GALLATIN and Bayard, having sailed from the Delaware May 9, arrived
at St. Petersburg July 21, only to find that during the six months
since the Czar offered to mediate, Russia had advanced rapidly in
every direction except that of the proposed mediation. Napoleon
after being driven from Russia in December, 1812, passed the winter
in Paris organizing a new army of three hundred thousand men on the
Elbe, between Dresden and Magdeburg, while a second army of more than
one hundred thousand was to hold Hamburg and Bremen. Russia could not
prevent Napoleon from reconstructing a force almost as powerful as that
with which he had marched to Moscow, for the Russian army had suffered
very severely and was unfit for active service; but the Czar succeeded
in revolutionizing Prussia, and in forcing the French to retire from
the Vistula to the Elbe, while he gained a reinforcement of more than
one hundred thousand men from the fresh and vigorous Prussian army.
Even with that assistance the Czar could not cope with Napoleon, who,
leaving Paris April 17, during the month of May fought furious battles
at Lützen and Bautzen, which forced the allied Russian and Prussian
armies back from the Elbe to the Oder.
At that point Austria interfered so energetically as to oblige Napoleon
to accept an armistice for the purpose of collecting new forces. During
the armistice the Czar stationed himself at Gitschin in Bohemia, nine
hundred miles from St. Petersburg, and about the same distance from
London by the path that couriers were obliged to take. When Gallatin
and Bayard reached St. Petersburg, July 21, the armistice, which had
been prolonged until August 10, was about to expire, and the Czar could
not be anxious to decide subordinate questions until the issue of the
coming campaign should be known.
Meanwhile the government of England had in May, with many friendly
expressions, declined the Russian mediation.[441] Castlereagh probably
hoped that this quiet notification to Lieven, the Russian envoy in
London, would end the matter; but toward the month of July news reached
London that the American commissioners, Gallatin and Bayard, had
arrived at Gothenburg on their way to Russia, and Castlereagh then
saw that he must be more explicit in his refusal. Accordingly he took
measures for making the matter clear not only to the Russian government
but also to the American commissioners.
With the Russian government he was obliged by the nature of their
common relations to communicate officially, and he wrote instructions
to Lord Cathcart, dated July 5, directing communication to be made.
“I am afraid,” said Castlereagh’s letter,[442] “this tender of
mediation which on a question of maritime right cannot be listened
to by Great Britain, however kindly and liberally intended, will
have had the unfortunate effect of protracting the war with the
United States. It is to be lamented that the formal offer was made
to America before the disposition of the British government was
previously sounded as to its acceptance of a mediation. It has
enabled the President to hold out to the people of America a vague
expectation of peace, under which he may reconcile them with less
repugnance to submit to the measures of the Government. This evil,
however, cannot now be avoided, and it only remains to prevent this
question from producing any embarrassment between Great Britain and
Russia.”
Embarrassment between Great Britain and Russia was no new thing in
European politics, and commonly involved maritime objects for which
the United States were then fighting. Castlereagh had much reason
for wishing to avoid the danger. The most fortunate result he could
reasonably expect from the coming campaign was a defeat of Bonaparte
that should drive him back to the Rhine. Then Russia and Austria would
probably offer terms to Napoleon; England would be obliged to join in
a European Congress; Napoleon would raise the question of maritime
rights, and on that point he would be supported by Russian sympathies.
Napoleon and Russia might insist that the United States should take
part in the Congress, and in that case England might be obliged to
retire from it. Castlereagh felt uneasy at the prospect, and ordered
Cathcart to “press the Emperor of Russia in the strongest manner not
to push his personal interference on this point further.” Cathcart
was to use his utmost endeavors to persuade the Czar “pointedly to
discountenance a design so mischievously calculated to promote the
views of France.”
