The Czar’s letter of September 20 completed the embroglio, which remained unintelligible to every one except himself. Cathcart was the most mystified of all the victims to the Czar’s double attitude. At the time when Alexander thus for the second time authorized Roumanzoff to disregard the express entreaties of the British government, Cathcart was making an effort to explain to Castlereagh the Czar’s first interference. If Castlereagh understood his minister’s ideas, he was gifted with more than common penetration.
“I believe the not communicating the rescript of the Emperor concerning the American plenipotentiaries to have been the effect of accident,” wrote Cathcart[457] from Töplitz September 25; “but what is singular is that notwithstanding his [Nesselrode’s] letter of the ninth [July], by the Emperor’s command, to Count Lieven, this communication from and instruction to Roumanzoff was not known to Count Nesselrode till this day, when I mentioned it to him, having received no caution to do otherwise, and he was not at all pleased with it. It was during the advance to Dresden. But I cannot help thinking that there must have been some policy of Roumanzoff’s stated in regard to keeping hold of the mediation, which, whether it was detailed or not, would not escape the Emperor’s penetration, and upon which he may have been induced to act as far as sanctioning the proposal of treating at London under Russia’s mediation, which the Prince Regent’s government might accept or reject as they pleased; and that not wishing to go at that time into a discussion of maritime rights with either Nesselrode or me, he afterward forgot it.”
Cathcart’s style was involved, but his perplexity was evident. His remarks related only to the Czar’s first letter to Roumanzoff, written about July 20, not “during the advance to Dresden.” He knew nothing of the Czar’s second letter to Roumanzoff, dated September 20, renewing the same authority, only five days before Cathcart’s labored attempt to explain the first. Of the second letter, as of the first, neither Nesselrode nor Cathcart was informed.
The Czar’s motive in thus ordering each of his two ministers to act in ignorance and contradiction of the other’s instructions perplexed Roumanzoff as it did Cathcart. Lieven first revealed to Roumanzoff the strange misunderstanding by positively refusing to present to Castlereagh the chancellor’s note of August 28 renewing the offer of mediation. Roumanzoff was greatly mortified. He told Gallatin that the mediation had been originally the Czar’s own idea; that it had been the subject of repeated discussions at his own motion, and had been adopted notwithstanding Roumanzoff’s hints at the possibility of English reluctance.[458] The chancellor sent Lieven’s despatch immediately to the Czar without comment, requesting the Czar to read it and give his orders. The British officials, unwilling to blame Alexander, attacked Roumanzoff. Lord Walpole, who came directly from Bohemia to St. Petersburg to act as British ambassador, said “he was as sure as he was of his own existence, and he believed he could prove it, that Roumanzoff had been cheating us all.”[459] Cathcart wrote, December 12, to Castlereagh,—
“I think Nesselrode knows nothing of the delay of communicating with the American mission; that it was an intrigue of the chancellor’s, if it is one; and that during the operations of war the Emperor lost the clew to it, so that something has been unanswered.”[460]
Perhaps the Czar’s conduct admitted of several interpretations. He might wish to keep the mediation alive in order to occupy Roumanzoff until the campaign should be decided; or he might in his good nature prefer to gratify his old favorite by allowing him to do what he wished; or he took this method of signifying to Roumanzoff his disgrace and the propriety of immediate retirement. Apparently Roumanzoff took the last view, for he sent his resignation to the Czar, and at the close of the year quitted his official residence at the Department of Foreign Affairs, telling Gallatin that he remained in office only till he should receive authority to close the American mission.
The American commissioners in private resented Alexander’s treatment, but were unable to leave Russia without authority. Gallatin learned, October 19, that the Senate had refused to confirm his appointment, but he remained at St. Petersburg, chiefly in deference to Roumanzoff’s opinion, and probably with ideas of assisting the direct negotiation at London or elsewhere. Meanwhile the campaign was decided, October 18, by Napoleon’s decisive overthrow at Leipzig, which forced him to retreat behind the Rhine. Still the Czar wrote nothing to Roumanzoff, and the American commissioners remained month after month at St. Petersburg. Not until Jan. 25, 1814, did Gallatin and Bayard begin their winter journey to Amsterdam, where they arrived March 4 and remained a month. Then Gallatin received, through Baring, permission to enter England, and crossed the Channel to hasten if he could the direct negotiation which Castlereagh had offered and Madison accepted.
The diplomatic outlook had changed since March, 1813, when the President accepted the offer of Russian mediation; but the change was wholly for the worse. England’s triumphs girdled the world, and found no check except where Perry’s squadron blocked the way to Detroit. The allied armies crossed the Rhine in December and entered France on the east. At the same time Wellington after a long campaign drove Joseph from Spain, and entering France from the south pressed against Bordeaux. The government and people of England, in their excitement and exultation at daily conquests, thought as little as they could of the American war. Society rarely mentioned it. Newspapers alone preserved a record of British feelings toward the United States during the year 1813. The expressions of newspapers, like those of orators, could not be accepted without allowance, for they aimed at producing some desired effect, and said either more or less than the truth; as a rule, they represented the cool opinion neither of the person who uttered nor of the audience who heard them; but in the absence of other records, public opinion was given only in the press, and the London newspapers alone furnished evidence of its character.
The “Morning Chronicle”—the only friend of the United States in the daily press of England—showed its friendship by silence. Whatever the liberal opposition thought in private, no one but Cobbett ventured in public to oppose the war. Cobbett having become a radical at the time of life when most men become conservative, published in his “Weekly Register” many columns of vigorous criticism on the American war without apparent effect, although in truth he expressed opinions commonly held by intelligent people. Even Lord Castlereagh, Cobbett’s antipathy, shared some of Cobbett’s least popular opinions in the matter of the American war.
English society, whatever shades of diversity might exist, was frank and free in expressing indifference or contempt. Of the newspapers which made a duty of reflecting what was believed to be the prevailing public opinion, the “Times,” supposed to favor the interests of Wellesley and Canning, was probably the ablest. During the early part of the war, the “Times” showed a disposition to criticise the Ministry rather than the Americans. From the “Times” came most of the bitter complaints, widely copied by the American press, of the naval defeats suffered by the “Guerriere,” the “Java,” and the “Macedonian.” British successes were belittled, and abuse of Americans was exaggerated, in order to deprive ministers of credit. “The world has seen President Madison plunge into a war from the basest motives, and conduct it with the most entire want of ability,” said the “Times” of February 9, 1813. “The American government has sounded the lowest depth of military disgrace, insomuch that the official records of the campaign take from us all possibility of exulting in our victories over such an enemy.” The “Times” found in such reflections a reason for not exulting in ministerial victories, but it bewailed defeats the more loudly, and annoyed the Ministry by the violence of its attacks on naval administration.