structions written by the secretary of state, to make
the abandonment of impressment the first condi-
tion of a treaty. A treaty, nevertheless, was agreed
THE EMBARGO 263
upon, without this provision. But when it was sent
to the President, the ministers exj^lained ; —
"That, although this government [the British] did
not feel at liberty to relinquish, formally, by treaty, its
claim to search our merchant vessels for British seamen,
its practice would nevertheless be essentially, if not com-
pletely, abandoned. That opinion has since been con-
firmed by frequent conferences on the subject with the
British commissioners, who have repeatedly assured us
that, in their judgment, we were made as sure against
the exercise of their pretension by the policy which their
government had adopted in regard to that very delicate
and important question, as we could have been made by
treaty."
These assurances did not satisfy the President.
Without consulting the Senate, though Congress
was in session when the treaty was received, and
although the Senate had been previously informed
that one had been agreed upon, the President
rejected it. On several other points it was not
accejitable ; but, as Mr. Madison wrote to a friend,
*' the case of impressments particularly having
been brought to a formal issue, and having been
the primary object of an extraordinary mission,
a treaty could not be closed which was silent on
that subject." The commissioners, therefore, were
ordered to renew negotiations. This they faith-
fully tried to do for a year, but were finally told by
the British minister that a treaty once concluded
and signed, but afterward rejected in part by one
of the contracting powers, could not again be taken
264 JAMES MADISON
up for consideration. The opponents of tlie ad-
ministration made tlie most of this action of Mr.
Jefferson. The country was not permitted to for-
get, even were forgetfuhiess possible, that thousands
of seamen had been taken from American vessels,
and that the larger proportion of these were native-
born citizens of the United States. Not that these
opponents wanted war ; that, they believed, would
be ruinous without a navy, and therefore some
reasonable compromise was all that could be hoped
for. But what was to be thought of an adminis-
tration that would not go to war because it was
not prepared ; would not prepare in the hope that
some future conjunction of circumstances would
stave off that last resort; and, meanwhile, would
accept no terms wdiich might at least mitigate the
injuries visited upon the sea-faring people of the
United States, and possibly relieve the nation from
an insolent exercise of power which it was not
strong: enouo^h to resent ?
As England's need of seamen increased, the
captains of her cruisers, encouraged by the failure
of negotiation, grew bolder in overhauling Amer-
ican ships and taking out as many men as they
believed, or pretended to believe, were deserters.
In the summer of 1807 an outrage was perpetrated
on the frigate Chesapeake, as if to emphasize
the contempt with which a nation must be looked
upon which only screamed like a woman at wrongs
which it wanted the courage and strength to resent,
or the wisdom to compound for. The Chesapeake
THE EMBARGO 265
was followed out of tlie harbor of Norfolk by the
British man-of-war Leopard, and when a few miles
at sea, the Chesapeake being brought to under the
pretense that the English captain wished to put
some dispatches on board for Europe, a demand
was made for certain deserters supposed to be on
the American frigate. Commodore Barron replied
that he knew of no deserters on his ship, and that
he could permit no search to be made, even if there
were. After some further altercation the English-
man fired a broadside, killing and wounding a
number of the Chesapeake's crew. Commodore
Barron could do nothing else but surrender, for
he had only a single gun in readiness for use, and
that was fired only once and then with a coal from
the cook's galley. The ship was then boarded, the
crew mustered, and four men arrested as deserters.
Three of them were negroes, — two natives of the
United States, the other of South America. The
fourth man, probably, was an Englishman. They
were all deserters from English men-of-war lying
off Norfolk ; but the three negroes declared that
they had been kidnaped, and their right to escape
could not be justly questioned ; indeed, the English
afterward took this view of it apparently, for the
men were released on the arrival of the Leopard at
Halifax. But the fourth man was hanged.
