CHAPTER IV

FROM THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL TO WAR

1807-1812

When the treaty of December 31, 1806, was about to be signed, the

British negotiators delivered to the Americans a paper, of the general

character of which they had been forewarned, but which in precise

terms then first came before them. Its origin was due to a

pronouncement of the French Emperor, historically known as the Decree

of Berlin, which was dated November 21, while the negotiations were in

progress, but had become fully known only when they had reached a very

advanced stage. The pretensions and policy set forth in the Decree

were considered by the British Government to violate the rights of

neutrals, with a specific and far-reaching purpose of thereby injuring

Great Britain. It was claimed that acquiescence in such violations by

the neutral, or submission to them, would be a concurrence in the

hostile object of the enemy; in which case Great Britain might feel

compelled to adopt measures retaliatory against France, through the

same medium of neutral navigation. In such steps she might be

fettered, should the present treaty take effect. In final

ratification, therefore, the British Government would be guided by the

action of the United States upon the Berlin Decree. Unless the Emperor

abandoned his policy, or "the United States by its conduct or

assurances will have given security to his Majesty that it will not

submit to such innovations on the established system of maritime law,

... his Majesty will not consider himself bound by the present

signature of his commissioners to ratify the treaty, or precluded from

adopting such measures as may seem necessary for counteracting the

designs of his enemy."[172] The American representatives transmitted

this paper to Washington, with the simple observation that "we do not

consider ourselves a party to it, or as having given it in any the

slightest degree our sanction."[173]

The Berlin Decree was remarkable not only in scope and spirit, but in

form. "It had excited in us apprehensions," wrote Madison to the

United States minister in Paris, "which were repressed only by the

inarticulate import of its articles, and the presumption that it would

be executed in a sense not inconsistent with the respect due to the

treaty between France and the United States." It bore, in fact, the

impress of its author's mind, which, however replete with knowledge

concerning conventional international law, defined in accordance with

the momentary and often hasty impulses of his own will, and

consequently often also with the obscurity attendant upon ill-digested

ideas. The preamble recited various practices of Great Britain as

subversive of international right; most of which were not so, but in

accordance with long-standing usage and general prescription. The

methods of blockade instituted by her were more exceptionable, and

were given prominence, with evident reference to the Order of May 16,

declaring the blockade of a long coast-line. It being evident, so ran

the Emperor's reasoning, that the object of this abuse of blockade was

to interrupt neutral commerce in favor of British, it followed that

"whoever deals on the Continent in English merchandise favors that

design, and becomes an accomplice." He therefore decreed, as a measure

of just retaliation, "that the British Islands were thenceforward in

a state of blockade; that all correspondence and commerce with them

was prohibited; that trade in English merchandise was forbidden; and

that all merchandise belonging to England, or" (even if neutral

property) "proceeding from its manufactories and colonies, is lawful

prize." No vessel coming directly from British dominions should be

received in any port to which the Decree was applicable. The scope of

its intended application was shown in the concluding command, that it

should be communicated "to the Kings of Spain, of Naples, of Holland,

of Etruria, and to our allies, whose subjects, like ours, are the

victims of the injustice and barbarism of the English maritime

laws."[174]

The phrasing of the edict was ambiguous, as Madison indicated.

Notably, while neutral vessels having on board merchandise neutral in

property, but British in origin, were to be seized when voluntarily

entering a French port, it was not clear whether they were for the

same reason to be arrested when found on the high seas; and there was

equal failure to specify whether the proclaimed blockade authorized

the capture of neutrals merely because bound to the British Isles, as

was lawful if destined to a seaport effectively blockaded. Again, some

of the proposed measures, such as refusal of admission to vessels or

merchandise coming to French ports from British, were matters of

purely local concern and municipal regulation; whereas the seizure of

neutral property, because of English manufacture, was at least of

doubtful right, if exercised within municipal limits, and certainly

unlawful, if effected on the high seas. Whether such application was

intended could not certainly be inferred from the text. The genius of

the measure, as a whole, its inspiring motive and purpose, was

revealed in the closing words of the preamble: "This decree shall be

considered as the fundamental law of the Empire, until England has

acknowledged that the rights of war are the same an land and on sea;

that it [war] cannot be extended to any private property whatever; nor

to persons who are not military; and until the right of blockade be

restrained to fortified places, actually invested by competent

forces." These words struck directly at measures of war resting upon

long-standing usage, in which the strength of a maritime state such as

Great Britain was vitally implicated.

The claim for private property possesses particular interest; for it

involves a play upon words to the confusion of ideas, which from that

time to this has vitiated the arguments upon which have been based a

prominent feature of American policy. Private property at a standstill

is one thing. It is the unproductive money in a stocking, hid in a

closet. Property belonging to private individuals, but embarked in

that process of transportation and exchange which we call commerce, is

like money in circulation. It is the life-blood of national

prosperity, upon which war depends; and as such is national in its

employment, and only in ownership private. To stop such circulation is

to sap national prosperity; and to sap prosperity, upon which war

depends for its energy, is a measure as truly military as is killing

the men whose arms maintain war in the field. Prohibition of commerce

is enforced at will where an enemy's army holds a territory; if

permitted, it is because it inures to the benefit of the conqueror, or

at least from its restricted scope does not injure him. It will not be

doubted that, should a prohibition on shore be disregarded, the

offending property would be seized in punishment. The sea is the great

scene of commerce. The property transported back and forth,

circulating from state to state in exchanges, is one of the greatest

factors in national wealth. The maritime nations have been, and are,

the wealthy nations. To prohibit such commerce to an enemy is, and

historically has been, a tremendous blow to his fighting power; never

more conspicuously so than in the Napoleonic wars. But prohibition is

a vain show, in war as it is in civil government, if not enforced by

penalties; and the natural penalty against offending property is fine,

extending even to confiscation in extreme cases. The seizure of

enemy's merchant ships and goods, for violating the prohibition

against their engaging in commerce, is what is commonly called the

seizure of private property. Under the methods of the last two

centuries, it has been in administration a process as regular,

legally, as is libelling a ship for an action in damages; nor does it

differ from it in principle. The point at issue really is not, "Is the

property private?" but, "Is the method conducive to the purposes of

war?" Property strictly private, on board ship, but not in process of

commercial exchange, is for this reason never touched; and to do so is

considered as disgraceful as a common theft.

Napoleon, as a ruler, was always poverty-stricken. For that reason he

levied heavy contributions on conquered states, which it is needless

to say were paid by private taxpayers; and for the same reason, by

calling French ships and French goods "private property," he would

compel for them the freedom of the sea, which the maritime

preponderance of Great Britain denied them. He needed the revenue that

commerce would bring in. So as to blockades. In denying the right to

capture under a nominal blockade, unsupported by an effective force,

he took the ground which the common-sense of nations had long before

embodied in the common consent called international law. But he went

farther. Blockade is very inconvenient to the blockaded, which was the

role played by France. Along with the claim for "private property," he

formulated the proposition that the right of blockade is restrained

to fortified places; to which was afterwards added the corollary that

the place must be invested by land as well as by sea. It is to be

noticed that here also American policy showed a disposition to go

astray, by denying the legitimacy of a purely commercial blockade; a

tendency natural enough at that passing moment, when, as a weak

nation, it was desired to restrict the rights of belligerents, but

which in its results on the subsequent history of the country would

have been ruinous. John Marshall, one of the greatest names in

American jurisprudence, when Secretary of State in 1800, wrote to the

minister in London:

On principle it might well be questioned whether this rule [of

blockade] can be applied to a place not completely invested, by

land as well as by sea. If we examine the reasoning on which is

founded the right to intercept and confiscate supplies designed

for a blockaded town, it will be difficult to resist the

conviction that its extension to towns invested by sea only is

an unjustifiable encroachment on the rights of neutrals. But it

is not of this departure from principle (a departure which has

received some sanction from practice) that we mean to

complain.[175]

In 1810, the then Secretary of State enclosed to the American minister

in London the letter from which this extract is taken, among other

proofs of the positions maintained by the United States on the subject

of blockade. The particular claim cited was not directly indorsed; but

as its mention was unnecessary to the matter immediately in hand, we

may safely regard its retention as indicative of the ideal of the

Secretary, and of the President, Mr. Madison. In consequence, we find

the minister, William Pinkney, in his letter of January 14, 1811,

adducing Marshall's view to the British Foreign Secretary:

It is by no means clear that it may not fairly be contended, on

principle and early usage, that a maritime blockade is

incomplete, with regard to States at peace,[176] unless the

place which it would affect is invested by land, as well as by

sea. The United States, however, have called for the recognition

of no such rule. They appear to have contented themselves,

etc.[177]

The error into which both these eminent statesmen fell is military in

character, and proceeds from the same source as the agitation in favor

of exempting so-called private property from capture. Both spring from

the failure to recognize a function of the sea, vital to the

maintenance of war by states which depend upon maritime commerce. To

forbid the free use of the seas to enemy's merchant ships and material

of commerce, differs in no wise in principle from shutting his ports

to neutral vessels, as well as to his own, by blockade. Both are aimed

at the enemy's sources of supply, at his communications; and the

penalty inflicted by the laws of war in both cases is the

same,--forfeiture of the offending property. With clear recognition of

this military principle involved, and of the importance of sustaining

it by Great Britain, British high officials repeatedly declared that

the Berlin Decree was to be regarded, not chiefly in its methods, but

in its object, or principle, which was to deprive Great Britain of her

principal weapon. This purpose stood avowed in the words, "this decree

shall be considered the fundamental law of the Empire until England

has acknowledged," etc. British statesmen correctly paraphrased this,

"has renounced the established foundations, admitted by all civilized

nations, of her maritime rights and interests, upon which depend the

most valuable rights and interests of the nation."[178] The British

authorities understood that, by relinquishing these rights, they would

abandon in great measure the control of the sea, so far as useful to

war. The United States have received their lesson in history. If the

principle contended for by their representatives, Marshall and

Pinkney, had been established as international law before 1861, there

could have been no blockade of the Southern coast in the Civil War.

