THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION
OF
JAMES MADISON
1809-1813
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
BY
HENRY ADAMS.
VOLS. I. AND II.--THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF JEFFERSON.
1801–1805.
VOLS. III. AND IV.--THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF JEFFERSON.
1805–1809.
VOLS. V. AND VI.--THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF MADISON. 1809–1813.
VOLS. VII., VIII., AND IX.--THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF
MADISON. 1813–1817. WITH AN INDEX TO THE ENTIRE WORK. (_In
Press._)
HISTORY
OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DURING THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF
JAMES MADISON
BY HENRY ADAMS
VOL. II.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1890
_Copyright, 1890_
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. PINKNEY’S INAMICABLE LEAVE 1
II. THE “LITTLE BELT” 25
III. MADISON TRIUMPHANT 46
IV. HARRISON AND TECUMTHE 67
V. TIPPECANOE 90
VI. MEETING OF THE TWELFTH CONGRESS 113
VII. WAR DEBATES 133
VIII. WAR LEGISLATION 154
IX. MADISON AS MINERVA 176
X. HESITATIONS 199
XI. WAR 220
XII. JOEL BARLOW 245
XIII. REPEAL OF THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL 267
XIV. INVASION OF CANADA 289
XV. HULL’S SURRENDER 312
XVI. THE NIAGARA CAMPAIGN 336
XVII. NAVAL BATTLES 362
XVIII. DISCORD 388
XIX. EXECUTIVE EMBARRASSMENTS 412
XX. WAR LEGISLATION 435
INDEX 459
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
CHAPTER I.
RARELY had a great nation approached nearer than England to
ruin without showing consciousness of danger. Napoleon’s boast to
his Chamber of Commerce, that within ten years he would subject his
rival, was not ill-founded. The conquest of Russia, which Napoleon
meant to make certain, combined with a war between the United States
and Great Britain, coming immediately upon the destruction of private
credit and enterprise in 1810, could hardly fail to shake the British
empire to its foundation; and perhaps the worst sign of danger was the
absence of popular alarm. The intelligence of all England with feelings
equally strong, whether mute or vociferous, was united in contempt for
the stolid incompetence of the Tory faction beyond anything known in
England since the Stuarts; but both Houses of Parliament, as well as
the Crown, were conscious of needing no better representatives than
Perceval and Eldon, and convulsions that shook the world never stirred
the composure of these men. The capital and credit on which England’s
power rested were swept away; the poorer classes were thrown out of
employment; the price of wheat,[1] which averaged in 1807 seventy-eight
shillings per quarter of eight bushels, in 1808 eighty-five shillings,
and in 1809 one hundred and six shillings, in 1810 rose to one hundred
and twelve shillings, or about three dollars and a half a bushel, and
remained at or above this rate until the autumn of 1813; while abroad,
the Spanish peninsula was subdued by Napoleon, whose armies occupied
every part of Spain and Portugal except Cadiz and Lisbon. Sweden, the
last neutral in Europe, elected a French general of Bonaparte’s family
as king, and immediately afterward declared war on England; and the
United States closed their ports to British commerce, and menaced a
declaration of war. The exports of Great Britain fell off one third in
the year 1811. The sources of England’s strength showed exhaustion.
Neither these arguments nor even the supreme argument of war shook the
steadfast mind of Spencer Perceval. Responsibilities that might have
driven him to insanity took the form of religious duties; and with the
support of religious or patriotic formulas statesmen could sleep in
peace amidst the wreck of nations. After the insanity of King George
was admitted, at the beginning of November, 1810, Spencer Perceval
became for a time the King of England, but a king without title. The
Prince of Wales, the future regent, was obliged to wait for an Act of
Parliament authorizing him to assume power. The Prince of Wales had all
his life detested the Tory influence that surrounded the throne, and
had associated with Whigs and liberals, like Sheridan and Fox. Perceval
expected to retire; the prince could not yet take control, and this
dead-lock put a stop to serious government. Nothing but business of
routine could be undertaken.
