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Other documents randomly have
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she was not the “Guerriere;” and Rodgers then made the remark
that either she had received some unfortunate shot at the outset, or
she was a vessel of force very inferior to what he had taken her for,
—although she was still supposed to be nothing less than a 36-gun
frigate. Disabled she certainly was, for she lay ungovernable, with
her bow directly under the “President’s” broadside.
Rodgers hailed once more, and understood the stranger to
answer that she was a British ship-of-war in great distress. At nine
o’clock at night the “President” began to repair damages, and beat
about within reach, on different tacks, with lights displayed, until
daybreak, when she ran down to the British vessel, and sent a boat
on board. Then at last Rodgers learned, certainly to his great
disappointment, that he had been fighting a single-decked vessel of
less than half his force. His mistake was not so surprising as it
seemed. The British cruiser might easily at a distance, or in the dark,
be taken for a frigate. Her great length; her poop, top-gallants,
forecastle; her deep bulwarks; the manner of stowing her
hammocks; and room on each side to mount three more guns than
she actually carried,—were decisive to any one who could not see
that she carried but one tier of guns.[32]
Captain Bingham of the “Little Belt,” a British corvette, rated at
twenty guns, gave a very different account of the affair. He had been
ordered from Bermuda to carry despatches to the “Guerriere;” had
run north toward New York without finding her; and on his return
southward, at eleven o’clock on the morning of May 16, had seen a
strange sail, to which he gave chase. At two o’clock in the afternoon,
concluding that she was an American frigate, he abandoned the
chase, and resumed his course. The rest of his story is to be told in
his own words:[33]—
“Hoisted the colors, and made all sail south, ... the stranger edging
away, but not making any more sail. At 3.30 he made sail in chase....
At 6.30, finding he gained so considerably on us as not to be able to
elude him during the night, being within gunshot, and clearly
discerning the stars in his broad pennant, I imagined the most
prudent method was to bring to, and hoist the colors, that no mistake
 might arise, and that he might see what we were. The ship was
therefore brought to, her colors hoisted, her guns double-shotted, and
every preparation made in case of a surprise. By his manner of
steering down, he evidently wished to lay his ship in a position for
raking, which I frustrated by wearing three times. At about 8.15 he
came within hail. I hailed and asked what ship it was. He again
repeated my words and fired a broadside, which I instantly returned.
The action then became general, and continued so for three quarters
of an hour, when he ceased firing, and appeared to be on fire about
the main hatchway. He then filled, ... hailed, and asked what ship this
was. He fired no more guns, but stood from us, giving no reason for
his most extraordinary conduct.”
Bingham’s report was afterward supported by the evidence of his
two lieutenants, his boatswain, purser, and surgeon, at the official
inquiry made May 29, at Halifax.[34] Rodgers’s report was sustained
by the searching inquiry made by the American government to
ascertain the truth of Bingham’s assertions.[35] The American
investigation was naturally much more thorough in consequence of
Bingham’s charges, so that not only every officer, but also every
seaman of the “President’s” company gave evidence under oath. All
agreed in swearing to the facts as they have been related in the
American story.
About a month after the action, two sailors claiming to be
deserters from the “President” arrived at Halifax and made affidavits,
[36] which gave a third account quite different from the other two.
One of these men, an Englishman, swore that he had been stationed
in the second division, on the gun-deck of the “President;” that a
gun in that division went off, as he thought, by accident, four or five
men leaning on it; that he had turned to acquaint Lieutenant Belden,
who commanded that division, of the fact, but before he could do
this, though the lieutenant was only three guns from him, the whole
broadside of the “President” was discharged. This story was the least
probable of the three. The evidence of a deserter, under every
motive to ingratiate himself with his future officers, would be
suspicious, even if he were proved to have been in the “President’s”
crew, which was not the case; but it became valueless when the rolls
showed no Lieutenant Belden on board the “President,” but that the
second division on the gun-deck was commanded by Lieut. A. J.
Dallas,—and Lieutenant Dallas swore that he himself fired the first
gun from the “President,” without orders, in answer to the “Little
Belt’s” discharge. The evidence of every other officer and man at the
guns supported his assertion.
When the contradictory reports of Rodgers and Bingham were
published, a controversy arose between the newspapers which
sympathized with the different captains. Rodgers was vehemently
attacked by the English and Federalist press; Bingham was as hotly
scouted by the American newspapers friendly to Madison. The
dispute was never settled. Perhaps this was the only instance where
the honor of the services was so deeply involved on both sides as to
make the controversy important; for if Rodgers, all his officers, and
his whole crew behaved as Bingham alleged, and perjured
themselves afterward to conceal it, they were not the men they
were supposed to be; and if Bingham swore falsely, he went far to
establish the worst American charges against the character of the
British navy.
For this reason some little effort to form an opinion on the
subject deserves to be made, even at the risk of diffuseness. The
elaborate investigation by the United States government settled the
weight of testimony in favor of Rodgers. Other evidence raised
doubts of the accuracy of Bingham’s report.
This report was dated May 21, five days after the battle, in “lat.
36° 53´ N.; long. 71° 49´ W. Cape Charles bearing W. 48 miles,”—
which, according to the senior lieutenant’s evidence, May 29, was
about the spot of the action, from fifty to fifty-four miles east of
Cape Charles. Yet a glance at the map showed that these bearings
marked a point more than two hundred miles east of Cape Charles.
This carelessness could not be set to the account of a misprint.
The date proved only inaccuracy; other parts of Bingham’s report
showed a willingness to confuse the facts. He claimed to have
hoisted his colors at two o’clock in the afternoon, after making out
the American commodore’s pennant and resuming a southerly
course. Rodgers averred that the “Little Belt” obstinately refused to
show colors till darkness concealed them; and Bingham’s report itself
admitted that at 6.30 he decided to hoist his colors, “that no mistake
might arise.” During the five hours’ chase his colors were not flying.
