Thus was the Smithfield defiance of Neutrality and the National laws quelled by strong measures, taken before it had gathered dangerous headway. "I am very much indebted to Brig.-Gen'l Marshall and Major Taylor[294] for their exertions in the execution of my orders," writes Governor Lee to the Secretary of War.[295]
But the efforts of the National Government and the action of Governor Lee in Virginia to enforce obedience to National laws and observance of Neutrality, while they succeeded locally in their immediate purpose, did not modify the public temper toward the Administration. Neutrality, in particular, grew in disfavor among the people. When the congressional elections of 1794 came on, all complaints against the National Government were vivified by that burning question. As if, said the Republicans, there could be such a status as neutrality between "right and wrong," between "liberty" and "tyranny."[296]
Thus, in the campaign, the Republicans made the French cause their own. Everything that Washington's Administration had accomplished was wrong, said the Republicans, but Neutrality was the work of the Evil One. The same National power which had dared to issue this "edict" against American support of French "liberty" had foisted on the people Assumption, National Courts, and taxes on whiskey. This identical Nationalist crew had, said the Republicans, by Funding and National Banks, fostered, nay, created, stock-jobbing and speculation by which the few "monocrats" were made rich, while the many remained poor. Thus every Republican candidate for Congress became a knight of the flaming sword, warring upon all evil, but especially and for the moment against the dragon of Neutrality that the National Government had uncaged to help the monarchs of Europe destroy free government in France.[297] Chiefly on that question the Republicans won the National House of Representatives.
But if Neutrality lit the flames of public wrath, Washington's next act in foreign affairs was powder and oil cast upon fires already fiercely burning. Great Britain, by her war measures against France, did not spare America. She seized hundreds of American vessels trading with her enemy and even with neutrals; in order to starve France[298] she lifted cargoes from American bottoms; to man her warships she forcibly took sailors from American ships, "often leaving scarcely hands enough to navigate the vessel into port";[299] she conducted herself as if she were not only mistress of the seas, but their sole proprietor. And the British depredations were committed in a manner harsh, brutal, and insulting.
Even Marshall was aroused and wrote to his friend Stuart: "We fear, not without reason, a war. The man does not live who wishes for peace more than I do; but the outrages committed upon us are beyond human bearing. Farewell—pray Heaven we may weather the storm."[300] If the self-contained and cautious Marshall felt a just resentment of British outrage, we may, by that measure, accurately judge of the inflamed and dangerous condition of the general sentiment.
Thus it came about that the deeply rooted hatred of the people for their former master[301] was heated to the point of reckless defiance. This was the same Monarchy, they truly said, that still kept the military and trading posts on American soil which, more than a decade before, it had, by the Treaty of Peace, solemnly promised to surrender.[302] The Government that was committing these savage outrages was the same faithless Power, declared the general voice, that had pledged compensation for the slaves its armies had carried away, but not one shilling of which had been paid.
If ever a country had good cause for war, Great Britain then furnished it to America; and, had we been prepared, it is impossible to believe that we should not have taken up arms to defend our ravaged interests and vindicate our insulted honor. In Congress various methods of justifiable retaliation were urged with intense earnestness, marred by loud and extravagant declamation.[303] "The noise of debate was more deafening than a mill.... We sleep upon our arms," wrote a member of the National House.[304] But these bellicose measures were rejected because any one of them would have meant immediate hostilities.
For we were not prepared. War was the one thing America could not then afford. Our Government was still tottering on the unstable legs of infancy. Orderly society was only beginning and the spirit of unrest and upheaval was strong and active. In case of war, wrote Ames, expressing the conservative fears, "I dread anarchy more than great guns."[305] Our resources had been bled white by the Revolution and the desolating years that followed. We had no real army, no adequate arsenals,[306] no efficient ships of war; and the French Republic, surrounded by hostile bayonets and guns and battling for very existence, could not send us armies, fleets, munitions, and money as the French Monarchy had done.
Spain was on our south eager for more territory on the Mississippi, the mouth of which she controlled; and ready to attack us in case we came to blows with Great Britain. The latter Power was on our north, the expelled Loyalists in Canada burning with that natural resentment[307] which has never cooled; British soldiers held strategic posts within our territory; hordes of Indians, controlled and their leaders paid by Great Britain,[308] and hostile to the United States, were upon our borders anxious to avenge themselves for the defeats we had inflicted on them and their kinsmen in the savage wars incited by their British employers.[309] Worst of all, British warships covered the oceans and patrolled every mile of our shores just beyond American waters. Our coast defenses, few, poor, and feeble in their best estate, had been utterly neglected for more than ten years and every American port was at the mercy of British guns.[310]
Evidence was not wanting that Great Britain courted war.[311] She had been cold and unresponsive to every approach for a better understanding with us. She had not even sent a Minister to our Government until eight years after the Treaty of Peace had been signed.[312] She not only held our posts, but established a new one fifty miles south of Detroit; and her entire conduct indicated, and Washington believed, that she meant to draw a new boundary line which would give her exclusive possession of the Great Lakes.[313] She had the monopoly of the fur trade[314] and plainly meant to keep it.