THE President’s triumph was decided as early as March 17, for
on that day General Smith’s assault upon Armstrong was defeated in the
Senate by Vice-President Clinton’s casting vote; and in the House,
Randolph’s resistance to the non-importation policy against England
ended in his discomfiture and withdrawal; but although even at that
early moment no one could doubt Jefferson’s irresistible strength, yet
no one who knew John Randolph could suppose that either the President
or his Secretary of State was in future to sleep on roses.
The session ended April 21; and during the few weeks that intervened
between Randolph’s defeat, March 17, and the adjournment, the
exasperated Virginian developed a strange and unequalled genius. His
position was new. The alternation of threat and entreaty, of lofty
menace and reluctant obedience, which marked the conduct of the State
Department in its dealings with France and England, had no real
admirer in the United States. When Randolph denounced the change in
Spanish policy, not a voice was raised in its defence, and the public
wondered that so powerful a President should be left an unprotected
victim to assaults so furious. In truth Madison himself must have been
tongue-tied; no resource of logic could excuse his sudden abandonment
of the determination “to extinguish in the French government every
hope of turning our controversy with Spain into a French job, public
or private.” Even had he succeeded in excusing himself, his success
must have proved that Randolph’s crime consisted in maintaining the
ground which had been taken and held by President, secretary, and
plenipotentiaries down to the moment, Oct. 23, 1805, when without
explanation the ground was abandoned. Silence and numbers were the
only arguments in defence of such a change, and to these forms of
logic the followers of the Administration at first resorted. “It is
a matter of great astonishment to me,” wrote Wilson Cary Nicholas to
Jefferson April 2, “that such a philippic as we have seen could have
been uttered in Congress, and not one word said in justification of
the Administration.”[135] Toward the end of the session this silence
ceased; the majority made great efforts to answer Randolph; but the
answers were weaker than the silence.
Besides this difficulty in the nature of the case, the majority felt
more than ever the advantage enjoyed by Randolph in his vigor and
quickness of mind. For two months he controlled the House by audacity
and energy of will. The Crowninshields, Varnums, and Bidwells of New
England, the Sloans, Smilies, and Findleys of the Middle States, could
do nothing with him; but by the time he had done with them they were
bruised and sore, mortified, angry, and ridiculous. The consciousness
of this superiority, heightened to extreme arrogance by the need of
brushing away every moment a swarm of flies which seemed never to know
they were crushed, excited Randolph to madness. He set no bounds to
the expression of his scorn not only for the Northern democrats, but
for the House itself and for the whole government. At one member he
shook his fist, and imperiously bade him sit down or to go down the
back-stairs; another member he called an old toothless driveller,
superannuated, and mumbling in second dotage.[136] He flung Madison’s
pamphlet with violent contempt on the floor of the House; and he told
the House itself that it could not maintain a decision two hours
together against the Yazoo lobby.
Sloan of New Jersey, a sort of butt in the party, who could not forgive
Randolph’s allusion to the “vegetable specific,” retorted that Randolph
behaved like “a maniac in a strait-jacket accidentally broke out of his
cell.” No doubt his conduct was open to the charge; but none the less
the maniac gave great trouble and caused extreme confusion. Even after
three fourths of the House came to share Sloan’s opinion, and began the
attempt to control Randolph by every means in their power, they found
the task beyond them.
The Non-importation Bill, framed on Nicholson’s Resolution, was quickly
reported, and March 25 the House agreed to fix November 15 as the date
on which the Act should go into operation. Randolph could not prevent
its passage, but he could make it contemptible, if it was not so
already; and he could encourage the Government and people of England to
treat it with derision.
“Never in the course of my life,” he cried,[137] “have I
witnessed such a scene of indignity and inefficiency as this
measure holds forth to the world. What is it? A milk-and-water
Bill! A dose of chicken-broth to be taken nine months hence!...
It is too contemptible to be the object of consideration, or to
excite the feelings of the pettiest State in Europe.”
The Bill immediately passed by a vote of ninety-three to thirty-two;
but every man on the floor felt that Randolph was right, and every
foreign minister at Washington adopted his tone.
Two days afterward he called up certain Resolutions denouncing as
unconstitutional the union of civil and military authority in the
same person, and declaring that a contractor under Government was a
civil officer, and as such incapable of holding a seat in the House.
