EARLY in February, when Congress refused to support Madison’s
war-policy,--the mere shadow of which brought Perceval and Canning
almost to their senses,--Canning’s instructions were despatched from
the Foreign Office. April 7, more than a month after the Tenth Congress
had expired, amidst political conditions altogether different from
those imagined by Canning, the instructions reached Washington; and
Erskine found himself required to carry them into effect.
A cautious diplomatist would have declined to act upon them. Under
pretext of the change which had altered the situation he would have
asked for new instructions, while pointing out the mischievous nature
of the old. The instructions were evidently impossible to execute; the
situation was less critical than ever before, and Great Britain was
master of the field.
On the other hand, the instructions offered some appearance of an
advance toward friendship. They proved Canning’s ignorance, but not
his bad faith; and if Canning in good faith wanted a settlement,
Erskine saw every reason for gratifying him. The arrogance of Canning’s
demands did not necessarily exclude further concession. The great
governments of Europe from time immemorial had used a tone of authority
insufferable to weaker Powers, and not agreeable to one another; yet
their tone did not always imply the wish to quarrel, and England
herself seldom resented manners as unpleasant as her own. Used to
the rough exchange of blows, and hardened by centuries of toil and
fighting, England was not sensitive when her interests were at stake.
Her surliness was a trick rather than a design. Her diplomatic agents
expected to enjoy reasonable liberty in softening the harshness and in
supplying the ignorance of their chiefs of the Foreign Office; and if
such latitude was ever allowed to a diplomatist, Erskine had the best
right to use it in the case of instructions the motives of which he
could not comprehend.
Finally, Erskine was the son of Lord Erskine, and owed his appointment
to Charles James Fox. He was half Republican by education, half
American by marriage; and probably, like all British liberals, he
felt in secret an entire want of confidence in Canning and a positive
antipathy to the Tory commercial system.
Going at once to Secretary Robert Smith, Erskine began on the
“Chesapeake” affair, and quickly disposed of it. The President
abandoned the American demand for a court-martial on Admiral Berkeley,
finding that it would not be entertained.[57] Erskine then wrote a
letter offering the stipulated redress for the “Chesapeake” outrage,
and Madison wrote a letter accepting it, which Robert Smith signed, and
dated April 17.
Two points in Madison’s “Chesapeake” letter attracted notice. Erskine
began his official note[58] by alluding to the Non-intercourse Act of
March 1, as having placed Great Britain on an equal footing with the
other belligerents, and warranting acknowledgment on that account. The
idea was far-fetched, and Madison’s reply was ambiguous:--
“As it appears at the same time, that in making this offer
his Britannic Majesty derives a motive from the equality now
existing in the relations of the United States with the two
belligerent Powers, the President owes it to the occasion and
to himself to let it be understood that this equality is a
result incident to a state of things growing out of distinct
considerations.”
If Madison knew precisely what “distinct considerations” had led
Congress and the country to that state of things to which the
Non-intercourse Act was incident, he knew more than was known to
Congress; but even though he owed this statement to himself, so
important an official note might have expressed his ideas more exactly.
“A result incident to a state of things growing out of distinct
considerations” was something unusual, and to say the least wanting in
clearness, but seemed not intended to gratify Canning.
The second point challenged sharper criticism.
“With this explanation, as requisite as it is frank,” Smith’s
note continued, “I am authorized to inform you that the
President accepts the note delivered by you in the name and by
the order of his Britannic Majesty, and will consider the same
with the engagement therein, when fulfilled, as a satisfaction
for the insult and injury of which he has complained. But I have
it in express charge from the President to state that while he
forbears to insist on the further punishment of the offending
officer, he is not the less sensible of the justice and utility
of such an example, nor the less persuaded that it would best
comport with what is due from his Britannic Majesty to his own
honor.”
