Chapter 10

PEACEABLE COERCION

The so-called Peace of Amiens in 1801 proved to be only an interlude in the wars of France with Europe. Within two years hostilities were renewed which closed only with the battle of Waterloo. In the course of this prolonged conflict Napoleon won and lost for France the ascendency in central and western Europe, but Great Britain remained throughout mistress of the seas. The commerce of France and of Holland and Spain, which had become virtually her dependencies, was almost driven from the seas. For their foodstuffs and colonial supplies, more than ever in demand as war devastated the fields of Europe, these nations had to look to vessels flying neutral flags. The export trade of the United States, which had fallen from $94,000,000 in the year 1801 to $55,800,000 in 1803, rapidly recovered until in 1805 it passed the high-water mark of the earlier year. More than half of this trade was in products of the tropics, for while the direct trade between the West India colonies and Europe was forbidden by the so-called "Rule of 1756," American shippers carried on a lucrative traffic which was virtually direct. Products brought from the West Indies to American ports were promptly reshipped as part of American stock to European ports; and the British courts had held that this importation had broken the voyage. When once import duties had been paid in an American port, the courts refused to inquire what thereafter became of the cargo and whether in fact rebates were given on exportation.

In midsummer of 1805 occurred a reversal of British policy. In the case of the Essex, which had made the voyage from Charleston to London with colonial produce from Martinique, a British admiralty court ruled for the first time that the payment of import duties was not sufficient proof of _bona fide_ importation, because of the practice in the United States of repaying duties on exportation. Other seizures followed that of the Essex, to the consternation of American shippers. Insurance rates on cargoes were doubled and doubled again within a year. Early in 1806, Monroe, then Minister to England, wrote in protest to the British Ministry that "about one hundred and twenty vessels had been seized, several condemned, all taken from their course, detained, and otherwise subjected to heavy losses and damages." But Monroe could not obtain any concession of principle or promise of indemnity.

The policy which the Secretary of State was known to favor was that of coercing England through restrictions upon trade. The implications of this policy were suggested by his often-quoted remark touching upon the dependence of British manufacturers: "There are three hundred thousand souls who live by our custom: let them be driven to poverty and despair, and what will be the consequences?" He lost no opportunity to urge upon his party associates the need of passing retaliatory legislation against Great Britain. It was well known, of course, that the President would support any fair application of his theory of peaceable coercion.

At first there was a general disposition to try the effect of an embargo; but more prudent counsels prevailed when the news of Trafalgar reached America. Congress finally adopted, in April, 1806, a non-importation bill, which was to become effective eight months later. There was some point to Randolph's criticism when he declared it to be "a milk-and-water Bill. A dose of chicken broth to be taken nine months hence"; for the act prohibited only the importation of such English goods as could be manufactured in the United States or procured elsewhere. Such a measure was not likely to make the manufacturers of England quail. In the mean time, the Administration was to accomplish what it might by direct negotiation with the British Ministry, using this Nicholson Act as a covert threat. Much against his will, Jefferson had to nominate another envoy to act with Monroe. His choice fell upon William Pinkney, of Maryland. The friends of Madison were not unwilling to humiliate Monroe, whose presidential aspirations might interfere with Madison's succession, for Jefferson had let it be known as early as the summer of 1805 that he did not seek a reëlection.

A few days after Congress adjourned occurred the Leander episode. This frigate was one of several British war vessels whose presence in American waters was a constant menace to merchantmen and an insult to the National Government. From time to time they appeared off Sandy Hook, lying in wait for American vessels which were suspected of carrying British seamen who had fled from the hard conditions of service on ships of war. An American merchantman was likely at any time to be stopped by a shot across her bow and to be subjected to the humiliation of a visit from a search crew. On April 25, 1806, the Leander, in rounding up a merchantman, fired a shot which killed the helmsman of a passing coasting sloop. The incident or accident threatened to assume the proportions of a _casus belli_.

