CHAPTER II.
When Napoleon, Aug. 3, 1808, heard at Bordeaux that the Spaniards had captured Dupont’s army at Baylen and Rosily’s ships at Cadiz, and had thrown eighty thousand French troops back upon the Pyrenees, his anger was great; but his perplexity was much greater. In a character so interesting as that of Napoleon, the moments of perplexity were best worth study; and in his career no single moment occurred when he had more reason to call upon his genius for a resource than when he faced at Bordeaux the failure of his greatest scheme. From St. Petersburg to Gibraltar every shopkeeper knew that England had escaped, and all believed that no combination either of force or fraud could again be made with reasonable hope of driving her commerce from its channels. On this belief every merchant, as well as every government in the world, was actually shaping calculations. Napoleon also must shape his calculations on theirs, since he had failed to force theirs into the path of his own. The escape of England made useless the machinery he had created for her ruin. Spain, Russia, and Austria had little value for his immediate object, except as their control was necessary for the subjection of England; and the military occupation of Spain beyond the Ebro became worse than a blunder from the moment when Cadiz and Lisbon, Cuba and Mexico, Brazil and Peru threw themselves into England’s arms.[18]
More than once this history has shown that Napoleon never hesitated to throw aside a plan which had miscarried. If he did not in the autumn of 1808 throw aside his Spanish schemes, the reason could only be that he saw no other resource, and that in his belief his power would suffer too much from the shock of admitting failure. He showed unusual signs of vacillation, and of a desire to escape the position into which his miscalculations had led him. Instead of going at once to Spain and restoring order to his armies, he left his brother helpless at Vittoria while he passed three months in negotiations looking toward peace with England. In September he went to Germany, where he met the Czar of Russia at Erfurt, and induced Alexander, or consented to his inducement, to join in an autograph letter to the King of England, marked by the usual Napoleonic character, and offering the principle of uti possidetis as the preliminary to a general peace. England regarded this advance as deceptive, and George Canning was never more successful than in the gesture of self-restrained contempt with which he tossed back the letter that Napoleon and Alexander had presumed to address to a constitutional King of England; but even Canning could hardly suppose that Napoleon would invite an insult without a motive. From whatever side Napoleon approached the situation he could invent no line of conduct which did not imply the triumph of England. Study the problem as he might, he could not escape from the political and military disadvantages he incurred from the Spanish uprising. Without the consent of England he could neither free his civil government from the system of commercial restriction, nor free his military strength from partial paralysis in Spain; and England refused to help him, or even to hear reason from Alexander.
Thenceforward a want of distinct purpose showed itself in Napoleon’s acts. Unable either to enforce or to abandon his Continental system, he began to use it for momentary objects,—sometimes to weaken England, sometimes to obtain money, or as the pretext for conquests. Unable to hold the Peninsula or to withdraw from it, he seemed at one time resolved on conquest, at another disposed toward retreat. In the autumn of 1808 both paths ran together, for his credit required him to conquer before he could honorably establish any dynasty on the throne; and during the months of September and October he marched new French armies across the Pyrenees and massed an irresistible force behind the Ebro. A year before, he had thought one hundred thousand men enough to occupy all Spain and Portugal; but in October, 1808, he held not less than two hundred and fifty thousand men beyond the Pyrenees, ready to move at the moment of his arrival.
October 25, after his return from Germany, the Emperor pronounced a speech at the opening of his legislative chambers; and the embarrassment of his true position was evident under the words in which he covered it.
“Russia and Denmark,” he said, “have united with me against England. The United States have preferred to renounce commerce and the sea rather than recognize their slavery. A part of my army marches against those that England has formed or disembarked in Spain. It is a special benefit of that Providence which has constantly protected our arms, that passion has so blinded English councils as to make them renounce the protection of the sea and at last present their armies on the Continent. I depart in a few days to place myself at the head of my army, and with God’s aid to crown the King of Spain in Madrid, and plant my eagles on the forts of Lisbon.”
