Part 9 (2/2)

He has, however, no ”very favorable expectations” But as to France, he evidently is not without hope that she will be wise enough to see that ”she ought at once to eress, the renewal of a non-intercourse with Great Britain being the very species of resistance ous to her professed views” But he was clearly not sanguine

If that was his wish, however, it was gratified Napoleon did take advantage of the act, but in such a way as to reverse the relative positions of the two nations by seizing for France and taking from the United States the power or the will to dictate terny, announced in a letter ust, the revocation of the Berlin and Milan decrees fro November; and, a day or two after, such new restrictions were iation act, as pretty much to ruin what little there was left of it The revocation of the edicts, moreover, was coupled with the conditions that Great Britain should not only recall her order in council, but renounce her ”new principles of blockade,” or that the United States should ”cause their rights to be respected by the English” Napoleon had in this three ends to gain, and he gained theainst a renewal of the non-importation act of the United States, if the President should accept this conditional recall of the decrees as satisfactory; second, to leave those decrees virtually unrepealed, by land, who, he well kneould not listen to the proposed conditions; and, third, to involve the United States and England in new disputes, whichturned out as the emperor wished The President accepted the conditional withdrawal of the French decrees, as in accordance with the act of Congress; England refused to recognize a contingent withdrawal as a withdrawal at all; and the result at length ar between England and the United States

The acquiescence of the President in the decision of Napoleon was the nificant inasmuch as Mr Sovernment, when a copy of the act of May was sent to it, that there could be no negotiation under the act until another matter was disposed of A decree, issued at Rambouillet in March, 1810, and enforced in May, ordered the confiscation of all American shi+ps then detained in the ports of France, and in Spanish, Dutch, and Neapolitan ports under the control of France The loss to Aoes, was estimated to be about forty million dollars This decree was ostensibly in retaliation of that act of non-intercourse passed by Congress more than a year before, and was, therefore, a retrospective law The non-intercourse act, moreover, had expired by its own limitation months before many of these shi+ps were seized; but all, nevertheless, were confiscated, though some of them had entered the ports merely for shelter By order of the President, S, the American minister at Paris, that ”a satisfactory provision for restoring the property lately surprised and seized, by the order or at the instance of the French government, must be combined with a repeal of the French edicts, with a view to a non-intercourse with Great Britain; such a provision being an indispensable evidence of the just purpose of France toward the United States” The injunction was repeated a feeeks later; but when the eust, the ”indispensable” was dispensed with, and a few months later an absolute refusal of any compensation for the spoliation under the Rambouillet decree was quietly submitted to

But meanwhile the President, in Nove that France had complied with the act of the previous May and revoked the decrees, while the English orders in council reland still had threeto the act, in which to make her choice between a recall of her orders in council or the alternative of seeing the Aainst her But, it is to be observed, the French minister's announceust, and then the revocation of the decrees was not to take effect till Nove with it the President's proclamation, when it soon appeared that there was still to be ”tarrying in the eating of the cake” The decrees were to reer, till it should be knohether Great Britain would comply with those terms which France--not the United States-- the orders in council; and if Great Britain did not coality of the President's proclamation, of course, was questioned There was, as Josiah Quincy said in debate in the House, the following February (1811), ”a continued seizure of all the vessels which carasp of the French custom-house, from the 1st of November down to the date of our last accounts” Other members, not more earnest, were less tenation at what, one of the in the conduct of private affairs; while another declared that the President was throwing the people ”into the embrace of that monster at whose perfidy Lucifer blushed and hell stands astonished” France knew all this while what England's decision would be She was ready to rescind the orders in council when the French edicts were revoked, but she did not recognize a ny, to the American ambassador as such revocation The second French condition, that England should abandon her ”new principles of blockade” and accept in their place a new French principle, was perelish ministry That proposition opened a question not properly belonging to an agree the decrees and orders,--a question of as a blockade, and what could properly be subject to it Napoleon's doctrine was, not only that a paper blockade was not perht of blockade ”to ports not fortified, to harbors and e of civilized nations, is applicable only to strong or fortified places”

Mr Emott, a member of the House froht well be grateful to both England and France, if they would agree upon this doctrine as good international law; since in that case, as there were no fortified places in the United States, she would never be in peril of a blockade But it was precisely what England would not adreement to revoke the orders and decrees

