Effect of the Orders in Council on American trade, A.D.
1810—Complaints of the Americans against England—Policy of
Napoleon towards neutrals—Non-intercourse Act—Secret terms with
America—Partiality of the United States towards France—Contentions
at home respecting the Orders in Council—Declaration of
war with America—Motives of the Americans—England revokes
her Orders in Council—Condemnation of the conduct of the
United States—Impressment of American seamen—Fraudulent
certificates—Incidents of the system—War with America—Necessity
of relaxing the Navigation Laws during war—High duties on
cotton—Great European Alliance—Napoleon returns to Paris—Germans
advance to the Rhine—Treaty of Chaumont—The Allies enter Paris—End
of the war by the Treaty of Paris, 1814—Napoleon’s escape from
Elba—His landing in France and advance on Paris—British troops
despatched to Belgium—Subsidies to European powers—Fouché—Last
campaign of Napoleon and defeat at Waterloo—Reflections.
[Sidenote: Effect of the Orders in Council on American trade, A.D.
1810.]
[Sidenote: Complaints of the Americans against England.]
Although the Orders in Council asserted the purpose which England had
in view at the time they were issued, these commercial retaliatory
measures can only be justified on the ground of extreme necessity.
Desperate measures on the part of the enemy were then met by measures
as desperate on the part of Great Britain. She would, if she had dared,
been glad to have dispensed with them, for though they thwarted the
designs of Napoleon and impoverished his people, they injured her
own commercial pursuits; while their effect on her relations with the
United States of America was of the most irritating and unpleasant
character. When they came into full force, the English export trade
with that country, previously valued at twelve millions sterling per
annum, ostensibly fell to five and a quarter millions, although the
total aggregate exports experienced no such corresponding diminution,
thereby proving that the Americans had absorbed, as the greatest
maritime neutrals, the largest share of the carrying trade. But when
the English Orders in Council, issued in consequence of Napoleon’s
decrees, struck a blow at this trade, the Americans, seeing so
lucrative a branch of their commerce withdrawn from their hands, set up
an indignant appeal, and, though tamely acquiescing in Napoleon’s still
harsher measures, declaimed furiously against the English government,
when it exhibited a resolute determination to prevent the carrying
trade of the world being taken from English shipowners.
The most important of the British Orders in Council, as we have seen,
bore date 11th November, 1807, the Milan Decree following on the 17th
of December of the same year; but the Americans, having been apprised
of the intentions of the English government, adopted precautionary
measures by imposing a general embargo from and after the 22nd of
December, 1807.[289] Nothing can prove more conclusively how unpopular
this step was among the shipowners of the United States than the fact
that every vessel in the foreign trade which heard the intelligence
kept out of their ports, preferring to run the risk of capture rather
than lose their share of the enormous profits they were making in their
neutral bottoms, by a clandestine trade with France and England. The
American government clearly foresaw that the extreme measures adopted
by both belligerents would annihilate their foreign carrying trade,
and restore to England that power and its accompanying commercial
advantages, which her maritime superiority had already conferred on her
in the great contest in which she was engaged.
[Sidenote: Policy of Napoleon towards neutrals.]
[Sidenote: Non-intercourse Act.]
One of the objects of Napoleon by his decrees was evidently to prey
upon the known susceptibility of the Americans, and to urge them,
on the pretence of the independence of their flag, to resist the
executive authority exercised by England, whether with regard to the
right of neutrals, the right of search, or the impressment of American
seamen, all fruitful sources of complaint on the part of the American
government. Nor had he, indeed, unwilling listeners, for the Americans,
in their diplomatic proceedings, exhibited an unequivocal tendency
to favour Napoleon. Although statements were made in Parliament that
the Americans would have joined England in the war against France if
she would have consented to rescind the Orders in Council as regarded
their shipping, all these allegations were unfortunately at variance
with the truth, and were, in fact, only put forward by interested
English merchants who could no longer avail themselves of American
bottoms to carry on their trade. Finding their embargo inoperative, as
American vessels preferred an adventurous commerce and large profits
to a ruinous inaction, the United States government removed it; but
as the European governments were inflexible in their policy, they
immediately afterwards passed the Act of Non-Intercourse,[290] by which
all commercial interchanges with France and England were prohibited;
the result being the Rambouillet Decree, issued by Napoleon on the 23rd
of March, 1810, which ordered that all American vessels and cargoes
arriving in any of the ports of France or of countries occupied by
French troops, should be seized and condemned.
[Sidenote: Secret terms with America.]
