FROM JAY'S TREATY TO THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL
1794-1807
While there were many matters in dispute between the two countries,
the particular occasion of Jay's mission to London in 1794 was the
measures injurious to the commerce of the United States, taken by the
British Government on the outbreak of war with France, in 1793.
Neutrals are certain to suffer, directly and indirectly, from every
war, and especially in maritime wars; for then the great common of all
nations is involved, under conditions and regulations which by general
consent legalize interference, suspension, and arrest of neutral
voyages, when conflicting with acknowledged belligerent rights, or
under reasonable suspicion of such conflict. It was held in the United
States that in the treatment of American ships Great Britain had
transcended international law, and abused belligerent privilege, by
forced construction in two particulars. First, in June, 1793, she sent
into her own ports American vessels bound to France with provisions,
on the ground that under existing circumstance these were contraband
of war. She did indeed buy the cargoes, and pay the freight, thus
reducing the loss to the shipper; but he was deprived of the surplus
profit arising from extraordinary demand in France, and it was claimed
besides that the procedure was illegal. Secondly, in November of the
same year, the British Government directed the seizure of "all ships
laden with goods the produce of any colony belonging to France, or
carrying provisions or other supplies for the use of any such colony."
Neutrals were thus forbidden either to go to, or to sail from, any
French colony for purposes of commercial intercourse. For the injuries
suffered under these measures Jay was to seek compensation.
The first order raised only a question of contraband, of frequent
recurrence in all hostilities. It did not affect the issues which led
to the War of 1812, and therefore need not here be further considered.
But the second turned purely on the question of the intercourse of
neutrals with the colonies of belligerents, and rested upon those
received opinions concerning the relations of colonies to mother
countries, which have been related in the previous chapters. The
British Government founded the justification of its action upon a
precedent established by its own Admiralty courts, which, though not
strictly new, was recent, dating back only to the Seven Years' War,
1756-63, whence it had received the name of the Rule of 1756. At that
time, in the world of European civilization, all the principal
maritime communities were either mother countries or colonies. A
colonial system was the appendage of every maritime state; and among
all there obtained the invariable rule, the formulation of which by
Montesquieu has been already quoted, that "commercial monopoly is the
leading principle of colonial intercourse," from which foreign states
were rigorously excluded. Dealing with such a recognized international
relation, at a period when colonial production had reached
unprecedented proportions, the British courts had laid down the
principle that a trade which a nation in time of peace forbade to
foreigners could not be extended to them, if neutrals, in time of war,
at the will and for the convenience of the belligerent; because by
such employment they were "in effect incorporated in the enemy's
navigation, having adopted his commerce and character, and identified
themselves with his interests and purposes."[108]
During the next great maritime war, that of American Independence, the
United States were involved as belligerents, and the only maritime
neutrals were Holland and the Baltic States. These drew together in a
league known historically as the Armed Neutrality of 1780, in
opposition to certain British interpretations of the rights of
neutrals and belligerents; but in their formulated demands that of
open trade with the colonies of belligerents does not appear, although
there is found one closely cognate to it,--an asserted right to
coasting trade, from port to port, of a country at war. The Rule of
1756 therefore remained, in 1793, a definition of international
maritime law laid down by British courts, but not elsewhere accepted;
and it rested upon a logical deduction from a system of colonial
administration universal at that period. The logical deduction may be
stated thus. The mother country, for its own benefit, reserves to
itself both the inward and outward trade; the products of the colony,
and the supplying of it with necessaries. The carriage of these
commodities is also confined to its own ships. Colonial commerce and
navigation are thus each a national monopoly. To open to neutrals the
navigation, the carriage of products and supplies, in time of war, is
a war measure simply, designed to preserve a benefit endangered by the
other belligerent. As a war measure, it tends to support the financial
and naval strength of the nation employing it; and therefore, to an
opponent whose naval power is capable of destroying that element of
strength, the stepping in of a neutral to cover it is clearly an
injury. The neutral so doing commits an unfriendly act, partial
between the two combatants; because it aids the one in a proceeding,
the origin and object of which are purely belligerent.
When the United States in 1776 entered the family of nations, she came
without colonies, but in the war attendant upon her liberation she had
no rights as a neutral. In the interval of peace, between 1783 and
1793, she had endeavored, as has been seen, to establish between
herself and the Caribbean region those conditions of open navigation
which were indicated as natural by the geographical relations of the
two and their several products. This had been refused by Great
Britain; but France had conceded it on a restricted scale, plainly
contrived, by the limitation of sixty tons on the size of vessels
engaged, to counteract any attempt at direct carriage from the islands
to Europe, which was not permitted. Under these circumstances the
United States was brought into collision with the Rule of 1756, for
the first time, by the Order in Council of November 6, 1793. A people
without colonies, and with a rapidly growing navigation, could have no
sympathy with a system, coextensive with Europe, which monopolized the
carriage of colonial products. The immediate attitude assumed was one
of antagonism; and the wrong as felt was the greater, because the
direct intercourse between the United States and the then great French
colonies was not incidental to war, but had been established in peace.
In principle, the Rule rested for its validity upon an exception made
in war, for the purposes of war.
The British Government in fact had overlooked that the Rule had
originated in European conditions; and, if applicable at all to the
new transatlantic state, it could only be if conditions were the same,
or equivalent. Till now, by universal usage, trade from colonies had
been only to the mother country; the appearance of an American state
with no colonies introduced two factors hitherto non-existent. Here
was a people not identified with a general system of colonial
exclusiveness; and also, from their geographical situation, it was
possible for a European government to permit them to trade with its
colonies, without serious trespass on the privileges reserved to the
mother country. The monopoly of the latter consisted not only in the
commerce and carrying trade of the colony, but in the _entrepot_; that
is, in the receipt and storage of the colonial produce, and its
distribution to less favored European communities,--the profit, in
short, of the middleman, or broker. France had recognized, though but
partially, this difference of conditions, and in somewhat grudging
manner had opened her West Indian ports to American vessels, for
intercourse with their own country. This trade, being permitted in
peace, did not come under the British Rule; therefore by its own
principle the seizures under it were unlawful. Accordingly, on January
8, 1794, the order was revoked, and the application limited to vessels
bound from the West Indies direct to Europe.
This further Order in Council preserved the principle of the Rule of
1756, but it removed the cause of a great number of the seizures which
had afflicted American shipping. There were nevertheless, among these,
some cases of vessels bound direct to France from French colonies,
laden with colonial produce; one of which was the first presented to
Jay on his arrival in London. In writing to the Secretary of State he
says, "It unfortunately happens that this is not among the strongest
of the cases;" and in a return made three years later to Congress, of
losses recovered under the treaty, this vessel's name does not appear.
In the opinion of counsel, submitted to Jay, it was unlikely that the
case would be reversed on appeal, because it unequivocally fell under
the Rule.[109] It is therefore to be inferred that this principle, the
operation of which was revived so disastrously in 1805, was not
surrendered by the British Government in 1794. In fact, in the
discussions between Mr. Jay and the British Minister of Foreign
Affairs, there seems to have been on both sides a disposition to avoid
pronouncements upon points of abstract right. It remained the constant
policy of British negotiators, throughout this thorny period, to seek
modes of temporary arrangement, which should obviate immediate causes
of complaint; leaving principles untouched, to be asserted, if
desirable, at a more favorable moment. This was quite contrary to the
wishes of the United States Government, which repeatedly intimated to
Jay that in the case of the Rule of 1756 it desired to settle the
question of principle, which it denied. To this it had attached
several other topics touching maritime neutral rights, such as the
flag covering the cargo, and matters of contraband.[110]
Jay apparently satisfied himself, by his interviews and observation of
public feeling in England, that at the moment it was vain for a
country without a navy to expect from Great Britain any surrender of
right, as interpreted by her jurists; that the most to be accomplished
was the adoption of measures which should as far as possible extend
the immediate scope of American commerce, and remove its present
injuries, presenting withal a probability of future further
concessions. In his letter transmitting the treaty, he wrote: "That
Britain, at this period, and involved in war, should not admit
principles which would impeach the propriety of her conduct in seizing
provisions bound to France, and enemy's property on board neutral
vessels, does not appear to me extraordinary. The articles, as they
now stand, secure compensation for seizures, and leave us at liberty
to decide whether they were made in such cases as to be warranted by
the _existing_ law of nations."[111] The italics are Jay's, and the
expression is obscure; but it seems to imply that, while either
nation, in their respective claims for damages, would be bound by the
decision of the commissioners provided for their settlement by the
treaty, it would preserve the right to its own opinion as to whether
the decision was in accordance with admitted law, binding in the
future. In short, acceptance of the Rule of 1756 would not be affected
by the findings upon the claims. If adverse to Great Britain, she
could still assert the Rule in times to come, if expedient; if against
the United States, she likewise, while submitting, reserved the right
of protest, with or without arms, against its renewed enforcement.