Another week of reflection only increased Castlereagh’s anxieties, and
caused the British government to take a step intended to leave the Czar
no opening for interference. July 13 Castlereagh wrote Cathcart new
instructions,[443] directing him to present a formal note acquainting
the Czar that the Prince Regent was “ready immediately to name
plenipotentiaries to meet and treat with the American plenipotentiaries
in the earnest desire” of peace, either in London or at Gothenburg;
although he could “not consent that these discussions should be carried
on in any place which might be supposed to imply that they were in
any way connected with any other negotiations.” He wrote privately to
Cathcart that the mere knowledge of the intervention of a third power
in any arrangement with the United States would probably decide the
British people against it.[444]
Thus in July, 1813, when the war was barely a year old, Castlereagh
reached the point of offering to negotiate directly with the United
States. This advantage was gained by the Russian offer of mediation,
and was intended not to pacify America but to silence Alexander and
Roumanzoff. Castlereagh was frank and prompt in his declarations.
His offer of direct negotiation was dated July 13, at a time when
Alexander Baring received a letter from Gallatin announcing his arrival
at Gothenburg and inviting assistance for the proposed mediation.
Baring consulted Castlereagh, and wrote, July 22, a long letter to
Gallatin, to inform the American commissioners what the British
government had done and was willing to do. “Before this reaches you,”
said Baring,[445] “you will have been informed that this mediation
has been refused, with expressions of our desire to treat separately
and directly here; or, if more agreeable to you, at Gothenburg.”
To leave no room for misunderstanding, Baring added that if the
American commissioners were obliged by their instructions to adhere
pertinaciously to the American demands in respect to impressments, he
should think negotiation useless.
In regular succession all these expressions of British policy were
received at St. Petersburg in the Czar’s absence, and in the doubtful
state of mind which followed the battles of Lützen and Bautzen.
Alexander had left Count Roumanzoff at St. Petersburg, continuing to
act as Chancellor of the Empire and Foreign Secretary; but in truth
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as far as the Czar then required such
an officer, was Count Nesselrode, who attended Alexander in person and
received his orders orally. Nesselrode at that time was rather an agent
than an adviser; but in general he represented the English alliance and
hostility to Napoleon, while Roumanzoff represented the French alliance
and hostility to England.
Of English diplomacy Americans knew something, and could by similarity
of mind divine what was not avowed. Of French diplomacy they had long
experience, and their study was rendered from time to time more easy
by Napoleon’s abrupt methods. Of Russian diplomacy they knew little
or nothing. Thus far Minister Adams had been given his own way. He
had been allowed to seem to kindle the greatest war of modern times,
and had been invited to make use of Russia against England; but the
Czar’s reasons for granting such favor were mysterious even to Adams,
for while Napoleon occasionally avowed motives, Alexander never did.
Russian diplomacy moved wholly in the dark.
Only one point was certain. For reasons of his own, the Czar chose
to leave Roumanzoff nominally in office until the result of the war
should be decided, although Roumanzoff was opposed to the Czar’s
policy. The chancellor did not stand alone in his hostility to the war;
probably a majority of the Russian people shared the feeling. Even the
army and its old General Koutousoff, though elated with an immense
triumph, grumbled at being obliged to fight the battles of Germany,
and would gladly have returned to their own soil. The Czar himself
could not afford to break his last tie with the French interest, but
was wise to leave a path open by which he could still retreat in case
his war in Germany failed. If Napoleon should succeed once more in
throwing the Russian army back upon Russian soil, Alexander might still
be obliged to use Roumanzoff’s services if not to resume his policy.
Such a suspicion might not wholly explain Alexander’s course toward
Roumanzoff and Koutousoff, but no one could doubt that it explained
the chancellor’s course toward the Czar. Indeed, Roumanzoff made
little concealment of his situation or his hopes. Adams could without
much difficulty divine that the failure of the Czar in Germany would
alone save Roumanzoff in St. Petersburg, and that the restoration of
Roumanzoff to power was necessary to reinvigorate the mediation.
Castlereagh’s first positive refusal to accept the mediation was
notified to Count Lieven in May, and was known to Roumanzoff in St.
Petersburg about the middle of June. Early in July the Czar received
it, and by his order Nesselrode, in a despatch to Lieven dated July
9, expressed “the perfect satisfaction which his Imperial Majesty felt
in the reasons which actuated the conduct of this [British] government
on a point of so much delicacy and importance.”[446] The Czar was then
in the midst of difficulties. The result of the war was doubtful, and
depended on Austria.
