During all these months Barlow received by every packet despatches more and more decided from Monroe, letters more and more threatening from Madison. He told Dalberg in substance that these orders left no choice except between indemnities and war. Dalberg reported his language faithfully to Bassano; and Bassano, struggling with the increasing difficulties of his position, invented a new expedient for gaining time. While Napoleon remained at Moscow, unable to advance and unwilling to retreat, Bassano wrote, October 11, from Wilna a letter to Barlow saying that the Emperor, regretting the delay which attended negotiation conducted at so great a distance, had put an end to the Duc Dalberg’s authority and requested Barlow to come in person to Wilna. The request itself was an outrage, for its motive could not be mistaken. For an entire year Barlow had seen the French government elude every demand he made, and he could not fail to understand that the journey to Wilna caused indefinite further delay, when a letter of ten lines to Dalberg might remove every obstacle; but however futile the invitation might be, refusal would have excused the French government’s inaction. Throughout life Barlow exulted in activity; a famous traveller, no fatigue or exposure checked his restlessness, and although approaching his sixtieth year he feared no journey. He accepted Bassano’s invitation, and October 25 wrote that he should set out the following day for Wilna. A week earlier, Napoleon quitted Moscow, and began his retreat to Poland.
Ten days brought Barlow to Berlin, and already Napoleon’s army was in full flight and in danger of destruction, although the winter had hardly begun. November 11 Barlow reached Königsberg and plunged into the wastes of Poland. Everywhere on the road he saw the devastation of war, and when he reached Wilna, November 18, he found only confusion. Every one knew that Napoleon was defeated, but no one yet knew the tragedy that had reduced his army of half a million men to a desperate remnant numbering some fifty thousand. While Barlow waited for Napoleon’s arrival, Napoleon struggled through one obstacle after another until the fatal passage of the Beresina, November 27, which dissolved his army and caused him to abandon it. December 5, at midnight, he started for Paris, having sent a courier in advance to warn the Duc de Bassano, who lost no time in dismissing his guests from Wilna, where they were no longer safe. Barlow quitted Wilna for Paris the day before Napoleon left his army; but Napoleon soon passed him on the road. The weather was very cold, the thermometer thirteen degrees below zero of Fahrenheit; but Barlow travelled night and day, and after passing through Warsaw, reached a small village called Zarnovitch near Cracow. There he was obliged to stop. Fatigue and exposure caused an acute inflammation of the lungs, which ended his life Dec. 24, 1812. A week earlier Napoleon had reached Paris.
Barlow’s death passed almost unnoticed in the general catastrophe of which it was so small a part. Not until March, 1813, was it known in America; and the news had the less effect because circumstances were greatly changed. Madison’s earnestness in demanding satisfaction from France expressed not so much his own feelings as fear of his domestic opponents. The triumph of Russia and England strengthened the domestic opposition beyond hope of harmony, and left the President in a desperate strait. No treaty, either with or without indemnities, could longer benefit greatly the Administration, while Napoleon’s overthrow threatened to carry down Madison himself in the general ruin. In his own words,[211]—
“Had the French emperor not been broken down, as he was to a degree at variance with all probability and which no human sagacity could anticipate, can it be doubted that Great Britain would have been constrained by her own situation and the demands of her allies to listen to our reasonable terms of reconciliation? The moment chosen for war would therefore have been well chosen, if chosen with a reference to the French expedition against Russia; and although not so chosen, the coincidence between the war and the expedition promised at the time to be as favorable as it was fortuitous.”
Thus the year 1812 closed American relations with France in disappointment and mortification. Whatever hopes Madison might still cherish, he could not repeat the happy diplomacy of 1778 or of 1803. From France he could gain nothing. He had challenged a danger more serious than he ever imagined; for he stood alone in the world in the face of victorious England.
CHAPTER XIII.
While Napoleon thus tried the temper of America, the Government of England slowly and with infinite reluctance yielded to American demands. Not for the first time experience showed that any English minister whose policy rested on jealousy of America must sooner or later come to ruin and disgrace.
After the departure of Pinkney and Foster in May, 1811, diplomatic action was for a time transferred to Washington. The young American chargé in London, John Spear Smith, could only transmit news that came officially to his hands. The Marquess Wellesley, still struggling to reorganize the Ministry, found the Prince Regent less and less inclined to assist him, until at last he despaired. American affairs resumed their old position. In June, 1811, Sir William Scott, after some months of hesitation, rendered final decision that the French Decrees were still in force, and that in consequence all American vessels falling within the range of the British Orders in Council were liable to condemnation.[212] In the Cabinet, Wellesley urged his colleagues either to negotiate with America or to show themselves prepared for war; but his colleagues would do neither.[213] Convinced that the United States would not and could not fight, Perceval and Eldon, Bathurst and Liverpool, were indifferent to Wellesley’s discomfort. In the autumn of 1811 nothing in the attitude of the British government, except its previous hesitation, held out a hope of change.
Yet many reasons combined to show that concessions were inevitable. The sweeping ruin that overwhelmed British commerce and industry in 1810 sank deep among the laboring classes in 1811. The seasons doubled the distress. The winter had been intense, the summer was unfavorable; wheat rose in the autumn to one hundred and forty-five shillings, or about thirty-six dollars the quarter, and as the winter of 1811 began, disorders broke out in the manufacturing districts. The inland counties reached a state of actual insurrection which no exercise of force seemed to repress. The American non-importation aggravated the trouble, and worked unceasingly to shake the authority of Spencer Perceval, already one of the most unpopular ministers England had ever seen.
Popular distress alone could hardly have effected a change in Perceval’s system; so great a result was not to be produced by means hitherto so little regarded. The moment marked an era in English history, for the new class of laborers, the mill-operatives and other manufacturing workmen, took for the first time an active share in shaping legislation. In their hostility to Perceval’s policy they were backed by their employers; but the united efforts of employers and workmen were not yet equal to controlling the Government, even though they were aided by the American non-importation. They worried Perceval, but did not break him down. At the close of 1811 he showed still no signs of yielding; but news then arrived that the American Congress had met, and that the President’s Message, the debates in the House, the tone of the press, and the feelings of the American people announced war. This was a new force with which Perceval could not deal.