"As to the principles we contend for," continued Jay, "you will find
them saved in the conclusion of the twelfth article, from which it
will appear that we still adhere to them." This conclusion specifies
that after the termination of a certain period, during which Great
Britain would open to American vessels the carrying trade between her
West India Islands and the United States, there should be further
negotiation, looking to the extension of mutual intercourse; "and the
said parties will then endeavor to agree whether, in any, and what,
cases neutral vessels shall protect enemy's property; and in what
cases provisions and other articles, not generally contraband, may
become such. But in the meantime, their conduct towards each other in
these respects shall be regulated by the articles hereinafter inserted
on those subjects."[112] The treaty therefore was a temporary
arrangement, to meet temporary difficulties, and involved no surrender
of principle on either side. Although the Rule of 1756 is not
mentioned, it evidently shared the same fate as the other American
propositions looking to the settlement of principles; the more so that
subsequent articles admitted, not only the undoubted rule that the
neutral flag did not cover enemy's goods, but also the vehemently
disputed claim that naval stores and provisions were, or might be,
contraband of war. Further evidence of the understanding of Great
Britain in this matter is afforded by a letter of the law adviser of
the Crown, transmitted in 1801 by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs to
Mr. King, then United States Minister. "The direct trade between the
mother country and its colonies has not during this present war been
recognized as legal, either by his Majesty's Government or by his
tribunals."[113]
It is to be inferred that the Administration and the Senate, while
possibly thinking Jay too yielding as a negotiator, reached the
conclusion that his estimate of British feeling, formed upon the spot,
was correct as to the degree of concession then to be obtained. At all
events, the treaty, which provided for mixed commissions to adjudicate
upon the numerous seizures made under the British orders, and, under
certain conditions, admitted American vessels to branches of British
trade previously closed to them, was ratified with the exception of
the twelfth article. This conferred on Americans the privilege, long
and urgently desired, of direct trade between their own country and
the British West Indies on the same terms as British ships, though in
vessels of limited size. Greatly desired as this permission had been,
it came coupled with the condition, not only that cargoes from the
islands should be landed in the United States alone, but also, while
the concession lasted, American vessels should not carry "molasses,
sugar, coffee, cocoa, or cotton" from the United States to any part of
the world. By strict construction, this would prevent re-exporting the
produce of French or other foreign colonies; a traffic, the extent of
which during this war may be conceived by the returns for a single
year, 1796, when United States shipping carried to Europe thirty-five
million pounds of sugar and sixty-two million pounds of coffee,
products of the Caribbean region. This article was rejected by the
Senate, and the treaty ratified without it; but the coveted privilege
was continued by British executive order, the regulations in the
matter being suspended on account of the war, and the trade opened to
American as well as British ships. Ostensibly a favor, not resting on
the obligations of treaty, but on the precarious ground of the
Government's will, its continuance was assured under the circumstances
of the time by its practical utility to Great Britain; for the trade
of that country, and its vital importance in the prevailing wars, were
developing at a rate which outstripped its own tonnage. The numbers of
native seamen were likewise inadequate, through the heavy demands of
the Navy for men. The concurrence of neutrals was imperative. Under
the conditions it was no slight advantage to have the islands supplied
and the American market retained, by the services of American vessels,
leaving to British the monopoly of direct carrying between the
colonies and Europe.
Although vexations to neutrals incident to a state of war continued
subsequent to this treaty, they turned upon points of construction and
practice rather than upon principle. Negotiation was continuous; and
in September, 1800, towards the close of Adams's administration, Mr.
John Marshall, then Secretary of State, summed up existing complaints
of commercial injury under three heads,--definitions of contraband,
methods of blockade, and the unjust decisions of Vice-Admiralty
Courts; coupled with the absence of penalty to cruisers making
unwarranted captures, which emboldened them to seize on any ground,
because certain to escape punishment. But no formal pronouncement
further injurious to United States commerce was made by the British
Government during this war, which ended in October, 1801, to be
renewed eighteen months later. On the contrary, the progress of events
in the West Indies, by its favorable effect upon British commerce,
assisted Pitt in taking the more liberal measures to which by
conviction he was always inclined. The destruction of Haiti as a
French colony, and to a great degree as a producer of sugar and
coffee, by eliminating one principal source of the world's supply,
raised values throughout the remaining Caribbean; while the capture of
almost all the French and Dutch possessions threw their commerce and
navigation into the hands of Great Britain. In this swelling
prosperity the British planter, the British carrier, and the British
merchant at home all shared, and so bore without apparent grudging the
issuance of an Order, in January, 1798, which extended to European
neutrals the concession, made in 1795 to the United States, of
carrying West Indian produce direct from the islands to their own
country, or to Great Britain; not, however, to a hostile port, or to
any other neutral territory than their own.
Although this Order in no way altered the existing status of the
United States, it was embraced in a list of British measures affecting
commerce,[114] transmitted to Congress in 1808. From the American
standpoint this was accurate; for the extension to neutrals to carry
to their own country, and to no other, continued the exclusion of the
United States from a direct traffic between the belligerent colonies
and Europe, which she had steadily asserted to be her right, but which
the Rule of 1756 denied. The utmost the United States had obtained was
the restitution of privileges enjoyed by them as colonists of Great
Britain, in trading with the British West Indies; and this under
circumstances of delay and bargain which showed clearly that the
temporary convenience of Great Britain was alone consulted. No
admission had been made on the point of right, as maintained by
America. On the contrary, the Order of 1798 was at pains to state as
its motive no change of principle, but "consideration of the present
state of the commerce of Great Britain, as well as of that of neutral
countries," which makes it "expedient."[115]
Up to the preliminaries of peace in 1801, nothing occurred to change
that state of commerce which made expedient the Order of January,
1798. It was renewed in terms when war again began between France and
Great Britain, in May, 1803. In consideration of present conditions,
the direct trade was permitted to neutral vessels between an enemy's
colony and their own country. The United States remained, as before,
excluded from direct carriage between the West Indies and Europe; but
the general course of the British Administration of the moment gave
hopes of a line of conduct more conformable to American standards of
neutral rights. Particularly, in reply to a remonstrance of the United
States, a blockade of the whole coast of Martinique and Guadaloupe,
proclaimed by a British admiral, was countermanded; instructions being
sent him that the measure could apply only to particular ports,
actually invested by sufficient force, and that neutrals attempting to
enter should not be captured unless they had been previously
warned.[116] Although no concession of principle as to colonial trade
had been made, the United States acquiesced in, though she did not
accept, the conditions of its enforcement. These were well understood
by the mercantile community, and were such as admitted of great
advantage, both to the merchant and to the carrying trade. In 1808,
Mr. Monroe, justifying his negotiations of 1806, wrote that, even
under new serious differences which had then arisen, "The United
States were in a prosperous and happy condition, compared with that of
other nations. As a neutral Power, they were almost the exclusive
carriers of the commerce of the whole world; and in commerce they
flourished beyond example, notwithstanding the losses they
occasionally suffered."[117]
Under such circumstances matters ran along smoothly for nearly two
years. In May, 1804, occurred a change of administration in England,
bringing Pitt again into power. As late as November 8 of this year,
Jefferson in his annual message said, "With the nations of Europe, in
general, our friendship and intercourse are undisturbed; and, from the
governments of the belligerent powers, especially, we continue to
receive those friendly manifestations which are justly due to an
honest neutrality." Monroe in London wrote at the same time, "Our
commerce was never so much favored in time of war."[118] These words
testify to general quietude and prosperity under existing conditions,
but are not to be understood as affirming absence of subjects of
difference. On the contrary, Monroe had been already some time in
London, charged to obtain from Great Britain extensive concessions of
principle and practice, which Jefferson, with happy optimism, expected
a nation engaged in a life and death struggle would yield in virtue of
reams of argument, maintaining views novel to it, advanced by a
country enjoying the plenitude of peace, but without organized power
to enforce its demands.
About this time, but as yet unknown to the President, the question had
been suddenly raised by the British Government as to what constituted
a direct trade; and American vessels carrying West Indian products
from the United States to Europe were seized under a construction of
"direct," which was affirmed by the court before whom the cases came
for adjudication. As Jefferson's expressions had reflected the
contentment of the American community, profiting, as neutrals often
profit, by the misfortunes of belligerents, so these measures of Pitt
proceeded from the discontents of planters, shippers, and merchants.
These had come to see in the prosperity of American shipping, and the
gains of American merchants, the measure of their own losses by a
trade which, though of long standing, they now claimed was one of
direct carriage, because by continuous voyage, between the hostile
colonies and the continent of Europe. The losses of planter and
merchant, however, were but one aspect of the question, and not the
most important in British eyes. The products of hostile origin carried
by Americans to neutral or hostile countries in Europe did by
competition reduce seriously the profit upon British colonial articles
of the same kind, to the injury of the finances of the kingdom; and
the American carriers, the American ships, not only supplanted so much
British tonnage, but were enabled to do so by British seamen, who
found in them a quiet refuge--relatively, though not wholly,
secure--from the impressment which everywhere pursued the British
merchant ship. It was a fundamental conviction of all British
statesmen, and of the general British public, that the welfare of the
navy, the one defence of the empire, depended upon maintaining the
carrying trade, with the right of impressment from it; and Pitt, upon
his return to office, had noted "with considerable concern, the
increasing acrimony which appears to pervade the representations made
to you [the British Minister at Washington] by the American Secretary
of State on the subject of the impressment of seamen from on board
American ships."[119]
The issue of direct trade was decided adversely to the contention of
the United States, in the test case of the ship "Essex," in May, 1805,
by the first living authority in England on maritime international
law, Sir William Scott. Resting upon the Rule of 1756, he held that
direct trade from belligerent colonies to Europe was forbidden to
neutrals, except under the conditions of the relaxing Orders of 1798
and 1803; but the privilege to carry to their own country having been
by these extended, it was conceded, in accordance with precedent,
that products thus imported, if they had complied with the legal
requirements for admission _to use_ in the importing country,
thenceforth had its nationality. They became neutral in character, and
could be exported like native produce to any place open to commerce,
belligerent or neutral. United States shippers, therefore, were at
liberty to send even to France French colonial products which had been
thus Americanized. The effect of this procedure upon the articles in
question was to raise their price at the place of final arrival, by
all the expense incident to a broken transit; by the cost of landing,
storing, paying duties, and reshipping, together with that of the
delay consequent upon entering an American port to undergo these
processes. With the value thus enhanced upon reaching the continent of
Europe, the British planter, carrier, and merchant might hope that
British West India produce could compete; although various changes of
conditions in the West Indies, and Bonaparte's efforts at the
exclusion of British products from the continent, had greatly reduced
their market there from the fair proportions of the former war. In the
cases brought before Sir William Scott, however, it was found that the
duties paid for admission to the United States were almost wholly
released, by drawback, on re-exportation; so that the articles were
brought to the continental consumer relieved of this principal element
of cost. He therefore ruled that they had not complied with the
conditions of an actual importation; that the articles had not lost
their belligerent character; and that the carriage to Europe was by
direct voyage, not interrupted by an importation. The vessels were
therefore condemned.
