THOUGH Yrujo’s language was strong, and his anonymous writings in
the press were indiscreet, he had, down to the summer of 1804, laid
himself open to no just official censure; for whatever the Secretary
of State might think, no one could seriously blame a foreign minister
for obtaining the best legal advice in America on an abstract question
of international law. The protests with which Yrujo contented himself,
vigorous as they were, could neither be disavowed by his Government
nor answered by Madison. Had he stopped there, his triumph would have
been signal; but fortunately for Madison, the Spaniard, with all
the high qualities of his nation, had also its weaknesses, besides
having the love of intrigue inherent in diplomacy. Yrujo was in his
political training more American than Spanish. At home in Philadelphia,
son-in-law to Governor McKean, and well acquainted with the methods
of party politics, he burned to counteract the influence of the
Administration press, and had no other means of doing so than by
acting on Federalist editors. As no one but himself knew even a part
of the truth about the Spanish imbroglio, he was obliged to be the
channel for conveying his own information to the public; and from
time to time Madison read in opposition newspapers anonymous letters
which bore plain marks of Yrujo’s peculiar style. He had already
published a pamphlet on the Louisiana cession. After his hot protest
against the Mobile Act, in March, 1804, the Spanish minister left
Washington, without taking leave of the Secretary of State. At length
his indiscretions enabled Madison to enjoy the pleasure of seeing him
keenly mortified.
Among other Federalist newspapers in Philadelphia was one called the
“Political Register,” edited by a man named Jackson. In September,
1804, six months after the passage-at-arms over the Mobile Act, Yrujo,
then in Philadelphia, asked for an interview with Jackson, and urged
him to oppose the course which the President had taken against Spain.
“If you will consent,” he said, “to take elucidations on the subject
from me, I will furnish them, and I will make you any acknowledgment.”
He charged the Administration with wishing for war, and with intriguing
for a rebellion among the Spaniards of West Florida.
That Yrujo or any other diplomatic agent was quite ready to use money,
if by doing so he could obtain objects necessary for his purposes,
need not be doubted,--although corruption of this kind in the affairs
of the United States has left few traces even on the most secret
diplomatic records of England, France, and Spain. In the ethical code
of diplomacy the offer of money to an editor for inserting information
was no offence, but discovery was fatal; and for this reason perhaps
Yrujo told the truth when he afterward said that the use of money was
not in his mind. Had he meant to bribe, he would not have exposed
himself to detection, or put himself, without need, in the hands of a
person over whom he held no power. Nevertheless, his blunder deserved
the punishment which quickly followed.
A few days after his interview with Jackson, Yrujo left Philadelphia
to visit Jefferson at Monticello. Sept. 20, 1804, immediately after
his departure, Jackson printed an affidavit narrating the attempt
which Yrujo had made upon his virtue, and detailing every expression
of the minister which could do him most injury. As though to make
Yrujo’s position still more mortifying, Jackson sent this affidavit
to President Jefferson ten days or more before publishing it; and
when Yrujo, ignorant of the betrayal, after passing Madison’s door
at Montpelier without the courtesy of stopping to inquire for the
Secretary’s health,[174] at last reached Monticello, not only his host,
but every one except himself, had heard of the diplomatic scandal to
which he was a party.
Jefferson received his visitor with the usual hospitality, and said
not a word on the subject. Being obliged to return to Washington, the
President left Yrujo, two days later, under the protection of his
daughter Mrs. Randolph, and set out to meet his Cabinet on the last day
of the month at the Federal city. Madison was delayed at Montpelier,
and could not attend the Cabinet meeting, but wrote a few days
afterward:[175]--
“Jackson, I find, has lost no time in giving publicity to the
affair between him and Yrujo. What course the latter will
take, remains to be seen. Should circumstances of any kind
be thought to urge a close of the business with him, or any
other arrangement with respect to it, why might not one of the
other secretaries, or even Mr. Wagner, be made a channel of
your sentiments and determinations?... Should the door be shut
against further communication [through] Yrujo, and Pinckney’s
situation at Madrid not be contradicted, a direct communication
with Cevallos appears to be the next resource.”
