XXVI. CHAPTER spoken in the late elections. There were in New England multitudes of judicious, patriotic, honest, sober men, 1813. who, if their judgments and their consciences went with the war, would rush to the standard of their country at the winding of a horn, but to whom the present call sounded rather as a jew's-harp or a banjo. The leaders in Congress might, indeed, shelter themselves under the charge of passion, ignorance, and inexperience, but it was not so with the administration. The cabinet had plunged into the war against its inclination and its judgment, to keep itself in place-a natural termination of that policy of stimulating antipathy to Great Britain by which it had gained and had kept its power. That administration, itself under French influence and dictation, had, for twelve years, ruled the country with authority little short of despotic, composed, all the while, to all efficient purposes, of two Virginians and a foreigner; he ought, perhaps, in strictness, to say of three Virginians, since during the twelve years there had been a change in one of the characters. But there had been no change in the spirit and policy of the cabinet, whose leading object it seemed to be, and for the sake of which they had suffered themselves to be forced into this war, to perpetuate power in the hands of a narrow Virginia clique, to the exclusion from office and influence of all men of talents, even of their own party, not connected with that clique. The successorship of Monroe was already as decidedly fixed upon and familiarly talked of as Madison's had been during Jefferson's reign; and, as a stepping-stone to it, they were now about to make him generalissimo of their army-an army of "choice spirits," likely enough, if they conquered Canada, to cut it into lordships and dukedoms for themselves. up If the government would confine itself to a war of de XXVI. fense, it should have his support; but for a war of con- CHAPTER quest and annexation, whether in East Florida or Canada, he would not contribute a single dollar, Nor was 1813. he to be frightened from this ground by the old stale cry of British connection, raised anew by a pack of mangy, mongrel blood-hounds, for the most part of very recent importation, kept in pay by the administration to hunt down all who opposed the court, their necks still marked with the collar, and their backs sore with the stripes of European castigation. To this sarcastic and contemptuous speech it devolved upon Mr. Speaker Clay to reply, as well on behalf of the "unfledged politicians," at whose head he stood, as of the administration, forced by those politicians into the war. Imbodying, in his forcible manner, of which the printed reports of his speeches convey but a faint idea, the commonplaces of the Democratic newspapers, Clay charged the Federalists with having always, throughout the whole controversy with Great Britain, thwarted the plans of their own government; clamoring alike against the embargo, against the non-intercourse, against the non-importation; when the government were for peace, crying out for war; and now the government were at war, crying out for peace; falsely charging the president with being under French influence; heaping all kinds of abuse on Bonaparte; assailing Jefferson with impotent rage; spiriting up chimeras of Southern influence and Virginia dictation, as if the people did not choose their own presidents; going even so far as to plot the dissolution of the Union; to which he added pointed personal allusions to Quincy, whom he stigmatized as soiling the carpet on which he trod. Even admitting that, had the repeal of the orders in council been known in America, the war would not have CHAPTER been declared, that was no reason for not going on with XXVI. it now till all our other injuries were redressed. What1813. ever claim Great Britain might have to the service of her own sailors, or whatever right to enforce it-topics into which he did not propose to enter-no such claim and right, even though her existence might be involved in their enforcement, would justify her in sending her press-gangs into our ships, and there seizing our seamen, native as well as naturalized, and dragging them into a life of slavery in her service; and Clay's high-wrought picture of the wrongs and miseries thus endured drew tears from many of his audience. To make peace without some provision to guard the rights of our sailors, would be to abandon those rights, and to yield to the British claim. As to the gentleman's sentimental protest against the invasion of Canada, was Canada so innocent after all? Was it not in Canada that the Indian tomahawks were whetted? Was it not from Malden and other Canadian magazines that the supplies had issued which had enabled the savage bands to butcher the garrison of Chicago? Was it not by a joint attack of Canadians and Indians that Michilimackinac had been reduced? What does a state of war present? The combined energies of one people arrayed against the combined energies of another, each aiming to inflict all the injury it can, whether by sea or land, upon the territories, property, and persons of the other, subject only to those mitigating usages practiced among civilized nations. The gentleman would not touch the British Continental possessions, nor, for the same reason, it was to be supposed, her West India isl ands; by the same rule, her innocent soldiers and sailors ought to be protected; and as, according to a wellknown maxim, the king could do no wrong, there would CHANGES IN THE CABINET. 885 XXVI. seem to be nobody left whom, on the gentleman's prin- CHAPTER ciples, we could attack, unless it were Mr. Stephen, the reputed author of the orders in council, or the Board 1813. of Admiralty, under whose authority our seamen were impressed. case. The administration had erred, in his opinion, not from too little solicitude for peace, but in betraying too great anxiety for it. An honorable peace was only to be obtained by an efficient war. The disasters on the frontier-except those of Hull's army, of which he could not trust himself to speak-had arisen, not from want of courage or military capacity, but from lack of discipline and experience. His plan would be to call out the ample resources of the country to the fullest extent, to strike wherever the enemy could be reached, by sea or land, and to negotiate a peace at Quebec or Halifax. Here, indeed, Clay touched a very weak point of his He and his war friends had been able to force a peace cabinet unwillingly into war; but the conduct of that war—and this was one of the most serious objections to it still remained in the hands of that same peace cabinet, not one of whose members was at all adapted, either by enterprise, energy, knowledge, or enthusiasm, for its successful prosecution. Eustis, indeed, in consequence of the increased clamor against him, had been persuaded to resign, and the duties of the War Department had been discharged for several weeks by Monroe, on whose suggestions the chief military bills of the session had been framed. Hamilton had been dismissed from the Navy Department to make way for William Jones, himself once a ship-master, a merchant, and active politician of Philadelphia, late commissary of purchases for the army. A few days after Quincy's speech, perhaps in consequence of it, Armstrong was appointed to the VI.-B B XXVI. CHAPTER War Department. His pretensions to military knowledge were high; but an invincible indolence unfitted 1813. him for so laborious a station; nor did he enjoy the confidence of the president and of Monroe, by whom he seems to have been looked upon as a future New York candidate for the presidency, likely to interfere with the Virginia succession. It was, perhaps, quite as much a want of confidence in Monroe's military ability, as Quincy's premature disclosures, which defeated the project of a generalissimo. Williams, indeed, as chairman of the military committee, somewhat tardily denied that any such project had been entertained, but this declaration was far from impressing the public with very implicit belief. The course to be taken as to the large amount of merchandise imported from England, in violation of the Nonimportation Act, provoked a discussion hardly less violent than that on the war. Immediately upon the repeal of the British orders in council (June 23, 1812), all the American ships then in British ports had commenced loading with British merchandise, under the impression, which Russell, the American chargé d'affaires, encouraged, that as soon as this British revocation was known, a suspension of the Non-intercourse Act must take place under its own provisions; and this exportation had even been allowed by the British to go on for six weeks after the news of the declaration of war had reached England. All of these goods to the invoice value of more than eighteen millions, and worth, perhaps, twice as much in the American market, had been seized on their arrival, as forfeit under the Non-importation Act; but, as some of the district judges, upon their own construction of the law, persisted, contrary to the wishes of the government, in giving up these goods to the claimants, on their filing |