The true sources of Jefferson's pacifism must be sought in his rationalistic philosophy, which accorded the widest scope to the principle of self-direction and self determination, whether on the part of the individual or of groups of individuals. To impose one's will upon another was to enslave, according to his notion; to coerce by war was to enslave a community; and to enslave a community was to provoke revolution. Jefferson's thought gravitated inevitably to the center of his rational universe—to the principle of enlightened self-interest. Men and women are not to be permanently moved by force but by appeals to their interests. He completed his thought as follows in the letter already quoted: "But [my hope of preserving peace is founded] in the belief that a just and friendly conduct on our part will procure justice and friendship from others. In the existing contest, each of the combatants will find an interest in our friendship."
It was a chaotic world in which this philosopher-statesman was called upon to act—a world in which international law and neutral rights had been well-nigh submerged in twelve years of almost continuous war. Yet with amazing self-assurance President Jefferson believed that he held in his hand a master-key which would unlock all doors that had been shut to the commerce of neutrals. He called this master-key "peaceable coercion," and he explained its magic potency in this wise:
"Our commerce is so valuable to them [the European belligerents] that they will be glad to purchase it when the only price we ask is to do us justice. I believe that we have in our hands the means of peaceable coercion; and that the moment they see our government so united as that they can make use of it, they will for their own interest be disposed to do us justice."
The idea of using commercial restrictions as a weapon to secure recognition of rights was of course not original with Jefferson, but it was now to be given a trial without parallel in the history of the nation. Non-importation agreements had proved efficacious in the struggle of the colonies with the mother country; it seemed not unreasonable to suppose that a well-sustained refusal to traffic in English goods would meet the emergency of 1807, when the ruling of British admiralty courts threatened to cut off the lucrative commerce between Europe and the West Indies. With this theory in view, the President and his Secretary of State advocated the NonImportation Bill of April 18, 1806, which forbade the entry of certain specified goods of British manufacture. The opposition found a leader in Randolph, who now broke once and for all with the Administration. "Never in the course of my life," he exclaimed, "have I witnessed such a scene of indignity and inefficiency as this measure holds forth to the world. What is it? A milk-and-water bill! A dose of chicken-broth to be taken nine months hence!... It is too contemptible to be the object of consideration, or to excite the feelings of the pettiest state in Europe." The Administration carried the bill through Congress, but Randolph had the satisfaction of seeing his characterisation of the measure amply justified by the course of events.
With the Non-Importation Act as a weapon, the President was confident that Monroe, who had once more returned to his post in London, could force a settlement of all outstanding differences with Great Britain. To his annoyance, and to Monroe's chagrin, however, he was obliged to send a special envoy to act with Monroe. Factious opposition in the Senate forced the President to placate the Federalists by appointing William Pinkney of Maryland. The American commissioners were instructed to insist upon three concessions in the treaty which they were to negotiate: restoration of trade with enemies' colonies, indemnity for captures made since the Essex decision, and express repudiation of the right of impressment. In return for these concessions, they might hold out the possible repeal of the Non-Importation Act! Only confirmed optimists could believe that the mistress of the seas, flushed with the victory of Trafalgar, would consent to yield these points for so slight a compensation. The mission was, indeed, doomed from the outset, and nothing more need be said of it than that in the end, to secure any treaty at all, Monroe and Pinkney broke their instructions and set aside the three ultimata. What they obtained in return seemed so insignificant and doubtful, and what they paid for even these slender compensations seemed so exorbitant, that the President would not even submit the treaty to the Senate. The first application of the theory of peaceable coercion thus ended in humiliating failure. Jefferson thought it best "to let the negotiation take a friendly nap"; but Madison, who felt that his political future depended on a diplomatic triumph over England, drafted new instructions for the two commissioners, hoping that the treaty might yet be put into acceptable form. It was while these new instructions were crossing the ocean that the Chesapeake struck her colors.
James Monroe is one of the most unlucky diplomats in American history. From those early days when he had received the fraternal embraces of the Jacobins in Paris and had been recalled by President Washington, to the ill-fated Spanish mission, circumstances seem to have conspired against him. The honor of negotiating the purchase of Louisiana should have been his alone, but he arrived just a day too late and was obliged to divide the glory with Livingston. On this mission to England he was not permitted to conduct negotiations alone but was associated with William Pinkney, a Federalist. No wonder he suspected Madison, or at least Madison's friends, of wishing to discredit him. And now another impossible task was laid upon him. He was instructed to demand not only disavowal and reparation for the attack on the Chesapeake and the restoration of the American seamen, but also as "an indispensable part of the satisfaction" "an entire abolition of impressments." If the Secretary of State had deliberately contrived to deliver Monroe into the hands of George Canning, he could not have been more successful, for Monroe had already protested against the Chesapeake outrage as an act of aggression which should be promptly disavowed without reference to the larger question of impressment. He was now obliged to eat his own words and inject into the discussion, as Canning put it, the irrelevant matters which they had agreed to separate from the present controversy. Canning was quick to see his opportunity. Mr. Monroe must be aware, said he, that on several recent occasions His Majesty had firmly declined to waive "the ancient and prescriptive usages of Great Britain, founded on the soundest principles of natural law," simply because they might come in contact with the interests or the feelings of the American people. If Mr. Monroe's instructions left him powerless to adjust this regrettable incident of the Leopard and the Chesapeake, without raising the other question of the right of search and impressment, then His Majesty could only send a special envoy to the United States to terminate the controversy in a manner satisfactory to both countries. "But," added Canning with sarcasm which was not lost on Monroe, "in order to avoid the inconvenience which has arisen from the mixed nature of your instructions, that minister will not be empowered to entertain... any proposition respecting the search of merchant vessels."