The cotton of the Confederacy, innocent "private property," could have

gone freely; the returns from it would have entered unimpeded;

commerce, the source of national wealth, would have flourished in full

vigor; supplies, except contraband, would have flowed unmolested; and

all this at the price merely of killing some hundred thousands more

men, with proportionate expenditure of money, in the effort to

maintain the Union, which would probably have failed, to the

immeasurable loss of both sections.

The British Government took some time to analyze the "inarticulate

import" of the Berlin Decree. Hence, in the paper presented to Monroe

and Pinkney, stress was laid upon the methods only, ignoring the

object of compelling Great Britain to surrender her maritime rights.

In the methods, however, instinct divined the true character of the

plotted evil. There was to be formed, under military pressure, a vast

political combination of states pledged to exclude British commerce

from the markets of the Continent; a design which in execution

received the name of the Continental System. The Decree being issued

after the battle of Jena, upon the eve of the evident complete

subjugation of Prussia, following that of Austria the year before,

there was room to fear that the predominance of Napoleon on the

Continent would compel in Europe universal compliance with these

measures of exclusion. It so proved, in fact, in the course of 1807,

leading to a commercial warfare of extraordinary rigor, the effects of

which upon Europe have been discussed by the author in a previous

work.[179] Its influence upon the United States is now to be

considered; for it was a prominent factor in the causes of the War of

1812.

Although in a military sense weak to debility, and politically not

welded as yet into a nation, strong in a common spirit and accepted

traditions, the United States was already in two respects a force to

be considered. She possessed an extensive shipping, second in tonnage

only to that of the British Islands, to which it was a dangerous rival

in maintaining the commercial intercourse of Europe; while her

population and purchasing power were so increased as to constitute her

a very valuable market, manufacturing for which was chiefly in the

hands of Great Britain. It became, therefore, an object with Napoleon,

in prosecution of the design of the Berlin Decree, to draw the United

States into co-operation with the European continental system, by

shutting her ports to Great Britain; while the latter, confronted by

this double danger, sought to impose upon neutral navigation--almost

wholly American--such curtailment as should punish the Emperor and his

tributaries for their measures of exclusion, and also neutralize the

effect of these by forcing the British Islands into the chain of

communication by which Europe in general was supplied. To retaliate

the Berlin Decree upon the enemy, and by the same means to nourish the

trade of Great Britain, was the avowed twofold object. The shipping of

the United States found itself between hammer and anvil, crushed by

these opposing policies. Napoleon banned it from continental harbors,

if coming from England or freighted with English goods; Great Britain

forbade it going to a continental port, unless it had first touched at

one of hers; and both inflicted penalties of confiscation, when able

to lay hands on a vessel which had violated their respective commands.

The lack of precision in the terms of the Berlin Decree exposed it

from the first to much latitude of interpretation; and the Emperor

remaining absent from France for eight months after its promulgation,

preoccupied with an arduous warfare in Eastern Europe, the

construction of the edict by the authorities in Paris made little

alteration in existing conditions. Nevertheless, the impulse to

retaliate prevailed; and the British ministry with which Monroe and

Pinkney had negotiated, though comparatively liberal in political

complexion, would not wait for more precise knowledge. The occasion

was seized with a precipitancy which lent color to Napoleon's

assertion, that the leading aim was to favor their own trade by

depressing that of others. This had already been acknowledged as the

motive for interrupting American traffic in West India produce. Now

again, one week only after stating to Monroe and Pinkney that they

"could not believe that the enemy will ever seriously attempt to

enforce such a system," and without waiting to ascertain whether

neutral nations, the United States in particular, would, "contrary to

all expectations, acquiesce in such usurpations,"[180] the Government

on January 7, 1807, with no information as to the practical effect

given to the Decree in operation, issued an Order in Council, which

struck Americans directly and chiefly. Neutrals were forbidden to sail

from one port to another, both of which were so far under the control

of France or her allies that British vessels might not freely trade

thereat. This was aimed immediately at trade along the coast of

Europe, but it included, of course, the voyages from a hostile colony

to a hostile European port already interdicted by British rulings, of

which the new Order was simply an extension. It fell with particular

severity on Americans, accustomed to go from port to port, not

carrying on local coasting, but seeking markets for their outward

cargoes, or making up a homeward lading. It is true that the Cabinet

by which the Order was issued did not intend to forbid this particular

procedure; but the wording naturally implied such prohibition, and was

so construed by Madison,[181] who communicated his understanding to

the British minister at Washington. Before this letter could reach

London, the ministry changed, and the new Government refrained from

correcting the misapprehension. For this it was taken to task in

Parliament, by Lords Holland and Grenville.[182]

Monroe had once written to the British Foreign Secretary that "it

cannot well be conceived how it should be lawful to carry on commerce

from one port to another of the parent country, and not from its

colonies to the mother country."[183] This well meant argument, in

favor of opening the colonial trade, gave to the new step of the

British Cabinet a somewhat gratuitous indorsement of logical

consistency. A consciousness of this may have underlain the remarkable

terms in which this grievous restriction was imparted to the United

States Government, as evincing the singular indulgence of Great

Britain. Her minister in Washington, in conveying the Order to the

State Department, wrote: "His Majesty, with that forbearance and

moderation which have at all times distinguished his conduct, has

determined for the present to confine himself to exercising his

decided naval superiority in such a manner only as is authorized by

the acknowledged principles of the laws of nations, and has issued an

Order for preventing all commerce from port to port of his enemies;

comprehending in this Order not only the ports of France, but those of

other nations, as, either in alliance with France, or subject to her

dominion, have, by measures of active offence or by the exclusion of

British ships, taken part in the present war."[184] These words

characterized the measure as strictly retaliatory. They implied that

the extra-legal action of the enemy would warrant extra-legal action

by Great Britain, but asserted expressly that the present step was

sanctioned by existing law,--"in such a manner only as is authorized

by the acknowledged principles of the law of nations." The prohibition

of coasting trade could be brought under the law of nations only by

invoking the Rule of 1756, forbidding neutrals to undertake for a

state at war employment denied to them in peace. Of this, coasting was

a precise instance; but to call the Rule an acknowledged principle of

the law of nations was an assumption peculiarly calculated to irritate

Madison, who had expended reams in refutation. He penned two careful

replies, logical, incisive, and showing the profound knowledge of the

subject which distinguished him; but in a time of political convulsion

he contended in vain against men who wore swords and thought their

country's existence imperilled.

The United States authorities argued by text and precedent. To the end

they persisted in shutting their eyes to the important fact,

recognized intuitively by Great Britain, that the Berlin Decree was no

isolated measure, to be discussed on its separate merits, but an

incident in an unprecedented political combination, already

sufficiently defined in tendency, which overturned the traditional

system of Europe. It destroyed the checks inherent in the balance of

power, concentrating the whole in the hands of Napoleon, to whom there

remained on the Continent only one valid counterweight, the Emperor of

Russia, whom he soon after contrived to lead into his scheme of

policy. The balance of power was thus reduced to the opposing scales

of Great Britain and France, and for five years so remained. The

Continental System, embracing all the rest of Europe, was arrayed

against Great Britain, and might well look to destroy her, if it could

command the support of the United States. Founded upon armed power, it

proposed by continuous exertion of the same means to undermine the

bases of British prosperity, and so to subvert the British Empire. The

enterprise was distinctly military, and could be met only by measures

of a similar character, to which existing international law was

unequal. The corner-stone was the military power of Napoleon, which,

by nullifying the independence of the continental states, compelled

them to adopt the methods of the Berlin Decree contrary to their will,

and contrary to the wishes, the interests, and the bare well-being of

their populations. "You will see," wrote an observant American

representative abroad, "that Napoleon stalks at a gigantic stride

among the pygmy monarchs of Europe, and bends them to his policy. It

is even an equal chance if Russia, after all her blustering, does not

accede to his demands without striking a blow."[185] To meet the

danger Great Britain opposed a maritime dominion, equally exclusive,

equally founded on force, and exercised in equally arbitrary fashion

over the populations of the sea.

At the end of March, 1807, the British Cabinet with which Monroe and

Pinkney had negotiated went out of office. Their successors came in

prepared for extreme action in consequence of the Berlin Decree; but

their hand was for the moment stayed, because its enforcement remained

in abeyance, owing to the Emperor's continued absence in the field.