The immediate point thus decided was one of construction, and in
particular detail hitherto unsettled. The law adviser of the Crown had
stated in 1801, as an accepted precedent, "that landing the goods and
paying the duties in the neutral country breaks the continuity of the
voyage;"[120] but the circumstance of drawback, which belonged to the
municipal prerogative of the independent neutral state, had not then
been considered. The foundation on which all rested was the principle
of 1756. The underlying motive for the new action taken--the
protection of a British traffic--linked the War of 1812 with the
conditions of colonial dependence of the United States, which was a
matter of recent memory to men of both countries still in the vigor of
life. The American found again exerted over his national commerce a
control indistinguishable in practice from that of colonial days; from
what port his ships should sail, whither they might go, what cargoes
they might carry, under what rules be governed in their own ports,
were dictated to him as absolutely, if not in as extensive detail, as
before the War of Independence. The British Government placed itself
in the old attitude of a sovereign authority, regulating the commerce
of a dependency with an avowed view to the interest of the mother
country. This motive was identical with that of colonial
administration; the particular form taken being dictated, of course,
then as before, by the exigencies of the moment,--by a "consideration
of the present state of the commerce of this country." Messrs. Monroe
and Pinkney, who were appointed jointly to negotiate a settlement of
the trouble, wrote that "the British commissioners did not hesitate to
state that their wish was to place their own merchants on an equal
footing in the great markets of the continent with those of the United
States, by burthening the intercourse of the latter with severe
restrictions."[121] The wish was allowable; but the method, the
regulation of American commercial movement by British force, resting
for justification upon a strained interpretation of a contested
belligerent right, was naturally and accurately felt to be a
re-imposition of colonial fetters upon a people who had achieved their
independence.
The motive remained; and the method, the regulation of American trade
by British orders, was identical in substance, although other in form,
with that of the celebrated Orders in Council of 1807 and 1809. Mr.
Monroe, who was minister to England when this interesting period
began, had gone to Spain on a special mission in October, 1804,
shortly after his announcement, before quoted, that "American commerce
was never so much favored in time of war." "On no principle or
pretext, so far, has more than one of our vessels been condemned."
Upon his return in July, 1805, he found in full progress the seizures,
the legality of which had been affirmed by Sir William Scott. A
prolonged correspondence with the then British Government followed,
but no change of policy could be obtained. In January, 1806, Pitt
died; and the ministry which succeeded was composed largely of men
recently opposed to him in general principles of action. In
particular, Mr. Fox, between whom and Pitt there had been an
antagonism nearly lifelong, became Secretary for Foreign Affairs. His
good dispositions towards America were well known, and dated from the
War of Independence. To him Monroe wrote that under the recent
measures "about one hundred and twenty vessels had been seized,
several condemned, all taken from their course, detained, and
otherwise subjected to heavy losses and damages."[122] The injury was
not confined to the immediate sufferers, but reacted necessarily on
the general commercial system of the United States.
[Illustration: JAMES MONROE
From the painting by Gilbert Stuart, in the possession of Hon.
T. Jefferson Coolidge.]
In his first conversations with Monroe, Fox appeared to coincide with
the American view, both as to the impropriety of the seizures and the
general right of the United States to the trade in dispute, under
their own interpretation of it; namely, that questions of duties and
drawbacks, and the handling of the cargoes in American ports, were
matters of national regulation, upon which a foreign state had no
claim to pronounce. The American envoy was sanguine of a favorable
issue; but the British Secretary had to undergo the experience, which
long exclusion from office made novel to him, that in the
complications of political life a broad personal conviction has often
to yield to the narrow logic of particular conditions. It is clear
that the measures would not have been instituted, had he been in
control; but, as it was, the American representative demanded not only
their discontinuance, but a money indemnity. The necessity of
reparation for wrong, if admitted, stood in the way of admitting as a
wrong a proceeding authorized by the last Government, and pronounced
legal by the tribunals. To this obstacle was added the weight of a
strong outdoor public feeling, and of opposition in the Cabinet, by no
means in accord upon Fox's general views. Consequently, to Monroe's
demands for a concession of principle, and for pecuniary compensation,
Fox at last replied with a proposition, consonant with the usual
practical tone of English statesmanship, never more notable than at
this period, that a compromise should be effected; modifying causes of
complaint, without touching on principles. "Can we not agree to
suspend our rights, and leave you in a satisfactory manner the
enjoyment of the trade? In that case, nothing would be said about the
principle, and there would be no claim to indemnity."[123]
The United States Government, throughout the controversy which began
here and lasted till the war, clung with singular tenacity to the
establishment of principles. To this doubtless contributed much the
personality of Madison, then Secretary of State; a man of the pen,
clear-headed, logical, incisive, and delighting like all men in the
exercise of conscious powers. The discussion of principles, the
exposure of an adversary's weakness or inconsistencies, the weighty
marshalling of uncounted words, were to him the breath of life; and
with happy disregard of the need to back phrases with deeds, there now
opened before him a career of argumentation, of logical deduction and
exposition, constituting a condition of political and personal
enjoyment which only the deskman can fully appreciate. It was not,
however, an era in which the pen was mightier than the sword; and in
the smooth gliding of the current Niagara was forgotten. Like
Jefferson, he was wholly oblivious of the relevancy of Pompey's retort
to a contention between two nations, each convinced of its own right:
"Will you never have done with citing laws and privileges to men who
wear swords?"
To neither President nor Secretary does it seem to have occurred that
the provision of force might lend weight to argument; a consideration
to which Monroe, intellectually much their inferior, was duly
sensible. "Nothing will be obtained without some kind of pressure,
such a one as excites an apprehension that it will be increased in
case of necessity; and to produce that effect it will be proper to put
our country in a better state of defence, by invigorating the militia
system and increasing the naval force." "Victorious at sea, Great
Britain finds herself compelled to concentrate her force so much in
this quarter, that she would not only be unable to annoy us
essentially in case of war, but even to protect her commerce and
possessions elsewhere, which would be exposed to our attacks."[124]
Most true when written, in 1805; the time had passed in 1813.
"Harassed as they are already with war, and the menaces of a powerful
adversary, a state of hostility with us would probably go far to throw
this country into confusion. It is an event which the ministry would
find it difficult to resist, and therefore cannot, I presume, be
willing to encounter."[1] But he added, "There is here an opinion,
which many do not hesitate to avow, that the United States are, by the
nature of their Government, incapable of any great, vigorous, or
persevering exertion."[125] This impression, for which it must
sorrowfully be confessed there was much seeming ground in contemporary
events, and the idiosyncrasies of Jefferson and Madison, in their full
dependence upon commercial coercion to reduce Great Britain to concede
their most extreme demands, contributed largely to maintain the
successive British ministries in that unconciliatory and disdainful
attitude towards the United States, which made inevitable a war that a
higher bearing might have averted.
Monroe had been instructed that, if driven to it, he might waive the
practical right to sail direct from a belligerent colony to the mother
country, being careful to use no expression that would imply yielding
of the abstract principle. But the general insistence of his
Government upon obtaining from Great Britain acknowledgment of right
was so strong that he could not accept Fox's suggestion. The British
Minister, forced along the lines of his predecessors by the logic of
the situation, then took higher ground. "He proceeded to insist that,"
to break the continuity of the voyage, "our vessels which should be
engaged in that commerce must enter our ports, their cargoes be
landed, and the duties paid."[126] This was the full extent of Pitt's
requirements, as of the rulings of the British Admiralty Court; and
made the regulation of transactions in an American port depend upon
the decisions of British authorities. Monroe unhesitatingly rejected
the condition, and their interview ended, leaving the subject where it
had been. The British Cabinet then took matters into its own hands,
and without further communication with Monroe adopted a practical
solution, which removed the particular contention from the field of
controversy by abandoning the existing measures, but without any
expression as to the question of right or principle, which by this
tacit omission was reserved. Unfortunately for the wishes of both
parties, this recourse to opportunism, for such it was, however
ameliorative of immediate friction, resulted in a further series of
quarrels; for the new step of the British Government was considered by
the American to controvert international principles as much cherished
by it as the right to the colonial trade.
Monroe's interview was on April 25. On May 17 he received a letter
from Fox, dated May 16, notifying him that, in consequence of certain
new and extraordinary means resorted to by the enemy for distressing
British commerce, a retaliatory commercial blockade was ordered of the
coast of the continent, from the river Elbe to Brest. This blockade,
however, was to be absolute, against all commerce, only between the
Seine and Ostend. Outside of those limits, on the coast of France west
of the Seine, and those of France, Holland, and Germany east of
Ostend, the rights of capture attaching to blockades would be forborne
in favor of neutral vessels, bound in, which had not been laden at a
port hostile to Great Britain; or which, going out, were not destined
to such hostile port.[127] No discrimination was made against the
character of the cargo, except as forbidden by generally recognized
laws of war. This omission tacitly allowed the colonial trade by way
of American ports, just as the measure as a whole tacitly waived all
questions of principle upon which that difference had turned. After
this, a case coming before a British court would require from it no
concession affecting its previous rulings. By these the vessel still
would stand condemned; but she was relieved from the application of
them by the new Order, in which the Government had relinquished its
asserted right. The direct voyage from the colony to the mother
country was from a hostile port, and therefore remained prohibited;
but the proceedings in the United States ports, as affecting the
question of direct voyage, though held by the Court to be properly
liable to interpretation by itself on international grounds, if
brought before it, was removed from its purview by the act of its own
Government, granting immunity.