Just as news of the armistice arrived in St. Petersburg, Minister Adams
went to Roumanzoff, June 22, to inform him of Gallatin’s and Bayard’s
appointment. Roumanzoff in return gave Adams explicit information
of England’s refusal to accept the Czar’s offer. Adams immediately
recorded it in his Diary:[447]--
“He [Roumanzoff] said that he was very sorry to say he had
received since he had seen me [June 15] further despatches from
Count Lieven, stating that the British government, with many
very friendly and polite assurances that there was no mediation
which they should so readily and cheerfully accept as that of the
Emperor of Russia, had however stated that their differences with
the United States of America involving certain principles of the
internal government of England were of a nature which they did not
think suitable to be settled by a mediation.”
Adams expected this answer, and at once assumed it to be final;
but Roumanzoff checked him. “It would now be for consideration,”
he continued, “whether, after the step thus taken by the American
government [in sending commissioners to St. Petersburg], it would not
be advisable to renew the proposition to Great Britain; upon which he
should write to the Emperor.” Not because of any American request, but
wholly of his own motion, Roumanzoff proposed to keep the mediation
alive. His motives were for Adams to fathom. The chancellor did not
avow them, but he hinted to Adams that the chances of war were many.
“Perhaps it might be proper not to be discouraged by the ill success
of his first advances. After considerations might produce more pacific
dispositions in the British government. Unexpected things were
happening every day; ‘and in our own affairs,’ said the count, ‘a very
general report prevails that an armistice has taken place.’” A Congress
had been proposed, and the United States were expressly named among the
Powers to be invited to it.
Adams reported this conversation to his Government in a despatch dated
June 26,[448] and waited for his two new colleagues, who arrived July
21. Personally the colleagues were agreeable to Adams, and the proposed
negotiation was still more so, for the President sent him official
notice that in case the negotiations were successful, Adams’s services
would be required as minister in London; but with the strongest
inducements to press the mediation, Adams could not but see that he and
his colleagues depended on Roumanzoff, and that Roumanzoff depended
not on Alexander, but on Napoleon. Roumanzoff’s only chance of aiding
them was by clinging to office until the Czar should be weary of war.
Unwilling as Gallatin was to be thus made the sport of imperial policy,
he was obliged, like his colleagues, to submit. Two days after their
arrival, Roumanzoff told them that he meant, if possible, to begin the
whole transaction anew.
“The count said he regretted much that there was such reason
to believe the British would decline the mediation; but on
transmitting the copy of the credential letter to the Emperor, he
would determine whether to renew the proposal, as the opposition in
England might make it an embarrassing charge against the Ministry
if they should under such circumstances reject it.”[449]
Roumanzoff had written soon after June 22 to ask the Czar whether,
on the arrival of the American commissioners, the offer of mediation
should be renewed. The Czar, overwhelmed with business, wrote back,
about July 20, approving Roumanzoff’s suggestion, and authorizing him
to send a despatch directly to Count Lieven in London renewing the
offer. The Czar’s letter was communicated to Adams August 10[450] by
Roumanzoff, who was evidently much pleased and perhaps somewhat excited
by it.
Such a letter warranted some excitement, for Roumanzoff could regard it
only as a sign of hesitation and anxiety. Alexander was in a degree
pledged to England to press the mediation no further. While he assured
England through Nesselrode, July 9, that he was perfectly satisfied
with the British reasons for refusing his offer of mediation “on a
point of so much delicacy and importance,” he authorized Roumanzoff
only ten days afterward to annoy England a second time with an offer
which he had every reason to know must be rejected; and he did this
without informing Nesselrode.
Gallatin and Bayard found themselves, August 10, condemned to
wait two or three months for the British answer, which they knew
must be unfavorable, because Gallatin received August 17 Baring’s
letter announcing the determination of Castlereagh to negotiate
separately. Roumanzoff’s conduct became more and more mysterious to
the commissioners. He did not notify them of Castlereagh’s official
offer to negotiate directly. He confounded Adams, August 19, by flatly
denying his own information, given two months before, that England
rejected mediation in principle because it involved doctrines of
her internal government. Roumanzoff insisted that England had never
refused to accept the mediation, although he held in his hands at least
two despatches from Lieven, written as late as July 13, officially
communicating England’s determination to negotiate directly or not
at all. Castlereagh, foreseeing the possibility of misunderstanding,
had read to Lieven the instructions of July 13 for communication to
Roumanzoff, besides authorizing Cathcart to show them _in extenso_
to the Czar.[451] In denying that such instructions had been given,
Roumanzoff could not have expected the American commissioners to
believe him.