For this direct national insult, explanation, apo-
logy, and reparation were demanded, and at the
same time the President put forth a proclamation
forbidding all British ships of war to remain in
266 JAMES MADISON
Aaierlcan waters. Of how mucli use the latter
was we learn from a letter of Madison to Monroe :
" They continue to defy it," he wrote, " not only
by remaining within our waters, but by chasing
merchant vessels arriving and departing." Some
preparation was made for war, but it was only to
call upon the militia to be in readiness, and to
order Mr. Jefferson's gunboats to the most ex-
posed ports. Great Britain was not alarmed. The
captain of the Leopard, indeed, was removed from
his command, as having exceeded his duty ; but a
proclamation on that side was also issued, requiring
all ships of war to seize British seamen on board
foreign merchantmen, to demand them from for-
eign ships of war, and if the demand was refused
to report the fact to the admiral of the fleet. It
was not till after four years of irritating contro-
versy that any settlement was reached in regard to
the affair of the Chesajjeake.
New perils all the while were besetting Amer-
ican commerce. In November, 1806, Napoleon's
Berlin decree was promulgated, forbidding the
introduction into France of the products of Great
Britain and her colonies, whether in her own ships
or those of other nations. This was in violation
of the convention between France and the United
States, if it was meant that American vessels
should come under the prohibition ; but for a time
there was some hope that they might be excepted.
In the course of the year, however, it was officially
declared in Paris that the treaty would not be
THE EMBARGO 267
allowed to weaken the force of a war measure
aimed at Great Britain. Under this decision, car-
goes already seized were confiscated and the trade
of the United States faced a new calamity. The
decree, it was declared, was a rightful retaliation
of a British order in council of six months be-
fore, which had established a partial blockade of
a portion of the French coast. In the kidnaping
business, France could not, of course, compete
with England ; for there were few of her citizens
to be found on board of American vessels, and to
seize a Yankee sailor, under the pretense that he
was a Frenchman, was an absurdity never thought
of. But hundreds of Americans, the crews of ships
seized for violation of the terms of the Berlin de-
cree, were thrown into French prisons. So far,
therefore, as the United States had good ground of
complaint on any score against either power, there
was little to choose between them. Mr. Jefferson's
repugnance to war was sufficient to hold him back
from one with England, though he might have had
France for an ally ; still more unwilling was he, by
a war with France, to make a friend of England,
whom he still looked upon as the natural enemy of
the United States; for, notwithstanding all that
had come and gone, he still regarded France with
something of the old affection. In the autumn of
1807 he called a special session of Congress in con-
sideration of the increasing aggressions of Great
Britain, especially in the attack upon the Chesa-
peake, and the injury done by the interdiction of
268 JAMES MADISON
neutral trade with any country with which that
power was at war. But he had no recommenda-
tions to offer of resistance nor even of defense,
except that some additions be made to the gun-
boats, and that sailors on shore be enrolled as a
sort of gunboat militia. The probable real pur-
pose of calling the extra session, however, appeared
in about two weeks, when he sent a special mes-
sage to the Senate recommending an embargo.
An act was almost immediately passed which,
if anything more was needed to complete the ruin
of American commerce, supplied that deficiency.
A month before this time the English ministry had
issued a new order in council — the news of which
reached Jefferson as he was about to send in his
message — proclaiming a blockade of pretty much
all Europe, and forbidding any trade in neutral
vessels unless they had first gone into some British
port and paid duties on their cargoes ; and within
twenty - four hours of the President's message
recommending the embargo. Napoleon proclaimed
a new decree from Milan, by which it was declared
that any ship was lawful prize that had anything
whatever to do with Great Britain, — that should
pay it tribute, that should carry its merchandise,
that should be bound either to or from any of its
ports. All that these powders could do to shut
every trading vessel out of all European ports was
now done ; and at this opportune moment Mr.