On the 1st of May, 1810, Congress passed a further Act, excluding
British and French armed vessels from the waters of the United States,
but providing that if either of these nations should modify its edicts
by the 3rd of March, 1811, of which fact the President was to give
notice by proclamation, and the other did not, within three months
after, pursue a similar course, commercial intercourse with the first
might be renewed, but not with the second. It, however, appears that
while Napoleon was intriguing with the American minister in Paris to
concert hostile anti-commercial measures against England, he had issued
on the 5th of August, 1810, the Trianon Decree,[291] ordering the sale
of all American vessels seized, and the proceeds to be paid into the
treasury. In spite, however, of this perfidy, the United States came
to an understanding with Napoleon, that they would, as he desired,
“cause their flag to be respected,” that is, break with England,
provided their vessels were released, and provision made for their
enjoying the monopoly of the continental carrying trade.
[Sidenote: Partiality of the United States towards France.]
[Sidenote: Contentions at home respecting the Orders in Council.]
Accordingly, on the 2nd of November, 1810, the President issued his
proclamation declaring the French decrees revoked, thus renewing
intercourse between the United States and France; and on the 10th of
the same month another proclamation appeared, interdicting commercial
intercourse with England.[292] These antagonistic demonstrations were
accompanied with a vast amount of popular declamation against England,
and as Napoleon was then rising to the height of his ambitious career,
the people of the United States were, it is to be feared, ready to
be his acquiescing instruments in assisting to rivet the chains of
the nations of Europe, provided they were secured the monopoly of the
carrying trade, to the displacement of English shipping. But whatever
motives may have governed their conduct, whether mere commercial
interest, or a more broad national policy, it is beyond controversy
that in the negotiations and language held throughout there was a
marked partiality towards France and her ruler, and a corresponding
coldness and animosity against England. This disposition of the United
States to display subserviency to the French emperor, and their hostile
temper towards Great Britain, daily increased, but it was not until
1812 that the long smouldering ashes of suppressed enmity broke out
into open hostilities.[293] In England the contentions which arose
respecting the Orders in Council shook the commercial peace of the
country. Every man espoused the side with which his own peculiar
interests were interwoven, claiming, however, to be the infallible
guide upon the subject to all his countrymen. Mr. Alexander Baring,
the second son of Sir Francis Baring, who had passed many years in the
United States, where he and his brother Henry had formed matrimonial
alliances, published a pamphlet[294] which greatly favoured the
American view of the subject, and exhibited a feeling of the greatest
alarm lest “as past errors had brought us to the brink of a precipice,
the next might throw us over it.”[295]
[Sidenote: Declaration of war with America.]
Although these Orders in Council were loudly condemned by the Whigs,
who made them their leading stalking-horse, whereby to assail the
ministry, the Tories and the government were inflexible, and chose
rather to risk a rupture with the United States than to relax their
policy. They were still of opinion that the infallible consequences
of repealing these orders and of giving up the licence trade would be
to open the ports of France, and to transfer to the United States the
commerce of the world. This determination at last brought about the
long pending rupture, but other reasons were not wanting to hasten this
lamentable event.
[Sidenote: Motives of the Americans.]
The Americans, seeing the vast preparations made by Napoleon for the
subjugation of Russia, had evidently calculated that he would succeed,
and that, the continental system being established, they, holding a
monopoly of the carrying trade, could, in league with France, humble
England, their great maritime and commercial rival. Consequently their
government declared war on the 18th of May, 1812, and General Hall
immediately invaded Canada. But the English declaration of war was not
issued until the 11th of October, 1812,[296] about the very moment
when Napoleon commenced his fatal retreat from Moscow, which, however,
was not then known. Mr. Barlow, the American minister at Paris, had
been invited to proceed to Wilna in the rear of the Imperial army; and
there can be no doubt that Napoleon, in the event of success, would
have dictated the terms of the treaty with the United States which
Mr. Barlow had hitherto in vain endeavoured to secure. Napoleon, as
everybody knows, failed utterly in his Russian campaign, Barlow died
in Poland, and the Americans found themselves at war with England on
grounds which not one of their historians ever ventures to defend, and
which their statesmen of to-day would heartily repudiate, if war on
such shallow and selfish pretences was again attempted.
