Oct. 29, 1807, Monroe left London; and November 14, the day when the
Orders in Council were first published in the official “Gazette,” he
sailed from Plymouth for home.
Nearly five years had passed since Monroe received the summons from
Jefferson which drew him from his retirement in Virginia to stand
forward as the diplomatic champion of the United States in contest
with the diplomatists of Europe; and these five years had been full
of unpleasant experience. Since signing the Louisiana treaty, in May,
1803, he had met only with defeat and disaster. Insulted by every
successive Foreign Secretary in France, Spain, and England; driven
from Madrid to Paris and from Paris to London; set impossible tasks,
often contrary to his own judgment,--he had ended by yielding to the
policy of the British government, and by meeting with disapproval
and disavowal from his own. As he looked back on the receding shores
of England, he could hardly fail to recall the circumstances of his
return from France ten years before. In many respects Monroe’s career
was unparalleled, but he was singular above all in the experience of
being disowned by two Presidents as strongly opposed to each other as
Washington and Jefferson, and of being sacrificed by two secretaries as
widely different as Timothy Pickering and James Madison.
In America only two men of much note were prepared to uphold his
course, and of these the President was not one; yet Jefferson exerted
himself to disguise and soften Monroe’s discredit. He kept the treaty
a secret when its publication would have destroyed Monroe’s popularity
and strengthened Madison. When at length, after eight months’ delay,
the British note appended to the treaty was revealed, Monroe’s friend
Macon, though anxious to make him President, privately admitted that
“the extract of the treaty which has been published has injured Monroe
more than the return of it by the President.”[106] John Randolph alone
held up Monroe and his treaty as models of statesmanship; and although
Randolph was the only Republican who cared to go this length, Monroe
found one other friend and apologist in a person who rivalled Randolph
in his usual economy of praise. Timothy Pickering held that Merry and
Erskine were no good Englishmen, but he was satisfied with Monroe.
“I sincerely wish an English minister here to be a very able
man,” he wrote[107] privately from Washington to a friend in
Philadelphia,--“one who will feel and justly estimate the dignity of
his country, and bring down the supercilious looks of our strutting
Administration. The feebleness of Merry and Erskine have encouraged
them to assume a vain importance and haughtiness as remote from the
genuine spirit and as injurious to the solid interests of our country
as they are irritating to Great Britain. The ridiculous gasconade
of our rulers has indeed disgraced our nation. The sentiment above
expressed is excited by the consideration that Great Britain is
our only shield against the overwhelming power of Bonaparte; and
therefore I view the maintenance of her just rights as essential to
the preservation of our own. I have regretted to see our newspapers
continue to reproach Monroe. His abilities you know how to estimate,
but I never considered him as wanting in probity. An _enragé_ relative
to the French, and implicitly relying on the advice of Jefferson, his
deportment did not permit his remaining the minister of the United
States at Paris [in 1797]; but I have certain information that at
London no one could conduct with more propriety than he does; and,
such is his sense of the proceedings of our rulers, he lately said
he did not know how long the British government would bear with our
petulance.”
This letter, written while Monroe was at sea, betrayed a hope that
the notorious quarrel between him and Jefferson would prove to be
permanent; but Pickering could never learn to appreciate Jefferson’s
genius for peace. Doubtless only personal friendship and the fear of
strengthening Federalist influence prevented President Jefferson from
denouncing Monroe’s conduct as forcibly as President Washington had
denounced it ten years before; and Jefferson’s grounds of complaint
were more serious than Washington’s. Monroe expected and even courted
martyrdom, and never quite forgot the treatment he received. In
private, George Hay, Monroe’s son-in-law, who knew all the secrets of
his career, spoke afterward of Jefferson as “one of the most insincere
men in the world; ... his enmity to Mr. Monroe was inveterate, though
disguised, and he was at the bottom of all the opposition to Mr. Monroe
in Virginia.”[108] Peacemakers must submit to the charges which their
virtues entail, but Jefferson’s silence and conciliation deserved a
better return than to be called insincere.
