THE summer of 1810 was quiet and hopeful in America. For
the first time since December, 1807, trade was free. Although little
immigration occurred, the census showed an increase in population
of nearly thirty-seven per cent in ten years,--from 5,300,000 to
7,240,000, of which less than one hundred thousand was due to the
purchase of Louisiana. Virginia and Massachusetts still fairly held
their own, and New York strode in advance of Pennsylvania, while the
West gained little relative weight. Ohio had not yet a quarter of a
million people, Indiana only twenty-four thousand, and Illinois but
twelve thousand, while Michigan contained less than five thousand. The
third census showed no decided change in the balance of power from any
point of view bounded by the usual horizon of human life. Perhaps the
growth of New York city and Philadelphia pointed to a movement among
the American people which might prove more revolutionary than any
mere agricultural movement westward. Each of these cities contained a
population of ninety-six thousand, while Baltimore rose to forty-six
thousand, and Boston to thirty-two thousand. The tendency toward city
life, if not yet unduly great, was worth noticing, especially because
it was confined to the seaboard States of the North.
The reason of this tendency could in part be seen in the Treasury
reports on American shipping, which reached in 1810 a registered
tonnage of 1,424,000,--a point not again passed until 1826. The
registered foreign tonnage sprang to 984,000,--a point not again
reached in nearly forty years. New vessels were built to the amount
of one hundred and twenty-seven thousand tons in the year 1810.[246]
The value of all the merchandise exported in the year ending Sept.
30, 1810, amounted to nearly sixty-seven million dollars, and of
this sum about forty-two millions represented articles of domestic
production.[247] Except in the year before the embargo this export
of domestic produce had never been much exceeded.[248] The imports,
as measured by the revenue, were on the same scale. The net
customs-revenue which reached $16,500,000 in 1807, after falling
in 1808 and 1809 to about $7,000,000, rose again to $12,750,000 in
1810.[249] The profits of the export and import business fell chiefly
to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, where the shipping
belonged; and these cities could not fail to attract labor as well
as capital beyond the degree that a conservative republican of the
Revolutionary time would have thought safe.
More than half of these commercial exchanges were with England or her
dependencies. Great Britain and her American colonies, Portugal and
Spain in her military protection, and British India consumed at least
one half of the exports; while of the net revenue collected on imports,
Gallatin estimated six and a half millions as derived from articles
imported from Great Britain and the British dependencies, all other
sources supplying hardly six millions.[250] The nature of these imports
could be only roughly given. In general, sugar, molasses, coffee,
wines, silk, and tea were not British; but manufactures of cotton,
linen, leather, paper, glass, earthen-ware, iron, and other metals came
chiefly from Great Britain. To the United States this British trade
brought most of the articles necessary to daily comfort in every part
of the domestic economy. The relief of recovering a full and cheap
supply exceeded the satisfaction of handsome profits on the renewed
trade. Experience of the hourly annoyance, expense, and physical
exposure caused by deprivation of what society considered necessities
rendered any return to the restrictive system in the highest degree
unwise, especially after the eastern people acquired conviction that
the system had proved a failure.
Thus the summer passed with much of the old contentment that marked
the first Administration of Jefferson. Having lost sight of national
dignity, the commercial class was contented under the protection of
England; and American ships in the Baltic, in Portugal, and in the West
Indies never hesitated to ask and were rarely refused the assistance of
the British navy. From time to time a few impressments were reported;
but impressment had never been the chief subject of complaint, and
after the withdrawal of the frigates blockading New York, little was
heard of British violence. On the other hand, Napoleon’s outrages
roused great clamor in commercial society, and his needless harshness
to every victim, from the Pope to the American sailors whom he shut up
as prisoners of war, went far to palliate British offences in the eyes
of American merchants.
News of Napoleon’s seizures at San Sebastian arrived before the
adjournment of Congress May 1; and as fresh outrages were reported
from every quarter by every new arrival, and as Cadore’s letters
became public, even Madison broke into reproaches. May 25 he wrote to
Jefferson:[251] “The late confiscations by Bonaparte comprise robbery,
theft, and breach of trust, and exceed in turpitude any of his
enormities not wasting human blood.” These words seemed to show intense
feeling, but Madison’s temper indulged in outbursts of irritability
without effect on his action; in reality, his mind was bent beyond
chance of change on the old idea of his Revolutionary education,--that
the United States must not regard France, but must resist Great Britain
by commercial restrictions. “This scene on the Continent,” he continued
to Jefferson, “and the effect of English monopoly on the value of our
produce are breaking the charm attached to what is called free-trade,
foolishly by some and wickedly by others.” He reverted to his life-long
theory of commercial regulations.
