From this subject the President passed to Spanish affairs and to the Spanish protest against the Louisiana cession, founded on Bonaparte’s pledge never to alienate that province.
“This circumstance,” continued Merry, “as well as the resistance altogether which Spain had unexpectedly brought forward in words, Mr. Jefferson considered as highly ridiculous, and as showing a very pitiful conduct on her part, since she did not appear to have taken any measures to support it either by preparation of defence on the spot, or by sending there a force to endeavor to prevent the occupation of the country by the troops of the United States. He concluded by saying that possession of it would, at all events, be taken.”
If Merry did not contrive, after his dinner at the White House, to impart this conversation to his colleagues Yrujo and Pichon, he must have been a man remarkably free from malice. Meanwhile he had his own affairs to manage, and Madison was not so forbearing as the President. Merry’s first despatch announced to his Government that Madison had already raised his tone. Without delay the matter of impressments was brought into prominence. The “pretended” blockade of Martinique and Guadeloupe was also strongly characterized.
“It is proper for me to notice,” said Merry in his report of these remonstrances,[279] “that Mr. Madison gave great weight to them by renewing them on every occasion of my seeing him, and by his expressing that they were matters upon which this Government could not possibly be silent until a proper remedy for the evil should be applied by his Majesty’s government. His observations were, however, made with great temper, and accompanied with the strongest assurances of the disposition of this Government to conciliate, and to concur in whatever means could be devised which should not be absolutely derogatory to their independence and interests, to establish principles and rules which should be satisfactory to both parties.... But, my Lord, while it is my duty to do justice to Mr. Madison’s temperate and conciliatory language, I must not omit to observe that it indicated strongly a design on the part of this Government to avail themselves of the present conjuncture by persisting steadily in their demands of redress of their pretended grievances, in the hope of obtaining a greater respect to their flag, and of establishing a more convenient system of neutral navigation than the interests of the British empire have hitherto allowed his Majesty to concur in.”
The British government was aware that its so-called right of impressment and its doctrine of blockade rested on force, and could not be maintained against superior force; but this consciousness rendered England only the more sensitive in regard to dangers that threatened her supremacy. Knowing that the United States would be justified in declaring war at any moment, Great Britain looked uneasily for the first symptoms of retaliation. When Madison took so earnest a tone, Merry might reasonably expect that his words would be followed by acts.
These shocks were not all that the new British minister was obliged to meet at the threshold of his residence in Washington. At the moment when he was, as he thought, socially maltreated, and when he was told by Madison that America meant to insist on her neutral rights, he learned that the Government did not intend to ratify Rufus King’s boundary convention. The Senate held that the stipulations of its fifth article respecting the Mississippi might embarrass the new territory west of the river. King knew of the Louisiana cession when he signed the treaty; but the Senate had its own views on the subject, and under the lead of General Smith[280] preferred to follow them, as it had done in regard to the second article of the treaty with France, Sept. 30, 1800, and as it was about to do in regard to Pinckney’s claims convention, Aug. 11, 1802, with Spain. Merry was surprised to find that Madison, instead of explaining the grounds of the Senate’s hesitation, or entering into discussion of the precise geographical difficulty, contented himself with a bald statement of the fact. The British minister thought that this was not the most courteous way of dealing with a treaty negotiated after a full acquaintance with all the circumstances, and he wrote to his Government to be on its guard:[281]—
“Notwithstanding Mr. Madison’s assurances to the contrary, I have some reason to suspect that ideas of encroachment on his Majesty’s just rights are entertained by some persons who have a voice in deciding upon the question of the ratification of this convention, not to say that I have much occasion to observe, from circumstances in general, that there exists here a strong impression of the consequence which this country is supposed to have acquired by the recent additions to the territory of the United States, as well as by the actual situation of affairs in Europe.”
In view of the Mobile Act, introduced into Congress by Randolph on behalf of the government a week before this letter was written, Merry’s suspicions could hardly be called unreasonable. A like stretch of authority applied to the northwest territory would have produced startling results.
Merry’s suspicions that some assault was to be made upon England were strengthened when Madison, December 5, in pursuance of a call from the Senate, sent a list of impressments reported to the Department during the last year. According to this paper the whole number of impressments was forty-six,—three of which were made by France and her allies; while of the forty-three made by Great Britain twenty-seven of the seamen were not American citizens. Of the entire number, twelve were stated to have had American papers; and of the twelve, nearly half were impressed on land within British jurisdiction. The grievance, serious as it was, had not as yet reached proportions greater than before the Peace of Amiens. Merry drew the inference that Jefferson’s administration meant to adopt stronger measures than had hitherto been thought necessary. He soon began to see the scope which the new policy was to take.
Dec. 22, 1803, Madison opened in a formal conference the diplomatic scheme which was the outcome of these preliminary movements.[282] Beginning with a repetition of complaints in regard to impressments, and dwelling upon the great irritation created by such arbitrary acts, the secretary next remonstrated against the extent given to the law of blockade by British cruisers in the West Indies, and at length announced that the frequent repetition of these grievances had rendered it necessary for the United States to take immediate steps to find a remedy for them. Instructions would therefore be shortly sent to Monroe at London to negotiate a new convention on these subjects. The American government would wish that its flag should give complete protection to whatever persons might be under it, excepting only military enemies of the belligerent. Further, it would propose that the right of visiting ships at sea should be restrained; that the right of blockade should be more strictly defined, and American ships be allowed, in consideration of the distance, to clear for blockaded ports on the chance of the blockade being removed before they arrived; and finally that the direct trade between the West Indies and Europe should be thrown open to American commerce without requiring it to pass through a port of the United States.