The Orders in Council of Nov. 11, 1807, gave an impulse so energetic
to the history of the United States; they worked so effectually to
drive America into a new path, and to break the power and blot out the
memory of Virginia and Massachusetts principles,--that every detail of
their history was important. Englishmen were little likely to dwell on
acts of which even at the time England was at heart ashamed, and which
she afterward remembered with astonishment. To Americans alone the
statesmanship of Spencer Perceval and George Canning was a matter of so
much interest as to deserve study.
At the close of the year 1806 American merchants might, as always
before, send cargoes of West Indian produce to any port on the
continent not blockaded, provided they could satisfy British cruisers
and courts that the cargo was in good faith neutral,--not French or
Spanish property disguised. Jan. 7, 1807, Lord Howick issued the Order
in Council which, under pretence of retaliation for Napoleon’s Berlin
Decree, cut off the coasting rights of neutrals. After that time the
American merchant might still send a ship to Bordeaux; but if the ship,
finding no market at Bordeaux, should resume her voyage, and make
for Amsterdam or the Mediterranean, she became fair prize. Something
has been already said[56] upon the character of Lord Howick’s order,
and on the subsequent debate in Parliament, when, February 4, Spencer
Perceval attacked the Whig ministry for not carrying the principle
of retaliation far enough. Two objects were to be gained, said
Perceval[57] from the opposition bench: the first and greatest was to
counteract the enemy’s measures and protect English trade; the second
was to distress France. Howick’s order neither did nor could effect
either object; and Perceval called for a measure which should shut out
colonial produce from France and Spain altogether, unless it came from
England and had paid a duty at a British custom-house to enhance the
price. If Lord Howick’s principle of retaliation was good for anything,
Perceval contended it was good to this extent; and as for neutrals,
there was no necessity for consulting them,--all they could reasonably
expect was a notice.
The Whigs naturally replied to Perceval that before further punishing
America for the acts of France, America should be allowed time to
assert her own rights. This suggestion called out Lord Castlereagh, who
frequently spoke the truth in ways inconvenient to his colleagues and
amusing to his enemies. In this instance he admitted and even accented
a point which became afterward the strongest part of the American
argument. He ridiculed the idea of waiting for America to act, because
notoriously the Berlin Decree had not been enforced against American
commerce:--
“This is one ground why we should look upon America with jealousy. It
is an aggravation that she has, by a secret understanding with the
French government, contrived to take her shipping out of the operation
of the decree, that was at first general, and placed herself in a
situation of connivance with the French government.”
A few weeks afterward Perceval and Castlereagh took office. One of
their first acts set on foot a parliamentary inquiry into the state of
West Indian commerce. The report of this committee, presented to the
House July 27, was ordered to be printed August 8. August 10 the House
voted to take it into consideration early in the next session; and four
days afterward Parliament was prorogued, leaving ministers to deal
at their leisure with the “Chesapeake” affair, the Danish fleet, and
Napoleon’s attempts to exclude English manufactures and commerce from
Europe.
Napoleon’s Berlin Decree of Nov. 21, 1806, had remained till then
almost a dead letter. The underwriters at Lloyds, alarmed at first by
the seizures made under that decree, recovered courage between April
and August, 1807, so far as to insure at low rates neutral vessels
bound to Holland and Hamburg. This commerce attracted Napoleon’s
notice. August 19 he threatened his brother Louis, King of Holland,
to send thirty thousand troops into his kingdom if the ports were not
shut;[58] August 24 he sent positive orders[59] that his decree of
Berlin should be executed in Holland; and in the last days of August
news reached London that a general seizure of neutral vessels had
taken place at Amsterdam.[60] From that moment no ship could obtain
insurance, and trade with the Continent ceased. Soon afterward the
American ship “Horizon” was condemned by the French courts under the
Berlin Decree, and no one could longer doubt that the favor hitherto
extended to American commerce had also ceased.