Already Madison flattered himself with the hope that he was to be
relieved from relations with the Spaniard, whose continuance at
Washington he had asked as a favor from Don Carlos IV. only three years
before.
Jefferson’s delicacy and hospitality were worthy of a great lord of
Spain, and did honor to his innate kindliness; but they put Yrujo in
an attitude so mortifying, that when he returned to Washington and
learned what had taken place in his absence, he was overcome with shame
at finding himself charged with calumniating his host at the moment of
claiming his hospitality. He immediately prepared a counter-statement
and took it to the President, who replied that the matter was one
which should properly belong to Madison. Yrujo then printed his letter
in the “National Intelligencer,” where Madison first saw it. For
the moment the matter went no further; but Madison was fixed in his
purpose of effecting Yrujo’s recall, and when in the following spring
he instructed his minister at Madrid to ask this favor, he alleged the
affair of Jackson among the reasons which justified his request.
Pichon, who was in charge of the French legation, cordially disliked
Yrujo, and did nothing to help him against Madison, although the
relations between Spain and France were those of close alliance; but
Madison next suffered a severe loss in the removal of Pichon, and in
the arrival, Nov. 23, 1804, of the first minister sent by France to the
United States since the departure of Adet in President Washington’s
time. The new appointment was not a happy one. Pichon had carried
friendliness so far as on several serious questions to take sides with
the United States government against his own, and had fallen into
disfavor with Napoleon in consequence. The new minister was little
likely to repeat this blunder. Napoleon liked military discipline in
all things; and he sent as his minister to Washington a former general
of the Republic, Louis Marie Turreau, best known for the extreme
severities he was charged with having inflicted on the Vendeans in
1794. Like most of the republican generals, including even Moreau
and Bernadotte, Turreau accepted the _coup d’état_ of the 18th
Brumaire, and was for private reasons anxious to obtain some position
far removed from France. According to his own story, he had during
the Vendean war been so unfortunate as to be saved from death, in a
moment of extreme danger, by a woman’s self-sacrifice. In token of
his gratitude he married his preserver; but from that time his life
became a long regret. His wife’s temper was terrible; his own was
querulous and morbidly depressed. Although he could speak no English,
had no diplomatic experience and little taste for general society, he
sought the post of minister resident at Washington in order to escape
his wife. To his extreme annoyance, she followed him to America; and
Washington resounded with the scandal of their quarrels, which reached
the extremity of pitched battles. He wrote to his friends in the French
Foreign Office that he was almost mad with mortification and despair.
Such a minister was not happily chosen for the difficult task on
hand; but Bonaparte loaded him with other burdens, of a kind even
more embarrassing to a diplomatist. At best, the position of a French
minister in America was not agreeable. The mere difference in habits,
manners, amusements, and the want of a thousand luxuries and pleasures
such as made Paris dear to every Frenchman, rendered Washington a
place of exile. Perhaps nothing but fear of the guillotine could have
reconciled even republican Frenchmen to staying in a country where,
in the words of Talleyrand, there was no Frenchman who did not feel
himself a stranger; but if this were true while France was a republic
fighting the battles of American democracy, it became doubly true after
Bonaparte had crushed French liberties and made himself the foremost
enemy of republican ideas. Turreau arrived at Washington about six
months before Bonaparte took the title of Emperor; and he found that as
representative of Napoleon I. he could never hope for a friend in the
United States, unless it were among a few bankrupt adventurers, who to
retrieve their broken fortunes would have liked to see an 18th Brumaire
at New Orleans, which should give an imperial crown and the mines of
Mexico to Aaron Burr and his troop of embryo dukes and marshals.