The first impressions made upon Monroe by this step were favorable, as
it evidently relieved the immediate embarrassments under which
American commerce was laboring. There would at least be no more
seizures upon the plea of direct voyages. While refraining from
expressing to Fox any approbation of the Order of May 16, he wrote
home in this general sense of congratulation; and upon his letters,
communicated to Congress in 1808, was founded a claim by the British
Minister at Washington in 1811, that the blockade thus instituted was
not at the time regarded by him "as founded on other than just and
legitimate principles." "I have not heard that it was considered in a
contrary light when notified as such to you by Mr. Secretary Fox, nor
until it suited the views of France to endeavor to have it considered
otherwise."[128] Monroe, who was then Secretary of State, replied that
with Fox "an official formal complaint was not likely to be resorted
to, because friendly communications were invited and preferred. The
want of such a document is no proof that the measure was approved by
me, or no complaint made."[129] The general tenor of his home
letters, however, was that of satisfaction; and it is natural to men
dealing with questions of immediate difficulty to hail relief, without
too close scrutiny into its ultimate consequences. It may be added
that ministers abroad, in close contact with the difficulties and
perplexities of the government to which they are accredited, recognize
these more fully than do their superiors at home, and are more
susceptible to the advantages of practical remedies over the
maintenance of abstract principle.
The legitimacy of the blockade of May 16, 1806, was afterwards sharply
contested by the United States. There was no difference between the
two governments as to the general principle that a blockade, to be
lawful, must be supported by the presence of an adequate force, making
it dangerous for a vessel trying to enter or leave the port. "Great
Britain," wrote Madison, "has already in a formal communication
admitted the principle for which we contend." The difficulty turned on
a point of definition, as to what situation, and what size, of a
blockading division constituted adequacy. The United States
authorities based themselves resolutely on the position that the
blockaders must be close to the ports named for closure, and denied
that a coast-line in its entirety could thus be shut off from
commerce, without specifying the particular harbors before which ships
would be stationed. Intent, as neutrals naturally are, upon narrowing
belligerent rights, usually adverse to their own, they placed the
strictest construction on the words "port" and "force." This is
perhaps best shown by quoting the definition proposed by American
negotiators to the British Government over a year later,--July 24,
1807. "In order to determine what characterizes a blockade, that
denomination is given only to a _port_, where there is, by the
disposition of the Power which blockades it _with ships stationary_,
an evident danger in entering."[130] Madison, in 1801, discussing
vexations to Americans bound into the Mediterranean, by a Spanish
alleged blockade of Gibraltar, had anticipated and rejected the
British action of 1806. "Like blockades might be proclaimed by any
particular nation, enabled by its naval superiority to distribute its
ships at the mouth of that or any similar sea, _or across channels or
arms of the sea_, so as to make it dangerous for the commerce of other
nations to pass to its destination. These monstrous consequences
condemn the principle from which they flow."[131]
The blockade of May 16 offered a particularly apt illustration of the
point at issue. From the entrance of the English Channel to the
Straits of Dover, the whole of both shore-lines was belligerent. On
one side all was British; on the other all French. Evidently a line of
ships disposed from Ushant to the Lizard, the nearest point on the
English coast, would constitute a very real danger to a vessel seeking
to approach any French port on the Channel. Fifteen vessels would
occupy such a line, with intervals of only six miles, and in
combination with a much smaller body at the Straits of Dover would
assuredly bring all the French coast between them within the limits of
any definition of danger. That these particular dispositions were
adopted does not appear; but that very much larger numbers were
continually moving in the Channel, back and forth in every direction,
is certain. As to the remainder of the coast declared under
restriction, from the Straits to the Elbe,--about four hundred
miles,--with the great entrances to Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, the
Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe, there can be no doubt that it was within
the power of Great Britain to establish the blockade within the
requirements of international law. Whether she did so was a question
of fact, on which both sides were equally positive. The British to the
last asserted that an adequate force had been assigned, "and actually
maintained,"[132] while the blockade lasted.
The incident derived its historical significance chiefly from
subsequent events. It does not appear at the first to have engaged the
special attention of the United States Government, the general
position of which, as to blockades, was already sufficiently defined.
The particular instance was only one among several, and interest was
then diverted to two other leading points,--impressment and the
colonial trade. Peculiar importance began to attach to it only in the
following November, when Napoleon issued his Berlin decree. Upon this
ensued the exaggerated oppressions of neutral commerce by both
antagonists; and the question arose as to the responsibility for
beginning the series of measures, of which the Berlin and Milan
Decrees on one side, and the British Orders in Council of 1807 and
1809 on the other, were the most conspicuous features. Napoleon
contended that the whole sprang from the extravagant pretensions of
Great Britain, particularly in the Order of May 16, which he, in
common with the United States, characterized as illegal. The British
Government affirmed that it was strictly within belligerent rights,
and was executed by an adequate force; that consequently it gave no
ground for the course of the French Emperor. American statesmen, while
disclaiming with formal gravity any purpose to decide with which of
the two wrong-doers the ill first began,[133] had no scruples about
reiterating constantly that the Order of May 16 contravened
international right; and in so far, although wholly within the limits
of diplomatic propriety, they supported Napoleon's assertion. Thus it
came to pass that the United States was more and more felt, not only
in Europe, but by dissentients at home, to side with France; and as
the universal contest grew more embittered, this feeling became
emphasized.
While these discussions were in progress between Monroe and Fox, the
United States Government had taken a definite step to bring the
dispute to an issue by commercial restriction. The remonstrances from
the mercantile community, against the seizures under the new ruling as
to direct trade, were too numerous, emphatic, and withal reasonable,
to be disregarded. Congress therefore, before its adjournment on April
23, 1806, passed a law shutting the American market, after the
following November 15, against certain articles of British
manufacture, unless equitable arrangements between the two countries
should previously be reached. This recourse was in line with the
popular action of the period preceding the War of Independence, and
foreshadowed the general policy upon which the Administration was soon
to enter on a larger scale. The measure was initiated before news was
received of Pitt's death, and the accession of a more friendly
ministry; but, having been already recommended in committee, it was
not thought expedient to recede in consequence of the change. At the
same time, the Administration determined to constitute an
extraordinary mission, for the purpose of "treating with the British
Government concerning the maritime wrongs which have been committed,
and the regulation of commercial navigation between the parties." For
this object Mr. William Pinkney, of Maryland, was nominated as
colleague to Monroe, and arrived in England on June 24.
The points to be adjusted by the new commissioners were numerous, but
among them two were made pre-eminent,--the question of colonial
trade, already explained, and that of impressment of seamen from
American vessels. These were named by the Secretary of State as the
motive of the recent Act prohibiting certain importations. The envoys
were explicitly instructed that no stipulation requiring the repeal of
that Act was to be made, unless an effectual remedy for these two
evils was provided. The question of impressment, wrote Madison,
"derives urgency from the licentiousness with which it is still
pursued, and from the growing impatience of this country under
it."[134] When Pinkney arrived, the matter of the colonial trade had
already been settled indirectly by the Order of May 16, and it was
soon to disappear from prominence, merged in the extreme measures of
which that blockade was the precursor; but impressment remained an
unhealed sore to the end.
To understand the real gravity of this dispute, it is essential to
consider candidly the situation of both parties, and also the
influence exerted upon either by long-standing tradition. The British
Government did not advance a crude claim to impress American seamen.
What it did assert, and was enforcing, was a right to exercise over
individuals on board foreign merchantmen, upon the high seas, the
authority which it possessed on board British ships there, and over
all ships in British ports. The United States took the ground that no
such jurisdiction existed, unless over persons engaged in the military
service of an enemy; and that only when a vessel entered the ports or
territorial waters of Great Britain were those on board subject to
arrest by her officers. There, as in every state, they came under the
law of the land.
The British argument in favor of this alleged right may be stated in
the words of Canning, who became Foreign Secretary a year later.
Writing to Monroe, September 23, 1807, he starts from the premise,
then regarded by many even in America as sound, that allegiance by
birth is inalienable,--not to be renounced at the will of the
individual; consequently, "when mariners, subjects of his Majesty, are
employed in the private service of foreigners, they enter into
engagements inconsistent with the duty of subjects. In such cases, the
species of redress which the practice of all times has admitted and
sanctioned is that of taking those subjects at sea out of the service
of such foreign individuals, and recalling them to the discharge of
that paramount duty, which they owe to their sovereign and to their
country. That the exercise of this right involves some of the dearest
interests of Great Britain, your Government is ready to
acknowledge.... It is needless to repeat that these rights existed in
their fullest force for ages previous to the establishment of the
United States of America as an independent government; and it would be
difficult to contend that the recognition of that independence can
have operated any change in this respect."[135]
Had this been merely a piece of clever argumentation, it would have
crumbled rapidly under an appreciation of the American case; but it
represented actually a conviction inherited by all the British people,
and not that of Canning only. Whether the foundation of the alleged
right was solidly laid in reason or not, it rested on alleged
prescription, indorsed by a popular acceptance and suffrage which no
ministry could afford to disregard, at a time when the manning of the
Royal Navy was becoming a matter of notorious and increasing
difficulty. If Americans saw with indignation that many of their
fellow-citizens were by the practice forced from their own ships to
serve in British vessels of war, it was equally well known, in
America as in Great Britain, that in the merchant vessels of the
United States were many British seamen, sorely needed by their
country. Public opinion in the United States was by no means united in
support of the position then taken by Jefferson and Madison, as well
as by their predecessors in office, proper and matter-of-course as
that seems to-day. Many held, and asserted even with vehemence, that
the British right existed, and that an indisputable wrong was
committed by giving the absentees shelter under the American flag. The
claim advanced by the United States Government, and the only one
possible to it under the circumstances, was that when outside of
territorial limits a ship's flag and papers must be held to determine
the nation, to which alone belonged jurisdiction over every person on
board, unless demonstrably in the military service of a belligerent.