He left Paris October 29, and ten days later, November 9, began the campaign which still attracts the admiration of military critics, but which did not result in planting his eagles on the forts of Lisbon. “To my great astonishment,” he afterward said,[19] “I had to fight the battles of Tudela, Espinosa, Burgos, and Somo Sierra, to gain Madrid, which, in spite of my victories, refused me admission during two days.” After disposing in rapid succession of all the Spanish armies, he occupied Madrid December 4, and found himself at the end of his campaign. The conquest of Lisbon and Cadiz required more time, and led to less military result than suited his objects. At that moment he learned that an English army under Sir John Moore had ventured to march from Portugal into the north of Spain, and had already advanced so far toward Burgos as to make their capture possible. The destruction of an English army, however small, offered Napoleon the triumph he wanted. Rapidly collecting his forces, he hurried across the Guadarrama Mountains to cut off Moore’s retreat; but for once he was out-generalled. Sir John Moore not only saved his own army, but also led the French a long and exhausting chase to the extreme northwestern shore of Spain, where the British fleet carried Moore’s army out of their reach.
Napoleon would not have been the genius he was had he wasted his energies in following Moore to Corunna, or in trying to plant his eagles on the forts of Lisbon or Cadiz. A year earlier, Lisbon and Cadiz had been central points of his scheme; but in December, 1808, they were worth to him little more than any other seaports without fleets or colonies. For Spain and Portugal Napoleon showed that he had no further use. The moment he saw that Moore had escaped, which became clear when the Emperor reached Astorga, Jan. 2, 1809, throwing upon Soult the task of marching one hundred and fifty miles to Corunna after Moore and the British army, Napoleon stopped short, turned about, and with rapidity unusual even for him, quitted Spain forever. “The affairs of Spain are finished,” he wrote January 16;[20] although Joseph had the best reason to know and much cause to tell how his brother left nothing finished in Spain. “The circumstances of Europe oblige me to go for three weeks to Paris,” he wrote to Joseph early in the morning of January 15; “if nothing prevents, I shall be back again before the end of February.”[21] With characteristic mixture of harshness and tenderness toward his elder brother, he wrote at noon the same day another account, equally deceptive, of his motives and intentions:—
“You must say everywhere, and make the army believe, that I shall return in three or four weeks. In fact, my mere presence at Paris will make Austria shrink back to her nullity; and then, before the end of October, I will be back here. I shall be in Paris in five days. I shall go at full speed, day and night, as far as Bordeaux. Meanwhile everything will go on quieting itself in Spain.”[22]
Giving out that the conduct of Austria required his presence at Paris, he succeeded in imposing this fiction upon Europe by the empire of his will. Europe accepted the fable, which became history; but although the Emperor soon disposed of Austria, and although Spain was a more difficult problem than Austria ever was, Napoleon never kept his word to Joseph, and never again ventured within sight of the mistakes he could no longer correct.
Meanwhile Armstrong, disgusted with the disappointments and annoyances of his residence at Paris, had become anxious to escape without further loss of credit. His letters to Madison, published by Congress, returned to terrify his French acquaintance, and to close his sources of information. He could see no hope of further usefulness. As early as Oct. 25, 1808, when the Emperor was addressing his legislative chambers before setting out for Spain, Armstrong wrote to Madison that no good could come from keeping an American minister at Paris.[23] Yet in the enforced idleness of the month when Napoleon was in Spain, Armstrong found one ally whose aid was well worth seeking. After the Czar Alexander accepted, at Tilsit, the ascendency of Napoleon, he appointed as his minister of foreign relations the Count Nicholas Roumanzoff. The Czar was still a young man in his thirty-first year, while Roumanzoff, fifty-four years old, had the full powers of maturity. Together they shaped a Russian policy, in the traditional direction of Russian interests, founded upon jealousy of British maritime tyranny. Lord Howick’s and Spencer Perceval’s Orders in Council served to sharpen Russian as well as American antipathies, and brought the two distant nations into a sympathy which was certainly not deep, but which England had reason to fear. In the autumn of 1808 Count Roumanzoff came to Paris to arrange with Champagny the details of their joint diplomacy; and at the same time, in the month of November, William Short arrived in Paris secretly accredited as minister plenipotentiary at St. Petersburg, but waiting confirmation by the Senate before going to his post. When Armstrong told Roumanzoff that an American minister would soon be on his way to St. Petersburg, the count was highly pleased, and promised at once to send a full minister to replace André Daschkoff, the chargé at Washington. “Ever since I came into office,” he said to Armstrong,[24] “I have been desirous of producing this effect; for in dissolving our commercial connections with Great Britain it became necessary to seek some other power in whom we might find a substitute; and on looking round I could see none but the United States who were at all competent to this object.” So far as concerned England, the alliance promised great advantages; but Armstrong’s chief anxiety affected France, and when he attempted to enlist Roumanzoff in resistance to Napoleon’s robberies, he found no encouragement. Roumanzoff had already tried his influence with Napoleon on behalf of the Danes, who wanted compensation for their plundered commerce. “Give them a civil answer,” replied Napoleon,[25] “but of course one never pays for this sort of thing,—On ne paye jamais ces choses-là, n’est-ce pas?” From Roumanzoff’s refusal, Armstrong inferred that no change need be hoped in Napoleon’s conduct.