These Resolutions struck in every direction; they were a reproof to
the House, to the President, and to individual members like Matthew
Lyon, who had taken mail contracts, or John Smith, the senator from
Ohio, who was a large contractor for army supplies. General Wilkinson
at St. Louis held civil and military powers; the new territory about
to be organized under the name of Michigan was to have a governor of
the same sort. A vote against Randolph’s Resolutions contravened one
of the cardinal principles of the Republican party; a vote for them
censured the party itself and embarrassed Government. Beaten by very
large majorities on these two declaratory points, Randolph succeeded
in carrying through the House a Bill that rendered military and naval
officers incapable of holding also any civil office. This measure slept
quietly on the table of the Senate.
Hardly a day passed without bringing the House into some similar
dilemma. March 29 the Senate sent down a Bill for settling the Yazoo
claims; it had passed the Senate by a vote of nineteen to eleven soon
after the death of its hottest opponent, Senator James Jackson of
Georgia. Randolph exultingly seized upon the Bill in order to plaster
it, like the hue-and-cry after a runaway thief, against the very doors
of the White House:--
“This Bill may be called the Omega, the last letter of the
political alphabet; but with me it is the Alpha. It is the head
of the divisions among the Republican party; it is the secret
and covert cause of the whole.... The whole weight of the
Executive government presses it on. We cannot bear up against
it. The whole Executive government has had a bias to the Yazoo
interest ever since I had a seat here. This is the original sin
which has created all the mischiefs which gentlemen pretend to
throw on the impressment of our seamen, and God knows what. This
is the cause of those mischiefs which existed years ago.”
The Yazoo sin, he said, had been one principal cause of his failure in
the impeachment of Justice Chase; the secret mechanism of Government
would be so powerfully brought to bear on members that if the Bill
were postponed over Sunday he would not give a farthing for the issue;
gentlemen would come in with speeches ready cut-and-dried until a
majority dwindled to nothing. Exasperating and insulting as this
language was, the House did not resent it; and a motion that the Bill
be rejected passed by a vote of sixty-two to fifty-four, while Randolph
exulted over its fate.
March 31 Randolph, aided by the Federalists and some thirty
Republicans, succeeded in removing the injunction of secrecy from the
Spanish proceedings. No sooner was the Journal published, and he found
that it did not contain the President’s secret message of Dec. 6, 1805,
then he seized this chance to make public all that had occurred in
secret session. April 5, after moving that the injunction of secrecy
should be taken from the Message, he entered into the history of His
own relations with the President and Secretary of State in the tangled
thread of Spanish negotiations. His remarks that day, though severe,
were comparatively temperate; but when the debate was renewed April 7,
he announced that he meant to oppose the Government, because he had
to choose between opposition and dishonesty. He charged that Madison
had tried to get money from the Treasury for this negotiation without
waiting for a vote of Congress; and he declared that the documents,
“if published, would fix a stain upon some men in the government and
high in office which all the waters in the ocean would not wash out.”
His denunciations began to rouse passion; if his opponents could not
equal him in debate, they could in violence of temper. Madison’s
brother-in-law, John G. Jackson of Virginia, took up his charges in
a high tone, and several expressions passed which foreshadowed a
duel. On the vote Randolph was beaten by a majority of seventy-four
to forty-four; but he had published the secrets of Madison’s friends,
and their refusal to print the Message showed the want of courage with
which they were chiefly charged.
On every point of real importance Randolph’s authority overawed the
House. The President in his Annual Message had talked much of defences,
and had even hinted his readiness to build seventy-fours. A committee
of the House reported Resolutions advising that the sum of one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars should be spent in fortifying harbors;
that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars should be appropriated to
build fifty gunboats; and that six hundred and sixty thousand dollars
should be voted toward building six line-of-battle ships. When these
Resolutions were brought up March 25, only thirty members could be
found to vote for the seventy-fours. April 15 the subject came up
again in connection with the Bill for fortifying harbors and building
gunboats. Josiah Quincy made a strong argument, warning Congress that
in the sacrifice of commercial interests which lay at the bottom of
its policy, there was danger not only to the prosperity but to the
permanence of the Union. He remarked that while seventeen millions had
been voted to buy Louisiana and Florida for the sake of securing the
South and West; while in this single session four hundred and fifty
thousand dollars must be voted for Indian lands,--yet the entire sum
expended since the foundation of the government in fortifications
for the nine capital harbors of the Union was only seven hundred and
twenty-four thousand dollars. The city of New York, with at least one
hundred million dollars of capital in deposit, might at any moment be
laid under contribution by two line-of-battle ships. Quincy begged the
House to bear in mind that the ocean could not be abandoned for the
land by the people of New England, of whom thousands would rather see a
boat-hook than all the sheep-crooks in the world:--
“Concerning the land of which the gentleman from Virginia
[Randolph] and the one from North Carolina [Macon] think so
much, they think very little. It is in fact to them only a
shelter from the storm, a perch on which they build their eyrie
and hide their mate and their young while they skim the surface
or hunt in the deep.”
