“If the only object to be aimed at in conducting ourselves toward America was to force the abrogation of the embargo, I agree with Mr. Perceval that the proposed measure would make it more difficult for the American government to sustain it; but in yielding so far to the popular feeling the governing party would still retain much of their credit, and they would continue to act on all the unsettled questions between the two countries in their past spirit of hostility to Great Britain and partiality to France. I think it better to leave them with the full measure of their own difficulties to lower and degrade them in the estimation of the American people. The continuance of the embargo for some time is the best chance of their being destroyed as a party; and I should prefer exposing them to the disgrace of rescinding their own measure at the demand of their own people than furnish them with any creditable pretext for doing so. I look upon the embargo as operating at present more forcibly in our favor than any measure of hostility we could call forth were war actually declared, and doubt the policy of exhibiting too great an impatience on our part of its continuance, which so strong a departure from our usual practice toward neutrals would indicate.”
Secretary Canning wrote to his colleague in accord with Castlereagh’s views.[273]
“It is so plain upon the face of this measure,” began Canning, “that however comprehensive it may be made in words, it in fact refers to America only; and the embargo in America seems to be working so well for us, without our interference, that on that ground alone I confess I could wish that no new steps should be taken, at least till we have more certain information of the real issue of the present crisis in America. I have no apprehension whatever of a war with the United States.... Above all things I feel that to do nothing now, at this precise moment,—absolutely nothing,—is the wisest, safest, and most manful policy. The battle about the Orders in Council is just fought. They are established as a system. We have reason to hope that they are working much to good, and very little to mischief. Every day may be expected to bring additional proofs of this. But whether this be true to the extent that we hope or no, their effects, whatever they are, have been produced in America. Nothing that we now do can alter those effects; but an attempt to do something will perplex the view of them which we shall otherwise have to present to the country in so short a time, and which there is so much reason to believe will be highly satisfactory.”
Perceval, was less certain than Canning that the country would feel high satisfaction with the effect of the orders; and he rejoined by an argument which overthrew opposition:—
“The reason which strongly urges me to continue the circulation of this paper, after having read Mr. Canning’s paper, in addition to those already stated, is the apprehension I feel of the want of provision not only for Sweden, but for the West Indies; and therefore every possible facility or encouragement which we could give to prevail upon the American people either to evade the embargo by running their produce to the West Indian Islands, or to compel their government to relax it, would in my opinion be most wise.”
The order was accordingly issued. Dated April 11, 1808,[274] it directed British naval commanders to molest no neutral vessel on a voyage to the West Indies or South America, even though the vessel should have no regular clearances or papers, and “notwithstanding the present hostilities, or any future hostilities that may take place.” No measure of the British government irritated Madison more keenly than this. “A more extraordinary experiment,” he wrote to Pinkney,[275] “is perhaps not to be found in the annals of modern transactions.” Certainly governments did not commonly invite citizens of friendly countries to violate their own laws; but one avowed object of the embargo was to distress the British people into resisting their government, and news that the negroes of Jamaica and the artisans of Yorkshire had broken into acts of lawless violence would have been grateful to the ears of Jefferson. So distinct was this object, and so real the danger, that Perceval asked Parliament[276] to restrict the consumption of grain in the distilleries in order to countervail the loss of American wheat and avert a famine. The price of wheat had risen from thirty-nine to seventy-two shillings a quarter, and every farmer hoped for a rise above one hundred shillings, as in 1795 and 1800. Disorders occurred; lives were lost; the embargo, as a coercive measure, pressed severely on British society; and Madison, with such a weapon in his hand, could not require Perceval to perceive the impropriety of inviting a friendly people to violate their own laws.
The exact cost of the embargo to England could not be known. The total value of British exports to America was supposed to be nearly fifty million dollars; but the Americans regularly re-exported to the West Indies merchandise to the value of ten or fifteen millions. The embargo threw this part of the trade back into British hands. The true consumption of the United States hardly exceeded thirty-five million dollars, and was partially compensated to England by the gain of freights, the recovery of seamen, and by smuggling consequent on the embargo. Napoleon’s decrees must in any case have greatly reduced the purchasing power of America, and had in fact already done so. Perhaps twenty-five million dollars might be a reasonable estimate for the value of the remaining trade which the embargo stopped; and if the British manufacturers made a profit of twenty per cent on this trade, their loss in profits did not exceed five million dollars for the year,—a sum not immediately vital to English interests at a time when the annual expenditure reached three hundred and fifty million dollars, and when, as in 1807, the value of British exports was reckoned at nearly two hundred million dollars. Indeed, according to the returns, the exports of 1808 exceeded those of 1807 by about two millions.
Doubtless the embargo caused suffering. The West Indian negroes and the artisans of Staffordshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire were reduced to the verge of famine; but the shipowners rejoiced, and the country-gentleman and farmers were enriched. So ill balanced had the British people become in the excitement of their wars and industries that not only Cobbett but even a man so intelligent as William Spence undertook to prove[277] that foreign commerce was not a source of wealth to England, but that her prosperity and power were derived from her own resources, and would survive the annihilation of her foreign trade. James Mill replied[278] at great length to the eccentricities of Spence and Cobbett, which the common-sense of England would in ordinary times have noticed only with a laugh.
The population of England was about ten millions. Perhaps two millions were engaged in manufactures. The embargo by raising the price of grain affected them all, but it bore directly on about one tenth of them. The average sum expended on account of the poor was £4,268,000 in 1803 and 1804; it was £5,923,000 in 1811; and in 1813, 1814, and 1815, when the restrictive system had produced its full effect, the poor-rates averaged £6,130,000. The increase was probably due to the disturbance of trade and was accompanied by a state of society bordering on chronic disorder.
Probably at least five thousand families of working-men were reduced to pauperism by the embargo and the decrees of Napoleon; but these sufferers, who possessed not a vote among them and had been in no way party to the acts of either government, were the only real friends whom Jefferson could hope to find among the people of England; and his embargo ground them in the dust in order to fatten the squires and ship-owners who had devised the Orders in Council. If the English laborers rioted, they were shot: if the West Indian slaves could not be fed, they died. The embargo served only to lower the wages and the moral standard of the laboring classes throughout the British empire, and to prove their helplessness.