“On the contrary,” he wrote to Madison, the day when Napoleon abandoned the pursuit of Sir John Moore,[26] “their anti-neutral system is more rigidly observed; the embargo on ships of the United States found here before the imperial decrees were issued is continued; every ship of ours coming into a port of France or of her allies is immediately seized and sequestered; cargoes regularly admitted to entry by the custom-houses are withheld from their owners; ships most obviously exceptions to the operation of the Decrees have been recently condemned; and—what in my view of the subject does not admit of aggravation—the burning of the ship ‘Brutus’ on the high seas, so far from being disavowed, is substantially justified.”
Had this been all, perhaps President Madison and Congress might have waited with courtesy, if not with hope, for Napoleon’s pleasure; but grievances equally serious ran back to the year 1803, and not one of them had been redressed by France.
“It is now three years since one of her admirals, on the principle of self-preservation, burnt four of our ships at sea, and the Emperor immediately acknowledged the debt and repeatedly promised to discharge it; but not a shilling has yet been paid, nor is it probable that a shilling ever will be paid. Besides this breach of justice in the first instance and of promise in the last, we have to complain that bills of exchange drawn to the order of citizens of the United States by the public functionaries of France, to the amount of many millions of dollars, and for articles of the first necessity, and drawn many years ago, are not only not paid, but are officially denounced as not payable.”
Armstrong’s temper, bad in the winter, became worse in the spring, until his letters to the Department of State seemed to leave no remedy but war for the grievances he described. The angry tone of his despatches was not counteracted by fair words in the instructions sent by Champagny to Turreau, which were calculated to irritate President Madison beyond patience.
“You cannot too much call attention to the grievances of the Americans against England in order to make them more sensibly felt,” wrote Champagny to Turreau, after the Emperor went to Spain.[27] “The Americans would like France to grant them commercial privileges which no nation at present enjoys.... But ... hitherto it has not seemed proper, in the execution of general measures, to introduce exceptions which would have really destroyed their effect. If the rules adopted against English commerce had not been made common, that commerce would continue through every opening left to it; England would preserve the same resources as before for supporting the war. A system of exception for one people would turn the rule into an injustice toward all others; all would have right to complain of a privilege granted to the Federal government which themselves would not enjoy.”
Unanswerable as this reasoning was from the Napoleonic standpoint, it was open to the objection of placing Madison among the belligerents at war with England, and of obliging him not only to accept the rules imposed by Napoleon on the allies of France, but also to admit the corresponding right of British retaliation, even to the point of war. Until President Madison made up his mind to war with England, he could hardly be induced by Napoleon’s diplomacy to overlook his causes of war with France.
Had Napoleon acted according to rules of ordinary civilization, he would at least have softened the harshness of his commercial policy toward America by opening to the American President some vista of compensation elsewhere. Florida seemed peculiarly suited for this object, and no one so well as Napoleon knew the anxiety of the late Administration to obtain that territory, which, for any legitimate purpose, was useless and worthless to France. In December, 1808, Napoleon could have retained little or no hope of controlling the Spanish colonies by force; yet he ordered the American government to leave them alone, as he ordered it to adopt the French system of commercial restraint. “I venture to presume,” continued Champagny to Turreau, “that if his Majesty has no reason to complain of the disposition shown by the United States toward him, he will show himself more and more inclined to treat them favorably. What will most influence his course will be the conduct pursued by the United States toward the Spanish colonies, and the care that shall be taken to do nothing in regard to them which can contravene the rights of the mother-country.”
