CHAPTER IV.
Early in February, when Congress refused to support Madison’s war-policy,—the mere shadow of which brought Perceval and Canning almost to their senses,—Canning’s instructions were despatched from the Foreign Office. April 7, more than a month after the Tenth Congress had expired, amidst political conditions altogether different from those imagined by Canning, the instructions reached Washington; and Erskine found himself required to carry them into effect.
A cautious diplomatist would have declined to act upon them. Under pretext of the change which had altered the situation he would have asked for new instructions, while pointing out the mischievous nature of the old. The instructions were evidently impossible to execute; the situation was less critical than ever before, and Great Britain was master of the field.
On the other hand, the instructions offered some appearance of an advance toward friendship. They proved Canning’s ignorance, but not his bad faith; and if Canning in good faith wanted a settlement, Erskine saw every reason for gratifying him. The arrogance of Canning’s demands did not necessarily exclude further concession. The great governments of Europe from time immemorial had used a tone of authority insufferable to weaker Powers, and not agreeable to one another; yet their tone did not always imply the wish to quarrel, and England herself seldom resented manners as unpleasant as her own. Used to the rough exchange of blows, and hardened by centuries of toil and fighting, England was not sensitive when her interests were at stake. Her surliness was a trick rather than a design. Her diplomatic agents expected to enjoy reasonable liberty in softening the harshness and in supplying the ignorance of their chiefs of the Foreign Office; and if such latitude was ever allowed to a diplomatist, Erskine had the best right to use it in the case of instructions the motives of which he could not comprehend.
Finally, Erskine was the son of Lord Erskine, and owed his appointment to Charles James Fox. He was half Republican by education, half American by marriage; and probably, like all British liberals, he felt in secret an entire want of confidence in Canning and a positive antipathy to the Tory commercial system.
Going at once to Secretary Robert Smith, Erskine began on the “Chesapeake” affair, and quickly disposed of it. The President abandoned the American demand for a court-martial on Admiral Berkeley, finding that it would not be entertained.[57] Erskine then wrote a letter offering the stipulated redress for the “Chesapeake” outrage, and Madison wrote a letter accepting it, which Robert Smith signed, and dated April 17.
Two points in Madison’s “Chesapeake” letter attracted notice. Erskine began his official note[58] by alluding to the Non-intercourse Act of March 1, as having placed Great Britain on an equal footing with the other belligerents, and warranting acknowledgment on that account. The idea was far-fetched, and Madison’s reply was ambiguous:—
“As it appears at the same time, that in making this offer his Britannic Majesty derives a motive from the equality now existing in the relations of the United States with the two belligerent Powers, the President owes it to the occasion and to himself to let it be understood that this equality is a result incident to a state of things growing out of distinct considerations.”
If Madison knew precisely what “distinct considerations” had led Congress and the country to that state of things to which the Non-intercourse Act was incident, he knew more than was known to Congress; but even though he owed this statement to himself, so important an official note might have expressed his ideas more exactly. “A result incident to a state of things growing out of distinct considerations” was something unusual, and to say the least wanting in clearness, but seemed not intended to gratify Canning.
The second point challenged sharper criticism.
“With this explanation, as requisite as it is frank,” Smith’s note continued, “I am authorized to inform you that the President accepts the note delivered by you in the name and by the order of his Britannic Majesty, and will consider the same with the engagement therein, when fulfilled, as a satisfaction for the insult and injury of which he has complained. But I have it in express charge from the President to state that while he forbears to insist on the further punishment of the offending officer, he is not the less sensible of the justice and utility of such an example, nor the less persuaded that it would best comport with what is due from his Britannic Majesty to his own honor.”
According to Robert Smith’s subsequent account, the last sentence was added by Madison in opposition to his secretary’s wishes.[59] One of Madison’s peculiarities showed itself in these words, which endangered the success of all his efforts. If he wished a reconciliation, they were worse than useless; but if he wished a quarrel, he chose the right means. The President of the United States was charged with the duty of asserting in its full extent what was due to his own honor as representative of the Union; but he was not required, either by the laws of his country or by the custom of nations, to define the conduct which in his opinion best comported with what was due from his Britannic Majesty to the honor of England. That Erskine should have consented to receive such a note was matter for wonder, knowing as he did that Kings of England had never smiled on servants who allowed their sovereign’s honor to be questioned; and the public surprise was not lessened by his excuse.
“It appeared to me,” he said,[60] “that if any indecorum could justly be attributed to the expressions in the official notes of this Government, the censure due would fall upon them; and that the public opinion would condemn their bad taste or want of propriety in coldly and ungraciously giving up what they considered as a right, but which they were not in a condition to enforce.”