These dates were important, because upon them hung the popular defence
of Perceval’s subsequent Orders in Council. No argument in favor of
these orders carried so much weight in England as the assertion that
America had acquiesced in Napoleon’s Berlin Decree. The President had
in fact submitted to the announcement of Napoleon’s blockade, as he
had submitted to Sir William Scott’s decisions, Lord Howick’s Order
in Council, the blockade of New York, and the custom of impressment,
without effectual protest; but the Berlin Decree was not enforced
against American commerce until about Sept. 1, 1807, and no one in
America knew of the enforcement, or could have acted upon it, before
the British government took the law into its own hands.
The month of September passed, and the British ministry was
sufficiently busy with the bombardment of Copenhagen and the assault
on the “Chesapeake,” without touching neutral trade; but October 1
Lord Castlereagh wrote a letter[61] to Perceval, urging retaliation
upon France in order to make her feel that Napoleon’s anti-commercial
system was useless, and in order to assert for future guidance the
general principle that England would reject any peace which did not
bring commerce with it. The idea presented by Castlereagh was clear and
straightforward,--the double-or-quits of a gambler; and however open to
the charge of ignorance or violence, it was not mean or dishonest.
In reply Perceval drew up a paper of suggestions[62] for the use of
the Cabinet, dealing first with the justice, next with the policy of
retaliation. Of its justice as against France he thought there could be
no doubt, while Lord Howick’s order had already asserted the principle
as against neutrals, even before it could be known whether neutrals
would retaliate on their own account; but apart from this precedent,
“the injury which neutrals sustain is consequential; the measure is
not adopted with a view to injure the neutrals, but to injure the
enemy.” Perhaps Perceval felt that this argument might lead too far,
and that on such a doctrine England might appropriate the world on
every declaration of war; for in the next paragraph he pleaded the
particular war in which England was actually engaged as his warranty:--
“When an enemy arises who declares to all the world that he will
trample upon the law of nations, and hold at nought all the privileges
of neutral nations when they do not suit his belligerent interests;
and when by the great extent of his power he is enabled in great
measure to act up to his declaration,--it is evident that if those
Powers with which he is at war should continue to hold themselves
bound to rules and obligations of which he will not acknowledge the
force, they cannot carry on the contest on equal terms. And the
neutral who would control their hostility by those rules and laws
which their enemy refuses to recognize, and which such neutral does
not compel that enemy to observe, ceases to be a neutral by ceasing
to observe that impartiality which is the very life and soul of
neutrality.”
This allegation differed from the first. Perceval began by maintaining
that England possessed a right, if she chose, to suppress the existence
of America or of any other neutral, provided the suppression were
consequential on an intent to injure France. He next argued that the
existence of America might be equally suppressed because she had not
yet succeeded in compelling France to observe neutral privileges,
which so far as she was concerned had not been violated. If these two
propositions were worth making, they should have settled the question.
Yet Perceval was not satisfied; he took a third ground:--
“This question, however, need not now be argued to the extent which
was necessary to justify the assertion of the late Government; because
whatever might be the doubts upon it when the decree of France first
issued, and before it was known to what extent neutrals would resist
or acquiesce in it, since those neutrals have acquiesced in it, or at
least have not resisted or resented it to the extent of obtaining a
formal recall of the decree and an open renunciation of the principle
which dictated it, nor the abandonment of the practices which flow
from it,--they by their acquiescence and submission have given to
Great Britain a right to expect from them (when her interests require
the exertion of measures of correspondent efficacy) a forbearance
similar to that which they have shown toward her enemy.”