Thus from Turreau’s attitude as well as from Armstrong’s letters, the government at Washington was advised that neither favor nor justice need be expected from Napoleon. This impression, strengthened by all the private advices which arrived from France during the winter of 1808–1809, even though partly balanced by the bulletins of the Emperor’s splendid Spanish campaign, had much to do with the refusal of Congress to declare a double war, which, however general in terms, must in effect be waged against England alone. Anger with France affected Republicans almost as strongly as fear of Napoleon excited Federalists. When the final struggle took place in Congress over the embargo, no small share of the weakness shown by the Administration and its followers was due to their consciousness that the repeal of the embargo would relieve them from appearing to obey an imperial mandate.
Turreau understood the repeal in no other light, and was extremely irritated to see the decline of his influence. Men who had given him pledge upon pledge that the embargo should be withdrawn only when war against England should be declared, could plead no better excuse for failing to keep their promise than that Napoleon had forfeited his claim to their support. March 19, two weeks after Congress rose, Turreau wrote from Baltimore to Champagny,[28]—
“You will have judged from my last despatches that the Embargo Law would be repealed. It has been so, in fact, despite my efforts to maintain it, and notwithstanding the promise of quite a large number of influential Representatives, especially among the senators, who had guaranteed to me its continuance till the next Congress, and who have voted against their political conscience. I had informed your Excellency of the disunion projects shown by some of the Northern States. Their avowed opposition to the continuance of the embargo, and their threats to resist its execution, terrified Congress to such a degree that the dominant party became divided, and the feebleness (faiblesse) of Mr. Jefferson sanctioned the last and the most shameful act of his Administration.... I say it with regret,—and perhaps I have said it too late,—I am convinced there is nothing to hope from these people.”
Erskine, whose persistent efforts to conciliate had also something to do with the action of Congress, made Turreau’s anger the subject of a despatch, doubtless hoping it might guide Canning’s thoughts toward the wisdom of conciliation.[29] “The French minister it seems is so much offended at the Non-intercourse Law which has been lately passed, and is so little pleased with the general disposition, as he conceives it, of the new Administration of the United States toward France, that he has quitted this city, having previously given up his house and removed all his furniture, without calling either upon the new President or any of the members of the Administration, as was his uniform custom in former years, and as is always done by foreign ministers.” Robert Smith informed Erskine that the Government would consider it to be their duty, which he was sure they would feel no disposition to shrink from, to recommend to the new Congress to enter upon immediate measures of hostility against France in the event of Great Britain giving way as to her Orders so far as to afford an opportunity to the United States to assert their rights against France.
During the month of March, Turreau watched the workings of the Non-intercourse Act, but found little encouragement. “Generally the ventures have not been so numerous as was to be expected from the well-known avidity of American merchants, and the privations they have suffered from the embargo.”[30] Most of the outgoing vessels had cleared for the West Indies or the Azores, “but the French government may rest assured that among a hundred ships leaving the ports of the Union for the high seas, ninety of them will have the real object of satisfying the wants and demands of England.” Such a commerce was in his opinion fair prey. England had gained the upper-hand in America; English superiority could no longer be contested; and to France remained only the desperate chances of the political gambler.