His assertion, too, that at 6.30 the American frigate was within
gunshot, and that the “Little Belt” was brought to because she could
not escape, agreed ill with his next admission, that the “President”
consumed nearly two hours in getting within hailing distance.
The most evident error was at the close of the British story.
Bingham declared that the general action lasted three quarters of an
hour, and that then the enemy ceased firing; appeared to be on fire
about the main hatchway, and “stood from us,” firing no more guns.
The two lieutenants, boatswain, and purser of the “Little Belt” swore
that the action lasted “about an hour;” the surgeon said “about
forty-five minutes.” Every American officer declared under oath that
the entire action, including the cessation of firing for three minutes,
did not exceed a quarter of an hour, or eighteen minutes at most.
On this point the American story was certainly correct. Indeed, two
years later, after the “Constitution” had silenced the “Guerriere” in
thirty-five minutes, and the “United States” had, in a rough sea and
at comparatively long range, left the “Macedonian” a wreck in less
than two hours of action, no officer in the British service would have
sacrificed his reputation for veracity by suggesting that a British
corvette of eighteen guns could have lain nearly an hour within
pistol-shot, in calm weather, under the hot fire of an American “line-
of-battle ship in disguise.” The idea of forcing her to “stand from us”
would have seemed then mere gasconade. Some fifteen months
afterward, the British sloop-of-war “Alert,” of twenty guns, imitated
the “Little Belt” by attacking Commodore Porter’s 32-gun frigate
“Essex,” and in eight minutes struck her colors in a sinking condition.
If the “President” had been no heavier than the “Essex,” she should
still have silenced the “Little Belt” in a quarter of an hour.
The “Little Belt” escaped destruction, but she suffered severely.
Bingham reported: “I was obliged to desist from firing, as, the ship
falling off, no gun would bear, and had no after-sail to help her to;
all the rigging and sails cut to pieces; not a brace nor a bowline
left.... I have to lament the loss of thirty-two men killed and
wounded, among whom is the master. His Majesty’s ship is much
damaged in masts, rigging, and hull; ... many shot through between
wind and water, and many shots still remain inside, and upper works
all shot away; starboard pump also.” He did not know his good
fortune. Two years afterward he would have been well content to
escape from the “President” on any terms, even though the “Little
Belt” had been twice the size she was. The “President’s” loss
consisted of one boy wounded, and some slight damage to the
rigging.
Bingham’s report was accepted by the British government and
navy with blind confidence, and caused no small part of the
miscalculation which ended in disasters to British pride. “No one act
of the little navy of the United States,” said the British historian five
years afterward, “had been at all calculated to gain the respect of
the British. First was seen the ‘Chesapeake’ allowing herself to be
beaten with impunity by a British ship only nominally superior to her.
Then the huge frigate ‘President’ attacks and fights for nearly three
quarters of an hour the British sloop ‘Little Belt.’”[37] So self-
confident was the British navy that Bingham was believed to have
fought the “President” with credit and success; while, on the
American side, Rodgers and his ship’s company believed that the
British captain deliberately delayed the meeting until dark, with the
view of taking advantage of the night to punish what he thought the
insolence of the chase.
Whatever opinion might be formed as to the conduct of the two
captains, the vehemence of feeling on each side was only to be
compared with the “Chesapeake” affair; but in this instance the
grievance belonged to the British navy, and Dacres and the
“Guerriere” felt the full passion and duty of revenge. The news met
Foster on his arrival at Norfolk, a few weeks afterward, and took
away his only hope of a cordial reception. His instructions intended
him to conciliate good-will by settling the “Chesapeake” outrage,
while they obliged him to take a tone of refusal or remonstrance on
every other subject; but he found, on arriving, that the Americans
cared nothing for reparation of the “Chesapeake” outrage, since
Commodore Rodgers had set off against it an outrage of his own,
and had killed four men for every one killed by Captain Humphries.
Instead of giving redress, Foster found himself obliged to claim it.
July 2 Foster was formally received by the President; and the
same day, as though he had no other hope but to take the offensive,
he began his official correspondence by a letter on the seizure of
West Florida, closing with a formal notice that if the United States
persevered in their course, his orders required him to present the
solemn protest of his Government “against an attempt so contrary to
every principle of public justice, faith, and national honor.”
The language was strong; but unfortunately for Foster’s
influence, the world at the moment showed so little regard for
justice, faith, or honor, that the United States had no reason to be
singular in Quixotism; and although in logic the tu quoque was an
argument hardly deserving notice, in politics it was only less decisive
than cannon. The policy of Foster’s remonstrance was doubtful in
another respect. In proportion as men exposed themselves to
reprimands, they resented the reprimand itself. Madison and Monroe
had each his sensitive point. Madison resented the suggestion that
Napoleon’s decrees were still in force, regarding the matter as
involving his veracity. Monroe equally resented the assertion that
West Florida belonged to Spain, for his character as a man of sense,
if not of truth, was involved in the assertion that he had himself
bought West Florida in his Louisiana purchase. Yet the mildness of
his reply to Foster’s severe protest proved his earnest wish to
conciliate England. In a note[38] of July 8 he justified the seizure of
West Florida by the arguments already used, and offered what he
called a “frank and candid explanation” to satisfy the British
government. In private he talked with more freedom, and—if Foster
could be believed—showed himself in a character more lively if not
more moral than any the American people would have recognized as
his. July 5 Foster wrote to Wellesley:[39]—
“It was with real pain, my Lord, that I was forced to listen to
arguments of the most profligate nature, such as that other nations
were not so scrupulous; that the United States showed sufficient
forbearance in not assisting the insurgents of South America and
looking to their own interests in the present situation of that country.”

Foster was obliged to ignore the meaning of this pointed retort;

while his inquiries how far the American government meant to carry
its seizures of Spanish territory drew from Monroe no answer but a
laugh. The Secretary of State seemed a transformed man. Not only
did he show no dread of interference from England in Florida, but he
took an equally indifferent air on every other matter except one. He
said not a word about impressments; he betrayed no wish to trouble
himself about the “Chesapeake” affair; he made no haste in
apologizing for the attack on the “Little Belt;” but the Orders in
Council—these, and nothing else—formed the issue on which a
change of policy was to depend.