A few days afterward Madison wrote to Armstrong fresh instructions
founded on the Act of May 1, which was to be the new diplomatic guide.
These instructions,[252] dated June 5, were of course signed by the
Secretary of State, Robert Smith, who afterward claimed credit for
them; but their style, both of thought and expression, belonged to
Madison. Even the unfailing note of his mind--irritability without
passion--was not wanting. He would wait, he said, for further advices
before making the proper comments on Cadore’s letter of February 14 and
on its doctrine of reprisals. “I cannot, however, forbear informing
you that a high indignation is felt by the President, as well as
by the public, at this act of violence on our property, and at the
outrage both in the language and in the matter of the letter of the
Duc de Cadore.” Turning from this subject, the despatch requested that
Napoleon would make use of the suggestion contained in the Act of May
1, 1810. “If there be sincerity in the language held at different
times by the French government, and especially in the late overture,
to proceed to amicable and just arrangements in case of our refusal
to submit to the British Orders in Council, no pretext can be found
for longer declining to put an end to the decrees of which the United
States have so justly complained.” One condition alone was imposed on
Armstrong preliminary to the acceptance of French action under the law
of May 1, but this condition was essential:
“If, however, the arrangement contemplated by the law should
be acceptable to the French government, you will understand it
to be the purpose of the President not to proceed in giving
it effect in case the late seizure of the property of the
citizens of the United States has been followed by an absolute
confiscation, and restoration be finally refused. The only
ground short of a preliminary restoration of the property on
which the contemplated arrangement can be made will be an
understanding that the confiscation is reversible, and that
it will become immediately the subject of discussion with a
reasonable prospect of justice to our injured citizens.”
The condition thus prescribed seemed both reasonable and mild in
view of the recent and continuous nature of the offence; but Madison
could not, even if he would, allow his own or public attention to be
permanently diverted from England. As early as June 22 he had begun to
reconstruct in his own mind the machinery of his restrictive system.
“On the first publication of the despatches by the ‘John Adams,’”
he wrote to Jefferson,[253] “so strong a feeling was produced by
Armstrong’s picture of the French robbery that the attitude in which
England was placed by the correspondence between Pinkney and Wellesley
was overlooked. The public attention is beginning to fix itself on the
proof it affords that the original sin against neutrals lies with Great
Britain; and that while she acknowledges it, she persists in it.”
The theory of original sin led to many conclusions hard to reconcile;
but, as regarded Napoleon, Madison’s idea seemed both sensible and
dignified,--that England’s original fault in no way justified the
recent acts of France, which were equivalent to war on the United
States, not as one among neutrals, but as a particular enemy.
Fresh instructions to Armstrong, dated July 5,[254] reiterated the
complaints, offers, and conditions of the despatch sent one month
before. Especially the condition precedent to action under the law of
May 1 was repeated with emphasis:--
“As has been heretofore stated to you, a satisfactory provision
for restoring the property lately surprised and seized, by the
order or at the instance of the French government, must be
combined with a repeal of the French edicts with a view to a
non-intercourse with Great Britain, such a provision being an
indispensable evidence of the just purpose of France toward the
United States. And you will moreover be careful, in arranging
such a provision for that particular case of spoliations, not
to weaken the ground on which a redress of others may be justly
pursued.”
The instructions of June 5 and July 5 went their way; but although
Armstrong duly received them, and wrote to Cadore a letter evidently
founded on the despatch of June 5, he made no express allusion to his
instructions in writing either to the French government or to his
own. Although he remained in Paris till September 12, and on that day
received from Cadore an explicit avowal that the sequestered property
would not be restored, but that “the principles of reprisal must be the
law,” he made no protest.
Equally obscure was the conduct of Madison. Cadore’s letter of
August 5 announcing that the French Decrees were withdrawn, on the
understanding that the United States should by November 1 enforce their
rights against England, reached Washington September 25, but not in
official form. Nothing is known of the impression it produced on the
Cabinet; nothing remains of any discussions that ensued. If Gallatin
was consulted, he left no trace of his opinion. Hamilton and Eustis had
little weight in deciding foreign questions. Robert Smith within a
year afterward publicly attacked the President for the course pursued,
and gave the impression that it was taken on Madison’s sole judgment.
