consistently with Britain's settled purpose of counteracting Napoleon's continental policy, and of wresting the carrying trade from American control, and who still hoped to embroil the United States with France, yielded in form for the sake of the substance. If the United States, Canning wrote Erskine in effect, would remove her restraints against Great Britain, but keep them against France and her allies, renounce the Colonial trade, and, finally, of her own accord allow the British fleet to make that pledge good, the Orders in Council would be raised. Finding that these sweeping conditions were inadmissible, Erskine, without showing his full instructions to the Madison government, as he was permitted to do, bethought himself of setting them aside, and acting according to what he conceived to be their true spirit. The substitution of nonintercourse for embargo lent a new phase to the situation, as Gallatin had hinted to him; so he consented to accept what the American administration felt to be an adequate equivalent for restoring to neutral commerce its lawful rights. April 19. Ignorant of Erskine's real instructions, and accepting the pacification he tendered in good faith and the fraternal spirit, Madison hastened to promulgate the glad tidings. A public proclamation announced that in consequence of the promised withdrawal of the British Orders in Council, as respected the United States, on the 10th of next June, all interdictions against Great Britain would cease of the same date. Erskine's correspondence with the State department over the matters in controversy with Great Britain was simultaneously given to the press. The universal joy with which Americans greeted this unexpected announcement attested the sincerity of their wish for peace. Forgetting, as often happens, the lessons of experience in the bounding delight of the moment, nor weighing personal character coolly, our people hailed this auspicious settlement as the triumph of reason and conscience. The Tory ministry, if rough-coated, had, they thought, like the pineapple, a pleasant flavor, after all. Bells were rung in the commercial towns when the news arrived. No one rejoiced more heartily over the change in our foreign prospects than Jefferson, to whom his successor imparted his 1809. PEACE AND FREE TRADE. 285 confidence; though the former could not but feel distrustful, and as for the negotiation of a new treaty cautioned Madison that England had never made an equal commercial treaty with any nation under the sun.* It was inevitable that the ex-President should suffer in the public estimation at this moment, and perhaps he appreciated this. Peace and free trade were now contrasted by our press with embargo and the late drift to dangerous hostilities. Madison's patience and conciliating temper were loudly applauded. Impressments were for the moment forgotten; and so few showed chagrin at escaping a British war that national parties approached as if to be brethren of one household. March 2. For our Eastern Federalists it was truly blue sky. The public address issued by the Massachusetts Legislature just before its adjournment, which upheld Great Britain as against both France and the late irritating measures of our government, and encouraged the New England States to unite in maintaining their share of national influence and resisting systems of administration injurious to their interests, had been like a trumpet's call in the spring elections. New Hampshire and Rhode Island forsook the ReMar.-Apr. publican standard, Jeremiah Smith, in the former State, an eminent lawyer, superseding Langdon as Governor; Massachusetts voted for Gore and free trade, and when the new Governor took his seat he had as escort the finest cavalcade of citizens ever beheld in Boston; Connecticut re-elected her favorite Trumbull by nearly a two-thirds vote.§ Federalism gained, besides, the popular branch of the Legislature both in New York and Maryland. The downfall of embargo and of unequal restrictions was claimed, together with these election victories, as the reward of a spirited conservative opposition, to which the Erskine arrangement now set the broad seal of justification. Such was the happy frame of the country when the Eleventh * Works of Jefferson and Madison, April, 1809. † See Boston Centinel, March, 1809; 6 Hildreth; supra, p. 192. See Boston Centinel, June 5, 1809. Trumbull, now far advanced in years, died during the summer. May 22- Congress met in special session, summoned for war, but convening in glad peace. Its proceedings occupied about five weeks, and a more harmonious session has rarely been witnessed. Through the gains the embargo policy had brought them, the Federalists presented, especially in the House, a very respectable minority; of equivocal or anti-embargo Republicans there were not a few; nevertheless administration Republicans controlled both branches. Varnum was re-elected Speaker of the House as against both Macon and Pitkin; a curious doubt presented on the first ballot being resolved by a second.