Quincy’s speech was far superior to the ordinary level of Congressional
harangues, and its argument was warmly supported by a democrat as
extreme as Matthew Lyon; but barely thirty votes could be mustered
against Randolph’s economy; and although the New England democrats
joined hands with the New England Federalists in supporting an
appropriation for building two new frigates in place of others which
had been lost or condemned, they could muster only forty-three votes
against Randolph’s phalanx.
Probably no small part of Randolph’s hostility to the navy was due
to his personal dislike for Robert Smith the secretary, and for his
brother Samuel the senator. This enmity already showed signs of serious
trouble in store. Gallatin struggled in vain with Robert Smith’s loose
habit of accounts. Joseph Nicholson, closely allied to Gallatin,
naturally drew away from the Smiths, whose authority in Maryland roused
ill-feeling. Randolph took sides with Gallatin and Nicholson, the more
because Samuel Smith had undertaken to act an independent part in the
politics of the session, and had too plainly betrayed selfish motives.
When Randolph, after delaying the navy estimates as long as he could,
moved the appropriations April 10, he took the opportunity to be more
than usually offensive. He said that an Appropriation Bill was a mere
matter of form; that the items might as well be lumped together; that
the secretary would spend twice the amount if he chose, as he had
done the year before, and that the House would have to make up the
deficiency. “A spendthrift,” said he, “can never be supplied with money
fast enough to anticipate his wants.”
The Bill passed, of course; but the navy was reduced to the lowest
possible point, and fifty gunboats were alone provided in response
to the President’s strong recommendations. Randolph and his friends
believed only in defence on land, and their theory was no doubt as
sound as such theories could ever be; but it was the curse of “old
Republican” principles that they could never be relaxed without
suicide, and never enforced without factiousness. For defence on land
nothing was so vital as good roads. A million dollars appropriated for
roads to Sackett’s Harbor, Erie, Detroit, St. Louis, and New Orleans
would have been, as a measure of land defence, worth more than all
the gunboats and forts that could be crowded along the Atlantic; but
when the Senate sent down a Bill creating commissioners to lay out
the Cumberland road to the State of Ohio, although this road was the
result of a contract to which Congress had pledged its faith, so many
Republicans opposed it under one pretext or another, with John Randolph
among them, that a change of four votes would have defeated the Bill.
No more was done for national defence by land than by water, although
the echo of Nelson’s guns at Trafalgar was as loud as the complaints of
plundered American merchants, and of native American seamen condemned
to the tyranny and the lash of British boatswains.