According to Robert Smith’s subsequent account, the last sentence was
added by Madison in opposition to his secretary’s wishes.[59] One of
Madison’s peculiarities showed itself in these words, which endangered
the success of all his efforts. If he wished a reconciliation, they
were worse than useless; but if he wished a quarrel, he chose the
right means. The President of the United States was charged with the
duty of asserting in its full extent what was due to his own honor
as representative of the Union; but he was not required, either by
the laws of his country or by the custom of nations, to define the
conduct which in his opinion best comported with what was due from his
Britannic Majesty to the honor of England. That Erskine should have
consented to receive such a note was matter for wonder, knowing as he
did that Kings of England had never smiled on servants who allowed
their sovereign’s honor to be questioned; and the public surprise was
not lessened by his excuse.
“It appeared to me,” he said,[60] “that if any indecorum could
justly be attributed to the expressions in the official notes
of this Government, the censure due would fall upon them; and
that the public opinion would condemn their bad taste or want
of propriety in coldly and ungraciously giving up what they
considered as a right, but which they were not in a condition to
enforce.”
Under the impression that no “intention whatever existed in the mind of
the President of the United States to convey a disrespectful meaning
toward his Majesty by these expressions,” Erskine accepted them in
silence, and Madison himself never understood that he had given cause
of offence.
Having thus disposed of the “Chesapeake” grievance, Erskine took up
the Orders in Council.[61] His instructions were emphatic, and he was
in effect ordered to communicate these instructions _in extenso_
to the President, for in such cases permission was equivalent to
order. He disobeyed; in official sense he did not communicate his
instructions at all. “I considered that it would be in vain,” he
afterward said. This was his first exercise of discretion; and his
second was more serious. After reading Canning’s repeated and positive
orders to require from the American government “a distinct and official
recognition” of three conditions, he decided to treat these orders as
irrelevant. He knew that the President had no Constitutional power
to bind Congress, even if Madison himself would patiently bear a
single reading of three such impossible requirements, and that under
these circumstances the negotiation had better never begin than end
abruptly in anger. Erskine would have done better not to begin it; but
he thought otherwise. Under more favorable circumstances, Monroe and
Pinkney had made the same experiment in 1806.
Canning offered to withdraw the Orders in Council, on three conditions
precedent:--
(1) That all interdicts on commerce should be revoked by the United
States so far as they affected England, while they were still to be
enforced against France. When Erskine submitted this condition to
Robert Smith, he was assured that the President would comply with it,
and that Congress would certainly assert the national rights against
France, but that the President had no power to pledge the government by
a formal act. Erskine decided to consider Canning’s condition fulfilled
if the President, under the eleventh section of the Non-intercourse
Act, should issue a proclamation renewing trade with Great Britain,
while retaining the prohibition against France. This settlement had the
disadvantage of giving no guarantee to England, while it left open the
trade with Holland, which was certainly a dependency of France.
(2) Canning further required that the United States should formally
renounce the pretension to a colonial trade in war which was not
permitted in time of peace. To this condition, which Erskine seems to
have stated as applying only to the direct carrying-trade to Europe,
Robert Smith replied that it could not be recognized except in a formal
treaty; but that it was practically unimportant, because this commerce,
as well as every other with France or her dependencies, was prohibited
by Act of Congress. Erskine accepted this reasoning, and left the
abstract right untouched.
(3) Canning lastly demanded that the United States should recognize
the right of Great Britain to capture such American vessels as should
be found attempting to trade with any of the Powers acting under
the French Decrees. To this suggestion Secretary Smith replied that
the President could not so far degrade the national authority as to
authorize Great Britain to execute American laws; but that the point
seemed to him immaterial, since no citizen could present to the United
States government a claim founded on a violation of its own laws.
Erskine once more acquiesced, although the trade with Holland was not
a violation of law, and would probably give rise to the very claims
which Canning meant to preclude.
