“As we get farther north and east, the said Yankees improve very much. New York is a fine town, unlike any other in America, and resembling more the best of our country towns, with the additional advantage of the finest water that can be imagined. There is as much life and bustle as at Liverpool or any other of our great commercial towns; and like them New York has inhabitants who have made and are making rapid and brilliant fortunes by their enterprise and industry.... We have met with unbounded civility and good-will, and may be said to live here in triumph. We are now engaged to dinner every day but two, till the end of the first week in March.... The governor of Massachusetts has written to me to invite me to Boston, where, he says, he and many others will be happy to receive me. That State, which is one of the most populous and enlightened of the States of the Union, and, as you know, is the birthplace of American independence, has done more toward justifying me to the world than it was possible from the nature of things that I or any other person could do in the present stage of the business. The legislature, which is not a mob like many that have passed resolutions, has agreed to a report of a joint committee, and passed resolutions in conformity with it, exculpating me altogether, and in the most direct manner censuring the conduct of the President and of the general government.”
Boston newspapers of Feb. 9, 1810, contained the report and resolutions in which the Massachusetts legislature, by a vote of two hundred and fifty-four to one hundred and forty-five, declared that “they can perceive no just or adequate cause” for breaking relations with the British minister, F. J. Jackson; and this challenge to their own Government, backed by Governor Gore’s invitation of Jackson to Boston, was intended to carry political weight, even to the extent of forcing Madison to renew political relations, as he had been forced to resume commercial relations, with England. Had public opinion taken the intended course, Jackson’s visit to Boston would have marked a demonstration of popular feeling against the national government; nor were the Federalists in any way parties consenting to the defeat of the scheme. The measures adopted by the Massachusetts legislature in February came before the people at the State election early in April, only six weeks after the General Court and Governor Gore had condemned Madison. More than ninety thousand votes were cast, and the Republican party, by a majority of about two thousand, not only turned Governor Gore out of office, but also chose a General Court with a Republican majority of twenty. At the same time similar changes of public opinion restored New Hampshire to Republican control, and strengthened the Republicans in New York and the Middle States. Not a doubt could exist that the country sustained Madison, and that Jackson was not only an object of decided unpopularity in America, but was far from being favored in England. The advantage to be derived from his visit to Boston was no longer evident, and after Governor Gore ceased to hold office, the good taste of acting on an invitation thus practically withdrawn seemed doubtful; but Jackson was not daunted by doubts.
Holding the promise of his Government that his mission should last at least a year, Jackson beguiled the interval by such amusements as offered themselves. In May he retired to a country-house on the North River, about eight miles above New York, where he caught a glimpse of an American invention which, as he had the good sense to suspect, was more important than all the diplomatic quarrels in which he had ever engaged:—
“One of the curiosities that we daily see pass under our windows is the steamboat,—a passage-vessel with accommodation for near a hundred persons. It is moved by a steam-engine turning a wheel on either side of it, which acts like the main wheel of a mill, and propels the vessel against wind and tide at the rate of four miles an hour. As soon as it comes in sight there is a general rush of our household to watch and wonder till it disappears. They don’t at all know what to make of the unnatural monster that goes steadily careering on, with the wind directly in its teeth as often as not. I doubt that I should be obeyed were I to desire any one of them to take a passage in her.”[158]
After thus entertaining himself on the Hudson, the British minister made his triumphal trip to Boston early in June, where he found a gratifying welcome from society if not from the governor and legislature:—
“At Boston, ‘the headquarters of good principles,’ we were feasted most famously, and I made there many interesting acquaintances. After living nine days in clover at about eighteen of the principal houses,—having never less than two engagements per day,—they gave me on the 10th a public dinner, at which near three hundred persons were present, and where we had toasts and cheering and singing in the best style of Bishopsgate Street or Merchant Taylor’s Hall. A party of gentlemen met me at the last stage on entering Boston, and accompanied me to the first on my departure. At another public dinner I was invited to on the 4th of June (the Ancient and Honorable Artillery election dinner), and at which the governor, who is a Democrat, was present, the clergy, the magistrates, the heads of the University of Cambridge, and the military came to the top of the room in their respective bodies to be introduced to and to compliment me. There is at Washington in consequence much ‘wailing and gnashing of teeth.’”
At the public dinner given to Jackson June 11, after the guest of the evening had retired, Senator Pickering gave a toast which became a party cry: “The world’s last hope,—Britain’s fast-anchored isle!”[159]
From the moment the State officials withdrew from the reception, little importance attached to the private acts of a society which might easily look with interest at the rare appearance of a British minister in Boston; but the political and social feeling was the same as though Governor Gore were still in power, and created natural disgust among Republicans, who believed that their Federalist opponents aimed at a dissolution of the Union and at a retreat within the protection of Great Britain. If such ideas existed, they showed themselves to Jackson in no recorded form. His visit to Boston was a social amusement; and he regarded it, like the conduct of Congress, as a triumph to himself only because it increased the mortifications of President Madison, which counterbalanced in some degree his own want of energetic support from Canning’s successor at the Foreign Office.
The history of Jackson and his mission did not quite end with his departure from Boston in June, 1810, under escort of a mounted procession of Boston Federalists. He thence went to Niagara,—a difficult journey; and descending to Montreal and Quebec, returned to Albany, where he had the unusual experience of seeing himself burned in effigy.
During all these wanderings he was a victim to the constant annoyance of being able to quarrel neither with President Madison nor with his new official chief, who showed a wish to quarrel as little as possible. Jackson was as willing to find fault with one Government as with the other.