CHAPTER V.
Erskine’s despatches were received by Canning May 22, and the “Morning Post” of the next day printed the news with approval: “Upon this pleasing event we sincerely congratulate the public.” The “Times” of May 24 accepted the arrangement: “We shall not urge anything against the concessions.” May 25, with “considerable pain though but little surprise,” the same newspaper announced that Erskine was disavowed by the Government.
Canning’s abrupt rejection of Erskine’s arrangement without explanation must have seemed even to himself a high-handed course, at variance with some of his late professions, certain to injure or even to destroy British influence in America, and likely to end in war. To the settlement as a practical measure no objection could be alleged. No charge of bad faith could be supported. No shadow of law or reason could be devised for enforcing against America rights derived from retaliation upon France, when America enforced stronger measures of retaliation upon France than those imposed by the Orders in Council. Neither the Non-importation Act of 1806, nor the “Chesapeake” proclamation of 1807, nor the embargo, nor the Non-intercourse Act of March, 1809, could be used to justify the rejection of an arrangement which evaded or removed every British grievance. Even the subject of impressments had been suppressed by the American government. Madison flung himself into Canning’s arms, and to fling him back was an effort of sheer violence.
Perhaps the effort gave to Canning’s conduct an air that he would not naturally have cared to betray; for his manner was that of a man irritated by finding himself obliged to be brutal. In the want of a reason for rejecting the American arrangement, he was reduced to rejecting it without giving a reason. The process of disciplining Erskine was simple, for Erskine had disregarded instructions to an extent that no government could afford to overlook; but President Madison was not in the employ of the British king, and had a right to such consideration at least as one gentleman commonly owes to another.
Canning addressed himself first to the simpler task. May 22, a few hours after receiving the despatches from Washington, he wrote a despatch to Erskine in regard to the “Chesapeake” arrangement.[71] He reminded Erskine that his instructions had required the formal exclusion of French war-vessels and the formal withdrawal of the “Chesapeake” proclamation before any arrangement should be concluded. Not only had these conditions been neglected, but two other less serious errors had been made.
Variations from the rigor of instructions might be ground for reproving Erskine, but could hardly excuse a disavowal of the compact; yet the compact was disavowed. An impression was general that the Ministry were disposed to ratify it, but were withheld by the paragraph in Robert Smith’s letter defining what was due from his Britannic Majesty to his own honor. Milder Foreign Secretaries than George Canning would have found themselves obliged to take notice of such a reflection, and Canning appeared at his best when his adversaries gave him an excuse for the lofty tone he liked to assume.
“It remains for me,” he continued, “to notice the expressions, so full of disrespect to his Majesty, with which that note concludes; and I am to signify to you the displeasure which his Majesty feels that any minister of his Majesty should have shown himself so far insensible of what is due to the dignity of his sovereign as to have consented to receive and transmit a note in which such expressions were contained.”
Canning was hardly the proper person to criticise Robert Smith’s disrespectful expressions, which, whatever their intention, failed to be nearly as offensive as many of his own; but this was a matter between himself and Erskine. Even after granting the propriety of his comment, diplomatic usage seemed to require that some demand of explanation or apology from the American government should precede the rejection of an engagement otherwise satisfactory; but no such step was in this case taken through Erskine. His settlement of the “Chesapeake” outrage was repudiated without more words, and the next day Canning repudiated the rest of the arrangement.
Nothing could be easier than to show that Erskine had violated his instructions more plainly in regard to the Orders in Council than in regard to the “Chesapeake” affair. Of the three conditions imposed by Canning, not one had been fulfilled. The first required the repeal of all Non-intercourse Acts against England, “leaving them in force with respect to France;” but Erskine had doubly failed to secure it:[72]—
“As the matter at present stands before the world in your official correspondence with Mr. Smith, the American government would be at liberty to-morrow to repeal the Non-intercourse Act altogether, without infringing the agreement which you have thought proper to enter into on behalf of his Majesty; and if such a clause was thought necessary to this condition at the time when my instructions were written, it was obviously become much more so when the Non-intercourse Act was passed for a limited time. You must also have been aware at the time of making the agreement that the American government had in fact formally exempted Holland, a Power which has unquestionably ‘adopted and acted under the Decrees of France,’ from the operation of the Non-intercourse Act,—an exemption in direct contravention of the condition prescribed to you, and which of itself ought to have prevented you from coming to any agreement whatever.”