The drift of Randolph’s opposition was easily seen; he wanted to
cover the Administration with shame for having taken a warlike tone
which it never meant to support. His tactics were calculated to make
Madison contemptible at home and abroad by inviting upon him the worst
outrages of foreign governments. That he succeeded so far as foreign
governments were concerned was almost a matter of course, since even
without his aid Spain, France, and England could hardly invent an
outrage which they had not already inflicted; but at home Randolph’s
scheme failed, because Madison could be degraded only by making the
American people share in his humiliation. The old Republicans relieved
Madison of responsibility for national disgrace, and made Congress
itself answerable for whatever disasters might follow,--a result made
clear by Randolph’s last and most mischievous assault. To meet the
five millions required for the purchase of Florida, at a moment when
the Non-importation Act threatened to cut down the revenue, Gallatin
needed all the existing taxes, including the Mediterranean Fund,
which ceased by law after the peace with Tripoli. April 14 Randolph
suddenly, without the knowledge or consent of Gallatin, moved to repeal
the duty on salt. This heavy and unpopular tax produced about half
a million dollars, and its repeal was so popular that no one dared
oppose it. The next day Randolph brought in a Bill repealing the salt
tax and continuing the Mediterranean Fund. By that time members had
become aware of his factious motives, and denounced them; but so far
from disavowing his purpose, the chairman of the Committee of Ways
and Means proclaimed that since he could not force the Government to
keep within the limit of specific appropriations he meant to sequester
the revenue so as to leave but a scanty surplus. After his speech the
Bill was engrossed without opposition, the Federalists being pleased
to embarrass Government, and the Republicans afraid of sacrificing
popularity. April 17 the Bill passed by a vote of eighty-four to eleven
and was sent to the Senate. The part which related to the salt tax was
there struck out; but when, April 21, the last day of the session,
the Bill so mutilated came again before the House, Randolph exerted
to the utmost his powers of mischief, not so much in order to repeal
the salt tax as to destroy the Senate Bill, and so deprive Government
of its still greater resource, the Mediterranean Fund, which produced
nearly a million. He induced the House to insist upon its own Bill. A
committee of conference was appointed; the Senate would not recede;
Randolph moved that the House adhere. Angry words passed; ill-temper
began to prevail; and when at last Randolph was beaten by the narrow
vote of forty-seven to forty, his relative Thomas Mann Randolph, the
President’s son-in-law, suddenly rose and spoke of his namesake in
terms intended for a challenge; while Sloan of New Jersey occupied part
of the night with a long diatribe against the chairman of the Ways and
Means Committee.
Never had worse temper been seen at Washington than in the last weeks
of this session. Madison’s friends, conscious that their attitude was
undignified, became irritable, and longed for a chance to prove their
courage. Randolph was not the only enemy who devoted the energy of
personal hatred to the task of ruining the Secretary of State. In the
case of Randolph Madison was not to blame, and neither challenged nor
wished a contest. Even the policy which Randolph so violently assailed
was less the policy of the secretary than of the President. Madison did
nothing to invite the storm, and could have done nothing to escape it;
but another tempest raged, to which he voluntarily exposed himself.
The Marquis of Casa Yrujo passed the autumn of 1805 in Philadelphia,
and in obedience to instructions tried to renew friendly relations
with the Secretary of State. During Madison’s stay in the city Yrujo
induced the secretary to accept an invitation to dinner to meet
Governor McKean, Yrujo’s father-in-law. The marquis paid no attention
to the hints sent him from the President that he would confer a favor
on the United States government by returning to Spain without delay. He
was well aware that he had nothing to gain by conferring more favors
on Jefferson; and the conduct of Turreau and Merry was not such as
to deter a Spanish minister from defying to his heart’s content the
authority of the President.
On the appearance of the Annual Message, which contained a general
and loose statement of grievances against Spain, Yrujo wrote Dec. 6,
1805, a keen note to the Secretary of State, criticising, not without
justice, the assertions made by the President. To Yrujo’s note, as
to the St. Domingo note of Turreau, the secretary made no reply. He
held that the contents of an Executive communication to Congress were
not open to diplomatic discussion,--a doctrine doubtless correct in
theory and convenient to the Executive, but offering the disadvantage
that if foreign governments or their envoys chose to disregard it,
the Secretary of State must either enforce discipline or submit to
mortification. Madison accepted the challenge; he meant to enforce
discipline, and aimed at expelling Yrujo from the country. The Cabinet
decided that Yrujo, pending the request for his recall, should receive
no answer to his letters, and should not be permitted to remain in
Washington.
Backed by the President’s authority and by the power of the government,
Madison might reasonably expect an easy victory over the Spaniard, and
he acted as though it were a matter of course that Yrujo should accept
his fate; but Yrujo seemed unconscious of peril. Although the Spanish
minister’s presence at the capital was well known not to be desired by
the President, the society of Washington was startled Jan. 15, 1806,
by learning that the marquis had arrived. The same evening Yrujo,
dining with General Turreau, received a formal note which roused him to
passion only equalled by the temper of John Randolph. The exasperating
letter, signed by Madison, said that as the President had requested
Yrujo’s recall, and as Cevallos had intimated that the marquis wished
to return to Spain on leave, it had been supposed that the departure
would have taken place at once, and therefore his appearance at
Washington was a matter of surprise:--
“Under these circumstances the President has charged me
to signify to you that your remaining at this place is
dissatisfactory to him; and that although he cannot permit
himself to insist on your departure from the United States
during an inclement season, he expects it will not be
unnecessarily postponed after this obstacle has ceased.”