The practice of impressment was an old grievance which seemed to Americans devoid of any justification. From the British point of view there was much to be said in extenuation of the practice. It should not be forgotten that Great Britain was locked in a life-and-death struggle with a mighty antagonist, and that she had need of every able seaman. Owing to the rigorous life on board of men-of-war, every ship's crew was likely to be depleted by desertions whenever she touched at an American port. Jack Tar found life much more agreeable on an American merchantman; and he rarely failed to procure the needful naturalization papers or certificates which would give him a claim to American citizenship. The right of expatriation was not at this time conceded by the British Government. Once an Englishman, always an Englishman. Surely, then, British commanders might claim their own seamen on the high seas. Officially, at least, they never claimed the right to impress American seamen. Yet where differences of speech were so slight, the provocation so strong, and the needs of the navy so great, search crews were not always careful to distinguish between Britishers and Yankees.

The United States never admitted the justice of these claims. To concede the right of search on the high seas was to admit a vast extension of British jurisdiction. As early as 1792, Jefferson had stated the principle for which the United States had consistently contended: "The simplest rule will be that the vessel being American shall be evidence that the seamen on board of her are such." The principle was never accepted by any British ministry. The practice of impressment continued to harass each succeeding administration. In 1806, a crisis seemed at hand. Madison reported to the House of Representatives the names of nine hundred and thirteen persons who appeared to have been impressed from American vessels. How many of these were British deserters under American names, it is impossible to say. The number reported by Madison is at least an index to the sense of injury which the nation felt.

When President Jefferson sent Pinkney to join Monroe in securing a comprehensive treaty with Great Britain, which should restore West India trade to its old condition and provide indemnity for the American vessels condemned in the admiralty courts, he set down, as a _sine qua non_ in his instructions, the renunciation by the British Government of the practice of impressment. It was an ultimatum which expressed a truly national feeling; but with the consciousness of power which the domination of the high seas gave, the British commissioners treated this ultimatum, somewhat contemptuously, as an impossible and unwarranted demand. The American mission should have ended then and there; but on obtaining assurances that greater care would be exercised in impressing seamen, Monroe and Pinkney determined to disregard their instructions. Negotiations were continued and culminated in a treaty, December 1, 1806, which ran counter to the injunctions of the President in every particular. He refused to submit the document to the Senate. Nevertheless, he permitted Madison to draft new instructions for the commissioners, in the hope that the treaty could be made a basis for further negotiations. While these new instructions were crossing the ocean, a disaster occurred which brought the United States and Great Britain to the verge of war.

In the early months of 1807, some French frigates had run up Chesapeake Bay to escape a British squadron. Relying on what Jefferson pleasantly termed the hospitality of the United States, these British men-of-war dropped anchor in Lynnhaven Bay, near Cape Henry, where they could watch the passage through the capes. From one of these British vessels a boat crew of common seamen made their escape to Norfolk. Just at this time the new frigate Chesapeake, which had been partially fitted out at the navy yard at Washington for service in the Mediterranean, dropped down to Hampton Roads to receive her complement of guns and provisions for a three years' cruise.

[Map: Tonnage of the United States 1807]

On June 22, the Chesapeake passed out through the capes, preceded by the Leopard, a British frigate of fifty guns. When they were well out on the high seas, the Leopard drew alongside the Chesapeake and signaled that she had a message for Commodore Barron. This message proved to be an order from Admiral Berkeley at Halifax, instructing commanders of British vessels who fell in with the Chesapeake to search her for deserters. The American commander denied that he had deserters on board and refused to allow the search. Almost immediately the Leopard approached with her gundecks cleared for action. Unaware of his danger Commodore Barron had not called his crew to quarters. The Leopard opened fire and poured three broadsides into the helpless American vessel, killing three men and wounding eighteen others. After fifteen minutes Barron hauled down his flag to spare his crew from needless sacrifice, and suffered the British commander to search the dismantled Chesapeake. Four alleged deserters were found and taken away, three of whom subsequently were proved to be American citizens. The Leopard then returned to the squadron off Cape Henry, while the Chesapeake limped back to Hampton Roads.

Had the President chosen to go to war at this moment, he would have had a united people behind him. But Thomas Jefferson was not a martial character. His proclamation ordering all armed British vessels out of American waters and suspending intercourse with them if they remained, was so moderate in tone as to seem almost pusillanimous. John Randolph called it an apology. Instead of demanding unconditional reparation for this outrage, Madison instructed Monroe to insist upon an entire abolition of impressments as "an indispensable part of the satisfaction." The astute Canning, who had become Foreign Secretary in the new Portland Ministry, took advantage of this confusion of issues to evade the demand for reparation until popular passion in the United States had subsided. It was not until November that Canning took active measures. He then sent a special commissioner to the United States in the person of George Rose.

