The same conflict of ideas was felt in Congress, which had nothing to do but to wait for news from Europe that did not arrive. The month of November was passed in purposeless debate. That the time had come when some policy must be adopted for defending the coasts and frontiers was conceded, but no policy could be contrived which satisfied at once the economical and the military wants of the country. In this chaos of opinions, Jefferson alone held fixed theories; and as usual his opinions prevailed. He preferred gunboats to other forms of armament, and he had his way.
The Cabinet had not adopted the gunboat policy without protest. When in the preceding month of February the President sent to Congress his Message recommending that two hundred gunboats should be built, at a cost, as Gallatin thought, of a million dollars, the secretary remonstrated. In his opinion not one third that number were needed in peace, while in case of war any required number could be built within thirty days. “Exclusively of the first expense of building and the interest of the capital thus laid out, I apprehend that, notwithstanding the care which may be taken, they will infallibly decay in a given number of years, and will be a perpetual bill of costs for repairs and maintenance.”[118] The President overruled these objections, affirming that the necessary gunboats could not be built even in six months; that after the beginning of a war they could not be built in the seaports, “because they would be destroyed by the enemy on the stocks;” and the first act of the enemy “would be to sweep all our seaports of their vessels at least;” finally, the expense of building and preserving them would be trifling.[119] Gallatin did not persist in the argument. Jefferson was determined to have gunboats, and gunboats were built.
The “Chesapeake” disaster riveted the gunboat policy on the government. Nearly every one, except the Federalists, agreed in Randolph’s unwillingness to vote money for the support of a “degraded and disgraced navy.”[120] Robert Smith made no apparent attempt to counteract this prejudice; he sacrificed the frigates for gunboats. October 22, 1807, at a full Cabinet meeting, according to Jefferson’s memoranda, the following order was taken in regard to the frigates, in view of war with England:[121]—
“The ‘Constitution’ is to remain at Boston, having her men discharged; the ‘Wasp’ is to come to New York; the ‘Chesapeake’ to remain at Norfolk; and the sending the ‘United States’ frigate to New York is reserved for further consideration, inquiring in the mean time how early she could be ready to go. It is considered that in case of war these frigates would serve as receptacles for enlisting seamen, to fill the gunboats occasionally.”
A government which could imagine no other use for its frigates than as receiving ships for gunboats in time of war naturally cared to build none. When Congress took up the subject of naval defence, gunboats alone were suggested by the department. November 8 Robert Smith wrote to Dr. Mitchill, chairman of the Senate Committee on defences, a letter asking for eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars to build one hundred and eighty-eight more gunboats in order to raise the whole number to two hundred and fifty-seven.[122] A bill was at once introduced, passed the Senate without a division, and went to the House, where the Federalists sharply assailed it. Randolph ridiculed the idea of expelling by such means even so small a squadron as that which at Lynnhaven Bay had all summer defied the power of the United States. Josiah Quincy declared that except for rivers and shallow waters these gunboats were a danger rather than a defence; and that at all times and places they were uncomfortable, unpopular in the service, and dangerous to handle and to fight. Imprisonment for weeks, months, or years in a ship of the line was no small hardship, but service in a coop not wide enough to lie straight in, with the certainty of oversetting or running ashore or being sunk, in case of bad weather or hostile attack, was a duty intolerable to good seamen and fatal to the navy.
All this and much more was true. Fulton’s steamer, the “Clermont,” with a single gun would have been more effective for harbor defence than all the gunboats in the service, and if supplemented by Fulton’s torpedoes would have protected New York from any line-of-battle ship; but President Jefferson, lover of science and of paradox as he was, suggested no such experiment. By the enormous majority of 111 to 19, the House, December 11, passed the bill for additional gunboats. A million dollars were voted for fortifications. In all, an appropriation of one million eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars for defences was the work accomplished by Congress between October 26 and December 18, 1807. In face of a probable war with England, such action was equivalent to inaction; and in this sense the public accepted it.
While Congress wrangled about systems of defence almost equally inefficient,—gunboats and frigates, militia and volunteers, muskets, movable batteries, and fixed fortifications,—the country listened with drawn breath for news from England. Time dragged on, but still the “Revenge” did not return. About the end of November, despatches[123] dated October 10 arrived from Monroe, announcing that Canning refused to couple the “Chesapeake” affair with the impressment of merchant seamen; that he was about to send a special envoy to Washington with the exclusive object of settling the “Chesapeake” affair; that Monroe had taken his final audience of King George, and that William Pinkney was henceforward sole minister of the United States in London. Of the treaty not a hope seemed to exist. Monroe’s return was ominous of failure.
Erskine, uneasy at hearing these reports, hastened to the White House, and without delay reported Jefferson’s conversation to his Government:[124]—
“I found from my interview with the President that he was much disappointed at the result of the discussions which had taken place, and, as he expressed himself, greatly alarmed by some of the passages in your letters that a satisfactory redress of the injuries complained of was not likely to be afforded to the United States. He informed me that the reasons which had induced him to instruct the American ministers to endeavor to obtain some arrangement upon the point of impressment of British seamen out of American ships, at the same time that a reparation for the attack on the ‘Chesapeake’ by his Majesty’s ship ‘Leopard’ was demanded, were that he conceived that if a satisfactory security against the injuries arising to the United States from such impressments could have been obtained, a redress for the attack upon their national ship would have been much easier settled; but that if the point of honor was to be taken into consideration by itself, he foresaw greater difficulties in the way of an amicable adjustment of it.... The President further observed, however, that although he feared the separating the two subjects would increase the difficulty of the negotiation, and that he considered the determination of his Majesty’s government to postpone the consideration of the point of impressment—which he said was the most serious ground of difference—as an unfavorable symptom of their ultimate intentions upon that subject, yet that he certainly would not refuse upon the ground of form only that the affair of the ‘Chesapeake’ should be first concluded; but expressed a hope that the minister who should be sent to this country to settle that subject of complaint should also be invested by his Majesty with powers to negotiate upon the point of impressment.”
The sanguine temperament which challenged a duel accorded ill with the afterthought which shrank from it. Voluntarily, coolly, with mature reflection, Jefferson had invited Canning’s blow; and when Canning struck, Jefferson recoiled. Monroe might well claim that such conditions as were imposed on him should never have been made, or should never have been withdrawn; that at moments of violent irritation no nation could afford to tease another with demands not meant to be enforced.