“The American government cannot have believed that such an arrangement as Mr. Erskine consented to accept was conformable to his instructions.... They cannot by possibility have believed that without any new motive, and without any apparent change in the dispositions of the enemy, the British government could have been disposed at once and unconditionally to give up the system on which they had been acting.”
This ground Jackson had been ordered to take in any “preliminary discussion” which might “in all probability” arise before he could enter on the details of his negotiation. In obedience to these instructions, and well within their limits, Jackson had gone as near as he dared to telling the President that he alone was to blame for the disavowal of Erskine, because Erskine’s instructions “were at the time in substance made known” to him. In subsequently affirming that he made no insinuation which he could not substantiate, Jackson still kept to what he believed the truth; and he reiterated in private what he insinuated officially, that Erskine had been “duped” by the American government. November 16 he wrote officially to the Foreign Office that without the slightest doubt the President had full and entire knowledge of Erskine’s instruction No. 2.[119] These views were consistent and not unreasonable, but no man could suppose them to be complimentary to President Madison; yet November 13 Jackson caused his secretary, Oakeley, to send in his name an official note to the Secretary of State, complaining of the rupture and rehearsing the charges, with the conclusion that “in stating these facts, and in adhering to them, as his duty imperiously enjoined him to do, Mr. Jackson could not imagine that offence would be taken at it by the American government, as most certainly none could be intended on his part.”[120] He then addressed the same counter-statement as a circular to the various British consuls in the United States, and caused it to be printed in the newspapers,[121]—thus making an appeal to the people against their own Government, not unlike the more famous appeal which the French Minister Genet made in 1793 against President Washington.
In extremely bad temper Jackson quitted the capital. His wife wrote to her friends in joy at the prospect of shortening her stay in a country which could offer her only the tribute of ignorant admiration; but even she showed a degree of bitterness in her pleasure, and her comments on American society had more value than many official documents in explaining the attitude of England toward the United States:—
“Francis, being accustomed to treat with the civilized courts and governments of Europe, and not with savage Democrats, half of them sold to France, has not succeeded in his negotiation.”[122]
At Washington she had seen few ladies besides Mrs. Madison, “une bonne, grosse femme, de la classe bourgeoise, ... sans distinction,” and also, to do her justice, “sans prétensions;” who did the British minister’s wife the honor to copy her toilettes. Immediately after the rupture Mrs. Jackson went to Baltimore, where she was received with enthusiasm by society; but Baltimore satisfied her little better than Washington: “Between ourselves their cuisine is detestable; coarse table-linen, no claret, champagne and madeira indifferent.” Only as the relative refinement of New York and Boston was reached, with the flattery lavished upon the British minister by the Federalist society of the commercial cities, did Mrs. Jackson and her husband in some degree recover their composure and their sense of admitted superiority.
Incredible as the folly of a political party was apt to be, the folly of the Federalists in taking up Jackson’s quarrel passed the limits of understanding. After waiting to receive their tone from England, the Federalist newspapers turned on their own path and raised the cry that Madison had deceived Erskine, and had knowingly entered into an arrangement which England could not carry out. The same newspapers which in April agreed with John Randolph that Canning had obtained through Erskine all he had ever asked or had a right to expect, averred in October that Erskine surrendered everything and got nothing in return. No political majority, still less a minority, could survive a somersault so violent as this; and the Federalists found that all their late recruits, and many friends hitherto stanch, deserted them in the autumn elections. Throughout the country the Administration was encouraged by great changes in the popular vote, even before the rupture with Jackson. With confidence, Madison might expect the more important spring elections to sweep opposition from his path. Although a whole year, and in some cases eighteen months, must pass before a new Congress could be chosen, the people were already near the war point.
Vermont chose a Republican governor and a legislature Republican in both branches. In Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey the Administration recovered more than the ground lost by the embargo. In Maryland the feud between Samuel Smith and his opponents was ended by a Republican majority so large that nothing could prevent Smith’s return to the Senate, although every one knew that he would carry on a system of personal opposition, if he dared, and that a moderate Federalist would be less dangerous to the Administration. In the general return of deserters to the ranks, the party would not be too strict in its punishments; and the President set the example by clemency to the worst offender, except John Randolph, of all the trusted lieutenants in the party service. He held out a hand to Monroe.
Madison’s reasons for winning Monroe were strong. The more he had to do with Robert Smith, the more intolerable became the incubus of Smith’s incompetence. He had been obliged to take the negotiations with Erskine and Jackson wholly on his own shoulders. The papers drafted by Smith were, as Madison declared,[123] brought from the Department of State in a condition “almost always so crude and inadequate that I was, in the more important cases, generally obliged to write them anew myself, under the disadvantage sometimes of retaining through delicacy some mixture of his draft.” Smith had not even the virtue of dullness. He could not be silent, but talked openly, and criticised freely the measures of Government, especially those of commercial restriction.
Complicated with this incessant annoyance was Gallatin’s feud. The combination of the Smiths with Giles, Leib, and Duane’s “Aurora” against Gallatin had its counterpart in the Clintonian faction which made Madison its target; and whenever these two forces acted together, they made, with the Federalists, a majority of the Senate. Gallatin saw the necessity of breaking down this combination of intrigue which had already done incalculable harm by forcing Robert Smith into the State Department. He foresaw the effects of its influence in weakening the Treasury in order to expel himself. On a visit to Monticello in August he spoke plainly to Jefferson and Madison, and pointed out the probability that he should be forced to resign. Jefferson reflected six weeks on this communication, and then wrote entreating him to stand firm.[124] November 8, the day of the rupture with Jackson, Gallatin answered Jefferson’s appeal in a long and outspoken letter evidently meant for communication to Madison:—
“It has seemed to me from various circumstances that those who thought they had injured were disposed to destroy, and that they were sufficiently skillful and formidable to effect their object. As I may not, however, perhaps, see their actions with an unprejudiced eye, nothing but irresistible evidence both of the intention and success will make me yield to that consideration.... I do not ask that in the present situation of our foreign relations the debt be reduced, but only that it shall not be increased so long as we are not at war. I do not pretend to step out of my own sphere and to control the internal management of other departments; but it seems to me that as Secretary of the Treasury I may ask, that, while peace continues, the aggregate of the expenditure of those departments be kept within bounds such as will preserve the equilibrium between the national revenue and expenditure without recurrence to loans. I cannot consent to act the part of a mere financier, to become a contriver of taxes, a dealer of loans, a seeker of resources for the purpose of supporting useless baubles, of increasing the number of idle and dissipated members of the community, of fattening contractors, pursers, and agents, and of introducing in all its ramifications that system of patronage, corruption, and rottenness which you so justly execrate.”