Here, again, sufficient reasons were given for punishing Erskine; but these reasons were not equally good for repudiating the compact with the United States. No American vessels could enter a Dutch port so long as the British blockade lasted; therefore the exemption of Holland from the non-intercourse affected England only by giving to her navy another chance for booty, and to the Americans one more empty claim. Canning himself explained to Pinkney[73] “that the exemption of Holland from the effect of our embargo and non-intercourse would not have been much objected to by the British government” if the President had been willing to pledge himself to enforce the non-intercourse against France; but for aught that appeared to the contrary, “the embargo and non-intercourse laws might be suffered without any breach of faith to expire, or might even be repealed immediately, notwithstanding the perseverance of France in her Berlin and other edicts; and that Mr. Erskine had in truth secured nothing more, as the consideration of the recall of the Orders in Council, than the renewal of American intercourse with Great Britain.”
Thus Canning justified the repudiation of Erskine’s arrangement by the single reason that the United States government could not be trusted long enough to prove its good faith. The explanation was difficult to express in courteous or diplomatic forms; but perhaps its most striking quality, next to its want of courtesy, was its evident want of candor. Had the American government evaded its obligation, the British government held the power of redress in its own hands. Clearly the true explanation was to be sought elsewhere, in some object which Canning could not put in diplomatic words, but which lay in the nature of Perceval’s system. Even during the three days while the decision was supposed to be in doubt, alarmed merchants threw themselves in crowds on the Board of Trade, protesting that if American vessels with their cheaper sugar, cotton, and coffee were allowed to enter Amsterdam and Antwerp, British trade was at an end.[74] The mere expectation of their arrival would create such a fall in prices as to make worthless the accumulated mass of such merchandise with which the warehouses were filled, not only in London, but also in the little island of Heligoland at the mouth of the Elbe, where a system of licensed and unlicensed smuggling had been established under the patronage of the Board of Trade. Deputations of these merchants waited on Earl Bathurst to represent the danger of allowing even those American ships to enter Holland which might have already sailed from the United States on the faith of Erskine’s arrangement. Somewhat unexpectedly ministers refused to gratify this prayer. An Order in Council of May 24, while announcing the Royal repudiation of Erskine’s arrangement, declared that American vessels which should have cleared for Holland between April 19 and July 20 would not be molested in their voyage.
The chief objection to Erskine’s arrangement, apart from its effect on British merchants, consisted in the danger that by its means America might compel France to withdraw her decrees affecting neutrals. The chance that Erskine’s arrangement might involve America in war with Napoleon was not worth the equal chance of its producing in the end an amicable arrangement with Napoleon which would sacrifice the last defence of British commerce and manufactures. Had the British government given way, Napoleon, to whom the most solemn pledges cost nothing, would certainly persuade President Madison to lean once more toward France. The habit of balancing the belligerents—the first rule of American diplomacy—required the incessant see-saw of interest. So many unsettled questions remained open that British ministers could not flatter themselves with winning permanent American favor by partial concession.
To Canning’s despatch repudiating the commercial arrangement, Erskine made a reply showing more keenness and skill than was to be found in Canning’s criticism.
“It appears from the general tenor of your despatches,” wrote Erskine[75] on receiving these letters of May 22 and 23, “that his Majesty’s government were not willing to trust to assurances from the American government, but that official pledges were to have been required which could not be given for want of power, some of them also being of a nature which would prevent a formal recognition. Had I believed that his Majesty’s government were determined to insist upon these conditions being complied with in one particular manner only, I should have adhered implicitly to my instructions; but as I collected from them that his Majesty was desirous of accomplishing his retaliatory system by such means as were most compatible with a good understanding with friendly and neutral Powers, I felt confident that his Majesty would approve of the arrangement I had concluded as one likely to lead to a cordial and complete understanding and co-operation on the part of the United States, which co-operation never could be obtained by previous stipulations either from the government of the United States, who have no power to accede to them, or from Congress, which would never acknowledge them as recognitions to guide their conduct.”
This reply, respectful in form, placed Secretary Canning in the dilemma between the guilt of ignorance or that of bad faith; but the rejoinder of a dismissed diplomatist weighed little except in history, and long before it was made public Erskine and his arrangement had ceased to interest the world. Canning disposed of both forever by a third despatch, dated May 30, enclosing to Erskine an Order in Council disavowing his arrangement and ordering him back to England.
When the official disavowal appeared in the newspapers of May 25, Canning had an interview with Pinkney.[76] At great length and with much detail he read the instructions he had given to Erskine, and commented on the points in which Erskine had violated them. He complained of unfriendly expressions in the American notes; but he did not say why the arrangement failed to satisfy all the legitimate objects of England, nor did he suggest any improvement or change which would make the arrangement, as it existed, agreeable to him. On the other hand, he announced that though Erskine would have to be recalled, his successor was already appointed and would sail for America within a few days.