If Perceval’s two opening premises gave a strange idea of English
statesmanship, his third was little creditable to the English
bar. He took the ground that England might do what she would with
American commerce, because America, whatever effort she might have
made, had not already forced Napoleon to recall a decree from the
application of which the United States notoriously had till within
six weeks been exempted. Lord Castlereagh’s doctrine that America’s
exemption aggravated her offence was a wide-minded argument by the
side of Perceval’s assertion that America’s acquiescence was proved
by the French decree itself. Considering that America had in this
sense acquiesced in Sir William Scott’s decisions and the wholesale
confiscation of her commerce, in the impressment of her native
citizens and their compulsory service in the British navy, in the
blockade of New York, in Fox’s paper blockade of the German coast, in
Lord Howick’s Order in Council, and perhaps even in the “Chesapeake”
outrage,--Perceval’s argument must have seemed convincing to Napoleon,
if not to President Jefferson. If the law of nations thus laid down was
sound, the continued presence of American citizens in British ships of
war was alone sufficient proof of American acquiescence in impressment
to warrant Napoleon in acting without regard to neutral rights. From
a neutral or French point of view Perceval’s reasoning not only
conceded the legality of the Berlin Decree, but barred his own right of
retaliation, since England, as the first and worst offender, could not
properly profit by her own misdeeds.
There Perceval rested his case, so far as concerned the law. His three
grounds were--(1) That as a neutral the United States could complain
of no retaliation between belligerents, unless this retaliation was
avowedly adopted with a view to injure neutrals; (2) That America
ceased to be a neutral from the moment that she wished England to
observe rules which France refused to recognize, and which America did
not at once compel France to recognize; and (3) That the continued
existence and recent enforcement of the Berlin Decree were sufficient
proof of the neutral’s acquiescence.
Thus a measure of vital consequence to England was proposed to the
Cabinet on grounds which would hardly have been sufficient to warrant
an injunction to restrain a private nuisance. So far as argument
was concerned, Perceval had no more to say. Having in his opinion
established his legal right to do what he pleased with American
commerce, he next discussed the policy and extent of the proposed
interference. His first idea was comparatively moderate.
“If we actually prohibit all intercourse between neutrals and the
enemies’ colonies,” he continued, “or between neutrals and the
enemies’ continental possessions, it would be such a severe blow upon
the trade of America as might make it no unreasonable choice on her
part to prefer the dangers and chances of war to such a restriction
upon her trade. I should therefore wish to leave such advantages
still to neutral trade as to make it quite clear to be the policy of
America, if she is wise, to prefer the neutral trade that will be left
to her to the total stoppage of her trade with the enemy and with
ourselves which a war might occasion.... With this view, therefore,
I would recommend to relax thus far in the rigor of our retaliatory
prohibitions as to leave to neutral nations the right of trading
_directly_ in articles of their own growth, produce, and manufacture
exported in their own vessels to enemies’ countries, and of importing
from the enemies’ countries for their own use articles the growth,
produce, and manufacture of such enemies’ countries; that is, leaving
to them free the _direct_ trade between the enemy and themselves
in articles of their respective growth, etc., but to prohibit the
re-exportation of any articles the growth, etc., of the enemies’
countries or their colonies, or the carriage of them to any other
country but their own.”
Perceval’s first suggestion was far from being so radical as the
measure at last adopted. He proposed to cut off France from her
colonies and force all trade between those colonies and Europe to pass
through British hands; but an American ship laden with American cotton
or wheat might still sail from the United States direct to France and
return to the United States, or might carry provisions and lumber to
Martinique and Cuba, carrying French or Spanish sugar back to New York.
This so-called “direct” trade was to be untouched; the “indirect” or
carrying trade between the West Indies and the continent of Europe was
to be permitted only under special licenses to be issued by British
authorities.
In this shape Perceval sent his suggestions to the Prime Minister, the
Duke of Portland, who gave his entire approval to the principle of
retaliation as against France, but wished to retaliate against France
alone:[63] “Considering the unpopularity which, it cannot be denied,
we are held in throughout the Continent, I very much doubt whether we
should limit this intercourse beyond the actual dominions of France. I
am well aware that by admitting the intercourse with Holland and Spain,
France will obtain circuitously those supplies which she will stand in
want of.”
This disadvantage, the Duke thought, could be largely compensated by a
rigid observance of the navigation laws. The Duke’s opinion was very
short, and barely hinted at the American question.