Monroe returned to Virginia, praised by George Canning and Timothy
Pickering, to be John Randolph’s candidate for the Presidency,
while Jefferson could regard him in no other light than as a dupe
of England, and Madison was obliged to think him a personal enemy.
As a result of five years’ honest, patient, and painstaking labor,
this division from old friends was sad enough; but had Monroe been
a nervous man, so organized as to feel the arrows of his outrageous
fortune, his bitterest annoyance on bidding final farewell to Europe
would have been, not the thought of his reception in America, not even
the memory of Talleyrand’s reproofs, or of the laurels won by Don
Pedro Cevallos, or of Lord Harrowby’s roughness, or Lord Mulgrave’s
indifference, or Lord Howick’s friendly larcenies, or Canning’s smooth
impertinences,--as a diplomatist he would rather have felt most hurt
that the British ministry had contrived a new measure of vital interest
to America, and should have allowed him to depart without a word of
confidence, explanation, or enlightenment as to the nature of the fresh
aggression which was to close a long list of disasters with one which
left to America only the title of an independent nation.
As early as October 3 the “Morning Post” announced at great length that
his Majesty’s government had adopted the principle of retaliation.
November 10, while Monroe was still waiting at Portsmouth for a fair
wind, the “Times” made known that a proclamation was in readiness for
the King’s signature, declaring France and all her vassal kingdoms in
a state of siege: “The sum of all reasoning on the subject is included
in this, that the Continent must and will have colonial productions
in spite of the orders and decrees of its master, and we are to take
care that she have no other colonial produce than our own.” The
fact that American commerce with the Continent was to be forbidden
became a matter of public notoriety in London before November 13,
and on Saturday, November 14, the day when Monroe’s ship sailed from
Portsmouth, the order appeared in the “Gazette;” yet Monroe himself
would be obliged to appear before the President in official ignorance
of a measure discussed and adopted under his eyes.
George Henry Rose, whom Canning selected as special envoy to settle
the “Chesapeake” affair, and who sailed in the “Statira” frigate two
days before Monroe, knew officially as little as Monroe himself of
the coming order; but this ignorance was due to Canning’s settled
plan of keeping the “Chesapeake” affair independent of every other
dispute. Canning could have had no deep motive in withholding official
knowledge of the order from Monroe, Pinkney, and Rose; he could not
have foreseen when or how the winds would blow; yet, by mere accident,
one day’s delay added greatly to the coming embarrassments of the
American government. The departure of vessels depended on a favorable
wind, and for some weeks before November 14 westerly winds prevailed.
About that day the weather changed, and all the ships bound to America
sailed nearly together. The “Statira” and “Augustus,” carrying Rose and
Monroe, started from Portsmouth for Norfolk; the “Revenge” set sail
from Cherbourg, with despatches from Armstrong; the “Brutus,” with
London newspapers of November 12, departed from Liverpool for New York;
and the “Edward,” with London newspapers and letters to November 10,
left Liverpool for Boston. All were clear of land by November 14, when
the “Gazette” published the Order in Council; but for weeks afterward
no other vessels crossed the Atlantic.
After the “Revenge” sailed for Europe in July, on her errand of redress
for the “Chesapeake” outrage, the Americans waited more and more
patiently for her return. The excitement which blazed in midsummer from
one end of the country to the other began to subside when men learned
that Admiral Berkeley’s orders had been issued without the authority or
knowledge of his government, and would probably be disavowed. The news
that came from Europe tended to chill the fever for war. The Peace of
Tilsit, the Tory reaction in England, the bombardment of Copenhagen,
the execution of the Berlin Decree in Holland, the threatened
retaliation by Great Britain were events calculated to raise more than
a doubt of the benefits which war could bring. In any case, the risks
of commerce had become too great for legitimate trade; and every one
felt that the further pursuit of neutral profits could end only in
bringing America into the arms of one or the other of the Powers which
were avowedly disputing pre-eminence in wrong.