Under the impression that no “intention whatever existed in the mind of the President of the United States to convey a disrespectful meaning toward his Majesty by these expressions,” Erskine accepted them in silence, and Madison himself never understood that he had given cause of offence.
Having thus disposed of the “Chesapeake” grievance, Erskine took up the Orders in Council.[61] His instructions were emphatic, and he was in effect ordered to communicate these instructions in extenso to the President, for in such cases permission was equivalent to order. He disobeyed; in official sense he did not communicate his instructions at all. “I considered that it would be in vain,” he afterward said. This was his first exercise of discretion; and his second was more serious. After reading Canning’s repeated and positive orders to require from the American government “a distinct and official recognition” of three conditions, he decided to treat these orders as irrelevant. He knew that the President had no Constitutional power to bind Congress, even if Madison himself would patiently bear a single reading of three such impossible requirements, and that under these circumstances the negotiation had better never begin than end abruptly in anger. Erskine would have done better not to begin it; but he thought otherwise. Under more favorable circumstances, Monroe and Pinkney had made the same experiment in 1806.
Canning offered to withdraw the Orders in Council, on three conditions precedent:—
(1) That all interdicts on commerce should be revoked by the United States so far as they affected England, while they were still to be enforced against France. When Erskine submitted this condition to Robert Smith, he was assured that the President would comply with it, and that Congress would certainly assert the national rights against France, but that the President had no power to pledge the government by a formal act. Erskine decided to consider Canning’s condition fulfilled if the President, under the eleventh section of the Non-intercourse Act, should issue a proclamation renewing trade with Great Britain, while retaining the prohibition against France. This settlement had the disadvantage of giving no guarantee to England, while it left open the trade with Holland, which was certainly a dependency of France.
(2) Canning further required that the United States should formally renounce the pretension to a colonial trade in war which was not permitted in time of peace. To this condition, which Erskine seems to have stated as applying only to the direct carrying-trade to Europe, Robert Smith replied that it could not be recognized except in a formal treaty; but that it was practically unimportant, because this commerce, as well as every other with France or her dependencies, was prohibited by Act of Congress. Erskine accepted this reasoning, and left the abstract right untouched.
(3) Canning lastly demanded that the United States should recognize the right of Great Britain to capture such American vessels as should be found attempting to trade with any of the Powers acting under the French Decrees. To this suggestion Secretary Smith replied that the President could not so far degrade the national authority as to authorize Great Britain to execute American laws; but that the point seemed to him immaterial, since no citizen could present to the United States government a claim founded on a violation of its own laws. Erskine once more acquiesced, although the trade with Holland was not a violation of law, and would probably give rise to the very claims which Canning meant to preclude.
Having thus disposed of the three conditions which were to be distinctly and officially recognized, Erskine exchanged notes with Robert Smith, bearing date April 18 and 19, 1809, chiefly admirable for their brevity, since they touched no principle. In his note of April 18, Erskine said that the favorable change produced by anticipation of the Non-intercourse Act had encouraged his Government to send out a new envoy with full powers; and that meanwhile his Majesty would recall his Orders in Council if the President would issue a Proclamation renewing intercourse with Great Britain. Secretary Smith replied on the same day that the President would not fail in doing so. April 19, Erskine in a few lines announced himself “authorized to declare that his Majesty’s Orders in Council of January and November, 1807, will have been withdrawn as respects the United States on the 10th of June next.” Secretary Smith answered that the President would immediately issue his Proclamation. Two days afterward the four notes and the Proclamation itself were published in the “National Intelligencer.”
The United States heard with delight that friendship with England had been restored. Amid an outburst of joy commerce resumed its old paths, and without waiting for June 10 hurried ships and merchandise to British ports. No complaints were heard; not a voice was raised about impressments; no regret was expressed that war with France must follow reconciliation with England; no one found fault with Madison for following in 1809 the policy which had raised almost a resolution against President Washington only fourteen years before. Yet Madison strained the law, besides showing headlong haste, in acting upon Erskine’s promises without waiting for their ratification, and without even asking to see the British negotiator’s special powers or instructions. The haste was no accident or oversight. When Turreau remonstrated with Gallatin against such precipitate conduct contrary to diplomatic usage, Gallatin answered,—
“The offers could not be refused.”
“But you have only promises,” urged Turreau; “and already twelve hundred vessels, twelve thousand sailors, and two hundred million [francs] of property have left your ports. May not the English take all this to serve as a guarantee for other conditions which their interest might care to impose?”