If Canning showed, by his indulgence to American vessels and his haste to send out a new minister, the wish to avoid a rupture with the United States, his selection of an agent for that purpose was so singular as to suggest that he relied on terror rather than on conciliation. In case Erskine had obeyed his instructions, which ordered him merely to prepare the way for negotiation, Canning had fixed upon George Henry Rose as the negotiator.[77] Considering the impression left in America by Rose on his previous mission, his appointment seemed almost the worst that could have been made; but bad as the effect of such a selection would have been, one man, and perhaps only one, in England was certain to make a worse; and him Canning chose. The new minister was Francis James Jackson. Whatever good qualities Jackson possessed were overshadowed by the reputation he had made for himself at Copenhagen. His name was a threat of violence; his temper and manners were notorious; and nothing but his rank in the service marked him as suitable for the post. Pinkney, whose self-control and tact in these difficult circumstances could hardly be too much admired, listened in silence to Canning’s announcement, and rather than risk making the situation worse, reported that Jackson was, he believed, “a worthy man, and although completely attached to all those British principles and doctrines which sometimes give us trouble will, I should hope, give satisfaction.” The English press was not so forbearing. The “Morning Chronicle” of May 29 said that the appointment had excited general surprise, owing to “the character of the individual;” and Pinkney himself, in a later despatch, warned his Government that “it is rather a prevailing notion here that this gentleman’s conduct will not and cannot be what we all wish, and that a better choice might have been made.”[78]
Jackson himself sought the position, knowing its difficulties. May 23, the day of his appointment, he wrote privately to his brother in Spain: “I am about to enter upon a most delicate—I hope not desperate—enterprise.”[79] At a later time, embittered by want of support from home, he complained that Canning had sent him on an errand which he knew to be impossible to perform.[80] So well understood between Canning and Jackson was the nature of the service, that Jackson asked and received as a condition of his acceptance the promise that his employment should last not less than twelve months.[81] The delicate enterprise of which he spoke could have been nothing more than that of preventing a rupture between England and America; but until he studied his instructions, he could hardly have known in its full extent how desperate this undertaking would be.
Canning made no haste. Nearly two months elapsed before Jackson sailed. After correcting Erskine’s mistake and replacing the United States in their position under the Orders in Council of April 26, Canning, June 13, made a statement to the House of Commons. Declining to touch questions of general policy for the reason that negotiations were pending, he contented himself with satisfying the House that Erskine had acted contrary to instructions and deserved recall. James Stephen showed more clearly the spirit of Government by avowing the opinion “that America in all her proceedings had no wish to promote an impartial course with respect to France and this country.” The Whigs knew little or nothing of the true facts; Erskine’s conduct could not be defended; no one cared to point out that Canning left to America no dignified course but war, and public interest was once more concentrated with painful anxiety on the continent of Europe. America dropped from sight, and Canning’s last and worst acts toward the United States escaped notice or knowledge.
The session of Parliament ended June 21, a week before the special session of Congress came to an end; and while England waited impatiently for news from Vienna, where Napoleon was making ready for the battle of Wagram, Canning drew up the instructions to Jackson,—the last of the series of papers by which, through the peculiar qualities of his style even more than by the violence of his acts, he embittered to a point that seemed altogether contrary to their nature a whole nation of Americans against the nation that gave them birth. If the famous phrase of Canning was ever in any sense true,—that he called a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old,—it was most nearly true in the sense that his instructions and letters forced the United States into a nationality of character which the war of the Revolution itself had failed to give them.
The instructions to Jackson[82]—five in number—were dated July 1, and require careful attention if the train of events which brought the United States to the level of war with England is to be understood.
The first instruction began by complaint of Erskine’s conduct, passing quickly to a charge of bad faith against the American government, founded on “the publicity so unwarrantably given” to Erskine’s arrangement:—
“The premature publication of the correspondence by the American government so effectually precluded any middle course of explanation and accommodation that it is hardly possible to suppose that it must not have been resorted to in a great measure with that view.
“The American government cannot have believed that such an arrangement as Mr. Erskine consented to accept was conformable to his instructions. If Mr. Erskine availed himself of the liberty allowed to him of communicating those instructions on the affair of the Orders in Council, they must have known that it was not so; but even without such communication they cannot by possibility have believed that without any new motive, and without any apparent change in the dispositions of the enemy, the British government could have been disposed at once and unconditionally to give up the system on which they have been acting, and which they had so recently refused to relinquish, even in return for considerations which though far from being satisfactory were yet infinitely more so than anything which can be supposed to have been gained by Mr. Erskine’s arrangement.”