To ”this curious gallamatry,” as Quincy called it, ”of ti to do, of declaration and understanding of English duties and Aredient of Madison's own devising The Aland and France were instructed that Great Britain would be expected to include in the revocation of her orders in council the blockade of a portion of the coast of France, declared in May, 1806; and the President offered, unasked, a pledge to the French emperor, that this should be insisted upon Whether he meant to make it easier for Napoleon and harder for Great Britain to respond to the act of May is a question impossible to answer; but the opponents of the policy he was pursuing were careful to point out that the act of May said nothing whatever, either of this or any other blockade; that when, the year before, the agreement was made with Erskine, the President did not pretend that the orders in council included blockades; and that it was re the monstrous spoliation of a few months before by the French, under the Rambouillet decree, and yet remember this British order of blockade of four years before, which everybody else had forgotten Indeed, so completely had it passed out of mind, that the Aed to ask the British foreign secretary whether that order had been revoked or was still considered as in force It had never been forh it had been comprehended in the subsequent order in council of January, 1807 England refused, however, to recall specifically this blockade of 1806, for that would have been construed as a recognition of Napoleon's right to demand an abandonment of her ”new principles of blockade;” but in fact--as the British ed--the recall of the order in council of 1807 would have annulled the order of blockade of 1806, which it had absorbed

The truth is, the whole negotiation was a trial of skill at diploland would not yield an inch to the United States or to France Madison and his party wereto aid Napoleon; and Napoleon hoped to defeat both his antagonists by turning their swords against each other A quite different result would have followed had France been as willing as England apparently was that the coard to other questions; or if the American Executive had insisted that it would accept their unconditional revocation, pure and simple and not otherwise, from either power, as was conteress rose in March, 1811, it left behind it an act renewing non-intercourse with England, in accordance with Napoleon's dehts to be respected by the English” This meant war

CHAPTER XIX

WAR WITH ENGLAND

In May, 1811, there occurred one of those accidents which happen on purpose, and often serve as a relief when the public teerous condition This was the fight between the Alish sloop-of-war Little Belt, of eighteen guns This vessel belonged to the British squadron which was ordered to the American coast to break up the trade from the United States to France; and the President was one of the few shi+ps the government had for the protection of its commerce The shi+ps met a few miles south of Sandy Hook, chased each other in turn, then fired into each other without any reasonable pretext for the first shot, which each accused the other of having fired The loss on board the English shi+p, in an encounter which lasted only a few minutes, was over thirty in killed and wounded, while only a single htly wounded on board the President It was, as Mr Madison said, an ”occurrence not unlikely to bring on repetitions,” and that these would ”probably end in an open rupture or a better understanding, as the calculations of the British government may prompt or dissuade froh it would be a great deal easier for England to bring on a war than to avert it, in the angry mood in which the majority of the Democratic party then was But Mr Madison preserved his equani his old proclivity for France, and his old dislike of England, his impartiality between them is rather remarkable But his ai of the well-founded coress assee the delinquencies of France as well as the offenses of England He insisted that while England should have acknowledged the Berlin and Milan decrees to be revoked and have acted accordingly, France showed no disposition to repair the s she had inflicted upon Aorous and unexpected restrictions” upon commerce that it would be necessary, unless they were speedily discontinued, torestrictions on importations from France”

This tone is evenland that seems to be looked upon as the chief offender, hoht after Congress had assembled he wrote to Barlow, the newthe French decrees to be so far withdrawn that a withdrawal of the British orders overned the repeal of the decrees, and evaded a correction of other outrages, has led with the conciliatory tendency of the repeal as ust as possible” ”In fact,”

he adds, ”without a systee from an appearance of crafty contrivance and insatiate cupidity, for an open,with a nation whose exaood-will can exist; and that the ill-hich her policy aiainst her eneainst herself” French depredations upon A a fresh flame here,” and, if they were not stopped, ”hostile collisions will as readily take place with one nation as the other;” nor would there be any hesitation in sending Aates to that sea, ”with orders to suppress by force the French and Danish depredations,” were it not for the ”danger of rencounters with British shi+ps of superior force in that quarter”