Jefferson came to their aid by compelling all
American vessels to stay at home. It is not easy
THE EMBARGO 269
in our time to conceive of a President proposing,
or of a party accepting, or of the people submit-
ting to, such a measure as this. But Mr. Jeffer-
son's followers were very obedient, and there was,
undoubtedly, a very general belief that trade with
the United States was so important to the nations
at war that for the sake of its renewal the obnox-
ious decrees and orders in council would soon be
repealed. But, except upon certain manufacturers
in England, little influence was visible. General
Armstrong, the American minister in France,
wrote : " Here it is not felt ; and in England, amid
the more recent and interesting events of the day,
it is forgotten." When, however, the effect was
evident at home of a law forbidding any American
vessels from going to sea, even to catch fish, and
prohibiting the export of any of the pi'oducts
of the United States, either in their own ships or
those of any other country, then there arose a
popular clamor for the abandonment of a policy
so ruinous. Within four months of its enactment,
Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts declared, in a
debate in Congress, that " an experiment such as
is now making was never before — I will not say
tried — it never before entered into the human
imaoination. There is nothino: like it in the nar-
rations of history or in the tales of fiction. All
the habits of a mighty nation are at once counter-
acted. All their property depreciated. All their
external connections violated. Five millions of
people are engaged. They cannot go beyond the
270 JAMES MADISON
limits of that once free country ; now they are
not even permitted to thrust their own property
through the grates." While American ships at
home were kejit there, those which had remained
abroad to escape the embargo were met by a new
peril. Some of them were in French ports await-
ing a turn in affairs ; others ventured to load with
English goods in English ports, to be landed in
France under the pretense, supported by fraudu-
lent papers, that they were direct from the United
States or other neutral country. The fraud was
too transparent to escape detection long, and Na-
poleon thereupon issued, in the spring of 1808, the
Bayonne decree authorizing the seizure and confis-
cation of all American vessels. They were either
English or American, he said ; if the former, they
were enemy's ships and liable to capture ; but if
the latter, they should be at home, and he was only
enforcing the embargo law of the United States,
which she ought to thank him for.
The prosperity and tranquillity which marked
the earlier j^ears of Jefferson's administration dis-
appeared in its last year. Congress, both in its
spring and winter sessions, could talk of little else
but the disastrous embargo ; proposing, on the one
hand, to make it the more stringent by an enforce-
ment act, and, on the other, to substitute for it
non-intercourse with England and France, restor-
ing trade with the rest of the world, and leaving
the question of decrees and orders in council open
for future consideration. The President no longer
THE EMBARGO 271
held his party under perfect controL The mis-
chievous results of the embargo policy were evi-
dent enough to a sufficient number of Republicans
to secure in February, 1809, the repeal of that
measure, to take effect the next month as to all
countries except England and France, and, with
regard to them, at the adjournment of the next
Congress. But the prohibition of importation from
both these latter countries was continued till the
obnoxious orders in council and the decrees should
be repealed.
CHAPTER XVIII
MADISON AS PRESIDENT
Mr. Jefferson named his own successor. Of
the three Democratic candidates, Madison, Mon-
roe, and George Clinton, he preferred Madison
now, and urged Monroe to wait patiently as next
in succession. Beyond two lives he did not, per-
haps, think proper to dictate ; and, besides, Clinton
was not a Virginian. What little opposition there
was to Madison in his own party came from those
who feared that he was too thoroughly identified
with Jefferson's policy to untie the knot in which
the foreign relations of the country had become
entangled. Of the 175 electoral votes, however,
he received 122 ; but that was fewer by 39 than
had been cast for Jefferson four years before.
Of the New England States, Vermont alone gave
him its votes, changing places with Rhode Island,
which had wheeled into line again with the Fed-
eralists.
During the winter of 1808-9, after Madison's
election but before his inauguration, he had qui-
etly conferred with Erskine, the British minis-
ter at Washington, upon the condition of affairs.
Much was hoped from these conferences ; but the
MADISON AS PRESIDENT 273
end which they helped to bring about was the
reverse of what was hoped for. Could Madison
have had his way, he would probably have pre-
ferred that Congress should have left untouched
at that session the questions of embargo and non-
intercourse ; for the tone of the debates and the
tendency of legislation naturally led the English
ministry to doubt the assurances which Erskine
gave that these proceedings did not tridy represent
the friendly disposition of the incoming President.
