CHAPTER II.
The diplomatic insolvency inherited from Merry, Rose, Erskine, and Jackson became more complete with every year that passed; and even while Foster was on the ocean, a new incident occurred, which if it did not prove a catastrophe to be inevitable, showed at least how small was his chance of averting it.
On the renewal of trade between America and France, the British navy renewed its blockade of New York. If nothing more had happened, the recurrence of this vexation would alone have gone far to destroy the hopes of diplomacy; but this was not all.
The “Melampus” reappeared, having for a companion the “Guerriere,” commanded by Captain Dacres, and supposed to be one of the best British frigates of her class. Early in May, when Foster sailed from England, these cruisers, lying off Sandy Hook, began to capture American vessels bound for France, and to impress American sailors at will. No sooner did these complaints reach Washington than Secretary Hamilton, May 6,[30] ordered Commodore John Rodgers, whose flag-ship, the 44-gun frigate “President,” was lying at Annapolis, to sail at once to protect American commerce from unlawful interference by British and French cruisers. Rodgers sailed from Annapolis May 10, and May 14 passed the capes. The scene of the “Chesapeake’s” unredressed outrage lay some fifteen or twenty miles to the southward, and the officers and crew of the “President” had reason to think themselves expected to lose no fair opportunity of taking into their own hands the redress which the British government denied. For the past year Rodgers had carried orders “to vindicate the injured honor of our navy and revive the drooping spirits of the nation; ... to maintain and support at any risk and cost the honor” of his flag; and these orders were founded chiefly on “the inhuman and dastardly attack on our frigate ‘Chesapeake,’—an outrage which prostrated the flag of our country, and has imposed on the American people cause of ceaseless mourning.”[31]
Rodgers was bound for New York, but on the morning of May 16 was still about thirty miles from Cape Charles and eighteen miles from the coast, when toward noon he saw a ship to the eastward standing toward him under a press of canvas. As the vessel came near, he could make her out from the shape of her upper sails to be a man-of-war; he knew of no man-of-war except the “Guerriere” on the coast; the new-comer appeared from the quarter where that frigate would be looked for, and Rodgers reasoned that in all probability she was the “Guerriere.” He decided to approach her, with the object of ascertaining whether a man named Diggio, said to have been impressed a few days before by Captain Dacres from an American brig, was on board. The spirit of this inquiry was new.
Until quarter before two o’clock in the afternoon the ships stood toward each other. The stranger showed no colors, but made signals, until finding them unanswered, she changed her course and stood to the southward. Rodgers then made sail in chase, his colors and pennant flying. At half-past three, the stranger’s hull began to be visible from the “President’s” deck, but as the wind failed the American frigate gained less rapidly. In latitude 37° the sun, May 16, sets at seven o’clock, and dusk comes quickly on. At quarter-past seven the unknown ship again changed her course, and lay to, presenting her broadside to the “President,” and showing colors, which in the gathering twilight were not clearly seen. The ship had the look of a frigate.
At quarter before eight, Rodgers ordered his acting commandant to bring the “President” to windward of the supposed frigate within speaking distance,—a manœuvre which naturally caused the stranger uneasiness, so that she wore three times to prevent the “President” from getting under her stern. At half-past eight, according to the American account,—at quarter-past eight, according to the British story,—the “President” rounded to, within pistol-shot. On both ships every gun in the broadside was run out and trained on the opposite vessel, and out of every port a dozen eyes were strained to catch sight, through the dusk, of what passed in the stranger.
By the dim light Rodgers saw the supposed “Guerriere,” her main-top-sail to the mast, waiting with apparent confidence the next act of the audacious American frigate which had chased a British man-of-war all day, and had at last run up close to windward,—a manœuvre which British frigates were disposed to resent. To this point the reports showed no great disagreement; but in regard to what followed, one story was told by Rodgers and all his ship’s company, while a wholly different story was told by the British captain and his officers.
