The limit of retaliation was soon reached, for the number of prisoners was small on both sides. The British government somewhat carefully refrained from committing itself too far; but the press treated the matter as though it were vital.
“If Mr. Madison,” said the “Courier” of July 24, “dare to retaliate by taking away the life of one English prisoner in revenge for a British subject fully proved to be such being taken in the act of voluntarily bearing arms against his country, America puts herself out of the protection of the law of nations, and must be treated as an outlaw. An army and navy acting against her will then be absolved from all obligation to respect the usages and laws of war. Hostilities may be carried on against her in any mode until she is brought to a proper sense of her conduct.”
The “Morning Post” of December 28 called for the execution of British subjects taken in arms, and for retaliation on retaliation in defiance of “the brutal wretches who, after betraying, are still suffered to govern America.” The “Times” of May 24 spoke with hardly less vehemence. Probably such talk was not shared by the government, for the government never tested its sincerity by bringing the men to trial; but at the close of 1813 public opinion in England was supposed to be tending toward extreme measures against the United States. The approaching fall of Napoleon threatened to throw America outside the pale of civilization. Englishmen seemed ready to accept the idea that Madison and Napoleon should be coupled together, and that no peace should be made which did not include the removal of both from office and power. Of all periods in American history this was probably the least adapted to negotiation, but while England was at the moment of her most extravagant sense of power, President Madison received and accepted Castlereagh’s offer to negotiate, and Gallatin went with Bayard to London to hasten the approach of peace.
CHAPTER XV.
Congress assembled Dec. 6, 1813, at a time of general perplexity. The victories of Perry and Harrison, September 10 and October 5, had recovered Detroit and even conquered a part of West Canada, but their successes were already dimmed by the failures of Wilkinson and Hampton before Montreal, and the retreat of both generals November 13 within United States territory. In the Creek country the Georgians had failed to advance from the east, and Jackson was stopped at Fort Strother by want of supplies and men. At sea the navy was doing little, while the British blockade from New London southward was becoming more and more ruinous to the Southern and Middle States, and through them to the government. Abroad the situation was not yet desperate. The latest news from Europe left Napoleon at Dresden, victorious for the moment, before the great battles of October. From the American commissioners at St. Petersburg no news had arrived, but England’s refusal to accept mediation was unofficially known. With this material the President was obliged to content himself in framing his Annual Message.
The Message sent to Congress December 7 began by expressing regret that the British government had disappointed the reasonable anticipation of discussing and, if possible, adjusting the rights and pretensions in dispute. From France nothing had been received on the subjects of negotiation. Madison congratulated Congress on the success of the navy upon the ocean and the Lakes, and the victory won by Harrison and R. M. Johnson in Canada. He mentioned briefly the failure of the armies on the St. Lawrence, and at greater length the success of Jackson on the Coosa; and he entered in detail into the retaliatory measures taken on either side in regard to naturalized soldiers. The finances were treated with more show of confidence than was warranted by the prospects of the Treasury; and the Message closed by a succession of paragraphs which seemed written in a spirit of panegyric upon war:—
“The war has proved moreover that our free government like other free governments, though slow in its early movements, acquires in its progress a force proportioned to its freedom; and that the Union of these States, the guardian of the freedom and safety of all and of each, is strengthened by every occasion that puts it to the test. In fine, the war with its vicissitudes is illustrating the capacity and the destiny of the United States to be a great, a flourishing, and a powerful nation.”
The rule that feeble and incompetent governments acquire strength by exercise, and especially in war, had been as well understood in 1798 as it was in 1813, and had been the chief cause of Republican antipathy to war; but had Madison publicly expressed the same sentiment in 1798 as in 1813, he would have found himself in a better position to enforce the rights for which he was struggling when the extreme discontent of nearly one third of the States contradicted his congratulations on “the daily testimony of increasing harmony throughout the Union.” Whatever the ultimate result of the war might be, it had certainly not thus far strengthened the Union. On the contrary, public opinion seemed to be rapidly taking the shape that usually preceded a rupture of friendly relations between political societies. Elections in the Middle States showed that the war, if not actually popular, had obliged the people there to support the government for fear of worse evils. New Jersey by a small majority returned to its allegiance, and the city of New York elected a Republican to represent it in Congress; but the steady drift of opinion in the Middle States toward the war was simultaneous with an equally steady drift in the Eastern States against it.
The evidences of chronic discontent in the Eastern States were notorious. Less than a month before Madison wrote his Annual Message, Governor Chittenden of Vermont, by proclamation November 10, recalled the State militia from national service:[465]
“He cannot conscientiously discharge the trust reposed in him by the voice of his fellow-citizens, and by the Constitution of this and the United States, without an unequivocal declaration that in his opinion the military strength and resources of this State must be reserved for its own defence and protection exclusively, excepting in cases provided for by the Constitution of the United States, and then under orders derived only from the commander-in-chief.”