By this tiorousfor leadershi+p and distinction, was beginning its claland How much respect had Madison for this movement, and how much faith in it? A letter to Jefferson of February 7 answers both questions Were he not evidently amused, he would seem to be contemptuous ”To enable the Executive to step at once into Canada,” he says, ”they have provided, after twotwelve to raise it, and after three months for a volunteer force, on terms not likely to raise it at all for that object The uised h, but not to be explained in the compass of a letter” This is not the tone of either hope or fear If as in his land Three weeks later he writes to Barlow at Paris On various points of negotiation between that gests distrust rather than expectation” He colect, of discourtesy, of a disregard of past obligations as to the liberation of shi+ps and cargoes seized, and of late conde all these and other grievances he says: ”We find so little of explicit dealing or substantial redress e, that suspicions are unavoidable; and if they be erroneous, the fault does not lie with those who entertain the for a new treaty, which he thinks unnecessary, is only seeking to gain tie of future events The commercial relations between the two countries are so intolerable that trade ”will be prohibited if no essential change take place” Unless there be indes committed under the Rambouillet decree, and for other spoliations, he declares that ”there can be neither cordiality nor confidence here; nor any restraint fro it” The letter concludes with the emphatic assertion that, if dispatches soon looked for ”do not exhibit the French government in better colors than it has yet assumed, there will be but one sentiment in this country; and I need not say what that will be”

Congress all this while was lashi+ng itself into fury against England

The a leaders of the De for a fight,” and they chose to have it out with England rather than with France Not that there was not quite as land Some, indeed, of the more hot-headed were anxious for ith both; but these were of the hed in scorn at the doubt that he could not at a blow subdue the Canadas with a few regiland was determined upon, partly because the old enmity toward her made that intolerable which to the old affection for France was a burden lightly borne; and partly because the instinctive jealousy of the commercial interest, on the part of the planter-interest, preferred that policy which would do the most harm to the North On April 1, 1812, just five weeks after the writing of this letter to Barlow, Mr Madison sent to Congress a e of an act to io on all vessels now in port or hereafter arriving for the period of sixty days” It was meant to be a secret measure; but the intention leaked out in two or three places, and the neas hurried North by several of the Federalist members in time to enable some of their constituents to send their shi+ps to sea before the act was passed Nor, probably, was it a surprise to anybody; for ith England had been the topic of debate in one aspect or another all winter, and the purpose of the party in poas plain to everybody That the eo was intended as a preparation for as frankly acknowledged An act was speedily passed, though the period was extended from sixty to ninety days Within less than sixty days, however, another e from the President recomn Relations, of which Calhoun was chairman, reported in favor of ”an immediate appeal to arms,” and the next day a declaratory act was passed Of the seventy-nine affirht were from the South and West, and of the other thirty-one votes from the Northern States, fourteen were froainst it, thirty-four were fro two froot through the Senate by a majority of six

Mr Madison for years had opposed a ith England as unwise and useless,--unwise, because the United States was not in a condition to go to ith the greatest naval power in the world; and useless, because the end to be reached by war could be gained more certainly, and at infinitely less cost, by peaceful ed Indeed, up to within a o as a precursor of war, his letters show that, if he thought as inevitable, it land But the faction determined upon war must have at their command an administration to carry out that policy Their choice was not limited to Madison for an available candidate Whoever was nominated by the Democrats was sure to be chosen, and Madison had two formidable rivals in James Monroe, secretary of state, and De Witt Clinton, er for war The choice depended on that question and between the ee of June 1, the noressional caucus It was understood, and openly asserted at the time by the opponents of the ade of policy At the next session of Congress, before a year had passed away, Mr Quincy said in the House: ”The greatthe war and the invasion of Canada, and concluded that it was impossible that either should be seriously intended, resulted from this, that they never took into consideration the connection of both those events with the great election for the chiefIt was never sufficiently considered by the the conditions on which the support for the presidency was made dependent” The assertion, so plainly aie of any distinct bargain was vehemently denied

