Serurier exerted himself to infuse what he called proper spirit into the secretary’s temper, complaining that England was actually engaged in making war on American commerce with France while enjoying all the advantages of American trade,—
“A very dangerous situation for an alliance, I added, where all the advantage is for your enemies, and all the loss is for your friends. Mr. Monroe agreed to all this; but he pretended that this false position could be viewed only as a transition to a more decided state of things; that the present situation was equally burdensome and intolerable to the citizens, and little suited to the dignity of the Government; that it was necessary to wait for despatches from Mr. Barlow. Then he fell back once more on his theme,—that whenever they should be perfectly satisfied on the side of France, and also of the Emperor’s friendship, they would certainly adopt very energetic measures toward England.... ‘We shall not go backward,’ said Mr. Monroe to me; ‘we shall be inflexible about the repeal of the Orders in Council. But in order to go further, to bring us to great resolutions, the Emperor must aid us; private and public interest must make the same demand. The President does indeed hold the rudder of the Ship of State; he guides, but it is public opinion which makes the vessel move. On France depends the winning of public opinion; and we wish for it, as you can well conceive that in our position we should.’”
Serurier knew no more than this, which was no more than all the world could see. The British minister was not so well informed. After an exchange of notes with Monroe, which left matters where they were, Foster learned from Monroe, October 30, that the Government was waiting for Barlow’s despatches, and if these should prove unsatisfactory, some restriction of French commerce would be imposed by way of retaliation on the restrictions imposed by Napoleon.[123] Foster hoped for a turn in affairs favorable to himself, and tried to bring it about, not only by suggesting to Lord Wellesley the wisdom of concessions from England, but also by offering a frank and fair reparation for the “Chesapeake” outrage. He wrote, November 1, to the Secretary of State renewing the formal disavowal of Berkeley’s unauthorized act, and offering to restore the men to the vessel from which they had been taken, with compensation to themselves and families. Somewhat coldly Monroe accepted the offer. The two surviving seamen were in due time brought from their prison at Halifax and restored to the deck of the “Chesapeake” in Boston harbor; the redress was made as complete as such tardy justice could ever be, but the time had passed when it could atone for the wrong.
Both Foster and Serurier felt that the people were further advanced than the Government in hostility to England, and that this was especially true in the matter of impressments; but no one, even at the White House, knew certainly what to expect from the new Congress assembling at Washington Nov. 4, 1811. That this body differed greatly from any previous Congress was clear, if only because it contained some seventy new members; but another difference, less easily measured, was more serious. The active leaders were young men. Henry Clay of Kentucky, William Lowndes, John Caldwell Calhoun, David R. Williams, Langdon Cheves of South Carolina, Felix Grundy of Tennessee, Peter Buell Porter of New York, Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky, had none of them reached his fortieth year; while Madison and his Cabinet belonged to a different generation. None of the new leaders could remember the colonial epoch, or had taken a share in public life except under the Constitution of 1789, or had been old enough to feel and understand the lessons taught by opposition to the Federalist rule. They knew the Federalists only as a faction, more or less given to treasonable talk, controlling some thirty or forty votes in the House, and proclaiming with tedious iteration opinions no one cared to hear. The young war Republicans, as they were called, felt only contempt for such a party; while, as their acts showed, they were filled with no respect for the technicalities of their Executive head, and regarded Gallatin with distrust. Of statesmanship, in the old sense, they took little thought. Bent on war with England, they were willing to face debt and probable bankruptcy on the chance of creating a nation, of conquering Canada, and carrying the American flag to Mobile and Key West.
After ten years devoted to weakening national energies, such freshness of youth and recklessness of fear had wonderful popular charm. The reaction from Jefferson’s system threatened to be more violent than its adoption. Experience seemed to show that a period of about twelve years measured the beat of the pendulum. After the Declaration of Independence, twelve years had been needed to create an efficient Constitution; another twelve years of energy brought a reaction against the government then created; a third period of twelve years was ending in a sweep toward still greater energy; and already a child could calculate the result of a few more such returns.
Had the majority of the House been in a gentler mood, its choice for Speaker should have fallen on Macon, once more a sound party man prepared to support war; but Macon was set aside. Bibb of Georgia, a candidate of the minority, received only thirty-eight voices, while seventy-five were given for Henry Clay. Clay was barely thirty-four years of age, and was a new member of the House; but he was the boldest and most active leader of the war Republicans. He immediately organized the committees for war. That on Foreign Relations, the most immediately important, was put into the hands of Porter, Calhoun, and Grundy. Military affairs were placed in charge of David R. Williams. Langdon Cheves became chairman of the Naval Committee. Ezekiel Bacon and Cheves stood at the head of the Ways and Means.
November 5 the President’s Message was read, and its account of the situation seemed to offer hardly the chance of peace. England, it said, had refused the “reasonable step” of repealing its Orders in return for the extinction of the French Decrees; while the new British minister had made “an indispensable condition of the repeal of the British Orders, that commerce should be restored to a footing that would admit the productions and manufactures of Great Britain, when owned by neutrals, into markets shut against them by her enemies,—the United States being given to understand that in the mean time a continuation of their Non-importation Act would lead to measures of retaliation.” Instead of repealing the orders, the British government, “at a moment when least to have been expected,” put them into more rigorous execution; “indemnity and redress for other wrongs have continued to be withheld; and our coasts and the mouths of our harbors have again witnessed scenes not less derogatory to the dearest of our national rights than vexatious to the regular course of our trade.” In some respects Madison’s statement of grievances sounded almost needlessly quarrelsome; yet even in this list of causes which were to warrant a declaration of war, the President did not expressly mention impressments, in comparison with which his other grievances sank, in the afterthought, to insignificance.
Of France, also, the President spoke in language far from friendly. Although the decrees were revoked, “no proof is yet given,” he said, “of an intention to repair the other wrongs done to the United States, and particularly to restore the great amount of American property seized and condemned under edicts ... founded in such unjust principles that the reparation ought to have been prompt and ample.” In addition to this, the United States had much reason to be dissatisfied with “the rigorous and unexpected restrictions” imposed on their trade with France, which if continued would lead to retaliation. Not a word did the Message contain of friendly or even civil regard for the French government.
Then followed the sentences which could be read only in the sense of an invitation to war:—
“I must now add that the period has arrived which claims from the legislative guardians of the national rights a system of more ample provisions for maintaining them. Notwithstanding the scrupulous justice, the protracted moderation, and the multiplied efforts on the part of the United States to substitute for the accumulating dangers to the peace of the two countries all the mutual advantages of re-established friendship and confidence, we have seen that the British Cabinet perseveres not only in withholding a remedy for other wrongs so long and so loudly calling for it, but in the execution, brought home to the threshold of our territory, of measures which, under existing circumstances, have the character as well as the effect of war on our lawful commerce. With this evidence of hostile inflexibility in trampling on rights which no independent nation can relinquish, Congress will feel the duty of putting the United States into an armor and an attitude demanded by the crisis, and corresponding with the national spirit and expectations.”