Rodgers reported that while rounding to, he hailed the unknown vessel through his trumpet, calling out: “What ship is that?” The question, “What ship is that?” was immediately echoed back. Rodgers had time to tell his acting captain that the “President” was forging too fast ahead, before he hailed again: “What ship is that, I say?” Instantly a flash was seen from the dark where the stranger’s hull lay, and a double report told that the ball had struck the “President,” lodging in the mainmast. Taken by surprise, Rodgers turned to his commandant of marines and asked, “What the devil was that?” but before he gave an order his third lieutenant, Alexander James Dallas, who was watching at the first port forward of the gangway and saw the flash, leaped to one of the guns in his division and discharged it. The “Chesapeake’s” disaster had done away with the old-fashioned logger-heads and matches; the “President’s” guns were fitted with locks, and were discharged in an instant. Immediately afterward three guns were fired by the enemy, and the report of muskets was heard. Then Rodgers gave the order to fire, and the “President” opened with a whole broadside, followed by another. In about five minutes the enemy seemed to be silenced, and Rodgers gave the order to cease firing; but some three minutes afterward the stranger opened again, and the “President” resumed fire until she desisted. From the “President’s” deck enough could be seen of the enemy’s behavior to prove that whoever she might be, she was not the “Guerriere;” and Rodgers then made the remark that either she had received some unfortunate shot at the outset, or she was a vessel of force very inferior to what he had taken her for,—although she was still supposed to be nothing less than a 36-gun frigate. Disabled she certainly was, for she lay ungovernable, with her bow directly under the “President’s” broadside.
Rodgers hailed once more, and understood the stranger to answer that she was a British ship-of-war in great distress. At nine o’clock at night the “President” began to repair damages, and beat about within reach, on different tacks, with lights displayed, until daybreak, when she ran down to the British vessel, and sent a boat on board. Then at last Rodgers learned, certainly to his great disappointment, that he had been fighting a single-decked vessel of less than half his force. His mistake was not so surprising as it seemed. The British cruiser might easily at a distance, or in the dark, be taken for a frigate. Her great length; her poop, top-gallants, forecastle; her deep bulwarks; the manner of stowing her hammocks; and room on each side to mount three more guns than she actually carried,—were decisive to any one who could not see that she carried but one tier of guns.[32]
Captain Bingham of the “Little Belt,” a British corvette, rated at twenty guns, gave a very different account of the affair. He had been ordered from Bermuda to carry despatches to the “Guerriere;” had run north toward New York without finding her; and on his return southward, at eleven o’clock on the morning of May 16, had seen a strange sail, to which he gave chase. At two o’clock in the afternoon, concluding that she was an American frigate, he abandoned the chase, and resumed his course. The rest of his story is to be told in his own words:[33]—
“Hoisted the colors, and made all sail south, ... the stranger edging away, but not making any more sail. At 3.30 he made sail in chase.... At 6.30, finding he gained so considerably on us as not to be able to elude him during the night, being within gunshot, and clearly discerning the stars in his broad pennant, I imagined the most prudent method was to bring to, and hoist the colors, that no mistake might arise, and that he might see what we were. The ship was therefore brought to, her colors hoisted, her guns double-shotted, and every preparation made in case of a surprise. By his manner of steering down, he evidently wished to lay his ship in a position for raking, which I frustrated by wearing three times. At about 8.15 he came within hail. I hailed and asked what ship it was. He again repeated my words and fired a broadside, which I instantly returned. The action then became general, and continued so for three quarters of an hour, when he ceased firing, and appeared to be on fire about the main hatchway. He then filled, ... hailed, and asked what ship this was. He fired no more guns, but stood from us, giving no reason for his most extraordinary conduct.”
Bingham’s report was afterward supported by the evidence of his two lieutenants, his boatswain, purser, and surgeon, at the official inquiry made May 29, at Halifax.[34] Rodgers’s report was sustained by the searching inquiry made by the American government to ascertain the truth of Bingham’s assertions.[35] The American investigation was naturally much more thorough in consequence of Bingham’s charges, so that not only every officer, but also every seaman of the “President’s” company gave evidence under oath. All agreed in swearing to the facts as they have been related in the American story.