Having thus disposed of the three conditions which were to be
distinctly and officially recognized, Erskine exchanged notes with
Robert Smith, bearing date April 18 and 19, 1809, chiefly admirable for
their brevity, since they touched no principle. In his note of April
18, Erskine said that the favorable change produced by anticipation of
the Non-intercourse Act had encouraged his Government to send out a new
envoy with full powers; and that meanwhile his Majesty would recall his
Orders in Council if the President would issue a Proclamation renewing
intercourse with Great Britain. Secretary Smith replied on the same
day that the President would not fail in doing so. April 19, Erskine
in a few lines announced himself “authorized to declare that his
Majesty’s Orders in Council of January and November, 1807, will have
been withdrawn as respects the United States on the 10th of June next.”
Secretary Smith answered that the President would immediately issue his
Proclamation. Two days afterward the four notes and the Proclamation
itself were published in the “National Intelligencer.”
The United States heard with delight that friendship with England
had been restored. Amid an outburst of joy commerce resumed its old
paths, and without waiting for June 10 hurried ships and merchandise
to British ports. No complaints were heard; not a voice was raised
about impressments; no regret was expressed that war with France
must follow reconciliation with England; no one found fault with
Madison for following in 1809 the policy which had raised almost a
resolution against President Washington only fourteen years before. Yet
Madison strained the law, besides showing headlong haste, in acting
upon Erskine’s promises without waiting for their ratification, and
without even asking to see the British negotiator’s special powers or
instructions. The haste was no accident or oversight. When Turreau
remonstrated with Gallatin against such precipitate conduct contrary to
diplomatic usage, Gallatin answered,--
“The offers could not be refused.”
“But you have only promises,” urged Turreau; “and already twelve
hundred vessels, twelve thousand sailors, and two hundred
million [francs] of property have left your ports. May not
the English take all this to serve as a guarantee for other
conditions which their interest might care to impose?”
“We would like it!” replied the Secretary of the Treasury.
“Perhaps our people may need such a lesson to cure them of
British influence and the mania of British commerce.”[62]
Impatient at the conduct of Congress and the people, Madison was glad
to create a new situation, and preferred even hostilities to the
Orders in Council. Erskine’s conduct was unusual, yet Great Britain
had shown no such regard for Madison’s feelings that Madison should
hesitate before the eccentricities of British diplomacy. Perplexed to
account for Canning’s sudden change, the President and his friends
quieted their uneasiness by attributing their triumph to their own
statesmanship. The Republican newspapers, the “National Intelligencer”
at their head, announced that England had been conquered by the
embargo, and taunted not only the Federalists but also the Northern
Republicans with the triumph. While nothing could be more positive than
the language thus encouraged by the Government, the error was partly
redeemed by the tenderness with which it was used to soothe the wounded
feelings of Jefferson.
“The bright day of judgment and retribution has at length
arrived,” said the “National Intelligencer” of April 26, “when
a virtuous nation will not withhold the tribute of its warmest
thanks from an Administration whose sole ambition has ever
been to advance the happiness of its constituents, even at the
sacrifice of its present popularity. Thanks to the sage who now
so gloriously reposes in the shades of Monticello, and to those
who shared his confidence!... It may be boldly alleged that the
revocation of the British Orders is attributable to the embargo.”
President Madison wrote to Jefferson somewhat more cautiously:[63] “The
British Cabinet must have changed its course under a full conviction
that an adjustment with this country had become essential.” Accepting
quietly a turn of fortune that would have bewildered the most astute
diplomatist, Madison made ready to meet the special session of Congress.
The Eleventh Congress differed little in character from its
predecessor, but that little difference was not to its advantage. G.
W. Campbell of Tennessee, David R. Williams of South Carolina, Joseph
Clay of Pennsylvania, Joseph Story of Massachusetts, and Wilson Cary
Nicholas of Virginia disappeared from the House, and no one of equal
influence stepped into their places. The mediocrity of the Tenth
Congress continued to mark the character of the Eleventh. John W. Eppes
became chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means. Varnum was again
chosen Speaker, while Vice-President George Clinton still presided over
the deliberations of thirty-four men whose abilities were certainly not
greater than those of any previous Senate.
