The Yankee, however ill-tempered he might be, was shrewd enough to see where his profit lay. The Federalist leaders and newspapers grumbled without intermission that their life-blood was drained to support a negro-slave aristocracy, “baser than its own slaves,” as their phrase went; but they took the profits thrust upon them; and what they could not clutch was taken by New York and Pennsylvania, while Virginia slowly sank into ruin. Virginia paid the price to gratify her passion for political power; and at the time, she paid it knowingly and willingly. John Randolph protested almost alone. American manufactures owed more to Jefferson and Virginians, who disliked them, than to Northern statesmen, who merely encouraged them after they were established.
These movements and tendencies were rather felt than understood amid the uproar of personal and local interests; but the repeal of the embargo had the effect intended by the Virginians,—it paralyzed Pickering and the party of forcible resistance. New England quickly turned from revolutionary thoughts while she engaged in money-making; and as though the tide of fortune had at last set in Madison’s favor, a stroke of his diplomacy raised the tottering Administration to a sudden height of popularity such as Jefferson himself had never reached.
CHAPTER II.
When Napoleon, Aug. 3, 1808, heard at Bordeaux that the Spaniards had captured Dupont’s army at Baylen and Rosily’s ships at Cadiz, and had thrown eighty thousand French troops back upon the Pyrenees, his anger was great; but his perplexity was much greater. In a character so interesting as that of Napoleon, the moments of perplexity were best worth study; and in his career no single moment occurred when he had more reason to call upon his genius for a resource than when he faced at Bordeaux the failure of his greatest scheme. From St. Petersburg to Gibraltar every shopkeeper knew that England had escaped, and all believed that no combination either of force or fraud could again be made with reasonable hope of driving her commerce from its channels. On this belief every merchant, as well as every government in the world, was actually shaping calculations. Napoleon also must shape his calculations on theirs, since he had failed to force theirs into the path of his own. The escape of England made useless the machinery he had created for her ruin. Spain, Russia, and Austria had little value for his immediate object, except as their control was necessary for the subjection of England; and the military occupation of Spain beyond the Ebro became worse than a blunder from the moment when Cadiz and Lisbon, Cuba and Mexico, Brazil and Peru threw themselves into England’s arms.[18]
More than once this history has shown that Napoleon never hesitated to throw aside a plan which had miscarried. If he did not in the autumn of 1808 throw aside his Spanish schemes, the reason could only be that he saw no other resource, and that in his belief his power would suffer too much from the shock of admitting failure. He showed unusual signs of vacillation, and of a desire to escape the position into which his miscalculations had led him. Instead of going at once to Spain and restoring order to his armies, he left his brother helpless at Vittoria while he passed three months in negotiations looking toward peace with England. In September he went to Germany, where he met the Czar of Russia at Erfurt, and induced Alexander, or consented to his inducement, to join in an autograph letter to the King of England, marked by the usual Napoleonic character, and offering the principle of uti possidetis as the preliminary to a general peace. England regarded this advance as deceptive, and George Canning was never more successful than in the gesture of self-restrained contempt with which he tossed back the letter that Napoleon and Alexander had presumed to address to a constitutional King of England; but even Canning could hardly suppose that Napoleon would invite an insult without a motive. From whatever side Napoleon approached the situation he could invent no line of conduct which did not imply the triumph of England. Study the problem as he might, he could not escape from the political and military disadvantages he incurred from the Spanish uprising. Without the consent of England he could neither free his civil government from the system of commercial restriction, nor free his military strength from partial paralysis in Spain; and England refused to help him, or even to hear reason from Alexander.
Thenceforward a want of distinct purpose showed itself in Napoleon’s acts. Unable either to enforce or to abandon his Continental system, he began to use it for momentary objects,—sometimes to weaken England, sometimes to obtain money, or as the pretext for conquests. Unable to hold the Peninsula or to withdraw from it, he seemed at one time resolved on conquest, at another disposed toward retreat. In the autumn of 1808 both paths ran together, for his credit required him to conquer before he could honorably establish any dynasty on the throne; and during the months of September and October he marched new French armies across the Pyrenees and massed an irresistible force behind the Ebro. A year before, he had thought one hundred thousand men enough to occupy all Spain and Portugal; but in October, 1808, he held not less than two hundred and fifty thousand men beyond the Pyrenees, ready to move at the moment of his arrival.
October 25, after his return from Germany, the Emperor pronounced a speech at the opening of his legislative chambers; and the embarrassment of his true position was evident under the words in which he covered it.
“Russia and Denmark,” he said, “have united with me against England. The United States have preferred to renounce commerce and the sea rather than recognize their slavery. A part of my army marches against those that England has formed or disembarked in Spain. It is a special benefit of that Providence which has constantly protected our arms, that passion has so blinded English councils as to make them renounce the protection of the sea and at last present their armies on the Continent. I depart in a few days to place myself at the head of my army, and with God’s aid to crown the King of Spain in Madrid, and plant my eagles on the forts of Lisbon.”
He left Paris October 29, and ten days later, November 9, began the campaign which still attracts the admiration of military critics, but which did not result in planting his eagles on the forts of Lisbon. “To my great astonishment,” he afterward said,[19] “I had to fight the battles of Tudela, Espinosa, Burgos, and Somo Sierra, to gain Madrid, which, in spite of my victories, refused me admission during two days.” After disposing in rapid succession of all the Spanish armies, he occupied Madrid December 4, and found himself at the end of his campaign. The conquest of Lisbon and Cadiz required more time, and led to less military result than suited his objects. At that moment he learned that an English army under Sir John Moore had ventured to march from Portugal into the north of Spain, and had already advanced so far toward Burgos as to make their capture possible. The destruction of an English army, however small, offered Napoleon the triumph he wanted. Rapidly collecting his forces, he hurried across the Guadarrama Mountains to cut off Moore’s retreat; but for once he was out-generalled. Sir John Moore not only saved his own army, but also led the French a long and exhausting chase to the extreme northwestern shore of Spain, where the British fleet carried Moore’s army out of their reach.
Napoleon would not have been the genius he was had he wasted his energies in following Moore to Corunna, or in trying to plant his eagles on the forts of Lisbon or Cadiz. A year earlier, Lisbon and Cadiz had been central points of his scheme; but in December, 1808, they were worth to him little more than any other seaports without fleets or colonies. For Spain and Portugal Napoleon showed that he had no further use. The moment he saw that Moore had escaped, which became clear when the Emperor reached Astorga, Jan. 2, 1809, throwing upon Soult the task of marching one hundred and fifty miles to Corunna after Moore and the British army, Napoleon stopped short, turned about, and with rapidity unusual even for him, quitted Spain forever. “The affairs of Spain are finished,” he wrote January 16;[20] although Joseph had the best reason to know and much cause to tell how his brother left nothing finished in Spain. “The circumstances of Europe oblige me to go for three weeks to Paris,” he wrote to Joseph early in the morning of January 15; “if nothing prevents, I shall be back again before the end of February.”[21] With characteristic mixture of harshness and tenderness toward his elder brother, he wrote at noon the same day another account, equally deceptive, of his motives and intentions:—