About a month after the action, two sailors claiming to be deserters from the “President” arrived at Halifax and made affidavits,[36] which gave a third account quite different from the other two. One of these men, an Englishman, swore that he had been stationed in the second division, on the gun-deck of the “President;” that a gun in that division went off, as he thought, by accident, four or five men leaning on it; that he had turned to acquaint Lieutenant Belden, who commanded that division, of the fact, but before he could do this, though the lieutenant was only three guns from him, the whole broadside of the “President” was discharged. This story was the least probable of the three. The evidence of a deserter, under every motive to ingratiate himself with his future officers, would be suspicious, even if he were proved to have been in the “President’s” crew, which was not the case; but it became valueless when the rolls showed no Lieutenant Belden on board the “President,” but that the second division on the gun-deck was commanded by Lieut. A. J. Dallas,—and Lieutenant Dallas swore that he himself fired the first gun from the “President,” without orders, in answer to the “Little Belt’s” discharge. The evidence of every other officer and man at the guns supported his assertion.
When the contradictory reports of Rodgers and Bingham were published, a controversy arose between the newspapers which sympathized with the different captains. Rodgers was vehemently attacked by the English and Federalist press; Bingham was as hotly scouted by the American newspapers friendly to Madison. The dispute was never settled. Perhaps this was the only instance where the honor of the services was so deeply involved on both sides as to make the controversy important; for if Rodgers, all his officers, and his whole crew behaved as Bingham alleged, and perjured themselves afterward to conceal it, they were not the men they were supposed to be; and if Bingham swore falsely, he went far to establish the worst American charges against the character of the British navy.
For this reason some little effort to form an opinion on the subject deserves to be made, even at the risk of diffuseness. The elaborate investigation by the United States government settled the weight of testimony in favor of Rodgers. Other evidence raised doubts of the accuracy of Bingham’s report.
This report was dated May 21, five days after the battle, in “lat. 36° 53´ N.; long. 71° 49´ W. Cape Charles bearing W. 48 miles,”—which, according to the senior lieutenant’s evidence, May 29, was about the spot of the action, from fifty to fifty-four miles east of Cape Charles. Yet a glance at the map showed that these bearings marked a point more than two hundred miles east of Cape Charles. This carelessness could not be set to the account of a misprint.
The date proved only inaccuracy; other parts of Bingham’s report showed a willingness to confuse the facts. He claimed to have hoisted his colors at two o’clock in the afternoon, after making out the American commodore’s pennant and resuming a southerly course. Rodgers averred that the “Little Belt” obstinately refused to show colors till darkness concealed them; and Bingham’s report itself admitted that at 6.30 he decided to hoist his colors, “that no mistake might arise.” During the five hours’ chase his colors were not flying. His assertion, too, that at 6.30 the American frigate was within gunshot, and that the “Little Belt” was brought to because she could not escape, agreed ill with his next admission, that the “President” consumed nearly two hours in getting within hailing distance.
The most evident error was at the close of the British story. Bingham declared that the general action lasted three quarters of an hour, and that then the enemy ceased firing; appeared to be on fire about the main hatchway, and “stood from us,” firing no more guns. The two lieutenants, boatswain, and purser of the “Little Belt” swore that the action lasted “about an hour;” the surgeon said “about forty-five minutes.” Every American officer declared under oath that the entire action, including the cessation of firing for three minutes, did not exceed a quarter of an hour, or eighteen minutes at most. On this point the American story was certainly correct. Indeed, two years later, after the “Constitution” had silenced the “Guerriere” in thirty-five minutes, and the “United States” had, in a rough sea and at comparatively long range, left the “Macedonian” a wreck in less than two hours of action, no officer in the British service would have sacrificed his reputation for veracity by suggesting that a British corvette of eighteen guns could have lain nearly an hour within pistol-shot, in calm weather, under the hot fire of an American “line-of-battle ship in disguise.” The idea of forcing her to “stand from us” would have seemed then mere gasconade. Some fifteen months afterward, the British sloop-of-war “Alert,” of twenty guns, imitated the “Little Belt” by attacking Commodore Porter’s 32-gun frigate “Essex,” and in eight minutes struck her colors in a sinking condition. If the “President” had been no heavier than the “Essex,” she should still have silenced the “Little Belt” in a quarter of an hour.
