“Although I could hardly have calculated on this new shock, which has considerably weakened our political credit in the United States, I well knew that we had lost greatly in the opinion of the Cabinet at Washington and of its chief. After Mr. Rose’s departure,—that is to say, about three weeks before the end of the session,—I quitted the city for reasons of health, which were only too well founded. I had seen Mr. Jefferson only a week before I went to take leave of him. Perhaps I should tell your Excellency that I commonly see the President once a week, and always in the evening,—a time when I am sure of finding him at home, and nearly always alone. I never open upon the chapter of politics, because it seems more proper for me to wait for him to begin this subject, and I never wait long. At the interview before the last I found him extremely cool in regard to the interests of Europe and the measures of the Powers coalesced against England. At the last interview he asked me if I had recent news from Europe. I told him—what was true—that I had nothing official since two months. ‘You treat us badly,’ he replied. ‘The governments of Europe do not understand this government here. Even England, whose institutions have most analogy with ours, does not know the character of the American people and the spirit of its Administration,’ etc. I answered that Great Britain having violated the law of nations in regard to every people in succession, the nature and the difference of their institutions mattered little to a Power which had abjured all principles. He interrupted me to say: ‘When severe measures become necessary we shall know how to take them, but we do not want to be dragged into them (y être entrainés).’ Although this was directly to the address of the minister of France, I thought best to avoid a retort, and contented myself with observing that generally France gave the example of respect for governments which sustained their dignity, and that the object of the coalition of all the European States against England was to constrain that Power to imitate her. The rest of the conversation was too vague and too insignificant to be worth remembering. Nevertheless, Mr. Jefferson repeated to me what he tells me at nearly every interview,—that he has much love for France.”
Turreau drew the inference “that the federal government intends to-day more than ever to hold an equal balance between France and England.” Erskine saw matters in the same light. Neither the Frenchman nor the Englishman, although most directly interested in the bias of President Jefferson, reported any word or act of his which showed a wish to serve Napoleon’s ends.
The interests of the Federalists required them to assert the subservience of Jefferson to France. They did so in the most positive language, without proof, and without attempting to obtain proof. Had this been all, they would have done no worse than their opponents had done before them; but they also used the pretext of Jefferson’s devotion to France in order to cover and justify their own devotion to England.
After the failure of Rose, in the month of February, to obtain further concessions from Madison, the British envoy cultivated more closely the friendship of Senator Pickering, and even followed his advice. As early as March 4 he wrote to his Government on the subject,[184]—
“It is apprehended, should this Government be desirous that hostilities should take place with England, it will not venture to commence them, but will endeavor to provoke her to strike the first blow. In such a case it would no doubt adopt highly irritating measures. On this head I beg leave, but with great diffidence, to submit the views which I have formed here, and which I find coincide completely with those of the best and most enlightened men of this country, and who consider her interests as completely identified with those of Great Britain. I conceive it to be of extreme importance in the present state of the public mind in this nation, and especially as operated upon by the embargo, such as I have endeavored to represent it in preceding despatches, to avoid if possible actual warfare,—should it be practicable consistently with the national honor, to do no more than retort upon America any measures of insolence and injury falling short of it which she may adopt. Such a line of conduct would, I am persuaded, render completely null the endeavors exerted to impress upon the public mind here the persuasion of the inveterate rancor with which Great Britain seeks the destruction of America, and would turn their whole animosity,—goaded on, as they would be, by the insults and injuries offered by France, and the self-inflicted annihilation of their own commerce,—against their own Government, and produce an entire change in the politics of the country. A war with Great Britain would, I have no doubt, prove ultimately fatal to this Government; but it is to be feared that the people would necessarily rally round it at the first moment and at the instant of danger; and an exasperation would be produced which it might be found impossible to eradicate for a series of years. Their soundest statesmen express to me the utmost anxiety that their fellow-citizens should be allowed to bear the whole burden of their own follies, and suffer by evils originating with themselves; and they are convinced that the effects of punishment inflicted by their own hands must ere long bring them into co-operation with Great Britain, whilst if inflicted by hers, it must turn them perhaps irrevocably against her.”
“The best and most enlightened men of the country,”—who “considered her interests as completely identified with those of Great Britain,” and who thus concerted with Canning a policy intended to bring themselves into power as agents of Spencer Perceval and Lord Castlereagh,—were Senator Pickering and his friends. To effect this coalition with the British ministry Pickering exerted himself to the utmost. Not only by word of mouth, but also by letter, he plied the British envoy with argument and evidence. Although Rose, March 4, wrote to Canning in the very words of the Massachusetts senator, March 13 the senator wrote to Rose repeating his opinion:[185]—
“You know my solicitude to have peace preserved between the two nations, and I have therefore taken the liberty to express to you my opinion of the true point of policy to be observed by your Government toward the United States, in case your mission prove unsuccessful; that is, to let us alone; to bear patiently the wrongs we do ourselves. In one word, amidst the irritations engendered by hatred and folly, to maintain a dignified composure, and to abstain from war,—relying on this, that whatever disposition exists to provoke, there is none to commence a war on the part of the United States.”
To support his views Pickering enclosed a letter from Rufus King. “I also know,” he continued, “that in the present unexampled state of the world our own best citizens consider the interests of the United States to be interwoven with those of Great Britain, and that our safety depends on hers.... Of the opinions and reasonings of such men I wish you to be possessed.” He held out a confident hope that the embargo would end in an overthrow of the Administration, and that a change in the head of the government would alter its policy “in a manner propitious to the continuance of peace.” A few days afterward he placed in Rose’s hands two letters from George Cabot. Finally, on the eve of Rose’s departure, March 22, he gave the British envoy a letter to Samuel Williams of London. “Let him, if you please, be the medium of whatever epistolary intercourse may take place between you and me.”[186]
To these advances Rose replied in his usual tone of courteous superiority:—
“I avail myself thankfully of your permission to keep that gentleman’s [Rufus King’s] letter, which I am sure will carry high authority where I can use it confidentially, and whither it is most important that what I conceive to be right impressions should be conveyed. It is not to you that I need protest that rancorous impressions of jealousy or ill-will have never existed there; but it is to be feared that at some time or another the extremest point of human forbearance may be reached. Yet at the present moment there is, I think, a peculiarity of circumstances most strange indeed, which enables the offended party to leave his antagonist to his own suicidal devices, unless, in his contortions under them, he may strike some blow which the other might not be able to dissemble.”[187]