WHILE Napoleon labored to reconstruct his system mutilated
by American legislation, the Government of Great Britain sank lower
and lower toward disappearance, while the star of Spencer Perceval
shone alone with dull lustre on the British horizon. When the
Portland ministry went to pieces in September, 1809, Perceval became
of necessity master of the empire. Canning had quarrelled with him,
and refused office except as prime minister. Castlereagh had been so
lately disgraced that he could bring only weakness to the Government
if he rejoined it. Both Castlereagh and Sidmouth refused to serve with
Canning on any terms. The Whigs, represented by Lord Grenville and Lord
Grey, were excluded by the King’s prejudices, by their own pledges to
the Irish Catholics, and by the great preponderance of Tory opinion in
the country. The Duke of Portland was dying; King George himself was
on the verge of insanity, and every one supposed that the Prince of
Wales, if he became regent, would at once appoint a ministry from among
his Whig friends. This stalemate, where every piece on the chessboard
stood in the way of its neighbor, and none could move while the King
and Spencer Perceval remained, seemed likely to end in the destruction
of the British empire. An economist wiser and better educated than
Napoleon might easily have inferred, as he did, that with time England
must succumb.
Perceval and his remaining friends--Liverpool, Bathurst, Eldon--looked
about them for allies. They would not, indeed they could not, surrender
the government to others, for no one offered to take it. In the House
of Lords they were strong, but in the Commons they had no speaker
except Perceval, while the opposition was strengthened by Canning, and
Castlereagh could not be safely reckoned as more than neutral. They
sought for allies both old and young in the Commons, but their search
was almost fruitless. They could find only young Viscount Palmerston,
about five-and-twenty years of age, who took the subordinate place of
Secretary at War.
Nothing remained but to carry on the government by the Peers, with
Perceval as its only important representative in the Commons. The Lord
Hawkesbury of 1802, who had become Lord Liverpool at his father’s
death, and was actually head of the Home Office, succeeded Castlereagh
as head of the War Department. Spencer Perceval took the Duke of
Portland’s place as first Lord of the Treasury, retaining his old
functions as Chancellor of the Exchequer. These changes brought no new
strength into the Cabinet; but Canning’s place at the Foreign Office
remained to be filled, and common consent fixed upon one person as
alone competent to bring with him to the position a weight of character
that could overbalance the losses the Cabinet had suffered.
This person, hitherto unmentioned, was Richard Colley Wesley, or
Wellesley, born in Ireland in 1760, eldest son of the first Earl of
Mornington, whose younger son Arthur was born in 1769. Another brother,
Henry, born in 1773, rose to high rank in diplomacy under the later
title of Lord Cowley. In 1809 these three brothers were all actively
employed in the public service; but the foremost of the three was the
eldest, the Marquess Wellesley, whose reputation still overshadowed
that of Arthur, then just called to the peerage Sept. 4, 1809, as
Viscount Wellington of Talavera, in reward of his recent battle with
Marshal Victor.
An Irish family neither wealthy nor very distinguished, the Wellesleys
owed their success to their abilities. The second Lord Mornington,
Marquess Wellesley, sprang into fame as a favorite of William Pitt,
who showed his power by pushing young men like Richard Wesley and
George Canning into positions of immense responsibility. Perhaps the
favor shown to the former may in part have had its source in some
resemblance of character which caused Pitt to feel a reflection of
himself, for Mornington was a scholar and an orator. His Latin verses
were an ornament of Eton scholarship; his oratory was classic like his
verses; and his manners suited the scholarship of his poetry and the
Latinity of his orations. Lord Mountmorris, one of his antagonists in
the Irish Parliament of 1783, ridiculed his rhetoric: “If formidable
spectres portending the downfall of the Constitution were to appear in
this House, I admit that the noble Lord is frightened with becoming
dignity. The ancient Roscius or the modern Garrick could not stand with
a better grace at the appearance of a spectre.” The orator whose air
of dignity Lord Mountmorris thought so studied was then twenty-three
years old, and apparently never changed his manner. In the British
Parliament, thirteen years afterward, Sheridan described him as
presenting the same figure that Mountmorris laughed at. “Exactly two
years ago,” said Sheridan in 1796, “I remember to have seen the noble
Lord with the same sonorous voice, the same placid countenance, in the
same attitude, leaning gracefully upon the table, and giving an account
from shreds and patches of Brissot that the French republic would last
but a few months longer.” The aristocratic affectations, if they were
affectations, of Lord Mornington were conspicuous; but no man could
safely laugh at one of the Wellesleys. In 1797 Mr. Pitt suddenly sent
this ornament of the peerage to India as governor-general, and the
world learned that since the time of Clive no surer or bolder hand had
guided the empire of England in the East.