The “Little Belt” escaped destruction, but she suffered severely. Bingham reported: “I was obliged to desist from firing, as, the ship falling off, no gun would bear, and had no after-sail to help her to; all the rigging and sails cut to pieces; not a brace nor a bowline left.... I have to lament the loss of thirty-two men killed and wounded, among whom is the master. His Majesty’s ship is much damaged in masts, rigging, and hull; ... many shot through between wind and water, and many shots still remain inside, and upper works all shot away; starboard pump also.” He did not know his good fortune. Two years afterward he would have been well content to escape from the “President” on any terms, even though the “Little Belt” had been twice the size she was. The “President’s” loss consisted of one boy wounded, and some slight damage to the rigging.
Bingham’s report was accepted by the British government and navy with blind confidence, and caused no small part of the miscalculation which ended in disasters to British pride. “No one act of the little navy of the United States,” said the British historian five years afterward, “had been at all calculated to gain the respect of the British. First was seen the ‘Chesapeake’ allowing herself to be beaten with impunity by a British ship only nominally superior to her. Then the huge frigate ‘President’ attacks and fights for nearly three quarters of an hour the British sloop ‘Little Belt.’”[37] So self-confident was the British navy that Bingham was believed to have fought the “President” with credit and success; while, on the American side, Rodgers and his ship’s company believed that the British captain deliberately delayed the meeting until dark, with the view of taking advantage of the night to punish what he thought the insolence of the chase.
Whatever opinion might be formed as to the conduct of the two captains, the vehemence of feeling on each side was only to be compared with the “Chesapeake” affair; but in this instance the grievance belonged to the British navy, and Dacres and the “Guerriere” felt the full passion and duty of revenge. The news met Foster on his arrival at Norfolk, a few weeks afterward, and took away his only hope of a cordial reception. His instructions intended him to conciliate good-will by settling the “Chesapeake” outrage, while they obliged him to take a tone of refusal or remonstrance on every other subject; but he found, on arriving, that the Americans cared nothing for reparation of the “Chesapeake” outrage, since Commodore Rodgers had set off against it an outrage of his own, and had killed four men for every one killed by Captain Humphries. Instead of giving redress, Foster found himself obliged to claim it.
July 2 Foster was formally received by the President; and the same day, as though he had no other hope but to take the offensive, he began his official correspondence by a letter on the seizure of West Florida, closing with a formal notice that if the United States persevered in their course, his orders required him to present the solemn protest of his Government “against an attempt so contrary to every principle of public justice, faith, and national honor.”
The language was strong; but unfortunately for Foster’s influence, the world at the moment showed so little regard for justice, faith, or honor, that the United States had no reason to be singular in Quixotism; and although in logic the tu quoque was an argument hardly deserving notice, in politics it was only less decisive than cannon. The policy of Foster’s remonstrance was doubtful in another respect. In proportion as men exposed themselves to reprimands, they resented the reprimand itself. Madison and Monroe had each his sensitive point. Madison resented the suggestion that Napoleon’s decrees were still in force, regarding the matter as involving his veracity. Monroe equally resented the assertion that West Florida belonged to Spain, for his character as a man of sense, if not of truth, was involved in the assertion that he had himself bought West Florida in his Louisiana purchase. Yet the mildness of his reply to Foster’s severe protest proved his earnest wish to conciliate England. In a note[38] of July 8 he justified the seizure of West Florida by the arguments already used, and offered what he called a “frank and candid explanation” to satisfy the British government. In private he talked with more freedom, and—if Foster could be believed—showed himself in a character more lively if not more moral than any the American people would have recognized as his. July 5 Foster wrote to Wellesley:[39]—
“It was with real pain, my Lord, that I was forced to listen to arguments of the most profligate nature, such as that other nations were not so scrupulous; that the United States showed sufficient forbearance in not assisting the insurgents of South America and looking to their own interests in the present situation of that country.”
