hardihood to propose that the Federalist
majority in the legislature should permit the Republican minority to
enjoy a proportional representation in the council. "It was the first
act of my legislative life," he wrote many years afterward, "and it
marked the principle by which my whole public life has been governed
from that day to this. My proposal was unsuccessful, and perhaps it
forfeited whatever confidence might have been otherwise bestowed upon
me as a party follower." Indeed, all his life long Mr. Adams was never
submissive to the party whip, but voted upon every question precisely
according to his opinion of its merits, without the slightest regard
to the political company in which for the time being he might find
himself. A compeer of his in the United States Senate once said (p. 030)
of him, that he regarded every public measure which came up as he
would a proposition in Euclid, abstracted from any party considerations.
These frequent derelictions of his were at first forgiven with a
magnanimity really very creditable, so long as it lasted, especially
to the Hamiltonians in the Federal party; and so liberal was this
forbearance that when in February, 1803, the legislature had to elect
a Senator to the United States Senate, he was chosen upon the fourth
ballot by 86 votes out of 171. This was the more gratifying to him and
the more handsome on the part of the anti-Adams men in the party,
because the place was eagerly sought by Timothy Pickering, an old man
who had strong claims growing out of an almost life-long and very
efficient service in their ranks, and who was moreover a most stanch
adherent of General Hamilton.
So in October, 1803, we find Mr. Adams on his way to Washington, the
raw and unattractive village which then constituted the national
capital, wherein there was not, as the pious New Englander instantly
noted, a church of any denomination; but those who were religiously
disposed were obliged to attend services "usually performed on Sundays
at the Treasury Office and at the Capitol." With what anticipations
Mr. Adams's mind was filled during his journey to this embryotic (p. 031)
city his Diary does not tell; but if they were in any degree cheerful
or sanguine they were destined to cruel disappointment. He was now
probably to appreciate for the first time the fierce vigor of the
hostility which his father had excited. In Massachusetts social
connections and friendships probably mitigated the open display of
rancor to which in Washington full sway was given. It was not only the
Republican majority who showed feelings which in them were at least
fair if they were strong, but the Federal minority were maliciously
pleased to find in the son of the ill-starred John Adams a victim on
whom to vent that spleen and abuse which were so provokingly
ineffective against the solid working majority of their opponents in
Congress. The Republicans trampled upon the Federalists, and the
Federalists trampled on John Quincy Adams. He spoke seldom, and
certainly did not weary the Senators, yet whenever he rose to his feet
he was sure of a cold, too often almost an insulting, reception. By no
chance or possibility could anything which he said or suggested please
his prejudiced auditors. The worst augury for any measure was his
support; any motion which he made was sure to be voted down, though
not unfrequently substantially the same matter being afterward moved
by somebody else would be readily carried. That cordiality, (p. 032)
assistance, and sense of fellowship which Senators from the same State
customarily expect and obtain from each other could not be enjoyed by
him. For shortly after his arrival in Washington, Mr. Pickering had
been chosen to fill a vacancy in the other Massachusetts senatorship,
and appeared upon the scene as a most unwelcome colleague. For a time,
indeed, an outward semblance of political comradeship was maintained
between them, but it would have been folly for an Adams to put faith
in a Pickering, and perhaps _vice versa_. This position of his, as the
unpopular member of an unpopular minority, could not be misunderstood,
and many allusions to it occur in his Diary. One day he notes a motion
rejected; another day, that he has "nothing to do but to make
fruitless opposition;" he constantly recites that he has voted with a
small minority, and at least once he himself composed the whole of
that minority; soon after his arrival he says that an amendment
proposed by him "will certainly not pass; and, indeed, I have already
seen enough to ascertain that no amendments of my proposing will
obtain in the Senate as now filled;" again, "I presented my three
resolutions, which raised a storm as violent as I expected;" and on
the same day he writes, "I have no doubt of incurring much censure
and obloquy for this measure;" a day or two later he speaks of (p. 033)
certain persons "who hate me rather more than they love any
principle;" when he expressed an opinion in favor of ratifying a
treaty with the Creeks, he remarks quite philosophically, that he
believes it "surprised almost every member of the Senate, and
dissatisfied almost all;" when he wanted a committee raised he did not
move it himself, but suggested the idea to another Senator, for "I
knew that if I moved it a spirit of jealousy would immediately be
raised against doing anything." Writing once of some resolutions which
he intended to propose, he says that they are "another feather against
a whirlwind. A desperate and fearful cause in which I have embarked,
but I must pursue it or feel myself either a coward or a traitor."