The instructions which Rose carried with him to Washington, in January, 1808, were anything but conciliatory. As a preliminary to any negotiations, he was to demand the recall of the President's proclamation of July 2, and an explicit disavowal of Commodore Barron's conduct in encouraging desertion from His Majesty's navy. The United States was also to give assurances that it would prevent the recurrence of such causes as had provoked the display of force by Admiral Berkeley. That the Administration should have continued negotiations after the full purport of these instructions was disclosed, seems incredible; but it was not until the middle of February that Madison awoke to the fact that the United States was being invited to "make as it were an expiatory sacrifice to obtain redress." Yet another month passed before Rose was given to understand that his mission was futile. By this time public attention was engrossed in the contest for neutral rights.

Before the close of the year 1806, Napoleon was master of central Europe and in a position to deal his premeditated blow at the commercial ascendency of England. A fortnight after the terrible overthrow of Prussia at Jena, he made a triumphal entry into Berlin. From this city he issued, on November 21, the famous decree which was his answer to the British blockade of the continent. Since the British had determined to ruin neutral commerce by an illegal blockade, so the preamble read, "whoever deals on the continent in English merchandise favors that design and becomes an accomplice." All English goods henceforth were to be lawful prize in any territory held by the troops of France or her allies. The British Isles were declared to be in a state of blockade. Every American or other neutral vessel going to or coming from the British Isles, therefore, was subject to capture.

The British Ministry took up the gauntlet. An order in council of January 7, 1807, forbade neutral trade between ports under the control of France or her allies; a second order, November 11, closed to neutrals those European ports under French control "as if the same were actually blockaded," but permitted vessels which first entered a British port and paid port duties to sail to any continental port. Only one more blow seemed needed to complete the ruin of American commerce. It fell a month later, December 17, 1807, when Napoleon issued his Milan Decree. Henceforth any vessel which submitted to be searched by an English cruiser or which paid any tonnage duty to the British Government or which set sail for any British port was subject to capture and condemnation as lawful prize. Such was to be the maritime code "until England returned to the principles of international law which are also those of justice and honor."

American commerce was now, indeed, between the hammer and the anvil. The Nicholson Non-Importation Act, which had been twice suspended and which had only just gone into effect (December 14), seemed wholly inadequate to meet this situation. It had been designed as a coercive measure, to be sure, but no one knew precisely to what extent it would affect English trade. The time had come for the blow which Jefferson and his advisers had held in reserve. On December 18, the President sent to Congress a message recommending "an immediate inhibition of the departure of our vessels from the ports of the United States." The Senate responded by passing a bill (which Jefferson probably drafted) through its three stages in a single day; the House passed the measure after only two days of debate; and on December 22, the Embargo Act received the President's signature.

The temper of those who supported the embargo was reflected by Senator Adams, of Massachusetts, who was reported to have said: "The President has recommended the measure on his high responsibility. I would not consider, I would not deliberate; I would act." Yet there were members of Congress who were not prepared to accept the high authority of the President. The vote in the House of Representatives indicates that opinion was divided in Adams's own State. Boston with its environs and the interior counties were opposed to the embargo. New York was also divided, though here the commercial areas favored the measure. Maryland showed a like division of opinion. Connecticut was a unit in opposing the President's policy.

What was the measure which was accepted almost without discussion on "the high responsibility" of the President? So far as it was defended at all, it was presented as a measure for the protection of American ships, merchandise, and seamen. It forbade the departure of all ships and vessels in the ports of the United States for any foreign port, except vessels under the immediate direction of the President. Foreign armed vessels were exempted as a matter of course from the operation of this act; so also were all vessels in ballast or already loaded with goods at the time when the act was passed. Coasting vessels were to give bonds double the value of vessel and cargo to re-land their goods, wares, or merchandise in some port of the United States.