One more humiliating experience was reserved for Monroe before his diplomatic career closed. Following Madison's new set of instructions, he and Pinkney attempted to reopen negotiations for the revision of the discredited treaty of the preceding year. But Canning had reasons of his own for wishing to be rid of a treaty which had been drawn by the late Whig Ministry. He informed the American commissioners arrogantly that "the proposal of the President of the United States for proceeding to negotiate anew upon the basis of a treaty already solemnly concluded and signed, is a proposal wholly inadmissible." His Majesty could therefore only acquiesce in the refusal of the President to ratify the treaty. One week later, James Monroe departed from London, never again to set foot on British soil, leaving Pinkney to assume the duties of Minister at the Court of St. James. For the second time Monroe returned to his own country discredited by the President who had appointed him. In both instances he felt himself the victim of injustice. In spite of his friendship for Jefferson, he was embittered against the Administration and in this mood lent himself all too readily to the schemes of John Randolph, who had already picked him as the one candidate who could beat Madison in the next presidential election.
From the point of view of George Canning and the Tory squirearchy whose mouthpiece he was, the Chesapeake affair was but an incident—an unhappy incident, to be sure, but still only an incident—in the world-wide struggle with Napoleon. What was at stake was nothing less than the commercial supremacy of Great Britain. The astounding growth of Napoleon's empire was a standing menace to British trade. The overthrow of Prussia in the fall of 1806 left the Corsican in control of Central Europe and in a position to deal his long premeditated blow. A fortnight after the battle of Jena, he entered Berlin and there issued the famous decree which was his answer to the British blockade of the French channel ports. Since England does not recognize the system of international law universally observed by all civilized nations—so the preamble read—but by a monstrous abuse of the right of blockade has determined to destroy neutral trade and to raise her commerce and industry upon the ruins of that of the continent, and since "whoever deals on the continent in English goods thereby favors and renders himself an accomplice of her designs," therefore the British Isles are declared to be in a state of blockade. Henceforth all English goods were to be lawful prize in any territory held by the troops of France or her allies; and all vessels which had come from English ports or from English colonies were to be confiscated, together with their cargoes. This challenge was too much for the moral equilibrium of the squires, the shipowners, and the merchants who dominated Parliament. It dulled their sense of justice and made them impatient under the pinpricks which came from the United States. "A few short months of war," declared the Morning Post truculently, "would convince these desperate [American] politicians of the folly of measuring the strength of a rising, but still infant and puny, nation with the colossal power of the British Empire." "Right," said the Times, another organ of the Tory Government, "is power sanctioned by usage." Concession to Americans at this crisis was not to be entertained for a moment, for after all, said the Times, they "possess all the vices of their Indian neighbors without their virtues."
In this temper the British Government was prepared to ignore the United States and deal Napoleon blow for blow. An order-in-council of January 7, 1807, asserted the right of retaliation and declared that "no vessel shall be permitted to trade from one port to another, both which ports shall belong to, or be in possession of France or her allies." The peculiar hardship of this order for American shipowners is revealed by the papers of Stephen Girard of Philadelphia, whose shrewdness and enterprise were making him one of the merchant princes of his time. One of his ships, the Liberty, of some 250 tons, was sent to Lisbon with a cargo of 2052 barrels and 220 half-barrels of flour which cost the owner $10.68 a barrel. Her captain, on entering port, learned that flour commanded a better price at Cadiz. To Cadiz, accordingly, he set sail and sold his cargo for $22.50 a barrel, winning for the owner a goodly profit of $25,000, less commission. It was such trading ventures as this that the British order-in-council doomed.
What American shipmasters had now to fear from both belligerents was made startlingly clear by the fate of the ship Horizon, which had sailed from Charleston, South Carolina, with a cargo for Zanzibar. On the way she touched at various South American ports and disposed of most of her cargo. Then changing her destination, and taking on a cargo for the English market, she set sail for London. On the way she was forced to put in at Lisbon to refit. As she left to resume her voyage she was seized by an English frigate and brought in as a fair prize, since—according to the Rule of 1756—she had been apprehended in an illegal traffic between an enemy country and its colony. The British prize court condemned the cargo but released the ship. The unlucky Horizon then loaded with an English cargo and sailed again to Lisbon, but misfortune overtook her and she was wrecked off the French coast. Her cargo was salvaged, however, and what was not of English origin was restored to her owners by decree of a French prize court; the rest of her cargo was confiscated under the terms of the Berlin decree. When the American Minister protested at this decision, he was told that "since America suffers her ships to be searched, she adopts the principle that the flag does not cover the goods. Since she recognizes the absurd blockades laid by England, consents to having her vessels incessantly stopped, sent to England, and so turned aside from their course, why should the Americans not suffer the blockade laid by France? Certainly France recognizes that these measures are unjust, illegal, and subversive of national sovereignty; but it is the duty of nations to resort to force, and to declare themselves against things which dishonor them and disgrace their independence." * But an invitation to enter the European maelstrom and battle for neutral rights made no impression upon the mild-tempered President.