When he took charge of the Indian government, French influence
contested his own at more than one court of the powerful native
princes, while his resources were neither great nor easily
concentrated. During the eight years of his sway he extirpated French
influence; crushed the power of Tippoo Sultaun; conquered the empire
of Mysore, which had again and again won victories over English armies
within sight of Madras; broke up the Mahratta confederacy; and doubled
the British territory in India, besides introducing or planning many
important civil reforms. He shocked the Court of Directors by arbitrary
rule, extravagance in finance, and favoritism toward his younger
brothers; but success was the decisive answer to hostile criticism,
and even fanatics could hardly affirm that a governor-general, though
he might have every virtue, was fit for his place if he refused the
services of Arthur Wellesley when they might be had for the asking.
When Lord Wellesley, created an Irish marquess and English baron,
returned to England in 1806, he came home with the greatest name
in the empire next to that of Pitt.[216] He was asked to join the
Portland Administration, but declined. Canning was said to have taken
offence at his refusal;[217] but at last in disgust with Perceval,
Canning connected himself more closely than ever with the Marquess,
doubtless in the hope of forcing Castlereagh out in order to bring
Wellesley in.[218] At Canning’s request in April, 1809, the Marquess
was appointed to the important and difficult post of Ambassador
Extraordinary to the Supreme Junta of Spain, then at Seville; while
at the same time his brother Arthur was made general-in-chief in the
Peninsula. Lord Wellesley went to Spain with the understanding that he
was soon to return and enter the Cabinet.[219] In October he learned
that Canning had broken up the Cabinet, and that while Canning himself
on one side expected the Wellesleys’ support, Perceval on the other was
begging for it, and the Whigs were waiting with open arms to welcome
their alliance. Canning’s duel took place Sept. 21, 1809. October 5
Spencer Perceval wrote to Wellesley at Seville, asking him to accept
the Foreign Office; while at the same time Canning informed the King
that Lord Wellesley would retire from office with himself.
In such a situation the most astute politician could not trust his
own judgment. No one could say whether Wellesley’s strength would
invigorate the Government, or whether Perceval’s weakness would exhaust
Wellesley as it had exhausted Canning. Canning and Wellesley held
the same estimate of Perceval. Canning had succeeded only in ruining
himself by struggling to rid the Government of that incubus, as he
regarded it, and Wellesley had no better right to expect success. On
the other hand, if the Marquess should join the Government he might
assist his brother Arthur, who needed support at home. Probably this
idea turned the scale; at all events Wellesley accepted Perceval’s
offer, and gave his Administration a chance of life.
Wellesley could have had no hope of effecting any considerable object
except by carrying out Canning’s scheme, which required that Spencer
Perceval should be forced from power before the Government could be
placed on a strong foundation. His first experiences showed him the
difficulties in his way.