As though to embarrass his representative to the utmost, Bonaparte
deprived him of the only means by which he could win even the venal
respect of a money-making people. At one stroke the First Consul had
annulled and sent to protest all the drafts drawn under Rochambeau’s
orders by the fiscal administrator of St. Domingo.[176] His avowed
reason was that every bill of exchange or draft on the public treasury
which did not purport to rest on the authority of a letter from
the minister authorizing the expenditure, should not be paid. The
true reason was that he had determined to waste no more money on
St. Domingo, but to sacrifice his army there under cover of a war
with England, which required all the means then at his disposal.
Rochambeau’s expenditures were becoming wild; but thus far his drafts
on the Treasury were regularly drawn. They had been taken in good faith
throughout the West Indies and in every commercial city on the American
seaboard; they rested on the national credit of France, and their
repudiation destroyed French credit in America, public and private.
Before Turreau sailed for his post, the credit of his Government was
at an end in the United States. Not only had the drafts drawn in St.
Domingo been refused payment, but Pichon’s had also suffered the same
fate; and neither the new minister nor his consuls could find a man in
Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York to advance money on their official
signatures. Turreau complained bitterly to Talleyrand of the penury and
mortification to which he was condemned. In one of his despatches[177]
he reported that at a tavern in Baltimore one of the French agents,
not known to be such, was offered French government paper at fifty per
cent discount, and at the same time five per cent premium for drafts on
the British government. “In short, we are brought to such a state of
affairs that private discredit follows the discredit of the nation, and
I experience it for my own individual drafts.”
Owing to these circumstances, Turreau declared that his position
was hardly tolerable; but even apart from such matters, he found a
formidable legacy of diplomatic difficulties left by Pichon to be
settled. The question of trade with St. Domingo, of boundary on both
sides of Louisiana, the Spanish imbroglio, the unpaid claims on France,
and the repudiated drafts negotiated by Pichon in the United States,
were all matters which Turreau was required to master and manage; but
none of them gave him more trouble than the personal quarrel between
his colleague Yrujo and the Secretary of State.
Yrujo’s affair with Major Jackson occurred in September, 1804, and
Turreau, reaching Washington in the following November, was soon
obliged to take part in Yrujo’s feuds. Not only the tone of his
instructions, but the increasing certainty that Spain must side with
France in the war against England, obliged him to make common cause
with the Spanish minister, who came from Philadelphia to Washington
in order to invoke his services. The result was told in a despatch to
Talleyrand:[178]--
“Following your instructions and the request of M. d’Yrujo, I
consented to an interview with him at Mr. Madison’s.... I had no
trouble in perceiving from the outset of the conversation that
Mr. Madison and M. d’Yrujo cordially detested each other, and in
the discussion that their passions took the place of reason and
law.”
This discussion naturally turned on the question of West Florida; and
unfortunately for Madison, Turreau’s instructions on that point were
emphatic in support of Spain. Turreau was obliged to enter the lists in
defence of Yrujo’s position.
“I mixed in the discussion only in order to represent to Mr.
Madison, who is unwilling to stop at the treaty of 1762, that in
general the last conventions were those which ought to guide in
negotiations; otherwise, if each party invoked the antecedent
ones in favor of his system, we should be forced to go back to
the Deluge to find the primitive title. ‘But, General!’ replied
Mr. Madison, ‘we have a map which probably carries to the
Perdido the eastern limit of Louisiana!’--‘I should be curious
to see it, sir; the more, because I have one which includes
Tennessee and Kentucky in Louisiana. You will agree that maps
are not titles.’ The Secretary of State closed this session,
which lasted two long hours, by saying that if Spain had always
conducted herself toward the United States as well as France had
done, the difficulties would not have taken place. I did not
think myself called upon to appear very grateful for this kind
of cajolery.”
Turreau did not want keenness of insight; and this early experience
gave him no high respect either for Madison or for the American
system of government. His despatch explained that the dispute was in
great part due to the fact that the Louisiana purchase had been made
a battle-ground in the Presidential election just ended; that the
opposition, by depreciating its importance, had driven the party in
power to exaggerate its value; and that the Administration, to assure
itself of victory, had committed itself to the policy of obtaining
Florida by one means or another, till it could no longer recede.
