a limited time. You must also have been aware at the time of
   making the agreement that the American government had in fact
   formally exempted Holland, a Power which has unquestionably
   ‘adopted and acted under the Decrees of France,’ from the
   operation of the Non-intercourse Act,--an exemption in direct
   contravention of the condition prescribed to you, and which of
   itself ought to have prevented you from coming to any agreement
   whatever.”

Here, again, sufficient reasons were given for punishing Erskine; but
these reasons were not equally good for repudiating the compact with
the United States. No American vessels could enter a Dutch port so long
as the British blockade lasted; therefore the exemption of Holland
from the non-intercourse affected England only by giving to her navy
another chance for booty, and to the Americans one more empty claim.
Canning himself explained to Pinkney[73] “that the exemption of Holland
from the effect of our embargo and non-intercourse would not have
been much objected to by the British government” if the President had
been willing to pledge himself to enforce the non-intercourse against
France; but for aught that appeared to the contrary, “the embargo and
non-intercourse laws might be suffered without any breach of faith
to expire, or might even be repealed immediately, notwithstanding
the perseverance of France in her Berlin and other edicts; and that
Mr. Erskine had in truth secured nothing more, as the consideration
of the recall of the Orders in Council, than the renewal of American
intercourse with Great Britain.”

Thus Canning justified the repudiation of Erskine’s arrangement by the
single reason that the United States government could not be trusted
long enough to prove its good faith. The explanation was difficult
to express in courteous or diplomatic forms; but perhaps its most
striking quality, next to its want of courtesy, was its evident want
of candor. Had the American government evaded its obligation, the
British government held the power of redress in its own hands. Clearly
the true explanation was to be sought elsewhere, in some object which
Canning could not put in diplomatic words, but which lay in the nature
of Perceval’s system. Even during the three days while the decision
was supposed to be in doubt, alarmed merchants threw themselves in
crowds on the Board of Trade, protesting that if American vessels with
their cheaper sugar, cotton, and coffee were allowed to enter Amsterdam
and Antwerp, British trade was at an end.[74] The mere expectation of
their arrival would create such a fall in prices as to make worthless
the accumulated mass of such merchandise with which the warehouses
were filled, not only in London, but also in the little island of
Heligoland at the mouth of the Elbe, where a system of licensed and
unlicensed smuggling had been established under the patronage of the
Board of Trade. Deputations of these merchants waited on Earl Bathurst
to represent the danger of allowing even those American ships to enter
Holland which might have already sailed from the United States on
the faith of Erskine’s arrangement. Somewhat unexpectedly ministers
refused to gratify this prayer. An Order in Council of May 24, while
announcing the Royal repudiation of Erskine’s arrangement, declared
that American vessels which should have cleared for Holland between
April 19 and July 20 would not be molested in their voyage.

The chief objection to Erskine’s arrangement, apart from its effect on
British merchants, consisted in the danger that by its means America
might compel France to withdraw her decrees affecting neutrals. The
chance that Erskine’s arrangement might involve America in war with
Napoleon was not worth the equal chance of its producing in the end
an amicable arrangement with Napoleon which would sacrifice the
last defence of British commerce and manufactures. Had the British
government given way, Napoleon, to whom the most solemn pledges cost
nothing, would certainly persuade President Madison to lean once more
toward France. The habit of balancing the belligerents--the first rule
of American diplomacy--required the incessant see-saw of interest. So
many unsettled questions remained open that British ministers could not
flatter themselves with winning permanent American favor by partial
concession.

To Canning’s despatch repudiating the commercial arrangement, Erskine
made a reply showing more keenness and skill than was to be found in
Canning’s criticism.

   “It appears from the general tenor of your despatches,” wrote
   Erskine[75] on receiving these letters of May 22 and 23, “that
   his Majesty’s government were not willing to trust to assurances
   from the American government, but that official pledges were to
   have been required which could not be given for want of power,
   some of them also being of a nature which would prevent a formal
   recognition. Had I believed that his Majesty’s government were
   determined to insist upon these conditions being complied with
   in one particular manner only, I should have adhered implicitly
   to my instructions; but as I collected from them that his
   Majesty was desirous of accomplishing his retaliatory system by
   such means as were most compatible with a good understanding
   with friendly and neutral Powers, I felt confident that his
   Majesty would approve of the arrangement I had concluded as
   one likely to lead to a cordial and complete understanding
   and co-operation on the part of the United States, which
   co-operation never could be obtained by previous stipulations
   either from the government of the United States, who have no
   power to accede to them, or from Congress, which would never
   acknowledge them as recognitions to guide their conduct.”

This reply, respectful in form, placed Secretary Canning in the dilemma
between the guilt of ignorance or that of bad faith; but the rejoinder
of a dismissed diplomatist weighed little except in history, and long
before it was made public Erskine and his arrangement had ceased
to interest the world. Canning disposed of both forever by a third
despatch, dated May 30, enclosing to Erskine an Order in Council
disavowing his arrangement and ordering him back to England.

When the official disavowal appeared in the newspapers of May 25,
Canning had an interview with Pinkney.[76] At great length and
with much detail he read the instructions he had given to Erskine,
and commented on the points in which Erskine had violated them. He
complained of unfriendly expressions in the American notes; but he
did not say why the arrangement failed to satisfy all the legitimate
objects of England, nor did he suggest any improvement or change which
would make the arrangement, as it existed, agreeable to him. On the
other hand, he announced that though Erskine would have to be recalled,
his successor was already appointed and would sail for America within a
few days.

If Canning showed, by his indulgence to American vessels and his haste
to send out a new minister, the wish to avoid a rupture with the United
States, his selection of an agent for that purpose was so singular as
to suggest that he relied on terror rather than on conciliation. In
case Erskine had obeyed his instructions, which ordered him merely
to prepare the way for negotiation, Canning had fixed upon George
Henry Rose as the negotiator.[77] Considering the impression left in
America by Rose on his previous mission, his appointment seemed almost
the worst that could have been made; but bad as the effect of such a
selection would have been, one man, and perhaps only one, in England
was certain to make a worse; and him Canning chose. The new minister
was Francis James Jackson. Whatever good qualities Jackson possessed
were overshadowed by the reputation he had made for himself at
Copenhagen. His name was a threat of violence; his temper and manners
were notorious; and nothing but his rank in the service marked him as
suitable for the post. Pinkney, whose self-control and tact in these
difficult circumstances could hardly be too much admired, listened in
silence to Canning’s announcement, and rather than risk making the
situation worse, reported that Jackson was, he believed, “a worthy man,
and although completely attached to all those British principles and
doctrines which sometimes give us trouble will, _I should hope_,
give satisfaction.” The English press was not so forbearing. The
“Morning Chronicle” of May 29 said that the appointment had excited
general surprise, owing to “the character of the individual;” and
Pinkney himself, in a later despatch, warned his Government that “it
is rather a prevailing notion here that this gentleman’s conduct will
not and cannot be what we all wish, and that a better choice might have
been made.”[78]

Jackson himself sought the position, knowing its difficulties. May
23, the day of his appointment, he wrote privately to his brother in
Spain: “I am about to enter upon a most delicate--I _hope_ not
desperate--enterprise.”[79] At a later time, embittered by want of
support from home, he complained that Canning had sent him on an errand
which he knew to be impossible to perform.[80] So well understood
between Canning and Jackson was the nature of the service, that Jackson
asked and received as a condition of his acceptance the promise that
his employment should last not less than twelve months.[81] The
delicate enterprise of which he spoke could have been nothing more than
that of preventing a rupture between England and America; but until he
studied his instructions, he could hardly have known in its full extent
how desperate this undertaking would be.

Canning made no haste. Nearly two months elapsed before Jackson
sailed. After correcting Erskine’s mistake and replacing the United
States in their position under the Orders in Council of April 26,
Canning, June 13, made a statement to the House of Commons. Declining
to touch questions of general policy for the reason that negotiations
were pending, he contented himself with satisfying the House that
Erskine had acted contrary to instructions and deserved recall. James
Stephen showed more clearly the spirit of Government by avowing the
opinion “that America in all her proceedings had no wish to promote
an impartial course with respect to France and this country.” The
Whigs knew little or nothing of the true facts; Erskine’s conduct
could not be defended; no one cared to point out that Canning left to
America no dignified course but war, and public interest was once more
concentrated with painful anxiety on the continent of Europe. America
dropped from sight, and Canning’s last and worst acts toward the United
States escaped notice or knowledge.

The session of Parliament ended June 21, a week before the special
session of Congress came to an end; and while England waited
impatiently for news from Vienna, where Napoleon was making ready for
the battle of Wagram, Canning drew up the instructions to Jackson,--the
last of the series of papers by which, through the peculiar qualities
of his style even more than by the violence of his acts, he embittered
to a point that seemed altogether contrary to their nature a whole
nation of Americans against the nation that gave them birth. If the
famous phrase of Canning was ever in any sense true,--that he called
a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old,--it was
most nearly true in the sense that his instructions and letters forced
the United States into a nationality of character which the war of the
Revolution itself had failed to give them.

The instructions to Jackson[82]--five in number--were dated July 1,
and require careful attention if the train of events which brought the
United States to the level of war with England is to be understood.

The first instruction began by complaint of Erskine’s conduct, passing
quickly to a charge of bad faith against the American government,
founded on “the publicity so unwarrantably given” to Erskine’s
arrangement:--

   “The premature publication of the correspondence by the
   American government so effectually precluded any middle course
   of explanation and accommodation that it is hardly possible
   to suppose that it must not have been resorted to in a great
   measure with that view.

   “The American government cannot have believed that such an
   arrangement as Mr. Erskine consented to accept was conformable
   to his instructions. If Mr. Erskine availed himself of the
   liberty allowed to him of communicating those instructions on
   the affair of the Orders in Council, they must have known that
   it was not so; but even without such communication they cannot
   by possibility have believed that without any new motive, and
   without any apparent change in the dispositions of the enemy,
   the British government could have been disposed at once and
   unconditionally to give up the system on which they have been
   acting, and which they had so recently refused to relinquish,
   even in return for considerations which though far from being
   satisfactory were yet infinitely more so than anything which can
   be supposed to have been gained by Mr. Erskine’s arrangement.”

Canning attributed this conduct to a hope held by President Madison
that the British government would feel itself compelled, however
reluctantly, to sanction an agreement which it had not authorized. In
this case the American government had only itself to blame for the
consequences:--

   “So far, therefore, from the American government having any
   reason to complain of the non-ratification of Mr. Erskine’s
   unauthorized agreement, his Majesty has on his part just ground
   of complaint for that share of the inconvenience from the
   publication which may have fallen upon his Majesty’s subjects,
   so far as their interests may have been involved in the renewed
   speculations of their American correspondents; and his Majesty
   cannot but think any complaint, if any should be made on this
   occasion in America, the more unreasonable, as the government
   of the United States is that government which perhaps of all
   others has most freely exercised the right of withholding its
   ratification from even the authorized acts of its own diplomatic
   agents.”

In this spirit Jackson was to meet any “preliminary discussion” which
might arise before he could proceed to negotiation. Canning did not
touch on the probability that if Jackson met preliminary discussion in
such a spirit as this, he would run something more than a risk of never
reaching negotiation at all; or if Canning considered this point, he
treated it orally. The other written instructions given to Jackson
dealt at once with negotiation.

The “Chesapeake” affair came first in order, and was quickly dismissed.
Jackson was to require from the President a written acknowledgment
that the interdict on British ships was annulled before any settlement
could be made. The Orders in Council came next, and were the subject
of a long instruction, full of interest and marked by many of
Canning’s peculiarities. Once more he explained that Erskine had
inverted the relation of things by appearing to recall the orders as
an inducement to the renewal of trade,--“as if in any arrangement,
whether commercial or political, his Majesty could condescend to barter
objects of national policy and dignity for permission to trade with
another country. The character even more than the stipulations of such
a compact must under any circumstances have put out of question the
possibility of his Majesty’s consenting to confirm it.” He related the
history of the orders, which he called “defensive retaliation,” and
explained why Erskine’s arrangement failed to effect the object of that
system:--

   “In the arrangement agreed to by Mr. Erskine the incidental
   consequence is mistaken for the object of the negotiation. His
   Majesty is made by his minister to concede the whole point in
   dispute by the total and unconditional recall of the Orders in
   Council; and nothing is done by the United States in return
   except to permit their citizens to renew their commercial
   intercourse with Great Britain. Whereas, before his Majesty’s
   consent to withdraw or even to modify the Orders in Council was
   declared, the United States should have taken upon themselves
   to execute in substance the objects of the Orders in Council by
   effectually prohibiting all trade between their citizens and
   France, or the Powers acting under her decrees, and by engaging
   for the continuance of that prohibition so long as those decrees
   should continue unrepealed.”

