CHAPTER XVIII.
In such a war the people of the United States had only themselves to fear; but their dangers were all the more formidable. Had the war deeply disturbed the conditions of society, or brought general and immediate distress, government and Union might easily have fallen to pieces; but in the midst of military disaster and in plain sight of the Government’s incompetence, the general public neither felt nor had reason to fear much change in the routine of life. Commerce had long accustomed itself to embargoes, confiscations, and blockades, and ample supplies of foreign goods continued to arrive. The people made no serious exertions; among a population exceeding seven millions, not ten thousand men entered the military service. The militia, liable to calls to the limit of one hundred thousand, served for the most part only a few weeks in the autumn, went home in whole regiments when they pleased,[338] and in the East refused to go out at all. The scarcity of men was so great that even among the sea-goingclass, for whose rights the war was waged, only with the utmost difficulty and long delays, in spite of bounties and glory, could sailors be found to man half-a-dozen frigates for a three-months cruise, although the number of privateers was never great.
The nation as a whole saw nothing of actual warfare. While scarcely a city in Europe had escaped capture, and hardly a province of that continent was so remote as not to be familiar with invading armies or to have suffered in proportion to its resources, no American city saw or greatly feared an enemy. The rich farms of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia produced their usual harvests, and except on exposed parts of the coast the farmers never feared that their crops might be wasted by manœuvring armies, or their cattle, pigs, and poultry be disturbed by marauders. The country was vast, and quiet reigned throughout the whole United States. Except at the little point of Niagara, occupied by a few hundred scattered farmers, and on the extreme outskirts of Ohio and Indiana, the occupations and industries of life followed in the main their daily course.
The country refused to take the war seriously. A rich nation with seven million inhabitants should have easily put one hundred thousand men into the field, and should have found no difficulty in supporting them; but no inducement that the Government dared offer prevailed upon the people to risk life and property on a sufficient scale in 1812. The ranks of the army were to be filled in one of two ways,—either by enlistment in the regular service for five years, with pay at five dollars a month, sixteen dollars bounty, and on discharge three months pay and one hundred and sixty acres of land; or by volunteer organizations to the limit of fifty thousand men in all, officered under State laws, to serve for one year, with the pay of regular troops but without bounty, clothed, and in case of cavalry corps mounted, at their own expense. In a society where the day-laborers’ wages were nowhere less than nine dollars a month,[339] these inducements were not enough to supply the place of enthusiasm. The patriotic citizen who wished to serve his country without too much sacrifice, chose a third course,—he volunteered under the Act of Congress which authorized the President to call one hundred thousand State militia into service for six months; and upon this State militia Dearborn, Hull, Van Rensselaer, and Smyth were obliged chiefly to depend.
If the war fever burned hotly in any part of the country Kentucky was the spot. There the whole male population was eager to prove its earnestness. When Henry Clay returned to Lexington after the declaration of war, he wrote to Monroe[340] that he was almost alarmed at the ardor his State displayed; about four hundred men had been recruited for the regular army, and although no one had volunteered for twelve months, the quota of six-months militia was more than supplied by volunteers.
“Such is the structure of our society, however,” continued Clay, “that I doubt whether many can be engaged for a longer term than six months. For that term any force whatever which our population can afford may be obtained. Engaged in agricultural pursuits, you are well aware that from about this time, when the crop is either secured in the barn or laid by in the field until the commencement of the spring, there is leisure for any kind of enterprise.”
Clay feared only that these six-months militia corps, which had armed and equipped themselves for instant service, might not be called out. His friends were destined not to be disappointed, for early in August pressing letters arrived from Hull’s army at Detroit begging reinforcements, and the governor of Kentucky at once summoned two thousand volunteers to rendezvous, August 20, at Newport, opposite Cincinnati. This reinforcement could not reach Detroit before the middle of September, and the difficulties already developed in Hull’s path showed that the war could not be finished in a single campaign of six months; but the Kentuckians were not on that account willing to lengthen their term of service even to one year.