As it was not until the _11th of May, 1812_, that Mr. Barlow received
“FOR THE FIRST TIME”[297] a copy of the decree of the _28th of April,
1811_, by which the Berlin and Milan Decrees were revoked, it is clear
that this fact affords a complete justification for the course pursued
by the English government; the United States choosing to rely and to
insist upon the verbal assurances of Napoleon that the decrees were
revoked, when at the very moment new seizures and confiscations were
being made by his orders.[298] It was not until the 21st of May that
the American minister in London produced a copy, or what purported to
be a copy, of an instrument which professed to bear date the 28th of
April, 1811. This decree, by which the American vessels were protected,
recites “that whereas Congress has established a non-intercourse with
England, and excluded her vessels, merchandise, and those of her
colonies from entering the ports of the United States, therefore we
decree,” etc. It is self-evident that the moment relations were renewed
between the United States and England, Napoleon reserved to himself the
right to take ulterior measures. But his object was now effected, war
had been declared, and, as the French said triumphantly, “England had a
new enemy.”
[Sidenote: England revokes her Orders in Council.]
The English ministers, although they considered the document produced
most unsatisfactory, decided on revoking the Orders in Council,
conditional upon the Non-intercourse Act being also rescinded; but, the
Americans having pre-determined on war, frustrated the pacific measures
which had previously been taken by England. To crown the unwarrantable
conduct of the American government, it afterwards was shown that when
they proclaimed the declaration of war, and the extreme measure of
issuing “letters of marque,” they were actually in possession of the
report of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs of the 12th of March,
1812, promulgating anew the Berlin and Milan Decrees, as fundamental
laws of the French empire, under the false pretext that their monstrous
principles were found in the treaty of Utrecht, and were therefore
binding upon all nations.[299] Indeed the whole intrigue seems to
have been a masterpiece of perfidy, and their reasons for war were so
untenable that the Americans, in their speeches and diatribes, were
compelled to make the most of the English impressment system and the
original blockade of 1806, which they denounced as a paper blockade,
perhaps conscious that if they had made a treaty with Napoleon, the
blockade of the French coasts might have proved a fresh obstacle to
their monopolizing the whole trade of the continent, under the colour
of a neutral flag.
[Sidenote: Condemnation of the conduct of the United States.]
An impartial perusal of all the documents relating to this rupture
makes the inimical disposition of the government of the United States,
their complete subserviency to the ruler of France, and their hostile
temper against Great Britain conspicuous in every page of their
official correspondence with the French government. England might well
say that she looked for a different result. From their common origin,
from their common interest, from their professed principles of freedom
and independence, the United States was the last power in which Great
Britain could have expected to find a willing instrument and abettor of
French tyranny and despotism. The Americans, however, seem to have been
blinded by a short-sighted view of European affairs, not anticipating
that a few months would produce a complete revolution in the whole
aspect of continental affairs, and that the power of Napoleon would in
so short a period have passed away.
[Sidenote: Impressment of American seamen.]
When the English Parliament re-assembled in February 1813, the House
of Commons unanimously carried the address approving the war with the
United States, on the ground of maintaining the maritime rights of
Great Britain. The Americans had industriously circulated a report
that the British had impressed fifteen thousand to twenty thousand
American seamen. The absurdity of such a statement must be apparent to
every reflecting person; the report, however, was not addressed to such
parties, but to the demagogues of both countries, who alone desired
war. By the Admiralty records it was plainly proved that out of one
hundred and forty-five thousand seamen then employed in the British
navy, the whole number who claimed to be American subjects, a claim,
too, the justice of which rested upon their simple declaration, was but
three thousand five hundred, and that out of every four individuals
who claimed their discharge in right of being citizens of the United
States, only one established his claim on any tolerable ground
whatever. Supposing, however, one-half of the claimants to have had a
rational ground for demanding their liberation, the whole number of
Americans in the British navy could not have exceeded from sixteen to
seventeen hundred, and it cannot be supposed that England should have
involved herself in a new war with a view to retain the services of
such an inconsiderable number of reluctant hands.
[Sidenote: Fraudulent certificates.]
Indeed the fact cannot be questioned that the English government
had invariably given directions to the officers of her navy not to
press seamen, professing to be American born, who were found on
board American vessels with certificates signed by the collector of
customs of an American port, even though it was well known that these
certificates were easily obtained in the United States, the American
government making no effort to check their fraudulent emission. In
the port of New York the system of obtaining false certificates had
become so disgracefully open, that in one day, ludicrous as it may
appear, an old woman was allowed by the collector to qualify a whole
host of seamen by swearing she knew them to be American citizens; and
when the clerk remonstrated against its impropriety, and appealed to
the collector with regard to the credibility of the witness, he was
told by his superior that it was no business of his, for that he only
acted ministerially in the affair; so that this old woman continued
during the entire day to receive her two dollars for every seaman who,
through the oath administered to her, obtained his certificate.[300]
The same system prevailed at Philadelphia; certificates were also
frequently transferred from one individual to another, and became as
much a matter of bargain and sale as any other description of chattel
property; the most ridiculous part of the system being, that after a
transfer of this description it was no unusual thing to see produced by
a sailor of colour a certificate for his protection, in which he was
described to be of “_a fair complexion, light hair and blue eyes_!”
