HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
CHAPTER I.
During the spring and summer of 1814 the task of diplomacy was less hopeful than that of arms. Brown and Izard with extreme difficulty defended the frontier; but Gallatin and Bayard could find no starting-point for negotiation. Allowed by Castlereagh’s courtesy to visit England, they crossed the Channel in April, and established themselves in London. There Gallatin remained until June 21, waiting for the British government to act, and striving with tact, caution, and persistency to bring both governments on common ground; but the attempt was hopeless. England was beside herself with the intoxication of European success.
Although the English newspapers expressed a false idea of the general will, and were even at cross purposes with the Ministry in American matters, their tone was in some respects an indifferent barometer for measuring the elation or depression of the public temper, and exercised some influence, rather apparent than real, on the momentary attitudes of government. Had Castlereagh and his colleagues been really controlled by the press, no American peace could have been made. Whatever spirit of friendship for America might exist was necessarily silent, and only extravagant enmity found expression either in the press or in society.
Perhaps because ministers were believed to wish for peace with the United States, the London “Times,” which was not a ministerial journal, made itself conspicuous in demanding war. The “Times” had not previously shown a vindictive spirit, but it represented the Wellesley and Canning interest, which could discover no better course than that of being more English than England, and more patriotic than the Government. The “Times” was always ably written and well edited, but its language toward the United States showed too strong a connection with that of the Federalists, from whose public and private expressions the press of England formed its estimate of American character.
The “Times” indulged to excess in the pleasure of its antipathy. Next to Napoleon, the chief victim of English hatred was Madison. For so mild a man Madison possessed a remarkable faculty of exciting invective. The English press surpassed the American Federalists in their allusions to him, and the “Times” was second to no English newspaper in the energy of its vituperation. “The lunatic ravings of the philosophic statesman of Washington” were in its political category of a piece with “his spaniel-like fawning on the Emperor of Russia.[1]... The most abject of the tools of the deposed tyrant; ... doubtless he expected to be named Prince of the Potomack or Grand Duke of Virginia.”[2] The “Sun” somewhat less abusively spoke of “that contemptible wretch Madison, and his gang;”[3] but the “Times” habitually called him liar and impostor.
“Having disposed of all our enemies in Europe,” the “Times” in the middle of April turned its attention to the United States. “Let us have no cant of moderation,” was its starting-point. “There is no public feeling in the country stronger than that of indignation against the Americans; ... conduct so base, so loathsome, so hateful.... As we urged the principle, No peace with Bonaparte! so we must maintain the doctrine of, No peace with James Madison!”[4] To this rule the “Times” steadily adhered with a degree of ill-temper not easily to be described, and with practical objects freely expressed. “Mr. Madison’s dirty, swindling manœuvres in respect to Louisiana and the Floridas remain to be punished,” it declared April 27; and May 17 it pursued the idea: “He must fall a victim to the just vengeance of the Federalists. Let us persevere. Let us unmask the impostor.... Who cares about the impudence which they call a doctrine?... We shall demand indemnity.... We shall insist on security for Canada.... We shall inquire a little into the American title to Louisiana; and we shall not permit the base attack on Florida to go unpunished.” May 18 it declared that Madison had put himself on record as a liar in the cause of his Corsican master. “He has lived an impostor, and he deserves to meet the fate of a traitor. That fate now stares him in the face.” May 24 the “Times” resumed the topic: “They are struck to the heart with terror for their impending punishment; and oh may no false liberality, no mistaken lenity, no weak and cowardly policy, interpose to save them from the blow! Strike! chastise the savages, for such they are!... With Madison and his perjured set no treaty can be made, for no oath can bind them.” When British commissioners were at last announced as ready to depart for Ghent to negotiate for peace with the United States, June 2, the “Times” gave them instructions: “Our demands may be couched in a single word,—Submission!”
The “Morning Post,” a newspaper then carrying higher authority than the “Times,” used language if possible more abusive, and even discovered, Jan. 18, 1814, “a new trait in the character of the American government. Enjoying the reputation of being the most unprincipled and the most contemptible on the face of the earth, they were already known to be impervious to any noble sentiment; but it is only of late that we find them insensible of the shame of defeat, destitute even of the brutish quality of being beaten into a sense of their unworthiness and their incapacity.” Of Madison the “Morning Post” held the lowest opinion. He was “a despot in disguise; a miniature imitation” and miserable tool of Bonaparte, who wrote his Annual Message; a senseless betrayer of his country.[5]
The “Times” and “Morning Post” were independent newspapers, and spoke only for themselves; but the “Courier” was supposed to draw inspiration from the Government, and commonly received the first knowledge of ministers’ intentions. In temper the “Courier” seemed obliged to vie with its less favored rivals. The President’s Annual Message of 1813 resembled in its opinion “all the productions of that vain and vulgar Cabinet;” it was “a compound of canting and hypocrisy, of exaggeration and falsehood, of coarseness without strength, of assertions without proof, of the meanest prejudices, and of the most malignant passions; of undisguised hatred of Great Britain, and of ill-concealed partiality and servility toward France.”[6] “We know of no man for whom we feel greater contempt than for Mr. Madison,” said the “Courier” of May 24. These illustrations of what the “Courier” called “exaggeration and falsehood, of coarseness without strength, of assertions without proof, of the meanest prejudices, and of the most malignant passions” were probably in some degree a form as used by the “Courier,” which would at a hint from the Ministry adopt a different tone; but announcements of official acts and intentions were more serious, and claimed more careful attention.
Immediately after the capitulation of Paris, March 31, the Ministry turned its attention to the United States, and the “Courier” announced, April 15, that twenty thousand men were to go from the Garonne to America. Mr. Madison, the “Courier” added, had “made a pretty kettle of fish of it.” Twenty thousand men were about two thirds of Wellington’s English force, and their arrival in America would, as every Englishman believed, insure the success of the campaign. Not until these troops were embarked would the Ministry begin to negotiate; but in the middle of May the military measures were complete, and then the “Courier” began to prepare the public mind for terms of peace.