XXII. CHAPTER if possible, by a show of spirit, that standing and credit with their own party, somewhat damaged of late by the 1809. coming to light of the secret history of the Erskine negotiation. This policy, co-operating with natural vexaNov. 1. tion at this new rebuff, prompted Smith's next letter, in which Jackson was informed that his repetition of language implying a knowledge, on the part of the American government, that Erskine had no authority for the arrangement he had made, and that, too, after the explicit denial of any such knowledge, and the declaration that with such knowledge the arrangement would not have been made, amounted to an insinuation inadmissi ble, on the part of a foreign minister, by a government understanding what it owed to itself. Nov. 4. Nov. 8. Nov. 13. To In reply, Jackson asserted that he had carefully avoided drawing conclusions which did not necessarily follow from his premises, nor should he think of uttering an insinuation where he could not substantiate a fact. facts, as they had become known to him, he had scrupulously adhered; and so doing, he should continue to vindicate, according to his own best judgment, the good faith of his government whenever called in question. This answer was construed by Smith into a reiteration and even aggravation of the offense already complained of; and he proceeded to add that to preclude opportunities thus abused, no other course remained but to refuse, as preliminary to an application for his recall, to receive from him any further communications. Jackson responded through Oakley, his secretary of legation, expressing his regret that his stating and adhering to two facts-one admitted by the American government, their knowledge, namely, of the three conditions; the other known to him from his own instructions, the fact that Erskine had no other authority-should have BREACH WITH JACKSON. 193 XXII. afforded a sufficient motive for breaking off an import- CHAPTER ant negotiation, as to one point of which, his offer of reparation for the affair of the Chesapeake, no answer 1809. had yet been given. He could not have imagined that offense would be taken at his stating and adhering to these facts as his duty had required, and most certainly none was intended. As it was, he had no alternative but to withdraw from the seat of the American government, and to await the orders of his own, which he should do at New York. Alleging as reasons the insults encountered at Hampton, where he had landed, by the officers of the frigate which brought him, and instigations to personal violence upon himself, which had lately appeared in several newspapers, he had already asked, through Oakley (as the Democratic papers said, merely for effect), special passports for himself, family, and servants. He also addressed a circular to the British consuls, notifying the suspension of his functions and his retirement to New York, and containing a transcript of his last communication through Oakley-a proceeding charged against him by the Democratic papers as an imitation of the conduct of Genet in appealing to the people against the government, such, it was said, being the real object of his circular. It is plain that Jackson was little disposed, in fact, that he was resolutely bent not to aid the American government in defending itself against the charge urged in some of the Federal newspapers of having drawn Erskine into an arrangement which they knew he had no authority to make. But it is by no means so clear that any such insinuation as Smith alleged was contained in Jackson's correspondence; at least if there was, Smith himself, by the same rules of interpretation, had previously been guilty of a like indecorum, in reiterating, notwithstand XXII. CHAPTER ing Jackson's explicit denials, the suggestion that Erskine had two sets of instructions. However that might 1809. be, this breach with Jackson had at least one convenient effect; it called off public attention to a side issue, in which the government stood in an attitude more agree able to the national pride than the one in which they were presented by the unsuccessful Erskine negotiation. It was, indeed, the misfortune of Madison's cabinet not to be able to urge, without condemning their own previous and present policy, the best argument in favor of that arrangement, and perhaps a leading motive to itthe benefit it had proved, even during the short period of its existence, in having allowed the exportation to a profitable market of the great mass of products accumu lated during the embargo. Yet the commerce thus set loose, as well as that which, notwithstanding the American Non-importation Act, the French decrees, and the British orders, still continued to be carried on, was obliged to run many and great risks. The example of plunder set by the great powers had not failed of humbler imitators. Hungry Danish privateers swarmed in the North and Baltic Seas, and the petty Danish prize courts, eager to share the spoils, emulated the French Council of Prizes in confiscating American vessels on the most frivolous pretenses. Nor were the French privateers idle. In addition to forty-eight American vessels, with their cargoes, condemned within two years past by the royal Council of Prizes at Paris, a long list of other cases was still depending. From the difficulty of getting in captured vessels, they were sometimes plundered and then burned. Sometimes they were allowed to ransom themselves by bills drawn on the correspondents of the owners. On shore the dangers were still greater than at sea. In a statement to Armstrong of PERILS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE. 195 XXII. 1809. Aug. 22. "the invariable principles" of France in relation to neu- CHAPTER trals, Champagny had recently declared that the Continental powers leagued against England would make (that is, would be compelled to make) common cause; and that the ports of Holland, the Elbe, the Weser, of Italy and Spain, left open by the American Non-importation Act, and in part by the modified British orders, would not be allowed to enjoy any commercial advantages of which France herself was deprived. New French successes made these threats truly for midable. A revolution in Sweden, resulting in the dethronement of Gustavus, and in the subsequent election of Bernadotte as crown prince, had brought that country, too, within the range of French alliance. The fourth attempt of Austria to make head against France, speedily brought to a close at Esling and Wagram, had ended in her complete humiliation, followed not long after, by the marriage of Bonaparte to a daughter of the Austrian family. The Pope had been stripped of his temporal power, and his states added to the French empire, which now extended, directly or indirectly, over the whole of Italy, including also, the eastern coast of the Adriatic. Much of the sea-coast of Spain had passed back into French hands. Notwithstanding the recent landing of a second British army in the Spanish peninsula, led now by Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, the probability seemed strong that the Spanish insurrection would be entirely crushed. The empire of Bonaparte thus still expanding, and the accommodation with Great Britain being entirely at an end, Turreau was persuaded to withdraw his late insolent letter, which disappeared from the files of the State Department, and only came to light in consequence of cabinet quarrels to be hereafter related. XXIII. CHAPTER XXIII. SECOND SESSION OF THE ELEVENTH CONGRESS. SUSPEN CHAPTER THE president's message to the reassembled Congress, with which was sent a large mass of papers relating to 1809. the recent negotiations, was almost exclusively occupied Nov. 29. with foreign affairs. Giles, who continued to act as Dec. 5. leader for the administration, introduced into the Senate a series of resolutions sustaining the course taken with Jackson, whose alleged insolence and his circular to the consuls he denounced in very rude terms. In curious contrast with his own course ten years before, he now zealously inculcated the benefits and the duty of union and co-operation, going even so far as to maintain the obligation of the minority, in cases of disputes with foreign nations, to support their own government, right or wrong. No senator spoke against these resolutions, and they passed with only four dissenting votes; but in the House they encountered a warm opposition. Former passiveness under the insolence of Yrujo and Turreau was sarcastically contrasted with the extreme sensitiveness exhibited in Jackson's case, at a merely constructive, if not, indeed, an imaginary insult. The Federalists |