If Mr Madison's conscience was not always vigorous enough to enable him to resist temptation, it was so sensitive as to pro In a sense this was to his credit as one of the better sort of politicians, without assue vice pays to virtue Perhaps it was this sentiment which led him to accept so readily the pretended disclosures of John Henry, and to make the use of them he did These were contained in twenty-four letters, for which the President, apparently without hesitation, paid fifty thousand dollars On March 9 he sent thee, and on the same day, in a letter to Jefferson, alludes to them as ”this discovery, or rather formal proof of the cooperation between the Eastern Junto and the British cabinet” In the ent was sent directly by the British governue ”with the disaffected for the purpose of bringing about resistance to the laws, and eventually, in concert with a British force, of destroying the Union” and reannexing the Eastern States to England In the warthe reasons for an appeal to arms Mr Calhoun's committee followed this lead and i an immediate declaration of war The Henry affair was declared an ”act of still greater ainst the United States of which Great Britain had been guilty, and that which ”excited the greatest horror” The incident was seized upon, apparently, to answer a temporary purpose, and then, so far as Mr Madison was concerned, was peres of his published letters, written in later life, in which he reviews and explains so many of the events of his public career, there is no allusion whatever to the Henry disclosures, which in 1812 were held, with the ruin of American commerce and the impressment of thousands of American citizens, as an equally just cause for war In truth there was nothing whatever in these disclosures, for which was paid an amount equal to the salary of half a presidential teres or Mr Calhoun's report The estion, early in 1809, by the governor of Canada to Massachusetts to learn the state of affairs there and observe the drift of public opinion His national proclivity--he was an Irishman--to conspiracy and revolution had led hio a deterland people to destroy the Union, reannex theland, and return to the flesh-pots of the colonial period To learn how far gone they were in these designs, to put hi conspirators and to bring theeneral of Canada, that sufficient aid should coovernment, was Henry's mission Of this truly Irish plot Henry was the villain and Craig the fool; but it is hardly possible that three years afterward Madison and his friends, with all the letters spread before them, could really have been the dupes

Henry went to Boston and re at a tavern He found out nothing because there was nothing to be found out

He knew nobody, and nobody of any note knew hiht have been, and doubtless was, picked up in the ordinary political gossip of the tavern barroom, or culled from the columns of the newspapers of both parties He compromised nobody, for--as Mr Monroe, as secretary of state, testified in a report to the Senate--he named no person or persons in the United States who had, ”in any way or manner whatever, entered into or countenanced the project or views” of hi; and all he had to say was pointless and uniht have some interest as those of a shrewd observer of public events Indeed, his own conclusion was that there was no conspiracy in the Eastern States; that the Federal party was strong enough to keep the peace with England; and that there was no talk of disunion, nor any likelihood of it unless it should be brought about by war The correspondence itself showed, in a letter from Robert Peel, then secretary to Lord Liverpool, that the letters of Henry were found, as aCanadian official papers, as they related to public affairs; but they had either never attracted any attention or had been entirely forgotten, and Lord Liverpool was quite ignorant of any ”arrangeovernor of Canada and his eland It was only because of his failure to get any reward fro's successor in Canada, for what he was pleased to call his services, that the adventurer caton in search of a market for himself and his papers He ca the secretary of state frankly declared, that neither by writing nor by word of mouth did the man i one of the letters was evidence, the more conclusive because incidental, that the British secretary of state had known nothing of this ,--yet Mr Madison pronounced the letters to be the ”formal proof of the cooperation between the Eastern Junto and the British cabinet”

The charge was monstrous, for this pretended proof had no existence If the President, however, could persuade himself that the story was true, it would help hie of policy, the result of which would be the coveted renomination for the presidency

Not that there had never been talk of disunion in New England There had been in years past, as there was to be in years to co exclusively to that particular period, nor was it confined to that particular region of country Ever since the adoption of the Constitution the one thing that orators, North and South, inside the halls of Congress and outside theuood on both sides, to which there could be no reply; that in all legislation there was one possible supreovernry threat was always in readiness for instant use, that the bonds of the Union, in one or another contingency, were to be rent asunder But so frequent had been these warning cries of the co wolf that they were listened to with indifference, except when soer, as in the Jefferson-Madison ”resolutions of '98” It was easy, therefore, to alarm the public with confessions of a secret eovernment which had employed him and to the conspirators to whom he had been sent; and the more reprehensible was it, therefore, in a President of the United States, to make the use that was made of this story, which an impartial examination would have shoas essentially absurd and infaned He was too sagacious, as well as too unienious tale of such an adventurer as Henry In a letter to Colonel David Hu, in defense of the policy of commercial restrictions, he says: ”I have never allowed er, or that a dissolution of it could be desired, unless by a few individuals, if such there be, in desperate situations or of unbridled passions” New England, he continues, ”would be the greatest loser by such an event, and not likely therefore deliberately to rush into it” ”On what basis,” he asks, ”could New England and Old England form commercial stipulations?” Their commercial jealousy, he contends, forbade an alliance between them, for that was ”the real source of our Revolution” He closes with the significant assertion that, ”if there be links of common interest between the two countries, they would connect the Southern and not the Northern States with that part of Europe” How, then, could he seriously accept Henry's pretended disclosures as ”formal proof,” as he wrote to Jefferson at that time, ”of the cooperation between the Eastern Junto and the British cabinet”? By the Eastern Junto is meant the Federal party, or at least the influential and able leaders of that party; and he could not consider, nor would he have spoken of them as ”a few individuals, if such there be, in desperate situations or of unbridled passions” He accepted, then, the Henry story in spite of his deliberate opinions, as a help to involve the country in a party war