If the United States could wait till spring, their friends were likely
to be once more in power, or the Tory influence would be so far shaken
that the danger of war might pass. For this possible revolution both
Madison and Pinkney twelve months before would have waited with
confidence and pleasure; but repeated disappointments had convinced
them that their patience was useless. Pinkney had asked and received
instructions to require a decision or to quit England. When November
arrived, the day on which Napoleon’s Decrees stood revoked according to
the Duc de Cadore, Pinkney acted in London on his own responsibility,
as Madison acted at Washington, and sent to Lord Wellesley a note,
dated November 3, asking for an immediate repeal of the British Orders
in Council, on the ground that Napoleon’s revocation had taken effect.
“That it has taken effect cannot be doubted,” he said;[2] but he
offered no evidence to support his assertion. He also assumed that
England was bound to withdraw Fox’s blockade of the French coast from
Brest to the Elbe, as well as Spencer Perceval’s subsequent measures
which were called into existence by Napoleon’s Continental system,
and were to cease with it. Both these demands were made without
instructions founded on the knowledge of Cadore’s letter.
At that moment Lord Wellesley was full of hope that at last he should
remove Spencer Perceval from his path. Every one supposed, and had good
ground for believing, that the Prince of Wales would at once form a
new Government, with Wellesley and the Whigs for its support. At such
a crisis Wellesley could not expect or indeed wish to effect a partial
and sudden change of foreign policy. He waited a month before taking
official notice of Pinkney’s letter, and when he replied,[3] December
4, said only that “after the most accurate inquiry” he had been unable
to obtain any authentic intelligence of the French repeal, and begged
the American minister to furnish whatever information he possessed on
the subject.
The American minister possessed no information on the subject, but he
received, December 11, news of the President’s proclamation founded on
the French repeal, and was the more decided to insist on his ground.
Finding that conversations produced no effect, Pinkney took his pen
once more,--and then began another of the diplomatic duels which had
occurred so often in the course of the last six years; but for the
first time the American champion with weak arguments and indifferent
temper used the kind of logic likely to produce conviction in the end.
Pinkney maintained that the French Decrees were revoked and that
Fox’s blockade was illegal. Neither position was beyond attack. The
American doctrine of blockade was by no means clear. The British
government never attempted to defend its sweeping Orders of 1807 and
1809 on the ground of legality; these were admittedly illegal, and
a proper _casus belli_ if America chose to make war on their
account. England claimed only that the United States were bound to
make war on France for the Berlin Decree of Nov. 21, 1806, before
making war on England for her retaliatory Orders of 1807. In order to
evade this difficulty, France declared that her Decree of November,
1806, was retaliatory on Fox’s blockade of May, 1806. America began by
maintaining that as far as concerned neutral commerce both belligerents
used retaliation for illegitimate objects, and that the United States
might rightfully declare war against either or both. The position was
easily understood, and had the advantage of being historically true;
but the United States stood on less certain ground when they were drawn
into discussion of the legal theory involved in Fox’s blockade.
England held[4] that Fox’s blockade of May, 1806, covering the French
coast from the Elbe to Brest, was a lawful blockade, supported by a
particular naval force detached for that special purpose and sufficient
for its object, until the blockade itself was merged in the avowedly
extra-legal paper-blockades of 1809; and that if the paper-blockades
were withdrawn, Great Britain had the right to re-establish Fox’s
blockade with an efficient naval force to execute it.
President Madison held a different opinion. He insisted,[5] and
ordered Pinkney to insist, that a particular port must be invested by
a particular naval force; and that Great Britain ought not to contend
that her naval force was adequate to blockade a coast a thousand miles
long. On this ground the President, July 5, 1810,[6] instructed Pinkney
to require the annulment of Fox’s blockade as “palpably at variance
with the law of nations.” In order to prove the impartiality of this
demand, the President promised to insist that the repeal required from
France as its counterpart should “embrace every part of the French
Decrees which violate the neutral rights guaranteed to us by the law of
nations.”