As in the “Chesapeake” affair, so in regard to the orders,--Canning’s
objection to Erskine’s arrangement was stated as one of form. That
the “Chesapeake” proclamation was no longer in force; that Congress
had effectually prohibited trade with France; and that the President
had engaged as far as he could to continue that prohibition till the
French Decrees were repealed,--these were matters of notoriety. England
took the ground that the United States were liable to the operation of
the British retaliatory orders against France, even though Congress
should have declared war upon France, unless the declaration of war was
regularly made known to the British minister at Washington, and unless
“the United States should have taken upon themselves,” by treaty with
England, to continue the war till France repealed her decrees.

Canning was happy in the phrase he employed in Parliament, March 6,
to justify the course of ministers toward America. “Extension of the
law of nations” described well the Orders in Council themselves; but
the instruction to Jackson was remarkable as a prodigious extension
of the extended orders. The last legal plea was abandoned by these
instructions, and the subject would have been the clearer for that
abandonment were it not that owing to the rapidity of events the new
extravagance was never known; with Canning himself the subject slipped
from public view, and only the mystery remained of Canning’s objects
and expectations.

Another man would have temporized, and would have offered some
suggestion toward breaking the force of such a blow at a friendly
people. Not only did Canning make no new suggestion, but he even
withdrew that which he had made in February. He told Jackson to propose
nothing whatever:--

   “You are to inform the American Secretary of State that in the
   event of the government of the United States being desirous
   now to adopt this proposal, you are authorized to renew the
   negotiation and to conclude it on the terms of my instructions
   to Mr. Erskine; but that you are not instructed to press upon
   the acceptance of the American government an arrangement which
   they have so recently declined, especially as the arrangement
   itself is become less important, and the terms of it less
   applicable to the state of things now existing.”

The remainder of this despatch was devoted to proving that, the late
order of April 26 had so modified that of November, 1807, as to remove
the most serious American objections; and although the blockade was
more restrictive than the old orders as concerned French and Dutch
colonies, yet the recent surrender of Martinique had reduced the
practical hardship of this restriction so considerably that it was
fairly offset by the opening of the Baltic. America had the less
inducement to a further arrangement which could little increase the
extent of her commerce, while England was indifferent provided she
obtained her indispensable objects:--

   “I am therefore not to direct you to propose to the American
   government any formal agreement to be substituted for that which
   his Majesty has been under the necessity of disavowing. You are,
   however, at liberty to receive for reference home any proposal
   which the American government may tender to you; but it is
   only in the case of that proposal comprehending all the three
   conditions which Mr. Erskine was instructed to require.”

The fourth instruction prescribed the forms in which such an
arrangement, if made, must be framed. The fifth dealt with another
branch of the subject,--the Rule of 1756. Canning declined to accept
a mere understanding in regard to this rule. Great Britain would
insist on her right to prohibit neutral trade with enemies’ colonies,
“of which she has permitted the exercise only by indulgence; ... but
the indulgence which was granted for peculiar and temporary reasons
being now withdrawn, the question is merely whether the rule from
which such an indulgence was a deviation shall be established by the
admission of America or enforced as heretofore by the naval power of
Great Britain.” As a matter of courtesy the British government had
no objection to allowing the United States to sanction by treaty the
British right, so that legal condemnations should be made under the
authority of the treaty instead of an Order in Council; “but either
authority is sufficient. No offence is taken at the refusal of the
United States to make this matter subject of compact. The result is
that it must be the subject of an Order in Council.”

The result was that it became the subject of a much higher tribunal
than his Majesty’s Council, and that the British people, and Canning
himself, took great offence at the refusal of the United States to
make it a subject of one-sided compact; but with this concluding touch
Canning’s official irony toward America ended, and he laid down his
pen. About the middle of June, Jackson with three well-defined _casus
belli_ in his portfolio, and another--that of impressments--awaiting
his arrival, set sail for America on the errand which he strangely
hoped might not be desperate. With his departure Canning’s control
of American relations ceased. At the moment when he challenged for
the last time an instant declaration of war from a people who had no
warmer wish than to be permitted to remain his friends, the career of
the Administration to which he belonged came to an end in scandalous
disaster.

Hardly had the Duke of York stopped one source of libel, by resigning
May 16 his office of commanderin-chief, when fresh troubles from
many directions assailed ministers. As early as April 4, Canning had
satisfied the Duke of Portland that he must dismiss Castlereagh for
incompetence, and every Cabinet minister except Castlereagh himself
was acquainted with this decision; but contrary to Canning’s wishes no
action was taken, and the conduct of the war was left at a critical
moment in the hands of a man whose removal for incompetence had been
decreed by his own colleagues. The summer campaign was then fought.
April 9 Austria had begun another war with Napoleon. At Essling, May
21, she nearly won a great victory; at Wagram, July 6, she lost a
battle, and soon afterward entered on negotiations which ended, October
20, in the treaty of Vienna. While this great campaign went on, Sir
Arthur Wellesley drove Soult out of Portugal much as Napoleon had
driven Sir John Moore out of Spain; and then marching up the valley of
the Tagus scared Joseph a second time from Madrid, and fought, July
28, the desperate battle of Talavera. In any case the result of the
Austrian war would have obliged him to retreat; but the concentration
of the French forces in his front quickly drove the British army
back toward Lisbon, and ended all hope of immediate success in the
Peninsula. A third great effort against Napoleon was directed from
London toward the Scheldt and Meuse. The Cabinet, June 14, decided
that Castlereagh should attempt this experiment; for raids of the kind
had charms for a naval power, and although success could affect the
war but little, it might assist smuggling and destroy a naval depot
of Napoleon. Castlereagh sent to the Scheldt forty thousand soldiers
who were grievously wanted on the Tagus. July 28, while Wellington
fought the battle of Talavera, Lord Chatham’s expedition started from
the Downs, and reaching the mouth of the Scheldt occupied itself until
August 15 with the capture of Flushing. In gaining this success the
army was worn out; nearly half its number were suffering from typhoid,
and September 2 the Cabinet unanimously voted to recall the expedition.

Talavera and Flushing closed Castlereagh’s career in the War Office,
as Jackson’s mission closed that of Canning in American diplomacy.
Defeat abroad, ruin at home, disgrace and disaster everywhere were
the results of two years of Tory administration. August 11 the Duke
of Portland was struck by paralysis; and deprived of its chief, the
Cabinet went to pieces. September 7 Castlereagh was gently forced to
resign. Canning, refusing to serve under Perceval or under any one whom
Perceval suggested, tendered his own resignation. In the course of the
complicated negotiations that followed, Perceval showed to Castlereagh
letters in which for a year past Canning had pressed Castlereagh’s
removal from office. Then at last Castlereagh discovered, as he
conceived, that Canning was not a gentleman or a man of honor, and
having called him out, September 21, in a duel on Putney Heath shot him
through the thigh.

Such an outcome was a natural result of such an Administration; but
as concerned the United States Canning had already done all the harm
possible, and more than three generations could wholly repair.

                              CHAPTER VI.

THE news of Erskine’s disavowal reached America so slowly that
merchants enjoyed three months of unrestricted trade, and shipped to
England or elsewhere the accumulations of nearly two years’ produce.
From April 21 till July 21 this process of depletion continued without
an anxiety; and when July 21 news arrived that the arrangement had been
repudiated, merchants still had time to hurry their last cargoes to sea
before the government could again interpose.

The first effect of Canning’s disavowal seemed bewilderment. No one in
the United States, whether enemy or friend of England, could for a time
understand why Canning had taken so perplexing a course. Very few of
England’s friends could believe that her conduct rested on the motives
she avowed; they sought for some noble, or at least some respectable,
object behind her acts. For several months the Federalist newspapers
were at a loss for words, and groped in the dark for an English hand to
help them; while the Republican press broke into anger, which expressed
the common popular feeling. “The late conduct of the British ministry,”
said the “National Intelligencer” of July 26, “has capped the climax
of atrocity toward this country.” Every hope of reconciliation or even
of peace with England seemed almost extinguished; yet the country was
still far from a rupture. Not until popular feeling could express
itself in a new election would the national will be felt; and the
next election was still more than a year away, while the Congress to
be then chosen would meet only in December, 1811. Until then war was
improbable, perhaps impossible, except by the act of England.

When the news arrived, President Madison was at his Virginia
plantation. During his absence Gallatin was in charge of matters at
Washington, and on the instant wrote that he thought the President
should return. In a letter of July 27, three days after the news
reached Washington, Gallatin gave his own view of the situation:[83]--

   “I will not waste time in conjectures respecting the true cause
   of the conduct of the British government, nor can we, until
   we are better informed, lay any permanent plan of conduct for
   ourselves. I will only observe that we are not so well prepared
   for resistance as we were one year ago. Then all or almost all
   our mercantile wealth was safe at home, our resources entire,
   and our finances sufficient to carry us through during the first
   year of the contest. Our property is now all afloat; England
   relieved by our relaxations might stand two years of privations
   with ease. We have wasted our resources without any national
   utility; and our treasury being exhausted, we must begin our
   plan of resistance with considerable and therefore unpopular
   loans.”

The immediate crisis called first for attention. Gallatin held that the
Non-intercourse Act necessarily revived from the moment the supposed
fact on which alone its suspension rested was shown not to have taken
place. The remoter problem of Jackson’s mission seemed to the secretary
simpler than the question of law:[84]--

   “If we are too weak or too prudent to resist England in the
   direct and proper manner, I hope at least that we shall not
   make a single voluntary concession inconsistent with our rights
   and interest. If Mr. Jackson has any compromise to offer which
   would not be burdened with such, I shall be very agreeably
   disappointed. But judging by what is said to have been the
   substance of Mr. Erskine’s instructions, what can we expect but
   dishonorable and inadmissible proposals? He is probably sent out
   like Mr. Rose to amuse and to divide; and we shall, I trust,
   by coming at once to the point, bring his negotiation to an
   immediate close.”

The President heard the news with as much perplexity as anger, and
even tried to persuade himself that Canning would be less severe than
he threatened. Madison still clung to hope when he first replied to
Gallatin’s summons:[85]--

   “The conduct of the British government in protesting the
   arrangement of its minister surprises one in spite of all their
   examples of folly. If it be not their plan, now that they
   have filled their magazines with our supplies and ascertained
   our want of firmness in withholding them, to adopt openly a
   system of monopoly and piracy, it may be hoped that they will
   not persist in the scandalous course in which they have set
   out. Supposing Erskine to have misunderstood or overstrained
   his instructions, can the difference between our trading
   directly and indirectly with Holland account for the violent
   remedy applied to the case? Is it not more probable that they
   have yielded to the clamors of the London smugglers in sugar
   and coffee, whose numbers and impudence are displayed in the
   scandalous and successful demand from their government that
   it should strangle the lawful trade of a friendly nation lest
   it should interfere with their avowed purpose of carrying on
   a smuggling trade with their enemies? Such an outrage on all
   decency was never before heard of even on the shores of Africa.”

Madison exaggerated. The outrage on decency committed by the British
government in May, 1809, was on the whole not so great as that of Sir
William Scott’s decision in the case of the “Essex” in July, 1805; or
that of the blockade of New York and the killing of Pierce in April,
1806; or that of Lord Howick’s Order in Council of January, 1807,
when the signatures to Monroe’s treaty were hardly dry; or that of
Spencer Perceval’s Orders in November, 1807, and the speeches made in
their defence; or the mission of George Henry Rose in the winter of
1807–1808; or Erskine’s letter of February 23, or Canning’s letters of
September 23, 1808,--for all these left the United States in a worse
position than that created by the disavowal of Erskine. Indeed, except
for the disgrace of submitting to acts of illegal force, the United
States stood in a comparatively easy attitude after the orders of April
26, 1809, so long as Napoleon himself enforced within his empire a more
rigid exclusion of neutral commerce than any that could be effected by
a British blockade.

   “Still, I cannot but hope,” continued Madison, “on the
   supposition that there be no predetermined hostility against our
   commerce and navigation, that things may take another turn under
   the influence of the obvious and striking considerations which
   advise it.”

The hope vanished when Erskine’s instructions became known, and was
succeeded by consternation when the public read the reports made by
Erskine and Canning of the language used by Madison, Gallatin, and
Pinkney. For the first time in this contest, Englishmen and Americans
could no longer understand each other’s meaning. Erskine had so
confused every detail with his own ideas, and Canning’s course on one
side the Atlantic seemed so little to accord with his tactics on the
other, that neither party could longer believe in the other’s good
faith. Americans were convinced that Canning had offered terms which
he intended them to refuse. Englishmen were sure that Madison had
precipitated a settlement which he knew could not be carried out.
Madison credited Canning with fraud as freely as Canning charged
Madison with connivance.