The attack on the “Chesapeake,” the trial of Aaron Burr, and the
news from Copenhagen, Holland, and London made the summer and autumn
of 1807 anxious and restless; but another event, under the eyes of
the American people, made up a thousand fold, had they but known it,
for all the losses or risks incurred through Burr, Bonaparte, or
Canning. That the destinies of America must be decided in America was
a maxim of true Democrats, but one which they showed little energy
in reducing to practice. A few whose names could be mentioned in one
or two lines,--men like Chancellor Livingston, Dr. Mitchill, Joel
Barlow,--hailed the 17th of August, 1807, as the beginning of a new era
in America,--a date which separated the colonial from the independent
stage of growth; for on that day, at one o’clock in the afternoon, the
steamboat “Clermont,” with Robert Fulton in command, started on her
first voyage. A crowd of bystanders, partly sceptical, partly hostile,
stood about and watched the clumsy craft slowly forge its way at the
rate of four miles an hour up the river; but Fulton’s success left
room for little doubt or dispute, except in minds impervious to proof.
The problem of steam navigation, so far as it applied to rivers and
harbors was settled, and for the first time America could consider
herself mistress of her vast resources. Compared with such a step in
her progress, the mediæval barbarisms of Napoleon and Spencer Perceval
signified little more to her than the doings of Achilles and Agamemnon.
Few moments in her history were more dramatic than the weeks of 1807
which saw the shattered “Chesapeake” creep back to her anchorage at
Hampton Roads, and the “Clermont” push laboriously up the waters of
the Hudson; but the intellectual effort of bringing these two events
together, and of settling the political and economical problems of
America at once, passed the genius of the people. Government took
no notice of Fulton’s achievement, and the public for some years
continued, as a rule, to travel in sailing packets and on flat-boats.
The reign of politics showed no sign of ending. Fulton’s steamer went
its way, waiting until men’s time should become so valuable as to be
worth saving.
The unfailing mark of a primitive society was to regard war as the
most natural pursuit of man; and history with reason began as a record
of war, because, in fact, all other human occupations were secondary
to this. The chief sign that Americans had other qualities than the
races from which they sprang, was shown by their dislike for war as
a profession, and their obstinate attempts to invent other methods
for obtaining their ends; but in the actual state of mankind, safety
and civilization could still be secured only through the power of
self-defence. Desperate physical courage was the common quality on
which all great races had founded their greatness; and the people of
the United States, in discarding military qualities, without devoting
themselves to science, were trying an experiment which could succeed
only in a world of their own.
In charging America with having lost her national character, Napoleon
said no more than the truth. As a force in the affairs of Europe,
the United States had become an appendage to England. The Americans
consumed little but English manufactures, allowed British ships
to blockade New York and Chesapeake Bay, permitted the British
government to keep by force in its naval service numbers of persons
who were claimed as American subjects, and to take from American
merchant-vessels, at its free will, any man who seemed likely to be
useful; they suffered their commerce with France and Spain to be
plundered by Great Britain without resistance, or to be regulated in
defiance of American rights. Nothing could exceed England’s disregard
of American dignity. When the “Bellona” and her consorts were ordered
to depart from Chesapeake Bay, her captain not only disregarded the
order, but threatened to take by force whatever he wanted on shore,
and laughed at the idea of compulsion. On land still less respect
was shown to American jurisdiction. When after the “Chesapeake”
outrage the people talked of war, the first act of Sir James Craig,
governor-general of Canada, was to send messages[109] to the Indian
tribes in the Indiana Territory, calling for their assistance in
case of hostilities; and the effect of this appeal was instantly
felt at Vincennes and Greenville, where it gave to the intrigues of
the Shawanese prophet an impulse that alarmed every settler on the
frontier. Every subordinate officer of the British government thought
himself at liberty to trample on American rights; and while the English
navy controlled the coast, and the English army from Canada gave
orders to the northwestern Indians, the British minister at Washington
encouraged and concealed the conspiracy of Burr.
The evil had reached a point where some corrective must be found; but
four years of submission had broken the national spirit. In 1805 the
people were almost ready for war with England on the question of the
indirect, or carrying, trade of the French and Spanish West Indies.