December 6, 1809, the Marquess was sworn as Secretary of State. A
few days afterward he appointed his brother Henry to the post he
had himself vacated, of Envoy to the Spanish Junta at Seville. The
favoritism was unfortunate, but Wellesley troubled himself little about
odium; his single thought was to support his “brother Arthur,” while
England was far from showing equal zeal in Arthur’s support. In spite
of the success at Talavera, Lord Wellington had been obliged to retreat
into Portugal; the Spanish army led by inferior generals ventured to
march on Madrid, and November 19 was annihilated by the French at
Ocaña, some fifty miles south of that city, leaving the whole south
and east of Spain unprotected. The French were certain to reoccupy
Seville if not to attack Cadiz. Affairs in the Peninsula were at least
as unpromising as they had ever been, and Englishmen might be excused
for doubting the policy of wasting British resources in fretting one
extremity of Napoleon’s enormous bulk.
While the Wellesley interest concentrated on the Peninsula, the Foreign
Office was interested in wider fields. The new secretary was expected
to devise some system of trade with the Spanish-American colonies
which should meet approval from the Junta, jealous with good reason
of any foreign interference with Mexico and Peru; but above all he
was required to take in hand the quarrel with the United States, and
if possible to retrieve the mistakes of Canning. He had been only a
few weeks in office when news arrived that President Madison refused
to hold further relations with F. J. Jackson, the British minister,
and that Madison and Jackson were only agreed in each requiring the
punishment of the other. Pinkney soon appeared at the Foreign office
with a request for Jackson’s recall.
Lord Wellesley was in character to the full as arbitrary as George
Canning. Seven years of imperial power in India had trained him
in habits of autocratic authority; but he was a man of breeding,
courteous, dignified, and considerate of others’ dignity. In India he
had shown what Canning thought himself to possess,--the hand of iron
in the velvet glove. Without a tinge of Canning’s besetting vice, the
passion to be clever, Wellesley never fell into the fault of putting
sarcasms or epigrams into his state papers. So little offensive was
he in manner, that although he brought about a war between England and
the United States no American held him as an enemy, or retained so much
ill-feeling toward him as to make even his name familiar to American
ears. In truth his subordinate position in the Government prevented
the exercise of his powers, and left him no opportunity to develop the
force of that character which had crushed Tippoo Sultaun and tamed the
Mahrattas. His colleagues allowed him to show only the weaknesses of a
strong nature, which may have been increased to vices by the exhaustion
of eight years’ severe labor in an Indian climate. What he might have
done had he taken Perceval’s place no one can say; what he did or
failed to do is more easily told.
When Pinkney came to explain the President’s action and wishes in
regard to Jackson, Wellesley, in a manner that seemed to the American
minister both frank and friendly, showed only the wish to conciliate.
In a short time Pinkney became so intimate with the new Foreign
Secretary as to excite comment. Nothing could be more encouraging
than his reports to the President of the change in disposition which
had come over the Foreign Office. Jan. 2, 1810, Pinkney, in a long
note, explained to Wellesley the President’s reasons for breaking off
relations with Jackson.[220] His tone was conciliatory, professing
only the wish for friendly accommodation; and Wellesley on his side
not only received the note without objection, but encouraged the hope
that the President’s wishes would be gratified. Pinkney reported that
in conversation Lord Wellesley had promised at once to send out a new
envoy of diplomatic rank; to lose no time in settling the “Chesapeake”
affair; and afterward to take up the commercial questions which
had made the substance of Monroe’s treaty three years before. The
cordiality of these promises satisfied Pinkney that they were not meant
to deceive. If any one was deceived, the victim was not Pinkney but
Wellesley himself, who overrated his own power and underrated the inert
resistance of Spencer Perceval and the army of selfish interests at his
back. Even Jackson’s affair was not easily managed. Jackson could not
be disavowed, for he had done nothing more than his orders required him
to do; nor could a new minister be appointed until the year elapsed
which Canning promised for the term of Jackson’s mission. Between
Canning on one side and Perceval on the other, Wellesley found himself
unable to act, and resorted to delays.