As a matter involving extensive practical consequences, this
contention, like that concerning the colonial trade, had its origin
from the entrance into the family of European nations of a new-comer,
foreign to the European community of states and their common
traditions; indisposed, consequently, to accept by mere force of
custom rules and practices unquestioned by them, but traversing its
own interests. As Canning argued, the change of political relation, by
which the colonies became independent, could not affect rights of
Great Britain which did not derive from the colonial connection; but
it did introduce an opposing right,--that of the American citizen to
be free from British control when not in British territory. This the
United States possessed in common with all foreign nations; but in her
case it could not, as in theirs, be easily reconciled with the claim
of Great Britain. When every one whose native tongue was English was
also by birth the subject of Great Britain, the visitation of a
foreign neutral, in order to take from her any British seamen,
involved no great difficulty of discrimination, nor--granting the
theory of inalienable allegiance--any injustice to the person taken.
It was quite different when a large maritime English-speaking
population, quite comparable in numbers to that remaining British, had
become independent. The exercise of the British right, if right it
was, became liable to grievous wrong, not only to the individuals
affected, but to the nation responsible for their protection; and the
injury was greater, both in procedure and result, because the
officials intrusted with the enforcement of the British claim were
personally interested in the decisions they rendered. No one who
understands the affection of a naval officer for an able seaman,
especially if his ship be short-handed, will need to have explained
how difficult it became for him to distinguish between an Englishman
and an American, when much wanted. In short, there was on each side a
practical grievance; but the character of the remedy to be applied
involved a question of principle, the effect of which would be unequal
between the disputants, increasing the burden of the one while it
diminished that of the other, according as the one or the other
solution was adopted.
Except for the fact that the British Government had at its disposal
overwhelming physical force, its case would have shared that of all
other prescriptive rights when they come into collision with present
actualities, demanding their modification. It might be never so true
that long-standing precedent made legal the impressment of British
seamen from neutral vessels on the open sea; but it remained that in
practice many American seamen were seized, and forced into involuntary
servitude, the duration of which, under the customs of the British
Navy, was terminable certainly only by desertion or death. The very
difficulty of distinguishing between the natives of the two countries,
"owing to similarity of language, habits, and manners,"[136] alleged
in 1797 by the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Grenville, to Rufus
King, the American Minister, did but emphasize the incompatibility of
the British claim with the security of the American citizen. The
Consul-General of Great Britain at New York during most of this stormy
period, Thomas Barclay, a loyalist during the War of Independence,
affirms from time to time, with evident sincerity of conviction, the
wishes of the British Government and naval officers not to impress
American seamen; but his published correspondence contains none the
less several specific instances, in which he assures British admirals
and captains that impressed men serving on board their ships are
beyond doubt native Americans, and his editor remarks that "only a few
of his many appeals on behalf of Americans unlawfully seized are here
printed."[137] This, too, in the immediate neighborhood of the United
States, where evidence was most readily at hand. The condition was
intolerable, and in principle it mattered nothing whether one man or
many thus suffered. That the thing was possible, even for a single
most humble and unknown native of the United States, condemned the
system, and called imperiously for remedy. The only effectual remedy,
however, was the abandonment of the practice altogether, whether or
not the theoretic ground for such abandonment was that advanced by the
United States. Long before 1806, experience had demonstrated, what had
been abundantly clear to foresight, that a naval lieutenant or captain
could not safely be intrusted with a function so delicate as deciding
the nationality of a likely English-speaking topman, whom, if British,
he had the power to impress.
The United States did not refuse to recognize, distinctly if not
fully, the embarrassment under which Great Britain labored by losing
the services of her seamen at a moment of such national exigency; and
it was prepared to offer many concessions in municipal regulations, in
order to exclude British subjects from American vessels. Various
propositions were advanced looking to the return of deserters and to
the prevention of enlistments; coupled always with a renunciation of
the British claim to take persons from under the American flag. There
had been much negotiation by individual ministers of the United States
in the ordinary course of their duties; beginning as far back as 1787,
when John Adams had to remonstrate vigorously with the Cabinet
"against this practice, which has been too common, of impressing
American citizens, and especially with the aggravating circumstances
of going on board American vessels, which ought to be protected by the
flag of their sovereign."[138] Again, in 1790, on hostilities
threatening with Spain, a number of American seamen were impressed in
British ports. The arrests, being within British waters, were not an
infringement of American jurisdiction, and the only question then
raised was that of proving nationality. Gouverneur Morris, who
afterwards so violently advocated the British claim to impress their
own subjects in American vessels on the seas,[139] was at this time in
London on a special semi-official errand, committed to him by
President Washington. There being then no American resident minister,
he took upon himself to mention to the Foreign Secretary "the conduct
of their pressgangs, who had taken many American seamen, and had
entered American vessels with as little ceremony as those belonging to
Britain;" adding, with a caustic humor characteristic of him, "I
believe, my Lord, this is the only instance in which we are not
treated as aliens." He suggested certificates of citizenship, to be
issued by the Admiralty Courts of the United States. This was
approved by the Secretary and by Pitt; the latter, however, remarking
that the plan was "very liable to abuse, notwithstanding every
precaution."[140] Various expedients for attaching to the individual
documentary evidence of birth were from time to time tried; but the
heedless and inconsequent character and habits of the sailor of that
day, and the facility with which the papers, once issued, could be
transferred or bought, made any such resource futile. The United
States was thus driven to the position enunciated in 1792 by
Jefferson, then Secretary of State: "The simplest rule will be that
the vessel being American shall be evidence that the seamen on board
of her are such."[141] If this demand comprehended, as it apparently
did, cases of arrest in British harbors, it was clearly extravagant,
resembling the idea proceeding from the same source that the Gulf
Stream should mark the neutral line of United States waters; but for
the open sea it formulated the doctrine on which the country finally
and firmly took its stand.
[Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON
From the painting by Gilbert Stuart, in Bowdoin College,
Brunswick, Me.]
The history of the practice of impressment, and of the consequent
negotiations, from the time of Jefferson's first proposition down to
the mission of Monroe and Pinkney, had shown conclusively that no
other basis of settlement than that of the flag vouching for the crew
could adequately meet and remove the evil of which the United States
complained; an evil which was not only an injury to the individuals
affected, but a dishonor to the nation which should continue to
submit. The subject early engaged the care of Rufus King, who became
Minister to Great Britain in 1796. In 1797, Lord Grenville and he had
a correspondence,[142] which served merely to develop the difficulties
on both sides, and things drifted from bad to worse. Not only was
there the oppression of the individual, but the safety of ships was
endangered by the ruthless manner in which they were robbed of their
crews; an evil from which British merchant vessels often
suffered.[143] On October 7, 1799, King again presented Grenville a
paper,[144] summarizing forcibly both the abuses undergone by
Americans, and the inconsistency of the British principle of
inalienable allegiance with other British practices, which not only
conferred citizenship upon aliens serving for a certain time in their
merchant ships, but even attributed it compulsorily to seamen settled
or married in the land.[145] No satisfactory action followed upon this
remonstrance. In March, 1801, Grenville having resigned with Pitt,
King brought the question before their successors, referring to the
letter of October, 1799, as "a full explanation, requiring no further
development on the present occasion."[146] At the same time, by
authority from his Government, he made a definite proposal, "that
neither party shall upon the high seas impress seamen out of the
vessels of the other." The instructions for this action were given
under the presidency of John Adams, John Marshall being then Secretary
of State. On the high seas the vessels of the country were not under
British jurisdiction for any purpose. The only concession of
international law was that the ship itself could be arrested, if found
by a belligerent cruiser under circumstances apparently in violation
of belligerent rights, be brought within belligerent jurisdiction, and
the facts there determined by due process of law. But in the practice
of impressment the whole procedure, from arrest to trial and sentence,
was transferred to the open sea; therefore to allow it extended
thither a British jurisdiction, which possessed none of the guarantees
for the sifting of evidence, the application of law, or the
impartiality of the judge, which may be presumed in regular tribunals.
Yet, while holding clearly the absolute justice of the American
contention, demonstrated both by the faulty character of the method
and the outrageous injustice in results, let us not be blind to the
actuality of the loss Great Britain was undergoing, nor to her
estimate of the compensation offered for the relinquishment of the
practice. The New England States, which furnished a large proportion
of the maritime population, affirmed continually by their constituted
authorities that very few of their seamen were known to be impressed.