The President’s only authority to act at all without consulting
Congress depended on the words of the law of May 1: “In case either
Great Britain or France shall, before the third day of March next, so
revoke or modify her edicts as that they shall cease to violate the
neutral commerce of the United States, which fact the President of the
United States shall proclaim by proclamation,” the non-intercourse
of March 1, 1809, should at the end of three months revive against
the nation which had not revoked its edicts. Under this authority,
President Madison was required by Cadore’s letter to proclaim that
France had revoked or modified her edicts so that they ceased to
violate the neutral commerce of the United States.
Madison was doubtless a man of veracity; but how was it possible that
any man of veracity could proclaim that France had revoked or modified
her edicts so that they ceased to violate the neutral commerce of the
United States when he had every reason to think that at least the
Bayonne Decree, barely six months old, would not be revoked, and when
within a few weeks he had officially declared that the revocation of
the Bayonne Decree was “an indispensable evidence of the just purpose
of France” preliminary to a non-intercourse with England? If the
President in June and July thought that provision indispensable to
the true intent of the law which he aided in framing, he would assume
something more than royal dispensing power by setting the indispensable
provision aside in November.
This objection was light in comparison with others. The law required
the President to proclaim a fact,--that France had revoked or modified
her decrees so that they ceased to violate the commerce of America. Of
this fact Cadore’s letter was the only proof; but evidently Cadore’s
letter pledged the Emperor to nothing. “I am authorized to declare
to you,” wrote Cadore, “that the Decrees of Berlin and Milan are
revoked, and that after November 1 they will cease to have effect,
on the understanding that in consequence of this declaration ... the
United States, conformably to the Act you have just communicated, shall
cause their rights to be respected by the English.” Napoleon not only
reserved to himself the right of judging whether the measures to be
taken by the United States should “cause their rights to be respected,”
but in doing so he reversed the process prescribed by the Act, and
required the President to enforce his rights before the Emperor should
withdraw his decrees.
From the standpoint of morality, perhaps the most serious objection of
all was the danger of sacrificing national and personal self-respect
by affecting to regard as honest a promise evidently framed to
deceive, and made by a man whom Madison habitually characterized in
terms that implied, to speak mildly, entire want of confidence. If
America would consent to assert her rights against England in no way
more straightforward than this, she might perhaps recover her neutral
profits, but hardly her national self-respect.
A few months afterward, when Robert Smith gave to the world the amusing
but not wholly new spectacle of a Secretary of State attacking his
own President for measures signed by his own name, Joel Barlow wrote
for the “National Intelligencer” a defence of the President’s course,
in which he gave reasons supplied by Madison himself for holding that
Cadore’s letter satisfied the conditions of Macon’s Act.
To the first objection, founded on the Rambouillet and Bayonne
Decrees, Barlow replied that the American government had habitually
distinguished between maritime edicts violating neutral rights
and municipal edicts attacking private property. “We could not in
strictness arraign such municipal spoliations under the head of
violations of our _neutral_ rights, nor of consequence regard
them as contemplated by the Acts of Congress defining the acts
whose revocation would satisfy the conditions of that Act.” This
reasoning, though not quite convincing, might have had weight but for
two objections. First, the President himself, in June and July, had
declared these municipal spoliations to be contemplated by Macon’s Act
as “an indispensable evidence of the just purpose of France;”[255]
and, second, the President in November notified Armstrong, that,[256]
“in issuing the proclamation, it has been presumed that the requisition
contained in that letter [of July 5] on the subject of the sequestered
property will have been satisfied.” Barlow’s idea of a municipal
spoliation, independent of the _jus gentium_, was an afterthought
intended to hide a miscalculation.
One other argument was advanced by Barlow. Erskine’s arrangement having
been accepted without question of previous British spoliations, not
only did impartiality require the same treatment for France, but a
different rule “would have led to the embarrassment of obliging the
Executive, in case the British government should be desirous of opening
a free trade with the United States by repealing its orders, to make
it a prerequisite that Great Britain also should indemnify for her
respective spoliations.”
