tration as Foreign Secretary, refused to negotiate further over the American Treaty. He did indeed disavow the attack on the Chesapeake, but at the same time he issued a proclamation commanding naval officers to seize British deserters on foreign ships wherever they might be found, and warning British-born residents of other countries that naturalization would not relieve British subjects of their duties. In the face of this Monroe could do no more, and on November 14, he sailed from Plymouth. On that same day the British Orders in Council were published in London. It will be convenient to reserve for another chapter Jefferson's attitude to the naval aggressions of Great Britain. But before passing to this last and most desperate problem of his Administration let us glance for a moment at his personal correspondence. Thomas Paine, who had visited him at Monticello, wrote in the spring of 1805 to tell the President that he had taken a farm and was building. Jefferson may have been glad that this rather embarrassing supporter had turned to agricultural pursuits. At any rate there is a letter of June 5, 1805, congratulating Paine on this retirement. Paine, who was something of an architect and engineer,1 had built an open room on the second story of his house. Jefferson much doubts whether it will answer expectations: "There will be a few days in the year in which it will be delightful, but not many. Nothing but trees or Venetian blinds can protect it from the sun. The semi-cylindrical roof you propose will have advantages. You know it has been practised on the Cloth Market at Paris. De 1 In the autumn of 1807 he sent the President a model of a gun boat. "It has all the simplicity and ingenuity," wrote Jefferson, "which generally mark your inventions." Lorme, the inventor, shows many forms of roofs in his book to which. it is applicable. I have used it at home for a dome, being 120 degrees of an oblong octagon, and in the capitol we unite two quadrants of a sphere by a semi cylinder; all framed in De Lorme's manner." In the busiest moments of his Presidency Jefferson could not resist a problem of architecture. In these years Russia under the Czar Alexander was the chief European support of neutral rights. Alexander sent his bust to Jefferson. Jefferson replied with a present of books on the Constitution of the United States, and with a friendly letter urging the Czar at "the approaching pacification to incorporate into the treaty a correct definition of the rights of neutrals on the high seas." We have seen how little store Jefferson set by clerks and secretaries. As he was in the habit of thinking for himself and writing his own letters, he was not fond of committing his confidential thoughts to third parties. This explains his delight in the polygraph, which he thought, "the finest invention of the present age, and so much superior to the copying machine that the latter will never be continued a day by anyone who tries the polygraph." In presenting one to a friend he remarked: "As a secretary, which copies for us what we write without the power of revealing it, I find it a most precious possession for a man in public business." Though he no longer had time for inventions of his own, Jefferson was much pleased to receive in May, 1807, the gold medal of the Society of Agriculture at Paris for his improved plough, together with the title of Foreign Associate. Most of his correspondence from 1806 to his retirement from the presidency is taken up with Burr's conspiracy, the British attack on the Chesapeake, the Orders in Council, Napoleon's edicts, and the embargo. Peace for him self and peace for his country were more and more in his thoughts. To his "dear and ancient friend" Count Deodati, who had found a quiet and safe retreat, he he wrote, March 29, 1807: "Were I in Europe pax et panis would certainly be my motto. Wars and contentions indeed fill the pages of history with more matter; but more blessed is that nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes nothing for history to say. This is what I ambition for my own country, and what it has fortunately enjoyed for now upwards of twenty years, while Europe has been in constant volcanic eruption." Having himself now performed his forty years service — "my quadragena stipendia" - he was entitled to discharge. "I have therefore requested my fellow citizens to think of a successor for me, to whom I shall deliver the public concerns with greater joy than I received them. I have the consolation too of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands as clean as they are empty." A letter to William Short (June 12, 1807) deserves notice because it describes Jefferson's Cabinet practice. A question had arisen whether an umpire should be appointed to assist "our discordant negotiators at Paris": "I made it therefore a subject of consultation with my coadjutors, as is our usage. For our government, although in theory subject to be directed by the unadvised will of the President, is and from its origin has been, a very different thing in practice. The minor business in each department is done by the Head of the department, on consultation with the President alone. But all matters of importance or difficulty are submitted to all the Heads of departments composing the Cabinet; sometimes by the President's consulting them separately and successively, as they happen to call on him; but in the greatest cases, by calling them together, discussing the subject maturely, and finally taking the vote, in which the President counts himself but as one. So that in all important cases the executive is, in fact, a directory, which certainly the President might control; but of this there was never an example, either in the first or the present administration. I have heard, indeed, that my predecessor sometimes decided things against his council." In this case Jefferson consulted his colleagues separately and finding them adverse he decided not to appoint a third negotiator, though he had been inclined to favour the idea. It is said that some modern Presidents have treated their Cabinet officers as mere clerks, and have been much under the influence of private secretaries and unofficial advisers. This is in sharp contrast to the habitual practice of Washington and Jefferson, which was as near that of an English Cabinet as the constitutional differences between the two systems would admit. Jefferson was curiously indifferent to self-advertisement, as well as to ceremonial. He refused to allow public celebrations of his birthday, and even contrived to keep the date private. When asked to make a tour in the north, following a precedent set by Washington, he said that he could not arrogate to himself the claims Washington had on the public homage. "I confess," he wrote June 19, 1807, to a republican governor, "that I am not reconciled to the idea of a chief magistrate parading himself through the several states as an object of public gaze, and in quest of an applause which, to be valuable, should be purely voluntary." CHAPTER III AMERICAN TRADE WITH ENGLAND EMBARGO OR WAR They say that wars have been justly commenced upon denial of port, trade and commerce. SELDEN'S Mare Clausum. A GENERATION emerging from the unparalleled slaughter, confusion, and ruin caused by the most calamitous war of modern times is impelled by an instinct of self-preservation to study every device by which another may be averted. We have learnt by experience - what history should have taught us — that a great war means conscription of life and wealth, public bankruptcy, and the confiscation of private property by taxation or debasement of money. After such a conflict an almost universal longing for peace prevails except among those whose professional career is dependent on war, or whose business is concerned with the provision of armaments. But in a few years, when the horrors of 19141918 have begun to fade, the danger will reappear, unless the peaceful mood is reinforced by study and reflection, and unless new barriers of law are erected strong enough not only to curb the natural pugnacity of mankind but to bring statesmanship and diplomacy into line with the moral and economic interests of civilisation. To this task of saving the world from a repetition of Armageddon |