There may well have been other reasons for Bonaparte's change of front. If he read between the lines of a memoir which Pontalba, a wealthy and well-informed resident of Louisiana, sent to him, he must have realized that this province, too, while it might become an inexhaustible source of wealth for France, might not be easy to hold. There was here, it is true, no Toussaint L'Ouverture to lead the blacks in insurrection; but there was a white menace from the north which was far more serious. These Kentuckians, said Pontalba trenchantly, must be watched, cajoled, and brought constantly under French influence through agents. There were men among them who thought of Louisiana "as the highroad to the conquest of Mexico." Twenty or thirty thousand of these westerners on flatboats could come down the river and sweep everything before them. To be sure, they were an undisciplined horde with slender Military equipment—a striking contrast to the French legions; but, added the Frenchman, "a great deal of skill in shooting, the habit of being in the woods and of enduring fatigue—this is what makes up for every deficiency."

And if Bonaparte had ever read a remarkable report of the Spanish Governor Carondelet, he must have divined that there was something elemental and irresistible in this down-the-river-pressure of the people of the West. "A carbine and a little maize in a sack are enough for an American to wander about in the forests alone for a whole month. With his carbine, he kills the wild cattle and deer for food and defends himself from the savages. The maize dampened serves him in lieu of bread .... The cold does not affright him. When a family tires of one location, it moves to another, and there it settles with the same ease. Thus in about eight years the settlement of Cumberland has been formed, which is now about to be created into a state."

On Easter Sunday, 1803, Bonaparte revealed his purpose, which had doubtless been slowly maturing, to two of his ministers, one of whom, Barbs Marbois, was attached to the United States through residence, his devotion to republican principles, and marriage to an American wife. The First Consul proposed to cede Louisiana to the United States: he considered the colony as entirely lost. What did they think of the proposal? Marbois, with an eye to the needs of the Treasury of which he was the head, favored the sale of the province; and next day he was directed to interview Livingston at once. Before he could do so, Talleyrand, perhaps surmising in his crafty way the drift of the First Consul's thoughts, startled Livingston by asking what the United States would give for the whole of Louisiana. Livingston, who was in truth hard of hearing, could not believe his ears. For months he had talked, written, and argued in vain for a bit of territory near the mouth of the Mississippi, and here was an imperial domain tossed into his lap, as it were. Livingston recovered from his surprise sufficiently to name a trifling sum which Talleyrand declared too low. Would Mr. Livingston think it over? He, Talleyrand, really did not speak from authority. The idea had struck him, that was all.

Some days later in a chance conversation with Marbois, Livingston spoke of his extraordinary interview with Talleyrand. Marbois intimated that he was not ignorant of the affair and invited Livingston to a further conversation. Although Monroe had already arrived in Paris and was now apprised of this sudden turn of affairs, Livingston went alone to the Treasury Office and there in conversation, which was prolonged until midnight, he fenced with Marbois over a fair price for Louisiana. The First Consul, said Marbois, demanded one hundred million francs. Livingston demurred at this huge sum. The United States did not want Louisiana but was willing to give ten million dollars for New Orleans and the Floridas. What would the United States give then? asked Marbois. Livingston replied that he would have to confer with Monroe. Finally Marbois suggested that if they would name sixty million francs, (less than $12,000,000) and assume claims which Americans had against the French Treasury for twenty million more, he would take the offer under advisement. Livingston would not commit himself, again insisting that he must consult Monroe.

So important did this interview seem to Livingston that he returned to his apartment and wrote a long report to Madison without waiting to confer with Monroe. It was three o'clock in the morning when he was done. "We shall do all we can to cheapen the purchase," he wrote, "but my present sentiment is that we shall buy."

History does not record what Monroe said when his colleague revealed these midnight secrets. But in the prolonged negotiations which followed Monroe, though ill, took his part, and in the end, on April 30, 1803, set his hand to the treaty which ceded Louisiana to the United States on the terms set by Marbois. In two conventions bearing the same date, the commissioners bound the United States to pay directly to France the sum of sixty million francs ($11,250,000) and to assume debts owed by France to American citizens, estimated at not more than twenty million francs ($3,750,000). Tradition says that after Marbois, Monroe, and Livingston had signed their names, Livingston remarked: "We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our lives.... From this day the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank."



CHAPTER V. IN PURSUIT OF THE FLORIDAS

The purchase of Louisiana was a diplomatic triumph of the first magnitude. No American negotiators have ever acquired so much for so little; yet, oddly enough, neither Livingston nor Monroe had the slightest notion of the vast extent of the domain which they had purchased. They had bought Louisiana "with the same extent that it is now in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and such as it should be after the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other States," but what its actual boundaries were they did not know. Considerably disturbed that the treaty contained no definition of boundaries, Livingston sought information from the enigmatical Talleyrand. "What are the eastern bounds of Louisiana?" he asked. "I do not know," replied Talleyrand; "you must take it as we received it." "But what did you mean to take?" urged Livingston somewhat naively. "I do not know," was the answer. "Then you mean that we shall construe it in our own way?" "I can give you no direction," said the astute Frenchman. "You have made a noble bargain for yourselves, and I suppose you will make the most of it." And with these vague assurances Livingston had to be satisfied.

