MISSION OF FOSTER. 247 XXIV. 1811. July 2. Democratic journals, that Rodgers had sailed with orders CHAPTER to rescue by force the men lately impressed. At Foster's first interview with Monroe, the issue of any such orders was disavowed; and an inquiry, undertaken at his request, into Rodgers's conduct, having resulted in the sustentation by all his officers of Rodgers's assertion that the Little Belt fired first, he suffered the matter to drop. The opinion, notwithstanding, extensively prevailed-which, as in Berkeley's case, was very far from doing Rodgers any harm with the party in power-that he had pursued the Little Belt with the very purpose of avenging upon her the still unatoned-for attack on the Chesapeake. In finally accepting the reparation tendered by Foster-a renewed disavowal of Berkeley's orders, the restoration of the surviving seamen to the deck of the vessel from which they had been taken, and a pecuniary provision for the families of the slain-Monroe took occasion still to remark, and not without reason, that the transfer of Berkeley from one command to another could hardly be reckoned a part of the reparation, which had, indeed, been too long delayed and too punctiliously limited to appease the smart of the original insult. Foster also conceded, what Pinkney had never been able to extort, that the blockade of May, 1806, was absorbed in the orders in council, and could only be revived, should those orders be recalled, by a new notification and the detail of a sufficient blockading force. Monroe pressed, and the same facts were brought to Wellesley's notice by Smith, at London, as additional proof of the actual repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees, the release by Bonaparte of several of the American ships which, since the 1st of November, had been seized under those decrees. But to this Foster replied that those releases Nov. CHAPTER seemed to have been made on special ground; while the XXIV. decrees were spoken of, in various public acts of the 1811. French government, as still in force, and were, in fact, with these special exceptions, rigorously executed. Indeed, he seemed disposed to insist upon the entire abandonment of the whole Continental system by France as the only ground for calling on England to give up her orders. Monroe maintained, on the contrary, as Pinkney had done at London-and in this he had much the best of the argument that the United States had no right to dictate to France any special term of internal policy, or to insist that she should admit British goods or colonial produce. The only parts of the French decrees of which America had any ground to complain were those which authorized the confiscation of American vessels because they had touched at British ports, or had been visited at sea by British cruisers; and that the decrees were actually repealed so far as related to these provisions, the recent releases were cited as proof. But, while thus arguing the matter with the British, the American government was far from being satisfied with the actual position of American commerce in France. The prohibition of cotton and tobacco had, indeed, been nominally withdrawn; but every American product continued still to be laden with an enormous duty, and American vessels, besides being obliged to receive certain specified return cargoes-three quarters, at this time, in silk goods-were subjected to tedious investigations, in unusual forms, and when seized, as continually happened, their discharge could be obtained, if at all, only after great expenses and delays. There was, in fact, no safety in trading to France except under special licenses, openly advertised and sold by the French consuls at a heavy premium, in American ports. MISSION OF BARLOW. 249 XXIV. The French privateers in the North Sea and the Bal- CHAPTER tic, not restrained, like those of Great Britain, by a requirement of bonds to indemnify the merchants they 1811. might damage, captured every American vessel they met, in hopes to force a ransom or compromise. The conduct of the few French national vessels at sea was still more outrageous. Some French frigates, bound to Mauritius, had recently robbed, in succession, three innocent American ships, burning two, and sparing the third only as a means of getting rid of their prisoners. Barlow, appointed to succeed Armstrong as minister July 26. of France, lingered for some time at Washington, employed in replying, through the Intelligencer, to Smith's attacks on the cabinet. His instructions, as well as those sent after him, when at last he departed, sufficiently Nov. 21 evinced the soreness of the American government, not only on account of these grievances, but at the refusal of Bonaparte to make any compensation for the robberies under the Rambouillet decree, notwithstanding the revival of the non-importation as against England, and the disposition thus evinced by the American government to take his side, and to aid in his commercial war. At home things seemed more promising. The result of the spring elections in New England had been such as to strengthen the hands of the administration. A Boston Federal caucus, held the Sunday evening before the election of governor, as the custom then was, had vehemently denounced the new Non-importation Act then just passed, and had urged as "the only means of March 3. salvation short of an appeal to force, which Heaven avert!" "the election of such men to the various offices of the state government as would oppose by peaceable but firm measures the execution of laws which, if per XXIV. June. CHAPTER sisted in, must and would be resisted." But so far were the people of Massachusetts from responding to this ap1811. peal, that not only was Gerry re-elected governor, but the Democratic party obtained a majority in both branches of the Legislature. When that body came together, Gerry criticized with severity what he called the seditious doctrines of the Federalists; and that party was soon made to feel that the control of the state had changed hands. There were at that time but three banks in Boston, and the charters of two of them were just about to expire. These two banks, as well as the branch of the Bank of the United States just closed, controlled as they were by the Federalists, had been accused of political favoritism, and it was resolved to replace them by a new bank, with a capital of three millions of dollars, to be placed and kept under Democratic control. By way of offset to an offer of the Federalists of a bonus of $100,000. for a similar charter, the new bank was subjected to a yearly tax of one half per cent. on its capital-a scheme of taxation lately introduced in some other of the states, and the origin of that bank tax whence the state revenue of Massachusetts is now mainly derived. The inferior courts and most of the state offices were reorganized, with the view of getting rid of the Federal incumbents. The sectarian allies of the Democratic party were rewarded, and the Federalism of the Congregational clergy was punished, by a new act "respecting public worship and religious liberty," securing, against the sharp constructions of the Supreme Court, the right of tax-payers to divert their parish taxes from the Congregational minister to any other upon whose ministrations they usually attended-the greatest length on this question which even the Democratic party of Massachusetts was disposed to go. More decisive measures still were reserved for a sub NORTHWESTERN INDIANS. "Let 251 XXIV. 1811. Aug. 14. sequent session, as preparation for which Gerry pro- CHAPTER ceeded to make a general sweep of the Federal officers, thus securing Jefferson's applause "for the rasping with which he rubbed down his herd of traitors." them have justice and protection against personal violence," so Jefferson wrote to Dearborn, "but no favor. Powers and pre-eminences conferred on them are daggers put into the hands of assassins, to be plunged in our bosoms the moment the thrust can go home to the heart." If party hatred thus glowed in the breast of one hors du combat, as Jefferson described himself, what was to be expected of those engaged in the thick of the fight? The pressure of Bonaparte's commercial system, not confined to the civilized world, was felt even by the wild tribes of the North American forests. The price of furs, in consequence of their exclusion from the Continent of Europe, their chief market, had sunk so low that the Indian hunters found their means of purchase from the traders greatly curtailed. The rapid extension of settlements north of the Ohio had not only occasioned an alarming diminution of game, but, in the facilities afforded for the introduction of whisky, had inflicted a still greater evil on the Indians. Among those tribes, Delawares, Shawanese, Wyandots, Miamis, and, further to the northwest, Ottawas, Potawatomies, Kickapoos, Winnebagoes, and Chippewas, a remarkable influence had of late been established by two twin brothers of the Shawanese tribe, who possessed between them all the qualities held in greatest esteem by the Indians. Tecumseh was an orator and a warrior, active, intrepid, crafty, and unscrupulous. His brother, commonly known as The Prophet, was not only an orator, but a "medicine man" of the highest pretensions, claiming to hold direct intercourse with the Great Spirit, and to possess mirac |