   “I find myself under the mortifying necessity of setting out
   to-morrow morning for Washington,” wrote Madison to Jefferson,
   August 3.[86] “The intricate state of our affairs with England
   produced by the mixture of fraud and folly in her late conduct,
   and the important questions to be decided as to the legal effect
   of the failure of the arrangement of April on our commercial
   relations with her are thought by the heads of departments
   to require that I should join them.... You will see by the
   instructions to Erskine, as published by Canning, that the
   latter was as much determined that there should be no adjustment
   as the former was that there should be one.”

The President remained three days in Washington in order to sign,
August 9, a Proclamation reviving the Non-intercourse Act against
Great Britain. On the same day the Secretary of the Treasury enclosed
this Proclamation to the Collectors of Customs in a circular, with
instructions not to enforce the penalties of the law against vessels
entering American ports on the faith of Erskine’s arrangement. This
done, Madison returned to Montpelier, August 10, leaving Erskine to
exchange apologetic but very unsatisfactory explanations with Robert
Smith and Gallatin.

The Proclamation of August 9 was sharply criticised, and with reason;
for Congress had given the President no express authority to revive
the Non-intercourse Act, and he had clearly exceeded his powers, if
not in the Proclamation which revived the Act, then certainly in the
original Proclamation of April 19, which set it aside. Even this
stretch of authority hardly equalled Gallatin’s assumption of the power
to admit what vessels he pleased without regard to the Non-intercourse
Act. Yet right or wrong the President had no choice but to use all the
powers he needed. Evidently his original mistake in opening intercourse
was a greater stretch of authority than any subsequent act could be,
except that of leaving it open after the mistake was admitted. Sullenly
and awkwardly the Government restored some degree of order to its
system, and then President and Cabinet scattered once more, leaving the
village of Washington to the solitude of August and September.

A month passed without further change, until September 5 Jackson landed
at Annapolis, whence he reached Washington September 8. He came with
his wife--a fashionable Prussian baroness with a toilette--and young
children, for whose health a Washington September was ill suited; he
came too with a carriage and liveries, coachmen and servants, and the
outfit of a long residence, as though neither he nor Canning doubted
his welcome.

Francis James Jackson had many good qualities, and was on the whole the
only English minister of his time so severely treated by the American
government as to warrant almost a feeling of sympathy. He was probably
suffering from some organic disease which made his temper irritable,
while his instructions were such as to leave him no room to show his
best capacities in his profession. In ordinary times a man of his
experience, intelligence, and marked character might have succeeded in
winning at Washington a name for ability and straightforwardness; but
he was ill fitted for the special task he had undertaken, and had no
clear idea of the dangers to which he was exposed. Gallatin expressed
the feeling of the Administration when he advised coming at once to the
point with Jackson, and bringing his negotiation to an immediate close.
Madison could not have wished to repeat his experience with Rose, or to
allow a British minister to reside at Washington for the sole purpose
of dividing American counsels and intriguing with Senator Pickering.
Had Jackson been quick in his perceptions, he would have seen early
that nothing but mortification could be in store for him; but he had
the dogged courage and self-confidence of his time, and undertook to
deal single-handed with a government and people he did not trouble
himself to understand.

The President was not in Washington when the British minister drove
into that “famous city,” as he called it, which “resembles more nearly
Hampstead Heath than any other place I ever saw.”[87] Robert Smith
apologized for the incivility of leaving him without the usual public
recognition, and explained that the risk of fever and the fatigue of
four days’ journey made the President extremely unwilling to return
before October 1, the day fixed for Jackson’s reception. Indirectly
Smith suggested that Jackson might visit the President at Montpelier,
or even begin negotiation before being officially received; but the
minister replied that he would cheerfully wait. Gallatin wrote to the
President, September 11,--

   “I do not think that there is any necessity to hurry yourself
   beyond your convenience in returning here. It will be as well
   the 10th as the 1st of October, for I am sure, although I have
   not seen Mr. Jackson and can judge only from what has passed
   between him and Mr. Smith, that he has nothing to say of
   importance, or pleasant.”[88]

Madison replied, proposing to set out for Washington about the 29th,
but agreeing with Gallatin that in view of “Jackson’s apparent patience
and reserve,” his disclosures “would not be either operative or
agreeable.”[89]

Whether Jackson showed patience or activity, he could not avoid giving
offence; and perhaps he did wisely to gain all the time he could,
even if he gained nothing else. Unlike some of his predecessors, he
understood how to make the best of his situation. He found amusement
for a month of idleness, even though the month was September and the
place was Washington. He took the house which Merry and Erskine had
occupied,--a house that stood amid fields looking over Rock Creek to
Georgetown:

   “Erskine had let it go to such a state of ruin and dirt that it
   will be several weeks before we can attempt to move into it. A
   Scotchman with an American wife who would be a fine lady, are
   not the best people to succeed on such an occasion.

   “It is but justice to say that I have met with nothing but
   the utmost civility, and with none of those hardships and
   difficulties of which the Merrys so bitterly complained. The
   travelling is not worse than much that I have met with before
   in my life, and the accommodations are better than many I
   have thought supportable. The expense is about the same as
   in England, and must be considered most exorbitant when the
   inferiority of their arrangements to ours and the greater
   cheapness of provisions are taken into account.”[90]

As the season advanced, Jackson began to enjoy his autumn picnic on the
heath of Washington. He had an eye for the details which gave interest
to travel. “I put up a covey of partridge,” he wrote October 7, “about
three hundred yards from the House of Congress, yclept the Capitol.” He
had the merit of being first to discover what few men of his time had
the taste to feel,--that Washington was beautiful:--

   “I have procured two very good saddle-horses, and Elizabeth and
   I have been riding in all directions round this place whenever
   the weather has been cool enough. The country has a beautifully
   picturesque appearance, and I have nowhere seen finer scenery
   than is composed by the Potomac and the woods and hills about
   it; yet it has a wild and desolate air from being so scantily
   and rudely cultivated, and from the want of population.... So
   you see we are not fallen into a wilderness,--so far from it
   that I am surprised no one should before have mentioned the
   great beauty of the neighborhood. The natives trouble themselves
   but little about it; their thoughts are chiefly of tobacco,
   flour, shingles, and the news of the day. The Merrys, I suppose,
   never got a mile out of Washington, except on their way to
   Philadelphia.”

Part of Jackson’s leisure was employed in reading Erskine’s
correspondence, although he would have done better had he neglected
this customary duty, and had he brought to his diplomacy no more
prejudices than such as belonged to his nature and training. His
disgust with Erskine only added to his antipathy for Erskine’s objects,
methods, and friends.

   “My visitors,” he wrote, “are a different set from Erskine’s, I
   perceive; many of them he says he never saw. Per contra, many
   of the Democrats who were his intimates never come to me, and I
   am well pleased and somewhat flattered by the distinction....
   Erskine is really a greater fool than I could have thought
   it possible to be, and it is charity to give him _that_
   name.... Now that I have gone through all his correspondence,
   more than ever am I at a loss to comprehend how he could have
   been allowed to remain here for the last two years.... To be
   obliged to wade through such a mass of folly and stupidity, and
   to observe how our country has been made, through Erskine’s
   means, the instrument of these people’s cunning, is not the
   least part of my annoyance. Between them our cause is vilified
   indeed. The tone which Erskine had accustomed them to use with
   him, and to use without any notion whatever being taken of it,
   is another great difficulty I have had to overcome. Every third
   word was a declaration of war.”

The month passed only too soon for Jackson’s comfort, and October 1,
punctual to his word, the President arrived. The next day Erskine
had his farewell audience, and October 3 Jackson was officially
received. Merry’s experience had not been without advantage to both
sides; and Jackson, who seemed to feel more contempt for his own
predecessors--Merry and Erskine--than for his American antagonists,
accepted everything in good part.

   “Madison, the President, is a plain and rather mean-looking
   little man, of great simplicity of manners, and an inveterate
   enemy to form and ceremony; so much so that I was officially
   informed that my introduction to him was to be considered as
   nothing more than the reception of one gentleman by another, and
   that no particular dress was to be worn on the occasion,--all
   which I was very willing to acquiesce in. Accordingly I went in
   an afternoon frock, and found the President in similar attire.
   Smith, the Secretary of State, who had walked from his office to
   join me, had on a pair of dusty boots, and his round hat in his
   hand. When he had introduced us he retired, and the President
   then asked me to take a chair. While we were talking, a negro
   servant brought in some glasses of punch and a seed-cake. The
   former, as I had been in conference the whole morning, served
   very agreeably to wet, or whet, my whistle, and still more
   strongly to contrast this audience with others I had had with
   most of the sovereigns of Europe.”

Perhaps this passing allusion to previous acquaintance with “most of
the sovereigns of Europe” threw a light, somewhat too searching, into
the recesses of Jackson’s character. The weakness was pardonable, and
not specially unsuited to success in his career, but showed itself in
private as a form of self-deception which promised ill for his coming
struggle. Madison’s civility quite misled him.

   “I do not know,” he wrote October 24, “that I had ever more
   civility and attention shown me than at a dinner at the
   President’s yesterday, where I was treated with a distinction
   not lately accorded to a British minister in this country. A
   foolish question of precedence, which ever since Merry’s time
   has been unsettled, and has occasioned some heart-burnings among
   the ladies, was also decided then by the President departing
   from his customary indifference to ceremony and etiquette, and
   taking Elizabeth in to dinner, while I conducted Mrs. Madison.”

Evidently this deference pleased the British minister, who saw nothing
behind it but a social triumph for himself and his wife; yet he had
already been forced to protest against the ceremonial forms with which
Madison studiously surrounded him, and had he read Shakspeare rather
than Erskine’s writings, he might have learned from Julius Cæsar the
general diplomatic law that “when love begins to sicken and decay, it
useth ever an enforced ceremony.” A man of tact would have seen that
from the moment Madison became formal he was dangerous. The dinner of
October 23 at the White House came at a moment when Jackson had been so
carefully handled and so effectually disarmed as to stand at Madison’s
mercy; and although he was allowed to please himself by taking Mrs.
Madison to dinner, the “mean-looking little man” at the head of
the table, was engaged only in thinking by what stroke the British
minister’s official life should be most quickly and quietly ended.

Jackson’s interviews with Robert Smith began immediately after the
President’s arrival in Washington. The first conversation was reported
by the British minister to his Government in language so lifelike, but
showing such astonishment on both sides at the attitude of each, as to
give it place among the most natural sketches in American diplomatic
history. After some fencing on the subject of Erskine’s responsibility,
Jackson passed to the subject of his own instructions, and remarked
that he was ordered to wait for propositions from the President.

   “Here the American minister,” reported Jackson,[91] “exhibited
   signs of the utmost surprise and disappointment. He seemed to be
   so little prepared for this close of my conversation that he
   was some time before he could recollect himself sufficiently to
   give me any answer at all. Expecting to meet suggestions of a
   totally different nature, and finding that what he had ready to
   say to them did not suit the occasion, he seemed to require some
   time and reflection to new arrange his thoughts. Accordingly
   a considerable pause in our conversation took place, which at
   length he broke in upon by saying: ‘Then, sir, you have no
   proposal to make to us,--no explanation to give? How shall we be
   able to get rid of the Non-intercourse Act?’”

Robert Smith was a wearisome burden to Madison, and his incompetence
made no agreeable object of study; but his apparent bewilderment
at Jackson’s audacity was almost as instructive as the sincere
astonishment of the Englishman at the effect of his own words. The game
of cross-purposes could not be more naturally played. Robert Smith
had been requested by Madison to ascertain precisely what Jackson’s
instructions were; and both at the first and at a second interview
he pressed this point, always trying to discover what Jackson had to
offer, while the Englishman always declined to offer anything whatever.
Two conversations satisfied the President that Jackson’s hands were
fast tied, and that he could open no door of escape. Then Madison
gently set the Secretary of State aside, and, as openly as the office
of Chief Magistrate permitted, undertook to deal with the British
minister.

October 9 the Secretary of State sent to the British Legation a
formal letter, written, like all Robert Smith’s important papers, by
the President.[92] After recapitulating the negative results reached
in the two interviews, Jackson was asked whether he had been rightly
understood; and the letter ended by saying, that, “to avoid the
misconceptions incident to oral proceeding, I have also the honor to
intimate that it is thought expedient that our further discussions on
the present occasion be in the written form.”[93]

Jackson saw a challenge in this change of attitude, and undertook to
meet it by vigorous resistance. He had no mind to be thrown on the
defensive; as he wrote to Canning, he wished to teach the American
government not to presume on his patience.