Yrujo’s indiscretions had helped to make it impossible for Jefferson to
withdraw with dignity from his position.
“For the rest,” continued Turreau, “I have made every effort
to reconcile M. d’Yrujo with the Secretary of State, and if I
have not succeeded, it is the fault of the latter. He is dry
(_sec_), spiteful (_haineux_), passionate; and his
private resentments, still more than political difference, will
long keep him apart from M. d’Yrujo. Nevertheless, as I am on
very good terms with Mr. Madison, whom I was about to ask to
dine with me, I sent my first aide-de-camp to ask him whether
he would be pleased to meet the Spanish minister at dinner;
and in consequence of his very civil and even obliging answer,
I had them together at my table, where I again attempted a
reconciliation. M. d’Yrujo would have agreed to it; but the
Secretary of State cannot forgive.”
Finally, Turreau called Talleyrand’s attention to the question whether
it was for the interest of France and Spain that Yrujo should be kept
at Washington:--
“Doubtless the Government here wishes for his recall, and
regards this step as the duty of the Court at Madrid, the more
because Mr. Pinckney has been recalled; but ought the Spanish
minister to be changed because the American government wishes
it? This point deserves attention. These people here have been
well spoiled; it is time to send them back to their proper
place.”
The quarrel with Yrujo was the more unfortunate because it happened
at a moment when Charles Pinckney, the American minister at Madrid,
showed extreme want of discretion. The President had not intended
to leave Pinckney unassisted. After the conclusion of the Louisiana
treaty, in May, 1803, Madison supposed that Monroe, in obedience to his
instructions, would go at once to Madrid and take the negotiation from
Pinckney’s hands.[179] For reasons that will hereafter appear, Monroe
decided against this step, and went to London instead. On learning the
change of plan, Madison warned Pinckney[180] to make no propositions to
the Spanish government, which was not yet in a humor to receive them
with favor. Pinckney, restive under restraint, managed to keep up an
appearance of diplomatic activity that greatly vexed the Secretary of
State. Madison complained[181] to the President that his minister at
Madrid teased the Spanish government on the subject of Florida, which
he had been ordered not to touch without the presence or the advice
of Monroe; forbidden to make but permitted to accept offers, he was
continually offering to accept; while Livingston at Paris, equally
restive under the imposed authority of Monroe, could not resist the
temptation to stimulate Pinckney and offer advice both to France and
Spain. Madison’s complaints were well founded; but when he wrote
in this sense to Jefferson, he had not begun to appreciate the full
measure of diplomatic activity which his minister at Madrid was capable
of displaying.
Yrujo always managed to embarrass the American government without
seriously committing his own; but Pinckney showed no such forbearance,
and by the close of the year 1804 drew Madison into a mortifying
position. He began his activity in July, 1803, immediately after
hearing that Monroe had given up the proposed visit to Madrid, and
had gone to London. Without waiting to learn how this change of plan
and the purchase of Louisiana might affect the President’s views
toward Spain, Pinckney, to use his own words,[182] “pushed the new
propositions respecting our claims in that positive and decided manner
which the circumstances of Europe and the particular situation of Spain
seemed to me to warrant.” Cevallos contented himself with parrying this
attack by giving to Pinckney the written opinion obtained by Yrujo from
the five American lawyers in support of his argument that the United
States, by their treaty with France of Sept. 30, 1800, had renounced
their right to demand indemnity for losses sustained from French
cruisers.[183]
Both parties next appealed to the French ambassador at Madrid. The
Prince of Peace, though irritated by the sale of Louisiana, quickly saw
that his only chance of retaining Florida was to conciliate Bonaparte;
and Pinckney, who knew that the French ambassador at Madrid had been
instructed to support Monroe in negotiating for Florida, counted on the
same aid in order to maintain a threatening attitude. The result was
soon seen. Pinckney, disturbed by the news of Yrujo’s protest against
the sale of Louisiana, turned to the French ambassador for advice.[184]