No worse ground could have been found for Pinkney to stand upon. He was
obliged to begin by asserting, what every public man in Europe knew
to be untrue, that “every part of the French Decrees which violated
the neutral rights” of America had been repealed by Cadore’s letter
of August 5. His next contention, that coasts could not be blockaded,
was at least open to dispute when the coast was that of the British
Channel. Pinkney’s arguments became necessarily technical, and although
technical reasoning might be easily understood in a Court of Admiralty,
the attempt to treat politics as a branch of the profession of the
law had the disadvantage of refining issues to a point which no large
society could comprehend. When Wellesley, Dec. 4, 1810, asked for
evidence that Napoleon’s Decrees were repealed, Pinkney replied, in a
long note dated December 10,[7] that Cadore’s letter of August 5 stated
two disjunctive conditions of repeal,--the first depending on Great
Britain, the last on the United States; that although Great Britain had
not satisfied the first condition, the United States would undoubtedly
satisfy the last; therefore the French Decrees stood repealed. This
proposition, not even easy to understand, was supported by a long
argument showing that Cadore could not without absurdity have meant
anything else. As for further proof, not only had Pinkney none to
offer, but he gravely offered his want of evidence as evidence:--
“On such an occasion it is no paradox to say that the want of
evidence is itself evidence. That certain decrees are not in
force is proved by the absence of such facts as would appear
if they were in force. Every motive which can be conjectured
to have led to the repeal of the edicts invites to the full
execution of that repeal, and no motive can be imagined for a
different course. These considerations are alone conclusive.”
The argument might have escaped ridicule had not Jonathan Russell been
engaged at the same moment[8] in remonstrating with the Duc de Cadore
because the “New Orleans Packet” had been seized at Bordeaux under the
Berlin and Milan Decrees; and had not the “Moniteur,” within a week,
published Cadore’s official Report, declaring that the decrees would
never be repealed as long as England maintained her blockades; and had
not the Comte de Semonville, within another week, announced in the
French Senate that the decrees were the palladium of the seas.
Wellesley answered Pinkney, December 29, in a note[9] comparatively
short, and more courteous than any important State paper that had come
from the British government since Fox’s death.
“If nothing more had been required from Great Britain than the
repeal of our Orders in Council,” he said, “I should not have
hesitated to declare the perfect readiness of this Government
to fulfil that condition. On these terms the Government has
always been sincerely disposed to repeal the Orders in Council.
It appears, however, not only by the letter of the French
minister, but by your explanation, that the repeal of the Orders
in Council will not satisfy either the French or the American
government. The British government is further required by the
letter of the French minister to renounce those principles of
blockade which the French government alleges to be new.... On
the part of the American government, I understand you to require
that Great Britain shall revoke her Order of Blockade of May,
1806.”
Wellesley declined to entertain this demand. He appealed to the justice
of America not to force an issue on such ground, and he protested that
the Government retained an anxious solicitude to revoke the Orders in
Council as soon as the Berlin and Milan Decrees should be effectually
repealed, without conditions injurious to the maritime rights of Great
Britain.
To this declaration Pinkney replied, Jan. 14, 1811, in a letter[10]
defending his own position and attacking the good faith of the
British government. He began by defending the temper of his late
remonstrances:--
“It would not have been very surprising nor very culpable,
perhaps, if I had wholly forgotten to address myself to a
spirit of conciliation which had met the most equitable claims
with steady and unceasing repulsion; which had yielded nothing
that could be denied, and had answered complaints of injury by
multiplying their causes. With this forgetfulness, however, I am
not chargeable; for against all the discouragements suggested
by the past, I have acted still upon a presumption that the
disposition to conciliate, so often professed, would finally be
proved by some better evidence than a perseverance in oppressive
novelties, as obviously incompatible with such a disposition in
those who enforce them as in those whose patience they continue
to exercise.”
America, continued Pinkney, was not a party, either openly or covertly,
to the French requisition. “What I have to request of your Lordship
is that you will take our views and principles from our own mouths.”
The rejoinder was not so convincing as it would have been had Pinkney
wholly discarded French views; but on the point of Fox’s blockade, the
American and the French demand was the same. Pinkney was obliged to
show that the two identical conditions rested on different grounds. At
some length he laid down the law as the United States understood it.