In answer to those representations, however, there
came in April from Canning, the foreign secre-
tary, certain propositions which were so presented
by Erskine, and so received by the administra-
tion, as to promise a settlement of all differences
between the two governments. Erskine was a
young man, anxious very likely for distinction;
but a laudable ambition to be of service in a
good cause made him over-zealous. He exceeded
the letter of his instructions, while keeping, as he
thought, to their spirit. Probably he mistook their
spirit in assuming that his government cared more
to secure a settlement of existing difficulties than
for the precise terms and minor details by which
it should be reached. At any rate, he agreed that
Great Britain would withdraw her orders in coun-
cil provided the United States would maintain the
non-intercourse acts against France so long as the
Berlin and Milan decrees remained in force. This
being secured, he did not insist upon two other
conditions — partly because it was represented to
274 JAMES MADISON
him that they would need some action by Congress,
and partly because he believed that the essential
point was gained by an agreement on the part of the
United States to enforce nou-intercourse against
France while her decrees were unrepealed. These
other conditions were, first, that the United States
should cease to insist upon the right to carry on
in time of war the colonial trade of a belligerent
which had not been open in time of peace to
neutrals ; and, second, the acknowledgment that
British men-of-war might rightfully seize Amer-
ican merchant vessels when transgressing the non-
intercourse laws against France. He also proposed
a settlement of the Chesapeake question, but omit-
ted to say, as Canning had instructed him to say,
that some provision would be made, as an act of
generosity and not of right, for the wives and chil-
dren of the men who were killed on board that
ship. But when that settlement was accepted by
the administration, he failed to resent some reflec-
tions from Kobert Smith, the secretary of state, on
the conduct of Great Britain in that affair, which
Canning, when he heard of them, thought should
have been resented and their recall demanded, or
the negotiation stopped.
On the terms, however, as Erskine chose to
present them, an agreement was reached, and the
President issued a proclamation repealing the acts
of embargo and non-intercourse as against Great
Britain and her colonies after June 10. On that
day more than a thousand ships, loaded and riding
MADISON AS PRESIDENT 275
at anchor in all the principal ports in anxious
readiness for the signal for flight, spread their
wings, like a flock of long-imprisoned birds, and
flew out to sea. There was an almost universal
shout of gratitude to the new President, who, in
the first three months of his administration, had
banished the fear of war abroad, and at home was
sweeping away involuntary idleness, want, and
ominous discontent. Madison had known some-
thing of popularity during his long career; but
never before had he felt the exultation of riding
upon the very crest of a mighty wave of popular
applause. But it was one of those waves that
collapse suddenly into a surprising flatness. Can-
ning repudiated all that Erskine had done and
immediately recalled him. The ships that had
gone to sea, under the sanction of the President's
proclamation, were permitted by an order in coun-
cil to complete their voyages unmolested ; but
otherwise all commerce was once more brousfht to
a standstill. It would have been easier to bear
some fresh misfortune than to be compelled to
struggle again with calamities so well understood
and which it was hoped had been left behind for-
ever. Gallatin had been retained in the Treasury
Department and was the President's chief adviser,
and the two were now accused of having been
either imbecile or treacherous. It was openly said
that they had led the young minister to agree
to an arrangement which they knew his govern'
ment would not sanction. But they could hardly
276 JAMES MADISON
have been so .foolish as to make a bargain with the
certainty that it would stand only so long as a ship
could go and come across the Atlantic. Nobody
understood better than Madison how grateful a
reconciliation with England would be to a large
proportion of the people, and nobody was more
disappointed that the negotiations came to worse
than nothing, inasmuch as their failure led to new
embarrassments.
He said with some bitterness, in a letter to Jef-
ferson, early in August: ''You will see by the
instructions to Erskine, as published by Canning,
that the latter was as much determined that there
should be no adjustment as the former was that
there should be one." He was unjust to Canning;
the real fault was with Erskine, and with him only
because his zeal outran his judgment. In another
letter to Jefferson, the President says : " Erskine
is in a ticklish situation with his g'overnment. I
suspect he will not be able to defend himself against
the charges of exceeding his instructions, notwith-
standing the appeal he makes to sundry others not
published. But he will make out a strong case
against Canning, and be able to avail himself
much of the absurdity and evident inadmissibility
of the articles disregarded by him." Possibly Mr.