Precisely on the Orders in Council Foster could offer no hope of
concession or compromise. So far from withdrawing the orders, he
was instructed to require that the United States should withdraw the
Non-intercourse Act, under threat of retaliation; and he carried out
his instructions to the letter. After protesting, July 2, against the
seizure of West Florida, he wrote, July 3, a long protest against the
non-importation.[40] His demand savored of Canning’s and Jackson’s
diplomacy; but his arguments in its support were better calculated
for effect, and his cry for justice claimed no little sympathy among
men who shared in the opinion of Europe that France was the true
object of attack, and that Napoleon’s overthrow, not the overthrow
of England, was the necessary condition of restoring public order.
Foster’s protest against including Fox’s blockade among the
admittedly illegal Orders in Council, brought the argument to a
delicate issue of law and fact.
“In point of date,” he said, “the blockade of May, 1806, preceded
the Berlin Decree; but it was a just and legal blockade, according to
 the established law of nations, because it was intended to be
maintained, and was actually maintained, by an adequate force
appointed to guard the whole coast described in the notification, and
consequently to enforce the blockade.”
In effect this argument conceded Madison’s principle; for the
further difference between blockading a coast and blockading by
name the several ports on a coast, was hardly worth a war; and the
question whether an estuary, like the British Channel, the Baltic Sea,
or Chesapeake Bay, could be best blockaded by a cruising or by a
stationary squadron, or by both, called rather for naval than for legal
opinion. Foster repudiated the principle of paper-blockades; and
after showing that Fox’s blockade was defended only as far as it was
meant to be legal, he made the further concession of admitting that
since it had been merged in the Orders in Council, it existed only as
a part of the orders; so that if the orders were repealed, England
must either make Fox’s blockade effective, or abandon it. By this
expedient, the issue was narrowed to the Orders in Council
retaliatory on Bonaparte’s decrees, and intended to last only as long
as those decrees lasted. Foster appealed to Napoleon’s public and
official language to prove that those decrees were still in force, and
therefore that the United States government could not, without
making itself a party to Napoleon’s acts and principles, demand a
withdrawal of the British Orders. If the orders were not to be
withdrawn because they were illegal, they ought not to be
withdrawn on the false excuse that Napoleon had withdrawn his
decrees. Against such a demand England might reasonably protest:
—
“Great Britain has a right to complain that ... not only has America
suffered her trade to be moulded into the means of annoyance to
Great Britain under the provisions of the French Decrees, but
construing those decrees as extinct, upon a deceitful declaration of
the French Cabinet, she has enforced her Non-importation Act against
England. Under these circumstances I am instructed by my
Government to urge to that of the United States the injustice of thus
enforcing that Act against his Majesty’s dominions; and I cannot but
hope that a spirit of justice will induce the United States government
 to reconsider the line of conduct they have pursued, and at least to
re-establish their former state of strict neutrality.”
President Madison had put himself, little by little, in a position
where he had reason to fear the popular effect of such appeals; but
awkward as Madison’s position was, that of Monroe was many
degrees worse. He had accepted office in April as the representative
of Republicans who believed that Napoleon’s decrees were not
repealed, and the objects of his ambition seemed to depend on
reversing Madison’s course. In July he found himself in painful
straits. Obliged to maintain that Napoleon’s decrees were repealed,
he was reduced to sacrifice his own official agent in the effort. Foster
reported, as a matter of surprise to himself, remarks of Monroe still
more surprising to history.
“I have urged,” reported Foster, July 7,[41] “with every argument I
could think of, the injustice of the Non-importation Act which was
passed in the last session of Congress, while there were doubts
entertained even here as to the repeal of the Berlin and Milan
Decrees; but to my surprise I find it now maintained that there
existed no doubt on the subject at the time of passing the Act, and
Mr. Russell is censured by his Government for publicly averring that
the ship ‘New Orleans Packet’ was seized under their operation,—not
that it is denied, however, that she was seized under them by our
construction. Mr. Monroe, indeed, though he qualified his blame of Mr.
Russell by praising his zeal, yet allowed to me that much of their
present embarrassment was owing to his statement.”
“It would be fatiguing to your Lordship,” continued Foster, “were I
to describe the various shadows of argument to which the American
minister had recourse in order to prove his statement of the decrees
having been repealed in as far as America had a right to expect.”
These shadows of argument, however elaborately described,
could be reduced to the compass of a few lines; for they all resulted
in a doctrine which became thenceforward a dogma. Napoleon’s
decrees, so viewed, had two characters,—an international, and a
municipal. The international character alone could give the right of
international retaliation; and the Emperor, since November 1, had
ceased to enforce his edicts in this character. The municipal
character, whether enforced or not, in no way concerned England.
 Such was, indeed, Napoleon’s object in substituting customs
regulations for the rules of his decrees in his own ports. After that
change, he applied the decrees themselves to every other part of
Europe, but made an apparent exception for American commerce
with France, which was forced to conform to his objects by municipal
licenses and prohibitory duties. Monroe took the ground that since
November 2 the decrees stood repealed, and the “New Orleans
Packet” had been seized under a “municipal operation” with which
England had nothing to do. The argument, though perhaps casuistic,
seemed to offer a sufficient excuse for England, in case she should
wish to abandon her own system as she saw danger approaching;
but it brought Monroe, who used it profusely, into daily mortification,
and caused the President, who invented and believed it, a world of
annoyance,—for Napoleon, as Monroe had personal reason to
remember, never failed to sacrifice his allies, and was certain to fail
in supporting a theory so infirm as this.