Towards the claims of the United States their attitude was likely to

be uncompromising; and the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Canning, to

whom fell the expression of the Government's views and purposes,

possessed an adroitness in fastening upon minor weaknesses in a case,

and postponing to such the consideration of the important point at

issue, which, coupled with a peremptoriness of tone often bordering on

insolence, effected nothing towards conciliating a people believed to

be both unready and unwilling to fight. The American envoys, at their

first interview, in April, met him with the proposition of their

Government to reopen negotiations on the basis of the treaty of

December 31. Learning from them that the treaty would not be ratified

without a satisfactory arrangement concerning impressment, Canning

asked what relations would then obtain between the two nations. The

reply was that the United States Government wished them placed

informally on the most friendly footing; that is, that an

understanding should be reached as to practical action to be expected

on either side, without concessions of principle.[186] As final

instructions from Washington were yet to come, it was agreed that the

matter should be postponed. When they arrived, on July 16, the envoys

drew up a letter, submitting the various changes desired; but

conveying also the fixed determination of the President "to decline

any arrangement, formal or informal, which does not comprise a

provision against impressments from American vessels on the high seas,

and which would, notwithstanding, be a bar to legislative measures by

Congress for controlling that species of aggression."[187]

This letter was dated July 24, but by the time it could be delivered

news arrived which threw into the background all matters of

negotiation and illustrated with what respect British naval officers

regarded "the instructions, repeated and enforced, for the observance

of the greatest caution in impressing British seamen."[188] It is

probable, indeed, that the change of ministry, and the well-understood

tone of the new-comers, had modified the influence of these

restraining orders; and Canning evidently felt that such an inference

was natural, for Monroe reported his noticeable desire "to satisfy me

that no new orders had been issued by the present ministry to the

commandant of the British squadron at Halifax," who was primarily

responsible for the lamentable occurrence which here traversed the

course of negotiation. It had been believed, and doubtless correctly,

that some deserters from British ships of war had found their way into

the naval service of the United States. In June, 1807, the American

frigate "Chesapeake," bearing the broad pendant of Commodore James

Barron, had been fitting for sea in Hampton Roads. At this time two

French ships of war were lying off Annapolis, a hundred miles up

Chesapeake Bay; and, to prevent their getting to sea, a small British

squadron had been assembled at Lynnhaven Bay, just within Cape Henry,

a dozen miles below the "Chesapeake's" anchorage. They were thus, as

Jefferson said, enjoying the hospitality of the United States. On June

22 the American frigate got under way for sea, and as she stood down,

one of the British, the "Leopard" of fifty guns, also made sail, going

out ahead of her. Shortly after noon the "Chesapeake" passed the

Capes. When about ten miles outside, a little after three o'clock, the

"Leopard" approached, and hailed that she had a despatch for Commodore

Barron. This was brought on board by a lieutenant, and proved to be a

letter from the captain of the "Leopard," enclosing an order from

Vice-Admiral Berkeley, in charge of the Halifax station, "requiring

and directing the captains and commanders of his Majesty's vessels

under my command, in case of meeting the American frigate, the

'Chesapeake,' at sea, without the limits of the United States, to show

her captain this order, and to require to search his ship for

deserters from certain British ships," specified by name. Upon

Barron's refusal, the "Leopard" fired into the "Chesapeake," killed or

wounded twenty-one men, and reduced her to submission. The order for

search was then enforced. Four of the American crew, considered to be

British deserters, were taken away. Of these, one was hanged; one

died; and the other two, after prolonged disputation, were returned

five years later to the deck of the "Chesapeake," in formal

reparation.

Word of this transaction reached the British Government before it did

Monroe, who was still sole American minister for all matters except

the special mission. Canning at once wrote him a letter of regret, and

spontaneously promised "prompt and effectual reparation," if upon

receipt of full information British officers should prove culpable.

Four days later, July 29, Monroe and Canning met in pursuance of a

previous appointment, the object of which had been to discuss

complaints against the conduct of British ships of war on the coast of

the United States. The "Chesapeake" business naturally now

overshadowed all others. Monroe maintained that, on principle, a ship

of war could not be entered to search for deserters, or for any

purpose, without violating the sovereignty of her nation. Canning was

very guarded; no admission of principle could then be obtained from

him; but he gave Monroe to understand that, in whatever light the

action of the British officer should be viewed by his Government, the

point whether the men seized were British subjects or American

citizens would be of consideration, in the question of restoring

them, now that they were in British hands. Monroe, in accordance with

the position of his Government on the subject of impressment, replied

that the determining consideration was not the nationality of the men,

but of the ship, the flag of which had been insulted.

The conference ended with an understanding that Monroe would send in a

note embodying his position and claims. This he did the same day;[189]

but his statements were grounded upon newspaper accounts, as the

British Government had not yet published Berkeley's official report.

He would not await the positive information that must soon be given

out, but applied strong language to acts not yet precisely

ascertained; and he mingled with the "Chesapeake" affair other very

real, but different and minor, subjects of complaint, seemingly with a

view to cumulative effect. He thus made the mistake of encumbering

with extraneous or needless details a subject which required separate,

undivided, and lucid insistence; while Canning found an opportunity,

particularly congenial to his temperament, to escape under a cloud of

dignified words from the simple admission of wrong, and promise of

reparation, which otherwise he would have had to face. He could assume

a tone of haughty rebuke, where only that of apology should have been

left open. His reply ran thus:

I have the honor to acknowledge your official note of the 29th

ultimo, which I have lost no time in laying before the King.

As _the statement_ of the transaction to which this note refers

is not brought forward either by the authority of the Government

of the United States, _or with any precise knowledge of the

facts on which it is founded_, it might have been sufficient for

me to express to you his Majesty's readiness to take the whole

of the circumstances of the case, _when fully disclosed_, into

his consideration, and to make reparation for any _alleged

injury_ to the sovereignty of the United States, whenever it

should be _clearly shown_ that such injury has been _actually

sustained_, and that such reparation is _really due_.

Of the existence of such a disposition on the part of the

British Government, you, Sir, cannot be ignorant; I have already

assured you of it, though in an unofficial form, by the letter

which I addressed you on the first receipt of the intelligence

of this unfortunate transaction; and I may, perhaps, be

permitted to express my surprise, after such an assurance, at

the tone of that representation which I have just had the honor

to receive from you.

But the earnest desire of his Majesty to evince, in the most

satisfactory manner, the principles of justice and moderation by

which he is uniformly actuated, has not permitted him to

hesitate in commanding me to assure you, that his Majesty

neither does, nor has at any time maintained the pretension of a

right to search ships of war, in the national service of any

State, for deserters.

_If_, therefore, _the statement in your note should prove to be

correct_, and to contain all the circumstances of the case, upon

which the complaint is intended to be made, and it shall appear

that the action of his Majesty's officers rested on no other

grounds than the simple and unqualified assertion of the

pretension above referred to, his Majesty has no difficulty in

disavowing the act, and will have no difficulty in manifesting

his displeasure at the conduct of his officers.

With respect to the other causes of complaint, (whatever they

may be,) which are hinted at in your note, I perfectly agree

with you, in the sentiment which you express, as to the

propriety of not involving them in a question, which of itself

is of sufficient importance to claim a separate and most serious

consideration.

_I have only to lament that the same sentiment did not induce

you to abstain from alluding to these subjects_, on an occasion

which you were yourself of opinion was not favorable for

pursuing the discussion of them.[190]

I have the honor to be, with great consideration, your most

obedient, humble servant

GEORGE CANNING.

JAMES MONROE, ESQ. &C.

While the right of the occasion was wholly with the American nation,

the honors of the discussion, the weight of the first broadside,

rested so far with the British Secretary; the more so that Monroe, by

his manner of adducing his "other causes of complaint," admitted their

irrelevancy and yet characterized them irritatingly to his

correspondent. "I might state other examples of great indignity and

outrage, many of which are of recent date, to which the United States

have been exposed off their own coast, and even within several of

their harbors, from the British squadron; but it is improper to mingle

them with the present more serious causes of complaint." This invited

Canning's retort,--You do mingle them, in the same sentence in which

you admit the impropriety. And why, he shrewdly insinuated,

precipitate action ahead of knowledge, when the facts must soon be

known? The unspoken reason is evident. Because a government, which by

its own fault is weak, will try with big words to atone to the public

opinion of its people for that which it cannot, or will not, effect in

deeds. Bluster, whether measured or intemperate in terms, is bluster

still, as long as it means only talk, not act.

Monroe comforted himself that, though Canning's note was "harsh," he

had obtained the "concession of the point desired."[191] he had in

fact obtained less than would probably have resulted from a policy of

which the premises were assured, and the demands rigorously limited to

the particular offence. Canning's note set the key for the subsequent

British correspondence, and dictated the methods by which he

persistently evaded an amends spontaneously promised under the first

emotions produced by an odious aggression. He continued to offer it;

but under conditions impossible of acceptance, and as discreditable to

the party at fault as they were humiliating to the one offended. In

themselves, the first notes exchanged between Monroe and Canning are

trivial, a revelation chiefly of individual characteristics. Their

interest lies in the exemplification of the general course of the

American administration, imposed by its years of temporizing, of

money-getting, and of military parsimony. President Jefferson in

America met the occasion precisely as did Monroe in London, with the

same result of a sharp correspondence, abounding in strong language,

but affording Canning further opportunity to confuse issues and escape

from reparations, which, however just and wise, were distasteful. It

was a Pyrrhic victory for the British minister, destroying the last

chance of conciliating American acquiescence in a line of action

forced upon Great Britain by Napoleon; but as a mere question of

dialectics he had scored a success.

When the news of the "Chesapeake" outrage was received in Washington,

Jefferson issued a proclamation, dated July 2, 1807, suited chiefly

for home consumption, as the phrase goes. He began with a recitation

of the various wrongs and irritations, undeniable and extreme, which

his long-suffering Administration had endured from British cruisers,

and to which Monroe alluded in his note to Canning. Upon this followed

an account of the "Chesapeake" incident, thus inextricably entangled

with other circumstances differing from it in essential feature. Then,

taking occasion by a transaction which, however reprehensible, was

wholly external to the territory of the United States,--unless

construed to extend to the Gulf Stream, according to one of

Jefferson's day-dreams,--action was based upon the necessity of

providing for the internal peace of the nation and the safety of its

citizens, and consequently of refusing admission to British ships of

war, as inconsistent with these objects. Therefore, "all armed

vessels, bearing commissions under the Government of Great Britain,

now within the harbors of the United States, are required immediately

and without any delay to depart from the same; and entrance of all the

said harbors and waters is interdicted to the said armed vessels, and

to all others bearing commissions under the authority of the British

Government." Vessels carrying despatches were excepted.