Another time we find a committee, of which he was a member, making its
report when he had not even been notified of its meeting.
It would be idle to suppose that any man could be sufficiently callous
not to feel keenly such treatment. Mr. Adams was far from callous and
he felt it deeply. But he was not crushed or discouraged by it, as
weaker spirits would have been, nor betrayed into any acts of foolish
anger which must have recoiled upon himself. In him warm feelings were
found in singular combination with a cool head. An unyielding (p. 034)
temper and an obstinate courage, an invincible confidence in his own
judgment, and a stern conscientiousness carried him through these
earlier years of severe trial as they had afterwards to carry him
through many more. "The qualities of mind most peculiarly called for,"
he reflects in the Diary, "are firmness, perseverance, patience,
coolness, and forbearance. The prospect is not promising; yet the part
to act may be as honorably performed as if success could attend it."
He understood the situation perfectly and met it with a better skill
than that of the veteran politician. By a long and tedious but sure
process he forced his way to steadily increasing influence, and by the
close of his fourth year we find him taking a part in the business of
the Senate which may be fairly called prominent and important. He was
conquering success.
But if Mr. Adams's unpopularity was partly due to the fact that he was
the son of his father, it was also largely attributable not only to
his unconciliatory manners but to more substantial habits of mind and
character. It is probably impossible for any public man, really
independent in his political action, to lead a very comfortable life
amid the struggles of party. Under the disadvantages involved in this
habit Mr. Adams labored to a remarkable degree. Since parties (p. 035)
were first organized in this Republic no American statesman has ever
approached him in persistent freedom of thought, speech, and action.
He was regarded as a Federalist, but his Federalism was subject to
many modifications; the members of that party never were sure of his
adherence, and felt bound to him by no very strong ties of political
fellowship. Towards the close of his senatorial term he recorded, in
reminiscence, that he had more often voted with the administration
than with the opposition.
The first matter of importance concerning which he was obliged to act
was the acquisition of Louisiana and its admission as a state of the
Union. The Federalists were bitterly opposed to this measure,
regarding it as an undue strengthening of the South and of the slavery
influence, to the destruction of the fair balance of power between the
two great sections of the country. It was not then the moral aspect of
the slavery element which stirred the northern temper, but only the
antagonism of interests between the commercial cities of the North and
the agricultural communities of the South. In the discussions and
votes which took place in this business Mr. Adams was in favor of the
purchase, but denied with much emphasis the constitutionality of the
process by which the purchased territory was brought into the (p. 036)
fellowship of States. This imperfect allegiance to the party gave more
offence than satisfaction, and he found himself soundly berated in
leading Federalist newspapers in New England, and angrily threatened
with expulsion from the party. But in the famous impeachment of Judge
Chase, which aroused very strong feelings, Mr. Adams was fortunately
able to vote for acquittal. He regarded this measure, as well as the
impeachment of Judge Pickering at the preceding session, as parts of
an elaborate scheme on the part of the President for degrading the
national judiciary and rendering it subservient to the legislative
branch of the government. So many, however, even of Mr. Jefferson's
stanch adherents revolted against his requisitions on this occasion,
and he himself so far lost heart before the final vote was taken, that
several Republicans voted with the Federalists, and Mr. Adams could
hardly claim much credit with his party for standing by them in this
emergency.
It takes a long while for such a man to secure respect, and great
ability for him ever to achieve influence. In time, however, Mr. Adams
saw gratifying indications that he was acquiring both, and in
February, 1806, we find him writing:--
"This is the third session I have sat in Congress. I came in (p. 037)
as a member of a very small minority, and during the two former
sessions almost uniformly avoided to take a lead; any other course
would have been dishonest or ridiculous. On the very few and
unimportant objects which I did undertake, I met at first with
universal opposition. The last session my influence rose a little,
at the present it has hitherto been apparently rising."