“We would like it!” replied the Secretary of the Treasury. “Perhaps our people may need such a lesson to cure them of British influence and the mania of British commerce.”[62]
Impatient at the conduct of Congress and the people, Madison was glad to create a new situation, and preferred even hostilities to the Orders in Council. Erskine’s conduct was unusual, yet Great Britain had shown no such regard for Madison’s feelings that Madison should hesitate before the eccentricities of British diplomacy. Perplexed to account for Canning’s sudden change, the President and his friends quieted their uneasiness by attributing their triumph to their own statesmanship. The Republican newspapers, the “National Intelligencer” at their head, announced that England had been conquered by the embargo, and taunted not only the Federalists but also the Northern Republicans with the triumph. While nothing could be more positive than the language thus encouraged by the Government, the error was partly redeemed by the tenderness with which it was used to soothe the wounded feelings of Jefferson.
“The bright day of judgment and retribution has at length arrived,” said the “National Intelligencer” of April 26, “when a virtuous nation will not withhold the tribute of its warmest thanks from an Administration whose sole ambition has ever been to advance the happiness of its constituents, even at the sacrifice of its present popularity. Thanks to the sage who now so gloriously reposes in the shades of Monticello, and to those who shared his confidence!... It may be boldly alleged that the revocation of the British Orders is attributable to the embargo.”
President Madison wrote to Jefferson somewhat more cautiously:[63] “The British Cabinet must have changed its course under a full conviction that an adjustment with this country had become essential.” Accepting quietly a turn of fortune that would have bewildered the most astute diplomatist, Madison made ready to meet the special session of Congress.
The Eleventh Congress differed little in character from its predecessor, but that little difference was not to its advantage. G. W. Campbell of Tennessee, David R. Williams of South Carolina, Joseph Clay of Pennsylvania, Joseph Story of Massachusetts, and Wilson Cary Nicholas of Virginia disappeared from the House, and no one of equal influence stepped into their places. The mediocrity of the Tenth Congress continued to mark the character of the Eleventh. John W. Eppes became chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means. Varnum was again chosen Speaker, while Vice-President George Clinton still presided over the deliberations of thirty-four men whose abilities were certainly not greater than those of any previous Senate.
May 23 President Madison’s first Annual Message was read. No objection could be made to its brief recital of the steps which led to the arrangement with Erskine; but the next paragraph not only provoked attack, it threatened the country also with commercial wars to the end of time:—
“Whilst I take pleasure in doing justice to the councils of his Britannic Majesty which, no longer adhering to the policy which made an abandonment by France of her Decrees a prerequisite to the revocation of the British Orders, have substituted the amicable course which has issued thus happily, I cannot do less than refer to the proposal heretofore made on the part of the United States, embracing a like restoration of the suspended commerce, as a proof of the spirit of accommodation which has at no time been intermitted, and to the result which now calls for our congratulations as corroborating the principles by which the public councils have been guided during a period of the most trying embarrassments.”
When Madison spoke of the “principles by which the public councils have been guided,” he meant to place at their head the principles of embargo and non-intercourse,—a result of Erskine’s arrangement hardly more agreeable to commercial America than to despotic England; but however England might resent what Canning would certainly think an offence, Americans were in no humor for fault-finding, and they received Madison’s allusions with little protest. The remainder of the Message contained nothing that called for dispute.
The Federalist minority—strong in numbers, flushed by victory over Jefferson, and full of contempt for the abilities of their opponents—found themselves suddenly deprived by Erskine and Madison of every grievance to stand upon. For once, no one charged that Madison’s act was dictated from the Tuileries. The Federalist newspapers, like their Republican rivals, advanced the idea that their success was the natural result of their own statesmanship. Their efforts against the embargo had opened the path for Canning’s good-will to show itself, and the removal of Jefferson’s sinister influence accounted for the brilliancy of Madison’s success. The attempt to approve Erskine’s arrangement without approving Jefferson’s system, required ingenuity as great as was shown in the similar attempt of Madison to weigh down Erskine’s arrangement by coupling it with the embargo. These party tactics would hardly deserve notice had not John Randolph, in drawing a sharp line between Jefferson and Madison, enlivened the monotony of debate by comments not without interest.
“Without the slightest disposition to create unpleasant sensations,” said he, “to go back upon the footsteps of the last four years, I do unequivocally say that I believe the country will never see such another Administration as the last. It had my hearty approbation for one half of its career; as for my opinion of the remainder of it, it has been no secret. The lean kine of Pharaoh devoured the fat kine; the last four years, with the embargo in their train, ate up the rich harvest of the first four; and if we had not had some Joseph to have stepped in and changed the state of things, what would have been now the condition of the country? I repeat it,—never has there been any Administration which went out of office and left the country in a state so deplorable and calamitous as the last.”
