CHAPTER XIV.
The summer of 1810 was quiet and hopeful in America. For the first time since December, 1807, trade was free. Although little immigration occurred, the census showed an increase in population of nearly thirty-seven per cent in ten years,—from 5,300,000 to 7,240,000, of which less than one hundred thousand was due to the purchase of Louisiana. Virginia and Massachusetts still fairly held their own, and New York strode in advance of Pennsylvania, while the West gained little relative weight. Ohio had not yet a quarter of a million people, Indiana only twenty-four thousand, and Illinois but twelve thousand, while Michigan contained less than five thousand. The third census showed no decided change in the balance of power from any point of view bounded by the usual horizon of human life. Perhaps the growth of New York city and Philadelphia pointed to a movement among the American people which might prove more revolutionary than any mere agricultural movement westward. Each of these cities contained a population of ninety-six thousand, while Baltimore rose to forty-six thousand, and Boston to thirty-two thousand. The tendency toward city life, if not yet unduly great, was worth noticing, especially because it was confined to the seaboard States of the North.
The reason of this tendency could in part be seen in the Treasury reports on American shipping, which reached in 1810 a registered tonnage of 1,424,000,—a point not again passed until 1826. The registered foreign tonnage sprang to 984,000,—a point not again reached in nearly forty years. New vessels were built to the amount of one hundred and twenty-seven thousand tons in the year 1810.[246] The value of all the merchandise exported in the year ending Sept. 30, 1810, amounted to nearly sixty-seven million dollars, and of this sum about forty-two millions represented articles of domestic production.[247] Except in the year before the embargo this export of domestic produce had never been much exceeded.[248] The imports, as measured by the revenue, were on the same scale. The net customs-revenue which reached $16,500,000 in 1807, after falling in 1808 and 1809 to about $7,000,000, rose again to $12,750,000 in 1810.[249] The profits of the export and import business fell chiefly to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, where the shipping belonged; and these cities could not fail to attract labor as well as capital beyond the degree that a conservative republican of the Revolutionary time would have thought safe.
More than half of these commercial exchanges were with England or her dependencies. Great Britain and her American colonies, Portugal and Spain in her military protection, and British India consumed at least one half of the exports; while of the net revenue collected on imports, Gallatin estimated six and a half millions as derived from articles imported from Great Britain and the British dependencies, all other sources supplying hardly six millions.[250] The nature of these imports could be only roughly given. In general, sugar, molasses, coffee, wines, silk, and tea were not British; but manufactures of cotton, linen, leather, paper, glass, earthen-ware, iron, and other metals came chiefly from Great Britain. To the United States this British trade brought most of the articles necessary to daily comfort in every part of the domestic economy. The relief of recovering a full and cheap supply exceeded the satisfaction of handsome profits on the renewed trade. Experience of the hourly annoyance, expense, and physical exposure caused by deprivation of what society considered necessities rendered any return to the restrictive system in the highest degree unwise, especially after the eastern people acquired conviction that the system had proved a failure.
Thus the summer passed with much of the old contentment that marked the first Administration of Jefferson. Having lost sight of national dignity, the commercial class was contented under the protection of England; and American ships in the Baltic, in Portugal, and in the West Indies never hesitated to ask and were rarely refused the assistance of the British navy. From time to time a few impressments were reported; but impressment had never been the chief subject of complaint, and after the withdrawal of the frigates blockading New York, little was heard of British violence. On the other hand, Napoleon’s outrages roused great clamor in commercial society, and his needless harshness to every victim, from the Pope to the American sailors whom he shut up as prisoners of war, went far to palliate British offences in the eyes of American merchants.
News of Napoleon’s seizures at San Sebastian arrived before the adjournment of Congress May 1; and as fresh outrages were reported from every quarter by every new arrival, and as Cadore’s letters became public, even Madison broke into reproaches. May 25 he wrote to Jefferson:[251] “The late confiscations by Bonaparte comprise robbery, theft, and breach of trust, and exceed in turpitude any of his enormities not wasting human blood.” These words seemed to show intense feeling, but Madison’s temper indulged in outbursts of irritability without effect on his action; in reality, his mind was bent beyond chance of change on the old idea of his Revolutionary education,—that the United States must not regard France, but must resist Great Britain by commercial restrictions. “This scene on the Continent,” he continued to Jefferson, “and the effect of English monopoly on the value of our produce are breaking the charm attached to what is called free-trade, foolishly by some and wickedly by others.” He reverted to his life-long theory of commercial regulations.
A few days afterward Madison wrote to Armstrong fresh instructions founded on the Act of May 1, which was to be the new diplomatic guide. These instructions,[252] dated June 5, were of course signed by the Secretary of State, Robert Smith, who afterward claimed credit for them; but their style, both of thought and expression, belonged to Madison. Even the unfailing note of his mind—irritability without passion—was not wanting. He would wait, he said, for further advices before making the proper comments on Cadore’s letter of February 14 and on its doctrine of reprisals. “I cannot, however, forbear informing you that a high indignation is felt by the President, as well as by the public, at this act of violence on our property, and at the outrage both in the language and in the matter of the letter of the Duc de Cadore.” Turning from this subject, the despatch requested that Napoleon would make use of the suggestion contained in the Act of May 1, 1810. “If there be sincerity in the language held at different times by the French government, and especially in the late overture, to proceed to amicable and just arrangements in case of our refusal to submit to the British Orders in Council, no pretext can be found for longer declining to put an end to the decrees of which the United States have so justly complained.” One condition alone was imposed on Armstrong preliminary to the acceptance of French action under the law of May 1, but this condition was essential:
“If, however, the arrangement contemplated by the law should be acceptable to the French government, you will understand it to be the purpose of the President not to proceed in giving it effect in case the late seizure of the property of the citizens of the United States has been followed by an absolute confiscation, and restoration be finally refused. The only ground short of a preliminary restoration of the property on which the contemplated arrangement can be made will be an understanding that the confiscation is reversible, and that it will become immediately the subject of discussion with a reasonable prospect of justice to our injured citizens.”
The condition thus prescribed seemed both reasonable and mild in view of the recent and continuous nature of the offence; but Madison could not, even if he would, allow his own or public attention to be permanently diverted from England. As early as June 22 he had begun to reconstruct in his own mind the machinery of his restrictive system. “On the first publication of the despatches by the ‘John Adams,’” he wrote to Jefferson,[253] “so strong a feeling was produced by Armstrong’s picture of the French robbery that the attitude in which England was placed by the correspondence between Pinkney and Wellesley was overlooked. The public attention is beginning to fix itself on the proof it affords that the original sin against neutrals lies with Great Britain; and that while she acknowledges it, she persists in it.”
The theory of original sin led to many conclusions hard to reconcile; but, as regarded Napoleon, Madison’s idea seemed both sensible and dignified,—that England’s original fault in no way justified the recent acts of France, which were equivalent to war on the United States, not as one among neutrals, but as a particular enemy. Fresh instructions to Armstrong, dated July 5,[254] reiterated the complaints, offers, and conditions of the despatch sent one month before. Especially the condition precedent to action under the law of May 1 was repeated with emphasis:—