The first impressions of Jefferson were not much more definite, for, while he believed that the acquired territory more than doubled the area of the United States, he could only describe it as including all the waters of the Missouri and the Mississippi. He started at once, however, to collect information about Louisiana. He prepared a list of queries which he sent to reputable persons living in or near New Orleans. The task was one in which he delighted: to accumulate and diffuse information—a truly democratic mission gave him more real pleasure than to reign in the Executive Mansion. His interest in the trans-Mississippi country, indeed, was not of recent birth; he had nursed for years an insatiable curiosity about the source and course of the Missouri; and in this very year he had commissioned his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to explore the great river and its tributaries, to ascertain if they afforded a direct and practicable water communication across the continent.

The outcome of the President's questionnaire was a report submitted to Congress in the fall of 1803, which contained much interesting information and some entertaining misinformation. The statistical matter we may put to one side, as contemporary readers doubtless did; certain impressions are worth recording. New Orleans, the first and immediate object of negotiations, contained, it would appear, only a small part of the population of the province, which numbered some twenty or more rural districts. On the river above the city were the plantations of the so-called Upper Coast, inhabited mostly by slaves whose Creole masters lived in town; then, as one journeyed upstream appeared the first and second German Coasts, where dwelt the descendants of those Germans who had been brought to the province by John Law's Mississippi Bubble, an industrious folk making their livelihood as purveyors to the city. Every Friday night they loaded their small craft with produce and held market next day on the river front at New Orleans, adding another touch to the picturesque groups which frequented the levees. Above the German Coasts were the first and second Acadian Coasts, populated by the numerous progeny of those unhappy refugees who were expelled from Nova Scotia in 1755. Acadian settlements were scattered also along the backwaters west of the great river: Bayou Lafourche was lined with farms which were already producing cotton; near Bayou Teche and Bayou Vermilion—the Attakapas country—were cattle ranges; and to the north was the richer grazing country known as Opelousas.

Passing beyond the Iberville River, which was indeed no river at all but only an overflow of the Mississippi, the traveler up-stream saw on his right hand "the government of Baton Rouge" with its scattered settlements and mixed population of French, Spanish, and Anglo-Americans; and still farther on, the Spanish parish of West Feliciana, accounted a part of West Florida and described by President Jefferson as the garden of the cotton-growing region. Beyond this point the President's description of Louisiana became less confident, as reliable sources of information failed him. His credulity, however, led him to make one amazing statement, which provoked the ridicule of his political opponents, always ready to pounce upon the slips of this philosopher-president. "One extraordinary fact relative to salt must not be omitted," he wrote in all seriousness. "There exists, about one thousand miles up the Missouri, and not far from that river, a salt mountain! The existence of such a mountain might well be questioned, were it not for the testimony of several respectable and enterprising traders who have visited it, and who have exhibited several bushels of the salt to the curiosity of the people of St. Louis, where some of it still remains. A specimen of the salt has been sent to Marietta. This mountain is said to be 180 miles long and 45 in width, composed of solid rock salt, without any trees or even shrubs on it." One Federalist wit insisted that this salt mountain must be Lot's wife; another sent an epigram to the United States Gazette which ran as follows:

Herostratus of old, to eternalize his name Sat the temple of Diana all in a flame; But Jefferson lately of Bonaparte bought, To pickle his fame, a mountain of salt.

Jefferson was too much of a philosopher to be disturbed by such gibes; but he did have certain constitutional doubts concerning the treaty. How, as a strict constructionist, was he to defend the purchase of territory outside the limits of the United States, when the Constitution did not specifically grant such power to the Federal Government? He had fought the good fight of the year 1800 to oust Federalist administrators who by a liberal interpretation were making waste paper of the Constitution. Consistency demanded either that he should abandon the treaty or that he should ask for the powers which had been denied to the Federal Government. He chose the latter course and submitted to his Cabinet and to his followers in Congress a draft of an amendment to the Constitution conferring the desired powers. To his dismay they treated his proposal with indifference, not to say coldness. He pressed his point, redrafted his amendment, and urged its consideration once again. Meantime letters from Livingston and Monroe warned him that delay was hazardous; the First Consul might change his mind, as he was wont to do on slight provocation. Privately Jefferson was deeply chagrined, but he dared not risk the loss of Louisiana. With what grace he could summon, he acquiesced in the advice of his Virginia friends who urged him to let events take their course and to drop the amendment, but he continued to believe that such a course if persisted in would make blank paper of the Constitution. He could only trust, as he said in a letter, "that the good sense of the country will correct the evil of construction when it shall produce its ill effects."