In all these indefensible proceedings the Americans held that a British
subject, who by a false oath converted himself into an American
citizen, or who naturalised himself in the United States, in conformity
with their laws, ceased to owe allegiance to the king of his native
country, and was entitled to their protection; and, in support of
this strange doctrine, whenever this view was impeached, the American
envoy merely replied that he had no instructions on that point. In
the parliamentary discussions which took place upon the subject,
Mr. A. Baring, with all his Whig tendencies and strong American
predilections, while affecting to believe that the Russian campaign and
Napoleon’s intrigues had nothing to do with the declaration of war by
the Americans, strongly maintained the English right of impressment,
adding “that if there were sixteen hundred American seamen in our navy,
there were more than sixteen thousand British seamen in the American
navy;”[301] and he condemned ministers for not carrying on the war
against the United States with greater vigour: at that moment, however,
every effort was concentrated to strike down Napoleon.
The truth of Mr. Baring’s recommendations soon became too apparent.
Although the Americans when they declared war had only four frigates
fit for service, the _Constitution_ not being then finished, they
launched such a fleet of privateers that English merchant vessels were
captured in large numbers; but it was only when two of their frigates
were taken that the English were aroused to the necessity of meeting
with greater force their new rivals on the ocean. It ought, however,
to be remembered that in the well-known cases of the capture of the
_Guerriere_, the _Macedonian_, and the _Java_, by the _Constitution_
and the _United States_ respectively, the odds were largely on the
side of the Americans, especially in the weight of their armaments
and size of their vessels. Moreover the American crews were generally
one-third English, and, however much we may regret to have to admit
the fact, certain it is that, on board the _United States_, there
were men who had actually served under Lord Nelson on board the
_Victory_ at Trafalgar[302]. But it was not until the _Shannon_ took
the _Chesapeake_, in the presence, as is related, of a crowd of yachts
which had come out from Boston to see the English frigate captured,
that the British regained the supremacy they had so long held upon the
ocean.[303]
During this unfortunate war many difficulties arose with respect
of the importation of American cotton, as that necessary article of
commerce, in spite of the English navigation laws, still in some mode
found its way to her ports in neutral bottoms. Consequently there arose
a complication, in which the cotton-spinners stood in direct antagonism
with the interests of the shipowners. By the laws of war trade could
not be carried on with America except by royal licence; the Act of the
43 George III., c. 153, only giving power to legalise importations. The
general navigation laws of England prohibited importation except in
their own ships, or in the ships of the places where the commodities
imported grew. The Act of George III., therefore, conflicted with
that of Charles II., and the shipowners viewed any relaxation of the
provisions of the old navigation laws with the deepest alarm.
[Sidenote: Necessity of relaxing the Navigation Laws during war.]
Thus, whenever a war with a maritime power supervened, the navigation
laws were relaxed in favour of some paramount interests, such as, in
the present case, that of the cotton-spinners, whose demands for raw
cotton required to be supplied. Even in a state of war every nation
must of necessity provide as far as possible for the supply and sale of
those raw materials of produce, the manipulation of which tends in a
great degree to employ the industry and promote the general prosperity
of large classes of the community. England had been thus compelled to
sacrifice, or evade by licences or otherwise, her Orders in Council,
although every statesman who could exercise a disinterested judgment
had a full conviction of their expediency under the circumstances in
which she was then placed. In like manner the United States, a few
years previously, had been compelled to sacrifice their system of
embargoes, which was a favourite policy of the actual dominant party
in America; and the Czar, in his incipient efforts, had been incited
to resist Napoleon’s dictation as to what merchant vessels he should
or should not admit into his ports, although this decision raised the
question of the existence of national independence.
[Sidenote: High duties on cotton.]