Such a prerequisite would have been proper, and ought to have been
imposed; but Barlow’s argument was again answered by the President
himself, who actually insisted on the demand against France, and
assumed the demand to be satisfied. If this was partiality to England,
the President was guilty of it. Probably at the time he saw reasons for
thinking otherwise. The secrecy, the continuance, the pretext of the
French seizures, their municipal and vindictive character and direct
Imperial agency seemed to set them apart from those of England, which,
although equally illegal, were always in the form of lawful trial and
condemnation.
The same argument of impartiality served to justify immediate action
on Cadore’s offer as on Erskine’s, without waiting for its execution.
That one admitted mistake excused its own repetition in a worse form
was a plea not usually advanced by servants, either public or private;
but in truth Erskine’s pledge was distinct and unconditional, while
Cadore’s depended on the Emperor’s satisfaction with a preliminary act.
Had Erskine made his arrangement conditional on Canning’s approval of
the President’s measures, Madison would certainly have waited for that
approval before acting under the law; and after the disastrous results
of precipitancy in 1809, when no one questioned Erskine’s good faith,
wisdom called for more caution rather than less in acting, in 1810, on
an offer or a pledge from a man in whom no one felt any confidence at
all.
In truth, Madison’s course in both cases was due not to logic, but
to impatience. As Barlow admitted: “We know it had been the aim of
our government for two or three years to divide the belligerents by
inducing one or the other of them to revoke its edicts, so that the
example would lead to a revocation by the other, or our contest be
limited to a single one.” Madison gave the same reason in a letter
of October 19 to Jefferson:[257] “We hope from the step the advantage
at least of having but one contest on our hands at a time.” He was
mistaken, and no one expressed himself afterward in language more
bitter than he used against Napoleon for conduct that deceived only
those who lent themselves to deception.
October 31, Robert Smith sent for Turreau and gave him notice of the
decision reached by the President and Cabinet:[258]--
“The Executive,” said Robert Smith, “is determined not to suffer
England longer to trammel the commerce of the United States,
and he hopes to be sustained by Congress. If, then, England
does not renounce her system of paper-blockades and the other
vexations resulting from it, no arrangement with that Power is
to be expected; and consequently you will see, in two days, the
President’s proclamation appear, founded on the provisions of
the law requiring the non-intercourse to be enforced against
either nation which should fail to revoke its edicts after the
other belligerent had done so.... Although we have received
nothing directly from Mr. Armstrong on this subject, which is
doubtless very extraordinary, we consider as sufficient for the
Government’s purposes the communication he made to Mr. Pinkney,
which the latter has transmitted to us.”
The next day Robert Smith made some further interesting remarks.[259]
“The Executive thinks,” he said, “that the measures he shall take in
case England continues to restrict our communications with Europe will
lead necessarily to war,” because of the terms of the non-intercourse.
“We have with us a majority of Congress, which has much to retrieve,
and has been accused of weakness by all parties.”
On leaving Smith, Turreau went to see Gallatin, “whose opinion in the
Cabinet is rarely favorable to us.”
“Mr. Gallatin (by the way long since on bad terms with Mr.
Smith) told me that he believed in war; that England could not
suffer the execution of measures so prejudicial to her, and
especially in the actual circumstances could not renounce the
prerogatives of her maritime supremacy and of her commercial
ascendency.”
Both Smith and Gallatin evidently expected that war was to result, not
from the further action of the United States, but from the resentment
and retaliation of England. They regarded the non-intercourse as a
measure of compulsion which would require England either to resent it
or to yield.
Having decided to accept Cadore’s letter as proof that an actual repeal
of the French Decrees, within the meaning of the Act of Congress,
had taken place November 1, the President issued, November 2, his
proclamation declaring that “it has been officially made known to
this Government that the said edicts of France have been so revoked
as that they ceased, on the said first day of the present month, to
violate the neutral commerce of the United States;” and simultaneously
Gallatin issued a circular to the collectors of customs, announcing
that commercial intercourse with Great Britain would cease Feb. 2, 1811.
By this means Madison succeeded in reverting to his methods of peaceful
coercion. As concerned England, he could be blamed only on the ground
that his methods were admittedly inadequate, as Gallatin, only a year
before, had officially complained. Toward England the United States had
stood for five years in a position which warranted them in adopting any
measure of reprisal. The people of America alone had a right to object
that when Madison began his attack on England by proclaiming the French
Decrees to be revoked, he made himself a party to Napoleon’s fraud, and
could scarcely blame the Federalists for replying that neither in honor
nor in patriotism were they bound to abet him in such a scheme.
