No one rose in the House to press this reasoning. Castlereagh completed his argument, showing, with more temper than logic, that England was wholly in the right and America altogether in the wrong; the American government and people were infatuated; they had an inordinate and insolent spirit of encroachment and unreasonable hostility; had prostituted their character and showed an unexampled degeneracy of feeling. “For America he confessed that he deeply lamented the injury which her character had sustained by the conduct of her government; it was conduct unworthy of any State calling itself civilized and free.”

Castlereagh’s invective had the merit of being as little serious as his logic, and left as little sting; but what Castlereagh could say without causing more than a smile, never failed to exasperate Americans like drops of vitriol when it came from the lips of George Canning. Canning had not hitherto succeeded better in winning the confidence of England than in curbing the insolence of America; he was still in opposition, while the man whom in 1807 he could hardly condescend to consider a rival was Secretary for Foreign Affairs and leader of the House. Worst of all, Canning could not escape the necessity of supporting him, for Castlereagh’s position in regard to America was strong, while Canning’s own position was weak and needed constant excuse. In the debate of Feb. 18, 1813, he undertook the difficult task of appearing to attack Castlereagh while defending himself.

Canning’s speech began by an argument so characteristic as to win the praise of John Wilson Croker, Secretary to the Admiralty,—a man less than most politicians prone to waste praise on opponents. Whitbread had quoted, in excuse of the American practice of naturalization, two Acts of Parliament,—one the 6th Anne, according to which any foreigner who served two years in any British vessel, military or merchant, without further condition or even oath, or more than the statement of the fact of service, became entitled to every protection of a natural subject of the realm. No words could be more emphatic than those of the statutes. “Such foreign mariner,” said the 6th Anne, “shall to all intents and purposes be deemed and taken to be a natural-born subject of his Majesty’s kingdom of Great Britain, and have and enjoy all the privileges, powers, rights, and capacities” which a native could enjoy. Again, by the 13th George II. every foreign seaman who in time of war served two years on board an English ship by virtue of the king’s proclamation was ipso facto naturalized. Other naturalization laws existed, guaranteeing all the privileges of a natural-born subject to foreigners under certain conditions; but the Acts of Anne and George II. were most in point, as they referred to foreign sailors alone; and with these laws on the statute-book Parliament seemed to stand in an unfavorable position for disputing the right of America to adopt a similar system. Canning’s argument on the meaning of these statutes was interesting, not only as an example of his own mind, but as the only legal justification of a long war which England fought against America at prodigious expense,—a justification which she maintained for years to be sound.

“My construction of the Acts of Anne was altogether different,” said Canning in reply to these quotations. “I understood that by it this country professed to give that only which it is competent to bestow without interfering in any degree with the rights or claims of other Powers; that it imparted to foreigners on certain conditions certain municipal privileges, but leaves untouched and unimpaired their native allegiance.... The enactments of this statute are a testimony of national gratitude to brave men of whatever country who may lend their aid in fighting the battles of Great Britain, but not an invitation to them to abandon the cause of their own country when it may want their aid; not an encouragement to them to deny or to undervalue the sacred and indestructible duty which they owe to their own sovereign and to their native soil.”

Something peculiarly sacred must have inhered in the statute of Anne which thus conferred naturalization on Dutch or Swedish seamen as “a testimony of national gratitude” for “fighting the battles of Great Britain” for two years in the British merchant service in time of peace, and converted them into citizens enjoying “all the privileges, powers, rights, and capacities” of natural-born subjects of Great Britain, which consisted, according to Canning, only in “certain municipal privileges” in England, subject to the will of a foreign sovereign. Such a definition of the “privileges, powers, rights, and capacities” of a natural-born subject of his Majesty’s kingdom of Great Britain seemed new to American lawyers; but it was received with applause by the House, and was further developed by Croker, who laid down the principle, new to the popular view of England’s pride, that the naturalized citizen, who was by the law required “to all intents and purposes” to “be deemed and taken to be a natural-born subject,” was in fact by the Admiralty “considered as having two countries,—the voluntary service of the one being looked upon as unable to debar the natural allegiance to the other.”

The rest of Canning’s speech consisted in defence of impressment and of paper blockades, and in panegyric upon European republics at the expense of “the hard features of transatlantic democracy.” While assailing the British government because “the arm which should have launched the thunderbolt was occupied in guiding the pen,” he expressed his devout wish that the war might not be concluded until England had smothered in victories the disasters to which she was so little habituated. If an harangue of this character served in any degree to guide or aid the councils of England, it served much more effectually the war-party of America, where Canning was held in singular antipathy, and where every admission he made in regard to “the shock of consternation” caused by the American frigates gave pleasure more acute than any pain his sarcastic phrases could thenceforward inflict.

Alexander Baring spoke with his usual good sense, pointing out that Castlereagh’s speech proved chiefly the greater interest of England to call for and court negotiation on the subject of impressments. Whitbread challenged public opinion by going to the verge of actual sympathy with America. The debate ended in an unopposed vote for a vigorous prosecution of the war, leaving the subject in truth untouched, except that England had avowed an extreme desire to punish America, and naturally felt an extreme irritation because America showed ability to bear punishment.

The spring came, bringing no new prospects. England refused to make a suggestion on which the governments could discuss terms of peace. She refused even to think upon the problem, but massed a huge armament in Chesapeake Bay and Delaware River to restore her naval invincibility. Yet reflection seemed still to be silently at work, for, March 22, the “Times” interrupted its outcry over the loss of the “Java” by publishing a temperate article on the new Foreign Seamen Bill of Congress,—an article in which the suggestion first appeared that peace might after all be restored by simply omitting in the pacification any mention of impressment. The idea found support nowhere; but while, insufficient as it seemed, the human imagination could hardly conceive of any other expedient, at the same moment the uselessness of trying to obtain peace on any terms was made clear by the interference of the Russian Czar.

CHAPTER II.

Napoleon declared war against Russia June 22, four days after the American declaration against England; crossed the Niemen June 24, and August 1 was already at Vitebsk, about three hundred miles south of St. Petersburg, and about equally distant from the frontier and from Moscow. There, in the heart of Russia, he paused to collect his strength for some blow that should lay the Russian empire at his feet; and while he hesitated, the Czar, August 3, returned to his capital to wait. At that moment the chances of war favored Napoleon. Nothing was more likely than his success in destroying the Russian army, and in dictating terms of peace in St. Petersburg.