American shippers were so little appreciative of the protection offered by a benevolent Government that they evaded the embargo from the very first. Foreign trade was lucrative in just the proportion that it was hazardous. If some skippers obeyed, the profits were so much the greater for the less conscientious. Under guise of engaging in the coasting trade, many a ship's captain with the connivance of the owner landed his cargo in a foreign port. A brisk traffic also sprang up by land across the Canadian border.

[Map: House Vote on the Embargo December 21, 1807]

All pretense that the embargo was designed to protect American commerce had now to be abandoned. Jefferson did not attempt to disguise his purpose to use the embargo as a great coercive weapon against France and Great Britain. Congress passed supplementary acts and suffered the President to exercise a vast discretionary power which was strangely at variance with Republican traditions. "When you are doubtful," wrote the President with reference to coasting vessels, "consider me as voting for detention." "We find it necessary," he informed the governors of the States, "to consider every vessel as suspicious which has on board any article of domestic produce in demand at foreign markets." Governors of those States which consumed more wheat than they produced were to issue certificates to collectors of ports stating the amount desired. The collectors in turn were to authorize merchants in whom they had confidence to import the needed supplies. Nor did the President hesitate to put whole communities under the ban when individual shipowners were suspected of engaging in illicit trade. He so far forgot his horror of a standing army that he asked Congress for an addition to the regular army of six thousand men. Congress had already made an appropriation of $850,000 to build gunboats. It now appropriated a million and a quarter for fortifications and for the equipment of the militia.

Through the long summer of 1808, President Jefferson waited anxiously for the effects of coercion to appear. The reports from abroad were not encouraging. The effects of the embargo upon English economy are even now a matter of conjecture. In the opinion of Mr. Henry Adams, the embargo only fattened the shipowners and squires who devised the orders in council, and lowered the wages and moral standard of the laboring classes by cutting off temporarily the importation of foodstuffs and the raw material for British manufacturers. When Pinkney approached Canning with the proposal that England should revoke her orders upon the withdrawal of the embargo, he was told, with biting sarcasm, that "if it were possible to make any sacrifice for the repeal of the embargo without appearing to deprecate it as a measure of hostility, he [His Majesty] would gladly have facilitated its removal as a measure of inconvenient restriction upon the American people." The blow aimed at Great Britain had missed its mark.

From the first Napoleon had welcomed the embargo as a measure likely to contribute to the success of his continental system. On April 17, 1808, he issued a decree from Bayonne ordering the seizure of all American vessels in French ports. It was argued ingeniously that since they were abroad in violation of the embargo, they were not _bona fide_ American vessels, but presumptively British, and therefore subject to capture. To accept the aid of the French Emperor in enforcing a policy which was intended to coerce his action, was humiliating to the last degree. Armstrong wrote to Madison that in his opinion the coercive force of the embargo had been overrated. "Here it is not felt, and in England ... it is forgotten."

The importance of the embargo, Jefferson never tired of repeating, was not to be measured in money. If the brutalities of war and the corruption incident to war could be avoided by this alternative, the experiment was well worth trying. Yet Jefferson himself was startled by the deliberate and systematic evasions of the law. "I did not expect," he confessed, "a crop of so sudden and rank growth of fraud and open opposition by force could have grown up in the United States." Moreover, the cost of the embargo was very great. The value of exports fell from $108,000,000 in 1807 to $22,000,000 in the following year. The national revenue from import duties was cut down by one half.

The embargo bore down with crushing weight upon New England, where nearly one third of the ships engaged in the carrying trade were owned. The shipbuilding industry languished, as well as all the industries subsidiary to commerce. Even the farmers suffered as the embargo continued. A temporary loss of their market could have been borne with some degree of equanimity, but not an indefinite loss, for imported goods now began to rise in price, adding to the general distress.

The economic distress of New England, however, cannot be measured by the volume of indignant protest. The Federalist machine never worked more effectively than when it directed this unrest and diverted it to partisan purposes. Thomas Jefferson's embargo was made to seem a vindictive assault upon New England. The Essex Junto, with Timothy Pickering as leader, spared no pains to convince the unthinking that Jefferson was the tool or the dupe of Napoleon, who was bent upon coercing the United States into war with Great Britain. The spring election of 1808 gave the measure of this reaction in Massachusetts. The Federalists regained control of both houses of the state legislature, and forced the resignation of Senator John Quincy Adams, who had broken with his party by voting for the embargo, and who had incurred the undying enmity of of the Essex Junto by defending the policy of the Administration.

