Townsend had come into the Senate in 1810 as a Clinton Republican, but his brief legislative career had not been as serene as a summer's day. He fell out with Tompkins and Spencer when he fell in with Thomas and Southwick, and whether or not the favours distributed by the Bank of America actually became a part of his assets, the bank's opponents took such violent exception to his vote that poor Townsend had little to hope for from that faction of his party. It was commonly believed at the time, therefore, that a desire to please Clinton and possibly to gain the favour of Federalists in the event of their future success, influenced him to support Platt, conditional on the retention of Clinton. It is quite within the range of probability that some such motive quickened his instinct for revenge and self-preservation, although it led to an incident that must have caused Clinton keen regret and mental anguish.

Townsend's Republican colleague in the Council was none other than Morgan Lewis, who saw an opportunity of creating trouble by nominating Richard Riker as an opposing candidate to Platt. Tompkins had probably something to do with making this nomination—or, at all events, with giving his friend Lewis the idea of bringing it forward just then. Surely, they thought, Clinton would reverence Riker, who acted as second in the Swartout duel and recently headed the committee to promote his election to the Presidency. Clinton felt the sting of his enemies. There was a time when Clinton had supported Tompkins against Lewis; now Lewis, in supporting Tompkins against Clinton, was thrusting the latter through with a two-edged knife; for if Townsend voted for Riker, the Federalists would drop Clinton; if he voted for Platt, Riker would drop him. In vain did Clinton wait for Riker to suggest some avenue of escape. The plucky second wanted a judgeship which meant years of good living, as much as Clinton wanted the mayoralty that might be lost in another year. Clinton had not yet drunk the dregs of the bitter cup. False friends and their unpaid security debts were still to bankrupt him; but he had already seen enough to know that the setting sun is not worshipped. Under these circumstances his friendship for Riker was not strong enough to induce him to throw away his last chance of holding the mayoralty and its fat fees; and so when Townsend voted for Platt, Riker's affection for Clinton turned to hate.

CHAPTER XX
A GREAT WAR GOVERNOR
1812-1815

The assumption of extraordinary responsibilities during the War of 1812, justly conferred upon Daniel D. Tompkins the title of a great war governor. There is an essential difference between a war governor and a governor in time of war. One is enthusiastic, resourceful, with ability to organise victory by filling languishing patriotism with new and noble inspiration—the other simply performs his duty, sometimes respectably, sometimes only perfunctorily. George Clinton illustrated, in his own person, the difference between a great war governor and a governor in time of war. If he failed to win renown on the battlefield, his ability to inspire the people with confidence, and to bring glory out of threatened failure and success out of apparent defeat, made him the greatest war governor the country had yet known. Daniel D. Tompkins served his State no less acceptably. In the moment of greatest discouragement he displayed a patriotic courage in borrowing money without authority of law that made his Administration famous.

Yet Tompkins' patriotism scarcely rose to that sublime height which suffers its possessor unselfishly to advance a rival even for the public welfare. There is no doubt of DeWitt Clinton's conspicuous devotion to the interests of his country throughout the entire war. He exceeded his power as mayor in inducing the Common Council to borrow money on the credit of the city and loan it to the United States; at the supreme moment of a great crisis, when the national treasury was empty and a British fleet threatened destruction to the coast, an impressive address which he drafted, accompanied by a subscription paper which he headed, resulted in raising a fund of over one million dollars for the city's defence. The genius of Clinton had never been more nobly employed than in his efforts to sustain the war, winning him universal esteem throughout the municipality for his patriotic unselfishness and unlimited generosity. Tompkins must have known that such a man, already holding the rank of major-general in the militia, would be absolute master of any situation. He was not the one to throw up the cards because the chances of the game were going against him. His was a fighting spirit, and his impulse was ever, like that of Macbeth, to try to the last. But Tompkins could not fail to observe the party's growing dislike for Clinton, and, much as he wanted military success, he graciously declined Clinton's request, brought to him by Thomas Addis Emmet, to be assigned to active service in the field.

Tompkins had little to encourage him at the outset of the war. The election in April, 1812, had turned the Assembly over to the Federalists, who not only wasted the time of an extra session, called in November of that year, but carried their opposition through the regular session begun in January, 1813. The emergency was pressing. New England Federalists had declined to make the desired loans to the general government, and the governor of New York wished his State to relieve the situation by advancing the needed money. It was a patriotic measure. Whether right or wrong, the declaration of war had jeopardised the country. Soldiers, poorly equipped, scantily clothed, without organisation, and without pay, were scattered for hundreds of miles along a sparsely settled border, opened to the attacks of a powerful enemy; yet the Federalists refused to vote a dollar to equip a man. Why should we continue a war from the prosecution of which we have nothing to gain, they asked? The Orders in Council have been repealed, England has shrunk from facing the consequences of its own folly, and America has already won a complete triumph. What further need, then, for bleeding our exhausted treasury?

The Governor's embarrassment, however, did not emanate from the Federalists alone. The northern frontier of New York was to become the great battle-ground, and it was conceded that capable generals and a sufficient force were necessary to carry the war promptly into Canada. But the President furnished neither. He appointed Henry Dearborn, with the rank of major-general, to command the district from Niagara to the St. Lawrence, thus putting all military operations within the State under the control of a man in his sixty-second year, whose only military experience had been gained as a deputy quartermaster-general in 1781, and as colonel of a New Hampshire regiment after the end of the Revolutionary War. Dearborn was a politician—not a general. After serving several years in Jefferson's Cabinet, he graduated into the custom-house at Boston, where he concerned himself more to beat the Federalists than he ever exerted himself to defeat the British. In his opinion, campaigning ought to have its regular alternations of activity and repose, but he never knew when activity should begin. To make the condition more supremely ironic, Morgan Lewis, now in his fifty-ninth year, whose knowledge of war, like Dearborn's, had been learned as a deputy quartermaster-general thirty years before, was associated with him in command.

Dearborn submitted a plan of campaign, recommending that the main army advance by way of Lake Champlain upon Montreal, while three corps of militia should enter Canada from Detroit, Niagara and Sackett's Harbour. This was as near as Dearborn ever came to a successful invasion of Canada. War was declared on June 18, 1812, and July had been frittered away before he left Albany. Meantime General Hull, whose success depended largely upon Dearborn's vigorous support from Niagara, having been a fortnight on British soil, now recrossed the river and a few days later surrendered his army and Detroit to General Brock. This tragic event aroused Dearborn sufficiently to send Stephen Van Rensselaer to command the Niagara frontier, the feeble General assuring the secretary of war that, as soon as the force at Lewiston aggregated six thousand men, a forward movement should be made; but Dearborn himself, with the largest force then under arms, took good care to remain on Lake Champlain, clinging to its shores like a barnacle, as if afraid of the fate visited upon the unfortunate Hull. Finally, after two months of waiting, Van Rensselaer sent a thousand men across the Niagara to Queenstown to be killed and captured within sight of four thousand troops who refused to go to the help of their comrades. Disgusted and defeated, Van Rensselaer turned over his command to Brigadier-General Alexander Smith, a boastful Irish friend of Madison from Virginia, who issued burlesque proclamations about an invasion of Canada, and then declined to risk an engagement, although he had three Americans to one Englishman. This closed the campaign of 1812.