For the moment, Monroe made no written reply to Foster’s letter
of July 3; he was tormented by the crisis of his career, and Foster
ceased to be important from the moment he could do nothing
toward a repeal of the orders. With the usual misfortune of British
diplomatists, Foster became aggressive as he lost ground, and
pushed the secretary vigorously into Napoleon’s arms. July 14 Foster
wrote again, in a threatening tone, that measures of retaliation for
the Act of March 2 were already before his Government, and if
America persisted in her injurious course of conduct, the most
unfriendly situation would result. While this threat was all that
England offered for Monroe’s friendship, news arrived on the same
day that Napoleon, May 4, had opened his ports to American
commerce. Not till then did Monroe give way, and turn his back upon
England and his old political friends. The course taken by Foster left
no apparent choice; and for that reason chiefly Monroe, probably
with many misgivings, abandoned the theory of foreign affairs which
had for five years led him into so many mortifications at home and
abroad.
 July 23 Monroe sent his answer[42] to the British minister’s
argument. In substance this note, though long, contained nothing
new; but in effect it was an ultimatum which left England to choose
between concession and war. As an ultimatum, it was weakened by
the speciousness of its long argument to prove that the French
Decrees were repealed. The weakness of the ground required double
boldness of assertion, and Monroe accepted the whole task. He
showed further willingness to accept an issue on any point England
might select. Foster’s remonstrance in regard to the “Little Belt”
called from Monroe a tart reference to the affair of the
“Chesapeake,” and a refusal to order an inquiry, as a matter of right,
into the conduct of Commodore Rodgers. He showed equally little
disposition to press for a settlement of the “Chesapeake” affair.
Foster had been barely two weeks at Washington when he summed
up the result of his efforts in a few words,[43] which told the
situation, as Monroe then understood it, a year before war was
declared:—
“On the whole, their view in this business [of the ‘Little Belt’] is to
settle this, with every other difference, in the most amicable manner,
provided his Majesty’s Orders in Council are revoked; otherwise, to
make use of it, together with all other topics of irritation, for the
purpose of fomenting a spirit of hatred toward England, and thereby
strengthening their party. Your Lordship cannot expect to hear of any
change till Congress meet.”
 CHAPTER III.
Before the familiar figure of Robert Smith quite fades from the
story of his time, the mystery which he succeeded in throwing
around his true sympathies needs explanation. When dismissed from
the Cabinet in March, he was supposed to be a friend of France and
of the President’s French policy. In June he appeared before the
public as an opponent of Madison and of French influence. Perhaps
in reality he neither supported nor opposed either policy; but he
deserves such credit as friendly hands gave him at the moment of
his disgrace, and on no one had he made a happier impression than
on Serurier, the new French minister. After six weeks’ experience,
Serurier, who looked upon Gallatin as little better than an enemy,
regarded Robert Smith as a friend. March 5, while Gallatin was
writing his resignation, Serurier wrote a despatch to Cadore giving
his estimates of the two Cabinet officers:[44]—
“Mr. Gallatin, perhaps the most capable man in the Republic, under
an exterior rigidly Republican hides his ambitious designs, his feelings
of superiority, which torment him without his being able to satisfy
them. People maintain that all his system as a financier is English,—a
thing simple enough; and that, on another side, he thinks himself
obliged to expiate the sin of being a stranger and born on our
frontiers, by separating himself from us in his political principles. I am
told also that he has seen with annoyance the occupation by France
of Geneva, his country,—whither he expected to withdraw himself
with his riches, if his ambition should be crossed here by events. I
have as yet no cause for complaint in regard to him, but this is the
way he is talked about by the Frenchmen here, and by the party most
nearly in sympathy with us (le parti qui se rapproche le plus de
nous).”
The fable of Gallatin’s richesses revealed the source of Serurier’s
information. The party most nearly in sympathy with France was the
“Aurora” faction, which spread stories of Gallatin’s speculations and
treated him with vindictive enmity, but regarded Robert Smith as a
friend. Serurier’s description of Gallatin’s character contrasted darkly
with his portrait of Robert Smith:—
“Mr. Smith shows certainly a character equally decided, but more
open. His system seems more Continental; at least he wishes me to
think so. With perhaps less breadth of mind, he has more elevation. I
know that he nourishes a secret admiration of the Emperor, which he
very wisely hides. I dined with him three days ago; it was my first
dinner. On leaving the table he sent for a bust and an engraving of his
Majesty, and on this subject said to me things full of politeness. In the
conversation which followed, he became more expansive: ‘The nation’
(it is he who is speaking) ‘is bold and enterprising at sea; and if war
should break out with England, supposing this rupture to be
accompanied by a full reconciliation with France, the commerce
between Europe and America might become more active than ever.
The Americans possess a sort of vessels called schooners, the swiftest
sailers in the world, and for that reason beyond insult and capture;
while their sailors are full of confidence in the advantage given them
by this sort of vessel in time of war.’ He affirmed to me that the great
majority of the nation, if satisfied on the side of France, will be much
inclined to war with her rival; but that the mild, prudent, and perhaps
too timid administration of Mr. Jefferson heretofore, and now that of
Mr. Madison, had thus far repressed the national enthusiasm; but he
was convinced that under the administration, for example, of the Vice-
President General Clinton, or of any other statesman of his character,
war would have already broken out.”
This was not the only occasion when Robert Smith showed
himself to the French minister as restive under restraint.
“I asked him,” reported Serurier at another time,[45] “what the
Government expected to do if the English resented its pretension to
the independence of its flag? ‘War,’ he replied with perfect frankness,
‘is the inevitable result of our position toward the English if they
refuse to recognize our rights.’ Mr. Smith then admitted to me that his
Government certainly had the best founded hope that the
establishment of the regency in England would bring about a change
of ministry and probably of system, and that the Orders in Council
would be repealed; that in this case, neutral rights being re-
established, the motive for all this discussion would cease. But he
repeated to me that in the contrary case war would, in his eyes, be
inevitable, and that the Americans, in deciding on this course, had
perfectly foreseen where it would lead them, without being, on that
 account, deterred from a decision dictated by their honor or their
interest.”