The motive of Roumanzoff’s persistence might be open to the simple
explanation that the chancellor hoped to recover power, and within
a few months to re-establish his policy of antagonism to England.
Alexander’s conduct could be explained by no such obvious interest.
When Castlereagh’s letters of July 13 and 14 reached Cathcart at the
Czar’s headquarters in Bohemia about August 10, they arrived at the
most critical moment of the war. On that day the armistice expired.
The next day Austria declared war on Napoleon. The combined armies
of Russia, Prussia, and Austria concentrated behind the mountains,
and then marched into Saxony. While starting on that campaign, August
20, the Czar was told by Lord Cathcart the reasons why his offer of
mediation was rejected, and answered at once that in this case he could
do nothing more.[452] Cathcart wrote to Nesselrode a formal note on
the subject August 23 or 24, but did not at once communicate it,[453]
because the campaign had then begun; the great battle of Dresden was
fought August 26 and 27, and the allies, again beaten, retired into
Bohemia August 28. The Czar saw his best military adviser Moreau
killed by his side at Dresden, and he returned to Töplitz in no happy
frame of mind.
At Töplitz, September 1, Cathcart delivered to Nesselrode his formal
note,[454] refusing Russian mediation and communicating the offer of
England to negotiate directly. In an ordinary condition of government
Nesselrode should have taken care that the British note should be made
known without delay to the American commissioners at St. Petersburg,
but the Czar kept in his own hands the correspondence with Roumanzoff
and the Americans, and neither he nor Nesselrode communicated
Cathcart’s act to Roumanzoff.[455] Possibly their silence was due to
the new military movements. August 29 the French marshal Vandamme
with forty thousand men, pursuing the allies into Bohemia, was caught
between the Prussians and Austrians August 30 and crushed. During the
month of September severe fighting, favorable to the allies, occurred,
but no general advance was made by the allied sovereigns.
Alexander next received at Töplitz toward September 20 a letter from
Roumanzoff enclosing a renewal of the offer of mediation, to be
proposed in a despatch to Lieven, read by Roumanzoff to the American
commissioners August 24, and sent to London August 28. The Czar must
have known the futility of this new step, as well as the mistake
into which Roumanzoff had been led, and the awkward attitude of the
American commissioners. Only a fortnight before, he had received
Cathcart’s official note, and a few days earlier he had assured
Cathcart that he should do no more in the matter. Yet, September 20,
Alexander wrote with his own hand a note of four lines to Roumanzoff,
approving his despatch to Lieven, and begging him to follow up the
affair as he had begun it.[456]
The Czar’s letter of September 20 completed the embroglio, which
remained unintelligible to every one except himself. Cathcart was the
most mystified of all the victims to the Czar’s double attitude. At the
time when Alexander thus for the second time authorized Roumanzoff to
disregard the express entreaties of the British government, Cathcart
was making an effort to explain to Castlereagh the Czar’s first
interference. If Castlereagh understood his minister’s ideas, he was
gifted with more than common penetration.
“I believe the not communicating the rescript of the Emperor
concerning the American plenipotentiaries to have been the effect
of accident,” wrote Cathcart[457] from Töplitz September 25; “but
what is singular is that notwithstanding his [Nesselrode’s] letter
of the ninth [July], by the Emperor’s command, to Count Lieven,
this communication from and instruction to Roumanzoff was not known
to Count Nesselrode till this day, when I mentioned it to him,
having received no caution to do otherwise, and he was not at all
pleased with it. It was during the advance to Dresden. But I cannot
help thinking that there must have been some policy of Roumanzoff’s
stated in regard to keeping hold of the mediation, which,
whether it was detailed or not, would not escape the Emperor’s
penetration, and upon which he may have been induced to act as far
as sanctioning the proposal of treating at _London_ under Russia’s
mediation, which the Prince Regent’s government might accept or
reject as they pleased; and that not wishing to go at that time
into a discussion of maritime rights with either Nesselrode or me,
he afterward forgot it.”