   “On connecting all these circumstances,” he reported,[94]--“the
   manner in which Mr. Smith had conducted our conferences; the
   abruptness, especially, with which he had put an end to them;
   and the style in which he announces to me, without leaving
   any choice or alternative, but as the absolute decision of
   his Government, ‘that it is thought expedient that our future
   discussions on the present occasion’ (_i. e._, the only
   occasion of doing away existing differences) ‘should be in the
   written form,’--it occurred to me to be necessary to put the
   matter on such a footing as to preclude, _in limine_, the
   idea that every species of indirect obloquy was to be patiently
   submitted to by his Majesty’s minister in this country.”

In this temper Jackson wrote a long letter, dated October 11, for
the purpose, as he reported to Canning,[95] of checking “that spirit
which can never lead to conciliation, by which America thinks herself
entitled to make her will and her view of things the criterion by
which they are to be generally approved or condemned.” Beginning with
the assertion that “there does not exist in the annals of diplomacy
a precedent” for stopping verbal communication within so few days
after the delivery of credentials, he rehearsed the story of Erskine’s
arrangement, and justified his refusal of apology or explanation.
In doing so, he allowed himself to insinuate what Canning expressly
asserted in his instructions, that Robert Smith had connived at
Erskine’s misconduct:--

   “It was not known when I left England whether Mr. Erskine had,
   according to the liberty allowed him, communicated to you
   _in extenso_ his original instructions. It now appears
   that he did not. But ... I find ... that he has submitted to
   your consideration the three conditions specified in those
   instructions as the ground-work of an arrangement.... Mr.
   Erskine reports, _verbatim et seriatim_, your observations
   upon each of the three conditions, and the reasons which induced
   you to think that others might be substituted in lieu of them.
   It may have been concluded between you that these latter were
   an equivalent for the original conditions; but the very act of
   substitution evidently shows that those original conditions were
   in fact very explicitly communicated to you, and by you, of
   course, laid before the President for his consideration.”

After justifying the disavowal of Erskine on the admitted ground that
he had disobeyed instructions, Jackson came to the point of his own
powers. “His Majesty has authorized me,” he said, “notwithstanding
the ungracious manner in which his former offer of satisfaction for
the affair of the ‘Chesapeake’ was received, to renew that which Mr.
Erskine was instructed to make.” As for the Orders in Council, these
had been so far modified by the blockade of April 26 as to make any
formal agreement on that subject seem unnecessary, and he reserved his
proposals until he should hear those of the President.

Two days after this letter was despatched, Robert Smith sent a civil
message that there had been no intention to stop personal intercourse;
“he should be most happy to see me whenever I would call upon him;
we might converse upon indifferent subjects; but that his memory was
so incorrect that it was on his account necessary that in making his
reports to the President he should have some written document to assist
him.”[96] With this excuse for the secretary’s sudden withdrawal from
the field the British minister contented himself until October 19, when
he received an official letter, signed as usual by Robert Smith, but
written with ability such as that good-natured but illiterate Secretary
of State never imagined himself to possess.

The American note of October 19, far too long to quote or even to
abridge, was perhaps the best and keenest paper Madison ever wrote.
His faults of style and vagueness of thought almost wholly disappeared
in the heat of controversy; his defence was cool, his attack keen, as
though his sixty years weighed lightly the day when he first got his
young antagonist at his mercy. He dealt Jackson a fatal blow at the
outset, by reminding him that in July, 1808, only the previous year,
Canning had put an end to oral communication after two interviews with
Pinkney on the subjects under negotiation. He then made three points,
well stated and easily remembered: (1) That when a government refuses
to fulfil a pledge, it owes a formal and frank disclosure of its
reasons. (2) That, in the actual situation, Mr. Erskine’s successor
was the proper channel for that disclosure. (3) That since Mr. Jackson
disclaimed authority to make either explanations or proposals, the
President could do no more than express his willingness to favor any
honorable mode of settling the matters in dispute.

In enlarging on the subjects touched by Jackson’s letter, the President
made more than one remark of the kind that most exasperated the British
minister. Since no settlement of the dispute was possible or even
desired by Jackson, such flashes of Madison’s temper were neither
harmful nor inappropriate, yet they were certainly on the verge of
insult. He told Jackson plainly that Great Britain, by retaining her
so-called retaliation after admitting that it no longer retaliated, was
guilty of deception:--

   “You cannot but be sensible that a perseverance under such
   circumstances in a system which cannot longer be explained by
   its avowed object would force an explanation by some object not
   avowed. What object might be considered as best explaining it is
   an inquiry into which I do not permit myself to enter, further
   than to remark that in relation to the United States it must be
   an illegitimate object.”

On the other hand, Madison seemed not to resent, as warmly as he might
have done, the intimation that he had induced Erskine to violate
instructions. The President either affected not to see, or failed fully
to grasp at first, the serious scope of this charge:

   “The stress you have laid on what you have been pleased to state
   as the substitution of the terms finally agreed on for the terms
   first proposed, has excited no small degree of surprise. Certain
   it is that your predecessor did present for my consideration
   the three conditions which now appear on the printed document;
   that he was disposed to urge them more than the nature of two
   of them (both palpably inadmissible, and one more than merely
   inadmissible) could permit; and that on finding his first
   proposals unsuccessful, the more reasonable terms ... were
   adopted. And what, sir, is there in this to countenance the
   conclusion you have drawn in favor of the right of his Britannic
   Majesty to disavow the proceeding? Is anything more common in
   public negotiations than to begin with a higher demand, and that
   failing, to descend to a lower?”

Contenting himself with the remark that he had for the first time
learned, from Jackson’s note, the restrictions on Erskine’s authority,
the President passed to other points as though unaware that his good
faith was in question.

The letter of October 19 forced Jackson one step backward, and drove
him nearly to the wall. Obliged to choose between the avowal that he
had no proposal to make, or the assertion that he had both explanations
and proposals, he yielded, somewhat surlily, to the weakness of
offering explanations, such as they were, and of inviting proposals
eventually to be embodied in a convention. In a note dated October 23
he answered the American note of October 19.[97] If Madison had doubted
his own advantage, his doubts must have vanished in reading Jackson’s
second note, which shuffled and evaded the issues in a manner peculiar
to disconcerted men; but the most convincing proof of Jackson’s
weakness appeared in the want of judgment he showed in exposing himself
to attack at the moment when he was seeking safety. He committed the
blunder of repeating the charge that Madison was responsible for
Erskine’s violation of instructions:--

   “These instructions ... were at the time, in substance, made
   known to you.... So far from the terms which he was actually
   induced to accept having been contemplated in that instruction,
   he himself states that they were substituted by you in lieu of
   those originally proposed.”

Jackson’s folly in thus tempting his fate was the more flagrant
because his private letters proved that he knew something of his true
position. “Madison is now as obstinate as a mule,” he wrote October
26.[98] “Until he gets [the absolute surrender of the Orders in
Council] he will not even accept any satisfaction for the affair of the
‘Chesapeake,’ which has been now for the third time offered to him in
vain;” and he added: “There is already a great and growing fermentation
in the United States, which shows itself in a manner highly prejudicial
to the amity and good understanding which doubtless our ministers wish
to see established between the two countries.”

A few days after writing this evidence of his own uneasiness, the
British minister received from the Department of State a third note,
dated November 1, which left no doubt that the President meant to push
his antagonist to extremes. After accepting the explanations at last
made in regard to the Orders in Council, and pointing out that they did
not apply to the case of the “Chesapeake,” Madison requested Jackson
to show his full powers, as an “indispensable preliminary to further
negotiation.” The letter was short, and ended with a stern warning:--

   “I abstain, sir, from making any particular animadversions on
   several irrelevant and improper allusions in your letter, not
   at all comporting with the professed disposition to adjust,
   in an amicable manner, the differences unhappily subsisting
   between the two countries; but it would be improper to conclude
   the few observations to which I purposely limit myself,
   without adverting to your repetition of a language implying a
   knowledge on the part of this Government that the instructions
   of your predecessor did not authorize the arrangement formed
   by him. After the explicit and peremptory asseveration that
   this Government had no such knowledge, and that with such a
   knowledge no such arrangement would have been entered into, the
   view which you have again presented of the subject makes it my
   duty to apprise you that such insinuations are inadmissible in
   the intercourse of a foreign minister with a Government that
   understands what it owes to itself.”

This letter placed Jackson in a position which he could not defend, and
from which he thought, perhaps with reason, that he could not without
disgrace retreat. The insinuations he had made were but a cautious
expression of the views he was expressly ordered to take. November 4 he
replied, with more ability than he had hitherto shown, to the letter
of November 1; but he gave himself, for a mere point of temper, into
Madison’s hands.

   “I am concerned, sir, to be obliged, a second time, to appeal
   to those principles of public law, under the sanction and
   protection of which I was sent to this country.... You will find
   that in my correspondence with you I have carefully avoided
   drawing conclusions that did not necessarily follow from the
   premises advanced by me, and least of all should I think of
   uttering an insinuation where I was unable to substantiate a
   fact. To facts, such as I have become acquainted with them, I
   have scrupulously adhered; and in so doing I must continue,
   whenever the good faith of his Majesty’s government is called in
   question, to vindicate its honor and dignity in the manner that
   appears to me best calculated for that purpose.”

When Jackson was sent to Copenhagen with a message whose general tenor
resembled that which he brought to the United States, he was fortunate
enough to be accompanied by twenty ships of the line, forty frigates,
and thirty thousand regular troops. Even with this support, if court
gossip could be believed, King George expressed to him surprise that
he had escaped being kicked downstairs. At Washington he had no other
force on his side than such as his footman or his groom could render,
and the destiny that King George predicted for him could not, by any
diplomatic weapons, be longer escaped. November 8, Secretary Smith
sent to the Legation one more note, which closed Jackson’s diplomatic
career:--

   “SIR,--... Finding that in your reply of the 4th
   instant you have used a language which cannot be understood but
   as reiterating and even aggravating the same gross insinuation,
   it only remains, in order to preclude opportunities which are
   thus abused, to inform you that no further communications will
   be received from you....”

                             CHAPTER VII.

THE effect of American conciliation upon Canning was immediate
and simple; but the effect of American defiance upon Napoleon will be
understood only by those who forget the fatigue of details in their
interest for Napoleon’s character. The Emperor’s steps in 1809 are not
easily followed. He was overburdened with labor; his motives and policy
shifted as circumstances changed; and among second-rate interests he
lost more habitually than ever the thread of his own labyrinth.

Travelling day and night from Spain in January, 1809, with the same
haste and with something of the same motive as when four years
afterward he posted back to Paris from his Russian disaster, Napoleon
appeared unexpectedly at his capital January 24. The moment was one of
crisis, but a crisis of his own making. He had suffered a political
check in Spain, which he had but partially disguised by a useless
campaign. The same spirit of universal dominion which grasped at Spain
and required the conquest of England, roused resistance elsewhere
almost as desperate as that of the Spaniards and English. Even the
American Congress repealed its embargo and poured its commerce through
so-called neutral ports into the lap of England, while at the same
moment Austria, driven to desperation, prepared to fight for a fourth
time. Napoleon had strong reasons for choosing that moment to force
Austria wholly into his system. Germany stood at his control. Russia
alone could have made the result doubtful; but the Czar was wholly
French. “M. Romanzoff,” wrote Armstrong to the State Department,[99]
“with the fatalism of the Turk, shakes his head at Austria, and asks
what has hitherto been got by opposition; calls to mind the fate of
Prussia, and closes by a pious admonition not to resist the will of
God.”

Toward Austria the Emperor directed all his attention, and rapidly
drove her government into an attitude of resistance the most spirited
and the most desperate taken by any people of Europe except Spain.
Although Austria never wearied of fighting Napoleon, and rarely fought
without credit, her effort to face, in 1809, a Power controlling the
military resources of France, Italy, and Germany, with the moral
support of Russia behind them, had an heroic quality higher than was
shown at any time by any other government in Europe. April 9 the
Austrian army crossed the Inn, and began the war. April 13 Napoleon
left Paris for the Danube, and during the next three months his hands
were full. Austria fought with an energy which put Germany and Russia
to shame.

Such a moment was ill suited for inviting negotiation on American
affairs; but Armstrong received instructions a few days after
Napoleon left Paris, and with these instructions came a copy of the
Non-intercourse Act of March 1, which, while apparently forbidding
intercourse with England and France, notified Napoleon that the United
States would no longer obey his wishes, or keep their industries
from seeking a British market through indirect channels. Armstrong
communicated this Act to the French government in the terms of his
instructions:[100]--

   “The undersigned is instructed to add that any interpretation of
   the Imperial Decrees of Nov. 21, 1806, and Dec. 17, 1807, which
   shall have the effect of leaving unimpaired the maritime rights
   of the Union, will be instantaneously followed by a revocation
   of the present Act [as regards France] and a re-establishment of
   the ordinary commercial intercourse between the two countries.”