“It is by no means clear,” he began, “that it may not be fairly
contended, on principle and early usage, that a maritime
blockade is incomplete with regard to States at peace unless the
place which it would affect is invested by land as well as by
sea. The United States, however, have called for the recognition
of no such rule. They appear to have contented themselves with
urging in substance that ports not actually blockaded by a
present, adequate, stationary force employed by the Power which
attacks them shall not be considered as shut to neutral trade
in articles not contraband of war; ... that a vessel cleared or
bound to a blockaded port shall not be considered as violating
in any manner the blockade unless on her approach to such port
she shall have been previously warned not to enter it; ... that
whole coasts and countries shall not be declared (for they
can never be more than _declared_) to be in a state of
blockade; ... and lastly, that every blockade shall be impartial
in its operation.”
On these definitions of law, and not to satisfy Napoleon’s requirement,
the President insisted on the abandonment of Fox’s blockade.
The withdrawal of the Orders in Council, on the other hand, was
required on the ground that England had pledged her faith to withdraw
them whenever France revoked her decrees. France had revoked her
decrees, and England could not honorably refuse to withdraw the orders.
“As to the Orders in Council which professed to be a reluctant
departure from all ordinary rules, and to be justified only as
a system of retaliation for a pre-existing measure of France,
their foundation, such as it was, is gone the moment that
measure is no longer in operation. But the Berlin Decree is
repealed, and even the Milan Decree, the successor of your
Orders in Council, is repealed also. Why is it, then, that your
orders have outlived those edicts?”
In both instances the American position lost character by connection
with Napoleon’s acts. Pinkney repudiated such a connection in the
first case, and his argument would have been stronger could he have
repudiated it in the second. Unable or unwilling to do this, he had no
resource but to lose his temper, which he did with proper self-control.
The correctness of his reasoning or of his facts became less important
from the moment he showed himself in earnest; for then the controversy
entered a new phase.
In making an issue of war, President Madison needed to exercise
extreme caution not to shock the sentiment of New England, but he
needed to observe no such delicacy in regard to the feelings of the
British Tories. In respect to the British government, the nature of
the issue mattered little, provided an issue were made; and Pinkney
might reasonably think that the more paradoxical his arguments the
more impression they would produce. Centuries of study at Oxford
and Edinburgh, and generations devoted to the logic or rhetoric of
Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, had left the most educated classes
of Great Britain still in the stage of culture where reasoning, in
order to convince, must cease to be reasonable. As Pinkney became
positive and arrogant, Wellesley became conciliatory and almost
yielding. The American note of January 14, written in a tone that had
not hitherto been taken in London, was coupled with a notice that
brought the two governments in presence of the long-threatened rupture.
Pinkney informed Lord Wellesley that as the British government, after
a lapse of many months, had taken no steps to carry out the assurance
of sending a new minister to Washington, the United States government
could not retain a minister at London. Therewith Pinkney requested an
audience of leave.
Although Wellesley had never avowed a political motive for his
systematic delays, no one could doubt that he intentionally postponed
not only concession on the Orders in Council, but also a settlement
of the “Chesapeake” affair and the appointment of a new minister at
Washington, because his colleagues, as he hinted[11] to Pinkney, were
persuaded “that the British interest in America would be completely
destroyed by sending thither at this time a minister plenipotentiary,”
and of course by any other frank advance. The influence of F. J.
Jackson with the Government was perhaps strong enough to check action
that would have amounted to a censure on his own conduct; and although
the American elections showed that Jackson had for the time so much
reduced British influence in America as to make some change of policy
necessary if it were to be revived, Jackson, in daily intercourse
with the Foreign Office and with ministers, was exerting every effort
to maintain his credit. Nothing less than Pinkney’s request for an
audience of leave was likely to end these ministerial hesitations.
For the moment, as Pinkney knew, his request could not be granted,
because the King was insane and could give audience to no one. Since
Nov. 1, 1810, Parliament had done no other business than such as
related to the regency; yet on Jan. 14, 1811, when Pinkney’s two notes
were written, the Regency Bill had not been brought before the Commons.
Introduced on the following day, Parliament showed extraordinary
energy by making it law in little more than a fortnight; yet the Prince
Regent, who took the oaths February 6, still required time to settle
his government.