Cathcart’s style was involved, but his perplexity was evident. His
remarks related only to the Czar’s first letter to Roumanzoff, written
about July 20, not “during the advance to Dresden.” He knew nothing of
the Czar’s second letter to Roumanzoff, dated September 20, renewing
the same authority, only five days before Cathcart’s labored attempt
to explain the first. Of the second letter, as of the first, neither
Nesselrode nor Cathcart was informed.
The Czar’s motive in thus ordering each of his two ministers to act
in ignorance and contradiction of the other’s instructions perplexed
Roumanzoff as it did Cathcart. Lieven first revealed to Roumanzoff
the strange misunderstanding by positively refusing to present to
Castlereagh the chancellor’s note of August 28 renewing the offer of
mediation. Roumanzoff was greatly mortified. He told Gallatin that
the mediation had been originally the Czar’s own idea; that it had
been the subject of repeated discussions at his own motion, and had
been adopted notwithstanding Roumanzoff’s hints at the possibility
of English reluctance.[458] The chancellor sent Lieven’s despatch
immediately to the Czar without comment, requesting the Czar to read
it and give his orders. The British officials, unwilling to blame
Alexander, attacked Roumanzoff. Lord Walpole, who came directly from
Bohemia to St. Petersburg to act as British ambassador, said “he was
as sure as he was of his own existence, and he believed he could prove
it, that Roumanzoff had been cheating us all.”[459] Cathcart wrote,
December 12, to Castlereagh,--
“I think Nesselrode knows nothing of the delay of communicating
with the American mission; that it was an intrigue of the
chancellor’s, if it is one; and that during the operations of
war the Emperor lost the clew to it, so that something has been
unanswered.”[460]
Perhaps the Czar’s conduct admitted of several interpretations. He
might wish to keep the mediation alive in order to occupy Roumanzoff
until the campaign should be decided; or he might in his good nature
prefer to gratify his old favorite by allowing him to do what he
wished; or he took this method of signifying to Roumanzoff his disgrace
and the propriety of immediate retirement. Apparently Roumanzoff took
the last view, for he sent his resignation to the Czar, and at the
close of the year quitted his official residence at the Department of
Foreign Affairs, telling Gallatin that he remained in office only till
he should receive authority to close the American mission.
The American commissioners in private resented Alexander’s treatment,
but were unable to leave Russia without authority. Gallatin learned,
October 19, that the Senate had refused to confirm his appointment, but
he remained at St. Petersburg, chiefly in deference to Roumanzoff’s
opinion, and probably with ideas of assisting the direct negotiation at
London or elsewhere. Meanwhile the campaign was decided, October 18, by
Napoleon’s decisive overthrow at Leipzig, which forced him to retreat
behind the Rhine. Still the Czar wrote nothing to Roumanzoff, and the
American commissioners remained month after month at St. Petersburg.
Not until Jan. 25, 1814, did Gallatin and Bayard begin their winter
journey to Amsterdam, where they arrived March 4 and remained a month.
Then Gallatin received, through Baring, permission to enter England,
and crossed the Channel to hasten if he could the direct negotiation
which Castlereagh had offered and Madison accepted.
The diplomatic outlook had changed since March, 1813, when the
President accepted the offer of Russian mediation; but the change was
wholly for the worse. England’s triumphs girdled the world, and found
no check except where Perry’s squadron blocked the way to Detroit.
The allied armies crossed the Rhine in December and entered France
on the east. At the same time Wellington after a long campaign drove
Joseph from Spain, and entering France from the south pressed against
Bordeaux. The government and people of England, in their excitement and
exultation at daily conquests, thought as little as they could of the
American war. Society rarely mentioned it. Newspapers alone preserved
a record of British feelings toward the United States during the year
1813. The expressions of newspapers, like those of orators, could not
be accepted without allowance, for they aimed at producing some desired
effect, and said either more or less than the truth; as a rule, they
represented the cool opinion neither of the person who uttered nor
of the audience who heard them; but in the absence of other records,
public opinion was given only in the press, and the London newspapers
alone furnished evidence of its character.
