The course of public events produced a decisive commentary on this passage of the president's letter. Two days after it was written occurred the attack upon the American frigate Chesapeake in Chesapeake Bay by an English vessel of war, which roused the indignation of the whole country to a degree never surpassed before or since. The mere absence of the president from the seat of government at that moment might have precipitated the two countries into war, for which an immense majority of the people were prepared.

Burr was acquitted on technical grounds. He left the court, however, covered with an opprobrium which still clings to his name. The report of the trial satisfied every reasonable mind, that, in arresting the scheme and the schemer, the president had done an act which he could not have omitted without grievous fault. The conduct of the Federalists, during the trial of Burr, would have filled up the measure of their ruin, if a new issue had not arisen that withdrew public attention from it, and gave to the combative side of human nature a certain prominence that is highly favorable to reactionary ideas. The region of the brain where Toryism has its seat lies chiefly behind the ears.

CHAPTER LXVI.

THE EMBARGO.

JEFFERSON'S constitutional aversion to war, and his known preference for peaceful methods of proceeding, gave to the anti-Christians of his day a fruitful theme of vituperation. It is amusing to read the expressions of scorn to which eminent churchmen gave utterance, when they spoke of Jefferson's principle of exhausting every expedient known to the diplomatist's art before entertaining the thought of war. "There is just now," wrote Gouverneur Morris, when he heard of Monroe's appointment, "so much philosophy among our rulers, that we must not be surprised at the charge of pusillanimity. And our people have so much of the mercantile spirit, that, if other nations will keep their hands out of our pockets, it will be no trifling insult that will rouse us. Indeed, it is the fashion to say, that, when injured, it is more honorable to wait in patience the uncertain issue of negotiation than promptly to do ourselves right by an act of hostility." These are light words; but the spirit which they breathe has desolated many and many a fair province, and shrouded in hopeless gloom millions upon millions of homes. All that hideous, groundless contest between Bonaparte and George III., which added sensibly to the burden of every honest family throughout the whole extent of Christendom; which did harm to every man, and good to no man, all sprang from the spirit which the jovial Morris expressed in this gay letter to John Parish.

In the effort to keep the United States out of that contest, Jefferson gave a brief access of strength to the anti-Christian party. The outrages of the English captains were, indeed, most hard to bear; and the question whether or not they ought to be borne, was one upon which the wisest men might well differ. All the Old Adam, and some of the New, rises and swells within us when we read, even

at the distance of seventy years, of the Leander firing upon a coasting vessel near Sandy Hook, and killing one of her crew. The president felt both the wrong and the indignity of the act. He ordered the Leander and her two companions out of the waters of the United States. He called upon the civil and military officers to arrest the offending captain if found within their jurisdiction. He warned all persons against giving aid to the vessels of the squadron. But he did something more difficult than such acts as these. When the treaty reached his hands, early in 1807, which Monroe and Pinckney, after a long and difficult negotiation, had concluded with England, discovering that it contained no renunciation of the impressment claim, and no adequate concession of the rights of neutrals, he would not submit it to the Senate, but sent it back to London for revision, to the sore mortification of Monroe. The more monstrous outrage upon the Chesapeake followed, rousing the whole people to a degree seldom equalled since America was settled. The English ship Leopard poured broadsides into the unprepared and unsuspecting Chesapeake within hearing of the post we now call Fortress Monroe, killed three men, wounded eighteen, and carried away four sailors charged with desertion from the British navy, three Americans and one Englishman. The Englishman was hanged; and the three Americans were pardoned, on condition of returning to service.