After submitting on that point, in July, 1807, they were again ready to
fight for the immunity of their frigates from impressment; but by the
close of the year their courage had once more fallen, and they hoped
to escape the necessity of fighting under any circumstances whatever,
anxiously looking for some expedient, or compromise, which would
reconcile a policy of resistance with a policy of peace. This expedient
Jefferson and Madison had for fifteen years been ready to offer them.
So confident was Jefferson in his theory of peaceable coercion that he
would hardly have thought his administrative career complete, had he
quitted office without being allowed to prove the value of his plan.
The fascination which it exercised over his mind was quite as much due
to temperament as to logic; for if reason told him that Europe could
be starved into concession, temperament added another motive still
more alluring. If Europe persisted in her conduct America would still
be safe, and all the happier for cutting off connection with countries
where violence and profligacy ruled supreme. The idea of ceasing
intercourse with obnoxious nations reflected his own personality in
the mirror of statesmanship. In the course of the following year he
wrote to a young grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, a letter[110] of
parental advice in regard to the conduct of life.
“Be a listener only,” he said; “keep within yourself, and endeavor to
establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics.
In the fevered state of our country no good can ever result from any
attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or
principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and
the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you
would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the
road with such an animal.”
The advice was good, and did honor to the gentleness of Jefferson’s
nature; but a course of conduct excellent in social life could not
be made to suit the arena of politics. As President of the United
States, Jefferson was bent upon carrying out the plan of keeping within
himself; but the bull of which he spoke as unfit for a man of sense to
dispute with, and which he saw filling the whole path before him, was
not only angry, but mad with pain and blind with rage; his throat and
flanks were torn and raw where the Corsican wolf had set his teeth; a
pack of mastiffs and curs were baiting him and yelling at his heels,
and his blood-shot eyes no longer knew friend from foe, as he rushed
with a roar of stupid rage directly upon the President. To get by him
was impossible. To fly was the only resource, if the President would
not stand his ground and stop the animal by skill or force.
Few rulers ever succeeded in running from danger with dignity. Even the
absolute Emperor of Russia had not wholly preserved the respect of
his subjects after the sudden somersault performed at Tilsit; and the
Prince Regent of Portugal had been forced to desert his people when he
banished himself to Brazil. President Jefferson had not their excuse
for flight; but resistance by force was already impossible. For more
than six years he had conducted government on the theory of peaceable
coercion, and his own friends required that the experiment should be
tried. He was more than willing, he was anxious, to gratify them; and
he believed himself to have solved the difficult problem of stopping
his enemy, while running away from him without loss of dignity and
without the appearance of flight.
General Turreau, after hoping for a time that the government would
accept the necessity of war with England, became more and more bitter
as he watched the decline of the war spirit; and September 4, barely
two months after the assault on the “Chesapeake,” and long before the
disavowal of Berkeley was known, he wrote to Talleyrand a diatribe
against the Americans:[111]--
“If the sentiments of fear and of servile deference for England
with which the inhabitants of the American Union are penetrated,
were not as well known as their indifference for everything which
bears the name of French, what has passed since the attack on the
frigate ‘Chesapeake’ would prove to the most vulgar observer not
only that the Anglo-Americans have remained in reality dependent
on Great Britain, but even that this state of subjection conforms
with their affections as well as with their habits. He will also be
convinced that France has, and will ever have, nothing to hope from
the dispositions of a people that conceives no idea of glory, of
grandeur, of justice; that shows itself the constant enemy of liberal
principles; and that is disposed to suffer every kind of humiliation,
provided it can satisfy both its sordid avarice and its projects of
usurpation over the Floridas.”
Scandalized at the rapid evaporation of American courage, Turreau could
explain it only as due to the natural defects of “a motley people, that
will never have true patriotism, because it has no object of common
interest;” a nation which looked on the most shameless outrages of its
own virtue as only “unfortunate events.” Yet one point remained which,
although to every American it seemed most natural, was incomprehensible
to the Frenchman, whose anger with America was due not so much to the
dependence of the United States on England, as to their independence of
France.