The danger revealed by Hull’s position threw a double obstacle in the way of public energy, for where it did not check, it promised to mislead enthusiasm, and in either case it shook, if it did not destroy, confidence in the national government. The leaders of the war party saw their fears taking shape. Henry Clay wrote without reserve to Monroe,[341]—
“Should Hull’s army be cut off, the effect on the public mind would be, especially in this quarter, in the highest degree injurious. ‘Why did he proceed with so inconsiderable a force?’ was the general inquiry made of me. I maintained that it was sufficient. Should he meet with a disaster, the predictions of those who pronounced his army incompetent to its object will be fulfilled; and the Secretary of War, in whom already there unfortunately exists no sort of confidence, cannot possibly shield Mr. Madison from the odium which will attend such an event.”
Clay was right in thinking that Eustis could not shield Madison; but from the moment that Eustis could no longer serve that purpose, Clay had no choice but to shield the President himself. When the threatened disaster took place, victims like Eustis, Hull, Van Rensselaer, Smyth, were sacrificed; but the sacrifice merely prepared new material for other and perhaps worse disasters of the same kind. In Kentucky this result was most strongly marked, for in their irritation at the weakness of the national Government the Kentuckians took the war into their own hands, appointed William Henry Harrison to the command of their armies, and attempted to conquer Canada by a campaign that should not be directed from Washington. August 25 Clay described the feelings of his State by a comparison suggesting the greatest military misfortunes known in history:[342]
“If you will carry your recollections back to the age of the Crusaders and of some of the most distinguished leaders of those expeditions, you will have a picture of the enthusiasm existing in this country for the expedition to Canada and for Harrison as commander.”
A week later, September 21, Clay gave another account, even less assuring, of the manner in which the popular energy was exhausting itself:—
“The capitulation of Detroit has produced no despair; it has, on the contrary, awakened new energies and aroused the whole people of this State. Kentucky has at this moment from eight to ten thousand men in the field; it is not practicable to ascertain the precise number. Except our quota of the hundred thousand militia the residue is chiefly of a miscellaneous character, who have turned out without pay or supplies of any kind, carrying with them their own arms and their own subsistence. Parties are daily passing to the theatre of action; last night seventy lay on my farm; and they go on, from a solitary individual, to companies of ten, fifty, one hundred, etc. The only fear I have is that the savages will, as their custom is, elude them, and upon their return fall upon our frontiers. They have already shocked us with some of the most horrid murders. Within twenty-four miles of Louisville, on the headwaters of Silver Creek, twenty-two were massacred a few days ago.”
The adventures of these volunteers made part of the next campaign. Enthusiastic as Kentucky was, few or none of the eight or ten thousand men under arms offered to serve for twelve months. Excessively expensive, wasteful, insubordinate, and unsteady, no general dared to depend on them. No one could be more conscious of the evils of the system than the Government; but the Government was helpless to invent a remedy.
“Proofs multiply daily,” wrote Madison to Monroe, September 21,[343] “of the difficulty of obtaining regulars, and of the fluctuating resource in the militia. High bounties and short enlistments, however objectionable, will alone fill the ranks, and then too in a moderate number.”
To dislike of prolonged service even the most ardent Western supporters of the war added distrust of the Executive. The war Republicans of the West and South were hardly less vigorous than the Federalists of Massachusetts and Connecticut in their criticisms of the Government at Washington. John Graham, chief clerk of the State Department, who went to Kentucky in September, wrote to Monroe[344] that “great as is the popularity of the President, it is barely able to resist the torrent of public opinion against the Secretary of War, who, so far as I can judge, is universally considered by the people of this country as incompetent to his present situation.” Clay’s opinion has already been shown; but the angriest of all the war leaders on hearing of Hull’s surrender was Senator Crawford of Georgia.
“Such is my want of confidence in the leaders of our forces,” he wrote to Monroe,[345] “and their directors, Eustis and Hamilton in the Cabinet, that I am fearful a continuance of the war, unless it should be for several years, will only add to the number of our defeats. The only difficulty I had in declaring war arose from the incompetency of the men to whom the principal management of it was to be confided. A Secretary of War who, instead of forming general and comprehensive arrangements for the organization of his troops and for the successful prosecution of the campaign, consumes his time in reading advertisements of petty retailing merchants to find where he may purchase one hundred shoes or two hundred hats; and a Secretary of the Navy who, in instructing his naval officers, should make the supply of the heads of departments with pineapples and other tropical fruits through the exertions of these officers,—cannot fail to bring disgrace upon themselves, their immediate employers, and the nation. If Mr. Madison finds it impossible to bring his feelings to consent to the dismission of unfaithful or incompetent officers, he must be content with defeat and disgrace in all his efforts during the war. So far as he may suffer from this course he deserves no commiseration, but his accountability to the nation will be great indeed!”