The Proclamation of Nov. 2, 1810, was not the only measure of the
autumn which exposed the President to something more severe than
criticism. At the moment when he challenged a contest with England on
the assertion that Napoleon had withdrawn his decrees, Madison resumed
his encroachments on Spain in a form equally open to objection.
The chaos that reigned at Madrid and Cadiz could not fail to make
itself felt throughout the Spanish empire. Under British influence,
Buenos Ayres in 1810 separated from the Supreme Junta, and drove out
the viceroy whom the Junta had appointed. In April of the same year
Caracas followed the example, and entered into a treaty with England,
granting commercial preferences equally annoying to the Spaniards and
to the United States. Miranda reappeared at the head of a revolution
which quickly spread through Venezuela and New Grenada. A civil war
broke out in Mexico. Even Cuba became uneasy. The bulky fabric of
Spanish authority was shaken, and no one doubted that it must soon fall
in pieces forever.
England and the United States, like two vultures, hovered over the
expiring empire, snatching at the morsels they most coveted, while
the unfortunate Spaniards, to whom the rich prey belonged, flung
themselves, without leadership or resources, on the ranks of Napoleon’s
armies. England pursued her game over the whole of Spanish America,
if not by government authority, more effectively by private intrigue;
while the United States for the moment confined their activity to a
single object, not wholly without excuse.
As long as Baton Rouge and Mobile remained Spanish, New Orleans was
insecure. This evident danger prompted Madison, when Secretary of
State, to make a series of efforts, all more or less unfortunate, to
gain possession of West Florida; and perhaps nothing but Napoleon’s
positive threat of war prevented the seizure of Baton Rouge during
Jefferson’s time. After that crisis, the subject dropped from
diplomatic discussion; but as years passed, and Spanish power waned,
American influence steadily spread in the province. Numerous Americans
settled in or near the district of West Feliciana, within sight of
Fort Adams, across the American border. As their number increased, the
Spanish flag at Baton Rouge became less and less agreeable to them; but
they waited until Buenos Ayres and Caracas gave notice that Spain could
be safely defied.
In the middle of July, 1810, the citizens of West Feliciana appointed
four delegates to a general convention, and sent invitations to the
neighboring districts inviting them to co-operate in re-establishing
a settled government. The convention was held July 25, and consisted
of sixteen delegates from four districts, who organized themselves as
a legislature, and with the aid or consent of the Spanish governor
began to remodel the government. After some weeks of activity they
quarrelled with the governor, charged him with perfidy, and suddenly
assembling all the armed men they could raise, assaulted Baton Rouge.
The Spanish fort, at best incapable of defence, was in charge of young
Louis Grandpré, with a few invalid or worthless soldiers. The young man
thought himself bound in honor to maintain a trust committed to him;
he rejected the summons to surrender, and when the Americans swarmed
over the ruinous bastions they found Louis Grandpré alone defending his
flag. He was killed.
After capturing Baton Rouge, the Americans held a convention, which
declared itself representative of the people of West Florida, and
September 26 issued a proclamation, which claimed place among the
curious products of that extraordinary time. “It is known to the
world,” began this new declaration of independence,[260] “with how
much fidelity the good people of this territory have professed and
maintained allegiance to their legitimate sovereign while any hope
remained of receiving from him protection for their property and
lives.” The convention had acted in concert with the Spanish governor
“for the express purpose of preserving this territory, and showing our
attachment to the government which had heretofore protected us;” but
the governor had endeavored to pervert those concerted measures into
an engine of destruction; and therefore, “appealing to the Supreme
Ruler of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, we do solemnly
publish and declare the several districts composing the territory of
West Florida to be a free and independent State.”
