ROBERT SMITH TO GALLATIN.
Baltimore, August 1, 1808.
Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 29th, with the enclosures, I have received. The letters of General Dearborn and Lincoln I have forwarded to the President. The requisite orders will go without delay to the commanders of the Chesapeake, the Wasp, and the Argus. Most fervently ought we to pray to be relieved from the various embarrassments of this said embargo. Upon it there will in some of the States, in the course of the next two months, assuredly be engendered monsters. Would that we could be placed upon proper ground for calling in this mischief-making busybody.
Even in his own family Mr. Gallatin maintained perfect silence on this point. The use of arbitrary, odious, and dangerous means having been decided upon by his party and by Congress, and he being the instrument to employ these means, he did employ them as conscientiously as he had formerly opposed them, not because they were his own choice, but because he could see no alternative. Not even war was clearly open to him, for it was impossible to say which of the two belligerents he ought to make responsible for the situation. How obnoxious the embargo was to him can only be seen in his allusions to its effects: “From present appearances,” he wrote to his wife on June 29, 1808, “the Federalists will turn us out by 4th March next;” and on the 8th July, “As to my Presidential fears, they arise from the pressure of the embargo and divisions of the Republicans. I think that Vermont is lost; New Hampshire is in a bad neighborhood, and Pennsylvania is extremely doubtful. But I would not even suggest such ideas so that they should go abroad.” But he suggested them to the President on the 6th August: “I deeply regret to see my incessant efforts in every direction to carry the law into effect defeated in so many quarters, and that we will probably produce, at least on the British, but an inconsiderable effect by a measure which at the same time threatens to destroy the Republican interest. For there is almost an equal chance that if propositions from Great Britain, or other events, do not put it in our power to raise the embargo before the 1st of October, we will lose the Presidential election. I think that at this moment the Western States, Virginia, South Carolina, and perhaps Georgia, are the only sound States, and that we will have a doubtful contest in every other. The consciousness of having done what was right in itself is doubtless sufficient; but for the inefficacy of the measure on the lakes and to the northward there is no consolation; and that circumstance is the strongest argument that can be brought against the measure itself.”
These fears proved ungrounded; Mr. Madison was elected by a large majority, and only the New England States reverted to opposition; but New England was on the verge of adopting the ground taken by Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison ten years before, and declaring the embargo, as they had declared the sedition law, unconstitutional, null, and void. Mr. Canning treated the embargo with sarcastic and patronizing contempt as a foolish policy, which he regretted because it was very inconvenient to the Americans. As an “engine for national purposes” it had utterly failed, but no one was agreed what to do next.
GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.
Washington, July, 1808.
I enclose a National Intelligencer, one paragraph of which, together with the Bayonne decree, contains the substance of the intelligence. The last we have not officially. I think the aspect of affairs unfavorable. England seems to rely on our own divisions and on the aggressions of France as sufficient to force us into a change of measures, perhaps war with France, without any previous reparation or relaxation on her part. Of the real views of the French Emperor nothing more is known than what appears on the face of his decrees and in his acts; and these manifest, in my opinion, either a deep resentment because we would not make war against England, or a wish to seek a quarrel with us. Between the two our situation is extremely critical, and I believe that poor, limited human wisdom can do and will do but little to extricate us. Yet I do not feel despondent, for so long as we adhere strictly to justice towards all, I have a perfect reliance on the continued protection of that Providence which has raised us and blessed us as a nation. But we have been too happy and too prosperous, and we consider as great misfortunes some privations and a share in the general calamities of the world. Compared with other nations, our share is indeed very small....
GALLATIN TO JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON.
Washington, 18th October, 1808.