The “Morning Chronicle”--the only friend of the United States in the
daily press of England--showed its friendship by silence. Whatever the
liberal opposition thought in private, no one but Cobbett ventured
in public to oppose the war. Cobbett having become a radical at the
time of life when most men become conservative, published in his
“Weekly Register” many columns of vigorous criticism on the American
war without apparent effect, although in truth he expressed opinions
commonly held by intelligent people. Even Lord Castlereagh, Cobbett’s
antipathy, shared some of Cobbett’s least popular opinions in the
matter of the American war.
English society, whatever shades of diversity might exist, was frank
and free in expressing indifference or contempt. Of the newspapers
which made a duty of reflecting what was believed to be the prevailing
public opinion, the “Times,” supposed to favor the interests of
Wellesley and Canning, was probably the ablest. During the early part
of the war, the “Times” showed a disposition to criticise the Ministry
rather than the Americans. From the “Times” came most of the bitter
complaints, widely copied by the American press, of the naval defeats
suffered by the “Guerriere,” the “Java,” and the “Macedonian.” British
successes were belittled, and abuse of Americans was exaggerated, in
order to deprive ministers of credit. “The world has seen President
Madison plunge into a war from the basest motives, and conduct it
with the most entire want of ability,” said the “Times” of February
9, 1813. “The American government has sounded the lowest depth of
military disgrace, insomuch that the official records of the campaign
take from us all possibility of exulting in our victories over such an
enemy.” The “Times” found in such reflections a reason for not exulting
in ministerial victories, but it bewailed defeats the more loudly,
and annoyed the Ministry by the violence of its attacks on naval
administration.
As the year passed, and England’s triumph in Europe seemed to
overshadow the world, the “Times,” probably recognizing the uselessness
of attacking the Ministry, showed worse temper toward the United
States. The Americans were rarely mentioned, and always with language
of increasing ill humor. “Despicable in the cabinet, ridiculous in the
field,”[461] the Americans disappeared from sight in the splendor of
victory at Vittoria and Leipzig. No wish for peace was suggested, and
if the “Times” expressed the true feelings of the respectable middle
class, as it was supposed to aim at doing, no wish for peace could be
supposed to exist.
Of the ministerial papers the “Courier” was the best, and of course was
emphatic in support of the American war. The Ministry were known to
be lukewarm about the United States, and for that reason they thought
themselves obliged to talk in public as strongly as the strongest
against a peace. When the Russian mediation called for notice, May 13,
the “Courier” at once declared against it:--
“Before the war commenced, concession might have been proper; we
always thought it unwise. But the hour of concession and compromise
is passed. America has rushed unnecessarily and unnaturally
into war, and she must be made to feel the effects of her folly
and injustice; peace must be the consequence of punishment, and
retraction of her insolent demands must precede negotiation. The
thunders of our cannon must first strike terror into the American
shores.”
