“The papers now enclosed to you confirm me in the opinion of the expediency of a treaty with England, but make the offer of the status quo [to Spain] more doubtful; the correspondence will probably throw light on that question. From the papers already received I infer a confident reliance on the part of Spain on the omnipotence of Bonaparte, but a desire of procrastination till peace in Europe shall leave us without an ally.”
Ten days more passed; the whole mortification became evident; the President’s anger and alarm rose to feverishness.[52] He wrote to Madison, August 17,—
“I am anxious to receive opinions respecting our procedure with Spain, as should negotiations with England be advisable they should not be postponed a day unnecessarily, that we may lay their result before Congress before they rise next spring. Were the question only about the bounds of Louisiana, I should be for delay. Were it only for spoliations, just as this is as a cause of war, we might consider if no other expedient were more eligible for us. But I do not view peace as within our choice. I consider the cavalier conduct of Spain as evidence that France is to settle with us for her,—and the language of France confirms it,—and that if she can keep us insulated till peace, she means to enforce by arms her will, to which she foresees we will not truckle, and therefore does not venture on the mandate now. We should not permit ourselves to be found off our guard and friendless.”
The President’s plan presented difficulties which Madison could not fail to see. That Jefferson should wish Pitt to fight the battles of the United States was natural; but Pitt was little in the habit of doing gratuitous favors, and might reasonably ask what price he was to receive for conquering the Floridas and Texas for the United States. Madison’s comments on the President’s proposed British treaty pointed out this objection. Madison agreed that the Executive should take provisional measures, on which Congress might act.[53] “An eventual alliance with Great Britain, if attainable from her without inadmissible conditions, would be for us the best of all possible measures; but I do not see the least chance of laying her under obligations to be called into force at our will without correspondent obligations on our part.” Objection to the President’s plan was easy; but when the secretary came to a plan of his own, he could suggest nothing more vigorous than to renew a moderate degree of coquetry with Merry, which would have the side advantage of alarming France and Spain, “from whom the growing communication with Great Britain would not be concealed.”
Such a weapon was no doubt as effective against Napoleon as heelless slippers against Pitt; but the President thought the situation to have passed beyond such tactics. Madison’s proposed coquetry with Merry met with less favor in Jefferson’s eyes than his own proposed one-sided alliance with England had met in the eyes of Madison. Upon a treaty of alliance with England the President was for the moment bent, and he met Madison’s objections by arguments that showed lively traits of the writer’s sanguine temper. He complained that Madison had misconceived the nature of the proposed British treaty. England should stipulate not to make peace without securing West Florida and the spoliation claims to America, while American co-operation in the war would be sufficient inducement to her for making this contract.[54]
“Another motive much more powerful would indubitably induce England to go much further. Whatever ill humor may at times have been expressed against us by individuals of that country, the first wish of every Englishman’s heart is to see us once more fighting by their sides against France; nor could the King or his ministers do an act so popular as to enter into an alliance with us. The nation would not weigh the consideration by grains and scruples; they would consider it as the price and pledge of an indissoluble friendship. I think it possible that for such a provisional treaty they would give us their general guaranty of Louisiana and the Floridas. At any rate we might try them; a failure would not make our situation worse. If such a one could be obtained, we might await our own convenience for calling up the casus fœderis. I think it important that England should receive an overture as early as possible, as it might prevent her listening to terms of peace.”
If Jefferson was right in thinking that every Englishman’s heart yearned toward America, he was unfortunate in delaying his offer of indissoluble friendship until the moment when Sir William Scott delivered his opinion in the case of the “Essex.” Madison’s scheme was equally unpromising, because he had made a personal enemy of Merry, on whom the success of Madison’s tactics depended. Each of the two high authorities felt the weakness of the other, and the secretary even went so far as to hint, in courteous language, that the President’s idea was unpractical:—
“The more I reflect on the papers from Madrid, the more I feel the value of some eventual security for the active friendship of Great Britain, but the more I see at the same time the difficulty of obtaining it without a like security to her of ours. If she is to be bound, we must be so too, either to the same thing,—that is to join her in the war,—or to do what she will accept as equivalent to such an obligation. What can we offer to her? A mutual guaranty, unless so shaped as to involve us pretty certainly in her war, would not be satisfactory. To offer commercial regulations or concessions on points in the law of nations as a certain payment for aids which might never be received or required, would be a bargain liable to obvious objections of the most serious kind. Unless, therefore, some arrangement which has not occurred to me can be devised, I see no other course than such an one as is suggested in my last letter.”[55]
In this state of things, the remaining members of the Cabinet were asked for their opinions; and in the course of a few days the President received written papers from Gallatin and Robert Smith. Gallatin was annoyed at the results of Jefferson’s diplomacy. Emphatically a Northern man, he cared little for Florida; and a war with Spain would have been in his eyes a Southern war. He made no concealment of his opinion that the whole negotiation rested on a blunder; and he told Madison as much, with a bluntness which the secretary could scarcely have relished.
“The demands from Spain were too hard,” said he,[56] “to have expected, even independent of French interference, any success from the negotiation. It could only be hoped that the tone assumed by our negotiators might not be such as to render a relinquishment or suspension of some of our claims productive of some loss of reputation. If we are safe on that ground, it may be eligible to wait for a better opportunity before we again run the risk of lowering the national importance by pretensions which our strength may not at this moment permit us to support. If from the manner in which the negotiation has been conducted that effect has already been produced, how to save character without endangering peace will be a serious and difficult question.”