But with all these obvious principles patent to every legislator in
both Houses of Parliament, it is the fact that a duty of TWOPENCE per
_pound_ was levied on the importation of COTTON WOOL if imported in
British ships, and THREEPENCE per _pound_ if imported in _ships not
British built_. Such were the strange anomalies of protection and such
the difficulties which all similar legislative measures must ever
create in the necessary commercial intercourse between nations. England
has, however, now happily corrected all this fallacious legislation,
and consequently a population of wealth and national power has been
created in the very centre of the kingdom unsurpassed for intelligence
in any previously existing manufacturing community. The shipowners
of the kingdom, instead of stopping up and checking the fountain
of prosperity at its source, now suffer it to flow in its natural
channels, and they find that their own interests, instead of being
impaired by the change, have kept pace with the general prosperity
enjoyed by other classes.
[Sidenote: Great European Alliance.]
Turning now to the great wars which still raged in Europe, we may, by
way of continuity, remind our readers that the consent of the King
of Prussia having been reluctantly obtained, for he still inclined
to Napoleon, the treaty of Kalitsch was signed on the 1st of March,
1813.[304] This treaty constituted the foundation of that grand
Alliance which soon after accomplished the overthrow of Napoleon, and
the deliverance of the European continent. The people of Prussia, to
a man, had risen to arms to deliver their fatherland from the grasp
of their French oppressor, and the king, though dreading the ire of
Napoleon, who could easily have purchased his neutrality at the time,
felt conscious that it was now a question of life and death for him,
and no longer hesitated. The treaty, therefore, was signed, and Russia
agreed never to lay down her arms until Prussia was reconstituted as
she stood anterior to 1806. A proclamation was issued to all the German
princes, announcing that the allies had no other object in view but to
rescue Germany from the domination of France. Four days afterwards the
Russian general proclaimed the dissolution of the Confederation of the
Rhine, and the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin gave the first example of
an adhesion to the new Alliance.
[Sidenote: Napoleon returns to Paris.]
Napoleon, with Caulaincourt in the same vehicle, had reached Paris
before the intelligence of his retreat from Moscow had become
known. With his accustomed vigour he soon restored tranquillity and
confidence in the capital, raised three hundred and fifty thousand men
by a conscription voted by the obsequious Senate, and contrived to
wring from the Pope a Concordat, wherein his Holiness yielded up the
point for which he had lost the papal throne and suffered so long an
exile. Confident in the moral and religious powers thus acquired by
a reconciliation with the Church, Napoleon’s joy was intense. He put
forth the whole strength of his varied resources to place his army upon
the best footing. In the meantime, however, the forces under the Duke
of Wellington were advancing; and while the storm gathered fast in
Spain, outraged Germany was marshalling her forces to expel the invader
from her confines. The decisive battle of Vittoria was fought on the
21st of June, 1813, and Pampeluña besieged in the latter end of July.
The British army under Wellington entered France on the 8th of October,
and Pampeluña surrendered on the 31st of the same month. England had
also secretly opened negotiations with Austria, which, favoured by
Wellington’s victories, were brought to a satisfactory conclusion; and,
with the view of crushing her formidable enemy, she poured out her
treasure like water. Portugal received from her a loan of two millions
sterling; Sicily four hundred thousand; Spain, in money and stores,
two millions; Sweden a million; Russia and Prussia three millions;
Austria one million; besides warlike stores sent to Germany to the
amount of two millions more. The war on the continent cost England
this year, in subsidies or other contributions to foreign powers, ten
million four hundred thousand pounds; and the total expenditure of
England for 1813-14 amounted to the enormous sum of one hundred and
eighteen millions; the sum paid for transports alone being 565,790_l._
[Sidenote: Germans advance to the Rhine.]
Napoleon quitted Paris to take the command of his army in April.
The details of the battles of Lützen, Bautzen, and Hochkirche,
which followed, are too well known to be here recounted. Austria,
instigated by England, on the 15th of August declared war against
France; but Napoleon seemed still favoured by fortune, as he repulsed
the attack of the main army at Dresden on the 27th of that month;
and it was only at the great battle of Leipsic, where Napoleon had
concentrated his forces, when the Saxon and Würtemburg troops passed
over from the French ranks and joined the Allies, that his army was
completely routed. Then the conqueror of a hundred battles fell back
upon the Rhine, breaking through the Bavarian army, which obstructed
his passage, and soon afterwards returned to Paris once more utterly
defeated.[305] The Germans now raised the thrilling and invigorating
cry “To the Rhine!” and the Allies issued, on the 4th of December,
their declaration from Frankfort, still offering peace, which Napoleon
answered by raising another three hundred thousand men by conscription.
The Allied armies crossed that far-famed river, while Schwartzenburg
entered France through Switzerland.