He was so far a cool and clear-headed judge, even in his own case,
that this encouraging estimate may be accepted as correct upon his
sole authority without other evidence. But the fair prospect was
overcast almost in its dawning, and a period of supreme trial and of
apparently irretrievable ruin was at hand.
Topics were coming forward for discussion concerning which no American
could be indifferent, and no man of Mr. Adams's spirit could be silent.
The policy of Great Britain towards this country, and the manner in
which it was to be met, stirred profound feelings and opened such
fierce dissensions as it is now difficult to appreciate. For a brief
time Mr. Adams was to be a prominent actor before the people. It is
fortunately needless to repeat, as it must ever be painful to remember,
the familiar and too humiliating tale of the part which France and
England were permitted for so many years to play in our national
politics, when our parties were not divided upon American (p. 038)
questions, but wholly by their sympathies with one or other of these
contending European powers. Under Washington the English party had,
with infinite difficulty, been able to prevent their adversaries from
fairly enlisting the United States as active partisans of France, in
spite of the fact that most insulting treatment was received from that
country. Under John Adams the same so-called British faction had been
baulked in their hope of precipitating a war with the French. Now in
Mr. Jefferson's second administration, the French party having won the
ascendant, the new phase of the same long struggle presented the
question, whether or not we should be drawn into a war with Great
Britain. Grave as must have been the disasters of such a war in 1806,
grave as they were when the war actually came six years later, yet it
is impossible to recall the provocations which were inflicted upon us
without almost regretting that prudence was not cast to the winds and
any woes encountered in preference to unresisting submission to such
insolent outrages. Our gorge rises at the narration three quarters of
a century after the acts were done.
Mr. Adams took his position early and boldly. In February, 1806, he
introduced into the Senate certain resolutions strongly condemnatory
of the right, claimed and vigorously exercised by the British, (p. 039)
of seizing neutral vessels employed in conducting with the enemies of
Great Britain any trade which had been customarily prohibited by that
enemy in time of peace. This doctrine was designed to shut out
American merchants from certain privileges in trading with French
colonies, which had been accorded only since France had become
involved in war with Great Britain. The principle was utterly illegal
and extremely injurious. Mr. Adams, in his first resolution,
stigmatized it "as an unprovoked aggression upon the property of the
citizens of these United States, a violation of their neutral rights,
and an encroachment upon their national independence." By his second
resolution, the President was requested to demand and insist upon the
restoration of property seized under this pretext, and upon
indemnification for property already confiscated. By a rare good
fortune, Mr. Adams had the pleasure of seeing his propositions
carried, only slightly modified by the omission of the words "to
insist." But they were carried, of course, by Republican votes, and
they by no means advanced their mover in the favor of the Federalist
party. Strange as it may seem, that party, of which many of the
foremost supporters were engaged in the very commerce which Great
Britain aimed to suppress and destroy, seemed not to be so much (p. 040)
incensed against her as against their own government. The theory
of the party was, substantially, that England had been driven into
these measures by the friendly tone of our government towards France,
and by her own stringent and overruling necessities. The cure was not
to be sought in resistance, not even in indignation and remonstrance
addressed to that power, but rather in cementing an alliance with her,
and even, if need should be, in taking active part in her holy cause.
The feeling seemed to be that we merited the chastisement because we
had not allied ourselves with the chastiser. These singular notions of
the Federalists, however, were by no means the notions of Mr. John
Quincy Adams, as we shall soon see.