Not satisfied with criticising Jefferson, Randolph committed himself to the opinion that Canning had been influenced by the same antipathy, and had been withheld from earlier concessions only by Jefferson’s conduct:—
“Mr. Canning obtained as good a bargain from us as he could have expected to obtain; and those gentlemen who speak of his having heretofore had it in his power to have done the same, did not take into calculation the material difference between the situation in which we now stand and the situation in which we before stood.”
In the virulence of temper with which Randolph blackened the Administration of Jefferson, he could not help committing himself to unqualified support of Madison; and even Barent Gardenier, whose temper was at least as indiscreet as Randolph’s, seemed to revel in the pleasure of depressing the departed President in order to elevate the actual Executive, whose eight years of coming power were more dangerous to the opposition than the eight years of Jefferson had ever been.
“I am pretty well satisfied,” said Barent Gardenier,[64] “that when the secret history of the two last years is divulged, it will be found that while the former President was endeavoring to fan the flames of war, the Secretary of State ... was smoothing the way for the happy discharge of his Presidential duties when he should come to the chair. I think it did him honor.... It is for the promptitude and frankness with which the President met the late overture that I thank him most cordially for my country. I approve it most heartily.... And it is now in proof before us, as I have said and contended, that nothing was wanting but a proper spirit of conciliation, and fair and honorable dealing on the part of this country, to bring to a happy issue all the fictitious differences between this country and Great Britain.”
Political indiscretion could go no further. The rule that in public life one could never safely speak well of an opponent, was illustrated by the mistake of the Federalists in praising Madison merely to gratify their antipathy to Jefferson. Had they been silent; or had they shown suspicion, they would have been safe; but all admitted that French influence and hostility to England had vanished with Jefferson; all were positive that England had gained what she had sought, and that Canning had every reason to be satisfied. For the moment Madison was the most popular President that ever had met Congress. At no session since 1789 had such harmony prevailed as during the five weeks of this political paradise, although not one element had changed its character or position, and the harmony, like the discord, was a play of imagination. Congress passed its bills with unanimity altogether new. That which restored relations of commerce with England passed without discussion, except on the point whether French ships of war should be admitted to American ports. Somewhat to the alarm of the Eastern men, Congress decided not to exclude French national vessels,—a decision which threw some doubt on Madison’s wish to push matters to a head with Napoleon. Yet care was taken to avoid offence to Great Britain. Little was said and nothing was done about impressments. An attempt to increase the protective duties was defeated. Not a voice was raised on behalf of France; not a fear of Napoleon’s revenge found tongue.
Although no one ventured to avow suspicion that Canning would refuse to ratify Erskine’s act, news continued to arrive from England which seemed hard to reconcile with any immediate thought, in the British ministry, of giving up their restrictive system. June 10, the day when amid universal delight the new arrangement went into effect, the public pleasure was not a little disturbed by the arrival of news that on April 26 the British government had issued a very important Order in Council, revoking the order of Nov. 11, 1807, and establishing in its place a general blockade of Holland, France, and Italy. This step, though evidently a considerable concession,—which would have produced its intended effect in checking hostile feeling if Erskine had not intervened,—roused anxiety because of its remote resemblance to Erskine’s arrangement, which it seemed to adopt by means that the United States could not admit as legal or consistent with the terms of Erskine’s letters.
“The new Orders,” wrote Madison to Jefferson,[65] ... “present a curious feature in the conduct of the British Cabinet. It is explained by some at the expense of its sincerity. It is more probably ascribed, I think, to an awkwardness in getting out of an awkward situation, and to the policy of withholding as long as possible from France the motive of its example to have advances on her part toward adjustment with us. The crooked proceeding seems to be operating as a check to the extravagance of credit given to Great Britain for the late arrangement with us, and so far may be salutary.”
Such reasoning was soon felt to be insufficient. The more the new order was studied, the less its motive was understood. How could Canning in January have authorized Erskine to withdraw the orders of 1807 without reserve, when in April, without waiting to hear from Erskine, he himself withdrew those orders only to impose another that had every mark of permanence? How could Erskine, April 18, have been authorized to throw open the ports of Holland, when his Government, April 26, was engaged in imposing a new blockade upon them? So rapidly did the uneasiness of Congress increase that Erskine was obliged to interpose. June 15 he wrote an official note to the Secretary of State, which the President sent the same day to Congress.[66]
“I have the honor,” said Erskine, “to enclose a copy of an Order of his Majesty in Council issued on the 26th of April last. In consequence of official communications sent to me from his Majesty’s government since the adoption of that measure, I am enabled to assure you that it has no connection whatever with the overtures which I have been authorized to make to the government of the United States; and that I am persuaded that the terms of the agreement so happily concluded by the recent negotiation will be strictly fulfilled on the part of his Majesty.”
