direct," Clay proceeded to consider the circumstances under which this government had felt compelled to declare war, and the motives which remained for pursuing it. Canada, he said, had not been innocent of turning the tomahawk of the savage against us, and as an enemy's province she was subject to the rules of war. The British repeal, or rather, suspension of Orders in Council coming so late, it does not follow that that which would, in the first instance, have prevented, would also terminate a war. "As to myself," observed the speaker, "I have no hesitation in saying that I have always considered the impressment of American seamen as much the most serious aggression."

That which gave the Promethean fire to our war with Great Britain was not, history must admit, its first most prominent issue; and here Clay showed the profound statesman and orator by lighting with his logic the most moving cause of all, that which had been too long subordinated, and by stimulating the national pride and indignation against the foreign power, which, in this respect, was, and always had been, America's sole aggressor. "If Great Britain," exclaimed Clay, "desires a mark by which she can know her own subjects, let her give them an ear mark. The colors that float from the masthead should be the credentials of our seamen." And with a thrilling pathos, of which this orator's words, apart from his action, can afford but a faint impression, he pictured the piteous condition of the American tar who had fought his country's battles, pining in the oppressor's prison, while his government pleaded excuses for leaving him there.*

This eloquent speech revived the drooping spirits of the country. The war went on, and the needful war measures were pushed briskly forward.

1812-1813.

Eustis, the Secretary of War, whose incapacity for the occasion was plainly manifest, had resigned in December, conscious himself that the task of his portfolio was too great for his declining years. It was not easy to find

* Newspapers of the time record the wonderful effect produced on Clay's listeners by this pathetic description. The day was a cold one, but the audience left the Capitol with beating hearts. Niles's Register; Washington Intelligencer, etc.

1812-13.

CABINET CHANGES.

375

an acceptable successor; but General Armstrong, our late minister to France, at length received the appointment, Monroe having performed the duties of the post ad interim.* Paul Hamilton relinquished the Navy Department during the winter to William Jones, an active Philadelphia merchant, who had once been a shipmaster.

* Monroe's official report laid the foundation of the most desirable changes made during the war in the army organization. Monroe Correspondence, December, 1812.

CHAPTER IX.

SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF JAMES MADISON.

Mar. 8.

SECTION I.

PERIOD OF THIRTEENTH CONGRESS.

MARCH 4, 1813-MARCH 3, 1815.

THE President was sworn into office, for his second term, at the Capitol; but Gerry, the new Vice-President, whose health was feeble, at his home in Massachusetts. Madison's second inaugural address was a panegyric of the war. Though himself too dispassionate to easily influence others, and in most contemporaneous utterances, public or private, ill concealing his anxious inquietude and perplexity, he well understood that the speediest road to peace lay in our vigorous and united prosecution of the war. Scarcely four days of this new term elapsed before an offer of mediation came through Daschkoff, the Russian ambassador, on behalf of his sovereign, by whose command the American and English ministers had previously been approached at St. Petersburg.* In fact, our mission to Russia at this time, dubiously undertaken, proved a lucky stroke; though not, perhaps, in the sense first intended, nor to the full extent Alexander had hoped for. The Czar, a strong friend of the United States, both from sentiment and policy, and jealous of French encroachments upon the Baltic, had transferred his alliance from France to Great Britain, soon after Adams reached his post. With Napoleon's arms turned against him, he feared serious disaster to this alliance should England and the United States continue at war, and hence sought to be peacemaker.†

* Dispatches from Adams, communicating the Czar's overture, arrived the day before Daschkoff's letter. Monroe Correspondence, 1813. John Quincy Adams's Diary, 1811, 1812; Madison's Writings, March, 1813.

1813.

RUSSIA OFFERS TO MEDIATE.

377

Napoleon's advance upon Moscow, followed by the disastrous retreat and midnight entrance into Paris with 1812-13. his shattered forces, had been the grand catastrophe

of the past winter. Stronger European combinations were now to be formed against his declining influence. It appeared, therefore, to the United States highly desirable to accept Russia's offer at once, and without waiting to hear from England; such a policy, too, serving better to unite contending factions at home should the embassy fail. Gallatin and Bayard, the latter a statesman highly acceptable to rational Federalists and peace men, were associated for this mission with our Russian minister, John Quincy Adams.

To Gallatin the change promised a welcome relief from labors now irksome and thoroughly disheartening; for this financial problem, indeed, was the weak spot in this ill-calculated war. He dreaded the drain our new troops would necessitate, the direct taxation, the suspension of specie payments, the utter collapse of public resources, all the horrors of national exhaustion and bankruptcy; and yet he had dreaded still more to lay bare to a vehement people the depths of his own despondency. With more stoicism than elasticity he had schooled himself to accept whatever a Congress over which he possessed little influence might choose to grant him; which, thus far, was merely authority for a loan of $16,000,000, and a plentiful issue of treasury notes,-temporary shifts, under cover of which the tax bills went over. Solid capitalists had been offended by the failure of the National Bank act. Three foreigners by birth, John Jacob Astor, Parish, and Girard, in truth, saved this new loan from failure; and Gallatin, having arranged with them, stood ready to depart for St. Petersburg, promising himself a new career in diplomacy, and leaving the fiscal chest for more sanguine men to manage.*

Crawford was at this same time appointed to France as successor of Barlow, who had died suddenly at Warsaw during the Russian invasion, while on his way to meet Bonaparte at the latter's special request.†

* Adams's Gallatin, 478.

1812.

Dec. 26.

† Barlow had no intention (as was falsely rumored) of making an American alliance with France. He was forbidden to enter into any VOL. II.-32

May 9. May 24.

On the 9th of May Gallatin and Bayard sailed from Newcastle, and on the 24th assembled the Thirteenth Congress in first session, summoned thus early in order to provide the long-deferred measures of taxation. As all elections for the House had taken place since war was declared, and the new apportionment under the census of 1810 brought a numerical increase to that body, which carried New York's delegation to the head of the list. Party division in that branch was now a fair test of the national sentiment upon the subject of war; though in all the New England States, except Massachusetts, as also in Delaware and Georgia, the election of representatives continued by general ticket instead of districts, the latter and more exact mode becoming now the prevalent one. Federal gains in New York and New England established, therefore, the minority strength. in the House at 68, as against 114 who supported the war, an increase in their favor sufficient to deprive the war party of their two-thirds vote. In the Senate appeared fourteen new members, but parties stood nominally nearly as before, namely, as 27 to 9, with the Giles faction still as a perverse and troublesome factor.*

In the House Clay was chosen speaker once more, on the first ballot, and by 89 votes; 54 votes of the opposition being cast for Pitkin, and 5 scattering. The young politicians kept still in the ascendant; John Forsyth, of Georgia, John McLean, of Ohio, and Charles J. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, all promising statesmen, joining the ardent band which Clay, Calhoun, Grundy, and Cheves marshalled. Eppes, who had run off John Randolph, and now returned after a two years' absence, found himself, like Macon, with an honorable chairmanship to occupy, but little positive influence in debate. On the opposition side both Quincy and Randolph were now missed; and although the austere Pickering, elected to a seat from the Salem district, was tenacious of his antecedents, while New York respected the past in the person of the venerable Ben

arrangements with France beyond procuring indemnity and commerce. Madison's Writings, March, 1813.

* See 4 Niles's Register, 268.