These remarks were made February 17, the day when the
President decided to accept Napoleon’s conditions; and they helped
to convince Serurier that Robert Smith was more “continental,” or
Napoleonic, than Gallatin. For this reason, when he heard that
Gallatin had prevailed, and Smith was to take the Russian Mission,
he wrote to his Government with regret:[46]—
“The Secretary of State has taken his resolution like a man of
courage. Instead of sulking and going to intrigue in his province, he
has preferred to remain attached to the government of his country,
and to go for some time to enjoy the air of our Europe, whither his
tastes lead him, and to reserve himself for more favorable
circumstances. His frank and open character makes him generally
regretted. I think he must have had a share at the time in the fit of
energy which his Government has shown. His language was
measured; but very certainly his system drew him much nearer to
France than to England.”
Perhaps Serurier was misled by Robert Smith’s habit of taking
tone from the person nearest him; but as the French minister
learned more of Monroe, his regrets for Smith became acute. “I
regard as an evil,” he wrote, April 5,[47] “the removal of a man
whose elevated views,—noble in foreign policy at least,—and whose
decided character, might have given to affairs a direction which must
be at least counteracted by his absence, and especially by the way in
which his place is filled.”
Monroe took charge of the State Department April 1, and within
a few days Serurier became unpleasantly conscious of the change.
He still met with civility, but he felt new hesitation. Joel Barlow had
been appointed minister to France, and should have started instantly
for his post. Yet Barlow lingered at Washington; and when Serurier
asked the reason of the delay, Monroe merely said he was waiting
for the arrival of the frigate “Essex” with despatches from France
and England to the middle of April. The expected despatches did not
arrive until July; and in the interval Serurier passed a season of
discomfort. The new Secretary of State, unlike his predecessor,
showed no admiration for Napoleon. Toward the end of June, the
French consuls in the United States made known that they were still
authorized and required by the Emperor to issue permits or
certificates to American vessels destined for France. Monroe sent at
once for Serurier, and admonished him in language that seemed to
the French minister altogether out of place:[48]—
“Mr. Monroe’s countenance was absolutely distorted (tout-à-fait
décomposeé). I could not conceive how an object, apparently so
unimportant, could affect him so keenly. He continued thus: ‘You are
witness, sir, to the candor of our motives, to the loyalty of our
principles, to our immovable fidelity to our engagements. In spite of
party clamor and the extreme difficulty of the circumstances, we
persevere in our system; but your Government abandons us to the
attacks of its enemies and ours, by not fulfilling on its side the
conditions set forth in the President’s proclamation. We are daily
accused of a culpable partiality for France. These cries were at first
feeble, and we flattered ourselves every day to be able to silence
them by announcing the Emperor’s arrangements in conformity with
ours; but they become louder by our silence. The Administration finds
itself in the most extreme embarrassment (dans le plus extrême
embarras); it knows neither what to expect from you, nor what to say
to its constituents. Ah, sir!’ cried Mr. Monroe, ‘if your sovereign had
deigned to imitate the promptness (empressement) which our
President showed in publishing his proclamation; if he had re-opened,
with the necessary precautions, concerted with us, his ports and his
vessels,—all the commerce of America was won for France. A
thousand ships would have sailed at all risks to your ports, where they
would have sought the products of your manufactures which are so
much liked in this country. The English would have certainly opposed
such a useful exchange between the two peoples; our honor and
interest would have united to resist them; and the result, for which
you are doubtless more desirous than you admit, could not have failed
to happen at last.’”

Serurier tried, in vain to soothe the secretary; Monroe was not to

be appeased. Oratory so impassioned was not meant for mere show;
and as causes of grievance multiplied, the secretary gathered one
after another, evidently to be used for a rupture with France. Each
stage toward his end he marked by the regular shade of increasing
displeasure that he had himself, as a victim, so often watched.
Enjoying the pleasure of doing to others what Cevallos and
Harrowby, Talleyrand and Canning had done to him, Monroe, familiar
with the accents of the most famous school in European diplomacy,
ran no risk of throwing away a single tone.
When the secretary told Serurier that Joel Barlow’s departure
depended on the news to be brought by the “Essex,” he did not add
that he was himself waiting for the arrival of Foster, the new British
minister; but as it happened, Foster reached Washington July 1, at
the same instant with the despatches brought by the “Essex.” The
crisis of Serurier’s diplomatic fortune came with the arrival of Foster,
and during the next two weeks the French minister passed through
many uncomfortable scenes. He knew too little of American affairs to
foresee that not himself, but Monroe, must in the end be the victim.
As soon as the “Essex” was announced, bringing William Pinkney
from London and Jonathan Russell’s despatches from Paris,—
including his report of Napoleon’s tirade to the Paris merchants, but
no sign that his decrees were repealed,—Serurier called at the
Department to learn what Monroe had to say. “I found him icy; he
told me that, contrary to all the hopes of the Government, the
‘Essex’ had brought nothing decisive, and asked if I was more
fortunate.”[49] Serurier had despatches, but as the story has
shown[50] they were emphatic in forbidding him to pledge himself in
regard to the Emperor’s course. Obliged to evade Monroe’s inquiry,
he could only suggest hopes of more decisive news by the next
arrival, and then turned the subject to Napoleon’s zeal in
revolutionizing Spanish America:—
“I was heard with politeness, but coldly. Then I talked of the
abrupt and improper tone of Mr. Russell’s correspondence. I said that
it did not offend, because Mr. Russell was not of enough consequence
to give offence; but that it was considered altogether indecorous. I
made him aware, on this occasion, of the necessity that the Republic
should have a minister at Paris. Mr. Monroe answered that the
Government had already made that remark; he repeated to me that
he had intended, long before, to send away Mr. Barlow, but that the
daily expectation of despatches from France had made him always
 delay. Here he stopped himself, and returned for the tenth time upon
the difficult position of the Government; upon the universal outcry of
commerce, which would become a kind of revolt in the North if the
Government could offer nothing to counteract it. He recalled to me
the effect produced by the announcement of new licenses issued at
Boston and Baltimore, and the equally annoying effect of a pamphlet
by the ex-Secretary of State, Mr. Smith, which revealed to the public
the declaration made by me on my arrival, that the old confiscations
made by way of reprisals, could not be matter of discussion,
—‘information,’ said he, ‘which had at the time profoundly afflicted the
Administration, and which it had counted on publishing only at the
moment when it could simultaneously announce a better outlook, and
the absolute restoration of commercial relations.’ He ended, at last,
this conference by telling me that he had not yet finished reading all
his papers; that the Government was that moment deliberating on its
course, and that in a few days we would have a new conference.”