On April 18, 1806, the Non-importation Act received the approval of
the President. It was the first measure indicative of resentment or
retaliation which was taken by our government. When it was upon its
passage it encountered the vigorous resistance of the Federalists, but
received the support of Mr. Adams. On May 16, 1806, the British
government made another long stride in the course of lawless oppression
of neutrals, which phrase, as commerce then was, signified little else
than Americans. A proclamation was issued declaring the whole (p. 041)
coast of the European continent, from Brest to the mouth of the Elbe,
to be under blockade. In fact, of course, the coast was not blockaded,
and the proclamation was a falsehood, an unjustifiable effort to make
words do the work of war-ships. The doctrine which it was thus
endeavored to establish had never been admitted into international
law, has ever since been repudiated by universal consent of all nations,
and is intrinsically preposterous. The British, however, designed to
make it effective, and set to work in earnest to confiscate all
vessels and cargoes captured on their way from any neutral nation to
any port within the proscribed district. On November 21, next following,
Napoleon retaliated by the Berlin decree, so called, declaring the
entire British Isles to be under blockade, and forbidding any vessel
which had been in any English port after publication of his decree to
enter any port in the dominions under his control. In January, 1807,
England made the next move by an order, likewise in contravention of
international law, forbidding to neutrals all commerce between ports
of the enemies of Great Britain. On November 11, 1807, the famous
British Order in Council was issued, declaring neutral vessels and
cargoes bound to any port or colony of any country with which (p. 042)
England was then at war, and which was closed to English ships, to be
liable to capture and confiscation. A few days later, November 25,
1807, another Order established a rate of duties to be paid in England
upon all neutral merchandise which should be permitted to be carried
in neutral bottoms to countries at war with that power. December 17,
1807, Napoleon retorted by the Milan decree, which declared
denationalized and subject to capture and condemnation every vessel,
to whatsoever nation belonging, which should have submitted to search
by an English ship, or should be on a voyage to England, or should
have paid any tax to the English government. All these regulations,
though purporting to be aimed at neutrals generally, in fact bore
almost exclusively upon the United States, who alone were undertaking
to conduct any neutral commerce worthy of mention. As Mr. Adams
afterwards remarked, the effect of these illegal proclamations and
unjustifiable novel doctrines "placed the commerce and shipping of the
United States, with regard to all Europe and European colonies (Sweden
alone excepted), in nearly the same state as it would have been, if,
on that same 11th of November, England and France had both declared
war against the United States." The merchants of this country might as
well have burned their ships as have submitted to these decrees. (p. 043)
All this while the impressment of American seamen by British ships of
war was being vigorously prosecuted. This is one of those outrages so
long ago laid away among the mouldering tombs in the historical
graveyard that few persons now appreciate its enormity, or the extent
to which it was carried. Those who will be at the pains to ascertain
the truth in the matter will feel that the bloodiest, most costly, and
most disastrous war would have been better than tame endurance of
treatment so brutal and unjustifiable that it finds no parallel even
in the long and dark list of wrongs which Great Britain has been wont
to inflict upon all the weaker or the uncivilized peoples with whom
she has been brought or has gratuitously forced herself into unwelcome
contact. It was not an occasional act of high-handed arrogance that
was done; there were not only a few unfortunate victims, of whom a
large proportion might be of unascertained nationality. It was an
organized system worked upon a very large scale. Every American seaman
felt it necessary to have a certificate of citizenship, accompanied by
a description of his features and of all the marks upon his person, as
Mr. Adams said, "like the advertisement for a runaway negro slave."