Everything depended on the Prince Regent’s action. Had he followed the
expected course,--had he dismissed Spencer Perceval, and put himself in
the hands of Wellesley, Grenville, Grey, and Holland,--the danger of an
American war might possibly have vanished. The Orders in Council might
have been withdrawn, the “Chesapeake” affair might have been settled,
a friendly minister would have been sent to Washington, and the war
party in the Twelfth Congress would have been thrown into a minority.
After much manœuvring, the Prince of Wales at last avowed his decision.
February 4 he wrote to Spencer Perceval, announcing the wish, wholly in
deference to the King’s feelings, that the late ministers should remain
in charge of the government. The Whigs were once more prostrated by
this desertion, and the Marquess Wellesley abandoned his last hope of
saving the government from Perceval’s control.
The effect of the Prince Regent’s course was instantly felt. His
letter to Perceval was written February 4; he assumed the royal office
February 6; and February 11 Wellesley was able to answer[12] Pinkney’s
note on blockades.
“France requires,” said he, “that Great Britain shall not only
repeal the Orders in Council, but renounce those principles of
blockade which are alleged in the same letter to be new,--an
allegation which must be understood to refer to the introductory
part of the Berlin Decree. If Great Britain shall not submit to
those terms, it is plainly intimated in the same letter that
France requires America to enforce them. To these conditions
his Royal Highness, on behalf of his Majesty, cannot accede.
No principles of blockade have been promulgated or acted upon
by Great Britain previously to the Berlin Decree which are not
strictly conformable to the rights of civilized war and to the
approved usages and laws of nations.... I am commanded to inform
you that his Royal Highness cannot consent to blend the question
which has arisen upon the Orders in Council with any discussion
of the general principles of blockade.”
In a note of two lines, Pinkney replied[13] that he had no inducement
to trouble his Lordship further on the subject. The same day he
received a notice that the Prince Regent would hold his first
diplomatic levee February 19; but instead of accepting the invitation,
Pinkney wrote with the same brevity to ask at what time the Prince
Regent would do him the honor to give his audience of leave.[14]
This abrupt course brought the Government partially to reason. Within
forty-eight hours Wellesley wrote to Pinkney a private letter[15] of
apology for the delay in appointing a minister to Washington, and of
regret that this delay should have been misunderstood; he announced
that Augustus J. Foster, late British minister in Sweden, would be
immediately gazetted as minister to the United States; and his letter
closed by a remark which came as near deprecation as Pinkney’s temper
would allow: “You will, of course, exercise your own judgment, under
these circumstances, respecting the propriety of requiring an audience
of leave on the grounds which you have stated.” With this private
letter, Lord Wellesley sent an official notice that the Prince Regent
would receive Mr. Pinkney February 19, by his desire, for an audience
of leave.
The responsibility thus thrown upon Pinkney was more serious than had
ever before, or has ever since, fallen to the share of a minister of
the United States in England. The policy of withdrawing the United
States minister from London might be doubted, not so much because it
was violent, as because it was likely to embarrass the President more
than it embarrassed England. If the President was indeed bent on war,
and wished to hasten its declaration, the recall of his minister in
London might be proper; but if he still expected to negotiate, London
was the spot where he needed to keep his strongest diplomatist, and, if
possible, more than one. Yet the worst possible mistake was to recede
once more,--to repeat the comedy of American errors, and to let the
British government assume that its policy was still safe.
Pinkney hesitated, and consulted his instructions.[16] These were
dated Nov. 15, 1810, and ordered Pinkney, in case no successor to F.
J. Jackson should then have been appointed, to take leave of absence,
entrusting the legation to a _chargé d’affaires_; but this
positive order was practically revoked in the concluding sentence:
“Considering the season at which this instruction may have its effect,
and the possibility of a satisfactory change in the posture of our
relations with Great Britain, the time of your return to the United
States is left to your discretion and convenience.”