“What will doubtless astonish those who know the Americans but
imperfectly, and what has surprised me myself,--me, who have a very
bad opinion of this people, and who believe it just,--is the aversion
(_éloignement_)--and I soften the word--which it has preserved for the
French at the very moment when everything should recall a glorious and
useful memory. It is hardly to be believed, yet is the exact truth,
that in perhaps five hundred banquets produced by the anniversary of
July 4, and among ten thousand toasts, but one has been offered in
favor of France; and even this was given at an obscure meeting, and
was evidently dictated by Duane.”
Even the Administration press, Turreau complained, had thought proper
to repudiate the idea of a French alliance. From his complaints the
truth could be easily understood. In spite of reason, and in defiance
of every ordinary rule of politics, France possessed in America no
friend, or influence. The conclusion to be drawn was inevitable. If
the United States would not accept the only alliance which could
answer their purpose, England had nothing to fear. “In this state of
affairs and condition of minds, it appears to me difficult to believe
that Congress will take measures vigorous enough to revenge the insult
offered to the Union, and to prevent the renewal of outrages.”
This conclusion was reached by Turreau September 4, while as early as
September 1 the same opinion was expressed by Erskine, the British
minister:[112]
“From all the consideration which I have been able to give to
the present state of things in this country, I am confirmed most
strongly in the opinion which I have ventured to express in my former
despatches, that, although I fear it might be possible for this
government to lead the people into a war with Great Britain on the
point of searching her national armed ships, yet I do not believe
that there are any other grounds which would be powerful enough
to urge them to so dangerous a measure to the political existence
perhaps, but certainly to the general prosperity of this country.”
No two men in America were better informed or more directly interested
than Turreau and Erskine, and they agreed in regarding America as
passive in the hands of England.
During the month of September the news from Europe tended to show
that while England would not sustain the attack on the “Chesapeake,”
she meant to cut off, for her own benefit, another share of American
commerce. The report on the West Indian trade and the debates in
Parliament foreshadowed the enforcement of the so-called Rule of 1756
or some harsher measure. That Congress must in some way resent this
interference with neutral rights was evident, unless America were to
become again a British province. Erskine knew the strength of British
influence too well to fear war; but he warned his Government that no
nation could be expected to endure without protest of some kind the
indignities which the United States daily experienced:[113]--
“I am persuaded that more ill-will has been excited in this country
toward Great Britain by a few trifling illegal captures immediately
off this coast, and some instances of insulting behavior by some of
his Majesty’s naval commanders in the very harbors and waters of the
United States, than by the most rigid enforcement of the maritime
rights of Great Britain in other parts of the world. It may easily
be conceived to be highly grating to the feelings of an independent
nation to perceive that their whole coast is watched as closely
as if it was blockaded, and every ship coming in or going out of
their harbors examined rigorously in sight of the shore, by British
squadrons stationed within their waters.”
Erskine added that the causes of difference were so various as to
make any good understanding improbable, and any commercial treaty
impossible; that the Federalists thought even worse of Monroe’s treaty
than the Government did, which rejected it; and that a great sensation
had been produced by the late Report on the West Indian trade:--
“This point, and his Majesty’s Order in Council to prohibit all
neutral trade from port to port of his Majesty’s enemies,--which,
as you would perceive by Mr. Madison’s letters on the subject,
which have been transmitted to you, has given great offence to this
Government,--together with the other points of difference between
the two countries, particularly that of the impressment of British
seamen out of American ships, will be taken up by Congress upon their
meeting at the close of the present month; and I am fully convinced
that unless some amicable adjustment of these points of dispute should
previously take place, or be in a train to be concluded, a system
of commercial restrictions on the trade of Great Britain with this
country will be immediately formed, and every step short of actual war
taken to show their dissatisfaction.”