[Sidenote: Treaty of Chaumont.]
The struggles and guerilla warfare which followed are too familiar
to every reader of history to require recapitulation. Even after the
battle of La Rothière Napoleon might have concluded terms of peace if
he had chosen to make concessions. Before the final blow he haughtily
said that he was nearer Munich than the Allies were to Paris; and
to renounce even the frontier of the Rhine after so much bloodshed
was worse than death to him. To the last he struggled against Lord
Castlereagh’s influence, whose presence in the Allied camp was worth a
host of generals in circumventing his intrigues. England had already
concluded a treaty with Joachim Murat of Naples, and Soult had been
once more defeated by Wellington at Orthes (Feb. 27, 1814), on French
ground, when on the 1st of March the treaty of Chaumont was agreed on
by the Allied powers. By this celebrated diplomatic instrument it was
stipulated that in the event of Napoleon refusing the terms which had
been offered to him—viz., the reduction of France to the limits of the
old monarchy, as they stood prior to the Revolution, the four Allied
powers, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and England should each maintain one
hundred and fifty thousand men in the field; and that England should
pay an annual subsidy of five millions sterling, to be equally divided
between the three continental powers, besides maintaining her own
contingent complete from her own resources. Such were the prodigious
efforts made to put the crowning act to all her previous efforts to
accomplish the utter destruction of the common enemy.
[Sidenote: The Allies enter Paris.]
The Allies now made rapid advances upon Paris; on the 1st of April
their victorious armies entered the capital of France; and on the 10th
of April the dynasty of the Bourbons was restored by a decree of the
Senate. The battle of Toulouse, fought after the events in Paris,[306]
terminated the brilliant campaign carried on by the Duke of Wellington;
and, after one of the most sanguinary wars ever waged in history, the
pacification of Europe was for a time restored, Napoleon being assigned
to the island of Elba, where he was allowed to retire with a liberal
and independent revenue.
[Sidenote: End of the war by the Treaty of Paris, 1814.]
These acts were confirmed by the treaty of Paris, 30th of May, 1814;
and in a short time after Denmark made peace, having been compelled
to cede the kingdom of Norway to Sweden. It may be added, though the
facts must be familiar to most of our readers, that by the treaty of
Paris France was reduced to the limits of 1792; Belgium was united
to Holland, and constituted the kingdom of the Netherlands; Savoy and
Piedmont were restored to the King of Sardinia; Tuscany to its former
grand-duke, Ferdinand III.; and Lombardy was given to Austria.
But no sooner had the powers assembled at Vienna to settle the
delineations of territory which had been so grievously disturbed by
Napoleon, than difficulties met them at every stage. The Bourbons
at Paris were beset with claims quite impossible to be conceded.
Insolvency, consequent upon Napoleon’s wars, stared them in the
face. Russia demanded the whole grand-duchy of Warsaw as the reward
of her sacrifices, and adduced abundant arguments to support her
claims. Prussia wished to be reinstated in all respects, statistical,
financial, and geographical, as she stood at the commencement of the
war in 1806, with such additions as might be practicable according to
the treaty of Kalitsch. Accordingly, besides various provinces on the
left bank of the Rhine, she claimed the whole of Saxony, while Prussia
and Russia, by friendly concessions, were united in their demands.
[Sidenote: Napoleon’s escape from Elba.]
France, Austria, and England opposed these sweeping annexations of
the northern nations; and Alexander, annoyed that England and Austria
should resist his pretensions, was even more fiercely indignant that
Talleyrand, representing France, should “with black ingratitude”
hesitate to grant what he asked. To support these pretensions Alexander
kept up an army of two hundred and eighty thousand men in Lithuania
and Poland, and published an address announcing his intention to
restore to the Poles their lost nationality; Prussia had reorganised
her army ready for action; Austria maintained her forces on a war
footing; and British troops in great number were sent over to Belgium;
till a million of armed men, in the midst of a congress assembled
for the general pacification of the world, were retained under their
banners ready for mutual slaughter. When, however, the political
reasons which prompted France, Austria, and England to form a secret
arrangement to carry out the treaty of Paris somehow transpired, the
views of the northern powers were materially modified; but while their
rulers were still discussing the fresh territorial arrangements to
be determined upon, the news suddenly reached Vienna that Napoleon
had quitted the island of Elba, and had again entered France. This
thunderbolt dispelled at once the numerous jealousies which had been
fast gathering during the winter. All minor differences were forgotten,
and, at the first meeting of the plenipotentiaries, a declaration was
drawn up and signed in the name of all the Powers, which in the most
rigid terms proscribed Napoleon as a public enemy, and expressed their
determination to employ their whole forces to prevent Europe from being
again plunged into revolutionary confusion.