These instructions did not warrant Pinkney in demanding leave of
absence on any other ground than that of failure to appoint a minister
at Washington. They did not warrant him in returning to America at all
if he saw the possibility of such an appointment. Pinkney was obliged
to put a free construction on the President’s language. Abandoning the
ground that his departure was a necessary result of the absence of a
British minister at Washington, he asked Lord Wellesley, in an official
note, dated February 17, what Mr. Foster was to do when he arrived
there?[17] “I presume that for the restoration of harmony between the
two countries, the Orders in Council will be relinquished without
delay; that the blockade of 1806 will be annulled; that the case of
the ‘Chesapeake’ will be arranged in the manner heretofore intended;
and in general that all such just and reasonable acts will be done as
are necessary to make us friends.” So important a letter was probably
never written by any other American diplomatist without instructions
from his Government,--for it was in effect an ultimatum, preliminary to
the rupture of relations and ultimate war; yet even in this final list
of American demands made by the American minister in withdrawing from
London, impressment was not expressly mentioned.
Wellesley replied in a private letter[18] dated February 23, with
the formal avowal that “it would be neither candid toward you, nor
just toward this Government, to countenance any interpretation which
might favor a supposition that it was intended by this Government to
relinquish any of the principles which I have so often endeavored to
explain to you.” Nothing in Wellesley’s letter showed a desire to
irritate, and his refusals left less sting than was left by Canning’s
concessions; but the issue was fairly joined, and America was at
liberty to act upon it as she pleased.
In order to leave no doubt of his meaning, Pinkney instantly[19]
claimed his audience of leave for February 28, declining, in the mean
time, to attend the diplomatic levee which by postponement took place
only February 26. His conduct was noticed and understood, as he meant
it should be; and as his audience still remains the only occasion
when an American minister at London has broken relations in a hostile
manner, with resulting war, it has an interest peculiar to itself.
Several accounts were preserved of what passed at the interview.
Pinkney’s official report recorded the words used by him:[20]--
“I stated to the Prince Regent the grounds upon which it had
become my duty to take my leave and to commit the business of
the legation to a _chargé d’affaires_; and I concluded by
expressing my regret that my humble efforts in the execution
of the instructions of my Government to set to rights the
embarrassed and disjointed relations of the two countries had
wholly failed; and that I saw no reason to expect that the great
work of their reconciliation was likely to be accomplished
through any other agency.”
According to Pinkney, and according to the official report of Lord
Wellesley,[21] the Prince Regent replied in terms of the utmost amity
toward the United States. Another account of the interview gave the
impression that the Prince Regent had not shown himself so gracious
toward the departing minister as the official reports implied.
Francis James Jackson, who dogged Pinkney’s footsteps with the
personal malevolence he had almost a right to feel, and who haunted
the Court and Foreign Office in the hope of obtaining--what he never
received--some public mark of approval, wrote to Timothy Pickering a
long letter on Pinkney’s departure:[22]--
“It has occasioned much surprise here that exactly at the moment
of Pinkney’s demand being complied with he should nevertheless
take what he calls an inamicable leave.... It was not expected
that he would depart so far from his usual urbanity as to
decline the invitation that was sent him in common with the
rest of the foreign ministers to attend the Regent’s levee. It
was not probable after this that the audience of leave which he
claimed should answer his expectation. It was very short. Mr.
Pinkney was told that the Regent was desirous of cultivating a
good understanding with the United States; that he had given
a proof of it in the appointment of a minister as soon as his
acceptance of the Regency enabled him to appoint one; that the
Orders in Council would have been repealed, but that his Royal
Highness never could or would surrender the maritime rights
of his country. Mr. Pinkney then made some profession of his
personal sentiments, to which he was answered: ‘Sir, I cannot
look into men’s minds; I can only judge of men’s motives by
their conduct.’ And then the audience ended.”
So closed Pinkney’s residence in London. He had passed there nearly
five years of such violent national hostility as no other American
minister ever faced during an equal length of time, or defied at last
with equal sternness; but his extraordinary abilities and character
made him greatly respected and admired while he stayed, and silenced
remonstrance when he left. For many years afterward, his successors
were mortified by comparisons between his table-oratory and theirs.
As a writer he was not less distinguished. Canning’s impenetrable
self-confidence met in him powers that did not yield, even in
self-confidence, to his own; and Lord Wellesley’s oriental dignity was
not a little ruffled by Pinkney’s handling. As occasion required, he
was patient under irritation that seemed intolerable, as aggressive as
Canning himself, or as stately and urbane as Wellesley; and even when
he lost his temper, he did so in cold blood, because he saw no other
way to break through the obstacles put in his path. America never sent
an abler representative to the Court of London.