Thus, on the eve of the session, the most careful critics agreed that
Congress would avoid war, and would resist England, if at all, by
commercial measures. The President and Madison, Turreau and Erskine,
were united in expecting the same course of events. No one knew that
Napoleon had enforced against American commerce the provisions of his
Berlin Decree. France counted for nothing in the councils of America;
but the conduct of England obliged Congress to offer some protest
against aggression,--and the easiest form of protest was a refusal
to buy what she had to sell. The moment for testing Jefferson’s
statesmanship had come; and at no time since he became President had
his theories of peaceable coercion enjoyed so fair a prospect of
success. Abroad, Napoleon had shut the whole Continent of Europe to
English trade, which was henceforward limited to countries beyond the
seas. If ever England could be coerced by peaceable means, this was the
time; while at home, the prospect was equally favorable, for never in
American history had the authority of the government been so absolute.
Jefferson’s hope of annihilating domestic opposition was nearly
gratified. In the three southernmost States he had never met with
serious attack; beyond the Alleghanies, in Tennessee, Kentucky, and
Ohio, his word was law; in Virginia, John Randolph grew weaker day
by day, and even with Monroe’s aid could not shake the President’s
popularity; Pennsylvania was torn by factions, but none of them
troubled Jefferson; New York, purged of Burr, was divided between
Clintons and Livingstons, who were united in matters of national
policy. The greatest triumph of all was won in Massachusetts, where the
election of April, 1807, after calling out 81,500 voters, resulted in
the choice of the Democrat Sullivan over the head of Governor Strong by
about 42,000 votes against 39,000, and in the return of a Democratic
majority in the State legislature. Connecticut alone of the New England
States held to her old conservative principles; but Connecticut was
powerless without Massachusetts.
Still more decidedly the decline of organized opposition was shown
in the character of the Tenth Congress, which was to meet October
26. Of the old Federalist senators, Plumer of New Hampshire had been
succeeded by a Democrat; J. Q. Adams of Massachusetts had publicly
pledged himself to support any measures of resistance to England;
Tracy of Connecticut--a very able opponent--was dead. Only five
senators could be rallied to partisan opposition on matters of foreign
policy,--Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts; James Hillhouse and
Chauncey Goodrich of Connecticut; James A. Bayard and Samuel White of
Delaware. Pickering, who considered Plumer and Adams as deserters to
the Administration, felt little confidence in Bayard; and the event
proved him right. There were limits to Bayard’s partisanship; but even
had he been willing to abet Pickering, four or five senators could
hope to effect little against a compact majority of twenty-nine.
In the House the whole strength of opposition could not control thirty
votes, while Jefferson was supported by one hundred and ten members
or more. The President was the stronger for Randolph’s departure into
decided opposition, where he could no longer divide and mislead the
majority, but must act as a Federalist or alone. Of the twenty-four
Federalist members, Josiah Quincy was probably the ablest speaker; but
in the energy of his Federalism he was rivalled by two men,--Barent
Gardenier of New York, and Philip Barton Key of Maryland,--who were
likely to injure their cause more than they helped it.
In the country and in Congress, not only was Jefferson supreme, but
his enemies were prostrate. Federalism in New England, for the first
time, lay helpless under his feet; Burr and the “little band” in
New York were crushed; the creoles in New Orleans, and the Western
revolutionists, with Wilkinson at their head, were cowering before
the outburst of patriotism which struck their projects dead. The hand
of government rested heavily on them, and threatened nobler prey.
Even Chief-Justice Marshall felt himself marked for punishment; while
Monroe and Randolph were already under ban of the republic. These were
triumphs which outweighed foreign disasters, and warranted Jefferson in
self-confidence; but they were chiefly due to the undisputed success
of his financial management. Jefferson and Madison, Dearborn and Robert
Smith, might do what they would, so long as they left Gallatin free
to control the results of their experiments; for Gallatin redeemed
the mistakes of his party. Madison’s foreign policy had brought only
trouble to the government; Dearborn’s army had shown itself to be more
dangerous to the Union than to its enemies; Smith’s gunboats were a
laughing-stock; but Gallatin never failed to cover every weak spot in
the Administration, and in October, 1807, the Treasury was profuse of
prosperity. Congress might abolish the salt tax and Mediterranean Fund
alike, and still the customs would yield fourteen millions a year;
while the sales of public lands exceeded 284,000 acres and brought
another half million into the Treasury. December 31, after providing
for all payments of public debt, Gallatin had a balance of seven
millions six hundred thousand dollars on hand. During the Presidency
of Jefferson, twenty-five and a half millions had been paid to redeem
the principal of the public debt, and only the restraints imposed by
the law prevented more rapid redemption. Even in case of war, Gallatin
offered to sustain it for a year without borrowing money or increasing
taxes.