[Sidenote: His landing in France and advance on Paris.]
The escape of Napoleon from Elba, his landing, his addresses to
the soldiers and to the people, the defection of Labedoyère, his
triumphant advance by Lyons to Paris, the treason of Ney and flight
of the Bourbons to Ghent as the imperial adventurer approached the
capital, are all well-remembered events. They succeeded each other with
astonishing and bewildering rapidity. On the 21st of March Napoleon
found himself once more in the palace of the Tuileries, with the
whole army of France enthusiastic in his favour. The efforts made at a
counter-revolution by the Bourbons in the provinces signally failed,
and Napoleon, with fortune at his back, seemed to have seized once more
permanently the imperial sceptre.
[Sidenote: British troops despatched to Belgium.]
[Sidenote: Subsidies to European Powers.]
[Sidenote: Fouché.]
But England again stood like a lion in his path. On the 6th of April
the Prince Regent announced formally to the House of Commons the events
which had occurred. War was approved unanimously by the Lords, and only
thirty-seven members could be found to vote against it in the Commons.
The nation to a man put forth its concentrated strength. An enormous
sudden demand took place for transports to carry over troops and
munitions of war to Flanders, which it was intuitively seen must be the
battle-ground whereon the future peace of Europe was to be decided. The
House of Commons provided the sinews of war with unbounded liberality.
The property-tax, producing 15,000,000_l._, was renewed. Subsidies were
voted to the extent of 11,000,000_l._ to Austria, Russia, Prussia,
Hanover, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Italy, and the Netherlands; and
all Europe in a few weeks bristled with bayonets. Napoleon sought to
obtain popularity by conceding a constitution; but no reflecting man
had much confidence in these paper declarations. Caulaincourt tried
in vain to open negotiations for peace; but his couriers were stopped
on the frontiers. It was intimated to him that the Allied Sovereigns
would not swerve from their resolutions: “all Europe had declared war
against Bonaparte.” The Emperor Alexander was especially moved, and
said that “Europe requires an example.” Murat, at the head of an army
of fifty thousand Neapolitans, made a diversion in favour of Napoleon
by marching to the Po; but they fled like a flock of sheep before the
Austrians. Treason now lurked in the councils of Napoleon. Fouché was
detected in a correspondence with Metternich. Napoleon threatened to
hang him, but did not dare. As Carnot wisely said, the Republicans only
permitted Napoleon to reign because they thought him more favourable
to their views than the Bourbons; so Napoleon dissembled, under
the necessity of keeping both in power. Each predominant power in
succession had been fully conscious of the innate treachery of Fouché,
but each was compelled to employ him.
[Sidenote: Last campaign of Napoleon, and defeat at Waterloo.]
Leaving a council to direct affairs in Paris, Napoleon left that city
to commence his last campaign, which ended in his final overthrow at
Waterloo on the 18th of June, 1815.
[Sidenote: Reflections.]
Every impartial reader of history can hardly fail to see that though
the maritime decrees of Napoleon on the one hand, and the English
Orders in Council on the other, had nothing to do with the origin
of the lamentable wars which so long shook Europe to its base, they
were the means, in a great measure, of their prolongation, and were
the origin, in an essential manner, of the war between England and
the United States of America. Attempts on the part of governments to
deprive nations of what is necessary for their existence must ever
produce the most serious consequences. Besides, it is alike vain
and presumptuous for weak man to interpose obstacles in the way of
securing to large masses of the people articles absolutely requisite
for them, and which, so far as we can divine the inscrutable ways of
Providence, are produced for the general use and welfare of mankind.
Indeed, the mind is impressed with a singular sensation on beholding a
great conqueror, just reposing after one of his most signal victories,
issuing decrees that would render almost every sea desolate, and
prevent an interchange of commodities as necessary for the daily wants
of his own people as for those of other nations.
In gaining his great victories, in adding state after state to his
dominions, and in placing brother after brother on the throne of
ancient kingdoms whose dynasties he had overthrown, Napoleon may for
some mysterious purpose have been performing the part assigned to him
by a Higher Power, and accomplishing the destinies of which, under
Heaven, he was to be the instrument. But when he extended his ambition
to the ocean, when he undertook to overwhelm the innocent peoples
of many nations by his maritime decrees, he left the orbit in which
evidently it had been his destiny to move for one on which his fleets
had been invariably defeated, and where he himself was never seen
except as a fugitive, and at last as a prisoner of war in the hands of
the ancient rival of his country.