Harsh as these comments, were, the Secretary of State found no difficulty in listening to them; indeed, no member of the party was more severe than Monroe. He visited Jefferson, and apparently Jefferson agreed with his criticisms:[346]—
“We conferred on the then state of the Departments of War and Navy, and agreed that whatever might be the merit of the gentlemen in them, which was admitted in certain respects, a change in both was indispensable.”
Indeed, Monroe did what no northern Democrat liked to do,—he found fault with Dearborn.
“Our military operations,” he told Jefferson, “had been unsuccessful. One army had been surrendered under circumstances which impeached the integrity of the commander; and to the north, in the whole extent of the country, so important and delicately circumstanced as it was, the management had been most wretched. The command at the important post of Niagara had been suffered to fall into State hands, and to be perverted to local and selfish purposes. Van Rensselaer, a weak and incompetent man with high pretensions, took it. It was late in the year before General Dearborn left Boston and repaired to Albany, and had given no impulse to the recruiting business in the Eastern States by passing through them and making appeals to the patriotism of the people; and when he took the command at Albany it was in a manner to discourage all hope of active operations during the favorable season. The commander ought to lead every important movement. If intended to attack Montreal, that being the grand attack, his station was there. If a smaller blow only could be given, the feint against Montreal should have been committed to another, while he commanded in person where real service was to be performed. It was soon seen that nothing would be done against Lower Canada; General Dearborn doubtless saw it on his first arrival at Albany, if he did not anticipate it before he left Boston. Niagara was the object next in importance, and had he taken the command there he might and probably would, by superseding little people and conducting our military operations, have prevented the riotous and contentious scenes exhibited there, saved the country and the Government from the disgraceful defeat of Van Rensselaer, and the more disgraceful and gasconading discomfiture of Smyth. The experience of the campaign had excited a doubt with many, if not with all, whether our military operations would prosper under General Dearborn; ... he was advanced in years, infirm, and had given no proof of activity or military talent during the year.”
The Secretary of State required nothing less than the retirement of the two of his colleagues in the Cabinet, and of the general in chief command of the army. The Secretary of the Treasury, though less censorious than Clay, Crawford, or Monroe, shared their opinions. He spoke of Eustis’s incompetence as a matter universally admitted, and wrote to Jefferson that though the three disasters of Hull, Van Rensselaer, and Smyth could not with justice be ascribed to the Secretary of War, “yet his incapacity and the total want of confidence in him were felt through every ramification of the public service.”[347] Jefferson abstained from criticising the chief incompetents, but set no bounds to his vindictiveness against the unfortunate generals. “Hull will of course be shot for cowardice and treachery,” he wrote to Madison;[348] “and will not Van Rensselaer be broke for incapacity?”
The incapacity of Eustis, Hamilton, Dearborn, Hull, Van Rensselaer, and Smyth pointed directly to the responsible source of appointment,—the President himself; but in face of a general election Republicans could not afford to criticise their President, and only in private could they assail his Cabinet. The Federalists, factious, weak, and unpopular as they were, expressed the secret opinion of the whole country, and could be answered by no facts or arguments except military success, which Madison was admittedly incompetent to win; but perhaps the failure of his Cabinet, of his generals, and of his troops gave the Federalists less advantage than they drew from the failures of diplomacy in which his genius lay. With reasons such as few nations ever waited to collect for an appeal to arms, Madison had been so unfortunate in making the issue that on his own showing no sufficient cause of war seemed to exist. His management was so extraordinary that at the moment when Hull surrendered Detroit, Great Britain was able to pose before the world in the attitude of victim to a conspiracy between Napoleon and the United States to destroy the liberties of Europe. Such inversion of the truth passed ordinary bounds, and so real was Madison’s diplomatic mismanagement that it paralyzed one half the energies of the American people.
Largely if not chiefly owing to these mistakes, the New England Federalists were able to convince themselves that Jefferson and Madison were sold to France. From the moment war was declared, the charge became a source of serious danger. Only one more step was needed to throw the clerical party of New England into open revolution. If the majority meant to close their long career by a catastrophe which should leave the Union a wreck, they had but to try the effects of coercion.
