Part 8 (2/2)
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The New England conspiracy, the Yazoo controversy, and the intrigues of Burr, are admirably recounted by Henry Adams. His account may be corrected at various points, however, by consulting W. F. McCaleb, _The Aaron Burr Conspiracy_ (1903). A brief account of the intrigues and plots of this time may be found in Channing, _The Jeffersonian System, 1801-1811_ (1906). The intrigues of the Federalists in New England have been described recently with new information by S. E. Morison, _Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis_ (2 vols., 1913). Other biographies of importance are H. C.
Lodge, _Life and Letters of George Cabot_ (1877); James Parton, _Life and Times of Aaron Burr_ (1858); J. S. Ba.s.sett, _Life of Andrew Jackson_ (2 vols., 1911). The trial of Burr is described in popular fas.h.i.+on by F. T. Hill, _Decisive Battles of the Law_ (1907). The origin and subsequent history of the Yazoo affair may be traced in C. H. Haskins, ”The Yazoo Land Companies” (in the _American Historical a.s.sociation Papers_, 1891).
CHAPTER X
PEACEABLE COERCION
The so-called Peace of Amiens in 1801 proved to be only an interlude in the wars of France with Europe. Within two years hostilities were renewed which closed only with the battle of Waterloo. In the course of this prolonged conflict Napoleon won and lost for France the ascendency in central and western Europe, but Great Britain remained throughout mistress of the seas. The commerce of France and of Holland and Spain, which had become virtually her dependencies, was almost driven from the seas. For their foodstuffs and colonial supplies, more than ever in demand as war devastated the fields of Europe, these nations had to look to vessels flying neutral flags. The export trade of the United States, which had fallen from $94,000,000 in the year 1801 to $55,800,000 in 1803, rapidly recovered until in 1805 it pa.s.sed the high-water mark of the earlier year. More than half of this trade was in products of the tropics, for while the direct trade between the West India colonies and Europe was forbidden by the so-called ”Rule of 1756,” American s.h.i.+ppers carried on a lucrative traffic which was virtually direct. Products brought from the West Indies to American ports were promptly res.h.i.+pped as part of American stock to European ports; and the British courts had held that this importation had broken the voyage. When once import duties had been paid in an American port, the courts refused to inquire what thereafter became of the cargo and whether in fact rebates were given on exportation.
In midsummer of 1805 occurred a reversal of British policy. In the case of the Ess.e.x, which had made the voyage from Charleston to London with colonial produce from Martinique, a British admiralty court ruled for the first time that the payment of import duties was not sufficient proof of _bona fide_ importation, because of the practice in the United States of repaying duties on exportation. Other seizures followed that of the Ess.e.x, to the consternation of American s.h.i.+ppers. Insurance rates on cargoes were doubled and doubled again within a year. Early in 1806, Monroe, then Minister to England, wrote in protest to the British Ministry that ”about one hundred and twenty vessels had been seized, several condemned, all taken from their course, detained, and otherwise subjected to heavy losses and damages.” But Monroe could not obtain any concession of principle or promise of indemnity.
The policy which the Secretary of State was known to favor was that of coercing England through restrictions upon trade. The implications of this policy were suggested by his often-quoted remark touching upon the dependence of British manufacturers: ”There are three hundred thousand souls who live by our custom: let them be driven to poverty and despair, and what will be the consequences?” He lost no opportunity to urge upon his party a.s.sociates the need of pa.s.sing retaliatory legislation against Great Britain. It was well known, of course, that the President would support any fair application of his theory of peaceable coercion.
At first there was a general disposition to try the effect of an embargo; but more prudent counsels prevailed when the news of Trafalgar reached America. Congress finally adopted, in April, 1806, a non-importation bill, which was to become effective eight months later.