Beurnonville accordingly wrote to Talleyrand for instructions; but
Talleyrand had already sent to the Spanish embassy at Paris a note of
sharp remonstrance against the protest.[185] Beurnonville, learning
this, asked the Prince of Peace for explanations; and Godoy hastened
to assure him that Bonaparte might be at ease on this score, for
orders had been sent to New Orleans to surrender the province without
opposition, and already Yrujo had been instructed to change his
tone at Washington.[186] Soon afterward Cevallos formally notified
Pinckney that the King renounced his opposition to the cession of
Louisiana.[187] In due time Yrujo sent to the State Department a formal
note to the same effect.[188]
At the cost of recognizing the Louisiana cession, Godoy pacified
Bonaparte, who stood in need of Spanish support. From that moment
Pinckney begged in vain for help from the French ambassador at Madrid,
although the need of aid increased from day to day. Just as his first
and least important point, the withdrawal of Yrujo’s protest, was
gained at Madrid, the Government at Washington created new difficulties
about his path. At the moment when Beurnonville, Talleyrand, and
Pinckney wrung from King Charles his adhesion to the Louisiana treaty,
the Senate at Washington, Jan. 9, 1804, ratified the Spanish claims
convention, which had been negotiated by Pinckney nearly eighteen
months before, and had been held an entire year under consideration
by the Senate. The last article of this convention provided, as usual
with such instruments, that it should have no effect until ratified by
both parties, and that the ratifications should be exchanged as soon as
possible. So far from performing its part of the contract, the Senate
had at one moment refused to ratify at all, and after reconsidering
this refusal, had delayed ratification an entire year, until the
relations of the two parties had been wholly changed. The idea that
the King of Spain was bound to ratify in his turn, implied excessive
confidence in his good-nature; but Madison, in sending the ratified
treaty to Pinckney, suggested no suspicion that Charles IV. might have
changed his mind, and gave not a hint to Pinckney of the course to be
followed in such a contingency. The Mobile Act had not yet become law,
and Yrujo was waiting for its signature by the President before waking
Madison from his dreams of doing what he pleased with Spanish property.
Early in February, 1804, Madison sent these new instructions to
Pinckney, inclosing the ratified treaty, and instructing him in
effect to press the reserved claims for French spoliations in Spanish
ports. The despatch reached Pinckney in May, and he went at once to
Cevallos for the ratification. To his great annoyance Cevallos made
difficulties. During the discussion, Cevallos received from Yrujo
a copy of the Mobile Act, which he sent to Pinckney May 31, with a
demand for explanations. Pinckney replied in a tone little short of
dictatorial.[189]
“Permit me on this subject to remind your Excellency,” said he,
“that on the first intelligence being received of the cession
of Louisiana, I communicated verbally to your Excellency and
the Prince of Peace the contents of an official letter I had
received from Mr. Livingston and Mr. Monroe, informing me that
they considered a great part of West Florida, as so called
by the English, as included. Such letter could not have been
written officially to me by them without their having been so
informed by the French plenipotentiary and government.”
Pinckney urged that the two subjects should be kept separate. “Do not
show the United States that you have no confidence either in their
honor or justice,--qualities on which they value themselves more than
on power or wealth.”
Unfortunately Pinckney’s note obliged Spain to show want of confidence
in the “honor or justice” of the United States, unless indeed she meant
to acquiesce in losing Florida as well as Louisiana. Pinckney next
appealed to the French ambassador for help.[190] “I took the course of
giving Mr. Pinckney an obliging but vague answer,” said Beurnonville,
writing for instructions to Talleyrand. Cevallos, on his side, wrote
to Admiral Gravina, the Spanish ambassador at Paris, instructing him
to remonstrate with Talleyrand against Pinckney’s conduct. After a
month’s delay, Cevallos, in answer to Pinckney’s letters, sent a sharp
note,[191] offering to ratify the convention on three conditions,--one
being that the reserved claim for French spoliations should be
abandoned, and another that the Mobile Act should be revoked.