Canning attributed this conduct to a hope held by President Madison that the British government would feel itself compelled, however reluctantly, to sanction an agreement which it had not authorized. In this case the American government had only itself to blame for the consequences:—
“So far, therefore, from the American government having any reason to complain of the non-ratification of Mr. Erskine’s unauthorized agreement, his Majesty has on his part just ground of complaint for that share of the inconvenience from the publication which may have fallen upon his Majesty’s subjects, so far as their interests may have been involved in the renewed speculations of their American correspondents; and his Majesty cannot but think any complaint, if any should be made on this occasion in America, the more unreasonable, as the government of the United States is that government which perhaps of all others has most freely exercised the right of withholding its ratification from even the authorized acts of its own diplomatic agents.”
In this spirit Jackson was to meet any “preliminary discussion” which might arise before he could proceed to negotiation. Canning did not touch on the probability that if Jackson met preliminary discussion in such a spirit as this, he would run something more than a risk of never reaching negotiation at all; or if Canning considered this point, he treated it orally. The other written instructions given to Jackson dealt at once with negotiation.
The “Chesapeake” affair came first in order, and was quickly dismissed. Jackson was to require from the President a written acknowledgment that the interdict on British ships was annulled before any settlement could be made. The Orders in Council came next, and were the subject of a long instruction, full of interest and marked by many of Canning’s peculiarities. Once more he explained that Erskine had inverted the relation of things by appearing to recall the orders as an inducement to the renewal of trade,—“as if in any arrangement, whether commercial or political, his Majesty could condescend to barter objects of national policy and dignity for permission to trade with another country. The character even more than the stipulations of such a compact must under any circumstances have put out of question the possibility of his Majesty’s consenting to confirm it.” He related the history of the orders, which he called “defensive retaliation,” and explained why Erskine’s arrangement failed to effect the object of that system:—
“In the arrangement agreed to by Mr. Erskine the incidental consequence is mistaken for the object of the negotiation. His Majesty is made by his minister to concede the whole point in dispute by the total and unconditional recall of the Orders in Council; and nothing is done by the United States in return except to permit their citizens to renew their commercial intercourse with Great Britain. Whereas, before his Majesty’s consent to withdraw or even to modify the Orders in Council was declared, the United States should have taken upon themselves to execute in substance the objects of the Orders in Council by effectually prohibiting all trade between their citizens and France, or the Powers acting under her decrees, and by engaging for the continuance of that prohibition so long as those decrees should continue unrepealed.”
As in the “Chesapeake” affair, so in regard to the orders,—Canning’s objection to Erskine’s arrangement was stated as one of form. That the “Chesapeake” proclamation was no longer in force; that Congress had effectually prohibited trade with France; and that the President had engaged as far as he could to continue that prohibition till the French Decrees were repealed,—these were matters of notoriety. England took the ground that the United States were liable to the operation of the British retaliatory orders against France, even though Congress should have declared war upon France, unless the declaration of war was regularly made known to the British minister at Washington, and unless “the United States should have taken upon themselves,” by treaty with England, to continue the war till France repealed her decrees.
Canning was happy in the phrase he employed in Parliament, March 6, to justify the course of ministers toward America. “Extension of the law of nations” described well the Orders in Council themselves; but the instruction to Jackson was remarkable as a prodigious extension of the extended orders. The last legal plea was abandoned by these instructions, and the subject would have been the clearer for that abandonment were it not that owing to the rapidity of events the new extravagance was never known; with Canning himself the subject slipped from public view, and only the mystery remained of Canning’s objects and expectations.
Another man would have temporized, and would have offered some suggestion toward breaking the force of such a blow at a friendly people. Not only did Canning make no new suggestion, but he even withdrew that which he had made in February. He told Jackson to propose nothing whatever:—
“You are to inform the American Secretary of State that in the event of the government of the United States being desirous now to adopt this proposal, you are authorized to renew the negotiation and to conclude it on the terms of my instructions to Mr. Erskine; but that you are not instructed to press upon the acceptance of the American government an arrangement which they have so recently declined, especially as the arrangement itself is become less important, and the terms of it less applicable to the state of things now existing.”
The remainder of this despatch was devoted to proving that, the late order of April 26 had so modified that of November, 1807, as to remove the most serious American objections; and although the blockade was more restrictive than the old orders as concerned French and Dutch colonies, yet the recent surrender of Martinique had reduced the practical hardship of this restriction so considerably that it was fairly offset by the opening of the Baltic. America had the less inducement to a further arrangement which could little increase the extent of her commerce, while England was indifferent provided she obtained her indispensable objects:—
“I am therefore not to direct you to propose to the American government any formal agreement to be substituted for that which his Majesty has been under the necessity of disavowing. You are, however, at liberty to receive for reference home any proposal which the American government may tender to you; but it is only in the case of that proposal comprehending all the three conditions which Mr. Erskine was instructed to require.”