This procedure had the appearance of energy which momentarily

satisfies a public demand that something shall be done. It also

afforded Canning the peg on which to hang a grievance, and dexterously

to prolong discussion until the matter became stale in public

interest. By the irrelevancy of the punishment to the crime, and by

the intrusion of secondary matters into the complaint, the

"Chesapeake" issue, essentially clear, sharp, and impressive, became

hopelessly confused with other considerations. Upon the proclamation

followed a despatch from Madison to Monroe, July 6, which opened with

the just words, "This enormity is not a subject for discussion," and

then proceeded to discuss at length. Demand was to be made, most

properly, for a formal disavowal, and for the restoration of the

seamen to the ship. This could have been formulated in six lines, and

had it stood alone could scarcely have been refused; but to it was

attached indissolubly an extraneous requirement. "As a security for

the future, an entire abolition of impressment from vessels[192] under

the flag of the United States, if not already arranged, is also to

make an _indispensable part of the satisfaction_."[193]

This made accommodation hopeless. Practically, it was an ultimatum;

for recent notorious discussion had demonstrated that this the British

Government would not yield, and as it differed essentially from the

point at issue in the "Chesapeake" affair, there was no reason to

expect a change of attitude in consequence of that. Great as was the

wrong to a merchant vessel, it has not the status of a ship of war,

which carries even into foreign ports a territorial immunity

resembling that of an ambassador, representing peculiarly the

sovereignty of its nation. Further, the men taken from the

"Chesapeake" were not seized as liable to impressment, but arrested as

deserters; the case was distinct. Finally, Great Britain's power to

maintain her position on impressment had certainly not waned under the

"Chesapeake" humiliation, and was not likely to succumb to peremptory

language from Madison. No such demand should have been advanced, in

such connection, by a self-respecting government, unless prepared to

fight instantly upon refusal. The despatch indeed contains cautions

and expressions indicating a sense of treading on dangerous ground; an

apprehension of exciting hostile action, though no thought of taking

it. The exclusion of armed vessels was justified "by the vexations and

dangers to our peace, experienced from these visits." The reason, if

correct, was adequate as a matter of policy under normal conditions;

but it became inconsistent with self-respect when the national flag

was insulted in the attack on the "Chesapeake." Entire composure, and

forbearance from demonstrations bearing a trace of temper, alone

comport with such a situation. To distinguish against British ships of

war at such a moment, by refusing them only, and for the first time,

admission into American harbors, was either a humiliating confession

of impotence to maintain order within the national borders, or it

justified Canning's contention that it was in retaliation for the

"Leopard's" action. His further plea, that it must therefore be taken

into the account in determining the reparation due, was pettifogging,

reducing a question of insult and amends to one of debit and credit

bookkeeping; but the American claim that the step was necessary to

internal quiet was puerile, and its precipitancy carried the

appearance of petulance.

Monroe received Madison's despatch August 30, and on September 3 had

an interview with Canning. In it he specified the redress indicated by

Madison. With this was coupled an intimation that a special mission to

the United States ought to be constituted, to impart to the act of

reparation "a solemnity which the extraordinary nature of the

aggression particularly required." This assertion of the extraordinary

nature of the occasion separated the incident from the impressment

grievance, with which Madison sought to join it; but what is more

instructively noticeable is the contrast between this extreme

formality, represented as requisite, and the wholly informal, and as

it proved unreal, withdrawal by Napoleon of his Decrees, which the

Administration of Madison at a later day maintained to be sufficient

for the satisfaction of Great Britain.

In this interview[194] Canning made full use of the advantages given

him by his adversaries' method of presentation and action. "He said

that by the President's proclamation, and the seizure and detention of

some men who had landed on the coast to procure water, the Government

seemed to have taken redress into its own hands." To Monroe's

statement that "the suppression of the practice of impressment from

merchant vessels had been made indispensable by the late aggression,

for reasons which were sufficiently known to him," he retorted, "that

the late aggression was an act different in all respects to the

former practice; and ought not to be connected with it, as it showed a

disposition to make a particular incident, in which Great Britain was

in the wrong, instrumental to an accommodation in a case in which his

Government held a different doctrine." The remark went to the root of

the matter. This was what the Administration was trying to do. As

Madison afterwards put it to Rose, the President was desirous "of

converting a particular incident into an occasion for removing another

and more extensive source of danger to the harmony of the two

countries." This plausible rendering was not likely to recommend to a

resolute nation such a method of obtaining surrender of a claimed

right. The exclusion proclamation Monroe represented to be "a mere

measure of police indispensable for the preservation of order within

the United States." Canning declined to be shaken from his stand that

it was an exhibition of partiality against Great Britain, the vessels

of which alone were excluded, because of an outrage committed by one

of them outside of American waters. The time at which the proclamation

issued, and the incorporation in it of the "Chesapeake" incident, made

this view at least colorable.

This interview also was followed by an exchange of notes. Monroe's of

September 7, 1807, developed the American case and demand as already

given. That of Canning, September 23, stated as follows the dilemma

raised by the President's proclamation: Either it was an act of

partiality between England and France, the warships of the latter

being still admitted, or it was an act of retaliation for the

"Chesapeake" outrage, and so of the nature of redress, self-obtained,

it is true, but to be taken into account in estimating the reparation

which the British Government "acknowledged to have been originally

due."[195] To the request for explanation Monroe replied lamely, with

a statement which can scarcely be taken as other than admitting the

punitive character of the proclamation. "There certainly existed no

desire of giving a preference;" but,--"_Before, this aggression_ it is

well known that His Britannic Majesty's ships of war lay within the

waters of the Chesapeake, and enjoyed all the advantages of the most

favored nation; it cannot therefore be doubted that my Government will

be ready _to restore them to the same situation as soon as it can be

done consistently with the honor and rights of the United

States_."[196]

In closing his letter of September 23, Canning asked Monroe whether he

could not, consistently with his instructions, separate the question

of impressment from that of the "Chesapeake." If not, as it was the

fixed intention of his Government not to treat the two as connected,

the negotiation would be transferred to Washington, and a special

envoy sent. "But in order to avoid the inconvenience which has arisen

from the mixed nature of your instructions, he will not be empowered

to entertain, as connected with this subject, any proposition

respecting the search of merchant vessels."[197] Monroe replied that

his "instructions were explicit to consider the whole of this class of

injuries as an entire subject."[198] To his inquiry as to the nature

of the special mission, in particulars, Canning replied that it would

be limited in the first instance to the question of the "Chesapeake."

Whether it would have any further scope, he could not say.[199]

Mr. George Henry Rose was nominated for this mission, and sailed from

England in November. Before his departure, the British Government took

a further step, which in view of the existing circumstances, and of

all that had preceded, emphasized beyond the possibility of

withdrawal the firmness of its decision not to surrender the claim to

impress British subjects from foreign merchant vessels. On October 16,

1807, a Royal Proclamation was issued, recalling all seafaring persons

who had entered foreign services, whether naval or merchant, directing

them to withdraw at once from such service and return home, or else to

ship on board any accessible British ship of war. Commanders of naval

vessels were ordered to seize all such persons whenever found by them

on board foreign merchantmen. In the case of British-born subjects,

known to be serving on board foreign men-of-war,--which was the case

of the "Chesapeake,"--the repetition of the outrage was implicitly

forbidden, by prescribing the procedure to be observed. Requisition

for the discharge of such persons was to be made on the foreign

captain, and, in case of refusal, the particulars of the case were to

be transmitted to the British minister to the nation concerned, or to

the British home authorities; "in order that the necessary steps may

be taken for obtaining redress ... for the injury done to us by the

unwarranted detention of our natural-born subjects in the service of a

foreign state." The proclamation closed by denying the efficacy of

letters of naturalization to discharge native British from their

allegiance of birth.

Rose's mission proved abortive. Like Monroe's, his instructions were

positive to connect with his negotiation a matter which, if not so

irrelevant as impressment, was at least of a character that a politic

foreign minister might well have disregarded, in favor of the

advantage to be gained by that most conciliatory of actions, a full

and cordial apology. Rose was directed not to open his business until

the President had withdrawn the proclamation excluding British ships

of war. Having here no more option than Monroe as to impressment, the

negotiation became iron-bound. The United States Government went to

the utmost limit of concession to conclude the matter. Receding from

its first attitude, it agreed to sever the question of impressment

from that of the "Chesapeake;" but, with regard to the recalling of

the President's proclamation, it demanded that Rose should show his

cards, should state what was the nature and extent of the reparation

he was empowered to offer, and whether it was conditioned or

unconditioned. If this first outcome were such as to meet the just

expectations of the Administration, revocation of the proclamation

should bear the same date as the British act of reparation. Certainly,

more could not be offered. The Government could not play a blind game,

yielding point after point in reliance upon the unknown contents of

Rose's budget. This, however, was what it was required to do,

according to the British envoy's reading of his orders, and the matter

terminated in a fruitless exchange of argumentation.[200] In April,

1808, Rose quitted the country, and redress for the "Chesapeake"

injury remained in abeyance for three years longer. Interest in it had

waned under more engrossing events which had already taken place, and

it was relegated by both Governments to the background of diplomacy.