FOOTNOTES:
[289] This Act, in its fullest stringency, meant no commercial
intercourse with any European state (see ‘Key to Orders in Council,’
No. 10).
[290] This Act passed Congress on the 1st of March, 1809; generally
it provided that the “commerce of America was opened to all the world
except France and England.” The ships of war of both countries were
excluded from American ports (‘Key to Orders in Council,’ No. 11).
[291] ‘Report of the Chamber of Deputies,’ 1835.
[292] Holmes’ ‘American Annals,’ vol. ii. pp. 441, 442.
[293] The case of the English will be found treated at great length in
Mr. Stephen’s speech, March 1809, a full verbatim report of which will
be found at the end of vol. xiii. ‘Parl. Debates’ for that year.
[294] See _ante_ for notice of the celebrated pamphlet.
[295] Concluding sentence of Mr. Baring’s ‘Inquiry into the Causes
and Consequences of the Orders in Council, and an Examination of the
Conduct of Great Britain towards the Neutral Commerce of America.’
[296] Though the Bill for declaring war was passed by the House of
Representatives by seventy-nine to forty-nine, the votes in the Senate
in favour of war were only nineteen to seventeen (see Holmes’ ‘American
Annals,’ vol. i. p. 448; and ‘American Diplomacy,’ p. 235.)
[297] _Vide_ his letters of that date; we use his own words, as quite
conclusive.
[298] _Vide_ Monroe’s letter, Jan. 14, 1812, to Mr. Foster,
Consul-General of Great Britain.
[299] This document is in the ‘United States State Papers, Foreign
Relations,’ vol. iii. p. 457, and is further referred to in the
‘Declaration of the Prince Regent,’ Jan. 9, 1813. The obnoxious Decrees
are renewed in full vigour, while the Duke of Bassano was affecting to
wonder that the Americans had never had a copy of the Decree revoking
them.
[300] Statement of Lord Castlereagh, Feb. 18, 1813.
[301] Mr. A. Baring, afterwards Lord Ashburton, said that, in an
American ship in which he arrived at Portsmouth harbour from the
United States, a person came on board to search for British seamen.
All the crew produced certificates but one, who was carried off in
the boat, amidst the jeers of the American captain, who said, “There,
they have taken a man who was never out of Pennsylvania in his life,
and who, thinking no one could doubt it, did not provide himself with
a certificate; and have left three fellows who have been only six
months out of a British man-of-war, but who have been wiser in securing
certificates.”
[302] See James’ ‘Naval History,’ vol. vi.
[303] Though numerous British merchant vessels were at the commencement
of the war captured by privateers, the Americans suffered the most
deeply before its close from the effects it produced in their
commercial relations. Their foreign trade, which anterior to the
rupture with Great Britain amounted to 22,000,000_l._ of imports and
28,000,000_l._ of exports, carried on in 1,300,000 tons of shipping,
was almost annihilated. So disastrous were the effects of the war, that
in the two short years of its existence two-thirds of the mercantile
and trading classes in all the States of the Union became insolvent,
and such were the suffering and public discontent in the States of
Massachusetts and Connecticut that the feeling of nationality was
nearly extinguished. Indeed a large portion of the people, when peace
was restored, were preparing to take steps to break off from the Union,
to assert their national independence, and to make terms with Great
Britain (see ‘De Tocqueville’ and ‘Annual Register’ for 1814, p. 193).
[304] Alison, v. x. p. 121.
[305] The order of events was as follows: at first on the advance
of the French they were victorious everywhere, especially on the
historical fields of Lützen, Bautzen, and Hochkirche, and also at
Würtschen; but the tide of victory turned after a brief armistice,
and Dresden was Napoleon’s last success in a pitched battle. Culm,
Katzbach, Gross-beeren, and Dennewitz had proved that the French were
no longer invincible, and prepared for the final and crushing crisis,
rendered all the more severe by the defection of two brigades of Saxon
foot, twenty-two guns, and the Würtemburg cavalry, in the middle of the
great battle of Leipsic, Oct. 18, 1813.—Alison, ch. xxxi.
[306] It is now certain that Soult, feeling sure of beating Wellington
at Toulouse, had received the news of the entrance of the Allies into
Paris four days before he fought the final battle of the great war, on
April 10, 1814.—Alison, xi. p. 309.