Even at the risk of some prolixity it is needful to follow the course of events that led to this war a little farther; for here was the culmination of Mr Madison's career, and fro these events we best learn whatthe public men of our earlier history For a year and a half the United States had acted on the assuland had not revoked her orders The extracts froes, show his conviction that the revocation of either decrees or orders was practically no overnment of the United States, nevertheless, subainst the other it first reenacted the non-intercourse act, then proclaio preparatory to war, and finally declared war Yet the whole world knew, and nobody so surely as the emperor of France, that the Berlin and Milan decrees had never been fores upon American commerce had continued, and all redress so persistently refused that, so late as the last week in February, 1812, the President intiht prove the only remedy But he suddenly yielded to the clamors of the war party at home, whatever may have been his motive Then, and not till then, were the decrees actually revoked by Napoleon In May, 1812, more than a o, the hostile purport of which was so well understood, a decree was proclaimed by the emperor which for the first time really revoked those of Berlin and Milan True, it was dated--”purported to be dated,” it was said in an official English document--April, 1811 But that was of no moht; that any hint of its existence had never been given to the Aovernment, or its representatives abroad, till the United States had taken lish,” which was the original condition of a revocation of the decrees Its ostensible date hen the news reached France that non-intercourse had been again enforced against England in March, 1811; but its proation was to all intents and purposes the real date, when news reached France, in April or May, 1812, that war against England was finally determined upon

The Duke of Bassano, the French ht out this year-old decree without pressure from the American minister, Barlow The President had written Barlow, in that February letter already quoted, that if his expected dispatches did not ”exhibit the conduct of the French government in better colors than it has yet assumed, there will be but one sentiment in this country, and I need not say what that will be” When the dispatches came, Mr Madison received no assurances of redress for past wrongs and no promises for the future; but he learned, on the contrary, that Bassano, in a recent report to the emperor, had referred to the decrees of Berlin and Milan as still in force against all neutral nations which submitted to the seizure of their shi+ps by the British when containing contraband goods or enemy's property Naturally the Britishbeen in the wrong, and that in coland the non-importation act should now be repealed The assurance was at the same time repeated, possibly in a tone of considerable satisfaction, that when Napoleon really should revoke his decrees Great Britain was ready, as she always had been, to follow his example with her orders It was an aard dilemma for the President and his minister to France But by this ti, Mr Madison had made up his mind what to do He was not exactly a wolf; neither was Great Britain a lau declared the decrees still in force--a repeal of the non-importation act, as Great Britain claimed was in justice and comity her due, he recommended a war measure But Barlow evidently felt hiic and consistency He urged upon the French minister the necessity now of a positive and iarded the United States, were absolutely revoked; for this recent assertion of Bassano, that they were still in force, put the United States in an attitude both towards France and England utterly and absurdly in the wrong Barlow represented that, should the revocation be extended only to the United States, Great Britain would not for that alone repeal her orders In that case France would lose nothing of the advantage of her present position, while everything would be lost should the United States be coland

Bassano was quick to see the necessity of juain, and he then produced his year-old edict Being a year old, it of course covered all questions But was it a year old? Who knew? It had never been published? No, the duke said; but it had been shown to Mr Jonathan Russell, who at that tie d'affaires at Paris Mr Russell denied it, though a denial was hardly needed He would not have ventured to withhold information so important from