The fourth instruction prescribed the forms in which such an arrangement, if made, must be framed. The fifth dealt with another branch of the subject,—the Rule of 1756. Canning declined to accept a mere understanding in regard to this rule. Great Britain would insist on her right to prohibit neutral trade with enemies’ colonies, “of which she has permitted the exercise only by indulgence; ... but the indulgence which was granted for peculiar and temporary reasons being now withdrawn, the question is merely whether the rule from which such an indulgence was a deviation shall be established by the admission of America or enforced as heretofore by the naval power of Great Britain.” As a matter of courtesy the British government had no objection to allowing the United States to sanction by treaty the British right, so that legal condemnations should be made under the authority of the treaty instead of an Order in Council; “but either authority is sufficient. No offence is taken at the refusal of the United States to make this matter subject of compact. The result is that it must be the subject of an Order in Council.”
The result was that it became the subject of a much higher tribunal than his Majesty’s Council, and that the British people, and Canning himself, took great offence at the refusal of the United States to make it a subject of one-sided compact; but with this concluding touch Canning’s official irony toward America ended, and he laid down his pen. About the middle of June, Jackson with three well-defined casus belli in his portfolio, and another—that of impressments—awaiting his arrival, set sail for America on the errand which he strangely hoped might not be desperate. With his departure Canning’s control of American relations ceased. At the moment when he challenged for the last time an instant declaration of war from a people who had no warmer wish than to be permitted to remain his friends, the career of the Administration to which he belonged came to an end in scandalous disaster.
Hardly had the Duke of York stopped one source of libel, by resigning May 16 his office of commanderin-chief, when fresh troubles from many directions assailed ministers. As early as April 4, Canning had satisfied the Duke of Portland that he must dismiss Castlereagh for incompetence, and every Cabinet minister except Castlereagh himself was acquainted with this decision; but contrary to Canning’s wishes no action was taken, and the conduct of the war was left at a critical moment in the hands of a man whose removal for incompetence had been decreed by his own colleagues. The summer campaign was then fought. April 9 Austria had begun another war with Napoleon. At Essling, May 21, she nearly won a great victory; at Wagram, July 6, she lost a battle, and soon afterward entered on negotiations which ended, October 20, in the treaty of Vienna. While this great campaign went on, Sir Arthur Wellesley drove Soult out of Portugal much as Napoleon had driven Sir John Moore out of Spain; and then marching up the valley of the Tagus scared Joseph a second time from Madrid, and fought, July 28, the desperate battle of Talavera. In any case the result of the Austrian war would have obliged him to retreat; but the concentration of the French forces in his front quickly drove the British army back toward Lisbon, and ended all hope of immediate success in the Peninsula. A third great effort against Napoleon was directed from London toward the Scheldt and Meuse. The Cabinet, June 14, decided that Castlereagh should attempt this experiment; for raids of the kind had charms for a naval power, and although success could affect the war but little, it might assist smuggling and destroy a naval depot of Napoleon. Castlereagh sent to the Scheldt forty thousand soldiers who were grievously wanted on the Tagus. July 28, while Wellington fought the battle of Talavera, Lord Chatham’s expedition started from the Downs, and reaching the mouth of the Scheldt occupied itself until August 15 with the capture of Flushing. In gaining this success the army was worn out; nearly half its number were suffering from typhoid, and September 2 the Cabinet unanimously voted to recall the expedition.
Talavera and Flushing closed Castlereagh’s career in the War Office, as Jackson’s mission closed that of Canning in American diplomacy. Defeat abroad, ruin at home, disgrace and disaster everywhere were the results of two years of Tory administration. August 11 the Duke of Portland was struck by paralysis; and deprived of its chief, the Cabinet went to pieces. September 7 Castlereagh was gently forced to resign. Canning, refusing to serve under Perceval or under any one whom Perceval suggested, tendered his own resignation. In the course of the complicated negotiations that followed, Perceval showed to Castlereagh letters in which for a year past Canning had pressed Castlereagh’s removal from office. Then at last Castlereagh discovered, as he conceived, that Canning was not a gentleman or a man of honor, and having called him out, September 21, in a duel on Putney Heath shot him through the thigh.
Such an outcome was a natural result of such an Administration; but as concerned the United States Canning had already done all the harm possible, and more than three generations could wholly repair.