Without waiting for further instructions, or even consulting Monroe at
London, Pinckney next wrote to Cevallos a letter which surpassed all
indiscretions that Madison could have imagined. Requesting Cevallos
“merely to answer this question,” whether ratification was refused
except on the conditions specified, he added:[192]--
“I wish to have your Excellency’s answer as quickly as possible,
as on Tuesday I send a courier with circular letters to all our
consuls in the ports of Spain, stating to them the critical
situation of things between Spain and the United States, the
probability of a speedy and serious misunderstanding, and
directing them to give notice thereof to all our citizens;
advising them so to arrange and prepare their affairs as to
be able to move off within the time limited by the treaty,
should things end as I now expect. I am also preparing the
same information for the commander of our squadron in the
Mediterranean, for his own notice and government, and that of
all the American merchant-vessels he may meet.”
Cevallos immediately answered[193] that as he could not comprehend
the motive for “breaking out in the decisions, not to say threats,”
of this letter, or how it was possible that Pinckney could have
the authority of his government for such conduct, he should by
the King’s order transfer the negotiation to Washington. Pinckney
rejoined by despatching his circular letter, which created a panic
in the Mediterranean. He then informed Cevallos that so soon as his
affairs could be arranged, he should send for his passports and quit
Madrid.[194]
Although this step was in the highest degree improper, Pinckney had
some excuse for his conduct. Left without instructions in the face of
an emergency which might have been foreseen at Washington, he argued
that his government, which had officially annexed West Florida, meant
to support its acts with a strong hand. He thought that the issue
presented by Cevallos was such as the President was bound to take
up, and he knew that the only chance of carrying the points which
the President had at heart was in energetic action. For three years
he had watched the peremptory tone of France and England at Madrid,
and had been assured by the common voice of his diplomatic colleagues
that threats alone could extort action from the Spanish government. He
had seen the Prince of Peace, after resorting to one subterfuge after
another, repeatedly forced to cower before the two great robbers who
were plundering Spain, and he explained to Madison the necessity of
imitating their example if the President meant that Spain should cower
before the United States. Perhaps he felt that Godoy looked on the
President at Washington as the jackal of Bonaparte, and he may have
wished to prove that America could act alone. His eager ambition to
make himself as important as the representatives of France and England
in the eyes of Europe might imply vanity, but rested also on logic.
The first result of this energetic tone was not what Pinckney had
hoped. Cevallos was outwardly unmoved; Pinckney’s violence only caused
him to lay aside that courtesy which was the usual mark of Spanish
manners. His official notes were in outward form still civil enough,
but in two or three conversations Pinckney listened to a series of
remarks as blunt as though Lord Harrowby were the speaker. Pinckney
reported to Madison the tenor of these rough rejoinders.[195] Cevallos
told him that the Americans, ever since their independence, had been
receiving the most pointed proofs of friendship and generosity from
Spain, who, as was well known, received no benefit from them,--on
the contrary, their commerce was extremely injurious to Spain; the
Spanish government had ten times more trouble with them than with
any other nation, and for his part, he did not wish to see the trade
with the United States extended. Spain had nothing to fear from the
United States, and had heard with contempt the threats of senators
like Ross and Gouverneur Morris. The Americans had no right to expect
much kindness from the King; in the purchase of Louisiana they had
paid no attention to his repeated remonstrances against the injustice
and nullity of that transaction, whereas if they had felt the least
friendship they would have done so. They were well known to be a nation
of calculators, bent on making money and nothing else; the French, and
probably in the result all the nations having possessions in the West
Indies, would be materially injured by them, for without a doubt it was
entirely owing to the United States that St. Domingo was in its present
situation.