May 17 Champagny, then at Munich, having received Armstrong’s letter of
April 29, notified the Minister of Marine,[101]--

   “The news of this measure having received an official character
   by the communication made to me by the United States minister
   on the part of his Government, I think it my duty to transmit to
   your Excellency a copy of the law which he has addressed to me.”

Armstrong informed Secretary Robert Smith[102] that nothing need
be expected from this step, unless it were perhaps his own summary
expulsion from France as a result of offence given either by the
Non-intercourse Act or by the language of Armstrong’s despatches
surreptitiously published. Bitterly as Armstrong detested Napoleon,
he understood but little the mind and methods of that unusual
character. Never in his career had the Emperor been busier than when
Armstrong wrote this note to Champagny, but it caught his attention
at once. He had fought one battle after another, and in five days had
captured forty thousand men and a hundred pieces of cannon; he had
entered Vienna May 10, and had taken his quarters at Schönbrunn, the
favorite palace of the Austrian emperor. There he was in a position
of no little difficulty, in spite of his military successes, when his
courier brought him despatches from Paris containing news that the
United States, March 1, had repealed the embargo, and that the British
government, April 26, had withdrawn the Orders in Council of November,
1807, and had substituted a mere blockade of Holland, France, and
Italy. The effect of these two events was greatly increased by their
coming together.

At first Napoleon seemed to feel no occasion for altering his course.
After reading Armstrong’s letter, he dictated May 18 a reply which was
to serve as the legal argument to justify his refusal of concessions.
His decrees were founded on eternal principles, and could not be
revoked:--

   “The seas belong to all nations. Every vessel sailing under the
   flag of any nation whatever, recognized and avowed by it, ought
   to be on the ocean as if it were in its own ports. The flag
   flying from the mast of a merchantman ought to be respected as
   though it were on the top of a village steeple.... To insult a
   merchant-vessel carrying the flag of any Power is to make an
   incursion into a village or a colony belonging to that Power.
   His Majesty declares that he considers the vessels of all
   nations as floating colonies belonging to the said nations. In
   result of this principle, the sovereignty and independence of
   one nation are a property of its neighbors.”[103]

The conclusion that the sovereignty and independence of every nation
were the property of France, and that a floating colony denationalized
by the visit of a foreign officer became the property of Napoleon,
involved results too extreme for general acceptance. Arbitrary as the
Emperor was, he could act only through agents, and could not broach
such doctrines without meeting remonstrance. His dissertation on the
principles of the _jus gentium_ was sent May 18 to Champagny. Four
days afterward, May 22, Napoleon fought the battle of Essling, in which
he lost fifteen or twenty thousand men and suffered a serious repulse.
Even this absorbing labor, and the critical situation that followed,
did not long interrupt his attention to American business. May 26,
Champagny made to the Emperor a report[104] on American affairs,
taking ground altogether different from that chosen by Napoleon.
After narrating the story of the various orders, decrees, blockades,
embargoes, and non-intercourse measures, Champagny discussed them in
their practical effect on the interests and industries of France:--

   “The fact cannot be disguised; the interruption of neutral
   commerce which has done much harm to England has been also a
   cause of loss to France. The staple products of our territory
   have ceased to be sold. Those that were formerly exported are
   lost, or are stored away, leaving impoverished both the owner
   who produced them and the dealer who put them on the market. One
   of our chief sources of prosperity is dried up. Our interest
   therefore leads us toward America, whose commerce would still
   furnish an ample outlet for several of our products, and
   would bring us either materials of prime necessity for our
   manufactures, or produce the use of which has become almost a
   necessity, and which we would rather not owe to our enemies.”

For these reasons Champagny urged the Emperor not to persist in
punishing America, but to charge M. d’Hauterive, the acting Minister of
Foreign Relations at Paris, with the duty of discussing with General
Armstrong the details of an arrangement. Champagny supported his advice
by urging that England had made advances to America, had revoked
her orders of November, 1807, and seemed about to turn the French
Decrees against France. “It will always be in your Majesty’s power to
evade this result. A great step to this end will be taken when Mr.
Armstrong is made aware that your Majesty is disposed to interpret your
commercial decrees favorably for the Americans, provided measures be
taken that no tribute shall be paid to England, and that their efficacy
shall be assured. Such will be the object of M. d’Hauterive’s mission.”

Napoleon, impressed by Champagny’s reasoning, fortified by the news
that Erskine had settled the commercial disputes between England and
America, sent to Champagny the draft of a new decree,[105] which
declared that inasmuch as the United States by their firm resistance to
the arbitrary measures of England had obtained the revocation of the
British Orders of November, 1807, and were no longer obliged to pay
imposts to the British government, therefore the Milan Decree of Dec.
17, 1807, should be withdrawn, and neutral commerce should be replaced
where it stood under the Berlin Decree of Nov. 21, 1806.

This curious paper was sent June 10 to Paris for a report from
the Treasury as to its probable effects. June 13 Champagny sent
instructions to Hauterive[106] directing him to begin negotiation with
Armstrong. Far from overlooking either the intention or the effect
of the Non-intercourse Act, Champagny complained that it was unfair
to France and “almost an act of violence;” but he did not resent it.
“The Emperor is not checked by this consideration; he feels neither
prejudice nor resentment against the Americans, but he remains firm in
his projects of resisting British pretensions. The measures taken by
England will chiefly decide his measures.” Champagny explained that the
Emperor hesitated to issue the new decree already forwarded for the
inspection of the customs authorities, not because any change had taken
place in the reasons given for its policy, but because the arrangement
of Erskine was said to be disavowed.

   “What has prevented the Emperor till now from coming to a
   decision in this respect is the news contained in the English
   journals of an arrangement between England and America, and
   announced by a Proclamation of the President of the United
   States, April 19, 1806. If from this act should result the
   certainty that the English renounce their principle of blockade,
   then the Emperor would revoke the whole of his measures relative
   to neutral commerce. But the ‘Gazette de France’ of June 5, for
   I have no other authority, pretends that the British ministry
   refuse to sanction the arrangement concluded in America; and
   the result of all this is an extreme uncertainty, which prevents
   a decision as to the course proper to be taken.”

This was the situation of the American dispute June 13, 1809, at
Vienna, at the moment Canning’s disavowal of Erskine became certain.
Thus far Napoleon’s mind had passed through two changes,--the first,
in consequence of the British Order in Council of April 26, which
led him to decide on withdrawing the Milan Decree; the second, in
consequence of Erskine’s arrangement, which led him to promise America
everything she asked. The news of Canning’s refusal to carry out the
arrangement stopped Napoleon short in his career of concession; he left
the American affair untouched until after the battle of Wagram, July 6,
which was followed by the submission of Austria, July 12. The battle
of Wagram placed him in a position to defy resistance. Immediately
afterward he sent orders to Paris to stop Hauterive’s negotiation.
About the middle of July Hauterive told the American minister “that a
change had taken place in the views of the Emperor; and in particular
that a decree prepared by his orders as a substitute for those of
November, 1806, and December, 1807, and which would have been a very
material step toward accommodation, had been laid aside.”[107]

In the heat and fury of the battle of Wagram this order must have been
given, for it was known at Paris only one week afterward, and Armstrong
reported the message, July 24, as a notice that unless America resisted
the British doctrines of search and blockade she need expect no
relaxation on the part of Napoleon; while this notice was supported by
a menace that until the Emperor knew the President’s decision he would
take no step to make matters worse than they already were.[108]

If Armstrong put trust in this last promise or menace, he showed once
more his want of sympathy with the Emperor’s character. Quick to yield
before an evident disaster, Napoleon was equally quick to exhaust the
fruits of an evident victory; and the advantage he had obtained over
the United States was as decided, if not as extensive, as that which
he had gained over Austria. In one way or another America must pay for
rebellion, and she could be made to pay only by the usual process of
seizing her commerce.

June 7, while the Emperor was still hesitating or leaning to
concession, Decrès, his Minister of Marine, wrote to him that an
American schooner with a cargo of colonial produce had arrived at
San Sebastian May 20, and that more such vessels must be expected to
arrive, since the Non-intercourse Act had opened the trade to Spanish
ports. What should be done with them? The French Decrees denationalized
every vessel which went to England, or wished to go there, or had
been visited by an English cruiser, or had violated the laws of the
United States, or had incurred suspicion of fraud; but the schooner in
question was under no suspicion of fraud,--she had not been to England,
nor had she ever thought of going there; she had not been stopped by
any cruiser; she was in a Spanish port, nominally outside of French
jurisdiction, and she was authorized in going there by the law of
the United States. Here was an unforeseen case, and Decrès properly
referred it to the Emperor.[109]

Decrès’ letter reached Vienna about June 13, the day when Champagny
described the Emperor as vexed by an extreme uncertainty on American
affairs. The subject was referred to the Minister of Finance. No
decision seems to have been reached until August. Then Maret, the
Secretary of State in personal attendance on the Emperor, created Duc
de Bassano a few days later, enclosed to Champagny, August 4, the draft
of a new decree,[110] which was never published, but furnished the clew
to most of the intricate movements of Napoleon for the following year:--

   “Napoleon, etc.,--considering that the American Congress by its
   Act of March 1, 1809, has forbidden the entrance of its ports to
   all French vessels under penalty of confiscation of ships and
   cargo,--on the report of our Minister of Finance have decreed
   and decree what follows:--

   “Art. 1. The American schooner loaded with colonial produce and
   entered at San Sebastian the 20th May, 1809, will be seized and
   confiscated.

   “Art. 2. The merchandise composing the cargo of the vessel
   will be conveyed to Bayonne, there to be sold, and the produce
   of the sale paid into the _caisse de l’amortissement_
   (sinking-fund).

   “Art. 3. Every American ship which shall enter the ports of
   France, Spain, or Italy will be equally seized and confiscated,
   as long as the same measure shall continue to be executed in
   regard to French vessels in the harbors of the United States.”

Probably the ministers united in objecting to a general confiscation
founded on the phrase of a penalty which the customs laws of every
country necessarily contained. Whatever the reason, this draft rested
in the files of the office over which Champagny presided, and the
Emperor seemed to forget it; but its advantages from his standpoint
were too great to be lost, and its principle was thenceforward his
guide.

Not even Armstrong, suspicious as he was of Napoleon’s intentions,
penetrated the projected policy; yet Armstrong was by no means an
ordinary minister, and his information was usually good. At the moment
when he received what he supposed to be the promise that Napoleon would
not make matters worse until he heard what the President had to say,
Armstrong warned his Government that this assurance was intended as a
menace rather than as a pledge:[111]--

   “What will satisfy him on even these points, particularly the
   former, is not distinctly explained. Our creed on this subject
   is one thing; that of the British government another; and the
   French doctrine of visit, a third. When we speak of illegal
   search, we mean that which claims the right of impressment also;
   but according to the imperial decrees and their commentators,
   the offence is equally great whatever may be the object of the
   visit,--whether it be to demand half your crew, or to ascertain
   only the port from which you sailed, the nature of your cargo,
   or the character of your flag. This is pushing things to a point
   whither we cannot follow them, and which, if I do not mistake,
   is selected because it is a point of that description.”

Before the month of August, Napoleon reverted more energetically than
ever to his old practice and policy. Within Armstrong’s reach remained
only one influence strong enough to offer a momentary resistance to
imperial orders, and thither he turned. The kingdom of Holland was
still nominally independent, and its trade an object of interest.
While England shaped her policy to favor the licensed or smuggling
trade with Dutch ports, the United States risked their relations with
England and France by treating Holland as an independent neutral.
Yet the nominal independence of Holland was due only to the accident
that had made Louis its king, as it had made his brother Joseph king
of Spain,--not wholly with a view to please them, but also to secure
obedience to Napoleon’s orders and energy to his system. No one would
willingly deprive any member of Napoleon’s family of virtues which the
world allowed them; yet none but a Bonaparte thoroughly understood a
Bonaparte, and Napoleon’s opinion of his brothers, as their opinions
of him, stand highest in authority. Napoleon was often generous and
sometimes forbearing with his brothers, and left them no small freedom
to seek popularity at his expense; but they were nothing except as they
represented him, and their ideas of independence or of philanthropy
showed entire misunderstanding of their situation. Of all Napoleon’s
brothers, Louis was the one with whom he was most reasonably offended.
Lucien at least did not wait to be made a king before he rebelled; but
Louis accepted the throne, and then intrigued persistently against the
Emperor’s orders. From the moment he went to Holland he assumed to be
an independent monarch, devoted to winning popularity. He would not
execute the Berlin Decree until Napoleon threatened to march an army
upon him; he connived at its evasion; he issued licenses and admitted
cargoes as he pleased; and he did this with such systematic disregard
of remonstrance that Napoleon became at last angry.

