“Having gone through the personal explanations which for just motives I was compelled to enter into in my first answer to your letter of the 15th inst., I must now inform you, sir, what otherwise would then have constituted my sole reply; namely, that the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of his Catholic Majesty near the United States receives no orders except from his sovereign. I must also declare to you, sir, that I consider both the style and tenor of your letter as indecorous, and its object an infraction of the privileges attached to my public character.”
Finally he sent to his colleagues copies of this correspondence, which soon afterward was printed in every Federalist newspaper, together with the note criticising the Annual Message, the reception of which had never been acknowledged by the Secretary of State.
Thus far Madison gained no credit in the scuffle, but merely called upon his own head one more intolerable insult. Perhaps in Yrujo’s apparent madness some share of method might be detected; for he knew the character of Madison,—his willingness to irritate and his reluctance to strike. At all events, the Spaniard remained at Washington and defied the Government to do its worst. The Cabinet consulted, examined into the law, inquired for precedents, and at last decided that the Government could not expel him. Merry took Yrujo’s part, and Turreau had much to do with moderating the President’s measures and with checking interference from Congress.[138] The Government in all its branches was overawed, and even the senators were alarmed. “The marquis’s letters last published seem to have frightened many of them so that probably nothing will be done.”[139] So wrote a member of the Senate who alone exerted himself to strengthen the President’s hands. Yrujo remained a fortnight or more at Washington, and after carrying his point returned at his leisure to Philadelphia. The only measure which Madison ventured to take was that of refusing to hold any communication with him or to receive his letters; but even this defence was turned by Yrujo into a vantage-ground of attack.
Among other adventurers then floating about the world was one Francesco de Miranda, a native of Caraccas, who for twenty years had been possessed by a passion for revolutionizing his native province, and for becoming the Washington of Spanish America. Failing to obtain in England the aid he needed, he came to New York in November, 1805, with excellent letters of introduction. Miranda had a high reputation; he was plausible and enthusiastic; above all, he was supposed to represent a strong patriot party in Spanish America. War with Spain was imminent; the President’s Annual Message seemed almost to declare its existence. In New York Miranda instantly became a hero, and attracted about him every ruined adventurer in society, among the rest a number of Aaron Burr’s friends. Burr himself was jealous, and spoke with contempt of him; but Burr’s chief ally Dayton, the late Federalist senator from New Jersey, was in Miranda’s confidence. So was John Swartwout the marshal, Burr’s devoted follower; so was William Steuben Smith, surveyor of the port, one of the few Federalists still left in office. These, as well as a swarm of smaller men, clustered round the Spanish American patriot, either to help his plans or to further their own. By Smith’s advice Miranda hired the ship “Leander,” owned by one Ogden and commanded by a Captain Lewis; with Smith’s active aid Miranda next bought arms and supplies, and enlisted men.
Meanwhile Miranda went to Washington. Arriving there in the first days of the session, before the pacific secret message and its sudden change of policy toward Spain were publicly known, he called upon the Secretary of State. December 11 he was received by the secretary at the Department; then invited to dine; then he put off his departure in order to dine with the President at the White House,—at a time when he was engaged, in conjunction with the surveyor of the port of New York, in fitting out a warlike expedition against Spanish territory. What passed between him and Madison became matter of dispute. The secretary afterward admitted that Miranda told of his negotiations with the British government, and made no secret of his hopes to revolutionize Colombia; to which Madison had replied that the government of the United States could not aid or countenance any secret enterprise, and was determined to interfere in case of any infraction of the law. Miranda’s account of the secretary’s conversation was very different; he wrote to Smith, from Washington, letters representing Madison to be fully aware of the expedition then fitting out, and to be willing that Smith should join it. He made a parade of social relations with the President and secretary, and on returning to New York was open in his allusions to the complicity of Government. Doubtless his statements were false, and those of Madison were alone worthy of belief; but the Secretary of State was not the less compromised in the opinion of his enemies.
Miranda quickly returned to New York; and when about a month later the “Leander” was ready to sail, he wrote a letter to Madison announcing his intended departure, and taking a sort of formal and official leave, as though he were a confidential emissary of the President. He had the assurance to add that “the important matters” which he had communicated “will remain, I doubt not, in the deepest secret until the final result of this delicate affair. I have acted here on that supposition, conforming myself in everything to the intentions of the Government, which I hope I have seized and observed with exactitude and discretion.”[140]
Ten days afterward the “Leander” sailed with a party of filibusters for the Spanish main, and the Secretary of State awoke to the consciousness that he had been deceived and betrayed. Fortunately for Madison, Miranda had not left behind him a copy of this letter, but had merely told his friends its purport. The letter itself remained unseen; but the original still exists among the Archives of the State Department, bearing an explanatory note in Madison’s handwriting, that Miranda’s “important” communications related to “what passed with the British government,” and that in saying he had conformed in New York to the President’s intentions, Miranda said what was not true.
Then Madison, after receiving and entertaining Miranda at Washington while a high government official was openly enlisting troops for him at New York, ordered the Spanish minister to leave the Federal city, and refused to receive the minister’s communications on any subject whatever. He had driven Casa Calvo and Morales from Louisiana, and at the same time allowed a notorious Spanish rebel to organize in New York a warlike expedition against Spanish territory.
Madison could hardly suppose that Yrujo would fail to make him pay the uttermost penalty for a mistake so glaring. Never before had the Spaniard enjoyed such an opportunity. After defying the secretary at Washington, Yrujo returned to Philadelphia, where he arrived on the evening of February 4. As he stepped from his carriage letters were put into his hand. Three of these letters were from the Spanish consul at New York, and contained only the notice that the “Leander” was about to sail.[141] Serious as this news was, it did not compare in importance with information furnished by Jonathan Dayton. For reasons of his own Dayton kept Yrujo informed of events unknown even to Merry and Turreau, and unsuspected by the President or his Cabinet. In some cases he probably tried to work on Yrujo’s credulity.
“The Secretary of State,” according to Dayton’s story, “with whom Miranda had two conferences, doubtless suspecting the origin of this mission, had at first treated him with reserve; but at last had opened himself so far as to say that he did not know whether the United States would or would not declare war against Spain, because this step must depend on Congress; that in this uncertainty he could not permit himself to offer Miranda the aid asked; but that if private citizens in the United States chose to advance their funds for the undertaking, as Miranda had suggested, the Government would shut its eyes to their conduct, provided that Miranda took his measures in such a way as not to compromise the Government. At the same time the secretary coincided in Miranda’s idea that in case the United States should determine upon war with Spain, this undertaking would prove to be a diversion favorable to the views of the American government.”