Not until March 14 did Pinkney receive the promised reply[221] to his
note of January 2; and this reply was not all that Wellesley had given
him to expect. Compared with Canning’s notes, Wellesley’s letter might
be called affectionate; but it was less definite than Pinkney would
have liked. His Majesty, said Wellesley, regretted that the President
should have interrupted communications before his Majesty could
manifest his invariable disposition to maintain the relations of amity
with the United States. Mr. Jackson had most positively assured his
Government that it was not his purpose to give offence by anything he
said or did; in such cases the usual course would have been to convey
a formal complaint, which would have prevented the inconvenience of a
suspension of relations. Yet his Majesty, always disposed to pay the
utmost attention to the wishes and sentiments of States in amity with
him, had directed the return of Mr. Jackson, though without marking his
conduct with any expression of displeasure, inasmuch as Mr. Jackson’s
“integrity, zeal, and ability have long been distinguished in his
Majesty’s service,” and he seemed to have committed no intentional
offence on the present occasion. Jackson was ordered to deliver his
charge into the hands of a properly qualified person, while his Majesty
“would receive, with sentiments of undiminished amity and good-will,
any communication which the Government of the United States may deem
beneficial to the mutual interests of both countries.”
This was but Canning once more, without the sarcasm. With his grand
air of sultan and viceroy, Wellesley ignored the existence of
complaints, and professed himself “ready to receive, with sentiments
of undiminished amity and good-will, any communication which the
Government of the United States may deem beneficial;” but when his
course led, two years afterward, to the only communication which
could logically result,--a declaration of war,--Wellesley declared in
Parliament[222] “that a more unjust attack was never made upon the
peace of any nation than that of the American government upon England;”
and that “the American government had been long infected with a deadly
hatred toward this country, and (if he might be allowed an unusual
application of a word) with a deadly affection toward France.” He
blamed only his own colleagues, who “ought in fact to have expected and
been fully prepared for war with America.”
That the American government and people were infected with a deadly
hatred toward England, if not already true, was becoming true with a
rapidity which warranted Wellesley in taking it for fact, if he could
do nothing to prevent it; but he should at least have explained the
reasons why his colleagues, who in his opinion showed culpable neglect,
failed to expect war or to prepare for it. In truth his colleagues
had as little reason to expect war with America as he had to charge
the American government with “deadly affection” toward France. They
would do nothing to conciliate the United States because they had what
seemed the best ground for thinking that the United States were already
conciliated, and that the difficulties between America and France were
such as to prevent America from quarrelling with England. Wellesley’s
note was written March 14; Louis of Holland, March 16, signed the
treaty obliging him to seize the American ships in his ports; Napoleon
signed, March 23, the Rambouillet Decree. In every country within
French control Napoleon was waging avowed war against the United States
in retaliation for the Non-intercourse Act; while in America, March 31,
Congress abandoned the idea of even a Navigation Act against England,
and May 1 restored relations with her, without asking an equivalent or
expressing unfriendly feeling. Under such circumstances, ministers more
intelligent than Spencer Perceval were warranted in thinking that the
part of wisdom was to leave American affairs alone.
The point was all-important in the story of the war. Governments rarely
succeed in forethought, and their favorite rule is to do nothing
where nothing need be done. Had the British government expected war,
even Spencer Perceval would have bestirred himself to prevent it; but
ministers neither expected nor had reason to expect hostilities. On the
contrary, the only bright spot in Perceval’s horizon was the United
States, where his influence seemed paramount. The triumph of Perceval’s
policy there gave him strength at home to disregard Wellesley’s
attempts at domination. An intelligent by-stander, through whom Lord
Wellesley kept up relations with the Whigs, wrote, May 1, to the
Marquess of Buckingham a letter,[223] which threw light on the ideas
then influencing Wellesley:--
“The only hope Perceval can naturally have is in the turn which
peace, or rather accommodation, with America may give the public
mind; as also the successes in Spain against France which may
be looked for. The former, in my opinion, as well from the
devotion of Pinkney to Lord Wellesley as the late rapacious act
of Bonaparte, may be looked on as certain.”