Governor Strong of Massachusetts, in a message to the Legislature,
said, "The number of our native seamen impressed by British ships has
been grossly exaggerated, and the number of British seamen employed by
us has at all times been far greater than those of all nations who
have been impressed from our vessels. If we are contending for the
support of a claim to exempt British seamen from their allegiance to
their own country, is it not time to inquire whether our claim is
just?"[147] It seems singular now that the fewness of the citizens
hopelessly consigned to indefinite involuntary servitude should have
materially affected opinion as to the degree of the outrage; but,
after making allowance for the spirit of faction then prevalent, it
can be readily understood that such conditions, being believed by the
British, must color their judgment as to the real extent of the
injustice by which they profited. At New York, in 1805, Consul-General
Barclay,[148] who had then been resident for six years, in replying to
a letter from the Mayor, said, "It is a fact, too notorious to have
escaped your knowledge, that many of his Majesty's subjects are
furnished with American protection, to which they have no title." This
being brought to Madison's attention produced a complaint to the
British Minister. In justifying his statements, Barclay wrote there
were "innumerable instances where British subjects within a month
after their arrival in these states obtain certificates of
citizenship." "The documents I have already furnished you prove the
indiscriminate use of those certificates."[149] Representative Gaston
of North Carolina, whose utterances on another aspect of the question
have been before quoted,[150] said in this relation, "In the battle, I
think of the President and the Little Belt, a neighbor of mine, now an
industrious farmer, noticed in the number of the slain one of his own
name. He exclaimed, 'There goes one of my protections.' On being asked
for an explanation, he remarked that in his wild days, when he
followed the sea, it was an ordinary mode of procuring a little
spending money to get a protection from a notary for a dollar, and
sell it to the first foreigner whom it at all fitted for fifteen or
twenty." But, while believing that the number of impressed Americans
"had been exaggerated infinitely beyond the truth," Gaston added, with
the clear perceptions of patriotism, "Be they more or less, the right
to the protection of their country is sacred and must be
regarded."[151]
The logic was unimpeachable which, to every argument based upon
numbers, replied that the question was not of few or many, but of a
system, under which American seamen--one or more--were continually
liable to be seized by an irresponsible authority, without protection
or hearing of law, and sent to the uttermost part of the earth, beyond
power of legal redress, or of even making known their situation. Yet
it can be understood that the British Government, painfully conscious
of the deterioration of its fighting force by the absence of its
subjects, and convinced of its right, concerning which no hesitation
was ever by it expressed, should have resolved to maintain it,
distrustful of offers to exclude British seamen from the American
merchant service, the efficacy of which must have been more than
doubtful to all familiar with shipping procedures in maritime ports.
The protections issued to seamen as American citizens fell under the
suspicion which in later days not infrequently attached to
naturalization papers; and, if questioned by some of our own people,
it is not to be wondered that they seemed more than doubtful to a
contrary interest.
In presenting the proposition, "that neither party should impress from
the ships of the other," King had characterized it as a temporary
measure, "until more comprehensive and precise regulations can be
devised to secure the respective rights of the two countries."
Nevertheless, the United States would doubtless have been content to
rest in this, duly carried out, and even to waive concession of the
principle, should it be thus voided in practice. As King from the
first foresaw,[152] acceptance by the British Cabinet would depend
upon the new head of the Admiralty, Lord St. Vincent, a veteran
admiral, whose reputation, and experience of over fifty years, would
outweigh the opinions of his colleagues. In reply to a private letter
from one of St. Vincent's political friends, sent at King's request,
the admiral wrote: "Mr. King is probably not aware of the abuses which
are committed by American Consuls in France, Spain, and Portugal, from
the generality of whom every Englishman, knowing him to be such, may
be made an American for a dollar. I have known more than one American
master carry off soldiers, in their regimentals, arms, and
accoutrements, from the garrison at Gibraltar; and there cannot be a
doubt but the American trade is navigated by a majority of British
subjects; and a very considerable one too." However inspired by
prejudice, these words in their way echo Gaston's statements just
quoted; while Madison in 1806 admitted that the number of British
seamen in American merchant ships was "considerable, though probably
less than supposed."
Entertaining these impressions, the concurrence of St. Vincent seemed
doubtful; and in fact, through the period of nominal peace which soon
ensued, and continued to May, 1803, the matter dragged. When the
renewal of the war was seen to be inevitable, King again urged a
settlement, and the Foreign Secretary promised to sign any agreement
which the admiral would approve. After conference, King thought he had
gained this desired consent, for a term of five years, to the American
proposition. He drew up articles embodying it, together with the
necessary equivalents to be stipulated by the United States; but,
before these could be submitted, he received a letter from St.
Vincent, saying that he was of the opinion that the narrow seas should
be expressly excepted from the operation of the clause, "as they had
been immemorially considered to be within the dominions of Great
Britain." Since this would give the consent of the United States to
the extension of British jurisdiction far beyond the customary three
miles from the shore, conceded by international law, King properly
would not accept the solution, tempting as was the opportunity to
secure immunity for Americans in other quarters from the renewed
outrages that could be foreseen. He soon after returned to the United
States, where his decision was of course approved; for though the Gulf
Stream appeared to Jefferson the natural limit for the neutral
jurisdiction of America, the claim of Great Britain to the narrow seas
was evidently a grave encroachment upon the rights of others.
In later years Lord Castlereagh, in an interview with the American
charge d'affaires, Jonathan Russell, assured him that Mr. King had
misapprehended St. Vincent's meaning; reading, from a mass of records
then before him, a letter of the admiral to Sir William Scott, Judge
of the High Court of Admiralty, "asking for counsel and advice, and
confessing his own perplexity and total incompetency to discover any
practical project for the safe discontinuance of the practice." "You
see," proceeded Lord Castlereagh, "that the confidence of Mr. King on
this point was entirely unfounded."[153]
Wherever the misunderstanding lay, matters had not advanced in the
least towards a solution when Monroe reached England, in 1803, as
King's successor. Up to that time, no tabular statement seems to have
been prepared, showing the total number of seamen impressed from
American vessels during the first war, 1793-1801; nor does the present
writer think it material to ascertain, from the fragmentary data at
hand, the exact extent of an injury to which the question of more or
less was secondary. The official agent of the American Government, for
the protection of seamen, upon quitting his post in London in 1802,
wrote that he had transferred to his successor "A list of 597 seamen,
where answers have been returned to me, stating that, having no
documents to prove their citizenship, the Lords Commissioners of the
Admiralty could not consent to their discharge." Only seven cases then
remained without replies, which shows at the least a decent attention
to the formalities of intercourse; and King, in his letter of October
7, 1799, had acknowledged that the Secretary to the Admiralty had
"given great attention to the numerous applications, and that a
disposition has existed to comply with our demands, when the same
could be done consistently with the maxims and practice adopted and
adhered to by Great Britain." The Admiralty, however, maintained that
"the admission of the principle, that a man declaring himself to
belong to a foreign state should, upon that assertion merely, and
without direct or very strong circumstantial proof, be suffered to
leave the service, would be productive of the most dangerous
consequences to his Majesty's Navy." The agent himself had written to
the Secretary of the Admiralty, "I freely confess that I believe many
of them are British subjects; but I presume that all of them were
impressed from American vessels, and by far the greater proportion are
American citizens, who, from various causes, have been deprived of
their certificates, and who, from their peculiar situation, have been
unable to obtain proofs from America."[154]
When Mr. Monroe arrived in England in 1803, after the conclusion of
the Louisiana purchase from France, war had just re-begun.
Instructions were sent him, in an elaborate series of articles framed
by Madison, for negotiating a convention to regulate those matters of
difference which experience had shown were sure to arise between the
two countries in the progress of the hostilities. Among them,
impressment was given the first place; but up to 1806, when Pinkney
was sent as his associate, nothing had been effected, nor does urgency
seem to have been felt. So long as in practice things ran smoothly,
divergences of opinion were easily tolerable. Soon after the receipt
of the instructions, in March, 1804,[155] the comparatively friendly
administration of Addington gave way to that of Pitt; and upon this
had followed Monroe's nine-months absence in Spain. Before departure,
however, he had written, "The negotiation has not failed in its great
objects, ... nor was there ever less cause of complaint furnished by
impressment."[156] The outburst of seizure upon the plea of a
constructively direct trade, already mentioned, had followed, and,
with the retaliatory non-importation law of the United States, made
the situation acute and menacing. Further cause for exasperation was
indicated in a report from the Secretary of State, March 5, 1806,
giving, in reply to a resolution of the House, a tabulated statement,
by name, of 913 persons, who "appear to have been impressed from
American vessels;" to which was added that "the aggregate number of
impressments into the British service since the commencement of the
present war in Europe (May, 1803) is found to be 2,273."[157]
Confronted by this situation of wrongs endured, by commerce and by
seamen, the mission of Monroe and Pinkney was to negotiate a
comprehensive treaty of "amity, commerce, and navigation," the first
attempted between the two countries since Jay's in 1794. When Pinkney
landed, Fox was already in the grip of the sickness from which he died
in the following September. This circumstance introduced an element of
delay, aggravated by the inevitable hesitations of the new ministry,
solicitous on the one hand to accommodate, but yet more anxious not to
incense British opinion. The Prime Minister, in room of Mr. Fox,
received the envoys on August 5, and, when the American demand was
explained to him, defined at once the delicacy of the question of
impressment. "On the subject of the impressment of our seamen, he
suggested doubts of the practicability of devising the means of
discrimination between the seamen of the two countries, within (as we
understood him) their respective jurisdictions; and he spoke of the
importance to the safety of Great Britain, in the present state of the
power of her enemy, of preserving in their utmost strength the right
and capacity of Government to avail itself in war of the services of
its seamen. These observations were connected with frequent
professions of an earnest wish that some liberal and equitable plan
should be adopted, for _reconciling the exercise_ of this essential
right with the just claims of the United States, and for removing from
it all cause of complaint and irritation."[158]
In consequence of Mr. Fox's continued illness two negotiators, one of
whom, Lord Holland, was a near relative of his, were appointed to
confer with the American envoys, and to frame an agreement, if
attainable. The first formal meeting was on August 27, the second on
September 1.[159] As the satisfactory arrangement of the impressment
difficulty was a _sine qua non_ to the ratification of any treaty, and
to the repeal of the Non-Importation Act, this American requirement
was necessarily at once submitted. The reply was significant,
particularly because made by men apparently chosen for their general
attitude towards the United States, by a ministry certainly desirous
to conciliate, and to retain the full British advantage from the
United States market, if compatible with the preservation of an
interest deemed greater still. "It was soon apparent that they felt
the strongest repugnance to a formal renunciation, or the abandonment,
of their claim to take from our vessels on the high seas such seamen
as should appear to be their own subjects, and they pressed upon us
with much zeal a provision" for documentary protection to individuals;
"but that, subject to such protections, the ships of war of Great
Britain should continue to visit and impress on the main ocean as
heretofore."