Pinkney sailed from England a few weeks afterward, leaving in charge of
the legation John Spear Smith, a son of Senator Samuel Smith, who had
been for a time attached to the Legation at St. Petersburg; had thence
travelled to Vienna and Paris, where he received Pinkney’s summons to
London,--the most difficult and important diplomatic post in the world.
Simultaneously, Lord Wellesley hurried Foster to the United States. The
new British minister was personally acceptable. By birth a son of the
actual Duchess of Devonshire by her first husband, he had the advantage
of social and political backing, while he was already familiar with
America, where he had served as Secretary of Legation. Just dismissed
from Sweden by Bernadotte’s election and the declaration of war
against England which followed it, Foster would hardly have sought or
taken the mission to Washington had not Europe been closed to English
diplomacy. Even F. J. Jackson, who spoke kindly of few people, gave a
pleasant account of his successor.[23] “Foster is a very gentlemanlike
young man, quite equal to do nothing at his post, which is now the best
possible policy to follow;” but in the same breath, “that most clumsy
and ill-conditioned minister,” as Pinkney described Jackson,[24] added
that the police office was the proper place to train officials for
service at Washington. “One of the best magistrates as minister, and a
good sharp thief-taker for secretary, would put us in all respects much
upon a level with their Yankeeships.” The phrase implied that Jackson
felt his own career at Washington to have been mortifying, and that
he had not been on a level with his opponents. Possibly the sense of
mortification hurried the decline which ended in his death, three years
afterward, in the midst of the war he did so much to cause.
Wellesley’s instructions to Foster were dated April 10,[25] and marked
another slight step toward concession. Once more he discussed the
Orders in Council, but on the ground taken by Pinkney could come to no
other conclusion than that the President was mistaken in thinking the
French Decrees repealed, and extravagant in requiring the blockade of
1806 to be repealed in consequence; yet as long as any hope remained
of prevailing with the President to correct his error, American ships,
captured while acting in pursuance of it, should not be condemned.
Even under the challenge expressly proclaimed by the non-importation,
the British government anxiously desired to avoid a positive rupture.
As for the “Chesapeake” affair, Foster was ordered to settle it to
suit the American government, guarding only against the admission of
insulting expressions. He was to remonstrate and protest against the
seizure of the Floridas,[26] but was not to commit his Government
further. Finally, a secret instruction[27] notified Foster that in
case America should persist in her non-importation, England would
retaliate,--probably by increasing her import duties, and excluding
American commerce from the East Indies.
These instructions conformed with the general attitude of English
society. Though sobered by the disasters that attended Tory government,
England had not yet passed beyond the stage when annoyances created
only the wish to ignore them. No one would admit serious danger from
America. In Parliament, Pinkney’s abrupt and hostile departure was
barely mentioned, and ministers denied it importance. The “London
Times,” of March 1, complained that no one could be induced to feel an
interest in the American question. “There is certainly great apathy
in the public mind generally upon the questions now at issue between
us and our quondam colonies, which it is difficult to arouse, and
perhaps useless to attempt.” Here and there the old wish for a war
with the United States was still felt;[28] but the public asked only
to hear no more on American subjects. Even the “Times” refused, April
13, to continue discussion on matters “upon which the feelings of the
great bulk of the nation are peculiarly blunt.” Wellesley’s course
and Foster’s instructions reflected only the lassitude and torpor of
the day; but within eighteen months Wellesley, in open Parliament,
criticised what he charged as the policy, not of himself, but of his
colleagues, in language which implied that the public apathy was
assumed rather than real. “The disposition of the American government
was quite evident,” he said, Nov. 30, 1812;[29] “and therefore
common policy should have urged ministers to prepare fully for the
event; and they should have made adequate exertion either to pacify,
to intimidate, or to punish America.” Knowing this, they sent out
Foster, powerless either for defence or attack, to waste his time at
Washington, where for ten years his predecessors had found the grave of
their ambitions.