This letter, showing the certainty felt by all parties in American
friendship, happened to be written on the day when the President
signed the Act restoring commercial relations. After all that had
occurred,--seizures, blockades, impressments, and Orders in Council;
the “Chesapeake” affair, Rose’s mission, Canning’s letters, Erskine’s
arrangement, and Jackson’s dismissal,--the British government counted
its American policy as its chief success, and had the strongest reasons
for doing so. American legislation was controlled by British influence,
and Napoleon reasonably thought that neither robbery nor magnanimity
would affect the result.
The Marquess of Buckingham’s friend gave him exact information, as the
news a few weeks later, of the Act of May 1, proved; but evidence much
more convincing of the confidence felt by ministers in the attitude
of America was given by George Canning, who claimed the credit for
having brought about that settlement which gave a new lease of life to
the Perceval Administration. June 15, a week before Parliament rose,
Canning spoke.[224]
“The recent proceedings of Congress,” he said, “have effected so
much of what it was the anxious wish of the Government of which
I was a member to attain, that I trust all our difficulties
with America may be speedily adjusted. In truth I had never
much doubt upon my mind that America, if left to her own policy
and to the effect of those discussions which would take place
in her own legislatures, general and provincial, would at no
distant period arrive at that point at which, by the late Act of
Congress, she appears to have arrived. No man is more anxious
than I am for an amicable accommodation with that Power; but
I trust at the same time that the change in the policy of the
United States has not been effected by any improper concessions
on our part,--a circumstance which I can fully disclaim during
the period that I remained in office. I should rather hope that
it has been the consequence of a determined adherence to that
system which has been so often declaimed against in this House,
but which has proved as clearly beneficial to the commercial
interests as it has been consistent with the political dignity
of this nation.”
While it was possibly true, or soon became true, that the United States
were, as Wellesley afterward alleged, infected by a deadly hostility
to England, neither Wellesley nor Canning, nor any other English
statesman in the year 1810, suspected the strength of that passion, or
dreamed of shaping a policy to meet the hatred which ought to have been
constantly in their minds. Wellesley’s personal wishes were not easy
to fathom, but they probably leaned, under Pinkney’s influence, toward
conciliation. His actual measures showed a want of decision, or a
degree of feebleness, unsuspected in his character.
Quite early in Wellesley’s career as Foreign Secretary, an opportunity
occurred to test his energies. January 25, 1810,[225] Armstrong sent to
Pinkney a copy of Napoleon’s offer to withdraw the Decree of Berlin,
if England would withdraw her previous blockade of the coast from Elbe
to Brest. Nothing could be easier for England. The blockade of May
16, 1806, had been invented by Charles James Fox at the beginning of
his short Administration as an act of friendship toward the United
States, in order to evade the application of Sir William Scott’s legal
principles; it was strictly enforced only between Ostend and the Seine,
a short strip of coast within the narrow seas completely under British
control, and in part visible from British shores, while the subsequent
Orders in Council had substituted a series of other measures in place
of this temporary device, until at last the blockade of Holland and
the Empire, from the river Ems to Trieste,--in which, April 26, 1809,
the restrictive system of England was merged,--seemed to sweep away
all trace of the narrower restraint. No one but Sir William Scott
could say with certainty, as matter of law, whether Fox’s blockade
was or was not in force; but for years past England had established a
depot at Helgoland in the mouth of the Elbe, for no other purpose than
to violate its own blockade by smuggling merchandise into Germany,
Denmark, and Holland. From every point of view the continued existence
of Fox’s blockade seemed impossible to suppose.