“To-day not only is the separation of New England openly talked about, but the people of those five States wish for this separation, pronounce it, openly prepare it, will carry it out under British protection, and probably will meet with no resistance on the part of the other States. Yet this project, which is known and avowed; the last proceedings of Congress, which are blamed; the progress of the Federalists; the alarms of commerce; the feebleness of the highest authorities (des premiers pouvoirs), and the doubts regarding the capacity and the party views of the new President,—cause a ferment of public opinion; and perhaps the moment has come for forming a party in favor of France in the Central and Southern States, whenever those of the North, having given themselves a separate government under the support of Great Britain, may threaten the independence of the rest.”[31]
Turreau’s speculations might show no great sagacity, but they opened a glimpse into his mind, and they were the chief information possessed by Napoleon to form his estimate of American character. Nothing could more irritate the Emperor than these laments from his minister at Washington over the victory of English interests in the United States. The effect of such reports on Napoleon was likely to be the more decided because Turreau saw everything in darker colors than the facts warranted. Deceived and defeated in the case of the embargo, he imagined himself also in danger on the other main point of his diplomacy,—the Spanish colonies. The old Spanish agents, consular and diplomatic, mostly patriots, were still officially recognized or privately received at Washington. Rumor said that troops were collecting at New Orleans to support a movement of independence in Florida; that General Wilkinson, on his way to take command in Louisiana, had stopped at Havana and Pensacola; that President Jefferson, on the eve of quitting the Presidency, had been heard to say, “We must have the Floridas and Cuba.” Anonymous letters, believed by Turreau to be written by one of the clerks in the State Department, warned him against the intrigues of the Federal government in the Spanish colonies. So much was he troubled by these alarms, that April 15 he addressed an unofficial note on the subject to Robert Smith.[32]
The President, having no wish to quarrel with the French minister, and probably aware of his irritation, asked Gallatin, on his way northwards, to call on Turreau at Baltimore and make to him such soothing explanations as the case seemed to require. The interview took place during the last week of April, and Turreau’s report threw another ray of light into the recesses of Jefferson’s councils.[33]
“‘I am specially charged,’ said Gallatin, ‘to assure you that whatever proceedings of General Wilkinson may seem to warrant your suspicions must not be attributed to the Executive, but solely to the vanity, the indiscretion, and the ordinary inconsistencies of that General, whom you know perhaps as well as we.... We are and we wish to be strangers to all that passes in the Floridas, in Mexico, and also in Cuba. You would be mistaken if you supposed that Mr. Madison wishes the possession of the Floridas. That was Mr. Jefferson’s hobby (marotte),—it has never been the wish of his Cabinet; and Mr. Madison values to-day the possession of the Floridas only so far as they may be thought indispensable to prevent every kind of misunderstanding with Spain, and to secure an outlet for the produce of our Southern States. We have had no part in the meetings which have taken place in the Floridas, and we could not know that General Wilkinson has been ill received there.’ (This is true.) ‘As for the possession of Cuba, this was also a new idea of Mr. Jefferson which has not been approved by the Executive council; and I am authorized to protest to you that even if Cuba were offered us as a gift, we would not accept it. We are also opposed to every step which would tend, under the pretext of commerce, to involve us in the politics of France and Spain, and we shall see to it that any persons undertaking such enterprises are properly dealt with. I flatter myself therefore that you will believe the Cabinet to be firmly resolved carefully to avoid every disturbance of the good understanding between the United States and France.’”
Gallatin was a persistent enemy of the Florida intrigue, and doubtless believed that Madison held opinions like his own; but Madison’s opinions on this subject, as on some others, were elusive,—perhaps no clearer to himself than to readers of his writings; and Gallatin had yet to learn that the instinct which coveted Florida could not be controlled by a decision of the Cabinet. Yet he said only what he seemed authorized to say; and his reference to the marotte of President Jefferson was significant. For the moment the weakness seemed cured. Gallatin gave Turreau to understand that President Madison would not intrigue in Florida or Cuba, and to that extent he was doubtless expressly authorized by the President. Perhaps only on his own authority he went a step further, by hinting that Napoleon need no longer dangle Florida before Madison’s eyes.
A rupture with France seemed certain. Turreau expected it and hoped only to delay it. In his eyes the Emperor had suffered an indignity that could not be overlooked, although he asked that retaliation should be delayed till autumn. “However dissatisfied the French government may be by the last measures adopted by Congress, I believe it would be well to await the result of the next session two months hence before taking a severer course against the Americans. This opinion, which I express only with doubt, is yet warranted by advices which I have received within a few days, and which have been given me by men who know the Executive intentions, and who at least till now have not deceived me.” Turreau believed that when the Emperor learned what the late Congress had done, he would strike the United States with the thunderbolt of his power. Doubtless the same impression was general. Even after Napoleon’s character has been the favorite study of biographers and historians for nearly a hundred years, the shrewdest criticism might fail in the effort to conjecture what shape the Emperor’s resentment took. This story has shown many of his processes from the time when he met the resistance of the Haytian negroes in 1803 to the time when he met the uprising of the Spanish patriots in 1809; but even with the advantage of his own writings as a guide, neither friend nor enemy could test theories of his character better than by attempting to divine the conduct he was to pursue toward the United States after their defiance of his wishes in the repeal of the embargo.
As though to remove the last doubt of rupture with Napoleon, the President startled the country by suddenly announcing a settlement of his disputes with England. April 7 Erskine received new instructions from London, and during the next two weeks he was closeted with the President and the Cabinet. April 21 the “National Intelligencer” announced the result of their labors.