Serurier felt his danger, and expected to be sacrificed. Society
turned against him. Even Duane became abusive of France.
“Already, within a few days, I notice a change in the manners of
every one about me. The general attention of which I was the object
during the first five months has been suddenly followed by a general
reserve; people are civil, but under a thousand pretexts they avoid
being seen in conversation with me. The journals hitherto most
favorable to France begin to say that since we will not keep our
engagements, a rupture must take place.”
Thinking that he had nothing to lose, the French minister took a
high tone, and July 3, through a private channel, conveyed to the
President a warning that the course threatened might lead too far.
“The person in question having answered that I might depend on
the Government’s fidelity to its engagements, I replied that I would
believe it all if the new American minister should be despatched to
Paris, and that I would believe nothing if this departure were again
postponed.”
Everything depended on Foster, who had been received by the
President July 2, the day before Serurier’s message was sent.
Apparently, the first impression made by Foster’s letters and
conversation was decisive, for Monroe told the French minister at the
public dinner of July 4, that Barlow was to start at once on his
mission.
“This news,” reported Serurier, “caused me great pleasure. This
success, though doubtless inconsiderable, made all my ambition for
the moment; it delays for several months the crisis that the English
party was trying to force, in the hope of making it decisive against us;
it neutralizes the effect of the arrival of the British minister, whose
want of influence down to this point it reveals; it withdraws the
initiative from the President and restores to his Majesty the decision of
our great affairs.”
No sooner had this decision been made, than Monroe seemed to
repent it. The conduct of France had been of late more outrageous
than that of England; and Monroe, who found his worst expectations
fulfilled, could not easily resign himself to accepting a yoke against
which he had for five years protested. The departure of Barlow,
ordered July 4, was countermanded July 5; and this proof of
Monroe’s discontent led to a striking interview, July 9, in which the
Secretary of State became more impassioned than ever.[51] Serurier
began by asking what he was to think of the Government’s conduct.
Monroe replied by recalling what had happened since the
appointment of Barlow as minister to France, a fortnight after
Serurier’s arrival. Then the Proclamation of November 2 had been
supposed sufficient to satisfy the Emperor; the Non-intercourse Act
followed,—yet the President was still waiting for the assurance that
the French Decrees were repealed, without which knowledge
Barlow’s instructions could not be written.
“So we reached the day when the ‘Essex’ arrived,” continued
Monroe. “Not an officer of the government, not a citizen in the
Republic, but was convinced that this frigate brought the most
satisfactory and the most decisive news. Yet to our great
astonishment—even to our confusion—she has brought nothing. In
spite of a deception so afflicting, the President had still decided to
make a last attempt, and this was to send off Mr. Barlow. I had the
honor to announce it to you; but on the news of our frigate’s arrival
without satisfactory information from France, a general cry of
discontent rose all over the Republic, and public opinion pronounced
itself so strongly against Mr. Barlow’s departure that the Government
 can to-day no longer give the order without raising from all parts of
the Union the cry of treason. I am myself a daily witness of the
general effervescence that this silence of your Government excites. I
cannot walk from my house to this office without being accosted by
twenty citizens, who say to me: ‘What, sir! shall you send off a
minister to France, when the Imperial government shows itself
unwilling to carry out its’ engagements; when it treats our citizens
with so much injustice, and you yourself with so much contempt? No!
the honor of the Republic will not permit you to send your
ambassador under such circumstances, and you will be responsible for
it to the country.’”
Monroe’s objection seemed reasonable. The sending a new
minister to France was in no way necessary for making an issue with
England. Indeed, if only a simple issue with England had been
wanted, the permanent presence of British frigates off Sandy Hook,
capturing American vessels and impressing American seamen, was
sufficient. No further protest against it needed to be made, seeing
that it had been the subject of innumerable protests. If President
Madison wanted an issue that should oblige Great Britain to declare
war, or to take measures equivalent to war, he could obtain it in a
moment by ordering Rodgers and Decatur to drive the British
frigates away and rescue their victims. For such a purpose he
needed no minister in France, and had no occasion to make himself
a party to fraud. Monroe’s language implied that he would have
preferred some such issue.
“‘Believe me,’ said Mr. Monroe in finishing, and as we were about
to separate, ‘the American government will not be inconsequent; but
its patience is exhausted, and as regards foreign Powers it is
determined to make itself respected. People in Europe suppose us to
be merchants, occupied exclusively with pepper and ginger. They are
much deceived, and I hope we shall prove it. The immense majority
of citizens do not belong to this class, and are, as much as your
Europeans, controlled by principles of honor and dignity. I never knew
what trade was. The President is as much of a stranger to it as I; and
we accord to commerce only the protection that we owe it, as every
government owes it to an interesting class of its citizens.’”
Commerce would have listened with more amusement than
conviction to Monroe’s ideas on the “principles of honor and dignity”
which led a government of Virginia and Pennsylvania farmers to
accord protection in the form of embargoes and non-intercourses to
commerce which it distrusted and despised; but Monroe meant only
that France, as well as England, must reckon on a new national spirit
in Virginia,—a spirit which they had themselves roused, and for
whose bad qualities they had only themselves to blame.