There was the secret of Jefferson’s strength, of his vast popularity,
and of the fate which, without direct act of his, never had failed
to overwhelm his enemies. The American people pardoned everything
except an empty Treasury. No foreign insults troubled them long, and
no domestic incompetence roused their disgust; but they were sensitive
to any taxation which they directly felt. Gallatin atoned for starving
the government by making it rich; and if obliged to endure disgrace and
robbery abroad, he gave the President popularity at home. Conscious
of this reserved strength, the President cared the less for foreign
aggressions. His was, according to theory, the strongest government
on earth; and at worst he had but to withdraw from intercourse with
foreign nations in order to become impregnable to assault. He had no
misgivings as to the result. When he returned, about October 8, from
Monticello to Washington, his only thought was to assert the strength
he felt. Nothing had then been received from England in regard to
the “Chesapeake” negotiation, except Canning’s letter of August 3,
promising 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.” The President justly thought that this letter, though it
disavowed the pretension to search ships of war, held out no sufficient
hope of reparation for the “Chesapeake” outrage; and in writing the
first draft of his Message, he expressed strongly his irritation at the
conduct of England. The draft was sent, as usual, to the members of his
Cabinet, and called out a remonstrance from Gallatin:--
“Instead of being written in the style of the proclamation, which
has been almost universally approved at home and abroad, the Message
appears to me to be rather in the shape of a manifesto, issued against
Great Britain on the eve of a war, than such as the existing undecided
state of affairs seems to require. It may either be construed into a
belief that justice will be denied,--a result not to be anticipated in
an official communication,--or it may be distorted into an eagerness
of seeing matters brought to issue by an appeal to arms.”[114]
In truth, the draft rather showed that Jefferson was ready to see
matters brought to an issue, provided that the issue should not be an
appeal to arms.
A few days later, after Congress met, Gallatin wrote to his wife:--
“The President’s speech was originally more warlike than was
necessary; but I succeeded in getting it neutralized--this between us;
but it was lucky, for Congress is certainly peaceably disposed.”[115]
The situation lay in these few words. Not only Congress but also the
Government and people were peaceably disposed; and between the attitude
of Congress and that of the President was but the difference that the
former knew not what to do, while the latter had a fixed policy to
impose. “I observe among the members,” wrote a non-partisan senator,
“great embarrassment, alarm, anxiety, and confusion of mind, but no
preparation for any measure of vigor, and an obvious strong disposition
to yield all that Great Britain may require, to preserve peace under
a thin external show of dignity and bravery.”[116] In such a state
of minds, and with such a reserve of popular authority, President
Jefferson’s power found no restraint.
FOOTNOTES:
[106] Macon to Nicholson, Dec. 2, 1807; Nicholson MSS.
[107] Pickering to Thomas Fitzsimons, Dec. 4, 1807; Pickering MSS.
[108] Diary of J. Q. Adams, May 23, 1824, vi. 348.
[109] Sir James Craig to Lieutenant-Governor Gore, Dec. 6, 1807;
Colonial Correspondence, Canada, 1807, 1808, vol. i., MSS. British
Archives.
[110] Jefferson to T. J. Randolph, Nov. 24, 1808; Works, v. 388.
[111] Turreau to Talleyrand, Sept. 4, 1807; Archives des Aff. Étr. MSS.
[112] Erskine to Canning, Sept. 1, 1807; MSS. British Archives.
[113] Erskine to Canning, Oct. 5, 1807; MSS. British Archives.
[114] Gallatin to Jefferson, Oct. 21, 1807; Gallatin’s Writings, i. 853.
[115] Adams’s Gallatin, p. 363.
[116] Diary of J. Q. Adams, Nov. 17, 1807; i. 476.