February 15 Pinkney wrote to Wellesley, asking whether that or any
other blockade of France previous to January, 1807, was understood
to be in force.[226] March 2 Wellesley replied that the restrictions
imposed in May, 1806, “were afterward comprehended in the Order
of Council of Jan. 7, 1807, which order is still in force.”[227]
This reply encouraged Pinkney to infer that Fox’s blockade had
merged in Howick’s Order in Council. March 7 he wrote again to the
Marquess,[228]--
“I infer ... that the blockade ... is not itself in force, and
that the restrictions which it established rest altogether, so
far as such restrictions exist at this time, upon an Order or
Orders in Council issued since the first day of January, 1807.”
To this easy question, which seemed hardly worth answering in the
negative, Wellesley replied, March 26,[229]
“The blockade notified by Great Britain in May, 1806, has
never been formally withdrawn. It cannot, therefore, be
accurately stated that the restrictions which it established
rest altogether on the Order of Council of Jan. 7, 1807; they
are comprehended under the more extensive restrictions of that
Order.”
This explanation, however satisfactory it might be to the admiralty
lawyer who may have framed it, conveyed no clear idea to the diplomatic
mind. The question whether the blockade of 1806 was or was not still in
force remained obscure. Pinkney thought it not in force, and wrote to
Armstrong,[230]--
“Certainly the inference is that the blockade of 1806 is
virtually at an end, being merged and comprehended in an Order
in Council issued after the date of the Edict of Berlin. I am,
however, about to try to obtain a formal revocation of that
blockade, and of that of Venice [July 27, 1806], or at least a
precise declaration that they are not in force.”
His hopes were not strong, but he returned patiently to his task,
and April 30 wrote a third letter to Lord Wellesley,[231] in which
he recited Napoleon’s promise in full, and begged Wellesley to say
“whether there exists any objection on the part of his Majesty’s
government to a revocation, or to a declaration that they are no longer
in force, of the blockades in question, especially that of May, 1806.”
Already Pinkney had waited nearly three months for a plain answer
to a question which ought certainly to have received a satisfactory
reply within a week. He was destined to wait longer; indeed, the
United States waited two years for their answer before they declared
war. The reason for this incomprehensible behavior, at a moment when
America was thought to be friendly, cannot be fully explained; but
evidence published in his brother’s papers seems to show that Marquess
Wellesley favored giving up not only Fox’s blockade, but also the
principle of commercial restrictions represented both in the Orders of
November, 1807, and in the blockade of April, 1809. “He only agreed
with his colleagues in the legality and propriety of the orders when
first enacted. He contended that they had ceased to be applicable to
the state of affairs; that they had become inexpedient with regard to
England, and would certainly produce a war with America.”[232] That he
insisted on this opinion in the Cabinet, or forced an issue with his
colleagues on the point, is not to be supposed; but without doubt the
treatment his opinions and authority received in the Cabinet was the
cause of his strange conduct toward the American minister.
Pinkney’s last letter about Fox’s blockade was dated April 30. As early
as April 25 every well-informed man in London knew that Wellesley
was on bad terms with his colleagues. The Marquess of Buckingham’s
correspondent had the news from Wellesley’s own mouth:[233]--
“Lord Wellesley complains that he has no weight whatever in
Council; that there is nothing doing there which marks energy
or activity; that the affairs of the country are quite at a
standstill, and are likely to remain so; and that so little
is his private interest in any of the departments, that
since his accession to office he has not been able to make an
exciseman.... Add to all this that he hates, despises, and
is out of friendship or even intimacy with every one of his
colleagues at this moment.”[234]
Two years afterward the Marquess repeated the same story in
public:[235]--
“Lord Wellesley,” he declared, speaking in the third person,
“had repeatedly, with great reluctance, yielded his opinions to
the Cabinet on many other important points [besides the war in
the Peninsula]. He was sincerely convinced by experience that in
every such instance he had submitted to opinions more incorrect
than his own, and had sacrificed to the object of accommodation
and temporary harmony more than he could justify in point of
strict public duty. In fact he was convinced by experience
that the Cabinet neither possessed ability nor knowledge to
devise a good plan, nor temper and discernment to adopt what
he now thought necessary, unless Mr. Perceval should concur
with Lord Wellesley. To Mr. Perceval’s judgment or attainments
Lord Wellesley, under the same experience, could not pay any
deference without injury to the public service.”