July 17, some days after the battle of Wagram, the Emperor wrote from
Vienna to Louis,[112]--

   “You complain of a newspaper article; it is France that has a
   right to complain of the bad spirit which reigns with you.... It
   may not be your fault, but it is none the less true that Holland
   is an English province.”

At the same time he ordered Champagny to notify the Dutch government
officially that if it did not of its own accord place itself on the
same footing with France, it would be in danger of war.[113]

While this correspondence was still going on, Armstrong imagined that
he might obtain some advantage by visiting Holland. He amused himself
during the idle August by a journey to Amsterdam, where he obtained,
August 19, a private interview with King Louis. Three days before,
Flushing had capitulated to the English expedition which was supposed
to be threatening Antwerp. At Vienna Napoleon was negotiating for
peace, and between the obstinacy of Austria and the British attacks on
Madrid and Antwerp he found himself ill at ease. President Madison had
just issued his Proclamation of August 9 reviving the Non-intercourse
Act, which kept open the American trade with Holland. Everywhere the
situation was confused, irritable, and hard to understand. A general
system of cross-purposes seemed to govern the political movements of
the world.

King Louis told Armstrong that he was quarrelling seriously with the
Emperor on account of the American trade, but was bent on protecting
it at all hazards. This declaration to a foreign minister accredited
not to himself but to his brother, showed Louis attempting with the
aid of foreign nations a systematic opposition to Napoleon’s will.
He denounced his brother’s system as “the triumph of immorality over
justice.... The system is bad,--so bad that it cannot last; but in
the mean time we are the sufferers.” Even the British expedition to
Walcheren troubled Louis chiefly because it forced him under his
brother’s despotism. “It is an erring policy, and will have no solid
or lasting effect but that of drawing upon us a French army which will
extinguish all that is left of ancient Holland. Can it be wisdom in
England to see this country a province of France?”

With such comfort as Armstrong could draw from the knowledge that
Napoleon’s brothers were as hostile as President Madison to the
imperial system, he returned to Paris, September 6, to wait the further
development of the Emperor’s plans. He found on his arrival two notes
from Champagny at Vienna. One of these despatches expressed a civil
hope, hardly felt by the Emperor,[114] that Armstrong would not for the
present carry out his project of returning to America. The other, dated
August 22, was nothing less than a revised and permanent form of the
Emperor’s essay on the _jus gentium_, which Champagny since May
18 had kept in his portfolio.[115]

In Champagny’s hands Napoleon’s views lost freshness without gaining
legality. The “village steeple” disappeared, but with some modification
the “floating colony” remained, and the principle of free seas was
carried to its extreme results:--

   “A merchant-vessel sailing with all the necessary papers
   (_avec les expéditions_) from its government is a floating
   colony. To do violence to such a vessel by visits, by searches,
   and by other acts of an arbitrary authority is to violate the
   territory of a colony; this is to infringe on the independence
   of its government.... The right, or rather the pretension, of
   blockading by a proclamation rivers and coasts, is as monstrous
   (_révoltante_) as it is absurd. A right cannot be derived
   from the will or the caprice of one of the interested parties,
   but ought to be derived from the nature of things themselves. A
   place is not truly blockaded until it is invested by land and
   sea.”

Every one could understand that to assert such principles was an
impossibility for neutrals, and was so meant by Napoleon. He had no
thought of making demands which England could accept. The destruction
of her naval power was his favorite object after the year 1805. The
battle of Wagram confirmed him in his plan, and Louis’ opposition
counted for even less than Armstrong’s diplomacy in checking the energy
of his will. As he ordered Louis, so he ordered Madison, to obey; and
thanks to the obstinacy of Spencer Perceval, both had no choice but to
assist his scheme. As an answer to the American offer expressed in the
Non-intercourse Act, Champagny’s despatch of August 22 was final; but
to preclude a doubt, it closed by saying that the ports of Holland, of
the Elbe and the Weser, of Italy and of Spain, would not be allowed to
enjoy privileges of which French ports were deprived, and that whenever
England should revoke her blockades and Orders in Council, France would
revoke her retaliatory decrees.

Without suicide, England could hardly accept the principles required
by this note; nor had she reason to suppose that her acceptance would
satisfy Napoleon’s demands. As though to encourage her in obstinacy,
the note was printed in the “Moniteur” of October 6, by the Emperor’s
order, before it could have reached America. This unusual step served
no purpose except to give public notice that France would support
England in restricting American rights; it strengthened the hands of
Spencer Perceval and took away the last chance of American diplomacy,
if a chance still existed. Yet neither this stroke nor the severity
foreshadowed by the secret Decree of Vienna was the only punishment
inflicted by Napoleon on the United States for the Non-intercourse Act
and Erskine’s arrangement.

The principle of the Vienna Decree required confiscation of American
commerce in retaliation for penalties imposed on French ships that
should knowingly violate the Non-intercourse Act. Although this
rule and the Bayonne Decree seemed to cover all ordinary objects
of confiscation, the Emperor adopted the supplementary rule that
American merchandise was English property in disguise. In the month
of November a cotton-spinner near Paris, the head of a very large
establishment, petitioned for leave to import about six hundred
bales of American cotton. His petition was returned to him with the
indorsement: “Rejected, as the cotton belongs to American commerce.”
The severity of the refusal surprised every one the more because the
alternative was to use Portuguese--that is to say English--cotton,
or to encourage the consumption of fabrics made wholly in England,
of English materials.[116] Having decided to seize all American
merchandise that should arrive in France on private account, and having
taken into his own hands the business of selling this property as well
as of admitting other merchandise by license, Napoleon protected what
became henceforward his personal interests, by shutting the door to
competition.[117] Armstrong caught glimpses of this stratagem even
before it had taken its finished shape.

   “I am privately informed,” wrote Armstrong December 10, “that
   General Loison has left Paris charged to take hold of all
   British property, or property suspected of being such in the
   ports of Bilbao, San Sebastian, Pasages, etc. The latter part
   of the rule is no doubt expressly intended to reach American
   property. With the General goes a mercantile man who will be
   known in the market as his friend and protégé, and who of course
   will be the exclusive purchaser of the merchandise which shall
   be seized and sold as British. This is a specimen at once of the
   violence and corruption which enter into the present system;
   and of a piece with this is the whole business of licenses, to
   which, I am sorry to add, our countrymen lend themselves with
   great facility.”

Under such conditions commerce between the United States and France
seemed impossible. One prohibition crowded upon another. First came
the Berlin Decree of Nov. 21, 1806, which turned away or confiscated
every American vessel voluntarily entering a British port after that
date. Second, followed the Milan Decree of Nov. 11, 1807, which
denationalized and converted into English property every American
ship visited by a British cruiser or sent into a British port, or
which had paid any tax to the British government. Third, the Bayonne
Decree of April 5, 1808, sequestered all American vessels arriving
in France subsequent to the embargo, as being presumably British
property. Fourth, the American Non-intercourse Act of March 1, 1809,
prohibited all commerce with France or her dependencies. Fifth, the
British Orders in Council of April 26, 1809, established a blockade
of the whole coast of France. Sixth, the secret Decree of Vienna, of
August, 1809, enforced in principle, sequestered every American vessel
arriving within the Emperor’s military control, in reprisal for the
Non-intercourse Act which threatened French ships with confiscation.
Yet with all this, and greatly to General Armstrong’s displeasure,
American ships in considerable numbers entered the ports of France,
and, what was still more incomprehensible, were even allowed to leave
them.

                             CHAPTER VIII.

UNDER these circumstances President Madison was to meet Congress; but
bad as his situation was in foreign affairs, his real troubles lay
not abroad but at home. France never counted with him as more than an
instrument to act on England. Erskine and Canning, by their united
efforts, had so mismanaged English affairs that Madison derived from
their mismanagement all the strength he possessed. The mission of
Jackson to Washington retrieved a situation that offered no other
advantage.

Jackson lost no occasion to give the President popularity.
Comprehending at last that his high tone had only helped his opponent
to carry out a predetermined course, Jackson lost self-confidence
without gaining tact. At first he sustained himself by faith in
Canning; but within a short time he heard with alarm the news from
England that Canning was no longer in office or in credit. For a
few days after the rupture he had a right to hope that the quarrel
would not be pressed to a scandal; but November 13, the “National
Intelligencer” published an official statement which embarrassed
Jackson to the last point of endurance.

   “I came prepared to treat with a regular government,” he wrote
   to his brother,[118] “and have had to do with a mob, and mob
   leaders. That I did not show an equal facility with Erskine to
   be duped by them has been my great crime.”

That Jackson should be angry was natural, and if he was abusive, he
received an ample equivalent in abuse; but his merits as a diplomatist
were supposed to be his courage and his truth, and these he could not
afford to compromise. He had neither said nor done more than stood in
his express orders. Canning’s instructions charged Madison with fraud:

   “The American government cannot have believed that such an
   arrangement as Mr. Erskine consented to accept was conformable
   to his instructions.... They cannot by possibility have believed
   that without any new motive, and without any apparent change in
   the dispositions of the enemy, the British government could have
   been disposed at once and unconditionally to give up the system
   on which they had been acting.”

This ground Jackson had been ordered to take in any “preliminary
discussion” which might “in all probability” arise before he could
enter on the details of his negotiation. In obedience to these
instructions, and well within their limits, Jackson had gone as near
as he dared to telling the President that he alone was to blame for
the disavowal of Erskine, because Erskine’s instructions “were at the
time in substance made known” to him. In subsequently affirming that
he made no insinuation which he could not substantiate, Jackson still
kept to what he believed the truth; and he reiterated in private what
he insinuated officially, that Erskine had been “duped” by the American
government. November 16 he wrote officially to the Foreign Office that
without the slightest doubt the President had full and entire knowledge
of Erskine’s instruction No. 2.[119] These views were consistent and
not unreasonable, but no man could suppose them to be complimentary
to President Madison; yet November 13 Jackson caused his secretary,
Oakeley, to send in his name an official note to the Secretary of
State, complaining of the rupture and rehearsing the charges, with the
conclusion that “in stating these facts, and in adhering to them, as
his duty imperiously enjoined him to do, Mr. Jackson could not imagine
that offence would be taken at it by the American government, as most
certainly none could be intended on his part.”[120] He then addressed
the same counter-statement as a circular to the various British
consuls in the United States, and caused it to be printed in the
newspapers,[121]--thus making an appeal to the people against their own
Government, not unlike the more famous appeal which the French Minister
Genet made in 1793 against President Washington.

In extremely bad temper Jackson quitted the capital. His wife wrote to
her friends in joy at the prospect of shortening her stay in a country
which could offer her only the tribute of ignorant admiration; but even
she showed a degree of bitterness in her pleasure, and her comments
on American society had more value than many official documents in
explaining the attitude of England toward the United States:--

   “Francis, being accustomed to treat with the civilized courts
   and governments of Europe, and not with savage Democrats,
   half of them sold to France, has not succeeded in his
   negotiation.”[122]

At Washington she had seen few ladies besides Mrs. Madison, “une bonne,
grosse femme, de la classe bourgeoise, ... sans distinction,” and also,
to do her justice, “sans prétensions;” who did the British minister’s
wife the honor to copy her toilettes. Immediately after the rupture
Mrs. Jackson went to Baltimore, where she was received with enthusiasm
by society; but Baltimore satisfied her little better than Washington:
“Between ourselves their cuisine is detestable; coarse table-linen,
no claret, champagne and madeira indifferent.” Only as the relative
refinement of New York and Boston was reached, with the flattery
lavished upon the British minister by the Federalist society of the
commercial cities, did Mrs. Jackson and her husband in some degree
recover their composure and their sense of admitted superiority.

Incredible as the folly of a political party was apt to be, the folly
of the Federalists in taking up Jackson’s quarrel passed the limits
of understanding. After waiting to receive their tone from England,
the Federalist newspapers turned on their own path and raised the cry
that Madison had deceived Erskine, and had knowingly entered into an
arrangement which England could not carry out. The same newspapers
which in April agreed with John Randolph that Canning had obtained
through Erskine all he had ever asked or had a right to expect, averred
in October that Erskine surrendered everything and got nothing in
return. No political majority, still less a minority, could survive
a somersault so violent as this; and the Federalists found that all
their late recruits, and many friends hitherto stanch, deserted them
in the autumn elections. Throughout the country the Administration
was encouraged by great changes in the popular vote, even before the
rupture with Jackson. With confidence, Madison might expect the more
important spring elections to sweep opposition from his path. Although
a whole year, and in some cases eighteen months, must pass before a new
Congress could be chosen, the people were already near the war point.