May 23 President Madison’s first Annual Message was read. No objection
could be made to its brief recital of the steps which led to the
arrangement with Erskine; but the next paragraph not only provoked
attack, it threatened the country also with commercial wars to the end
of time:--
“Whilst I take pleasure in doing justice to the councils of his
Britannic Majesty which, no longer adhering to the policy which
made an abandonment by France of her Decrees a prerequisite to
the revocation of the British Orders, have substituted the
amicable course which has issued thus happily, I cannot do less
than refer to the proposal heretofore made on the part of the
United States, embracing a like restoration of the suspended
commerce, as a proof of the spirit of accommodation which has
at no time been intermitted, and to the result which now calls
for our congratulations as corroborating the principles by which
the public councils have been guided during a period of the most
trying embarrassments.”
When Madison spoke of the “principles by which the public councils have
been guided,” he meant to place at their head the principles of embargo
and non-intercourse,--a result of Erskine’s arrangement hardly more
agreeable to commercial America than to despotic England; but however
England might resent what Canning would certainly think an offence,
Americans were in no humor for fault-finding, and they received
Madison’s allusions with little protest. The remainder of the Message
contained nothing that called for dispute.
The Federalist minority--strong in numbers, flushed by victory
over Jefferson, and full of contempt for the abilities of their
opponents--found themselves suddenly deprived by Erskine and Madison of
every grievance to stand upon. For once, no one charged that Madison’s
act was dictated from the Tuileries. The Federalist newspapers, like
their Republican rivals, advanced the idea that their success was the
natural result of their own statesmanship. Their efforts against the
embargo had opened the path for Canning’s good-will to show itself,
and the removal of Jefferson’s sinister influence accounted for the
brilliancy of Madison’s success. The attempt to approve Erskine’s
arrangement without approving Jefferson’s system, required ingenuity
as great as was shown in the similar attempt of Madison to weigh down
Erskine’s arrangement by coupling it with the embargo. These party
tactics would hardly deserve notice had not John Randolph, in drawing
a sharp line between Jefferson and Madison, enlivened the monotony of
debate by comments not without interest.
“Without the slightest disposition to create unpleasant
sensations,” said he, “to go back upon the footsteps of the last
four years, I do unequivocally say that I believe the country
will never see such another Administration as the last. It had
my hearty approbation for one half of its career; as for my
opinion of the remainder of it, it has been no secret. The lean
kine of Pharaoh devoured the fat kine; the last four years,
with the embargo in their train, ate up the rich harvest of the
first four; and if we had not had some Joseph to have stepped in
and changed the state of things, what would have been now the
condition of the country? I repeat it,--never has there been any
Administration which went out of office and left the country in
a state so deplorable and calamitous as the last.”
Not satisfied with criticising Jefferson, Randolph committed himself
to the opinion that Canning had been influenced by the same antipathy,
and had been withheld from earlier concessions only by Jefferson’s
conduct:--
“Mr. Canning obtained as good a bargain from us as he could
have expected to obtain; and those gentlemen who speak of his
having heretofore had it in his power to have done the same, did
not take into calculation the material difference between the
situation in which we now stand and the situation in which we
before stood.”
In the virulence of temper with which Randolph blackened the
Administration of Jefferson, he could not help committing himself
to unqualified support of Madison; and even Barent Gardenier, whose
temper was at least as indiscreet as Randolph’s, seemed to revel in the
pleasure of depressing the departed President in order to elevate the
actual Executive, whose eight years of coming power were more dangerous
to the opposition than the eight years of Jefferson had ever been.
“I am pretty well satisfied,” said Barent Gardenier,[64] “that
when the secret history of the two last years is divulged, it
will be found that while the former President was endeavoring to
fan the flames of war, the Secretary of State ... was smoothing
the way for the happy discharge of his Presidential duties when
he should come to the chair. I think it did him honor.... It
is for the promptitude and frankness with which the President
met the late overture that I thank him most cordially for
my country. I approve it most heartily.... And it is now in
proof before us, as I have said and contended, that nothing
was wanting but a proper spirit of conciliation, and fair and
honorable dealing on the part of this country, to bring to a
happy issue all the fictitious differences between this country
and Great Britain.”