Admiral Berkeley had been recalled, as a mark of his Majesty's

disapproval. He arrived in England in the beginning of 1808, some six

months after the outrage, accompanied by the "Leopard." Her captain

was not again given a ship; but before the end of the year the chief

offender, the admiral, had been assigned to the important command at

Lisbon. To Pinkney's observation upon this dissatisfying proceeding,

Canning replied that it was impossible for the Admiralty to resist his

claim to be employed (no other objection existing against him) after

such a lapse of time since his return from Halifax, without bringing

him to a court-martial.[201] In the final settlement, further

punishment of Berkeley was persistently refused.

Although standing completely apart from the continuous stream of

connected events which constituted contemporaneous history,--perhaps

because of that very separateness,--the "Chesapeake" affair marks

conspicuously the turning-point in the relations of the two countries.

In point of time, its aptness as a sign-post is notable; for it

occurred just at the moment when the British ministry, under the

general exigencies of the situation, and the particular menace of the

Tilsit compacts between Napoleon and the Czar, were meditating the new

and extraordinary maritime system by which alone they might hope to

counteract the Continental system that now threatened to become truly

coextensive with Europe. But to the writer the significance of the

"Chesapeake" business is more negative than positive; it suggests

rather what might have been under different treatment by the Portland

ministry. The danger to Great Britain was imminent and stupendous, and

her measures of counteraction needed to correspond. These were

confessedly illegal in the form they took, and were justified by their

authors only on the ground of retaliation. Towards neutrals, among

whom the United States were by far the chief, they were most

oppressive. Yet for over four years not only did the American

Government endure them, but its mercantile community conformed to the

policy of Great Britain, found profit in so doing, and deprecated

resort to war. At a later day Jefferson asserted bitterly that under

British influence one fourth of the nation had compelled the other

three fourths to abandon the embargo. Whether this be quite a fair

statement may be doubted; but there was in it so much of truth as to

suggest the possibility, if not of acquiescence in the Orders in

Council, at least of such abstention from active resentment as would

have been practically equivalent.

The acquiescence, if possible even the co-operation, of America was at

this time momentous to Great Britain as well as to Napoleon. To

complete his scheme for ruining his enemy, by closing against her

commerce all the ports of Europe, the Emperor needed to deprive her

also of access to the markets of the United States; while the grave

loss to which Great Britain was exposed in the one quarter made it

especially necessary to retain the large and increasing body of

consumers across the Atlantic. In the United States there was a

division of public opinion and feeling, which offered a fair chance of

inclining national action in one direction or the other. Although the

Treaty of Commerce and Navigation of December 31, 1806, had been

rejected by the Administration, and disapproved by the stricter

followers of Jefferson and Madison, it was regarded with favor in many

quarters. Its negotiators had represented the two leading parties

which divided the nation. Monroe was a republican, traditionally

allied to Jefferson; Pinkney was a federalist. Although in it the

principles of the United States had not been successfully asserted, as

regarded either impressment or the transport of colonial produce, the

terms of compromise had commanded their signatures, because they held

that in effect the national objects were obtained; that impressment

would practically cease, and the carrying trade, under the

restrictions they had accepted, would not only nourish, but be as

remunerative as before. Monroe, who had a large personal following in

his state and party, maintained this view in strong and measured

language after his return home; and it found supporters in both

political camps, as well as upon the floor of the two houses of

Congress. Then, and afterwards, it was made a reproach to the

Administration that it had refused a working arrangement which was

satisfactory in its substantial results and left the principles of the

country untouched for future assertion. Whatever may be thought, from

an American standpoint, of the justice or dignity of this position, it

showed grave divergences of sentiment, from which it is the skill of

an opposing diplomatist to draw profit. It is impossible to estimate

the effect upon the subsequent course of America, if the British

ministry, with a certain big-heartedness, had seized the opportunity

of the "Chesapeake" affair; if they had disclaimed the act of their

officers with frankness and cordiality, offering ungrudging regret,

and reparation proportionate to the shame inflicted upon a community

too weak in military power to avenge its wrongs. As it was, at a

moment when the hostilities she had provoked would have been most

embarrassing, Great Britain escaped only by the unreadiness of the

American Government.

Left unatoned, the attack on the "Chesapeake" remained in American

consciousness where Jefferson and Madison had sought to place it,--an

example of the outrages of impressment. The incidental violence, which

aroused attention and wrath, differed in nothing but circumstance from

the procedure when an unresisting merchant vessel was deprived of men.

In both cases there was the forcible exaction of a disputed claim.

Canning, indeed, was at pains to explain that originally the British

right extended to vessels of every kind; but "for nearly a century the

Crown had forborne to instruct the commanders of its ships of war to

search foreign ships of war for deserters, ... because to attack a

national ship of war is an act of hostility. The very essence of the

charge against Admiral Berkeley, as you represent it, is the having

taken upon himself to commit an act of hostility without the previous

authority of his Government." Under this construction, the incident

only served to emphasize the fundamental opposition of principle, and

to exasperate the war party in the United States. To deprive a foreign

merchant vessel of men was not considered a hostile act; and the

difference in the case of ships of war was only because the Crown

chose so to construe. The argument was, that to retain seamen of

British birth, when recalled by proclamation, was itself hostile,

because every such seaman disobeying this call was a deserter. It was

to be presumed that a foreign Power would not countenance their

detention, and on this presumption no search of its commissioned ships

was ordered. "But with respect to merchant vessels there is no such

presumption."[202]

While the "Chesapeake" affair was still in its earlier stages of

discussion, the passage of events in Europe was leading rapidly to the

formulation of the extreme British measures of retaliation for the

Berlin Decree. On June 14 Napoleon defeated the Russians at the battle

of Friedland; and on June 22, the day the "Leopard" attacked the

"Chesapeake," an armistice was signed between the contending parties.

Upon this followed the Conventions of Tilsit, July 8, 1807, by which

the Czar undertook to support the Continental system, and to close his

ports to Great Britain. The deadly purpose of the commercial warfare

thus reinforced was apparent; and upon the Emperor's return to Paris,

soon afterwards, the Berlin Decree received an execution more

consonant to its wording than was the construction hitherto given it

by French officials. In May, an American ship, the "Horizon," bound

from England to Peru, had been wrecked upon the coast of France. Her

cargo consisted in part of goods of British origin. Up to that time,

no decisions contrary to American neutral rights had been based upon

the Decree by French courts; but final action in the case of the

"Horizon" was not taken till some time after the Emperor's return.

Meanwhile, on August 9, General Armstrong, the American minister, had

asked that Spain, which had formally adopted the Berlin Decree as

governing its own course, should be informed of the rulings of the

French authorities; "for a letter from the _charge des affaires_ of

the United States at Madrid shows that the fate of sundry American

vessels, captured by Spanish cruisers, will depend, not on the

construction which might be given to the Spanish decree by Spanish

tribunals, but on the practice which shall have been established in

France."[203] This letter was referred in due course--August 21--to

the Minister of Marine, and a reply promised when his answer should be

received. Under Napoleon's eye, doubts not entertained in his absence

seem to have occurred to the ministers concerned, and on September 24

Armstrong learned that the Emperor had been consulted, and had said

that, as he had expressed no exceptions to the operation of his

Decree, French armed vessels were authorized to seize goods of English

origin on board neutral vessels. This decision, having the force of

law, was communicated to the tribunals, and under it so much of the

"Horizon's" cargo as answered to this description was condemned. The

rest was liberated.[204]

When this decision became known, it was evident that within the range

of Napoleon's power there would henceforth be no refuge for British

manufactures, or the produce of British colonies; that neutral

ownership or jurisdiction would be no protection against force. Even

the pity commonly extended to the shipwrecked failed, if his property

had been bought in England. Recognition of the increased danger was

shown in the doubling and trebling of insurance. The geographical

sweep intended to be given to the edict was manifested by the action

of state after state whither arms had extended Napoleon's influence;

or, as Armstrong phrased it, "having settled the business of

belligerents, with the exception of England, very much to his own

liking, he was now on the point of settling that of neutrals in the

same way." In July, Denmark and Portugal, as yet at peace, had been

notified that they must choose between France and England, and had

been compelled to exclude English commerce. August 29, a French

division entered Leghorn, belonging to the nominally independent

Kingdom of Etruria, took possession of the harbor and forts, ordered

the surrender of all British goods in the hands of the inhabitants,

and laid a general embargo upon the shipping, among which were many

Americans. In Lower Italy, the Papal States and Naples underwent the

same restrictions. Prussia yielded under obvious constraint, and

Austria acceded from motives of policy, distinguishable in form only

from direct compulsion. Russia, as already said, had joined

immediately after decisive defeat in the field. The co-operation of

the United States, the second maritime nation in the world, was vital

to the general plan. Could it be secured? Already, at an audience

given to the diplomatic corps on August 2, the Danish minister had

taken Armstrong aside and asked him whether any application had been

made to him with regard to the projected _union of all commercial

states against Great Britain_. Being answered in the negative, he

said, "You are much favored, but it will not last."[205] Armstrong

characterized this incident as not important; but in truth the words

italicized defined exactly the menacing scheme already matured in the

Emperor's mind, for the execution of which, as events already showed,

and continued to prove, he relied upon the force of arms. To this the

United States was not accessible; but to coerce or cajole her by other

means became a prominent feature of French policy, which was

powerfully abetted by the tone of Great Britain speaking through

Canning.