Yet Monroe found himself in an attitude not flattering to his
pride. All his life a representative of the Virginia school,—more
conservative than Jefferson, and only to be compared with John
Randolph, and John Taylor of Caroline,—he had come to the State
Department to enforce his own principles and overrule the President;
but he found himself helpless in the President’s hands. That the
contest was in reality between Monroe’s will and Madison’s became
clear to Serurier; and that Monroe’s pliable nature must succumb to
Madison’s pertinacity, backed as it was by authority, could not be
doubtful. Six months seemed to Virginians a short time for Monroe’s
submission, but in truth Monroe had submitted long before; his
rebellion itself had been due to William Pinkney and John Randolph
rather than to impulses of his own; he regretted it almost as soon as
it was made, and he suffered little in allowing Madison to control the
course of events. Yet he would certainly have preferred another
result, and his interview with Serurier, July 9, recorded the policy he
had meant to impose, while preparing for its abandonment.
The secretary waited only for a pretext to accept Madison’s
dogma that the French Decrees were withdrawn, although his
conversations with Serurier proved his conviction to the contrary. A
few days later, a vessel arrived from England bringing unofficial news
from France, to May 24, that the Emperor had released the American
vessels kept in sequestration since November 1, and had admitted
their cargoes for sale. Without the form of further struggle, Monroe
followed the footsteps of his predecessor.
“The Secretary of State sent for me three days ago to his office,”
wrote Serurier, July 20.[52] “After having congratulated me on this
decision [of the Emperor], he told me that he had no doubt of its
producing on the public the same excellent impression it had made
on the Government; but he added that as it was not official, the
President would like to have me write a letter as confirmative as
possible, in the absence of instructions, both of these events and of
his Majesty’s good intentions; and that if I could write him this letter,
Mr. Barlow should immediately depart.”
The only instructions possessed by Serurier on the subject of the
decrees warned him against doing what Monroe asked; but the
temptation to win a success was strong, and he wrote a cautious
letter,[53] dated July 19, saying that he had no official knowledge on
the subject, but that “it is with reason, sir, that you reject the idea of
a doubt on the fidelity of France in fulfilling her engagements; for to
justify such a doubt one must have some contradictory facts to cite,
—one must show that judgments have been rendered in France on
the principle of maintaining the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, or that
a series of American ships coming from England to America, or from
America to England, have been captured by our privateers in virtue
of the blockade of the British Isles. Nothing of the sort has become
known to any of us, and, on the contrary,” all advices showed that
the decrees in France and on the ocean had ceased to affect
American commerce.
Probably this letter disappointed the President, for it was never
published, nor was any allusion made to it in the correspondence
that followed. Without even such cover, Monroe ordered Barlow to
depart, and made the decision public. Serurier, puzzled though
delighted by his success, groped in the dark to discover how the
Government had reached its decision. Foster’s attitude failed to
enlighten him; and he could see no explanation, except that the
result was a personal victory of Madison over Monroe and the
Cabinet.
“The joy is general among the authorities,” he wrote July 20,[54]
“except among some friends of Mr. Foster; but more than any one
else, Mr. Madison seems enchanted to see himself confirmed
(raffermi) in a system which is wholly his own, but which he began to
see no means of maintaining. I do him the justice to say that if he
 had a movement of hesitation on the point of Mr. Barlow’s departure,
it was more the effect of public clamor than of his own sentiments,—a
movement of spite (dépit) and discouragement, rather than of
inclination toward England, which he frankly detests, as does his
friend Mr. Jefferson,—and that he has not been for a moment
unfaithful to his engagements with us. I have never seen him more
triumphant. The Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, and of War are
doubtful, perhaps, and conduct themselves more according to events;
but happily the President, superior to them in enlightenment as in
position, governs entirely by himself, and there is no reason to fear his
being crossed by them.”
Serurier knew Madison and Jefferson only as a Frenchman might,
and his ideas of their feelings toward England were such as a
Frenchman could understand. In truth, Madison did not want a
distinct issue of peace or war with England. Had he wished for such
an issue, he would have made it. Disbelieving in war, as war
approached, he clung to the last chances of peaceful coercion. The
fiction that Napoleon’s decrees were repealed enabled him to
enforce his peaceful coercive measures to avoid war. Not because he
wanted war, but because he wanted peace, Madison insisted that the
decrees were withdrawn. As he carried each point, he stood more
and more alone; he was misunderstood by his enemies and
overborne by his friends; he failed in his policy of peace, and knew
himself unfit to administer a policy of war. Yet he held to his
principle, that commercial restrictions were the true safeguards of an
American system.
A man of keen intelligence, Madison knew, quite as well as
Monroe, Serurier, or Foster, that the French Decrees were not
repealed. His alleged reason for despatching Barlow was
unsatisfactory to himself as to Monroe, and doubly worthless
because unofficial. Even while he insisted on his measures, he made
no secret of his discontent. When official despatches arrived a few
days later, Serurier was puzzled at finding Madison well aware that
the Emperor had not withdrawn and did not mean to withdraw his
decrees. July 23 Serurier communicated[55] to Monroe the substance
of the despatches from France. The next day he called at the
Department and at the White House to watch the effect of his letter,
which announced the admission of American merchandise into
French ports.
“Mr. Monroe showed himself less satisfied than I had hoped, either
because the President had so directed, in order to reserve the right of
raising new pretensions, or because, already advised by Mr. Russell,
he had been at the same time informed that the prizes made since
November by our privateers were not restored; and these restrictions
had been represented in an unfavorable light by the chargé d’affaires.