Political indiscretion could go no further. The rule that in public
life one could never safely speak well of an opponent, was illustrated
by the mistake of the Federalists in praising Madison merely to gratify
their antipathy to Jefferson. Had they been silent; or had they shown
suspicion, they would have been safe; but all admitted that French
influence and hostility to England had vanished with Jefferson; all
were positive that England had gained what she had sought, and that
Canning had every reason to be satisfied. For the moment Madison was
the most popular President that ever had met Congress. At no session
since 1789 had such harmony prevailed as during the five weeks of
this political paradise, although not one element had changed its
character or position, and the harmony, like the discord, was a play of
imagination. Congress passed its bills with unanimity altogether new.
That which restored relations of commerce with England passed without
discussion, except on the point whether French ships of war should be
admitted to American ports. Somewhat to the alarm of the Eastern men,
Congress decided not to exclude French national vessels,--a decision
which threw some doubt on Madison’s wish to push matters to a head
with Napoleon. Yet care was taken to avoid offence to Great Britain.
Little was said and nothing was done about impressments. An attempt to
increase the protective duties was defeated. Not a voice was raised on
behalf of France; not a fear of Napoleon’s revenge found tongue.
Although no one ventured to avow suspicion that Canning would refuse
to ratify Erskine’s act, news continued to arrive from England which
seemed hard to reconcile with any immediate thought, in the British
ministry, of giving up their restrictive system. June 10, the day
when amid universal delight the new arrangement went into effect, the
public pleasure was not a little disturbed by the arrival of news that
on April 26 the British government had issued a very important Order
in Council, revoking the order of Nov. 11, 1807, and establishing
in its place a general blockade of Holland, France, and Italy. This
step, though evidently a considerable concession,--which would have
produced its intended effect in checking hostile feeling if Erskine
had not intervened,--roused anxiety because of its remote resemblance
to Erskine’s arrangement, which it seemed to adopt by means that the
United States could not admit as legal or consistent with the terms of
Erskine’s letters.
“The new Orders,” wrote Madison to Jefferson,[65] ... “present
a curious feature in the conduct of the British Cabinet. It is
explained by some at the expense of its sincerity. It is more
probably ascribed, I think, to an awkwardness in getting out
of an awkward situation, and to the policy of withholding as
long as possible from France the motive of its example to have
advances on her part toward adjustment with us. The crooked
proceeding seems to be operating as a check to the extravagance
of credit given to Great Britain for the late arrangement with
us, and so far may be salutary.”
Such reasoning was soon felt to be insufficient. The more the new order
was studied, the less its motive was understood. How could Canning
in January have authorized Erskine to withdraw the orders of 1807
without reserve, when in April, without waiting to hear from Erskine,
he himself withdrew those orders only to impose another that had every
mark of permanence? How could Erskine, April 18, have been authorized
to throw open the ports of Holland, when his Government, April 26,
was engaged in imposing a new blockade upon them? So rapidly did the
uneasiness of Congress increase that Erskine was obliged to interpose.
June 15 he wrote an official note to the Secretary of State, which the
President sent the same day to Congress.[66]
“I have the honor,” said Erskine, “to enclose a copy of an
Order of his Majesty in Council issued on the 26th of April
last. In consequence of official communications sent to me from
his Majesty’s government since the adoption of that measure,
I am enabled to assure you that it has no connection whatever
with the overtures which I have been authorized to make to the
government of the United States; and that I am persuaded that
the terms of the agreement so happily concluded by the recent
negotiation will be strictly fulfilled on the part of his
Majesty.”
The expressions of this letter, if carefully read, still left cause for
doubt; and Madison saw it, although he clung to what he thought he had
gained. June 20 he wrote again to Jefferson:[67]--
“The ‘Gazette’ of yesterday contains the mode pursued for
reanimating confidence in the pledge of the British government
given by Mr. Erskine in his arrangement with this government.
The puzzle created by the Order of April struck every one.
