tiations, which may take place upon the affairs of the Colonies.”’18 At a subsequent conference Châteaubriand gave Stuart the impression that he had discarded the notion that England had connived at Monroe's declarations in regard to South America.1 Conferences in regard to Spanish America were also held between Châteaubriand and the Duke of San Carlos, Spain's ambassador in Paris. On February 12, 1824, San Carlos reported to the new Spanish secretary of state, the Count of Ofalia, a conference in which Châteaubriand had stated that France wished Spain to decree the freedom of commerce in Spanish America and thus to weaken England's position. San Carlos intimated that the Allies feared that intervention in Spanish America would provoke a war because of the opposition of England.18 Monroe's message, interpreted to signify a rapprochement between England and the United States, evidently had some influence. On February 17, Châteaubriand wrote to the French ambassador at Berlin that both Canning and Monroe had declared that they denied to the continental powers the right of intervention by force of arms in the affairs of the Spanish colonies.19 This declaration was interpreted by Châteaubriand to mean that, if the Allies intervened in Spanish America, they would have to fight England and perhaps the United States also.20 Châteaubriand's analysis of European

16 Stuart to Canning, January 2, 1824, Public Record Office, Foreign Office Correspondence, France, 305, see also Reddaway, W. F., The Monroe Doctrine, 94. 17 Stuart to Canning, January 13, 1824, Public Record Office, Foreign Office Correspondence, France, 305.

18 Archivo Histórico Nacional, Estado, 6852. In October, 1823, Canning had boldly announced to the French ambassador in London, Prince Polignac, his unflinching opposition to intervention by force in Spanish America, British Foreign and State Papers, 1, 49-53; San Carlos to Saez, November 8, 1823, reported a conference with Châteaubriand in which the latter had told him that the news of Canning's attitude had been sent to the ambassadors of France in Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Spain, Archivo General de Indias, Estado, América en General, 5; see also Bagot, J., George Canning and his Friends, II, 208, 209.

19 Oeuvres Complètes de Châteaubriand, XII, 419. See further, Bagot, J., George Canning and his Friends, II, 207. An American's view of the influence of Monroe's message in France is found in Hamilton, S. M., Writings of James Monroe, VI, 432–

10 Oeuvres Complètes de Châteaubriand, XII, 419, 426.

politics convinced him that, in such a contingency, France would not get enough support from the Allies to justify a disastrous war: the Holy Alliance would be reduced to France and Russia. The hope of promoting commerce with the Spanish colonies, a desire to retard the recognition of Spanish-American independence by England, and a fear of the English navy were among the motives which governed Châteaubriand.22 More reluctant to intervene than the foreign minister was the premier, Count Villèle. In vain did the Czar intimate that the Allies should repress the revolt in Spanish America. 23 France did not advocate forcible intervention in Spanish America in the spring and summer of 1824.

The reports of Monroe's message and of its reception in England created a stir in the newspapers of Paris. The chief critic of Monroe was the administration journal, L'Etoile; his eloquent champion was Le Constitutionnel. On January 1, 1824, L'Etoile discussed the message under the headline "Mélanges Politiques." L'Etoile said that, according to the excerpts printed in the English newspapers, the message contained "evident contradictions." It affirmed that there was no design in Europe to oppress the Spanish colonists, but rather to release them, like their Spanish brothers, from "the yoke of ambitious and covetous revolutionists." Evidently it particularly objected to the passage concerning the governments de facto. "Such a maxim would shake the political system of all Europe and might even expose those professing it to terrible consequences. Suppose indeed that tomorrow an audacious soldier should seize the supreme power in the United States; or that, breaking the bonds of this gigantic federal republic several states should proclaim their independence, what principle would congress then invoke to protest against usurpation or

21 Ibid., 419, 426, 427.

22 Ibid., 379, 408, 411, 414, 426; San Carlos wrote to Ofalia, March 25, 1824, that Châteaubriand advised Spain not to exasperate England and thus accelerate the recognition of Spanish America, Archivo General de Indias, Estado, América en General, 5. On the influence of the sea powers see Chadwick, F. E., The Relations of the United States and Spain, Diplomacy, 204.