John Fane, Earl of Westmoreland, Lord Privy Seal,--_Sot Privé_, or
Privy Fool, as Canning afterward nicknamed him by a pun on the French
word _sceau_,[64]--gave next his written opinion on the subject.[65]
Going beyond either Perceval or Portland, he urged the expediency
of stopping all trade with the enemy except through the medium of
England,--“the effect of which must be either to distress them to such
a degree as to induce a relaxation of their decrees, or to cause a
great trade from this country. Its effect in case of an extension of
hostility can certainly not be ascertained; but I am disposed to think
that we cannot carry on war allowing our enemy advantages of commerce
as in peace, and that if we only do what is right we must take our
chance for the consequences.”
The next opinion was apparently that of Lord Hawkesbury, the Home
Secretary, who was also clear that Perceval’s plan wanted energy. While
supporting the Duke of Portland in narrowing its scope to France, or
at the utmost to Holland, he favored harsher treatment of America:[66]
“I incline strongly to the opinion that it is expedient to put an end,
as far as in us lies, to all intercourse by sea between neutrals and
the continental dominions of France, and possibly of Holland. I am
satisfied that the measure of retaliation as proposed in the enclosed
paper would have no other effect than to raise the price of colonial
produce in France to a small degree. It would offend neutrals,
particularly the Americans, and inflict no adequate injury upon the
enemy. But if we should determine to prevent all intercourse whatever
with the ports of France except by British license, we should have it
in our power to destroy at once all the remaining commerce of France,
which by means of neutrals is not inconsiderable, and to strike a most
important blow against her agriculture by preventing the exportation
of her wines.”
Lord Hawkesbury kept in view the retaliatory character of the measure
as a punishment of France. Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary for War, was
not quite so careful.[67] He acquiesced in Perceval’s scheme, provided
it should reserve the right to extend its own application whenever the
balance of advantage should favor the extension; but he added,--
“I am of opinion that some decisive measure, in vindication of our own
commerce and in counteraction of the unsocial system of France,--the
principle of which is not the growth of this war, but was acted upon
by her throughout the late short peace,--is become indispensable,
not merely as a measure of commercial policy, but in order to put
the contest in which we are engaged upon its true grounds in the
view of our own people and of the world. It is no longer a struggle
for territory or for a point of honor, but whether the existence of
England as a naval power is compatible with that of France.”
Avowing that a commercial transaction was his object, and that
the punishment of France was secondary to a “vindication of our
own commerce,” Castlereagh assumed that punishment of France and
“vindication” of English commerce were both belligerent rights, as
though the right to kill an adversary in a duel implied the right
to pick a bystander’s pocket. His colleague and rival Canning was
not so confused, for Canning’s duties obliged him to defend the new
policy against neutral objections. Carefully as the other ministers
mingled the ideas of retaliation and of commerce, the double motive of
Perceval’s measure had never been concealed; the intention to permit a
licensed trade with France was avowed. Perceval and Castlereagh wanted,
not to take commerce from France, but to force commerce upon her; and
none of their colleagues could detect this inconsistency so readily as
Canning, whose duties would oblige him to assert before the world that
retaliation alone was the object of a measure which he privately knew
to have no motive but that of commercial rivalry. Canning’s written
opinion, beginning by affirming in strong terms the right and justice
of retaliation, continued as follows:[68]--
“The question of policy is all that remains; and in this view I should
think all such modifications as go to lighten the burden imposed
upon neutrals, and as are obviously intended for that purpose, more
advisable than any direct reservations for our own interest and
advantage. For this reason I would rather confine the measure to a
part of the countries in the occupation of the enemy (a large part
to be sure,--France and Holland, for instance), and apply it in all
its rigor to that part, than extend it to the whole and relax it
generally by complicated exceptions and regulations. And I would keep
out of sight the exceptions in favor of ships going from this country,
the benefit of which might be equally obtained by licenses; but the
_publication_ of that exception would give to the measure the air of a
commercial rather than a political transaction.”