To appreciate duly the impending measures of the British ministry,

attention should fasten upon the single decisive fact that this vast

combination was not the free act of the parties concerned, but a

submission imposed by an external military power, which at the moment,

and for five succeeding years, they were unable to resist. It is one

thing to deny the right of any number of independent communities to

join in a Customs Union; it is another to maintain the obligations

upon third parties of such a convention, when extorted by external

compulsion. Either action may be resisted, but means not permissible

in the one case may be justified in the other. In the European

situation the subjected states, by reason of their subjection,

disappeared as factors in diplomatic consideration. There remained

only their master Napoleon, with his momentary lieutenant the Czar,

and opposed to them Great Britain. "It is obvious," said the French

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Champagny, to Armstrong, "that his

Majesty _cannot permit_ to his allies a commerce which he denies to

himself. This would be at once to defeat his system and oppress his

subjects."[206] A few days later he wrote formally, "His Majesty

considered himself bound to _order_ reprisals on American vessels

_not only in his territory, but likewise in the countries which are

under his influence_,--Holland, Spain, Italy, Naples."[207] The

Emperor by strength of arms oppressed to their grievous injury those

who could not escape him; what should be the course of those whom he

could not reach, to whom was left the choice between actual resistance

and virtual co-operation? The two really independent states were Great

Britain and the United States. In the universal convulsion of

civilization, the case of the several nations recalls the law of

Solon, that in civil tumults the man who took neither side should be

disfranchised.

The United States chose neutrality, and expected that it would be

permitted her. She chose to overlook the interposition of Napoleon,

and to regard the exclusion laws, forced by him upon other states, as

instances of municipal regulation, incontestable when freely

exercised. Not only would she not go behind the superficial form, but

on technical grounds of international law she denied the right of

another to do so. Great Britain had no choice. She was compelled to

resistance; the question was as to methods. Direct military action was

impossible. The weapon used against her was commercial prohibition,

which meant eventual ruin, unless adequately parried by her own

action. From Europe no help was to be expected. If the United States

also decided so far to support Napoleon as to prosecute her trade

subject to his measures, accepting as legal regulations extorted by

him from other European countries, the trade of Europe would be

transferred from Great Britain to America, and the revenues of France

would expand in every way, while those of Great Britain shrank,--a

result militarily fatal. In this the British Government would not

acquiesce. It chose instead war with the United States, under the

forms of peace.

That the tendency of the course pursued by the United States was to

destroy British commerce, and that this tendency was successfully

counteracted by the means framed by the British Government,--the

Orders in Council,--admits of little doubt. When the American policy

had worked out to its logical conclusion, in open trade with France,

and complete interdict of importation from Great Britain, Joel Barlow,

American Minister to France in 1811-12, and an intimate of Jefferson

and Madison, wrote thus to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs: "In

adopting the late arrangements with France the United States could not

contemplate the deprivation of revenue. They really expected to draw

from this country and from the rest of continental Europe the same

species of manufactures, and to as great an amount as they were

accustomed to do from England. They calculated with the more

confidence on such a result as they saw how intimately it was combined

with the great and essential interests of the Imperial Government.

They perceived that _it would promote in an unexpected degree the

Continental system_, which the Emperor has so much at heart.... The

Emperor now commands nearly all the ports of continental Europe. The

whole interior of the Continent must be supplied with American

products. These must pass through French territory, French commercial

houses, canals, and wagons. They must pay" toll to France in various

ways, "and thus render these territories as tributary to France as if

they were part of her own dominions."[208] But Napoleon replied that

his system, as it stood, had greatly crippled British commerce, and

that if he should admit American shipping freely to the Continent,

trade could not be carried on, because the English under the Orders in

Council would take it all, going or coming.[209]

"The peril of the moment is truly supposed to be great beyond all

former example," wrote Pinkney, now American minister in London, when

communicating to his Government the further Orders in Council adopted

by Great Britain, in response to the attempted "union of all the

commercial states" against her. As defined by Canning to Pinkney,[210]

"the principle upon which the whole of this measure has been framed is

that of refusing to the enemy those advantages of commerce which he

has forbidden to this country. The simplest method of enforcing this

system of retaliation would have been to follow the example of the

enemy, by prohibiting altogether all commercial intercourse between

him and other states." America then would not be allowed to trade with

the countries under his Decrees. It was considered, however, more

indulgent to neutrals--to the second parties in commercial intercourse

with the enemy--to allow this intercourse subject to duties in transit

to be paid in Great Britain. This would raise the cost to the

continental consumer and pay revenue to Great Britain.

The Orders in Council of November 11, 1807, therefore forbade all

entrance to ports of the countries which had embraced the Continental

system. It was not pretended that they would be blockaded effectively.

"All ports from which the British flag is excluded shall from

henceforth be subject to the same restrictions, in point of trade and

navigation, with the exceptions hereinafter mentioned, _as if the same

were actually blockaded_ in the most strict and rigorous manner by his

Majesty's naval forces." The exception was merely that a vessel

calling first at a British port would be allowed to proceed to one of

those prohibited, after paying certain duties upon her cargo and

obtaining a fresh clearance. This measure was instituted by the

Executive, in pursuance of the custom of regulating trade with

America by Orders in Council, prevalent since 1783; but it received

legislative sanction by an Act of Parliament, March 28, 1808, which

fixed the duties to be paid on the foreign goods thus passing through

British custom-houses. Cotton, for instance, was to pay nine pence a

pound, an amount intended to be prohibitory; tobacco, three halfpence.

These were the two leading exports of United States domestic produce.

In the United States this Act of Parliament was resented more

violently, if possible, than the Order in Council itself. In the

colonial period there had been less jealousy of the royal authority

than of that of Parliament, and the feeling reappears in the

discussion of the present measures. "This," said a Virginia

senator,[211] "is the Act regulating our commerce, of which I

complain. An export duty, which could not be laid in Charleston

because forbidden by our Constitution, is laid in London, or in

British ports." It was literally, and in no metaphorical sense, the

reimposition of colonial regulation, to increase the revenues of Great

Britain by reconstituting her the _entrepot_ of commerce between

America and Europe. "The Orders in Council," wrote John Quincy Adams

in a public letter, "if submitted to, would have degraded us to the

condition of colonists."[212]

This just appreciation preponderated over other feelings throughout

the middle and southern states. Adams, a senator from Massachusetts,

had separated himself in action and opinion from the mass of the

people in New England, where, although the Orders were condemned,

hatred of Napoleon and his methods overbore the sense of injury

received from Great Britain. The indignation of the supporters of the

Administration was intensified by the apparent purpose of the British

Government to keep back information of the measure. Rose had sailed

the day after its adoption, Monroe two days later, but neither

brought any official intimation of its issuance, although that was

announced in the papers of the day. "The Orders in Council," wrote

Adams, "were not merely without official authenticity. Rumors had been

for several weeks in circulation, derived from English prints and from

private correspondence, that such Orders were to issue,[213] and no

inconsiderable pains were taken to discredit the facts. Suspicions

were lulled by declarations equivalent as nearly as possible to

positive denial, and these opiates were continued for weeks after the

embargo was laid, until Mr. Erskine received orders to make official

communication of the Orders themselves, in proper form, to our

Government."[214] This remissness, culpable as it certainly was in a

matter of such importance, was freely attributed to the most sinister

motives. "These Orders in Council were designedly concealed from Mr.

Rose, although they had long been deliberated upon, and almost

matured, before he left London. They were the besom which was intended

to sweep, and would have swept, our commerce from the ocean. Great

Britain in the most insidious manner had issued orders for the entire

destruction of our commerce."[215]

The wrath was becoming, but in this particular the inference was

exaggerated. The Orders, modelled on the general plan of blockades,

provided for the warning of a vessel which had sailed before receiving

notification; and not till after a first notice by a British cruiser

was she liable to capture. Mention of such cases occurs in the

journals of the day.[216] Some captains persisted, and, if successful

in reaching a port under Napoleon's control, found themselves arrested

under a new Decree,--that of Milan,--for having submitted to a visit

they could not resist. Such were sequestered, subject to the decision

of the United States to take active measures against Great Britain.

"Arrived at New York, March 23, [1808], ship 'Eliza,' Captain Skiddy,

29 days from Bordeaux. All American vessels in France which had been

boarded by British cruisers were under seizure. The opinion was, they

would so remain till it was known whether the United States had

adjusted its difficulties with Great Britain, in which case they would

be immediately condemned. A letter from the Minister of Marine was

published that the Decree of Milan must be executed severely,

strictly, and literally."[217] Independent of a perpetual need to

raise money, by methods more consonant to the Middle Ages than to the

current period, Napoleon thus secured hostages for the action of the

United States in its present dilemma.

The Orders in Council of November 11, having been announced in English

papers of the 10th, 11th, and 12th, appeared in the Washington

"National Intelligencer" of December 18.[218] The general facts were

therefore known to the Executive and to the Legislature; and, though

not officially adduced, could not but affect consideration, when the

President, on December 18, 1807, sent a message to Congress

recommending "an inhibition of the departure of our vessels from the

ports of the United States." With his customary exaggerated expression

of attendance upon instructions from Congress, he made no further

definition of wishes which were completely understood by the party

leaders. "The wisdom of Congress will also see the necessity of making

every preparation for whatever events may grow out of the present

crisis." Accompanying the message, as documents justificatory of the

action to be taken, were four official papers. One was the formal

communication to the French Council of Prizes of Napoleon's decision

that goods of English origin were lawful prize on board neutral

vessels; the second was the British proclamation directing the

impressment of British seamen found on board neutral ships. These two

were made public. Secrecy was imposed concerning the others, which

were a letter of September 24, from Armstrong to the French Minister

of Exterior Relations, and the reply, dated October 7. In this the

minister, M. Champagny, affirmed the Emperor's decision, and added a

sentence which, while susceptible of double meaning, certainly

covertly suggested that the United States should join in supporting

the Berlin Decree. "The decree of blockade has now been issued eleven

months. The principal Powers of Europe, far from protesting against

its provisions, have adopted them. They have perceived that its

execution must be complete to render it more effectual, and it has

seemed easy to reconcile these measures with the observance of

treaties, especially at a time when the infractions by England of the

rights of _all maritime_ Powers render their interests common, and

tend to _unite them in support of the same cause_."[219] This

doubtless might be construed as applicable only to the European

Powers; but as a foremost contention of Madison and Armstrong had been

that the Berlin Decree contravened the treaty between France and the

United States, the sentence lent itself readily to the interpretation,

placed upon it by the Federalists, that the United States was invited

to enforce in her own waters the continental system of exclusion, and

so to help bring England to reason.