23 Martens, F. de, Traités conclus par la Russie, XV, 30.

dismemberment?" The complaints of the United States could be answered by their own words: "the usurper rules de facto; your former states have ceased de facto to belong to you." On January 4, L'Etoile also criticized Monroe. It said that Monroe, "who was not a sovereign," but only "the first delegate of the people" had assumed "the tone of a powerful monarch whose armies and fleets were ready to move at the first signal. He has done even more, for he has prescribed to the potentates of Europe the conduct which they ought to observe under certain circumstances if they do not wish to provoke his displeasure." After mentioning the non-colonization clause, it declared: "Mr. Monroe is the temporary president of a republic situated on the eastern coast of North America. That republic is bounded on the south by the possessions of the king of Spain and on the north by the possessions of the king of England. The independence of this republic has been recognized for only forty years. On what title then are the Two Americas from Hudson's Bay to Cape Horn now under its immediate control?” The attitude assumed by Monroe was described as that of "a dictator armed with a right of sovereignty over all of the New World." The message was interpreted to mean that, under Monroe's "political system," Spain could not attempt to reconquer her colonial dominions; the king of Portugal could not freely act as a sovereign and as a father in the empire of Brazil; England could not freely plant new settlements in Canada or New Scotland. Moreover, the message contained "phrases indirectly hostile to the politics and to the ambitions of the great powers of Europe." Lastly, the doctrines of the message were not sanctioned by any authority of the United States; "the opinions of Monroe were as yet only those of a private citizen."

On January 4 Le Courrier Française advised "L'Etoile, its party, and all the host of fanatics of Europe to restrain the ridiculous manifestations of their wrath." On January 6, the Times made a spirited defence of Monroe: "The French Ultra journals are much perplexed by the message of the President to Congress, and by the favorable reception which

(except in one or two contemptible cases) that bold state paper has experienced from the English press. The editors of the Etoile manifestly shake in their skins, and writhe under the lash thus inflicted on the plots of their masters against human freedom." The Times declared that L'Etoile was attempting "to sever the Chief Magistrate of a powerful and enlightened nation, from the body of the state which he represents. 'Not a Sovereign!' No, but he is the acknowledged-the elected head and organ of a great sovereign people-one whose election cost his country neither a drop of blood nor a widow's tear, nor the beggary or banishment, the persecution or corruption of a single human being among ten millions of men.'

Le Constitutionnel of January 2 defended the message in a remarkable exposition. It declared that the message expressed justice "with simplicity and grandeur." The "wise Monroe" had firmly traced "the limits of the New World. There one reads all that we ceaselessly repeat; there one sees put into practice all the principles which we proclaim; one is impressed with the serenity and the universal good-will which it breathes. To-day for the first time the new continent says to the old 'I am no longer land for occupation; here men are masters of the soil which they occupy, the equals of the people from whom they came, and resolved not to treat with them except on the basis of the most exact justice.' The new continent is right." This journal believed the great principle of the message to be that the Americas were no longer open to colonization: "America has legitimate possessors from the Pole to Cape Horn." This principle, was interpreted to mean that Monroe recognized the right of European nations to colonies in America while the settlers were under the tutelage of the mother-country. But when the colonists became mature and exercised their rights and powers they became members of the "new American family." The declarations of Monroe in regard to the governments de facto were interpreted to mean that, if a colony warred with the mother-country, the older American states would not intervene until the rising state had demonstrated by force its right to emancipation. But if the European continent, "proud of its

former supremacy," proposed to take up arms against a colony, then American neutrality would cease, the struggle would no longer be "the cause of the mother-country with a colony, it would be the quarrel of a continent with a continent; the United States would see their independence compromised and they could not remain peaceable spectators of such subversion of all rights. The anti-revolutionary system has traversed all Europe, it has broken down the Alps and the Pyrenees in the two peninsulas, it has touched the columns of Hercules, and it now needs only to cross the ocean to accomplish the reconstruction of the past and to revoke all enfranchisements; but the freedmen are members of a nation and they declare to Old Europe that she shall not cross the sea to replace the yoke of former domination. The oldest sons declare that they join their younger brothers, and, if anyone wishes to attack them, they announce that the United States will oppose it, because they are all brothers with a common origin and with the same cause."

The non-colonization principle per se was hardly given as much attention in the newspapers of Paris as in those of London. On January 24, 1824, the Journal des Débats printed a letter which discussed the conflicting claims to the north-west coast of America and the message of Monroe. The Journal merely called the attention of its readers to the rights of Spain.

Monroe's message reached Spain in January, 1824, when the reactionary policy of the absolute king, Ferdinand VII, was approaching a climax in the terrible days of Calomarde. The clauses of the message which dealt with Spanish America naturally attracted the attention of a few officials of the government. The Spanish consul at Gibraltar interpreted the news, which he gleaned from American newspapers, to mean that the United States would object even to the interference of Spain with the states whose independence they had acknowledged.24 Letters to Madrid from the Spanish consul at New York, Franciso Stoughton, in which he described the message as "a political maneuvre to check European powers and to 24 J. G. de Rivas to the Marquis of Casa Yrujo, January 5, 1824, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Estado, 5625.