In the preliminary discussions the British negotiators presented the
aspect of the case as it appeared to them and to their public. They
"observed that they supposed the object of our plan to be to prevent
the impressment at sea of American seamen, and not to withdraw
British seamen from the naval service of their country in times of
great national peril, for the purpose of employing them ourselves;
that the first of these purposes would be effectually accomplished by
a system which should introduce and establish a clear and conclusive
distinction between the seamen of the two countries, which on all
occasions would be implicitly respected; that if they should consent
to make our commercial navy a floating asylum for all the British
seamen who, tempted by higher wages, should quit their service for
ours, the effect of such a concession upon their maritime strength, on
which Great Britain depended, not only for her prosperity but for her
safety, might be fatal; that on the most alarming emergency they might
be deprived, to an extent impossible to calculate, of their only means
of security; that our vessels might become receptacles for deserters
to any amount, and when once at sea might set at defiance the just
claims of the service to which such deserters belonged; that, even
within the United States, it could not be expected that any plan for
recovering British deserters could be efficacious; and that, moreover,
the plan we proposed was inadequate in its range and object, inasmuch
as it was merely prospective, confined wholly to deserters, and in no
respect provided for the case of the vast body of British seamen _now_
employed in our trade to every part of the world."
To these representations, which had a strong basis in fact and reason,
if once the British principle was conceded, the American negotiators
replied in detail as best they could. In such detail, the weight of
argument and of probability appears to the writer to rest with the
British case; but there is no adequate reply to the final American
assertion, which sums up the whole controversy, "that impressment upon
the high seas by those to whom that service is necessarily confided
must under any conceivable guards be frequently abused;" such abuse
being the imprisonment without trial of American citizens, as "a
pressed man," for an indefinite period. Lord Cochrane, a British naval
officer of rare distinction, stated in the House of Commons a few
years later that "the duration of the term of service in his Majesty's
Navy is absolutely without limitation."[160]
The American envoys were prevented by their instructions from
conceding this point, and from signing a treaty without some
satisfactory arrangement. Meantime, impressed by the conciliatoriness
of the British representatives, and doubtless in measure by the
evident seriousness of the difficulty experienced by the British
Government, they wrote home advising that the date for the
Non-Importation Act going into operation, now close at hand, should be
postponed; and, in accordance with a recommendation from the
President, the measure was suspended by Congress, with a provision for
further prolongation in the discretion of the Executive. On September
13 Fox died, an event which introduced further delays, esteemed not
unreasonable by Monroe and Pinkney. Their next letter home, however,
November 11,[161] while reporting the resumption of the negotiation,
announced also its failure by a deadlock on this principal subject of
impressment: "We have said everything that we could in support of our
claim, that the flag should protect the crew, which we have contended
was founded in unquestionable right.... This right was denied by the
British commissioners, who asserted that of their Government to seize
its subjects on board neutral vessels on the high seas, and also urged
that the relinquishment of it at this time would go far to the
overthrow of their naval power, on which the safety of the state
essentially depended." In support of the abstract right was quoted the
report from a law officer of the Crown, which "justified the
pretension by stating that the King had a right, by his prerogative,
to require the services of all his seafaring subjects against the
enemy, and to seize them by force wherever found, not being within the
territorial limits of another Power; that as the high seas were
extra-territorial, the merchant vessels of other Powers navigating on
them were not admitted to possess such a jurisdiction as to protect
British subjects from the exercise of the King's prerogative over
them."
This was a final and absolute rejection of Madison's doctrine, that
merchant vessels on the high seas were under the jurisdiction only of
their own country. Asserted right was arrayed directly and
unequivocally against asserted right. Negotiation on that subject was
closed, and to diplomacy was left no further resort, save arms, or
submission to continued injury and insult. The British commissioners
did indeed submit a project,[162] in place of that of the United
States, rejected by their Government. By this it was provided that
thereafter the captain of a cruiser who should impress an American
citizen should be liable to heavy penalties, to be enacted by law; but
as the preamble to this proposition read, "Whereas it is not lawful
for a belligerent to impress or carry off, from on board a neutral,
seafaring persons _who are not the subjects of the belligerent_,"
there was admitted implicitly the right to impress those who were such
subjects, the precise point at issue. The Americans therefore
pronounced it wholly inadmissible, and repeated that no project could
be adopted "which did not allow our ships to protect their crews."
The provision made indispensable by the United States having thus
failed of adoption, the question arose whether the negotiation should
cease. The British expressed an earnest desire that it should not, and
as a means thereto communicated the most positive assurances from
their Government that "instructions have been given, and will be
repeated and enforced, for the observance of the greatest caution in
the impressing of British seamen; that the strictest care shall be
taken to preserve the citizens of the United States from molestation
or injury; and that prompt redress shall be afforded upon any
representation of injury."[163] To this assurance the American
commissioners attached more value as a safeguard for the future than
past experience warranted; but in London they were able to feel, more
accurately than an official in Washington, the extent and complexity
of the British problem, both in actual fact and in public feeling.
They knew, too, the anxious wish of the President for an accommodation
on other matters; so they decided to proceed with their discussions,
having first explicitly stated that they were acting on their own
judgment.[164] Consequently, whatever instrument might result from
their joint labors would be liable to rejection at home, because of
the failure of the impressment demand.
The discussions thus renewed terminated in a treaty of amity,
commerce, and navigation, signed by the four negotiators, December 31,
1806. Into the details of this instrument it is unnecessary to go, as
it never became operative. Jefferson persisted in refusing approval to
any formal convention which did not provide the required stipulation
against impressment. He was dissatisfied also with particular details
connected with the other arrangements. All these matters were set
forth at great length in a letter[165] of May 20, 1807, from Mr.
Madison to the American commissioners; in which they were instructed
to reopen negotiations on the basis of the treaty submitted,
endeavoring to effect the changes specified. The danger to Great
Britain from American commercial restriction was fully expounded, as
an argument to compel compliance with the demands; the whole
concluding with the characteristic remark that, "as long as
negotiation can be honorably protracted, it is a resource to be
preferred, under existing circumstances, to the peremptory alternative
of improper concessions or inevitable collisions." In other words, the
United States Government did not mean to fight, and that was all Great
Britain needed to know. That she would suffer from the closure of the
American market was indisputable; but, being assured of transatlantic
peace, there were other circumstances of high import, political as
well as commercial, which rendered yielding more inexpedient to her
than a commercial war.
At the end of March, 1807, within three months of the signature at
London, the British Ministry fell, and the disciples of Pitt returned
to power. Mr. Canning became Foreign Secretary. Circumstances were
then changing rapidly on the continent of Europe, and by the time
Madison's letter reached England a very serious event had modified
also the relations of the United States to Great Britain. This was the
attack upon the United States frigate "Chesapeake" by a British ship
of war, upon the high seas, and the removal of four of her crew,
claimed as deserters from the British Navy. Unofficial information of
this transaction reached England July 25, just one day after Monroe
and Pinkney had addressed to Canning a letter communicating their
instructions to reopen negotiations, and stating the changes deemed
desirable in the treaty submitted. The intervention of the
"Chesapeake" affair, to a contingent adjustment of which all other
matters had been postponed, delayed to October 22 the reply of the
British Minister.[166] In this, after a preamble of "distinct protest
against a practice, altogether unusual in the political transactions
of states, by which the American Government assumes to itself the
privilege of revising and altering agreements concluded and signed on
its behalf by its agents duly authorized for that purpose," Canning
thus announced the decision of the Cabinet: "The proposal of the
President of the United States for proceeding to negotiate anew, upon
the basis of a treaty already solemnly concluded and signed, is a
proposal wholly inadmissible. And his Majesty has therefore no option,
under the present circumstances of this transaction, but to acquiesce
in the refusal of the President of the United States to ratify the
treaty signed on December 31, 1806." The settlement of the
"Chesapeake" business having already been transferred to Washington,
by the appointment of a special British envoy, this rejection of
further consideration of the treaty closed all matters pending between
the two governments, except those appertaining to the usual duties of
a legation, and Monroe's mission ended. A fortnight later he sailed
for the United States. His place as regularly accredited Minister to
the British Court was taken by Pinkney, through whom were conducted
the subsequent important discussions, which arose from the marked
extension given immediately afterwards by France and Great Britain to
their several policies for the forcible restriction of neutral trade.
Those who have followed the course of the successive events traced in
this chapter, and marked their accelerating momentum, will be prepared
for the more extreme and startling occurrences which soon after ensued
as a matter of inevitable development. They will be able also to
understand how naturally the phrase, "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights,"
grew out of these various transactions, as the expression of the
demands and grievances which finally drove the United States into
hostilities; and will comprehend in what sense these terms were used,
and what the wrongs against which they severally protested. "Free
Trade" had no relation of opposition to a system of protection to home
industries, an idea hardly as yet formulated to consciousness, except
by a few advanced economists. It meant the trade of a nation carried
on according to its own free will, relieved from fetters forcibly
imposed by a foreign yoke, in which, under the circumstances of the
time, the resurrection of colonial bondage was fairly to be discerned.