A few days afterward the convention, through its president, wrote to
the Secretary of State, Robert Smith, urging the annexation of the new
territory to the United States, but claiming all the public lands in
the province for “the people of this Commonwealth, who have wrested
the government and country from Spain at the risk of their lives and
fortunes.”[261] These words accorded ill with their appeal to the
Supreme Ruler of the world for the rectitude of their intentions,
and their protest of “our inviolable fidelity to our king and parent
country while so much as a shadow of legitimate authority remained to
be exercised over us.” Yet neither with nor without their elaborate
machinery of legitimate revolution could Madison have anything to do
with them. Innumerable obstacles stood in his way. They declared the
independence of territory which he had long since appropriated to the
United States. This course alone withheld Madison from recognizing
the new State; but other difficulties forbade any action at all. The
Constitution gave the President no power to use the army or navy of
the United States beyond the national limits, without the authority
of Congress; and although extreme emergency might have excused the
President in taking such action, no emergency existed in October, 1810,
since Congress would meet within six weeks, and neither Spain, France,
nor England could interfere in the interval. The President’s only legal
course was to wait for Congress to take what measures seemed good.
Madison saw all this, but though aware of his want of authority, felt
the strongest impulse to act without it. He described his dilemma to
Jefferson in a letter written before he received the request for
annexation, then on its way from Baton Rouge:[262]--
“The crisis in West Florida, as you will see, has come home
to our feelings and interests. It presents at the same time
serious questions as to the authority of the Executive, and
the adequacy of the existing laws of the United States for
territorial administration. And the near approach of Congress
might subject any intermediate interposition of the Executive to
the charge of being premature and disrespectful, if not of being
illegal. Still, there is great weight in the considerations that
the country to the Perdido, being our own, may be fairly taken
possession of, if it can be done without violence; above all,
if there be danger of its passing into the hands of a third and
dangerous party.”
Casuistry might carry the United States government far. The military
occupation of West Florida was an act of war against Spain. “From
present appearances,” continued Madison, “our occupancy of West Florida
would be resented by Spain, by England, and by France, and bring on,
not a triangular, but quadrangular contest.” Napoleon himself never
committed a more arbitrary act than that of marching an army, without
notice, into a neighbor’s territory, on the plea that he claimed it as
his own. None of Madison’s predecessors ventured on such liberties with
the law; none of his successors dared imitate them, except under the
pretext that war already existed by the act of the adverse government.
Madison was regarded by his contemporaries as a precise, well-balanced,
even a timid man, argumentative to satiety, never carried away by
bursts of passion, fretful rather than vehement, pertinacious rather
than resolute,--a character that seemed incapable of surprising the
world by reckless ambition or lawless acts; yet this circumspect
citizen, always treated by his associates with a shade of contempt
as a closet politician, paid surprisingly little regard to rules
of consistency or caution. His Virginia Resolutions of 1798, his
instructions in the Louisiana purchase, his assumption of Livingston’s
claim to West Florida, his treatment of Yrujo, his embargo policy,
his acceptance of Erskine’s arrangement, his acceptance of Cadore’s
arrangement, and his occupation of West Florida were all examples of
the same trait; and an abundance of others were to come. He ignored
caution in pursuit of an object which seemed to him proper in itself;
nor could he understand why this quiet and patriotic conduct should
rouse tempests of passion in his opponents, whose violence, by
contrast, increased the apparent placidity of his own persistence.
Forestalling the action of Congress which was to meet within five
weeks, President Madison issued, Oct. 27, 1810, a proclamation
announcing that Governor Claiborne would take possession of West
Florida to the river Perdido, in the name and behalf of the United
States. This proclamation, one of the most remarkable documents in the
archives of the United States government, began by reasserting the
familiar claim to West Florida as included in the Louisiana purchase:--
“And whereas the acquiescence of the United States in the
temporary continuance of the said territory under the Spanish
authority was not the result of any distrust of their title, as
has been particularly evinced by the general tenor of their laws
and by the distinction made in the application of those laws
between that territory and foreign countries, but was occasioned
by their conciliatory views, and by a confidence in the justice
of their cause, and in the success of candid discussion and
amicable negotiation with a just and friendly Power; ...