Pinckney received[196] at the same time what he called secret
intelligence on which he could implicitly rely, that Cevallos meant
to create indefinite delays to the ratification, for Yrujo had written
that neither these nor the French spoliation claims, nor West Florida,
would induce the American government to depart from its pacific system.
France had indeed gone to the point of advising and even commanding
Spain to relinquish her claim on Louisiana, and this was the reason why
Spain had so quietly given it up; but in regard to the spoliations,
France preferred not to see them paid, as the more money Spain paid
America the less she could pay France, and France knew as well as
Spain how little serious was the American government in the idea of
abandoning its neutrality.
Pinckney having done his worst, found himself in a position extremely
awkward. Although he threatened to leave Spain, and proclaimed that
he meant soon to demand his passports, he did not venture to take
this last step without instructions. Cevallos, excessively perplexed
by his conduct, could not conceive that he should act thus without
some definite authority. Boldly as Cevallos talked, he was in truth
greatly alarmed by the idea of war. The French representative at Madrid
wrote to Talleyrand that Pinckney had terrified the secretary beyond
reason:[197]--
“The difficulty of making himself understood by M. de Cevallos
in a language with which he is not familiar, excites Mr.
Pinckney to fly out in terms beyond moderation and proper
civility. He positively threatens war, and loudly announces his
resolution shortly to demand his passports. The truth is that
he is preparing to depart, and finds himself almost deprived
of power to remain, not only in consequence of his personal
altercation with the minister, but also of the care with which
he has taken the public into his confidence.... M. de Cevallos
seems to me to be quite seriously alarmed at the results this
may have.”
Ten days later the Frenchman reported that Cevallos was more uneasy
than ever.[198]
“‘If the Emperor,’ added M. de Cevallos, ‘would but say a word,
and let the United States understand that he is not pleased
at seeing them abuse the advantages which they owe to their
strength and to the nearness of their resources over an ally
of France, this would reconcile all difficulties, and save his
Majesty the necessity of exacting satisfaction for an insult
which is as good as inflicted.’”
The Frenchman, having no instructions, contented himself with
suggesting that the Emperor had more pressing matters on hand.
“‘So,’ said M. de Cevallos, ‘France will have caused our actual
misunderstanding with our neighbors, and we are to expect no service
from her influence!’”
While Cevallos thus invoked the aid of France, the news of Pinckney’s
war slowly crossed the Atlantic. No sooner did it arrive than Yrujo
in the middle of October, shortly after his attempt to seduce the
patriotism of Major Jackson, wrote to the Secretary of State a formal
letter,[199] repeating what had already been said to Pinckney at
Madrid. Madison’s reply was studiously moderate and conciliatory.[200]
He explained as best he could the offensive language of the Mobile
Act, and announced that a special minister would soon reach Madrid, to
hasten the adjustment of all territorial disputes; he deprecated the
demand for an abandonment of the French claims, and argued that such
a condition of ratification was not supported by international law;
he urged Yrujo to give assurances of an unqualified ratification, but
he said not a word about Pinckney’s performances, and gave it to be
understood that Pinckney would be recalled. A few days afterward he
wrote to Monroe, ordering him in haste to Spain. “The turn which our
affairs at Madrid have taken renders it expedient in the judgment of
the President that you should proceed thither without delay.”[201]
In another letter, written at nearly the same time, he was more
explicit:[202]--
“Pinckney’s recall has been asked by the Spanish government, and
a letter of leave goes to him. I suspect he will not return in
good humor. I could not permit myself to flatter him, and truth
would not permit me to praise him. He is well off in escaping
reproof, for his agency has been very faulty as well as feeble.”
The first attempts to overawe Spain had failed. Pinckney, not disavowed
but ignored, fell into the background; and once more Monroe stepped
forward to rescue the Administration. When these instructions were
written, he had already reached Paris on his way to Madrid; but
Madison, undeterred by Pinckney’s disaster, still persisted in advising
him to place his main reliance “in a skilful appeal to the fears of
Spain.”[203]