There was some point to Randolph's criticism when he declared it to be ”a milk-and-water Bill. A dose of chicken broth to be taken nine months hence”; for the act prohibited only the importation of such English goods as could be manufactured in the United States or procured elsewhere. Such a measure was not likely to make the manufacturers of England quail. In the mean time, the Administration was to accomplish what it might by direct negotiation with the British Ministry, using this Nicholson Act as a covert threat. Much against his will, Jefferson had to nominate another envoy to act with Monroe. His choice fell upon William Pinkney, of Maryland. The friends of Madison were not unwilling to humiliate Monroe, whose presidential aspirations might interfere with Madison's succession, for Jefferson had let it be known as early as the summer of 1805 that he did not seek a reelection.
A few days after Congress adjourned occurred the Leander episode. This frigate was one of several British war vessels whose presence in American waters was a constant menace to merchantmen and an insult to the National Government. From time to time they appeared off Sandy Hook, lying in wait for American vessels which were suspected of carrying British seamen who had fled from the hard conditions of service on s.h.i.+ps of war. An American merchantman was likely at any time to be stopped by a shot across her bow and to be subjected to the humiliation of a visit from a search crew. On April 25, 1806, the Leander, in rounding up a merchantman, fired a shot which killed the helmsman of a pa.s.sing coasting sloop. The incident or accident threatened to a.s.sume the proportions of a _casus belli_.
The practice of impressment was an old grievance which seemed to Americans devoid of any justification. From the British point of view there was much to be said in extenuation of the practice. It should not be forgotten that Great Britain was locked in a life-and-death struggle with a mighty antagonist, and that she had need of every able seaman.
Owing to the rigorous life on board of men-of-war, every s.h.i.+p's crew was likely to be depleted by desertions whenever she touched at an American port. Jack Tar found life much more agreeable on an American merchantman; and he rarely failed to procure the needful naturalization papers or certificates which would give him a claim to American citizens.h.i.+p. The right of expatriation was not at this time conceded by the British Government. Once an Englishman, always an Englishman.
Surely, then, British commanders might claim their own seamen on the high seas. Officially, at least, they never claimed the right to impress American seamen. Yet where differences of speech were so slight, the provocation so strong, and the needs of the navy so great, search crews were not always careful to distinguish between Britishers and Yankees.
The United States never admitted the justice of these claims. To concede the right of search on the high seas was to admit a vast extension of British jurisdiction. As early as 1792, Jefferson had stated the principle for which the United States had consistently contended: ”The simplest rule will be that the vessel being American shall be evidence that the seamen on board of her are such.” The principle was never accepted by any British ministry. The practice of impressment continued to hara.s.s each succeeding administration. In 1806, a crisis seemed at hand. Madison reported to the House of Representatives the names of nine hundred and thirteen persons who appeared to have been impressed from American vessels. How many of these were British deserters under American names, it is impossible to say. The number reported by Madison is at least an index to the sense of injury which the nation felt.
When President Jefferson sent Pinkney to join Monroe in securing a comprehensive treaty with Great Britain, which should restore West India trade to its old condition and provide indemnity for the American vessels condemned in the admiralty courts, he set down, as a _sine qua non_ in his instructions, the renunciation by the British Government of the practice of impressment. It was an ultimatum which expressed a truly national feeling; but with the consciousness of power which the domination of the high seas gave, the British commissioners treated this ultimatum, somewhat contemptuously, as an impossible and unwarranted demand. The American mission should have ended then and there; but on obtaining a.s.surances that greater care would be exercised in impressing seamen, Monroe and Pinkney determined to disregard their instructions. Negotiations were continued and culminated in a treaty, December 1, 1806, which ran counter to the injunctions of the President in every particular. He refused to submit the doc.u.ment to the Senate.
Nevertheless, he permitted Madison to draft new instructions for the commissioners, in the hope that the treaty could be made a basis for further negotiations. While these new instructions were crossing the ocean, a disaster occurred which brought the United States and Great Britain to the verge of war.
In the early months of 1807, some French frigates had run up Chesapeake Bay to escape a British squadron. Relying on what Jefferson pleasantly termed the hospitality of the United States, these British men-of-war dropped anchor in Lynnhaven Bay, near Cape Henry, where they could watch the pa.s.sage through the capes. From one of these British vessels a boat crew of common seamen made their escape to Norfolk. Just at this time the new frigate Chesapeake, which had been partially fitted out at the navy yard at Was.h.i.+ngton for service in the Mediterranean, dropped down to Hampton Roads to receive her complement of guns and provisions for a three years' cruise.