By the end of October all the Cabinet opinions were in Perceval’s
hands, and he began the task of drafting the proposed orders. His
original draft[69] contained an elaborate preamble, asserting that
Napoleon’s decrees violated the laws of nations, which Perceval broadly
maintained were binding on one belligerent only when the obligation was
reciprocally acknowledged by the other; that neutrals had not resented
and resisted the outrage, “nor interposed with effect for obtaining the
revocation of those orders, but on the contrary the same have been
recently reinforced;” that Lord Howick’s retaliatory order had served
only to encourage Napoleon’s attempts; that his Majesty had a right
to declare all the dominions of France and her allies in a state of
blockade; but “not forgetting the interests of neutral nations, and
still desirous of retaliating upon the commerce of his enemies with
as little prejudice to those interests” as was consistent with his
purpose, he would for the present prohibit only trade which neutrals
might be disposed to pursue in submission to the French decrees, and
require that such trade should pass to or from some British port.
Then followed the order, which prohibited all neutral trade with the
whole European sea-coast from Copenhagen to Trieste, leaving only the
Baltic open. No American vessel should be allowed to enter any port in
Europe from which British vessels were excluded, unless the American
should clear from some British port under regulations to be prescribed
at a future time.
This draft was completed in the first days of November, and was sent
to Lord Bathurst, President of the Board of Trade, who mercilessly
criticised the preamble, and treated his colleague’s law with as little
respect as though Bathurst were an American.
“I wish the principle of retaliation,” wrote Lord Bathurst, “not to
be unqualifiedly advanced, for which I think there is no necessity.
May it not be said that in a contest with an unprincipled enemy
the doctrine of retaliation is one dangerous to admit without
qualifications? I own I do not like the word. If my enemy commits
an act of injustice, I am not therefore justified in committing the
same, except so far as may be necessary, in consequence of his act,
either to protect myself from injury, or prevent a recurrence to, or
continuance in, such acts of injustice. All operations of war are
justified only on the principle of defence. Retaliation seems to admit
something of a vindictive spirit.”
The Board of Trade was not usually scrupulous in dealing with American
commerce; but in this instance Earl Bathurst let it be plainly seen
that he wished to have no share of responsibility for Perceval’s
casuistry. The longer he studied the proposed order the less he liked
it; and in the end he wrote an opinion contrary to his first. He
withdrew his assent to the order altogether, and hinted some unpleasant
truths in regard to it.
“Our ability to continue the war,” he said,[70] “depends on our
commerce; for if our revenues fail from a diminution of our commerce,
additional imports will only add to the evil. The enemy forms one
great military empire. The extent of country he covers does not render
him so dependent on an export and import trade. The whole of that
trade might perish and he could still continue the war. If one third
of ours were to fail we should be soon reduced to peace.”
The proposed order, Bathurst argued, not only restricted the neutral
trade still further than had been done by Napoleon, but risked war
with Russia and America, without materially hurting France; he added an
argument which struck at the foundation of Perceval’s policy:--
“The object of the proposed order, though general, is in fact nothing
but the colonial trade carried on through America; and by making it
general we unite Russia in defence of a trade with which she has no
concern or any interest to defend. As far as America is concerned,
it must be expected she will resist it; and an American war would be
severely felt by our manufacturers, and even by the very class of
merchants now so eager for some measure of relief. We might therefore
have to fight for a rule of war, new, the policy of which would be
questionable, to support an interest which would be the first to
suffer by the war,--against two countries, one of which the order
unnecessarily mixes in the question, and with both of which we have
great commercial relations.”