For a time the followers and friends of the Essex Junto had some reason to hope that matters would quickly come to this pass, for the declaration of war caused on both sides an outbreak of temper. In Massachusetts, Governor Strong issued, June 26, a proclamation[349] for a public Fast in consequence of the war just declared “against the nation from which we are descended, and which for many generations has been the bulwark of the religion we profess;” and although such a description of England would in previous times have scandalized the clergy, it was received with general assent. The returning members of Congress who had voted for war met a reception in some cases offensive and insulting, to the point of actual assault. Two of the Massachusetts members, Seaver and Widgery, were publicly insulted and hissed on Change in Boston; while another, Charles Turner, member for the Plymouth district, and Chief-Justice of the Court of Sessions for that county, was seized by a crowd on the evening of August 3, on the main street of Plymouth, and kicked through the town.[350] By energetic use of a social machinery still almost irresistible, the Federalists and the clergy checked or prevented every effort to assist the war, either by money or enlistments. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts, with Chief-Justice Parsons at its head, advised[351] Governor Strong that not to Congress or to the President, but to the governor, belonged the right to decide when the Constitutional exigency existed which should call the State militia into the service of the United States; and Governor Strong decided that neither foreign invasion nor domestic insurrection existed, and that therefore he could not satisfy the President’s request for the quota of the United States militia to defend the coast. When, later in the season, the governor called out three companies for the defence of Eastport and Castine, in Maine, the chief-justice privately remonstrated, holding that this act yielded the main point at issue between the State and National government.[352]
General Dearborn’s annoyance at the difficulties thrown in the way of enlistments was well-founded. By one favorite device, the creation of fictitious debts, the person enlisting caused himself to be arrested and bailed. The courts held that while the suit was pending the man was the property of his bail, and could not be obliged to resume his military duties.[353] Many such difficulties were created by the activity of individuals; but organized efforts were made with still more effect in counteracting the wishes of government. The Federalist members of Congress issued an Address to their constituents protesting against the action of Congress in suppressing discussion; and this address declared the war to be unnecessary and inexpedient. Immediately after the declaration, the House of Representatives of Massachusetts issued another Address to the People of the State,[354] declaring the war to be a wanton sacrifice of their best interests, and asking their exertions to thwart it.
“To secure a full effect to your object, it will be necessary that you should meet and consult together for the common good in your towns and counties. It is in dark and trying times that this Constitutional privilege becomes invaluable. Express your sentiments without fear, and let the sound of your disapprobation of this war be loud and deep. Let it be distinctly understood that in support of it your conformity to the requisitions of law will be the result of principle and not of choice. If your sons must be torn from you by conscription, consign them to the care of God; but let there be no volunteers except for defensive war.”
The people at once acted upon the recommendation to hold town-meetings and county conventions. Among the earliest was a meeting in Essex County, July 21, Timothy Pickering presiding, which adopted a declaration drawn by him, closing with his favorite proposal of a State Convention, to which the meeting chose delegates. This step—a revival of the old disunion project of 1804—was received with general favor, and defeated only by the courageous opposition of Samuel Dexter, who, breaking away from his party associates, attacked the scheme so vigorously in Boston town-meeting, August 6 and 7, that though Harrison Gray Otis and other Federalists leaders gave it their public support, and though the motion itself was carried, the plan was abandoned.[355] Thenceforward, while towns and counties continued to adopt addresses, memorials, and resolutions, they avoided committing themselves to expressions or acts for which the time was not ripe. A typical memorial among many that were showered upon the President was adopted by a convention of electors of the county of Rockingham in New Hampshire, August 5, and was the better worth attention because drawn by Daniel Webster, who made there his first appearance as a party leader:—
“We shrink from the separation of the States as an event fraught with incalculable evils; and it is among our strongest objections to the present course of measures that they have in our opinion a very dangerous and alarming bearing on such an event. If a separation of the States ever should take place, it will be on some occasion when one portion of the country undertakes to control, to regulate, and to sacrifice the interest of another; when a small and heated majority in the government, taking counsel of their passions and not of their reason, contemptuously disregarding the interests and perhaps stopping the mouths of a large and respectable minority, shall by hasty, rash, and ruinous measures threaten to destroy essential rights and lay waste the most important interests. It shall be our most fervent supplication to Heaven to avert both the event and the occasion; and the Government may be assured that the tie that binds us to the Union will never be broken by us.”