[Map: Tonnage of the United States 1807]
On June 22, the Chesapeake pa.s.sed out through the capes, preceded by the Leopard, a British frigate of fifty guns. When they were well out on the high seas, the Leopard drew alongside the Chesapeake and signaled that she had a message for Commodore Barron. This message proved to be an order from Admiral Berkeley at Halifax, instructing commanders of British vessels who fell in with the Chesapeake to search her for deserters. The American commander denied that he had deserters on board and refused to allow the search. Almost immediately the Leopard approached with her gundecks cleared for action. Unaware of his danger Commodore Barron had not called his crew to quarters. The Leopard opened fire and poured three broadsides into the helpless American vessel, killing three men and wounding eighteen others. After fifteen minutes Barron hauled down his flag to spare his crew from needless sacrifice, and suffered the British commander to search the dismantled Chesapeake.
Four alleged deserters were found and taken away, three of whom subsequently were proved to be American citizens. The Leopard then returned to the squadron off Cape Henry, while the Chesapeake limped back to Hampton Roads.
Had the President chosen to go to war at this moment, he would have had a united people behind him. But Thomas Jefferson was not a martial character. His proclamation ordering all armed British vessels out of American waters and suspending intercourse with them if they remained, was so moderate in tone as to seem almost pusillanimous. John Randolph called it an apology. Instead of demanding unconditional reparation for this outrage, Madison instructed Monroe to insist upon an entire abolition of impressments as ”an indispensable part of the satisfaction.” The astute Canning, who had become Foreign Secretary in the new Portland Ministry, took advantage of this confusion of issues to evade the demand for reparation until popular pa.s.sion in the United States had subsided. It was not until November that Canning took active measures. He then sent a special commissioner to the United States in the person of George Rose.
The instructions which Rose carried with him to Was.h.i.+ngton, in January, 1808, were anything but conciliatory. As a preliminary to any negotiations, he was to demand the recall of the President's proclamation of July 2, and an explicit disavowal of Commodore Barron's conduct in encouraging desertion from His Majesty's navy. The United States was also to give a.s.surances that it would prevent the recurrence of such causes as had provoked the display of force by Admiral Berkeley.
That the Administration should have continued negotiations after the full purport of these instructions was disclosed, seems incredible; but it was not until the middle of February that Madison awoke to the fact that the United States was being invited to ”make as it were an expiatory sacrifice to obtain redress.” Yet another month pa.s.sed before Rose was given to understand that his mission was futile. By this time public attention was engrossed in the contest for neutral rights.
Before the close of the year 1806, Napoleon was master of central Europe and in a position to deal his premeditated blow at the commercial ascendency of England. A fortnight after the terrible overthrow of Prussia at Jena, he made a triumphal entry into Berlin. From this city he issued, on November 21, the famous decree which was his answer to the British blockade of the continent. Since the British had determined to ruin neutral commerce by an illegal blockade, so the preamble read, ”whoever deals on the continent in English merchandise favors that design and becomes an accomplice.” All English goods henceforth were to be lawful prize in any territory held by the troops of France or her allies. The British Isles were declared to be in a state of blockade.
Every American or other neutral vessel going to or coming from the British Isles, therefore, was subject to capture.
The British Ministry took up the gauntlet. An order in council of January 7, 1807, forbade neutral trade between ports under the control of France or her allies; a second order, November 11, closed to neutrals those European ports under French control ”as if the same were actually blockaded,” but permitted vessels which first entered a British port and paid port duties to sail to any continental port. Only one more blow seemed needed to complete the ruin of American commerce. It fell a month later, December 17, 1807, when Napoleon issued his Milan Decree.
Henceforth any vessel which submitted to be searched by an English cruiser or which paid any tonnage duty to the British Government or which set sail for any British port was subject to capture and condemnation as lawful prize. Such was to be the maritime code ”until England returned to the principles of international law which are also those of justice and honor.”
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