After many months of warfare against Addington, Canning was gratified. In May, 1804, Addington retired from office, carrying into the House of Lords the new title of Lord Sidmouth, while Pitt returned to power. No one of note returned with him. His old colleague, Lord Grenville, refused to join his Administration, and Charles James Fox was personally excluded by King George. To fill the Foreign Office Pitt could find no better man than Lord Harrowby,—a personage of very second-rate importance in politics. With a Cabinet so weak as to command little respect, and reactionary as was required to suit the King’s growing prejudices, Pitt was obliged to disguise his feebleness by the vigor of his measures. While creating, by expenditure of money, a new coalition against Napoleon, he was unable to disregard the great moneyed and social interests which were clamoring for a spirited policy against neutrals and especially against America. In private he avowed his determination to re-establish the old system, and his regret that he should ever have been, most reluctantly, induced to relax the maritime rights of Britain.[308]
That Monroe should have been the last person in London to know the secret thoughts of Pitt was not surprising. The Board of Trade commonly exerted more influence than the Foreign Office over the relations of England with the United States; and George Rose, Vice-President of the Board of Trade, Pitt’s devoted friend and a Tory after Lord Sheffield’s heart, would never have chosen Monroe as a confidant of schemes under discussion in his department. Lord Harrowby was but the mouthpiece of other men. From him Monroe could expect to hear only what had already been decided. Nevertheless a little study of the mercantile interests of the city, and a careful inquiry into the private opinions of men like Rose and Canning, might have thrown some light on the future, and would naturally have roused anxiety in the mind of Monroe.
Pitt’s return to power, with the intention of changing the American policy which had been pursued since the negotiation of Jay’s treaty, happened very nearly to coincide with the arrival at the Foreign Office of Merry’s most alarming despatches, announcing that Madison required the total abandonment of impressments, the restriction of blockades and the right of search, and complete freedom in the colonial trade, as the conditions on which the friendship of the United States could be preserved. The announcement of President Jefferson’s high tone was accompanied by the British minister’s account of his own social mortifications by the President and the Secretary of State; of the Senate’s refusal to approve the fifth article of Rufus King’s boundary convention, in order to attack the British right of navigating the Mississippi; and by drafts of bills pending in Congress, under which any British admiral, even though it were Nelson himself, who should ever have taken a seaman out of an American vessel, was to be arrested in the streets of the first American port where he might go ashore, and to suffer indefinite imprisonment among thieves and felons in the calaboose.
May 30, 1804, Monroe had his first interview with Lord Harrowby. In such cases the new secretary, about to receive a foreign minister, commonly sent for the late correspondence, in order to learn something about the subjects on which he was to have an opinion. Beyond a doubt Lord Harrowby had on his table the despatches of Merry, written between November and April, which he probably finished reading at about the moment when Monroe was announced at the door.
Under such circumstances, Monroe reported to his Government that Lord Harrowby’s manners were designedly unfriendly; his reception was rough, his comments on the Senate’s habit of mutilating treaties were harsh, his conduct throughout the interview was calculated to wound and to irritate.[309] After this unpromising experience, two months were allowed to pass without further demonstration on either side. Then Lord Harrowby called Monroe’s attention to the twelfth article of Jay’s treaty, which regulated the commercial relations between the British West Indies and the United States, and which had expired by limitation. He suggested its renewal, according to its old terms, until two years after the next general peace. To this offer Monroe replied, with the utmost frankness, “that the President wished to postpone this matter until he could include impressment and neutral rights in the treaty; that we must begin de novo; that America was a young and thriving country; that in 1794 she had had little experience, since then she understood her interests better; and that a new treaty should omit certain things from that of 1794, and include others. The most urgent part was that which respected our seamen.”[310]
An approaching contact of opposite forces always interests men’s imagination. On one side, Pitt and Lord Harrowby stood meditating the details of measures, which they had decided in principle, for taking from the United States most of the commercial advantages hitherto enjoyed by them; on the other side stood Monroe and Jefferson, equally confident, telling the Englishmen that very much greater advantages must be conceded. That one or the other of these forces must very soon give way was evident; and if ever an American minister in London needed to be on the alert, with every faculty strained to its utmost, the autumn of 1804 was such a moment. Monroe, aware of his danger, gave full warning to the President. Even as early as June 3, after his first interview with Lord Harrowby, he wrote that a change of policy was imminent. “My most earnest advice is to look to the possibility of such a change.”[311]
Lord Harrowby also gave every reasonable warning. His reply to Monroe’s demands for further negotiation was simple,—nothing need be expected from him. He refused to do any business at all, on the plea of other occupations incident to the formation of a new ministry.[312] Monroe sent him the draft of the comprehensive treaty which Madison had forwarded, but Lord Harrowby declined for the present to discuss it. Then Monroe came to the conclusion that his presence in London was no longer necessary; and accordingly, Oct. 8, 1804, he started for Paris and Madrid. Until July 23, 1805, the legation at London was left in charge of a secretary.
A month after his departure, Lord Harrowby wrote a letter of instructions[313] to Merry in reply to the series of despatches received from Washington.
“His Majesty’s government,” he said, “have perceived with considerable concern, from some of your most recent despatches, the increasing acrimony which appears to pervade the representations that have been made to you by the American Secretary of State on the subject of the impressment of seamen from on board of American ships. The pretension advanced by Mr. Madison that the American flag should protect every individual sailing under it on board of a merchant-ship is too extravagant to require any serious refutation. In the exercise of the right, which has been asserted by his Majesty and his predecessors for ages, of reclaiming from a foreign service the subjects of Great Britain, whether they are found on the high seas or in the ports of his own dominions, irregularities must undoubtedly frequently occur; but the utmost solicitude has been uniformly manifested by his Majesty’s government to prevent them as far as may be possible, and to repress them whenever they have actually taken place.”
Intending to pursue the same course in the future, the Government would without delay give the strictest orders to its naval officers “to observe the utmost lenity in visiting ships on the high seas, and to abstain from impressments in the ports of the United States.”