Bathurst closed by expressing a preference for the Rule of 1756, or
for a blockade of the West Indian Islands,--which, if the Admiralty
thought it practicable, Bathurst considered as the best of all the
measures proposed; but besides this radical change, he demanded certain
alarming reforms. He complained to Perceval that already, even under
the existing orders, such abuses prevailed that in order to prevent a
public parliamentary inquiry he had been obliged by the general clamor
of merchants to investigate their grievances:[71]--
“The result of the examination established the truth of the vexations
to which the trade is now subject by privateers, who are enabled
to persevere in them in consequence of the commercial restrictions
and the proceedings of the Court of Admiralty. In a communication
I had with Sir William Scott, who had been very angry with the
inquiry, I proposed some regulations which, indeed, I knew would be
unsatisfactory unless there were some alterations in the proceedings
of his Court,--a subject which I did not venture to touch.”
Lord Bathurst’s well-meant efforts for reform, gentle as they were,
showed him the fortresses in which corruption was already entrenched.
Sir William Scott, like his brother Lord Eldon, never relaxed his
grasp on a profitable abuse. He gave cogent reasons for rejecting Lord
Bathurst’s suggestions, and could afford to disregard the danger of
interference, for Spencer Perceval was completely under the influence
of Lord Eldon. Bathurst urged Perceval to reform the license-system,
so that at least the license should give complete protection to the
cargo, no matter to whom the cargo might belong; and he hoped that
this reform would put an end to the abuses of the Admiralty Court.
“But,” he added, “I did not venture to give this as my reason before
Sir John Nichol [advocate-general], for you must be aware that both
his profits and those of Sir William Scott depend much on privateers
and the litigations which, it is my hope, will by this alteration be
considerably diminished.”
Many members of the British government and nearly the whole British
navy were growing rich on the plunder of American commerce. From King
George downward, mighty influences were involved in maintaining a
system which corrupted law officers, judges, admirals, and even the
King himself. Spencer Perceval’s proposed Order in Council extended
these abuses over whatever branches of commerce had hitherto been
exempt; turned a new torrent of corruption into the government; and
polluted the sources of British honor. In the light of Lord Bathurst’s
protest, and his significant avowal that the object of the proposed
order, though general in form, was in fact nothing but the colonial
trade carried on through America, Canning might well wish to _publish_
nothing that would draw attention to what he called the “commercial”
side of the affair. Jefferson’s measures of peaceful coercion bore
unexpected results, reacting upon foreign nations by stimulating every
mean and sordid motive. No possible war could have so degraded England.
As the Cabinet came closer to the point, the political, or retaliatory,
object of the new order disappeared, and its commercial character
was exclusively set forth. In a letter written about November 30, by
Spencer Perceval to Charles Abbot, Speaker of the House of Commons,
not a word was said of retaliation, or of any political motive in this
process of “recasting the law of trade and navigation, as far as
belligerent principles are concerned, for the whole world.”
“The short principle is,” said Perceval,[72] “that trade in British
produce and manufactures, and trade either from a British port or
with a British destination, is to be protected as much as possible.
For this purpose all the countries where French influence prevails
to exclude the British flag shall have no trade but to or from this
country, or from its allies. All other countries, the few that remain
strictly neutral (with the exception of the colonial trade, which
backward and forward direct they may carry on), cannot trade but
through this being done as an ally with any of the countries connected
with France. If therefore we can accomplish our purpose, it will
come to this,--that either those countries will have no trade, or
they must be content to accept it through us. This is a formidable
and tremendous state of the world; but all the part of it which is
particularly harassing to English interests was existing through the
new severity with which Bonaparte’s decrees of exclusion against our
trade were called into action. Our proceeding does not aggravate our
distress from it. If he can keep out our trade he will; and he would
do so if he could, independent of our orders. Our orders only add
this circumstance: they say to the enemy, ‘If you will not have _our_
trade, as far as we can help it you shall have _none_; and as to so
much of any trade as you can carry on yourselves, or others carry on
with you through us, if you admit it you shall pay for it. The only
trade, cheap and untaxed, which you shall have shall be either direct
from us, in our own produce and manufactures, or from our allies,
whose increased prosperity will be an advantage to us.’”