* The administration retained, under Giles, in the Senate its powerful lead; Crawford and Pope, both of Virginia blood, but representing newer States, making the impression stronger. In the House, however, against keen debaters like Quincy, Gardenier, Pitkin, Livermore, and Key, the administration men, as for instance Eppes, who headed the Ways and Means, Findley, Macon, and Richard M. Johnson, were promised a harder struggle. But for the present all rested on their arms, and held amicable converse. Even John Randolph, who sauntered down the aisle once more after his eccentric fashion, whip in hand, booted and spurred, followed perchance by his dogs, saluting friends loudly and with excessive warmth of manner, while smiling artificially upon mere acquaintance, even he who had so lately opposed Madison's promotion, might now be seen pressing into the front rank to exalt the new administration over the ruins of the old. Gunboats,† the embargo, Jefferson's additional regiments, all the late govern * Annals of Congress. The point raised was with reference to counting blank ballots as votes; for if these were to be thrown out as waste pieces of paper, Varnum had an actual majority on the first ballot, but not otherwise. Secretary Paul Hamilton's report at this session, though guardedly expressed, furnished strong ground for inferring that gunboats were neither a useful nor an economical establishment. No one has spoken of the embargo with such racy severity as did Randolph in the debates of this period. "It is an attempt," he said, "to wound the invulnerable; like shooting Gibraltar with a pocket pistol." And again: "We have hanged ourselves for spite, in hopes they [the belligerents] would cut us down. But, to our utter disap 1809. CONGRESS IN GOOD HUMOR. 287 ment plans were themes for his pungent ridicule; he instituted searching inquiry, but without revealing abuse, into the expenditures since March 3d, 1801, so as to "sweep with the besom of scrutiny," as he expressed it, "every part of the government;" and finally offered in person a vote of approbation upon the new President's frankness and promptitude in meeting Great Britain's overtures. This, however, was too much for the stomach of the House, which showed a nauseating sense of Randolph's motives, and upon general objections to establishing such a precedent, his resolution was put aside, though not without difficulty.* Except for such attempts at party dissension by invidious comparisons all went smoothly in Congress. The chief features of accommodation with Great Britain were confirmed without a dissenting voice, and the details of execution adopted by astonishing majorities in both Houses. Trade with Great Britain was legalized under the President's proclamation, and embargo finally abandoned, certain features of the non-intercourse system still continuing, however, prudently in force.† This was the chief, almost the only important measure. A liberal appropriation was voted for continuing works of defence at the ports, and protecting the Northern and Western frontiers, but the recruiting service was for the present suspended.§ The House dwindled to less than a quorum, after having agreed with the Senate that the next session should commence on the fourth Monday in November, and Congress finally adjourned on the 28th of June. June 28. Jefferson's confidential mission to Russia, to which allusion has been made, hung fire through the Senate's summary rejection of William Short, whom Jefferson had formally nom pointment, they preferred to let us dangle in our garters." Annals of Congress, 1809-10. "He would not," said Randolph in debate, "attach the sound, healthy body of the present administration to the dead corpse of the last." Act June 28th, 1809; see also act May 30, 1809. Act June 14th, 1809; Act June 28th, 1809. $750,000 were thus appropriated. || Act June 24th, 1809. ¶ Supra, p. 178. inated shortly before his term expired, keeping the business secret as long as possible. This might have appeared a personal slight, for the Senate sought no explanation from the Executive and furnished none; but Madison, upon his induction, found himself similarly treated when he sent in the name of John Quincy Adams for the same post. The ruling motive with the Senate was probably an unwillingness to extend our diplomatic establishment in Europe at the risk of further entanglements. But every succeeding packet brought fresh proof of the influence Russia was gaining in the affairs of the continent. Dashkoff, too, arrived at Washington, as chargé from Russia, bringing a letter of credence from the Czar himself; so Adams being renominated at the present session, the Senate confirmed the appointment, and Adams was dispatched to St. Petersburg upon what proved, in course of later events, quite a significant mission.* July 4. Eastern merchants, with redoubled energy, pushed for the ocean traffic upon this revival of commerce, as if to make up for lost time. The shipping in Boston harbor displayed its gayest colors on Independence Day, and a miniature vessel was drawn on wheels by thirteen white horses through the streets of the town, this time fully rigged, armed, and manned, as though the day of tribulation was over. Sadly enough for America all this exuberance of good feeling was of short duration. New British Orders in Council of April 12th-which modified the former so as to accommodate them in some respects better to the wants of London merchants-had given Madison, while Congress was yet in session, a disagreeable dread of British insincerity, which Erskine was prompt to allay. And about the middle of July came the more gloomy tidings, by way of Halifax, that Canning before the House of Commons had repudiated the Erskine arrangement with the United States as one totally inconsistent with that minister's instructions, and such as the King could never approve. The official dispatches which followed left no room *See Madison's and Jefferson's Works, March-July, 1809. |