Probably Wellesley did not conceal in Council the opinion of his
colleagues which he freely expressed in society. In every way they
annoyed him. A scholar, who prided himself on his classical studies and
refined tastes, he found these colleagues altering his state papers
and criticising his style. “He had thought he was among a Cabinet
of statesmen,” he said; “he found them a set of critics.” His own
criticisms occasionally touched matters more delicate than style. Once
at a Cabinet meeting Lord Westmoreland, the Privy Seal, put his feet on
the table while Wellesley was talking. The Foreign Secretary stopped
short. “I will go on with my remarks,” he said, “when the noble Lord
resumes a more seemly attitude.”
Americans could hardly be blamed for holding a low opinion of this
Administration, when most intelligent Englishmen held the same. If
Whigs or Liberals like Grenville, Brougham, and Sydney Smith were
prejudiced critics, this charge could hardly be brought against
Canning; but if Canning’s opinion were set aside, the Wellesleys at
least being identified with his administration had every reason to
wish Perceval success. How the Marquess hated and despised Perceval;
how he struggled to get rid of him, and strained every nerve to bring
Canning, Castlereagh, Sidmouth, Grey, or Grenville into the Government
as a counter-balancing influence, can be read in the biographies of all
these men, and of many less famous. London echoed with the Marquess’s
deep disgust; every man of fair parts in England sympathized with
it, unless his personal interests or feelings bound him to blind
devotion. The yoke hung heavy on Whigs and Tories alike. Even Lord
Sidmouth rebelled against the commercial system to which Perceval clung
more desperately than to his offices or power. “Of that destructive
system,” wrote Sidmouth in the summer of 1810,[236] “all are weary,
‘praeter atrocem animum Catonis.’”
Even Henry Wellesley, at Seville and Cadiz, felt the same heavy-hand
deadening the effect of every effort, and longed to do at Cadiz what
Erskine had done at Washington. March 4, 1810,[237] Perceval wrote to
Lord Wellesley begging him to instruct his brother Henry to obtain
from the Spanish Junta exclusive or at least special privileges in the
trade of the Spanish colonies, such as would admit British consuls to
the chief places of South America, and “give us a decided benefit and
preference in the trade.” Of course this preference was to be granted
at the expense of the United States, the solitary rival of England in
those waters, but “as nearly hostile to Spain as she can be without
actually declaring war against her.” Soon afterward the “Espagnol,”
a Spanish periodical published in England, applauded revolutionary
movements in Caracas and Buenos Ayres, while it asserted the
impossibility of preventing the spread of the spirit of independence in
the Spanish-American colonies.
“You can have no idea,” wrote Henry Wellesley from Cadiz, August
31, to his brother Arthur,[238] “of the ferment occasioned here
by this article, which is attributed to the Government,--as
it is supposed, and I believe justly, that the ‘Espagnol’ is
patronized by the Government, and contains its sentiments with
regard to the occurrences in Spain and the measures necessary in
the present crisis of her affairs.... It is wonderful that they
cannot be satisfied in England with a commercial arrangement
which would be attended with immense advantages to ourselves,
and would likewise be greatly beneficial to Spain. I apprehend
this to be the true spirit of all commercial treaties; and why
are we to take advantage of the weakness of Spain to endeavor to
impose terms upon her which would be ruinous and disgraceful? I
have it in my power to conclude to-morrow a commercial treaty
which, without breaking in upon the Spanish colonial laws, would
pour millions into the pockets of our merchants, and be equally
advantageous to the resources; but this will not do, and we must
either have the trade direct with the colonies, or nothing.
However, I have received my answer, and the Government will not
hear of opening the trade.”