This the United States immediately proceeded to do. Though the motive

differed somewhat, the action was precisely that suggested. On the

same day that Jefferson's message was received, the Senate passed an

Embargo Bill. This was sent at once to the House, returned with

amendments, amendments concurred in, and bill passed and approved

December 22. This rapidity of action--Sunday intervened--shows a

purpose already decided in general principle; while the enactment of

three supplementary measures, before the adjournment of Congress in

April, indicates a precipitancy incompatible with proper weighing of

details, and an avoidance of discussion, commendable only on the

ground that no otherwise than by the promptest interception could

American ships or merchandise be successfully jailed in port. The bill

provided for the instant stoppage of all vessels in the ports of the

United States, whether cleared or not cleared, if bound to any foreign

port. Exception was made only in favor of foreign ships, which of

course could not be held. They might depart with cargo already on

board, or in ballast. Vessels cleared coastwise were to be deterred

from turning foreign by bonds exacted in double the value of ship and

cargo. American export and foreign navigation were thus completely

stopped; and as the Non-Importation Act at last went into operation on

December 14,[220] there was practical exclusion of all British

vessels, for none could be expected to enter a port where she could

neither land her cargo nor depart.

In communicating the embargo to Pinkney, for the information of the

British Government,[221] Madison was careful to explain, as he had to

the British minister at Washington, that it was a measure of

precaution only; not to be considered as hostile in character. This

was scarcely candid; coercion of Great Britain, to compel the

withdrawal of her various maritime measures objectionable to the

United States, was at least a silent partner in the scheme, as

formulated to the consciousness of Jefferson and his followers.[222]

The motive transpired, as such motives necessarily do; but, even had

it not, the operation of the Act, under the conditions of the European

war, was so plainly partial between the two belligerents, as to

amount virtually to co-operation with Napoleon by the preponderance of

injury done to Great Britain. It deprived her of cotton for raw

material; of tobacco, which, imported in payment for British

manufactures, formed a large element in her commerce with the

Continent; of wheat and flour, which to some extent contributed to the

support of her people, though in a much less degree than many

supposed. It closed to her the American market at the moment that

Napoleon and Alexander were actively closing the European; and it shut

off from the West Indies American supplies known to be of the greatest

importance, and fondly, but mistakenly, believed to be indispensable.

All this was well enough, if national policy required. Great Britain

then was scarcely in a position to object seriously to retaliation by

a nation thinking itself injured; but to define such a measure as not

hostile was an insult to her common-sense. It was certainly hostile in

nature, it was believed to be hostile in motive, and it intensified

feelings already none too friendly. In France, although included in

the embargo, and although her action was one of the reasons alleged

for its institution, Napoleon expressed approval. It was injurious to

England, and added little to the pressure upon France exerted by the

Orders in Council through the British control of the ocean. Senator

Smith of Maryland, a large shipping merchant, bore testimony to this.

"It has been truly said by an eminent merchant of Salem, that not more

than one vessel in eight that sailed for Europe within a short time

before the embargo reached its destination. My own experience has

taught me the truth of this; and as further proof I have in my hand a

list of fifteen vessels which sailed for Europe between September 1

and December 23, 1807. Three arrived; two were captured by French and

Spaniards; one was seized in Hamburg; and nine carried into England.

But for the embargo, ships that would have sailed would have fared as

ill, or worse. Not one in twenty would have arrived." Granting the

truth of this anticipation, Great Britain might have claimed that, so

far as evident danger was concerned, her blockades over long

coast-lines were effective.

The question speedily arose,--If the object of embargo be precaution

only, to save our vessels from condemnation under the sweeping edicts

of France and Great Britain, and seamen from impressment on American

decks, why object to exporting native produce in foreign bottoms, and

to commerce across the Canada frontier? If, by keeping our vessels at

home, we are to lose the profits upon sixty million dollars' worth of

colonial produce which they have heretofore been carrying, with

advantage to the national revenue, why also forbid the export of the

forty to fifty million dollars' worth of domestic produce which

foreign ship-owners would gladly take and safely carry? for such

foreigners would be chiefly British, and would sail under British

convoy, subject to small proportionate risk.[223] Why, also, to save

seamen from impressment, deprive them of their living, and force them

in search of occupation to fly our ports to British, where lower wages

and more exposure to the pressgang await them? On the ground of

precaution, there was no reply to these questions; unless, perhaps,

that with open export of domestic produce the popular suffering would

be too unequally distributed, falling almost wholly on New England

shipping industries. Logically, however, if the precaution were

necessary, the suffering must be accepted; its incidence was a detail

only. The embargo was distinctly a hostile measure; and more and more,

as people talked, in and out of Congress, was admitted to be simply

an alternative for open war.

As such it failed. It entailed most of the miseries of war, without

any of its compensations. It could not arouse the popular enthusiasm

which elevates, nor command the popular support that strengthens.

Hated and despised, it bred elusion, sneaking and demoralizing, and so

debased public sentiment with reference to national objects, and

individual self-sacrifice to national ends, that the conduct of the

many who now evaded it was reproduced, during the War of 1812, in

dealings with the enemy which even now may make an American's head

hang for shame. Born of the Jeffersonian horror of war, its evil

communication corrupted morals among those whose standards were

conventional only; for public opinion failed to condemn breaches of

embargo, and by a natural declension equally failed soon after to

condemn aid to the enemy in an unpopular war. Was it wonderful that an

Administration which bade the seamen and the ship-owners of the day to

starve, that a foreign state might be injured, and at the same time

refused to build national ships to protect them, fell into contempt?

that men, so far as they might, simply refused to obey, and wholly

departed from respect? "I have believed, and still do believe," wrote

Mr. Adams, "that our internal resources are competent to establish and

maintain a naval force, if not fully adequate to the protection and

defence of our commerce, at least sufficient to induce a retreat from

these hostilities, and to deter from the renewal of them by either of

the harrying parties;" in short, to compel peace, the first object of

military preparation. "I believed that a system to that effect might

be formed, ultimately far more economical, and certainly more

energetic than a three years' embargo. I did submit such a proposition

to the Senate, and similar attempts had been made in the House of

Representatives, but equally discountenanced."[224] This was

precisely the effect of Jefferson's teaching, which then dominated his

party, and controlled both houses. At this critical moment he wrote,

"Believing, myself, that gunboats are the only water defence which can

be useful to us, and protect us from the ruinous folly of a navy, I am

pleased with everything which promises to improve them."[225]

Not thus was a nation to be united, nor foreign governments impressed.

The panacea recommended was to abandon the sea; to yield practical

submission to the Orders in Council, which forbade American ships to

visit the Continent, and to the Decrees of Napoleon, which forbade

them entrance to any dominion of Great Britain. By a curious mental

process this was actually believed to be resistance. The American

nation was to take as its model the farmer who lives on his own

produce, sternly independent of his neighbor; whose sons delved, and

wife span, all that the family needed. This programme, half sentiment,

half philosophy, and not at all practical, or practicable, was the

groundwork of Jefferson's thought. To it co-operated a dislike

approaching detestation for the carrying trade; the very opposite,

certainly, of the other ideal. American shipping was then handling

sixty million dollars' worth of foreign produce, and rolling up the

wealth which for some reason follows the trader more largely than the

agriculturist, who observed with ill-concealed envy. "I trust," wrote

Jefferson, "that the good sense of our country will see that its

greatest prosperity depends on a due balance between agriculture,

manufactures, and commerce, and not on this protuberant navigation,

which has kept us in hot water from the commencement of our

government. This drawback system enriches a few individuals, but

lessens the stock of native productions, by withdrawing all the hands

[seamen] thus employed. It is essentially necessary for us to have

shipping and seamen enough to carry our surplus products to market,

but beyond that I do not think we are bound to give it encouragement

by drawbacks or other premiums." This meant that it was unjust to the

rest of the community to allow the merchant to land his cargo, and

send it abroad, without paying as much duty as if actually consumed in

the country. "This exuberant commerce brings us into collision with

other Powers in every sea, and will force us into every war with

European Powers." "It is now engaging us in war."[226]

Whether for merchant ships or navies the sea was odious to Jefferson's

conception of things. As a convenient medium for sending to market

surplus cotton and tobacco, it might be tolerated; but for that ample

use of it which had made the greatness of Holland and England, he had

only aversion. This prepossession characterized the whole body of men,

who willingly stripped the seaman and his employers of all their

living, after refusing to provide them with an armed protection to

which the resources of the state were equal. Up to the outbreak of the

war not a ship was added to the navy. With this feeling, Great

Britain, whose very being was maritime, not unnaturally became the

object of a dislike so profound as unconsciously to affect action.