A routine diplomatist would have protested and obeyed; but Yrujo was
not a routine diplomatist. Not in order to learn correct deportment
had he read the “Aurora” or studied the etiquette of Jefferson’s
_pêle-mêle_. Minister and marquis as he was, he had that
democratic instinct which always marked the Spanish race and made
even the beggars proud; while his love of a fray shocked Turreau and
caused Merry to look upon his Spanish colleague as a madman. At that
moment Madison was little esteemed or feared by any one; the recoil of
his foreign policy had prostrated him, and Randolph was every day, in
secret session, overwhelming him with contempt. Yrujo had no reason to
fear the result of a contest; but even had there been cause for fear,
he was not a man to regard it.
Turreau in vain attempted to restrain him; nothing would satisfy Yrujo
but defiance. January 16, the day after receiving Madison’s letter, the
Spanish minister answered it.
“As the object of my journey is not with a view to hatch plots,”
said he, with a side-blow at Madison which the secretary soon
understood, “my arrival here is an innocent and legal act, which
leaves me in the full enjoyment of all my rights and privileges,
both as a public character or a private individual. Making use
therefore of these rights and privileges, I intend remaining in
the city, four miles square, in which the Government resides, as
long as it may suit the interest of the King my master or my own
personal convenience. I must at the same time add that I shall
not lose sight of these two circumstances as respects the period
and season in which our mutual desires for my departure from the
United States are to be accomplished.”
Having thus retaliated Madison’s insult, Yrujo next made his revenge
public. January 19 he sent to the Department a formal protest, couched
in language still more offensive than that of his letter:--
“Having gone through the personal explanations which for just
motives I was compelled to enter into in my first answer to
your letter of the 15th inst., I must now inform you, sir, what
otherwise would then have constituted my sole reply; namely,
that the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of
his Catholic Majesty near the United States receives no orders
except from his sovereign. I must also declare to you, sir,
that I consider both the style and tenor of your letter as
indecorous, and its object an infraction of the privileges
attached to my public character.”
Finally he sent to his colleagues copies of this correspondence, which
soon afterward was printed in every Federalist newspaper, together with
the note criticising the Annual Message, the reception of which had
never been acknowledged by the Secretary of State.
Thus far Madison gained no credit in the scuffle, but merely called
upon his own head one more intolerable insult. Perhaps in Yrujo’s
apparent madness some share of method might be detected; for he
knew the character of Madison,--his willingness to irritate and
his reluctance to strike. At all events, the Spaniard remained at
Washington and defied the Government to do its worst. The Cabinet
consulted, examined into the law, inquired for precedents, and at last
decided that the Government could not expel him. Merry took Yrujo’s
part, and Turreau had much to do with moderating the President’s
measures and with checking interference from Congress.[138] The
Government in all its branches was overawed, and even the senators were
alarmed. “The marquis’s letters last published seem to have frightened
many of them so that probably nothing will be done.”[139] So wrote
a member of the Senate who alone exerted himself to strengthen the
President’s hands. Yrujo remained a fortnight or more at Washington,
and after carrying his point returned at his leisure to Philadelphia.
The only measure which Madison ventured to take was that of refusing
to hold any communication with him or to receive his letters; but even
this defence was turned by Yrujo into a vantage-ground of attack.
Among other adventurers then floating about the world was one Francesco
de Miranda, a native of Caraccas, who for twenty years had been
possessed by a passion for revolutionizing his native province, and
for becoming the Washington of Spanish America. Failing to obtain in
England the aid he needed, he came to New York in November, 1805, with
excellent letters of introduction. Miranda had a high reputation; he
was plausible and enthusiastic; above all, he was supposed to represent
a strong patriot party in Spanish America. War with Spain was imminent;
the President’s Annual Message seemed almost to declare its existence.