Parties ceased to exist. "I had only to open my hand," wrote Jefferson once," and let havoc loose." Only a president with such a deep hold upon the confidence of the people could have kept the peace; nor could any but a Jefferson have done it, because, at such a time, the chief of the state is apt to be himself possessed by the universal feeling. He is a fellow-citizen, as well as president. But this benignant spirit remained true to itself. "If ever," he wrote in 1812, "I was gratified with the possession of power and of the confidence of those who had intrusted me with it, it was on that occasion when I was enabled to use both for the prevention of war toward which the torrent of passion was directed almost irresistibly, and when not another person in the United States less supported by authority and favor could have resisted it." Nor was his conduct wanting in "spirit." He instantly sent a frigate to England with a demand for reparation. He forbade the naval vessels of Great Britain all access to the harbors of the United States, except those

in distress and those bearing despatches. Two thousand militia were posted on the coast to prevent British ships from obtaining supplies. Every vessel in the navy was made ready for active service, and every preparation for war within the compass of the administration was pushed forward with vigor. He privately notified members of Congress to be ready to respond to his summons on the instant of the frigate's return from England. Decatur, commanding at Norfolk, was ordered to attack with all his force if the British fleet, anchored in the outer bay, should attempt to enter the inner. And the farresounding noise of all these proceedings called home from every sea the merchant vessels of the United States.

He expected war, and meant, if it could not be prevented honorably, to make the most of it. He intended, as we see by his confidential letters to Madison, to swoop upon England's commerce, and to avail himself of the occasion to bring Spain to terms. Your peaceable gentlemen, if you absolutely force them to a fight, sometimes lay about them in an unexpected manner. Thus, we find the president, on the cool summit of Monticello, in August, 1807, writing upon the Spanish imbroglio to Mr. Madison: "As soon as we have all the proofs of the Western intrigues, let us make a remonstrance, and demand of satisfaction; and, if Congress approves, we may in the same instant make reprisals on the Floridas, until we get satisfaction for that and for spoliations, and a settlement of boundary. I had rather have war against Spain than not, if we go to war against England. Our Southern defensive force can take the Floridas, volunteers for a Mexican army will flock to our standard, and rich pabulum will be offered to our privateers in the plunder of their commerce and coasts. Probably Cuba would add itself to our confederation." It is evident that he intended to make this war pay expenses, and to come out of it with troublesome neighbors removed farther off. All his letters of that summer show the two trains of thought: First, let us have no war, if we can properly avoid it; secondly, if we must have war, the conflict could not come at a better time than when England has a Bonaparte upon her hands, and we have a Spain to settle with.

Partial reparation was made for the outrage upon the Chesapeake, and formal "regrets" were expressed that it should have occurred; but the claim to board American vessels and carry off deserters was re-affirmed by royal proclamation. No American ship was safe from

violation, no American sailor was safe from impressment. In meeting this new aspect of the case, Jefferson took another leaf from Franklin's book. In the Stamp-Act times, before the Revolution, Dr. Franklin was always an advocate for the peaceful remedy of nor-intercourse; and this had been a favorite idea of Jefferson's when he was secretary of state. In 1793, when the allied kings tried to starve France into an acceptance of the Bourbons by excluding supplies from all her ports, he deemed it "a justifiable cause of war." But he wrote to Madison that he hoped Congress, instead of declaring war, "would instantly exclude from our ports all the manufactures, produce, vessels, and subjects of the nations committing the aggression, during the continuance of aggression." The embargo of 1807, which kept all American vessels and produce safe at home, was conceived in the same spirit and had the same object. That object was, to use Jefferson's own words, "TO INTRODUCE BETWEEN NATIONS ANOTHER UMPIRE THAN ARMS." He thought that Great Britain, so dependent then upon American materials and supplies, could not do without them as long or as easily as we could do without the money they brought.

But this policy was putting human nature to a test which only a very few of our race are wise and strong enough to bear. The embargo, of course, was passed by large majorities and hailed with enthusiasm: it was striking back, in a new and easy way. But when commerce came to a stand, when ships and men were idle, when produce was of little value, and nothing could be done in the way of remedy but to wait, then the embargo was regarded in a different light. New England suffered most, not because it lost most, but because it was more immediately dependent upon commerce than the other States. Nor did the educated class in New England give moral support to the president in this interesting endeavor to introduce between nations "another umpire than arms."

The inference which he drew from the power of New England in finally breaking down the embargo is worthy of note. He attributed it to the township system, which he valued most highly, and strove long to introduce into Virginia. "How powerfully," he wrote in 1816, "did we feel the energy of this system in the case of the embargo! I felt the foundations of the government shaken under my feet by the New England township. There was not an individual in those States whose body was not thrown, with all its