Napoleon decreed, and embargoed, and sequestered, with little effect

upon national sentiment outside of New England. "Certainly all the

difficulties and the troubles of the Government during our time

proceeded from England," wrote Jefferson soon after quitting

office,[227] to Dearborn, his Secretary of War. "At least all others

were trifling in comparison." Yet not to speak of the Berlin Decree,

by which ships were captured for the mere offence of sailing for

England,[228] Bonaparte, by the Bayonne Decree, April 17, 1808, nearly

a year before Jefferson left office, pronounced the confiscation of

all American vessels entering ports under his control, on the ground

that under the existing embargo they could not lawfully have left

their own country; a matter which was none of his business. Within a

year were condemned one hundred and thirty-four ships and cargoes,

worth $10,000,000.[229]

That Jefferson consciously leaned to France from any regard to

Napoleon is incredible; the character and procedures of the French

Emperor were repugnant to his deepest convictions; but that there was

a still stronger bias against the English form of government, and the

pursuit of the sea for which England especially stood, is equally

clear. Opposition to England was to him a kind of mission. His best

wish for her had been that she might be republicanized by a successful

French invasion.[230] "I came into office," he wrote to a political

disciple, "under circumstances calculated to generate peculiar

acrimony. I found all the offices in the possession of a political

sect, who wished to transform it ultimately into the shape of their

darling model, the English government; and in the meantime to

familiarize the public mind to the change, by administering it on

English principles, and in English forms. The elective interposition

of the people had blown all their designs, and they found themselves

and their fortresses of power and profit put in a moment in the hand

of other trustees."[231]

These words, written in the third of the fifteen embargo months,

reveal an acrimony not wholly one-sided. It was perceived by the

parties hardest hit by this essentially Jeffersonian scheme; by the

people of New England and of Great Britain. In the old country it

intensified bitterness. In the following summer, at a dinner given to

representatives of the Spanish revolt against Napoleon, the toast to

the President of the United States was received with hisses,[232] "and

the marks of disapprobation continued till a new subject drew off the

attention of the company." The embargo was not so much a definite

cause of complaint, for at worst it was merely a retaliatory measure

like the Orders in Council. Enmity was recognized, alike in the

council boards and in the social gatherings of the two peoples; the

spirit that leads to war was aroused. Nor could this hostile

demonstration proceed from sympathy with the Spanish insurgents; for,

except so far as might be inferred from the previous general course of

the American Administration, there was no reason to believe that they

would regard unfavorably the Spanish struggle for liberty. Yet they

soon did, and could not but do so.

It is a coincidence too singular to go unnoticed, that the first

strong measure of the American Government against Great

Britain--Embargo--was followed by Napoleon's reverses in Spain, which,

by opening much of that country and of her colonies to trade, at once

in large measure relieved Great Britain from the pressure of the

Continental system and the embargo; while the second, the last resort

of nations, War, was declared shortly before the great Russian

catastrophe, which, by rapidly contracting the sphere of the Emperor's

control, both widened the area of British commerce and deprived the

United States of a diversion of British effort, upon which calculation

had rightly been based. It was impossible for the American Government

not to wish well to Napoleon, when for it so much depended upon his

success; and to wish him well was of course to wish ill to his

opponents, even if fighting for freedom.

Congress adjourned April 25, having completed embargo legislation, as

far as could then be seen necessary. On May 2 occurred the rising in

Madrid, consequent upon Napoleon's removal of the Spanish Royal

Family; and on July 21 followed the surrender of Dupont's corps at

Baylen. Already, on July 4, the British Government had stopped all

hostilities against Spain, and withdrawn the blockade of all Spanish

ports, except such as might still be in French control. On August 30,

by the Convention of Cintra, Portugal was evacuated by the French, and

from that time forward the Peninsula kingdoms, though scourged by war,

were in alliance with Great Britain; their ports and those of their

colonies open to her trade.

This of itself was a severe blow to the embargo, which for coercive

success depended upon the co-operation of the Continental system. It

was further thwarted and weakened by extensive popular repudiation in

the United States. The political conviction of the expediency, or

probable efficacy, of the measure was largely sectional; and it is no

serious imputation upon the honesty of its supporters to say that

they mustered most strongly where interests were least immediately

affected. Tobacco and cotton suffered less in keeping than flour and

salt fish; and the deterioration of these was by no means so instant

as the stoppage of a ship's sailing or loading. The farmer ideal is

realizable on a farm; but it was not so for the men whose sole

occupation was transporting that which the agriculturist did not need

to markets now closed by law. Wherever employment depended upon

commerce, distress was immediate. The seamen, improvident by habit,

first felt the blow. "I cannot conceive," said Representative

[afterwards Justice] Story, "why gentlemen should wish to paralyze the

strength of the nation by keeping back our naval force, and

particularly now, when many of our native seamen (and I am sorry to

say from my own knowledge I speak it) are starving in our ports."[233]

The Commandant of the New York Navy Yard undertook to employ, for

rations only, not wages, three hundred of those adrift in the streets;

the corporation of the city undertaking to pay for the food

issued.[234] They moved off, as they could get opportunity, towards

the British Provinces; and thus many got into the British service, by

enlistment or impressment. "Had your frigate arrived here instead of

the Chesapeake," wrote the British Consul General at New York, as

early as February 15, 1808, "I have no doubt two or three hundred able

British seamen would have entered on board her for his Majesty's

service; and even now, was your station removed to this city, I feel

confident, _provided the embargo continues_, you would more than

complete your complement."[235] Six months later, "Is it not notorious

that not a seaport in the United States can produce seamen enough to

man three merchant ships?"[236] In moving the estimates for one

hundred and thirty thousand seamen a year later (February, 1809), the

Secretary of the Admiralty observed that Parliament would learn with

satisfaction that the number of seamen now serving in the navy

covered, if it did not exceed, the number here voted.[237] It had not

been so once. Sir William Parker, an active frigate captain during ten

years of this period, wrote in 1805, "I dread the discharge of our

crew; for I do not think the miserable wretches with which the ships

lately fitted out were manned are equal to fight their ships in the

manner they are expected to do."[238] The high wages, which the

profits of the American merchant service enabled it to pay, outbade

all competition by the British navy. "Dollars for shillings," as the

expression ran. The embargo stopped all this, and equivalent

conditions did not return before the war. The American Minister to

France in 1811 wrote: "We complain with justice of the English

practice of pressing our seamen into their service. But the fact is,

and there is no harm in saying it, there are at present more American

seamen who seek that service than are forced into it."[239]

After the seamen followed the associated employments; those whose

daily labor was expended in occupations connected with transportation,

or who produced objects which men could not eat, or with which they

could dispense. Before the end of the year testimony came from every

quarter of the increase of suffering among the deserving poor; and not

they only, but those somewhat above them as gainers of a comfortable

living. They were for the most part helpless, except as helped by

their richer neighbors. Work for them there was not, and they could

not rebel. Not so with the seafarers, or the dwellers upon the

frontiers. On the great scale, of course, a sure enforcement of the

embargo was possible; the bulk of the shipping, especially the bigger,

was corralled and idle. In the port of New York, February 17, 1808,

lay 161 ships, 121 brigs, and 98 smaller sea-going vessels; in all 380

unoccupied, of which only 11 were foreign. In the much smaller port of

Savannah, at this early period there were 50. In Philadelphia, a year

later, 293, mostly of large tonnage for the period. "What is that huge

forest of dry trees that spreads itself before the town?" asked a

Boston journal. "You behold the masts of ships thrown out of

employment by the embargo."[240] "Our dismantled, ark-roofed vessels

are indeed decaying in safety at our wharves, forming a suitable

monument to the memory of our departed commerce. But where are your

seamen? Gone, sir! Driven into foreign exile in search of

subsistence."[241] Yet not all; for illicit employment, for evading

the Acts, enough remained to disconcert the Government, alike by their

numbers and the boldness of their movements.

"This Embargo law," wrote Jefferson to Gallatin, August 11, 1808, "is

certainly the most embarrassing we ever had to execute. I did not

expect a crop of so sudden and rank growth of fraud, and open

opposition by force, could have grown up within the United

States."[242] Apostle of pure democracy as he was, he had forgotten to

reckon with the people, and had mistaken the convictions of himself and

a coterie for national sentiment. From all parts of the country men

began silently and covertly to undermine the working of the system.

Passamaquoddy Bay on the borders of New Brunswick, and St. Mary's on

the confines of Florida, remote from ordinary commerce, became

suddenly crowded with vessels.[243] Coasters, not from recalcitrant New

England only, but from the Chesapeake and Southern waters, found it

impossible to reach their ports of destination. Furious gales of wind

drove them from their course; spars smitten with decay went overboard;

butts of planking started, causing dangerous leaks. Safety could be

found only by bearing up for some friendly foreign port, in Nova Scotia

or the West Indies, where cargoes of flour and fish had to be sold for

needed repairs, to enable the homeward voyage to be made. Not

infrequently the vessel's name had been washed off the stern by the

violence of the waves, and the captain could remember neither it nor

his own. The New York and Vermont frontiers became the scene of

widespread illegal trade, the shameful effects of which upon the

patriotism of the inhabitants were conspicuous in the following war. A

gentleman returning from Canada in January, 1809, reported that he had

counted seven hundred sleighs, going and returning between Montreal and

Vermont.[244] This on one line only. A letter received in New York

stated that, during the embargo year, 1808, thirty thousand barrels of

potash had been brought into Quebec.[245] "While our gunboats and

cutters are watching the harbors and sounds of the Atlantic," said a

senator from his place, "a strange inversion of business ensues, and by

a retrograde motion of all the interior machinery of the country,

potash and lumber are launched upon the lakes, and Ontario and

Champlain feel the bustle of illicit traffic.... Violators of the laws

are making fortunes, while the conscientious observers of them are

suffering sad privations."[246] Not the conscientious only, but the

unlucky. Unlike New York, North Carolina had not a friendly foreign

boundary nigh to her naval stores.