The “Courier” felt that Americans were not Englishmen, and could not
forgive it, but was unable to admit that they might still exercise a
considerable influence on human affairs:--
“They have added nothing to literature, nothing to any of
the sciences; they have not produced one good poet, not one
celebrated historian! Their statesmen are of a mixed breed,--half
metaphysicians, half politicians; all the coldness of the one with
all the cunning of the other. Hence we never see anything enlarged
in their conceptions or grand in their measures.”[462]
These reasons were hardly sufficient to prove the right of impressing
American seamen. The literary, metaphysical, or social qualities
of Americans, their “enlarged conceptions,” and the grandeur or
littleness of their measures, had by common consent ceased to enter
into discussion, pending a settlement of the simpler issue, whether
Americans could fight. For a long time the English press encouraged the
belief that Americans were as incapable of fighting as of producing
poets and historians. Their naval victories were attributed to British
seamen. Perhaps the first turn of the tide was in November, 1813,
when news of Perry’s victory on Lake Erie crossed in London the news
of Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig. Perry’s victory, like those of Hull,
Decatur, and Bainbridge, was too complete for dispute: “It may,
however, serve to diminish our vexation at this occurrence to learn
that the flotilla in question was not any branch of the British navy,
... but a local force, a kind of mercantile military.”[463]
By a curious coincidence, Castlereagh’s official letter to Monroe,
offering direct negotiation, was dated the same day, November 4,
when news of the victory at Leipzig met in London news of the defeat
on Lake Erie, and Castlereagh probably meant to allow no newspaper
prejudices to obstruct a peace; but public opinion was slow to recover
its balance. When news arrived that the Americans had captured Malden,
recovered Detroit, and destroyed Proctor’s army on the Thames, the
“Courier” showed the first symptom of change in opinion by expressing a
somewhat simple-minded wish to hear no more about the Americans:--
“The intelligence is unpleasant, but we confess that we do not
view, and have never from the beginning of the war viewed, the
events in America with any very powerful interest. The occurrences
in Europe will no doubt produce a very decisive effect upon the
American government; and unless it is more obstinate and stupid
in its hostility than even _we_ think it, it will do as the other
allies of Bonaparte have done,--abandon him.”
If the national extravagance could be expected to show its full force
in one direction rather than in another, naturalized Americans taken
in arms were certain to produce it. The issue was regularly raised
after Van Rensselaer’s defeat at Queenston in 1812. When the American
prisoners arrived at Quebec, they were mustered, and twenty-three
native-born subjects of Great Britain, belonging to the First, Sixth,
and Thirteenth U. S. Infantry, were taken from the ranks and shipped to
England to be put on trial as British subjects for bearing arms against
their king. The American agent in London reported to the President that
the men had arrived there for the reason given. Secretary Armstrong,
May 15, 1813, then ordered twenty-three British soldiers into close
confinement as hostages. The British government directed Sir George
Prevost to put double the number of Americans in close confinement,
and Sir George, in giving notice of this measure to General Wilkinson,
October 17, 1813,[464] added:--
“I have been further instructed by his Majesty’s government to
notify to you for the information of the government of the United
States that the commanders of his Majesty’s armies and fleets on
the coasts of America have received instructions to prosecute
the war with unmitigated severity against all cities, towns,
and villages belonging to the United States, and against the
inhabitants thereof, if, after this communication shall have been
made to you, and a reasonable time given for its being transmitted
to the American government, that government shall unhappily not be
deterred from putting to death any of the soldiers who now are or
who may hereafter be kept as hostages for the purposes stated in
the letter from Major-General Dearborn.”
The limit of retaliation was soon reached, for the number of prisoners
was small on both sides. The British government somewhat carefully
refrained from committing itself too far; but the press treated the
matter as though it were vital.
“If Mr. Madison,” said the “Courier” of July 24, “dare to retaliate
by taking away the life of one English prisoner in revenge for a
British subject fully proved to be such being taken in the act of
voluntarily bearing arms against his country, America puts herself
out of the protection of the law of nations, and must be treated
as an outlaw. An army and navy acting against her will then be
absolved from all obligation to respect the usages and laws of war.
Hostilities may be carried on against her in any mode until she is
brought to a proper sense of her conduct.”
The “Morning Post” of December 28 called for the execution of British
subjects taken in arms, and for retaliation on retaliation in defiance
of “the brutal wretches who, after betraying, are still suffered
to govern America.” The “Times” of May 24 spoke with hardly less
vehemence. Probably such talk was not shared by the government, for
the government never tested its sincerity by bringing the men to
trial; but at the close of 1813 public opinion in England was supposed
to be tending toward extreme measures against the United States. The
approaching fall of Napoleon threatened to throw America outside the
pale of civilization. Englishmen seemed ready to accept the idea that
Madison and Napoleon should be coupled together, and that no peace
should be made which did not include the removal of both from office
and power. Of all periods in American history this was probably the
least adapted to negotiation, but while England was at the moment of
her most extravagant sense of power, President Madison received and
accepted Castlereagh’s offer to negotiate, and Gallatin went with
Bayard to London to hasten the approach of peace.