Vermont chose a Republican governor and a legislature Republican
in both branches. In Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey the
Administration recovered more than the ground lost by the embargo.
In Maryland the feud between Samuel Smith and his opponents was
ended by a Republican majority so large that nothing could prevent
Smith’s return to the Senate, although every one knew that he would
carry on a system of personal opposition, if he dared, and that a
moderate Federalist would be less dangerous to the Administration.
In the general return of deserters to the ranks, the party would not
be too strict in its punishments; and the President set the example
by clemency to the worst offender, except John Randolph, of all the
trusted lieutenants in the party service. He held out a hand to Monroe.

Madison’s reasons for winning Monroe were strong. The more he had to do
with Robert Smith, the more intolerable became the incubus of Smith’s
incompetence. He had been obliged to take the negotiations with Erskine
and Jackson wholly on his own shoulders. The papers drafted by Smith
were, as Madison declared,[123] brought from the Department of State
in a condition “almost always so crude and inadequate that I was, in
the more important cases, generally obliged to write them anew myself,
under the disadvantage sometimes of retaining through delicacy some
mixture of his draft.” Smith had not even the virtue of dullness. He
could not be silent, but talked openly, and criticised freely the
measures of Government, especially those of commercial restriction.

Complicated with this incessant annoyance was Gallatin’s feud. The
combination of the Smiths with Giles, Leib, and Duane’s “Aurora”
against Gallatin had its counterpart in the Clintonian faction which
made Madison its target; and whenever these two forces acted together,
they made, with the Federalists, a majority of the Senate. Gallatin
saw the necessity of breaking down this combination of intrigue which
had already done incalculable harm by forcing Robert Smith into the
State Department. He foresaw the effects of its influence in weakening
the Treasury in order to expel himself. On a visit to Monticello in
August he spoke plainly to Jefferson and Madison, and pointed out the
probability that he should be forced to resign. Jefferson reflected six
weeks on this communication, and then wrote entreating him to stand
firm.[124] November 8, the day of the rupture with Jackson, Gallatin
answered Jefferson’s appeal in a long and outspoken letter evidently
meant for communication to Madison:--

   “It has seemed to me from various circumstances that those who
   thought they had injured were disposed to destroy, and that
   they were sufficiently skillful and formidable to effect their
   object. As I may not, however, perhaps, see their actions
   with an unprejudiced eye, nothing but irresistible evidence
   both of the intention and success will make me yield to that
   consideration.... I do not ask that in the present situation
   of our foreign relations the debt be reduced, but only that
   it shall not be increased so long as we are not at war. I do
   not pretend to step out of my own sphere and to control the
   internal management of other departments; but it seems to me
   that as Secretary of the Treasury I may ask, that, while peace
   continues, the aggregate of the expenditure of those departments
   be kept within bounds such as will preserve the equilibrium
   between the national revenue and expenditure without recurrence
   to loans. I cannot consent to act the part of a mere financier,
   to become a contriver of taxes, a dealer of loans, a seeker of
   resources for the purpose of supporting useless baubles, of
   increasing the number of idle and dissipated members of the
   community, of fattening contractors, pursers, and agents, and of
   introducing in all its ramifications that system of patronage,
   corruption, and rottenness which you so justly execrate.”

From this avowal Madison’s difficulties could be understood and his
course foreseen. Very slow to move, he was certain at last to quarrel
with the senatorial faction that annoyed him. He could not but
protect Gallatin, and dismiss Smith. At the end of the vista, however
far the distance, stood the inevitable figure of Monroe. Scarcely
another man in public life could fill precisely the gap, and none
except Armstrong could give strength to the President by joining him.
Perhaps Littleton Tazewell, another distinguished Virginian of the
same school, would have answered the President’s purpose as well as
Monroe; but probably Tazewell would have declined to accept a seat in
the Cabinet of a President whose election he had opposed.[125] Madison
decided to take the first step. He had reason to think that Monroe
repeated his course, at least to the extent of wishing reconciliation.
He authorized Jefferson to act as mediator; and the Ex-President,
who spared no effort for harmony, hastened to tell Monroe that the
government of Louisiana was still at his disposal.[126] Monroe declined
the office as being beneath his previous positions, but said that he
would have accepted the first place in Madison’s Cabinet, and was
sincere in his desire for the success of the Administration; he even
pledged his support, and intimated that he had lost favor with John
Randolph owing to, his exertions for Madison. When Jefferson reported
the result of this interview, the President replied:[127] “The state
of Colonel Monroe’s mind is very nearly what I had supposed; his
willingness to have taken a seat in the Cabinet is what I had not
supposed.” Considering the state of Monroe’s mind in 1808, Madison
might be excused for failing to see that Monroe would accept the State
Department in February, 1809. Indeed, the suddenness of the change
would have startled Monroe’s best friends; and even in December, 1809,
he would have fared ill had his remarks to Jefferson been brought to
John Randolph’s ears.

Monroe’s adhesion having been thus attested, Madison made no immediate
use of the recruit, but held him in reserve until events should
make action necessary. Perhaps this delay was one of Madison’s
constitutional mistakes, and possibly a prompt removal of Robert
Smith might have saved some of the worst disasters that befell the
Government; but in truth Madison’s embarrassments rose from causes that
only time could cure, and were inherent in American society itself. A
less competent administrative system seldom drifted, by reason of its
incompetence, into war with a superior enemy. No department of the
government was fit for its necessary work.

Of the State Department, its chief, and its long series of mortifying
disasters, enough has been said. In November, 1809, it stood helpless
in the face of intolerable insults from all the European belligerents.
Neither the diplomatic nor the consular system was better than a
makeshift, and precisely where the Government felt most need of
ministers,--at Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin, and St. Petersburg,--it
had no diplomatic and but few consular agents, even these often of
foreign allegiance.

The Treasury, hitherto the only successful Executive department, showed
signs of impending collapse, not to be avoided without sacrifices and
efforts which no one was willing to make. The accounts for the year
ending September 30 showed that while the receipts had amounted to
$9,300,000, the actual expenses had exceeded $10,600,000. The deficit
of $1,300,000, as well as reimbursements of debt to the amount of
$6,730,000, had been made good from the balance in the Treasury. The
new fiscal year began with a balance of only $5,000,000; so that
without a considerable curtailment of expenses, a loan or increased
taxation, or both, could not be avoided. Increased taxation was the
terror of parties. Curtailment of expense could be effected only on the
principle that as the government did nothing well, it might as well do
nothing. Any intelligent expenditure, no matter how large or how small,
would have returned a thousand-fold interest to the country, whatever
had been the financial cost; but the waste of money on gunboats and
useless cruisers, or upon an army so badly organized and commanded
as to be a hindrance in war, was an expense that might perhaps be
curtailed, though only by admitting political incapacity.

Naturally Gallatin threatened to resign. Even by submitting to the
Smiths, Duanes, Gileses, and Leibs, and allowing them to cut off the
sources or waste the supplies of public revenue until the government
became an habitual beggar, he could promise himself no advantage.
Never had the chance of finding an end to the public embarrassments
seemed so remote. The position in which the government stood could not
be maintained, but could be abandoned only by creating still greater
difficulties. Intended merely as a makeshift, the Non-intercourse
Act of March 1, 1809, had already proved more mischievous to America
than to the countries it purported to punish. While the three great
commercial nations--France, England, and the United States--were
forcing trade into strange channels or trying to dam its course,
trade took care of itself in defiance of war and prohibitions. As
one coast after another was closed or opened to commerce, countries
whose names could hardly be found on the map--Papenburg, Kniphausen,
Tönningen--became famous as neutrals, and their flags covered the
sea, because England and France found them convenient for purposes
of illegitimate trade. The United States had also their Papenburg.
Amelia Island and the St. Mary’s River, which divided Florida from
Georgia, half Spanish and half American waters, became the scene of a
trade that New York envied. While the shore was strewn with American
cotton and other produce waiting shipment in foreign vessels, scores
of British ships were discharging merchandise to be smuggled into the
United States, or were taking on board heavy freights of cotton or
naval stores on American account. To the United States this manner of
trading caused twofold loss. Not only were the goods charged with a
double voyage and all the costly incidents of a smuggling business, and
not only did the American ship-owner lose the freight on this American
merchandise, both outward and inward, but the United States government
collected no duties on the British goods smuggled from Amelia Island,
Bermuda, and Halifax. The Non-intercourse Act prohibited French and
British merchandise; but in disregard of the prohibition such goods
were freely sold in every shop. Erskine’s arrangement, short as it
was, brought in a fresh and large supply; custom-house oaths were
cheap; custom-house officials did not inquire closely whether cloth was
made in England, France, Holland, or Germany, or whether rum, sugar,
and coffee came from St. Kitt’s or St. Bart’s. Some sorts of English
goods, such as low-priced woollens, were necessities; and the most
patriotic citizen could hardly pay so much respect to the laws of his
country as to dispense with their use by his family, whatever he did on
his own account. Finally, a law which in the eyes of a community was
not respectable was not respected. The community had no other defence
against bad legislation; and in a democracy the spirit of personal
freedom deserved cultivation to the full as much as that of respect for
bad law. The Non-intercourse Act was not only a bad law,--the result of
admitted legislative imbecility,--but it had few or no defenders even
among those who obeyed it.

Ingenuity could hardly have invented a system less advantageous for
the government and people who maintained it. The government lost its
revenue, the shipping lost much of its freight, the people paid double
prices on imports and received half-prices for their produce; industry
was checked, speculation and fraud were stimulated, while certain
portions of the country were grievously wronged. Especially in the
Southern States all articles produced for exchange were depressed to
the lowest possible value, while all articles imported for consumption
were raised to extravagant rates. Elisha Potter, a Congressman from
Rhode Island, complained with reason that the system made the rich more
rich and the poor more poor.[128] In a crowded or in a highly organized
society such a system would probably have created a revolution; but
America had not yet reached such a stage of growth or decay, and the
worst effect of her legislation was to impoverish the government which
adopted and the class of planters who chiefly sustained it.

Gallatin best knew how much the Non-intercourse Act or any other system
of commercial restriction weakened the Treasury. He knew that neither
the President nor Congress offered the germ of a better plan. He faced
an indefinite future of weakness and waste, with a prospect of war at
the end; but this was not the worst. His enemies who were disposed to
destroy, were skilful enough to invent the means of destruction. They
might deprive him of the United States Bank, his only efficient ally;
they might reject every plan, and let the Treasury slowly sink into
ruin; they might force the country into a war for no other object than
to gratify their personal jealousies. Gallatin believed them capable of
all this, and Madison seemed to share the belief. The Treasury which
had till that time sustained the Republican party through all its
troubles, stood on the verge of disaster.

From the military and naval departments nothing had ever been
expected; but their condition was worse than their own chiefs
understood. The machinery of both broke down as Madison took control.
The navy consisted of a few cruisers and a large force of gunboats.
Neither were of immediate use; but a considerable proportion of both
were in active service, if service could be called active which chiefly
consisted in lying in harbor or fitting for harbor defence when no
enemy was expected. No sooner had Paul Hamilton succeeded Robert Smith
at the navy department than the new secretary became aware that his
predecessor had wasted a very large sum of money.[129] Hamilton made no
concealment of his opinion that gunboats were expensive beyond relation
to their value.[130] He intimated that the life of gunboats hardly
exceeded one year, and that their value depended on the correct answer
to the inquiry whether war was a defensive or aggressive operation.
This hint that gunboats could do no harm to their enemies seemed to
gain force from the suggestion that they had yet to prove their uses
for their friends; but if Jefferson’s gunboat system should prove to
be a failure, nothing would be left of the navy except a few frigates
and sloops which could hardly keep the sea in the event of war with
England. The navy was a sink of money.

The army was something worse. At least the navy contained as good
officers and seamen as the world could show, and no cruisers of their
class were likely to be more efficient than the frigates commanded
by Rodgers, Bainbridge, and Decatur, provided they could escape a
more numerous enemy; but the army was worthless throughout, and its
deficiency in equipment was a trifling evil compared with the effects
of political influence on its organization. The first attempt to
raise the army to efficiency ended in scandalous failure within a
few months. Among a thousand obstacles to any satisfactory reform in
the military service, the most conspicuous if not the most fatal was
General Wilkinson, whom President Jefferson could not and would not
sacrifice, but whose character and temper divided the army into two
hostile camps. Wade Hampton, the next general officer in rank, regarded
Wilkinson with extreme contempt, and most of the younger officers who
were not partisans of Jefferson shared Hampton’s prejudice; but July
4, 1808, a military court of inquiry formally acquitted Wilkinson of
being a Spanish pensioner. President Jefferson had already saved him
from court-martial on account of his relations with Burr, and Secretary
Dearborn restored him to command over an army whose interests required
an officer of other qualities.