These private expressions implied that retaliation upon France for
her offence against international law was a pretence on the part of
Perceval and Canning, under the cover of which they intended to force
British commerce upon France contrary to French wishes. The act of
Napoleon in excluding British produce from French dominions violated
no rule of international law, and warranted no retaliation except an
exclusion of French produce from British dominions. The rejoinder, “If
you will not have _our_ trade you shall have _none_,” was not good
law, if law could be disputed when affirmed by men like Lord Eldon and
Lord Stowell, echoed by courts, parliaments, and press,--not only in
private, but in public; not only in 1807, but for long years afterward;
and not only at moments, but without interruption.
Thus Canning, although he warned Perceval against betraying the
commercial object of his orders, instructed[73] Erskine at Washington
to point out that American ships might still bring colonial produce
to England, under certain regulations, for re-export to France. “The
object of these regulations will be the establishment of such a
protecting duty as shall prevent the enemy from obtaining the produce
of his own colonies at a cheaper rate than that of the colonies of
Great Britain.” Not to distress France, but to encourage British
trade, was, according to Canning, the object of this “political” weapon.
Thus Perceval, in the debate of Feb. 5, 1808, in discussing the policy
of his order, affirmed that the British navy had been “rendered
useless by neutral ships carrying to France all that it was important
for France to obtain.”[74] The Rule of 1756, he said, would not have
counteracted this result,--a much stronger measure was necessary; and
it was sound policy “to endeavor to force a market.” Lord Bathurst, a
few days afterward, very frankly told[75] the House that “the object of
these orders was to regulate that which could not be prohibited,--the
circuitous trade through this country,”--in order that the produce
of enemies’ colonies might “be subjected to a duty sufficiently high
to prevent its having the advantage over our own colonial produce;”
and Lord Hawkesbury, in the same debate, complained[76] that neutrals
supplied colonial produce to France at a much less rate than the
English paid for it. “To prevent this,” he said, “was the great object
of the Orders in Council.” James Stephen’s frequent arguments[77] in
favor of the orders turned upon the commercial value of the policy
as against neutrals; while George Rose, Vice-President of the Board
of Trade, went still further, and not only avowed, in the face of
Parliament, the hope that these Orders in Council would make England
the emporium of all trade in the world, but even asserted, in an
unguarded moment of candor, that it was a mistake to call the orders
retaliatory,--they were a system of self-defence, a plan to protect
British commerce.[78]
Thus, too, the orders themselves, while licensing the export through
England to France of all other American produce, imposed a prohibitive
duty on the export of cotton, on the ground--as Canning officially
informed[79] the American government--that France had pushed her cotton
manufactures to such an extent as to make it expedient for England to
embarrass them.
According to the public and private avowals of all the Ministry, the
true object of Perceval’s orders was, not to force a withdrawal of the
Berlin Decree so far as it violated international law, but to protect
British trade from competition. Perceval did not wish to famish France,
but to feed her. His object was commercial, not political; his policy
aimed at checking the commerce of America in order to stimulate the
commerce of England. The pretence that this measure had retaliation for
its object and the vindication of international law for its end was
a legal fiction, made to meet the objections of America and to help
Canning in maintaining a position which he knew to be weak.
After this long discussion, and after conferences not only with his
colleagues in the Cabinet, but also with George Rose, Vice-President
of the Board of Trade, with James Stephen, who was in truth the
author of the war on neutrals, and with a body of merchants from the
city,--at last, Nov. 11, 1807, Spencer Perceval succeeded in getting
his General Order approved in Council. In its final shape this famous
document differed greatly from the original draft. In deference to
Lord Bathurst’s objections, the sweeping doctrine of retaliation
was omitted, so that hardly an allusion to it was left in the text;
the assertion that neutrals had acquiesced in the Berlin Decree was
struck out; the preamble was reduced, by Lord Eldon’s advice, to a
mere mention of the French pretended blockade, and of Napoleon’s real
prohibition of British commerce, followed by a few short paragraphs
reciting that Lord Howick’s order of Jan. 7, 1807, had “not answered
the desired purpose either of compelling the enemy to recall those
orders or of inducing neutral nations to interpose with effect to
obtain their revocation, but on the contrary the same have been
recently enforced with increased rigor;” and then, with the blunt
assertion that “his Majesty, under these circumstances, finds himself
compelled to take further measures for asserting and vindicating his
just rights,” Perceval, without more apology, ordered in effect that
all American commerce, except that to Sweden and the West Indies,
should pass through some British port and take out a British license.