The conduct of England strengthened the Federalists. After the repeal of the Orders in Council became known, Monroe, July 27, authorized Jonathan Russell in London to arrange an armistice, provided the British government would consent to an informal arrangement in regard to impressments and blockades. Hardly had these instructions been sent to England, when from Albany came news that Sir George Prevost had proposed an armistice and General Dearborn had accepted it. This act compelled the President either to stop the war and disorganize his party, or to disapprove Dearborn’s armistice without prejudice to the armistice which Russell was to negotiate in London, and also without censure to General Dearborn. To Dearborn the President, as the story has shown, sent immediate orders for the renewal of hostilities; while Monroe, in fresh instructions to Jonathan Russell,[356] explained the disavowal. The explanations given by Monroe were little likely to satisfy Federalists that the Government honestly wished for peace. Monroe alleged that the repeal of the Orders in Council did not satisfy the United States, because the repeal still asserted the principle underlying the orders, which the United States could not admit; but he further maintained that any armistice, made before obtaining redress on the subject of impressments, might be taken as a relinquishment of the claim to redress, and was therefore inadmissible.
However sound in principle these objections were, they seemed to declare perpetual war; for until England should be reduced to the position of Denmark or Prussia, she would not abandon in express terms either the right of impressment or that of blockade. The probable effect of a successful war waged on these grounds would give Canada and the Floridas to the United States as the consequence of aiding Napoleon to destroy European and English liberties. The Federalist clergy had little difficulty in convincing their congregations by such evidence that Madison was bound under secret engagements with Napoleon; and while Madison planted himself in the Napoleonic position of forcing war on a yielding people, the British officials in Canada stood on the defensive, avoided irritation, and encouraged trade and commerce. American merchant-vessels carried British passes; and most of them, to the anger of Napoleon, were freighted with supplies for the British army in Portugal and Spain. The attitude of England would have been magnificent in its repose had its dignity not been ruffled by the conduct of Hull, Decatur, and Bainbridge, and by the privateers.
While the New England Federalists, taking the attitude of patriots who strove only to avert impending ruin, made their profit of every new national disaster, and repressed as well as they could the indiscretions of their friends, the war party was not so well disciplined. Democracies in history always suffered from the necessity of uniting with much of the purest and best in human nature a mass of ignorance and brutality lying at the bottom of all societies. Although America was safe for the time from Old World ruin, no political or military error went so far to disgust respectable people with the war and its support, as an uprising of brutality which occurred in Baltimore. Within some twenty years this newest of American cities had gathered nearly fifty thousand inhabitants, among whom were many of the roughest characters in America, fit only for privateersmen or pirates, and familiar with both careers. On the other hand, the State of Maryland like the State of Delaware contained many conservatives, who showed their strength every four years by depriving the Republican candidate for the Presidency of some portion of the State’s electoral vote. Under their patronage a newspaper called “The Federal Republican” was published in Baltimore, edited by Jacob Wagner, who had been chief clerk of the State Department under Secretary Pickering, and was retained in that office by Secretary Madison until 1807, when he resigned the place and made use of his knowledge to attack Madison in the press. As an editor, Jacob Wagner belonged to the extreme wing of his party, and scrupled at nothing in the way of an assertion or a slander. His opposition to the war was bitter and unceasing, while the city of Baltimore shared in the feeling common in the South and West, that, after the declaration, opposition to the war amounted to treason and should not be tolerated. June 22, immediately after the declaration, a well-organized mob deliberately took possession of Wagner’s printing office and destroyed it, pulling down even the walls, while the citizens looked on and the mayor confined his exercise of authority to deprecations.