The expressions of this letter, if carefully read, still left cause for doubt; and Madison saw it, although he clung to what he thought he had gained. June 20 he wrote again to Jefferson:[67]—
“The ‘Gazette’ of yesterday contains the mode pursued for reanimating confidence in the pledge of the British government given by Mr. Erskine in his arrangement with this government. The puzzle created by the Order of April struck every one. Erskine assures us that his Government was under such impressions as to the views of this, that not the slightest expectation existed of our fairly meeting its overtures, and that the last order was considered as a seasonable mitigation of the tendency of a failure of the experiment. This explanation seems as extraordinary as the alternative it shows. The fresh declarations of Mr. Erskine seem to have quieted the distrust which was becoming very strong, but has not destroyed the effect of the ill grace stamped on the British retreat, and of the commercial rigor evinced by the new and insidious duties stated in the newspapers. It may be expected, I think, that the British government will fulfil what its minister has stipulated; and that if it means to be trickish, it will frustrate the proposed negotiation, and then say their orders were not permanently repealed but only withdrawn in the mean time.”
Madison had chosen to precipitate a decision, with a view to profiting in either case, whether England consented or refused to have her hands thus forced. Indeed, if he had not himself been old in the ways of diplomacy, Turreau was on the spot to warn him, and lost no chance of lecturing the Administration on the folly of trusting Erskine’s word.
Meanwhile Turreau so far lost his temper as to address to Secretary Smith a long letter complaining of the persistently unfriendly attitude of the United States government toward France. So strong was the language of the letter that Turreau was obliged to withdraw it.[68] Robert Smith attempted to pacify him by assurances that the new Administration would respect the Spanish possessions more strictly than the old one had done.
“The Secretary of State did not deny that there might have been some attempt in that direction,” reported Turreau, June 14,[69] “but at the same time, while himself alluding to the affair of Miranda, he attributed these events to causes independent of the actual Administration and anterior to its existence, and especially to the weakness and the indiscretions of Mr. Jefferson; that he [Smith] was then in the Cabinet, and knew better than any one how much the want of vigor (mollesse), the uncertainty, and absence of plan in the Executive head had contributed to the false steps of the Federal government.”
The new Administration meant to show vigor. Every act and expression implied that its path was to be direct to its ends. The President and Congress waited with composure for the outcome of Erskine’s strange conduct.
No new measure was suggested, after June 10, to provide for the chance that Erskine’s arrangement might fail, and that the Order in Council of April 26, 1809, might prove to be a permanent system. Congress seemed disposed to indulge the merchants to the utmost in their eagerness for trade. The nearest approach to suspicion was shown in the House by appropriating $750,000 for fortifications. Randolph, Macon, Eppes, and Richard M. Johnson tried to reduce the amount to $150,000. The larger appropriation was understood to mean an intention of preparing for attack, and eighty-four members sustained the policy against a minority of forty-seven; but notwithstanding this vote and the anxiety caused by the new Order in Council, Congress decided to stop enlistments for the army; and by an Act approved June 28 the President was authorized, “in the event of a favorable change in our foreign relations,” to reduce the naval force, although the words of the Act implied doubt whether the favorable change would take place.
Nothing could be happier for Madison than this situation, where all parties were held in check not only by his success but by his danger. So completely was discipline restored, that June 27 he ventured to send the name of J. Q. Adams a second time to the Senate as minister to Russia; and nineteen Republicans confirmed the nomination, while but one adhered to the opinion that the mission was unnecessary. The power of England over America was never more strikingly shown than by the sudden calm which fell on the country, in full prospect of war with France, at a word from a British minister. As Canning frowned or smiled, faction rose to frenzy or lay down to slumber throughout the United States. No sooner did the news of Erskine’s arrangement reach Quebec May 1, than Sir James Craig recalled his secret agent, John Henry, from Boston, where he still lingered. “I am cruelly out of spirits,” wrote Secretary Ryland to Henry,[70] “at the idea of Old England truckling to such a debased and accursed government as that of the United States;” but since this was the case, Henry’s services could no longer be useful. He returned to Montreal early in June.
June 28 Congress adjourned, leaving the Executive, for the first time in many years, almost without care, until the fourth Monday in November.