When Madison and Gallatin in December, 1808, looked to a declaration
of war, their first anxiety concerned New Orleans and West Florida.
December 2, 1808, Secretary Dearborn gave Wilkinson, then at
Washington, orders to direct the new levies of troops toward New
Orleans, and to be ready to take command there in person as soon as
practicable. In pursuance of these orders, two thousand raw soldiers
were directed upon New Orleans from different quarters, and in the
midst of war preparations, Jan. 24, 1809, Wilkinson himself embarked
from Baltimore.[131] Stopping at Annapolis, Norfolk, and Charleston, he
passed six weeks on the Atlantic coast. After the overthrow of the war
policy and the close of the session he sailed March 12 from Charleston,
and in his mysterious way stopped at Havana and then at Pensacola,
“under a special mission from the Executive of the United States.”
April 19 he re-entered New Orleans, the scene of his exploits three
years before; and he returned as a victor, triumphant over Daniel Clark
and the Burr conspirators, as well as over Governor Claiborne, Wade
Hampton, and all ill-wishers in the subordinate ranks of the army, of
whom Captain Winfield Scott was one.

Wilkinson found at New Orleans, in his own words,[132]--

   “A body of two thousand undisciplined recruits, men and officers
   with a few exceptions sunk in indolence and dissipation; without
   subordination, discipline, or police, and nearly one third of
   them sick; ... without land or water transport for a single
   company; medical assistance for two thousand men dependent
   on two surgeons and two mates, one of the former confined to
   his bed; a majority of the corps without paymasters; the
   men deserting by squads; the military agent representing the
   quartermaster’s department without a cent in his chest, his
   bills protested, and he on the eve of shutting up his office; a
   great deficiency of camp equipage; not a haversack in store; the
   medicine and hospital stores scarcely sufficient for a private
   practitioner.”

The General decided that, first of all, the troops must be removed from
the city and sent into camp; but rains made encampment impossible until
the river should fall, and May 12 nothing had been done excepting to
notify the Secretary of War that in the course of the following week
the General meant to select an encampment which would be so placed as
to meet an attack from every hostile quarter.[133] His decision was
made known to the Secretary of War in a letter dated May 29:--

   “With the general voice of American and Creole in favor of
   it, I have selected a piece of ground on the left bank of the
   Mississippi, below this city about four leagues, which I find
   perfectly dry at this moment, although the surface of the river,
   restrained by its dykes, is in general three feet above the
   level of the country. You will put your finger on the spot,
   at the head of the English turn, just where the road to the
   settlements on the Terre aux Boeufs leaves the river.”[134]

June 10 the main body of troops moved down the river to the new camp.
More than five hundred sick were transported with the rest, suffering
chiefly from chronic diarrhœa, bilious or intermittent fevers, and
scurvy.

Secretary Eustis, who in March succeeded Dearborn at the War
Department, being an army-surgeon by profession, noticed, before
Wilkinson’s arrival at New Orleans, the excessive proportion of troops
on the sick-list. Quickly taking alarm, he wrote April 30 directing
Wilkinson to disregard Dearborn’s previous instructions, and after
leaving a garrison of old troops at New Orleans, to transport the rest
up the river to the high ground in the rear of Fort Adams, or Natchez.
The orders were peremptory and pressing.[135]

This letter, dated April 30, should have gone, and was believed to have
gone, by the post which left Washington May 6, and reached New Orleans
May 25; another post followed a week later, and still another arrived
June 8, two days before the troops moved to Terre aux Boeufs. According
to Wilkinson the letter did not arrive by any of these mails, but came
only by the fourth post, which reached New Orleans June 14, after he
and his troops were fixed in camp. The cost of a bad character was
felt at such moments. No one believed Wilkinson; his reputation for
falsehood warranted suspicion that he had suppressed the orders in the
belief that he knew best what the troops required. Such insubordination
was no new thing on his part. Instead of expressing regret, he wrote to
Eustis that even had he received the orders of April 30 in time, he
should still “have not sought the position you recommended,” because
the labor of ascending the river would have diseased nine tenths of
the men, the expense would have exceeded twelve thousand dollars, and
the position of Fort Adams was ill-suited for the protection of New
Orleans.[136]

On the troops the first effect of their encampment was good; but
after the middle of June rains began, generally several showers on
the same day, and the camp was deep in mud. The number of sick made
proper sanitary care impossible. The police officer’s report of July
12[137] gave a revolting picture of the sanitary conditions: “The
whole camp abounds with filth and nastiness of almost every kind.” The
sick-list rose to six hundred and sixty in a force of sixteen hundred
and eighty-nine non-commissioned officers and men; in August it rose
to nine hundred and sixty-three in a total force of fifteen hundred
and seventy-four. The camp was a fever hospital, the suffering beyond
experience. Food, medicine, shelter, clothing, and care were all
wanting either to the sick or to the well:[138]--

   “The sick and the well lived in the same tents; they generally
   subsisted on the same provisions, were equally exposed to the
   constant and incessant torrents of rain, to the scorching heat
   of the sun, and during the night to the attacks of numberless
   mosquitoes. They manifested the pains and sufferings they
   experienced by shrieks and groans which during the silence of
   the night were distinctly to be heard from one end of the line
   to the other. It is my candid belief the mosquitoes produced
   more mischief than any other cause. In the night the air was
   filled with them, and not a man was provided with anything like
   a bar or net. Thus situated, the sufferings of the unfortunate
   sick can perhaps better be imagined than described.”

Before the army had been a month in camp, the officers petitioned
the General for removal. He could not but refuse. He had no means of
escape, and to do him justice, he bore with courage the consequences
of his own mistake. He did whatever occurred to him to protect his
men. Secretary Eustis took the matter less calmly. No sooner did the
secretary learn, through Wilkinson’s letters written in May, that he
seriously meant to encamp the troops at Terre aux Boeufs, than official
orders, admitting no discretion, were despatched as early as June 22
from the Department, directing that the whole force should be instantly
embarked for Natchez and Fort Adams.

The letter arrived July 19. Wilkinson dared not again disobey, although
he might be right in thinking that the risks of removal were greater
than those of remaining. Every resource of the army and navy was put
at Wilkinson’s command, and every man at Terre aux Boeufs was eager to
escape; yet week after week passed without movement. The orders which
arrived July 19 were not made public till the end of August, and only
September 14 was the camp evacuated. The effective force was then
about six hundred men in charge of nine hundred invalids. The strength
of all had been reduced, until they were unequal to the fatigues of
travel. Only one hundred and twenty-seven men died at Terre aux Boeufs
between June 10 and September 14; but two hundred and fifty died on
their way up the river, before October 31, and altogether seven hundred
and sixty-four, out of two thousand soldiers sent to New Orleans,
died within their first year of service. The total loss by death and
desertion was nine hundred and thirty-one.

Wilkinson himself was attacked by fever in passing New Orleans,
September 19, and on proceeding to Natchez soon received a summons
to Washington to answer for his conduct. Brigadier-General Wade
Hampton succeeded him in command of what troops were still alive at
New Orleans. The misfortune was compensated only by the advantage of
affording one more chance to relieve the army and the government of a
general who brought nothing but disaster.

With the four departments of Executive government in this state of
helplessness, President Madison met Congress, the least efficient body
of all.

                              CHAPTER IX.

THE President’s Annual Message, read November 29 before Congress,
threw no light on the situation. If Madison’s fame as a statesman
rested on what he wrote as President, he would be thought not only
among the weakest of Executives, but also among the dullest of men,
whose liveliest sally of feeling exhausted itself in an epithet, and
whose keenest sympathy centred in the tobacco crop; but no statesman
suffered more than Madison from the constraints of official dress.
The Message of 1809 hinted that England had no right to disavow her
minister’s engagement, and that Jackson’s instructions as well as his
conduct betrayed a settled intent to prevent an understanding; but
these complaints led to no corrective measures. The President professed
himself still willing to listen with ready attention to communications
from the British government through any new channel, and he seemed to
fall back on Jefferson’s “painful alternatives” of the year before,
rather than on any settled plan of his own:--

   “In the state which has been presented of our affairs with the
   parties to a disastrous and protracted war, carried on in a
   mode equally injurious and unjust to the United States as a
   neutral nation, the wisdom of the national Legislature will be
   again summoned to the important decision on the alternatives
   before them. That these will be met in a spirit worthy of the
   councils of a nation conscious both of its rectitude and of its
   rights, and careful as well of its honor as of its peace, I
   have an entire confidence. And that the result will be stamped
   by a unanimity becoming the occasion, and be supported by every
   portion of our citizens with a patriotism enlightened and
   invigorated by experience, ought as little to be doubted.”

Such political formulas, conventional as a Chinese compliment, probably
had value, since they were current in every government known to man;
but that President Madison felt entire confidence in the spirit of the
Eleventh Congress could not be wholly believed. John Randolph best
described Madison’s paper in a letter to Judge Nicholson, a few days
afterward:[139]

   “I have glanced over the President’s Message, and to say the
   truth it is more to my taste than Jefferson’s productions on the
   same occasions. There is some cant to be sure; but politicians,
   priests, and even judges, saving your honor’s presence, must
   cant, ‘more or less.’”

Probably the colorless character of the Message was intended to disarm
criticism, and to prevent Randolph and the Federalists from rousing
again the passions of 1808; but sooner or later some policy must be
adopted, and although the Message suggested no opinion as to the
proper course, it warned Congress that the crisis was at hand: “The
insecurity of our commerce and the consequent diminution of the public
revenue will probably produce a deficiency in the receipts of the
ensuing year.” The moment when a Republican administration should begin
to borrow money for ordinary expenses in time of peace would mark a
revolution in the public mind.

Upon Gallatin, as usual, the brunt of unpopular responsibility fell.
His annual Report, sent to the House December 8, announced that a loan,
probably of four million dollars, would be required for the service
of 1810; that the Non-intercourse Law, as it stood, was “inefficient
and altogether inapplicable to existing circumstances;” and finally
that “either the system of restriction, partially abandoned, must be
reinstated in all its parts, and with all the provisions necessary for
its strict and complete execution, or all the restrictions, so far
at least as they affect the commerce and navigation of citizens of
the United States, ought to be removed.” This subject, said Gallatin,
required immediate attention; but in regard to the wider question of
war or peace he contented himself with a reference to his two preceding
reports.

Congress showed more than usual unwillingness to face its difficulties.
The episodes of Erskine and Jackson supplied excuse for long and
purposeless debates. In the Senate, December 5, Giles reported from
a special committee the draft of a Resolution denouncing Jackson’s
conduct as indecorous, insolent, affronting, insidious, false,
outrageous, and premeditated,--epithets which seemed to make
superfluous the approval of Madison’s course or the pledge of support
with which the Resolution ended. Giles reviewed the conduct of Jackson
and Canning, entreating the Senate to banish irritation and to restore
harmony and mutual good-will, “the most fervent prayer of one who in
the present delicate, interesting crisis of the nation feels a devotion
for his country beyond everything else on this side of heaven.”[140]
The experience of many years warranted Giles’s hearers in suspecting
that when he professed a wish for harmony, the hope of harmony must
be desperate, for his genius lay in quite another direction; and when
he laid aside partisanship, his party had reason to look for some
motive still narrower. His course quickly proved the sense in which he
understood these phrases.

January 3, 1810, the President recommended by message the enlistment
for a short period of a volunteer force of twenty thousand men, and a
reorganization of the militia; adding that it would rest with Congress
also “to determine how far further provision may be expedient for
putting into actual service, if necessary, any part of the naval
armament not now employed.” No one knew what this language meant.
Crawford of Georgia, with his usual bluntness, said:[141] “This
Message, in point of obscurity, comes nearer my ideas of a Delphic
oracle than any state paper which has come under my inspection. It
is so cautiously expressed that every man puts what construction on
it he pleases.” Giles pleased to put upon it a warlike construction.
January 10 he reported a bill for fitting out the frigates; January
13 he supported this bill in a speech which surprised Federalists and
Republicans alike, if they could be still surprised at the varieties of
Giles’s political philosophy.

   “The visionary theory of energy,” said he, “was the fatal error
   of the Federal party, and that error deprived it of the power
   of the nation. The government being thus placed in the hands