Wagner removed to the District of Columbia, and began to publish his paper in Georgetown, where the Government could be made directly responsible in case of further violence; but his associate, A. C. Hanson, and several of the Baltimore Federalists, were not disposed to tolerate the dictation of a mob; and after discussing the matter a month, some of them determined on an attempt as fool-hardy as it was courageous.[357] Monday, July 27, the “Federal Republican” was circulated among its subscribers in Baltimore, purporting to be printed at 45 Charles Street, though really printed at Georgetown; while about twenty persons, under the general direction of Henry Lee,—a Virginian distinguished in the Revolutionary War, and in 1791 governor of his State,—fortified themselves in the house and waited attack. The same evening a mob gathered and broke open the door. The garrison fired, and killed or wounded some of the assailants. The attacking party brought up a cannon, and a serious battle was about to begin, when the mayor with a small squadron of cavalry intervened, and persuaded Hanson and his friends to submit to the civil authority and go to jail to answer for the blood they had shed. General Lee, General Lingan,—also a Revolutionary officer,—Hanson, and the other occupants of the house were marched to the jail through an angry and violent mob. The city was in commotion, the authorities were helpless, the militia when called upon did not appear; and that night the mob, consisting chiefly of low Irish and Germans, entered the jail and took out the prisoners. Some managed to escape in the confusion; the rest were savagely beaten. Eight more or less unconscious victims lay all night and till noon the next day piled on the prison steps, and the crowd, which would not permit their removal, amused itself by cutting and burning the sufferers to ascertain whether they were dead. When at last the rioters permitted them to be removed, General Lingan was in fact dead, General Lee was crippled, and the others were more or less severely injured.
At that moment, and even long after the heat of temper subsided,[358] party feeling tended to favor the rioters rather than the Federalists, who had, as was said, “given aid and comfort to the enemy;” but when the political effects of the massacre showed themselves, the war party became aware that a blunder had been committed more serious than any ordinary crime. The Baltimore massacre recalled the excesses of the French Revolution, still fresh in men’s minds; and although Democrats in Pennsylvania and Republicans in Virginia might feel themselves too strong for disorder, in the North and East the murder of Lingan shook the foundation of society. Massachusetts and Connecticut looked to their arms. If their political opinions were to be repressed by such means, they had need to be unanimous on their own side. The town of Boston, August 6, declared in strongly worded resolutions[359] that the riot was “the first fruit of the unnatural and dreadful alliance into which we have entered in fact, if not in form,” and ordered the magistrates and citizens to be ready at a moment’s warning, armed and equipped, to suppress any kind of disorder. Under this excitement, the Federalists at Rockingham, August 5, talked of disunion, and the rabble of Plymouth mobbed Turner on the night of August 3. If the majority alone was to utter opinions, the Republican party north of Pennsylvania might yet be forced to practise the virtue of silence. Not all the political and military disasters of the year harmed the Government and the war more seriously than they were injured by the Baltimore mob.
Under the influence of such passions the Presidential election approached. Except beyond the mountains the war party was everywhere a social minority, and perhaps such strength as Madison retained in the East consisted partly in the popular impression that he was not a favorite with the authors of the war. The true sentiment of the people, if capable of expression, was one of fretful discontent; and the sense of diffused popular restlessness alone explained the obstinacy of De Witt Clinton in refusing to desist from his candidacy, and still more the first prominent appearance of Martin Van Buren as manager of the intrigue for defeating Madison. De Witt Clinton was classed by most persons as a reckless political gambler, but Martin Van Buren when he intrigued commonly preferred to intrigue upon the strongest side. Yet one feeling was natural to every New York politician, whether a Clinton or a Livingston, Burrite, Federalist, or Republican,—all equally disliked Virginia; and this innate jealousy gave to the career of Martin Van Buren for forty years a bias which perplexed his contemporaries, and stood in singular contradiction to the soft and supple nature he seemed in all else to show.
No canvass for the Presidency was ever less creditable than that of De Witt Clinton in 1812. Seeking war votes for the reason that he favored more vigorous prosecution of the war; asking support from peace Republicans because Madison had plunged the country into war without preparation; bargaining for Federalist votes as the price of bringing about a peace; or coquetting with all parties in the atmosphere of bribery in bank charters,—Clinton strove to make up a majority which had no element of union but himself and money. The Federalists held a conference at New York in September, and in spite of Rufus King, who was said to have denounced Clinton as a dangerous demagogue in almost the words used by Hamilton to denounce Aaron Burr ten years before, after three days debate, largely through the influence of Harrison Gray Otis, the bargain was made which transferred to Clinton the electoral votes of the Federalist States. No one knew what pledges were given by Clinton and his friends; but no man of common-sense who wished to preserve the government and the Union could longer refuse to vote for Madison. Only to that extent could the people be said to have reached any conviction.