Saturday, January 16, before meeting Senator Pickering at dinner, Rose had delicately explained to Madison that the President’s “Chesapeake” proclamation was likely to prove a stumbling-block. In conversations which consumed another week he urged its withdrawal, while Madison replied that the exclusion of British ships was not a punishment but a precaution, that the “Leopard’s” attack was but one of its causes, and that it was a measure taken in the interests of peace. Argument against Canning’s positive instructions answered no purpose. Rose could not give way, and when he had been one week in Washington, January 21, the negotiation was already at a stand-still. There it would under any other Administration have been permitted to remain. Rose had come to offer an apology and to restore the captured seamen. He had only to do this and go home.
Rose, after an interview with the Secretary of State about January 21, waited until January 27 before writing to Canning. Then he resumed his story:[146]—
“Within a few hours after my last conference with Mr. Madison, an indirect and confidential communication was made to me from one of the members of the Government to the following purport: that the real difficulty as to the recall of the proclamation was that of finding grounds upon which the President could found his declared motives for such a measure without exposing himself to the charge of inconsistency and disregard of the national honor, and without compromising his own personal weight in the State; that it was earnestly wished that I could make, as it were, a bridge over which he might pass; and that I would develop just so much of the tenor of my instructions as to the conditions of reparation as might justify him in the course which I required should be taken; that should however this be impossible, and should the negotiation fail, the United States would not commence war with Great Britain, but would continue their Embargo, and adopting a sort of Chinese policy would shut themselves up from the rest of the world; that if we attacked them they would sally out just far enough to repel us, and would invade Canada.... Communications of a similar nature were repeated to me on subsequent days; and it did not seem advisable to address Mr. Madison in writing until the utmost point to which they would go was ascertained. At length I had a conversation with the gentleman in question. He avowed to me that what had passed was with the knowledge of the President, whose difficulty arose from the sacrifice of public opinion which he apprehended must follow from the abandonment of the proclamation. He said I must be aware how dear to Mr. Jefferson his popularity must be, and especially at the close of his political career, and that this consideration must be held particularly in view by him; and he pressed me earnestly to take such steps as would conciliate the President’s wish to give his Majesty satisfaction on the point in question and yet to maintain the possession of what was pre-eminently valuable to him. He expressed his own personal anxiety for the accommodation of the present difference,—an anxiety heightened by his knowledge that the United States had forever lost all hope of obtaining the Floridas, the negotiation for them having totally failed, and by his intimate persuasion that France is the dormant owner of them. He said, moreover, that since America could not obtain those provinces, he sincerely wished to see them in the hands of Great Britain, whose possession of them could never be anxious to the United States.”
The supplications of this Cabinet minister were reinforced by entreaties from leading Federalists, who begged Rose not to follow a course which would aid the President in rousing popular feeling against England; but the British envoy could yield only so far as not to break the negotiation abruptly. January 26 he wrote to the Secretary a note, in courteous language announcing himself authorized to express the conviction—which he certainly could not have felt—that if the proclamation were withdrawn, he should be able “to terminate the negotiation amicably and satisfactorily.” Madison sent no answer to the note, but kept the negotiation alive by private interviews. January 29 Rose suggested the idea of his friendly return to England with a representation of the difficulty. Madison reported this suggestion to the President, who on the following Monday, February 1, decided against the idea, preferring to yield the point of dignity so far as to offer a recall of the proclamation, conditional upon an informal disclosure by Rose of the terms in which the atonement would be made.[147]
Throughout this tortuous affair Rose stood impassive. He made no advance, offered no suggestion of aid, showed no anxiety. Republicans and Federalists crowded about him with entreaties and advice. Rose listened in silence. Amateur diplomacy never showed its evils more plainly than in the negotiation with Rose; and when Madison allowed the President to take the affair into his own hands, employing another Cabinet officer to do what no Secretary of State could permit himself to undertake, the nuisance became a scandal. In the despatch of January 27 Rose concealed the name of the deputy Secretary of State; but in a despatch of February 6 he revealed it:—
“I should here add that a member of the Cabinet (the Secretary of the Navy), who informed me that all his communications with me were with the President’s knowledge, assures me that a rupture with France is inevitable and at hand.”
That Robert Smith acted in the matter as negotiator for the President was afterward made known by Jefferson himself.[148]
Jefferson clung with touching pathos to the love and respect of his fellow-citizens, who repaid his devotion with equal attachment; but many an American President who yearned no less passionately for the people’s regard would have died an outcast rather than have trafficked in their dignity and his own self-respect in order to seek or save a personal popularity. Perhaps Jefferson never knew precisely what was said of him by his Secretary of the Navy,—a passing remark by such a man as Robert Smith, repeated through such a medium as George Rose, need count for little; but the truth must be admitted that in 1808—for the first and probably for the last time in history—a President of the United States begged for mercy from a British minister.
In obedience to the President’s decision, Madison yielded to the British demand on condition that the Executive should not be exposed to the appearance of having yielded.[149] He arranged with Rose the “bridge” which Robert Smith had previously prepared for the President to cross. In a “secret and confidential” despatch dated Feb. 6, 1808, Rose explained to Canning, with evident uneasiness, the nature of the new proposal:[150]—
“The proposition made to me by Mr. Madison at the close of our conference of yesterday was that he should put into my hands a proclamation recalling the original proclamation, sealed and signed by the President, bearing date on the day of adjustment of differences, and conceived in such terms as I should agree to; that on this being done we should proceed to sign the instruments adjusting the reparation. I answered that positive as my instructions were to the effect I had invariably stated to him, such was the knowledge I had of the disposition of his Majesty’s government to act with the utmost conciliation toward this country that I would attempt the experiment, but premising distinctly that it must be made unofficially through the whole of it, and with the assurance of our mutual good faith to that effect; and that as it must be completely and essentially informal,—for the purpose of getting over difficulties which appeared insuperable in any other way,—it must be distinctly understood that if the attempt failed, the regular and official communication must be resumed on my explanatory note of January 26, and on that alone.”