Nor was even this protection by any means sure to be always (p. 044)
efficient. The number of undoubted American citizens who were seized
rose in a few years actually to many thousands. They were often taken
without so much as a false pretence to right; but with the acknowledgment
that they were Americans, they were seized upon the plea of a necessity
for their services in the British ship. Some American vessels were
left so denuded of seamen that they were lost at sea for want of hands
to man them; the destruction of lives as well as property,
unquestionably thus caused, was immense. When after the lapse of a
long time and of infinite negotiation the American citizenship of some
individual was clearly shown, still the chances of his return were
small; some false and ignoble subterfuge was resorted to; he was not
to be found; the name did not occur on the rolls of the navy; he had
died, or been discharged, or had deserted, or had been shot. The more
illegal the act committed by any British officer the more sure he was
of reward, till it seemed that the impressment of American citizens
was an even surer road to promotion than valor in an engagement with
the enemy. Such were the substantial wrongs inflicted by Great
Britain; nor were any pains taken to cloak their character; on the
contrary, they were done with more than British insolence and
offensiveness, and were accompanied with insults which alone (p. 045)
constituted sufficient provocation to war. To all this, for a long
time, nothing but empty and utterly futile protests were opposed by
this country. The affair of the Chesapeake, indeed, threatened for a
brief moment to bring things to a crisis. That vessel, an American
frigate, commanded by Commodore Barron, sailed on June 22, 1807, from
Hampton Roads. The Leopard, a British fifty-gun ship, followed her,
and before she was out of sight of land, hailed her and demanded the
delivery of four men, of whom three at least were surely native
Americans. Barron refused the demand, though his ship was wholly
unprepared for action. Thereupon the Englishman opened his broadsides,
killed three men and wounded sixteen, boarded the Chesapeake and took
off the four sailors. They were carried to Halifax and tried by
court-martial for desertion: one of them was hanged; one died in
confinement, and five years elapsed before the other two were returned
to the Chesapeake in Boston harbor. This wound was sufficiently deep
to arouse a real spirit of resentment and revenge, and England went so
far as to dispatch Mr. Rose to this country upon a pretended mission
of peace, though the fraudulent character of his errand was sufficiently
indicated by the fact that within a few hours after his departure the
first of the above named Orders in Council was issued but had not (p. 046)
been communicated to him. As Mr. Adams indignantly said, "the same
penful of ink which signed his instructions might have been used also
to sign these illegal orders." Admiral Berkeley, the commander of the
Leopard, received the punishment which he might justly have expected
if precedent was to count for anything in the naval service of Great
Britain,--he was promoted.
It is hardly worth while to endeavor to measure the comparative
wrongfulness of the conduct of England and of France. The behavior of
each was utterly unjustifiable; though England by committing the first
extreme breach of international law gave to France the excuse of
retaliation. There was, however, vast difference in the practical
effect of the British and French decrees. The former wrought serious
injury, falling little short of total destruction, to American
shipping and commerce; the latter were only in a much less degree
hurtful. The immense naval power of England and the channels in which
our trade naturally flowed combined to make her destructive capacity
as towards us very great. It was the outrages inflicted by her which
brought the merchants of the United States face to face with ruin;
they suffered not very greatly at the hands of Napoleon. Neither could
the villainous process of impressment be conducted by Frenchmen. (p. 047)
France gave us cause for war, but England seemed resolved to drive us
into it.
As British aggressions grew steadily and rapidly more intolerable, Mr.
Adams found himself straining farther and farther away from those
Federalist moorings at which, it must be confessed, he had long swung
very precariously. The constituency which he represented was indeed in
a quandary so embarrassing as hardly to be capable of maintaining any
consistent policy. The New England of that day was a trading
community, of which the industry and capital were almost exclusively
centred in ship-owning and commerce. The merchants, almost to a man,
had long been the most Anglican of Federalists in their political
sympathies. Now they found themselves suffering utterly ruinous
treatment at the hands of those whom they had loved overmuch. They
were being ruthlessly destroyed by their friends, to whom they had
been, so to speak, almost disloyally loyal. They saw their business
annihilated, their property seized, and yet could not give utterance
to resentment, or counsel resistance, without such a humiliating
devouring of all their own principles and sentiments as they could by
no possibility bring themselves to endure. There was but one road open
to them, and that was the ignoble one of casting themselves wholly (p. 048)
into the arms of England, of rewarding her blows with caresses, of
submitting to be fairly scourged into a servile alliance with her. It
is not surprising that the independent temper of Mr. Adams revolted at
the position which his party seemed not reluctant to assume at this
juncture. Yet not very much better seemed for a time the policy of the
administration. Jefferson was far from being a man for troubled
seasons, which called for high spirit and executive energy. His
flotillas of gunboats and like idle and silly fantasies only excited
Mr. Adams's disgust. In fact, there was upon all sides a strong dread
of a war with England, not always openly expressed, but now perfectly
visible, arising with some from regard for that country, in others
prompted by fear of her power. Alone among public men Mr. Adams, while
earnestly hoping to escape war, was not willing to seek that escape by
unlimited weakness and unbounded submission to lawless injury.