Foster was obliged to ignore the meaning of this pointed retort; while his inquiries how far the American government meant to carry its seizures of Spanish territory drew from Monroe no answer but a laugh. The Secretary of State seemed a transformed man. Not only did he show no dread of interference from England in Florida, but he took an equally indifferent air on every other matter except one. He said not a word about impressments; he betrayed no wish to trouble himself about the “Chesapeake” affair; he made no haste in apologizing for the attack on the “Little Belt;” but the Orders in Council—these, and nothing else—formed the issue on which a change of policy was to depend.
Precisely on the Orders in Council Foster could offer no hope of concession or compromise. So far from withdrawing the orders, he was instructed to require that the United States should withdraw the Non-intercourse Act, under threat of retaliation; and he carried out his instructions to the letter. After protesting, July 2, against the seizure of West Florida, he wrote, July 3, a long protest against the non-importation.[40] His demand savored of Canning’s and Jackson’s diplomacy; but his arguments in its support were better calculated for effect, and his cry for justice claimed no little sympathy among men who shared in the opinion of Europe that France was the true object of attack, and that Napoleon’s overthrow, not the overthrow of England, was the necessary condition of restoring public order. Foster’s protest against including Fox’s blockade among the admittedly illegal Orders in Council, brought the argument to a delicate issue of law and fact.
“In point of date,” he said, “the blockade of May, 1806, preceded the Berlin Decree; but it was a just and legal blockade, according to the established law of nations, because it was intended to be maintained, and was actually maintained, by an adequate force appointed to guard the whole coast described in the notification, and consequently to enforce the blockade.”
In effect this argument conceded Madison’s principle; for the further difference between blockading a coast and blockading by name the several ports on a coast, was hardly worth a war; and the question whether an estuary, like the British Channel, the Baltic Sea, or Chesapeake Bay, could be best blockaded by a cruising or by a stationary squadron, or by both, called rather for naval than for legal opinion. Foster repudiated the principle of paper-blockades; and after showing that Fox’s blockade was defended only as far as it was meant to be legal, he made the further concession of admitting that since it had been merged in the Orders in Council, it existed only as a part of the orders; so that if the orders were repealed, England must either make Fox’s blockade effective, or abandon it. By this expedient, the issue was narrowed to the Orders in Council retaliatory on Bonaparte’s decrees, and intended to last only as long as those decrees lasted. Foster appealed to Napoleon’s public and official language to prove that those decrees were still in force, and therefore that the United States government could not, without making itself a party to Napoleon’s acts and principles, demand a withdrawal of the British Orders. If the orders were not to be withdrawn because they were illegal, they ought not to be withdrawn on the false excuse that Napoleon had withdrawn his decrees. Against such a demand England might reasonably protest:—
“Great Britain has a right to complain that ... not only has America suffered her trade to be moulded into the means of annoyance to Great Britain under the provisions of the French Decrees, but construing those decrees as extinct, upon a deceitful declaration of the French Cabinet, she has enforced her Non-importation Act against England. Under these circumstances I am instructed by my Government to urge to that of the United States the injustice of thus enforcing that Act against his Majesty’s dominions; and I cannot but hope that a spirit of justice will induce the United States government to reconsider the line of conduct they have pursued, and at least to re-establish their former state of strict neutrality.”
President Madison had put himself, little by little, in a position where he had reason to fear the popular effect of such appeals; but awkward as Madison’s position was, that of Monroe was many degrees worse. He had accepted office in April as the representative of Republicans who believed that Napoleon’s decrees were not repealed, and the objects of his ambition seemed to depend on reversing Madison’s course. In July he found himself in painful straits. Obliged to maintain that Napoleon’s decrees were repealed, he was reduced to sacrifice his own official agent in the effort. Foster reported, as a matter of surprise to himself, remarks of Monroe still more surprising to history.