"Sailors' Rights" expressed not only the right of the American seaman
to personal liberty of action,--in theory not contested, but in
practice continually violated by the British,--but the right of all
seamen under the American flag to its protection in the voluntary
engagements which they were then fulfilling. It voiced the sufferings
of the individual; the personal side of an injury, the reverse of
which was the disgrace of the nation responsible for his security.
It was afterwards charged against the administrations of Jefferson and
Madison, under which these events ran their course to their
culmination in war, that impressment was not a cause of the break
between the two countries, but was adduced subsequently to swell the
array of injuries, in which the later Orders in Council were the real
determinative factor. The drift of this argument was, that the Repeal
of the Orders, made almost simultaneously with the American
Declaration of War, and known in the United States two months later,
should have terminated hostilities. The British Government, in an
elaborate vindication of its general course, published in January,
1813, stated that, "in a manifesto, accompanying their declaration of
hostilities, in addition to the former complaints against the Orders
in Council, a long list of grievances was brought forward; but none of
them such as were ever before alleged by the American Government to be
grounds for war." In America itself similar allegations were made by
the party in opposition. The Maryland House of Delegates, in January,
1814, adopted a memorial, in which it was said that "The claim of
impressment, which has been so much exaggerated, but which was never
deemed of itself a substantive cause of war, has been heretofore
considered susceptible of satisfactory arrangement in the judgment of
both the commissioners, who were selected by the President then in
office to conduct the negotiation with the English ministry in the
year 1806."[167] The words of the commissioners in their official
letters of November 11, 1806,[168] and April 22, 1807,[169] certainly
sustain this statement as to their opinion, which was again
deliberately affirmed by Monroe in a justificatory review of their
course, addressed to Madison in February, 1808,[170] after his return.
Gaston, speaking in the House in February, 1814, said: "Sir, the
question of seamen was not a cause of this war. More than five years
had passed over since an arrangement on this question, perfectly
satisfactory to our ministers, [Monroe and Pinkney] had been made with
Great Britain; but it pleased not the President, and was rejected.
Yet, during the whole period that afterwards elapsed until the
declaration of war, no second effort was made to adjust this cause of
controversy."[171]
Gaston here is slightly in error as to fact, for the attack upon the
"Chesapeake" was made by the Government the occasion for again
demanding an abandonment of the practice of impressment from American
merchant ships; but, accepting the statements otherwise, nothing more
could be required of the Administration, so far as words went, than
its insistence upon this relinquishment as a _sine qua non_ to any
treaty. Its instructions to its ministers in 1806 had placed this
demand first, not only in order, but in importance, coupling with it
as indispensable only one other condition, the freedom of trade; the
later and more extreme infringements of which were constituted by the
Orders in Council of 1807. After protracted discussion, the American
requirement as to impressment had been refused by Great Britain,
deliberately, distinctly, and in the most positive manner; nor does it
seem possible to concur with the opinion of our envoys that the
stipulations offered by her representatives, while not sacrificing the
British principle, did substantially and in practice secure the
American demands. These could be satisfactorily covered only by the
terms laid down by the Administration. Thereafter, any renewal of the
subject must come from the other side; it was inconsistent with
self-respect for the United States again to ask it, unless with arms
in her hands. To make further advances in words would have been, not
to negotiate, but to entreat. This, in substance, was the reply of the
Government to its accusers at home, and it is irrefutable.
It is less easy--rather, it is impossible--to justify the
Administration for refraining from adequate deeds, when the impotence
of words had been fully and finally proved. In part, this was due to
miscalculation, in itself difficult to pardon, from the somewhat
sordid grounds and estimates of national feeling upon which it
proceeded. The two successive presidents, and the party behind them,
were satisfied that Great Britain, though standing avowedly and
evidently upon grounds considered by her essential to national honor
and national safety, could be compelled to yield by the menace of
commercial embarrassment. That there was lacking in them the elevated
instinct, which could recognize that they were in collision with
something greater than a question of pecuniary profits, is in itself a
condemnation; and their statesmanship was at fault in not appreciating
that the enslaved conditions of the European continent had justly
aroused in Great Britain an exaltation of spirit, which was prepared
to undergo every extreme, in resistance to a like subjection, till
exhaustion itself should cause her weapons to drop from her hands.
The resentment of the United States Government for the injuries done
its people was righteous and proper. It was open to it to bear them
under adequate protest, sympathizing with the evident embarrassments
of the old cradle of the race; or, on the other hand, to do as she was
doing, strain every nerve to compel the cessation of outrage. The
Administration preferred to persist in its military and naval
economies, putting forth but one-half of its power, by measures of
mere commercial restriction. These impoverished its own people, and
divided national sentiment, but proved incapable within reasonable
time to reduce the resolution of the opponent. That that finally gave
way when war was clearly imminent proves, not that commercial
restriction alone was sufficient, but that coupled with military
readiness it would have attained its end more surely, and sooner;
consequently with less of national suffering, and no national
ignominy.
Entire conviction of the justice and urgency of the American
contentions, especially in the matter of impressment, and only to a
less degree in that of the regulation of trade by foreign force, as
impeaching national independence, is not enough to induce admiration
for the course of American statesmanship at this time. The acuteness
and technical accuracy of Madison's voluminous arguments make but more
impressive the narrowness of outlook, which saw only the American
point of view, and recognized only the force of legal precedent, at a
time when the foundations of the civilized world were heaving.
American interests doubtless were his sole concern; but what was
practicable and necessary to support those interests depended upon a
wide consideration and just appreciation of external conditions. That
laws are silent amid the clash of arms, seems in his apprehension
transformed to the conviction that at no time are they more noisy and
compulsive. Upon this political obtuseness there fell a kind of
poetical retribution, which gradually worked the Administration round
to the position of substantially supporting Napoleon, when putting
forth all his power to oppress the liberties of Spain, and of
embarrassing Great Britain at the time when a people in insurrection
against perfidy and outrage found in her their sole support. During
these eventful five years, the history of which we are yet to trace,
the bearing of successive British ministries towards the United States
was usually uncompromising, often arrogant, sometimes insolent, hard
even now to read with composure; but in the imminent danger of their
country, during a period of complicated emergencies, they held, with
cool heads, and with steady hands on the helm, a course taken in full
understanding of world conditions, and with a substantially just
forecast of the future. Among their presuppositions, in the period
next to be treated, was that America might argue and threaten, but
would not fight. There was here no miscalculation, for she did not
fight till too late, and she fought wholly unprepared.
FOOTNOTES:
[108] Wheaton's International Law, p. 753.
[109] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. i. p. 476.
[110] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. i. pp. 472-474.
[111] Ibid., p. 503.
[112] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. i. p. 522.
[113] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. p. 491.
[114] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 263.
[115] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 265.
[116] Ibid., p. 266.
[117] Ibid., p. 175.
[118] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 98.
[119] History of the United States, by Henry Adams, vol. ii. p. 423.
[120] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. p. 491.
[121] Ibid., vol. iii. p. 145.
[122] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 114.
[123] Monroe to Madison, April 28, 1806. American State Papers, vol.
iii. p. 117.
[124] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 111.
[125] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 109,
107.
[126] Ibid., p. 118.
[127] For the text of this measure, see American State Papers, Foreign
Relations, vol. iii. p. 267.
[128] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 443.
[129] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 446.
[130] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 195.
Author's italics.
[131] Ibid., p. 371.
[132] See, particularly, Foster to Monroe, July 3, 1811. American
State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 436.
[133] Ibid., pp. 428, 439.
[134] The Instructions to Monroe and Pinkney are found in American
State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 120.
[135] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 200,
201.
[136] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. p. 148.
[137] Correspondence of Thomas Barclay, edited by George L. Rives, New
York, 1894. For instances, see Index, Impressment.
[138] Works of John Adams, vol. viii. p. 456.
[139] Ante, p. 6.
[140] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. i. pp. 123-124.
[141] Jefferson's Works, Letter to T. Pinckney, Minister to Great
Britain, June 11, 1792.
[142] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. pp. 145-150.
[143] See, for example, Naval Chronicle, vol. xxvi. pp. 215-221,
306-309.
[144] Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, vol. iii. p. 115.
[145] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. p. 150.
[146] Ibid., p. 493.
[147] Niles' Register, vol. v. p. 343.
[148] Correspondence, p. 210.
[149] Correspondence, p. 219.
[150] Ante, p. 7.
[151] Niles' Register, vol. v. Supplement, p. 105.
[152] King to Thomas Erskine. Life of King, vol. iii. p. 401.
[153] Russell to the Secretary of State, Sept. 17, 1812. American
State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 593.
[154] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. pp. 427, 473.
[155] Ibid., vol. iii. p. 90.
[156] Ibid., p. 98.
[157] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. pp. 776-798.
[158] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 131.
Author's italics.
[159] For the American report of these interviews, see Ibid., pp.
133-135.
[160] Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates, vol. xxvi. p. 1103.
[161] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 137-140.
[162] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 140.
[163] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 140.
[164] Ibid., p. 139.
[165] Ibid., pp. 166-173.
[166] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 198.
[167] Niles' Register, vol. v. p. 377.
[168] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 139.
[169] Ibid., p. 161.
[170] Ibid., p. 173.
[171] Niles' Register, vol. v. Supplement, p. 102.