Erskine considered that his government would aj)-
prove of his not urging these points too earnestly,
inasmuch as the other side refrained from insistinf;
upon the abandonment of impressment of seamen
on board American ships. But Mr. Madison's
MADISON AS PRESIDENT 277
indignation must have covered up a good deal of
mortification. He could hardly have been without
the sensation of one hoisted by his own petard. It
was only two years since Mr. Jefferson, with his
approval, had rejected the Monroe-Pinkney treaty
because instructions had not been literally com-
plied with. Mr. Canning, in following that exam-
ple, could have pleaded, had he chosen, much the
stronger justification, under the circumstances of
the two cases ; and Mr. Madison could not fail to
remember, without being reminded of it, when this
agreement was thrown back in his face, that he
had been willing to accept it without any protec-
tion of the rights of American seamen, the want of
which was the ostensible reason for rejecting the
Monroe-Pinkney treaty.
However, the administration was now compelled
to meet anew the old difficulties which the Erskine
agreement had failed to dispose of. The Presi-
dent's first duty was to issue a second proclama-
tion, recalling the previous one which had sent to
sea every American ship in port. They could all
come back, if they would, to be made fast again
at their wharves, till the recurrent tides at last
should ripple in and out of their open seams, and
their yards and masts drop piecemeal upon the
rotting decks. But many never came back, pre-
ferring rather the risk of being sunk or burned
at sea, which happened to not a few, or of cap-
ture and confiscation by the belligerents whose
laws they defied. Erskine was followed by a new
278 JAMES MADISON
ambassador from England, Mr. Jackson. His mis-
sion, however, had no other result than to widen
the breach between the two nations. A contro-
versy almost immediately arose between the min-
ister and Mr. Smith, the secretary of state, — or
rather Mr. Madison himself, who, as he complained
at a later period, did most of Smith's work as
well as his own, — touching the arrangement with
Erskine. Jackson intimated, or was understood
as intimating, that the administration must have
known the precise terms on which Erskine was
empowered to treat with the government of the
United States ; and when a denial was made with
a good deal of emphasis on the part of the admin-
istration, the insinuation was repeated almost as a
direct charo^e. Of course there could be but one
conclusion to correspondence of this sort ; further
communication with Jackson was declined and his
recall asked for.
It was plain enough in the latter months of
Jefferson's administration, to himself as well as to
everybody else, that the embargo had not only
failed to bring the belligerents to terms abroad,
but that it had added greatly to the distress at
home. That the measure was a failure, Madison
himself acknowledged in one of his retrospective
letters written in the retirement of Montpellier,
sixteen years afterward. It was meant, he said in
that letter, as an experimental measure, preferable
to naked submission or to war at a time when war
was inexpedient. It failed, he added, " because
MADISON AS PRESIDENT 279
the government did not sufficiently distrust those
in a certain quarter whose successful violation of
the law led to the general discontent, which called
for its repeal." That is to say, the government
relied too confidently upon the submission of New
England ; was too ready to believe that her mer-
chants would not let their ships slip quietly out to
sea whenever they could evade the officers of the
customs, nor slip in to land a cargo at some unfre-
quented place where there was no custom-house.
" The patriotic fishermen of Marblehead," he says,
" at one time offered their services ; " and he regrets
they were not sent out as privateers to seize these
contraband ships as prizes, and to " carry them into
ports where the tribunals would enforce the law."
Apparently there was not a reasonable doubt in
his mind whether such tribunals could be found in
any port along the coast of New England. It is
also rather more than doubtful — even assuming
that there was much of the kind of patriotism
which he says existed in Marblehead — how long,
had the government offered commissions to private
citizens to prey upon their neighbors, the embargo
would have been respected at all east of Long