He confined himself to telling me that certainly there were things
agreeable to the American government in the Emperor’s
arrangements, but that there were others wholly contrary to
expectation, and that before his departure he would send me a list of
the complaints left unsatisfied.. .. As the President is to start to-
morrow for his estate in Virginia, I called this morning to bid him
good-by. I had on this occasion with Mr. Madison an interview which
put the last stroke to my suspicions. When I told him that I was glad
to see him a last time under auspices so happy as the news I had
officially given him the evening before, he answered me that he had
learned with pleasure, though without surprise, the release of the
sequestered ships and the Emperor’s decision to admit American
products; but that one thing pained him profoundly. This was that the
American ships captured since last November, under pretext of the
Berlin and Milan Decrees, had not been released with those which
voluntarily entered French ports; and he pretended that this failure to
execute the chief of our engagements destroyed the effect of all the
rest.”[56]

The opinion scarcely admitted dispute. Reversing Madison’s

theory, Napoleon had relieved American vessels from the “municipal
operation” of his decrees in France, while he enforced that
international operation on the high seas which alone Madison
declared himself bound by the law of nations to resist. The blockade
thus enforced by Napoleon against England was more extravagant
than any blockade England had ever declared. Of his acts in
Denmark and on the Baltic Madison took no notice at all, though
these, more than the detention of American prizes in France,
“destroyed the effect of all the rest.” If, then, the decrees were still
enforced on the ocean,—as Madison insisted they were,—they could
not have been repealed; and Madison, by submitting to their
enforcement on the ocean, not only recognized their legality, but
also required England to make the same submission, under penalty
of a declaration of war from the United States. This dilemma
threatened to overthrow Madison’s Administration, or even to break
up the Union. Serurier saw its dangers, and did his utmost to
influence Napoleon toward concessions:
“The revocation of the Decrees of Milan and Berlin has become a
personal affair with Mr. Madison. He announced it by proclamation,
and has constantly maintained it since. The English party never stops
worrying him on this point, and saying that he has been made a tool
of France,—that the decrees have not been repealed. He fears the
effect of this suspension, and foresees that it will cause great
discussions in the next Congress, and that it alone may compromise
the Administration, triumphant on all other points.”
Under such circumstances, Monroe needed more than common
powers in order to play his part. Talleyrand himself would have
found his impassive countenance tried by assuring Foster in the
morning that the decrees were repealed, and rating Serurier in the
afternoon because they were in force. Such conversations, extended
over a length of time, might in the end raise doubts of a statesman’s
veracity; yet this was what Monroe undertook. On the day when
Serurier communicated the news that disturbed the President,
Monroe sent to the British minister the note maintaining broadly that
France had revoked her decrees. Three days later, after the
President had told Serurier that “the failure to execute the chief of
our engagements destroyed the effect of all the rest,” Monroe gave
to Barlow his instructions founded on the revocation of the decrees.
Doubtless this double-dealing exasperated all the actors concerned
in it. Madison and Monroe at heart were more angry with France
than with England, if indeed degrees in anger could be felt where
the outrages of both parties were incessant and intolerable. Yet
Barlow took his instructions and set sail for France; a proclamation
appeared in the “National Intelligencer” calling Congress together for
November 1; and the President and his Secretary of State left
Washington for their summer vacation in Virginia, having accepted,
once for all, the conditions imposed by Napoleon.
For some years afterward Monroe said no more about old
Republican principles; but twelve months later he wrote to Colonel
Taylor a letter[57] which began with a candid confession:—
“I have been afraid to write to you for some time past, because I
knew that you expected better things from me than I have been able
to perform. You thought that I might contribute to promote a
compromise with Great Britain, and thereby prevent a war between
that country and the United States; that we might also get rid of our
restrictive system. I own to you that I had some hope, though less
than some of my friends entertained, that I might aid in promoting
that desirable result. This hope has been disappointed.”
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY,
J. W. POWELL, DIRECTOR.
 MAP OF
THE
STATE OF INDIANA
Exhibiting the Lands ceded by the
Indian Tribes
TO THE
UNITED STATES
BY
C. C. ROYCE

CESSIONS OF INDIAN TERRITORY IN INDIANA,

1795–1810.
1. Tract ceded by Treaty of Greenville, August 3rd, 1795.
2. Tract about Fort Wayne, ceded by the same Treaty.
3. Two miles square on the Miami portage, ceded by the same
Treaty.
4. Six miles square at Old Wea Town on the Wabash, ceded by the
same Treaty.
5. Clark’s Grant on the Ohio, reserved by the same Treaty.
6. Vincennes tract, reserved by the same Treaty.
7. Tract ceded by Treaties of August 18th and 27th, 1804.
8. Tract ceded by Treaty of August 21st, 1805.
9, 10, 11. Tracts ceded by Treaty of September 30th, 1809.
12. Tract ceded by Treaty of December 9th, 1809.
 CHAPTER IV.
Although no one doubted that the year 1812 was to witness a
new convulsion of society, if signs of panic occurred they were less
marked in crowded countries where vast interests were at stake,
than in remote regions which might have been thought as safe from
Napoleon’s wars as from those of Genghis Khan. As in the year 1754
a petty fight between two French and English scouting parties on the
banks of the Youghiogheny River, far in the American wilderness,
began a war that changed the balance of the world, so in 1811 an
encounter in the Indian country, on the banks of the Wabash, began
a fresh convulsion which ended only with the fall of Napoleon. The
battle of Tippecanoe was a premature outbreak of the great wars of
1812.
Governor William Henry Harrison, of the Indiana Territory, often
said he could tell by the conduct of his Indians, as by a
thermometer, the chances of war and peace for the United States as
estimated in the Cabinet at London. The remark was curious, but not
surprising. Uneasiness would naturally be greatest where least
control and most irritation existed. Such a region was the
Northwestern Territory. Even the spot where violence would break
out might be predicted as somewhere on the waterline of the
Maumee and the Wabash, between Detroit at one extremity and
Vincennes at the other. If a guess had been ventured that the most
probable point would be found on that line, about half way between
Lake Erie and the Ohio River, the map would have shown that
Tippecanoe Creek, where it flowed into the Wabash, corresponded
with the rough suggestion.
The Indiana Territory was created in 1800; and the former
delegate of the whole Northwestern Territory, William Henry
Harrison, was then appointed governor of the new division. Until the
year 1809, Illinois formed part of the Indiana Territory; but its single
settlement at Kaskaskia was remote. The Indiana settlement