Erskine assures us that his Government was under such
impressions as to the views of this, that not the slightest
expectation existed of our fairly meeting its overtures, and
that the last order was considered as a seasonable mitigation of
the tendency of a failure of the experiment. This explanation
seems as extraordinary as the alternative it shows. The fresh
declarations of Mr. Erskine seem to have quieted the distrust
which was becoming very strong, but has not destroyed the effect
of the ill grace stamped on the British retreat, and of the
commercial rigor evinced by the new and insidious duties stated
in the newspapers. It may be expected, I think, that the British
government will fulfil what its minister has stipulated; and
that if it means to be trickish, it will frustrate the proposed
negotiation, and then say their orders were not permanently
repealed but only withdrawn in the mean time.”
Madison had chosen to precipitate a decision, with a view to profiting
in either case, whether England consented or refused to have her hands
thus forced. Indeed, if he had not himself been old in the ways of
diplomacy, Turreau was on the spot to warn him, and lost no chance of
lecturing the Administration on the folly of trusting Erskine’s word.
Meanwhile Turreau so far lost his temper as to address to Secretary
Smith a long letter complaining of the persistently unfriendly attitude
of the United States government toward France. So strong was the
language of the letter that Turreau was obliged to withdraw it.[68]
Robert Smith attempted to pacify him by assurances that the new
Administration would respect the Spanish possessions more strictly than
the old one had done.
“The Secretary of State did not deny that there might have
been some attempt in that direction,” reported Turreau, June
14,[69] “but at the same time, while himself alluding to
the affair of Miranda, he attributed these events to causes
independent of the actual Administration and anterior to its
existence, and especially to the weakness and the indiscretions
of Mr. Jefferson; that he [Smith] was then in the Cabinet,
and knew better than any one how much the want of vigor
(_mollesse_), the uncertainty, and absence of plan in
the Executive head had contributed to the false steps of the
Federal government.”
The new Administration meant to show vigor. Every act and expression
implied that its path was to be direct to its ends. The President and
Congress waited with composure for the outcome of Erskine’s strange
conduct.
No new measure was suggested, after June 10, to provide for the chance
that Erskine’s arrangement might fail, and that the Order in Council of
April 26, 1809, might prove to be a permanent system. Congress seemed
disposed to indulge the merchants to the utmost in their eagerness for
trade. The nearest approach to suspicion was shown in the House by
appropriating $750,000 for fortifications. Randolph, Macon, Eppes, and
Richard M. Johnson tried to reduce the amount to $150,000. The larger
appropriation was understood to mean an intention of preparing for
attack, and eighty-four members sustained the policy against a minority
of forty-seven; but notwithstanding this vote and the anxiety caused by
the new Order in Council, Congress decided to stop enlistments for the
army; and by an Act approved June 28 the President was authorized, “in
the event of a favorable change in our foreign relations,” to reduce
the naval force, although the words of the Act implied doubt whether
the favorable change would take place.
Nothing could be happier for Madison than this situation, where all
parties were held in check not only by his success but by his danger.
So completely was discipline restored, that June 27 he ventured to
send the name of J. Q. Adams a second time to the Senate as minister
to Russia; and nineteen Republicans confirmed the nomination, while
but one adhered to the opinion that the mission was unnecessary. The
power of England over America was never more strikingly shown than by
the sudden calm which fell on the country, in full prospect of war
with France, at a word from a British minister. As Canning frowned
or smiled, faction rose to frenzy or lay down to slumber throughout
the United States. No sooner did the news of Erskine’s arrangement
reach Quebec May 1, than Sir James Craig recalled his secret agent,
John Henry, from Boston, where he still lingered. “I am cruelly out
of spirits,” wrote Secretary Ryland to Henry,[70] “at the idea of Old
England truckling to such a debased and accursed government as that of
the United States;” but since this was the case, Henry’s services could
no longer be useful. He returned to Montreal early in June.
June 28 Congress adjourned, leaving the Executive, for the first
time in many years, almost without care, until the fourth Monday in
November.