Society soon learned to take a more sensible view of the subject, but as the first depression passed away a consciousness of personal wrong took its place. The United States were supposed to have stabbed England in the back at the moment when her hands were tied, when her existence was in the most deadly peril and her anxieties were most heavy. England never could forgive treason so base and cowardice so vile. That Madison had been from the first a tool and accomplice of Bonaparte was thenceforward so fixed an idea in British history that time could not shake it. Indeed, so complicated and so historical had the causes of war become that no one even in America could explain or understand them, while Englishmen could see only that America required England as the price of peace to destroy herself by abandoning her naval power, and that England preferred to die fighting rather than to die by her own hand. The American party in England was extinguished; no further protest was heard against the war; and the British people thought moodily of revenge.
This result was unfortunate for both parties, but was doubly unfortunate for America, because her mode of making the issue told in her enemy’s favor. The same impressions which silenced in England open sympathy with America, stimulated in America acute sympathy with England. Argument was useless against people in a passion, convinced of their own injuries. Neither Englishmen nor Federalists were open to reasoning. They found their action easy from the moment they classed the United States as an ally of France, like Bavaria or Saxony; and they had no scruples of conscience, for the practical alliance was clear, and the fact proved sufficiently the intent.
This outbreak of feeling took place in the month of October, when the hopes of England were lowest. While Wellington retreated from Madrid and Burgos to Ciudad Rodrigo; while Napoleon was supposed to be still victorious at Moscow, although his retreat began October 19, two days before Wellington abandoned the siege of Burgos; and while, October 18, the “Wasp” captured the “Frolic,” and October 25 the “United States” captured the “Macedonian,”—in England public opinion broke into outcry against the temporizing conduct of the government toward America, and demanded vigorous prosecution of the war.
“In any other times than the present,” said the “Times” of October 30, “it would appear utterly incredible that men should adopt so drivelling a line of conduct as to think of waging a war of conciliation and forbearance, and that with enemies whom they themselves represent as alike faithless and implacable.”
The Government hastened to pacify these complaints. Orders were given to hurry an overwhelming force of ships-of-the-line and frigates to the American coast. Almost immediately England recovered from her dismay; for November 11 news arrived that the Russians were again masters of Moscow, and that Napoleon was retreating. Day after day the posts arrived from Russia, bringing accounts more and more encouraging, until when Parliament met, November 24, the hope that Napoleon might never escape from Russia had become strong.
Thus the new Ministry found themselves able to face opposition with unexpected strength. Madison’s calculations, reasonable as they seemed to be, were overthrown, and the glow of English delight over the success of Russia made the burden of the American war seem easy to bear. In Parliament hardly a voice was raised for peace. The Marquess Wellesley in the debate on the King’s speech attacked ministers, not because they had brought the country into war with America, but because they had been unprepared for it; “they ought as statesmen to have known that the American government had been long infected with a deadly hatred toward this country, and, if he might be allowed an unusual application of a word, with a deadly affection toward France.”[7] America had been suffered to carry on hostilities without danger to herself, and must be convinced of her folly and desperation. Lord Grenville also asserted that the American government was always hostile to England, but that only the conduct of ministers had enabled it to pluck up courage to show its enmity.[8] Canning, in the Commons, attacked still more sharply the forbearance of the Ministry and their silence toward America:
“It never entered into my mind that the mighty naval power of England would be allowed to sleep while our commerce was swept from the surface of the Atlantic; and that at the end of six months’ war it would be proclaimed in a speech from the throne that the time was now at length come when the long-withheld thunder of Britain must be launched against an implacable foe, and the fulness of her power at length drawn out. It never entered into my mind that we should send a fleet to take rest and shelter in our own ports in North America, and that we should then attack the American ports with a flag of truce.”[9]
From such criticisms Lord Castlereagh had no difficulty in defending himself. Whitbread alone maintained that injustice had been done to America, and that measures ought to be taken for peace.
This debate took place November 30, two days after the destruction of Napoleon’s army in passing the Beresina. From that moment, and during the next eighteen months, England had other matters to occupy her mind than the disagreeable subject of the American war. Napoleon arrived in Paris December 18, and set himself to the task of renewing the army of half a million men which had been lost in Russia, and of strengthening his hold on Germany, where a violent popular emotion threatened to break into open alliance with the Russian Czar. December 30 the Prussian corps of the Grand Army deserted to the Russians; and soon afterward the French abandoned Poland and the province of old Prussia, and with difficulty, no enemy attacking, held Berlin. The interest of England turned to the negotiations and military movements of the Continent, After January 1, 1813, Englishmen never willingly thought of the American war, or gave attention to terms of peace. They regarded the result in America as dependent on the result in Germany; and they would have ignored the war altogether had not the American frigates and privateers from time to time compelled their attention.
With the prospect of a great trade about to open with the continent of Europe, as the French garrisons were driven out of Germany and Spain, English manufacturers could afford to wait with patience for better times; but although a nation so long accustomed to the chances of war could adapt itself quickly to changes in the course of trade, England felt more than it liked to admit the annoyance of American hostilities on the ocean. During the first few months this annoyance was the greater because it was thought to be the result of official negligence. December 30, a merchant writing to the “Times” declared that “the Americans have taken upward of two hundred sail of British merchantmen and three or four packets from the West Indies. Recent advices from the Windward Islands state that the Admiral is mortified at the depredations of the American privateers, it not being in his power to prevent them, most of the few cruisers under his orders having been out so long from England that their copper is nearly off,—so that the privateers remain unmolested, as they can sail round our ships whenever they think proper; they are in consequence become so daring as even to cut vessels out of harbors, though protected by batteries, and to land and carry off cattle from plantations. The accounts from Jamaica by the mail which arrived on Friday represent that island to be literally blockaded by American privateers.”