considering, moreover, that under these peculiar and imperative
circumstances a forbearance on the part of the United States
to occupy the territory in question, and thereby guard against
the confusions and contingencies which threaten it, might be
construed into a dereliction of their title or an insensibility
to the importance of the stake; considering that in the hands
of the United States it will not cease to be a subject of fair
and friendly negotiation and adjustment; considering finally
that the Acts of Congress, though contemplating a present
possession by a foreign authority, have contemplated also an
eventual possession of the said territory by the United States,
and are accordingly so framed as in that case to extend in their
operation to the same,”--
Considering all these reasons, substantially the same self-interest
by which France justified her decrees, and England her impressments,
the President ordered Governor Claiborne, with the aid of the United
States army, to occupy the country and to govern it as a part of his
own Orleans territory.[263] By a letter of the same date the Secretary
of State informed Claiborne, that, “if contrary to expectation, the
occupation of this [revolutionized] territory should be opposed by
force, the commanding officer of the regular troops on the Mississippi
will have orders from the Secretary of War to afford you, upon your
application, the requisite aid.... Should however any particular place,
however small, remain in possession of a Spanish force, you will not
proceed to employ force against it, but you will make immediate report
thereof to this Department.”[264] Having by these few strokes of his
pen authorized the seizure of territory belonging to “a just and
friendly Power,” and having legislated for a foreign people without
consulting their wishes, the President sent to the revolutionary
convention at Baton Rouge a sharp message through Governor Holmes of
the Mississippi territory, to the effect that their independence was
an impertinence, and their designs on the public lands were something
worse.[265]
A few days after taking these measures, Robert Smith explained their
causes to Turreau in the same conversation in which he announced
the decision to accept Cadore’s letter as the foundation of
non-intercourse with England. The wish to preclude British occupation
of Florida was the motive alleged by Smith for the intended occupation
by the United States.[266]
“As for the Floridas, I swear, General, on my honor as a
gentleman,” said Robert Smith to Turreau, October 31, “not
only that we are strangers to everything that has happened,
but even that the Americans who have appeared there either as
agents or leaders are enemies of the Executive, and act in
this sense against the Federal government as well as against
Spain.... Moreover these men and some others have been led into
these measures by the hope of obtaining from a new government
considerable concessions of lands. In any case you will soon
learn the measures we have taken to prevent the English from
being received at Baton Rouge as they have been at Pensacola,
which would render them absolute masters of our outlets by
the Mobile and Mississippi. We hope that your Government will
not take it ill that we should defend the part of Florida in
dispute between Spain and us; and whether our pretensions are
well-founded or not, your interest, like ours, requires us to
oppose the enterprises of England in that country.”
Claiborne took possession of the revolutionized districts December 7,
and the Spanish governor at Mobile was not sorry to see the insurgents
so promptly repressed and deprived of their expected profits. Yet
Claiborne did not advance to the Perdido; he went no farther than the
Pearl River, and began friendly negotiations with Governor Folch at
Mobile for delivery of the country still held by the Spaniards between
the Pearl and the Perdido. Governor Folch had none but diplomatic
weapons to use in his defence, but he used these to save that portion
of the province for some years to Spain.
The four districts west of the Pearl River were organized by Claiborne
as a part of the territory of Orleans, in which shape, the President’s
proclamation had said, “it will not cease to be a subject of fair
and friendly negotiation and adjustment” with Spain. Within a few
weeks the President announced to Congress in his Annual Message that
“the legality and necessity of the course pursued” required from the
Legislature “whatever provisions may be due to the essential rights and
equitable interests of the people thus brought into the bosom of the
American family.” The difficulty of reconciling two such assertions
perplexed many persons who in the interests of law and of society
wished to understand how a people already brought into the bosom of
the American family could remain a subject of fair negotiation with a
foreign Power. The point became further complicated by the admission of
Louisiana as a State into the Union, with the four districts which were
“to be a subject of fair and friendly negotiation.”
The first result of these tortuous proceedings was to call a protest
from Morier, the British chargé at Washington, who wrote to the
Secretary of State, December 15, a letter[267] containing one
paragraph worth noting:--
“Would it not have been worthy of the generosity of a free
nation like this, bearing, as it doubtless does, a respect for
the rights of a gallant people at this moment engaged in a noble
struggle for its liberty,--would it not have been an act on
the part of this country dictated by the sacred ties of good
neighborhood and friendship which exist between it and Spain, to
have simply offered its assistance to crush the common enemy of
both, rather than to have made such interference the pretext for
wresting a province from a friendly Power, and that at the time
of her adversity?”
Spain had little reason to draw distinctions between friends, allies,
and enemies. She could hardly stop to remember that the United States
were filching a petty sand-heap in a remote corner of the world, at a
time when England was “wresting” not one but all the splendid American
provinces from their parent country, and when France was kneeling on
the victim’s breast and aiming stab after stab at her heart.