In the midst of what Jefferson called "the general factiousness," following the embargo, occurred a presidential election. Jefferson was not a candidate for reëlection. His fondest hope now was that he might be allowed to retire with honor to the bosom of his family. Upon whom would his mantle fall? Madison was his probable preference; and Madison had the doubtful advantage of a formal nomination by the regular congressional caucus of the party. But Monroe still considered his chances of election good; and Vice-President George Clinton also announced his candidacy. Both Monroe and Clinton represented those elements of opposition which harassed the closing months of the Administration. Contrary to expectation, the Federalists did not ally themselves with Clinton, but preferred to go down in defeat under their old leaders, Charles C. Pinckney and Rufus King. With the opposition thus divided, Madison scored an easy victory; but against him was the almost solid vote of a section. All the New England States but Vermont cast their electoral votes for the Federalist candidates.

Before the end of the year the failure of the embargo was patent to every fair-minded observer. The alternatives, war or submission, were not pleasant to contemplate. From force of habit the party in power looked to Jefferson for leadership; but since Madison's election, he had assumed the rôle of "unmeddling listener," not wishing to commit his successor to any policy. The abdication of Jefferson thus left the party without a leader and without a program at a most critical moment.

Under the circumstances it was easier to continue the embargo than to face the probability of war. Gallatin had already urged the need of more stringent laws for the enforcement of the embargo,--laws which he admitted were both odious and dangerous. On January 9, 1809, Congress passed the desired legislation. Thereafter coasting vessels were obliged to give bonds to six times the value of vessel and cargo before they were permitted to load. Collectors were authorized to refuse permission if in their opinion there was "an intention to violate the embargo." Only loss at sea released a shipowner from his bond. In suits at law neither capture nor any other accident could be pleaded. Collectors at the ports and on the frontiers were authorized to seize goods which were "apparently on their way toward the territory of a foreign nation." And for such seizures the collectors were not liable in courts of law. The army, the navy, and the militia were put at their disposal.

The "Force Act" was the last straw for the Federalists of Massachusetts. Town after town adopted resolutions which ran through the whole gamut of partisan abuse. The General Court of Massachusetts resolved that it would coöperate with other States in procuring such amendments to the Constitution as were necessary to obtain protection for commerce and to give to the commercial States "their fair and just consideration in the government of the Union." Governor Trumbull, of Connecticut, flatly declined to allow the militia to assist the collectors in the enforcement of the embargo, holding that the act to enforce the embargo was unconstitutional, "interfering with the state sovereignties, and subversive of the guaranteed rights, privileges, and immunities of the citizens of the United States." The legislature rallied to the support of the governor with resolutions which breathe much the same spirit as the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.

The incessant bombardment by the New England towns was too much for Jefferson's equanimity. "I felt the foundation of the government shaken under my feet by the New England townships," he said in after years. His control over his own party was gone. Northern Republicans combined with Federalists to force the repeal of the embargo through Congress; and on March 1, 1809, with much bitterness of spirit, Jefferson signed the bill that terminated his great experiment. Instead of interdicting commerce altogether, Congress suspended intercourse with France and Great Britain after March 15 and until one or the other of the offenders repealed its obnoxious orders. Meantime, American vessels were free to pick up what trade they could with other nations.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The historical writings of Henry Adams are indispensable aids to an understanding of the foreign policy of Jefferson. On the effect of the embargo, Channing, _The Jeffersonian System_, takes sharp issue with Adams. There is a mass of valuable data on social history in the third volume of McMaster, _History of the People of the United States_. E. L. Bogart, _Economic History of the United States_ (1913); Katherine Coman, _Industrial History of the United States_ (1913); and C. D. Wright, _Industrial Evolution of the United States_ (1907), are manuals containing much valuable matter. The brief introductions to the chapters in G. S. Callender, _Selections from the Economic History of the United Slates_ (1909), are always illuminating. The foreign policy of Jefferson and Madison is extensively reviewed in A. T. Mahan, _Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812_ (2 vols., 1905).