“I have urged,” reported Foster, July 7,[41] “with every argument I could think of, the injustice of the Non-importation Act which was passed in the last session of Congress, while there were doubts entertained even here as to the repeal of the Berlin and Milan Decrees; but to my surprise I find it now maintained that there existed no doubt on the subject at the time of passing the Act, and Mr. Russell is censured by his Government for publicly averring that the ship ‘New Orleans Packet’ was seized under their operation,—not that it is denied, however, that she was seized under them by our construction. Mr. Monroe, indeed, though he qualified his blame of Mr. Russell by praising his zeal, yet allowed to me that much of their present embarrassment was owing to his statement.”
“It would be fatiguing to your Lordship,” continued Foster, “were I to describe the various shadows of argument to which the American minister had recourse in order to prove his statement of the decrees having been repealed in as far as America had a right to expect.”
These shadows of argument, however elaborately described, could be reduced to the compass of a few lines; for they all resulted in a doctrine which became thenceforward a dogma. Napoleon’s decrees, so viewed, had two characters,—an international, and a municipal. The international character alone could give the right of international retaliation; and the Emperor, since November 1, had ceased to enforce his edicts in this character. The municipal character, whether enforced or not, in no way concerned England.
Such was, indeed, Napoleon’s object in substituting customs regulations for the rules of his decrees in his own ports. After that change, he applied the decrees themselves to every other part of Europe, but made an apparent exception for American commerce with France, which was forced to conform to his objects by municipal licenses and prohibitory duties. Monroe took the ground that since November 2 the decrees stood repealed, and the “New Orleans Packet” had been seized under a “municipal operation” with which England had nothing to do. The argument, though perhaps casuistic, seemed to offer a sufficient excuse for England, in case she should wish to abandon her own system as she saw danger approaching; but it brought Monroe, who used it profusely, into daily mortification, and caused the President, who invented and believed it, a world of annoyance,—for Napoleon, as Monroe had personal reason to remember, never failed to sacrifice his allies, and was certain to fail in supporting a theory so infirm as this.
For the moment, Monroe made no written reply to Foster’s letter of July 3; he was tormented by the crisis of his career, and Foster ceased to be important from the moment he could do nothing toward a repeal of the orders. With the usual misfortune of British diplomatists, Foster became aggressive as he lost ground, and pushed the secretary vigorously into Napoleon’s arms. July 14 Foster wrote again, in a threatening tone, that measures of retaliation for the Act of March 2 were already before his Government, and if America persisted in her injurious course of conduct, the most unfriendly situation would result. While this threat was all that England offered for Monroe’s friendship, news arrived on the same day that Napoleon, May 4, had opened his ports to American commerce. Not till then did Monroe give way, and turn his back upon England and his old political friends. The course taken by Foster left no apparent choice; and for that reason chiefly Monroe, probably with many misgivings, abandoned the theory of foreign affairs which had for five years led him into so many mortifications at home and abroad.
July 23 Monroe sent his answer[42] to the British minister’s argument. In substance this note, though long, contained nothing new; but in effect it was an ultimatum which left England to choose between concession and war. As an ultimatum, it was weakened by the speciousness of its long argument to prove that the French Decrees were repealed. The weakness of the ground required double boldness of assertion, and Monroe accepted the whole task. He showed further willingness to accept an issue on any point England might select. Foster’s remonstrance in regard to the “Little Belt” called from Monroe a tart reference to the affair of the “Chesapeake,” and a refusal to order an inquiry, as a matter of right, into the conduct of Commodore Rodgers. He showed equally little disposition to press for a settlement of the “Chesapeake” affair. Foster had been barely two weeks at Washington when he summed up the result of his efforts in a few words,[43] which told the situation, as Monroe then understood it, a year before war was declared:—
“On the whole, their view in this business [of the ‘Little Belt’] is to settle this, with every other difference, in the most amicable manner, provided his Majesty’s Orders in Council are revoked; otherwise, to make use of it, together with all other topics of irritation, for the purpose of fomenting a spirit of hatred toward England, and thereby strengthening their party. Your Lordship cannot expect to hear of any change till Congress meet.”