Matthews supposed his measures to be warranted by his instructions, and thought the Government bound to sustain him; but the Government took an opposite course. April 4 Monroe wrote to Matthews[186] disavowing the seizure of Amelia Island, and referring to the precedent of Baton Rouge as the proper course to have followed. “The United States did not take possession until after the Spanish authority had been subverted by a revolutionary proceeding, and the contingency of the country being thrown into foreign hands had forced itself into view.” Matthews failed to see why one “revolutionary proceeding” was not as good as another, or why the fiction of foreign interference might not serve as well at Fernandina as at Baton Rouge. He was excessively indignant, and believed his disavowal to be due to the publication of John Henry’s letters, which had made the President suddenly sensitive to the awkwardness of doing openly acts which he imputed as a crime in the governor-general of Canada to imagine. Senator Crawford afterward wrote to Monroe[187] that this impression was by no means confined to Matthews; indeed, Crawford himself seemed to share it. Yet governments were not bound to make explanations to their instruments; and Matthews was told only that he had mistaken the President’s wishes, and that his instructions were meant in good faith to require that the Spaniards should of their own accord ask to surrender their territory to the United States.
April 24 Madison wrote to Jefferson:[188] “In East Florida Matthews has been playing a strange comedy in the face of common-sense as well as of his instructions. His extravagances place us in the most distressing dilemma.” The dilemma consisted in the President’s wish to maintain possession of Amelia Island, and the difficulty of doing it. In explaining the matter to the French minister, Monroe made no secret of the President’s wishes:[189]—
“Mr. Monroe, in communicating the facts to me at one of our last conversations, told me that General Matthews had gone beyond his orders; that he was told to observe only; and in case a third Power, which could be only England, should present itself to occupy the island, he was to prevent it if possible, and in case of necessity repulse the disembarking troops. He added that nevertheless, now that things had reached their present condition, there would be more danger in retreating than in advancing; and so, while disavowing the General’s too precipitate conduct, they would maintain the occupation.”
This decision required some double dealing. April 10 Monroe wrote[190] to the governor of Georgia, requesting him to take Matthews’s place and to restore Amelia Island to the Spanish authorities; but this order was for public use only, and not meant to be carried into effect. May 27 Monroe wrote again,[191] saying:—
“In consequence of the compromitment of the United States to the inhabitants, you have been already instructed not to withdraw the troops unless you find that it may be done consistently with their safety, and to report to the Government the result of your conferences with the Spanish authorities, with your opinion of their views, holding in the mean time the ground occupied.”
Governor Mitchell would have been a poor governor and still poorer politician, had he not read such instructions as an order to hold Amelia Island as long as possible. Instead of re-establishing the Spanish authority at Fernandina, he maintained the occupation effected by Matthews.[192] June 19, the day after declaring war against England, the House took up the subject on the motion of Troup of Georgia, and in secret session debated a bill authorizing the President not to withdraw the troops, but to extend his possession over the whole country of East and West Florida, and to establish a government there.[193] June 25, by a vote of seventy to forty-eight, the House passed this bill, which in due time went successfully through all its stages in the Senate until July 3, when the vote was taken on its passage. Only then three Northern Republicans,—Bradley of Vermont, Howell of Rhode Island, and Leib of Pennsylvania,—joining Giles, Samuel Smith, and the Federalists, defeated, by a vote of sixteen to fourteen, this bill which all the President’s friends in both Houses supported as an Administration measure, and upon which the President promised to act with decision; but even after its failure the President maintained possession of Fernandina, with no other authority than the secret Act of Congress which had been improperly made by Matthews the ground of usurping possession.
From the pacific theories of 1801 to the military methods of 1812 was a vast stride. When Congress rose, July 6, 1812, the whole national frontier and coast from Prairie du Chien to Eastport, from Eastport to St. Mary’s, from St. Mary’s to New Orleans,—three thousand miles, incapable of defence,—was open to the attacks of powerful enemies; while the Government at Washington had taken measures for the military occupation of the vast foreign territories northward of the Lakes and southward to the Gulf of Mexico.
CHAPTER XII.
While the Twelfth Congress at Washington from November, 1811, until July, 1812, struggled with the declaration which was to spread war westward to the Mississippi River, Napoleon at Paris prepared the numberless details of the coming campaign that was to ravage Europe eastward as far as Moscow; and in this fury for destruction, no part remained for argument or diplomacy. Yet Joel Barlow, full of hope that he should succeed in solving the problem which had thus far baffled his Government, reached Paris, Sept. 19, 1811, and began a new experience, ended a year later at Zarnovitch in Poland by a tragedy in keeping with the military campaign to which Barlow was in a fashion attached.
Joel Barlow felt himself at home in Paris. In 1788, at the age of thirty-four, he had first come abroad, and during seventeen exciting years had been rather French than American. In 1792 the National Convention conferred on him the privileges of French citizenship,—an honor then shared only by Washington and Hamilton among Americans. He felt himself to be best understood and appreciated by Frenchmen. His return to France in 1812 was, he said, attended by a reception much more cordial and friendly than that which he had received in America, in 1805, on his return to his native country after seventeen years of absence. He settled with delight into his old society, even into his old house in the Rue Vaugirard, and relished the pleasure of recovering, with the highest dignity of office, the atmosphere of refinement which he always keenly enjoyed. Yet when these associations lost their freshness, and he turned to his diplomatic task, he found that few lots in life were harder than that of the man who bound himself to the destinies of Napoleon.