The coincidence of opinion about Spencer Perceval extended everywhere,
except among the Church of England clergy, the country squires, the
shipping interests, the Royal household at Windsor, and the Federalists
of Boston and Connecticut. As though to make him an object of
execration, the long-threatened storm burst on the trade and private
credit of Great Britain. For some eighteen months gold stood at a
premium of about fifteen per cent; the exchanges remained steadily
unfavorable, while credit was strained to the utmost, until in July,
1810, half the traders in England, and private banks by the score,
were forced to suspend payment. Never before, and probably never since,
has England known such a fall in prices and destruction of credit.[239]
This was the impending situation when Parliament adjourned, June 21,
with no bright spot on its horizon but the supposed friendship of
America. Meanwhile Pinkney wearied Wellesley for an answer to the
question whether Fox’s blockade was in force. June 10, June 23, and
finally August 6, he renewed his formal request. “No importunity had
before been spared which it became me to use.”[240] He was met by the
same torpor at every other point. Wellesley promised to name a new
minister to Washington, but decided upon none. He invited overtures in
regard to the “Chesapeake” affair, but failed to act on them. Rumor
said that he neglected business, came rarely to Cabinet meetings, shut
himself in his own house, saw only a few friends, and abandoned the
attempt to enforce his views. He resolved to retire from the Cabinet,
in despair of doing good, and waited only for the month before the next
meeting of Parliament, which he conceived to be the most proper time
for declaring his intention.[241]
In the midst of this chaos, such as England had rarely seen, fell
Cadore’s announcement of August 5 that the Imperial Decrees were
withdrawn, _bien entendu_ that before November 1 England should
have abandoned her blockades, or America should have enforced her
rights. Pinkney hastened to lay this information before Lord Wellesley,
August 25, and received the usual friendly promises, which had ceased
to gratify him. “I am truly disgusted with this,” he wrote home, August
29,[242] “and would, if I followed my own inclination, speedily put
an end to it.” Two days afterward he received from Wellesley a civil
note,[243] saying that whenever the repeal of the French Decrees should
actually have taken effect, and the commerce of neutral nations should
have been restored to the condition in which it previously stood,
the system of counteraction adopted by England should be abandoned.
This reply, being merely another form of silence, irritated Pinkney
still more, while his instructions pressed him to act. He waited until
September 21, when he addressed to Wellesley a keen remonstrance. “If
I had been so fortunate,” he began,[244] “as to obtain for my hitherto
unanswered inquiry the notice which I had flattered myself it might
receive, and to which I certainly thought it was recommended by the
plainest considerations of policy and justice, it would not perhaps
have been necessary for me to trouble your Lordship with this letter;”
and in this tone he went on to protest against the “unwarrantable
prohibitions of intercourse rather than regular blockades,” which had
helped in nearly obliterating “every trace of the public law of the
world”:--
“Your Lordship has informed me in a recent note that it is
‘his Majesty’s earnest desire to see the commerce of the world
restored to that freedom which is necessary for its prosperity;’
and I cannot suppose that this freedom is understood to be
consistent with vast constructive blockades which may be so
expanded at pleasure as, without the aid of any new device, to
oppress and annihilate every trade but that which England thinks
fit to license. It is not, I am sure, to _such_ freedom
that your Lordship can be thought to allude.”
The Marquess of Buckingham’s well-advised correspondent some weeks
afterward[245] remarked that “Pinkney, who was at first all sweetness
and complaisance, has recently exhibited in his communications with
Lord Wellesley an ample measure of republican insolence.” Sweetness
and insolence were equally thrown away. Pinkney’s letter of September
21, like most of his other letters, remained unanswered; and before
November 1, when Napoleon’s term for England’s action expired, a new
turn of affairs made answer impossible. The old King was allowed to
visit the death-bed of his favorite daughter the Princess Amelia; he
excited himself over her wishes and farewells, and October 25 his mind,
long failing, gave way for the last time. His insanity could not be
disguised, and the Government fell at once into confusion.