In New York Miranda instantly became a hero, and attracted about him
every ruined adventurer in society, among the rest a number of Aaron
Burr’s friends. Burr himself was jealous, and spoke with contempt
of him; but Burr’s chief ally Dayton, the late Federalist senator
from New Jersey, was in Miranda’s confidence. So was John Swartwout
the marshal, Burr’s devoted follower; so was William Steuben Smith,
surveyor of the port, one of the few Federalists still left in office.
These, as well as a swarm of smaller men, clustered round the Spanish
American patriot, either to help his plans or to further their own.
By Smith’s advice Miranda hired the ship “Leander,” owned by one Ogden
and commanded by a Captain Lewis; with Smith’s active aid Miranda next
bought arms and supplies, and enlisted men.
Meanwhile Miranda went to Washington. Arriving there in the first
days of the session, before the pacific secret message and its sudden
change of policy toward Spain were publicly known, he called upon the
Secretary of State. December 11 he was received by the secretary at
the Department; then invited to dine; then he put off his departure in
order to dine with the President at the White House,--at a time when he
was engaged, in conjunction with the surveyor of the port of New York,
in fitting out a warlike expedition against Spanish territory. What
passed between him and Madison became matter of dispute. The secretary
afterward admitted that Miranda told of his negotiations with the
British government, and made no secret of his hopes to revolutionize
Colombia; to which Madison had replied that the government of the
United States could not aid or countenance any secret enterprise, and
was determined to interfere in case of any infraction of the law.
Miranda’s account of the secretary’s conversation was very different;
he wrote to Smith, from Washington, letters representing Madison to be
fully aware of the expedition then fitting out, and to be willing that
Smith should join it. He made a parade of social relations with the
President and secretary, and on returning to New York was open in his
allusions to the complicity of Government. Doubtless his statements
were false, and those of Madison were alone worthy of belief; but the
Secretary of State was not the less compromised in the opinion of his
enemies.
Miranda quickly returned to New York; and when about a month later the
“Leander” was ready to sail, he wrote a letter to Madison announcing
his intended departure, and taking a sort of formal and official
leave, as though he were a confidential emissary of the President. He
had the assurance to add that “the important matters” which he had
communicated “will remain, I doubt not, in the deepest secret until
the final result of this delicate affair. I have acted here on that
supposition, conforming myself in everything to the intentions of the
Government, which I hope I have seized and observed with exactitude and
discretion.”[140]
Ten days afterward the “Leander” sailed with a party of filibusters for
the Spanish main, and the Secretary of State awoke to the consciousness
that he had been deceived and betrayed. Fortunately for Madison,
Miranda had not left behind him a copy of this letter, but had merely
told his friends its purport. The letter itself remained unseen; but
the original still exists among the Archives of the State Department,
bearing an explanatory note in Madison’s handwriting, that Miranda’s
“important” communications related to “what passed with the British
government,” and that in saying he had conformed in New York to the
President’s intentions, Miranda said what was not true.
Then Madison, after receiving and entertaining Miranda at Washington
while a high government official was openly enlisting troops for him
at New York, ordered the Spanish minister to leave the Federal city,
and refused to receive the minister’s communications on any subject
whatever. He had driven Casa Calvo and Morales from Louisiana, and at
the same time allowed a notorious Spanish rebel to organize in New York
a warlike expedition against Spanish territory.
Madison could hardly suppose that Yrujo would fail to make him pay
the uttermost penalty for a mistake so glaring. Never before had the
Spaniard enjoyed such an opportunity. After defying the secretary at
Washington, Yrujo returned to Philadelphia, where he arrived on the
evening of February 4. As he stepped from his carriage letters were put
into his hand. Three of these letters were from the Spanish consul at
New York, and contained only the notice that the “Leander” was about to
sail.[141] Serious as this news was, it did not compare in importance
with information furnished by Jonathan Dayton. For reasons of his own
Dayton kept Yrujo informed of events unknown even to Merry and Turreau,
and unsuspected by the President or his Cabinet. In some cases he
probably tried to work on Yrujo’s credulity.