The exceptions, the qualifications, and the verbiage of the British
Orders need no notice. The ablest British merchants gave up in despair
the attempt to understand them; and as one order followed rapidly
upon another, explaining, correcting, and developing Perceval’s not
too lucid style, the angry Liberals declared their belief that he
intended no man to understand them without paying two guineas for a
legal opinion, with the benefit of a chance to get a directly contrary
opinion for the sum of two guineas more.[80] Besides the express
provisions contained in the Order of November 11, it was understood
that American commerce with the enemies of England must not only pass
through British ports with British license, but that colonial produce
would be made to pay a tax to the British Treasury to enhance its
price, while cotton would not be allowed to enter France.
The general intention, however confused, was simple. After November
11, 1807, any American vessel carrying any cargo was liable to capture
if it sailed for any port in Europe from which the British flag was
excluded. In other words, American commerce was made English.
This measure completed, diplomacy was to resume its work. Even
Canning’s audacity might be staggered to explain how the government
of the United States could evade war after it should fairly understand
the impressment Proclamation of October 17, the Order in Council of
November 11, and the Instructions of George Henry Rose,--who was
selected by Canning as his special envoy for the adjustment of the
“Leopard’s” attack on the “Chesapeake,” and who carried orders which
made adjustment impossible. Such outrages could be perpetrated only
upon a helpless people. Even in England, where Jefferson’s pacific
policy was well understood, few men believed that peace could be longer
preserved.
FOOTNOTES:
[56] See vol. iii. p. 416.
[57] Cobbett’s Debates, Feb. 4, 1807, viii. 620-656.
[58] Napoleon to Champagny, Aug. 19, 1807; Correspondance, xv. 509.
[59] Same to Same, Aug. 24, 1807; Ibid., p. 542.
[60] Parliamentary Inquiry, 1808; Evidence of Robert Shedden and Mr.
Hadley.
[61] Castlereagh to Perceval, Oct. 1, 1807; Castlereagh Correspondence,
viii. 87.
[62] Original Suggestions to the Cabinet, Oct. 12, 1807; Perceval MSS.
[63] Opinion of the Duke of Portland; Perceval MSS.
[64] Stapleton’s Canning, p. 411.
[65] Opinion of the Earl of Westmoreland; Perceval MSS.
[66] Opinion of Lord Hawkesbury; Perceval MSS.
[67] Opinion of Lord Castlereagh; Perceval MSS.
[68] Opinion of Mr. Canning; Perceval MSS.
[69] First Draft of Orders in Council, with remarks by Earl Bathurst;
Perceval MSS.
[70] Opinion of Lord Bathurst in dissent to the Principle of Mr.
Perceval’s proposed Order; Perceval MSS.
[71] Lord Bathurst to Spencer Perceval, Nov. 5, 1807; Perceval MSS.
[72] Spencer Perceval to Speaker Abbot; Diary and Correspondence of
Lord Colchester, ii. 134.
[73] Erskine to Madison, Feb. 23, 1808; State Papers, iii. 209.
[74] Cobbett’s Debates, x. 328.
[75] Debate of Feb. 15, 1808; Cobbett’s Debates, x. 471.
[76] Debate of Feb. 15, 1808; Cobbett’s Debates, x. 485.
[77] Speech of James Stephen, March 6, 1809; Cobbett’s Debates, xiii.,
Appendix lxxvi.
[78] Debate of March 3, 1812; report in Times and Morning Chronicle of
March 4, 1812.
[79] Erskine to Madison, Feb. 23, 1808; State Papers, iii. 209.
[80] Baring’s Inquiry, pp. 14, 15.