So closed Pinkney’s residence in London. He had passed there nearly five years of such violent national hostility as no other American minister ever faced during an equal length of time, or defied at last with equal sternness; but his extraordinary abilities and character made him greatly respected and admired while he stayed, and silenced remonstrance when he left. For many years afterward, his successors were mortified by comparisons between his table-oratory and theirs. As a writer he was not less distinguished. Canning’s impenetrable self-confidence met in him powers that did not yield, even in self-confidence, to his own; and Lord Wellesley’s oriental dignity was not a little ruffled by Pinkney’s handling. As occasion required, he was patient under irritation that seemed intolerable, as aggressive as Canning himself, or as stately and urbane as Wellesley; and even when he lost his temper, he did so in cold blood, because he saw no other way to break through the obstacles put in his path. America never sent an abler representative to the Court of London.
Pinkney sailed from England a few weeks afterward, leaving in charge of the legation John Spear Smith, a son of Senator Samuel Smith, who had been for a time attached to the Legation at St. Petersburg; had thence travelled to Vienna and Paris, where he received Pinkney’s summons to London,—the most difficult and important diplomatic post in the world. Simultaneously, Lord Wellesley hurried Foster to the United States. The new British minister was personally acceptable. By birth a son of the actual Duchess of Devonshire by her first husband, he had the advantage of social and political backing, while he was already familiar with America, where he had served as Secretary of Legation. Just dismissed from Sweden by Bernadotte’s election and the declaration of war against England which followed it, Foster would hardly have sought or taken the mission to Washington had not Europe been closed to English diplomacy. Even F. J. Jackson, who spoke kindly of few people, gave a pleasant account of his successor.[23] “Foster is a very gentlemanlike young man, quite equal to do nothing at his post, which is now the best possible policy to follow;” but in the same breath, “that most clumsy and ill-conditioned minister,” as Pinkney described Jackson,[24] added that the police office was the proper place to train officials for service at Washington. “One of the best magistrates as minister, and a good sharp thief-taker for secretary, would put us in all respects much upon a level with their Yankeeships.” The phrase implied that Jackson felt his own career at Washington to have been mortifying, and that he had not been on a level with his opponents. Possibly the sense of mortification hurried the decline which ended in his death, three years afterward, in the midst of the war he did so much to cause.
Wellesley’s instructions to Foster were dated April 10,[25] and marked another slight step toward concession. Once more he discussed the Orders in Council, but on the ground taken by Pinkney could come to no other conclusion than that the President was mistaken in thinking the French Decrees repealed, and extravagant in requiring the blockade of 1806 to be repealed in consequence; yet as long as any hope remained of prevailing with the President to correct his error, American ships, captured while acting in pursuance of it, should not be condemned. Even under the challenge expressly proclaimed by the non-importation, the British government anxiously desired to avoid a positive rupture. As for the “Chesapeake” affair, Foster was ordered to settle it to suit the American government, guarding only against the admission of insulting expressions. He was to remonstrate and protest against the seizure of the Floridas,[26] but was not to commit his Government further. Finally, a secret instruction[27] notified Foster that in case America should persist in her non-importation, England would retaliate,—probably by increasing her import duties, and excluding American commerce from the East Indies.
These instructions conformed with the general attitude of English society. Though sobered by the disasters that attended Tory government, England had not yet passed beyond the stage when annoyances created only the wish to ignore them. No one would admit serious danger from America. In Parliament, Pinkney’s abrupt and hostile departure was barely mentioned, and ministers denied it importance. The “London Times,” of March 1, complained that no one could be induced to feel an interest in the American question. “There is certainly great apathy in the public mind generally upon the questions now at issue between us and our quondam colonies, which it is difficult to arouse, and perhaps useless to attempt.” Here and there the old wish for a war with the United States was still felt;[28] but the public asked only to hear no more on American subjects. Even the “Times” refused, April 13, to continue discussion on matters “upon which the feelings of the great bulk of the nation are peculiarly blunt.” Wellesley’s course and Foster’s instructions reflected only the lassitude and torpor of the day; but within eighteen months Wellesley, in open Parliament, criticised what he charged as the policy, not of himself, but of his colleagues, in language which implied that the public apathy was assumed rather than real. “The disposition of the American government was quite evident,” he said, Nov. 30, 1812;[29] “and therefore common policy should have urged ministers to prepare fully for the event; and they should have made adequate exertion either to pacify, to intimidate, or to punish America.” Knowing this, they sent out Foster, powerless either for defence or attack, to waste his time at Washington, where for ten years his predecessors had found the grave of their ambitions.
CHAPTER II.
The diplomatic insolvency inherited from Merry, Rose, Erskine, and Jackson became more complete with every year that passed; and even while Foster was on the ocean, a new incident occurred, which if it did not prove a catastrophe to be inevitable, showed at least how small was his chance of averting it.
On the renewal of trade between America and France, the British navy renewed its blockade of New York. If nothing more had happened, the recurrence of this vexation would alone have gone far to destroy the hopes of diplomacy; but this was not all.
The “Melampus” reappeared, having for a companion the “Guerriere,” commanded by Captain Dacres, and supposed to be one of the best British frigates of her class. Early in May, when Foster sailed from England, these cruisers, lying off Sandy Hook, began to capture American vessels bound for France, and to impress American sailors at will. No sooner did these complaints reach Washington than Secretary Hamilton, May 6,[30] ordered Commodore John Rodgers, whose flag-ship, the 44-gun frigate “President,” was lying at Annapolis, to sail at once to protect American commerce from unlawful interference by British and French cruisers. Rodgers sailed from Annapolis May 10, and May 14 passed the capes. The scene of the “Chesapeake’s” unredressed outrage lay some fifteen or twenty miles to the southward, and the officers and crew of the “President” had reason to think themselves expected to lose no fair opportunity of taking into their own hands the redress which the British government denied. For the past year Rodgers had carried orders “to vindicate the injured honor of our navy and revive the drooping spirits of the nation; ... to maintain and support at any risk and cost the honor” of his flag; and these orders were founded chiefly on “the inhuman and dastardly attack on our frigate ‘Chesapeake,’—an outrage which prostrated the flag of our country, and has imposed on the American people cause of ceaseless mourning.”[31]
Rodgers was bound for New York, but on the morning of May 16 was still about thirty miles from Cape Charles and eighteen miles from the coast, when toward noon he saw a ship to the eastward standing toward him under a press of canvas. As the vessel came near, he could make her out from the shape of her upper sails to be a man-of-war; he knew of no man-of-war except the “Guerriere” on the coast; the new-comer appeared from the quarter where that frigate would be looked for, and Rodgers reasoned that in all probability she was the “Guerriere.” He decided to approach her, with the object of ascertaining whether a man named Diggio, said to have been impressed a few days before by Captain Dacres from an American brig, was on board. The spirit of this inquiry was new.
Until quarter before two o’clock in the afternoon the ships stood toward each other. The stranger showed no colors, but made signals, until finding them unanswered, she changed her course and stood to the southward. Rodgers then made sail in chase, his colors and pennant flying. At half-past three, the stranger’s hull began to be visible from the “President’s” deck, but as the wind failed the American frigate gained less rapidly. In latitude 37° the sun, May 16, sets at seven o’clock, and dusk comes quickly on. At quarter-past seven the unknown ship again changed her course, and lay to, presenting her broadside to the “President,” and showing colors, which in the gathering twilight were not clearly seen. The ship had the look of a frigate.