“The Secretary of State,” according to Dayton’s story, “with
whom Miranda had two conferences, doubtless suspecting the
origin of this mission, had at first treated him with reserve;
but at last had opened himself so far as to say that he did not
know whether the United States would or would not declare war
against Spain, because this step must depend on Congress; that
in this uncertainty he could not permit himself to offer Miranda
the aid asked; but that if private citizens in the United States
chose to advance their funds for the undertaking, as Miranda had
suggested, the Government would shut its eyes to their conduct,
provided that Miranda took his measures in such a way as not
to compromise the Government. At the same time the secretary
coincided in Miranda’s idea that in case the United States
should determine upon war with Spain, this undertaking would
prove to be a diversion favorable to the views of the American
government.”
This had been told to Yrujo, and reported by him to his Government
before the visit to the capital. In the excitement caused by Madison’s
order to leave Washington, Yrujo confided in General Turreau, and went
so far as to hint to Madison himself his knowledge that Madison was
engaged in “hatching plots” against Spain. Dayton’s latest information
was still more serious. Besides exact details in regard to the force
and destination of Miranda, Dayton said it had been agreed between
Madison and Miranda that the Government should use the pretext of
asking Yrujo’s recall in order to refuse to receive communications from
him, and thus prevent him from claiming official interference against
the “Leander.”
No sooner did the idea of a profound intrigue effect a lodgment in
the Spaniard’s mind, than he turned it into a means of wounding the
Secretary of State. After writing letters the whole night, and sending
off swift-sailing pilot-boats to warn the Spanish authorities of
Miranda’s plans, the marquis turned his attention to the secretary. He
sent a letter to the Department, complaining that the “Leander” had
been allowed to sail; but knowing that the Department would decline
to receive his letter, he took another measure which secured with
certainty a hearing. He wrote a similar letter to Turreau, begging his
interference.[142]
Turreau could not refuse. No sooner did he receive Yrujo’s letter,
February 7, than he went to the Department and had an interview with
the secretary, which he reported to Yrujo on the same day:[143]--
“I was this morning with Madison. I imparted to him my
suspicions and yours. I sought his eyes, and, what is rather
rare, I met them. He was in a state of extraordinary prostration
while I was demanding from him a positive explanation on the
proceedings in question. It was with an effort that he broke
silence, and at length answered me that the President had
already anticipated my representations by ordering measures to
be taken against the accomplices who remained in the country
and against the culprits who should return. I leave you to
judge whether I was satisfied by this answer, and I quitted
him somewhat abruptly in order to address him in writing. I am
occupied in doing so.”
Madison might well show disturbance. To conciliate Turreau and
Napoleon had been the chief object of his policy since the preceding
October. For this he had endured arrogance such as no other American
secretary ever tolerated. The Florida negotiation had not yet begun;
John Randolph had delayed it and declaimed against it until Madison’s
reputation was involved in its success. Turreau held its fate in his
hand; and suddenly Turreau appeared, demanding that Madison should
prove himself innocent of charges that involved a quarrel with France
as the ally and protector of Spain, while Madison had in his desk the
parting letter from Miranda which if published would have proved the
truth of these charges to the mind of every diplomatist and political
authority in Europe.
Before many days had passed, Yrujo set the Federalist press at work.
The President removed Smith from his office of surveyor, and caused
both Smith and Ogden to be indicted. Indignant at being, as they
believed, sacrificed to save Madison, Smith and Ogden sent memorials to
Congress, which were presented by Josiah Quincy, April 21, the last day
of the session, when the House was already irritable and the endurance
of Madison’s friends was exhausted by the vexatious attacks to which
they had been for so many months exposed without capacity to reply or
power to prevent them. John G. Jackson of Virginia, who had already
invited a duel with Randolph, broke into a furious tirade against
Quincy. “I say it is a base calumny of which the gentleman has made
himself the organ; and in saying so I hold myself responsible in any
place the gentleman pleases.” The House voted by an immense majority
to return the memorials to the men from whom they came. The charges
against the secretary were hustled aside, and Congress adjourned with
what little dignity was left it; but Yrujo won his victory, and gave
to the Secretary of State the fullest equivalent for the secretary’s
assault. For another year he defied his enemy by remaining as Spanish
minister in America; but he held no more relations with Government, and
at his own request was then sent to represent Don Carlos IV. at the
Court of Eugène Beauharnais at Milan.
Thus the first session of the Ninth Congress closed, April 21, 1806,
leaving the Administration master of the field, but strong in numbers
alone. How long a government could maintain its authority by mere
momentum of inert mass had become a serious question to Jefferson and
his successor.