The debates on the treaty in, Congress make interesting reading for those who delight in legal subtleties, for many nice questions of constitutional law were involved. Even granting that territory could be acquired, there was the further question whether the treaty-making power was competent irrespective of the House of Representatives. And what, pray, was meant by incorporating this new province in the Union? Was Louisiana to be admitted into the Union as a State by President and Senate? Or was it to be governed as a dependency? And how could the special privileges given to Spanish and French ships in the port of New Orleans be reconciled with that provision of the Constitution which, expressly forbade any preference to be given, by any regulation of commerce or revenue, to the ports of one State over those of another? The exigencies of politics played havoc with consistency, so that Republicans supported the ratification of the treaty with erstwhile Federalist arguments, while Federalists used the old arguments of the Republicans. Yet the Senate advised the ratification by a decisive vote and with surprising promptness; and Congress passed a provisional act authorizing the President to take over and govern the territory of Louisiana.

The vast province which Napoleon had tossed so carelessly into the lap of the young Western Republic was, strangely enough, not yet formally in his possession. The expeditionary force under General Victor which was to have occupied Louisiana had never left port. M. Pierre Clement Laussat, however, who was to have accompanied the expedition to assume the duties of prefect in the province, had sailed alone in January, 1803, to receive the province from the Spanish authorities. If this lonely Frenchman on mission possessed the imagination of his race, he must have had some emotional thrills as he reflected that he was following the sea trail of La Salle and Iberville through the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. He could not have entered the Great River and breasted its yellow current for a hundred miles, without seeing in his mind's eye those phantom figures of French and Spanish adventurers who had voyaged up and down its turbid waters in quest of gold or of distant Cathay. As his vessel dropped anchor opposite the town which Bienville had founded, Laussat must have felt that in some degree he was "heir of all the ages"; yet he was in fact face to face with conditions which, whatever their historic antecedents, were neither French nor Spanish. On the water front of New Orleans, he counted "forty-five Anglo-American ships to ten French." Subsequent experiences deepened this first impression: it was not Spanish nor French influence which had made this port important but those "three hundred thousand planters who in twenty years have swarmed over the eastern plains of the Mississippi and have cultivated them, and who have no other outlet than this river and no other port than New Orleans."

The outward aspect of the city, however, was certainly not American. From the masthead of his vessel Laussat might have seen over a thousand dwellings of varied architecture: houses of adobe, houses of brick, houses of stucco; some with bright colors, others with the harmonious half tones produced by sun and rain. No American artisans constructed the picturesque balconies, the verandas, and belvederes which suggested the semitropical existence that Nature forced upon these city dwellers for more than half the year. No American craftsmen wrought the artistic ironwork of balconies, gateways, and window gratings. Here was an atmosphere which suggested the Old World rather than the New. The streets which ran at right angles were reminiscent of the old regime: Conde, Conti, Dauphine, St. Louis, Chartres, Bourbon, Orleans—all these names were to be found within the earthen rampart which formed the defense of the city.

The inhabitants were a strange mixture: Spanish, French, American, black, quadroon, and Creole. No adequate definition has ever been formulated for "Creole," but no one familiar with the type could fail to distinguish this caste from those descended from the first French settlers or from the Acadians. A keen observer like Laussat discerned speedily that the Creole had little place in the commercial life of the city. He was your landed proprietor, who owned some of the choicest parts of the city and its growing suburbs, and whose plantations lined both banks of the Mississippi within easy reach from the city. At the opposite end of the social scale were the quadroons—the demimonde of this little capital—and the negro slaves. Between these extremes were the French and, in ever-growing numbers, the Americans who plied every trade, while the Spaniards constituted the governing class. Deliberately, in the course of time, as befitted a Spanish gentleman and officer, the Marquis de Casa Calvo, resplendent with regalia, arrived from Havana to act with Governor Don Juan Manuel de Salcedo in transferring the province. A season of gayety followed in which the Spaniards did their best to conceal any chagrin they may have felt at the relinquishment—happily, it might not be termed the surrender—of Louisiana. And finally on the 30th of November, Governor Salcedo delivered the keys of the city to Laussat, in the hall of the Cabildo, while Marquis de Casa Calvo from the balcony absolved the people in Place d'Armes below from their allegiance to his master, the King of Spain.

For the brief term of twenty days Louisiana was again a province of France. Within that time Laussat bestirred himself to gallicize the colony, so far as forms could do so. He replaced the cabildo or hereditary council by a municipal council; he restored the civil code; he appointed French officers to civil and military posts. And all this he did in the full consciousness that American commissioners were already on their way to receive from him in turn the province which his wayward master had sold. On December 20, 1803, young William Claiborne, Governor of the Mississippi Territory, and General James Wilkinson, with a few companies of soldiers, entered and received from Laussat the keys of the city and the formal surrender of Lower Louisiana. On the Place d'Armes, promptly at noon, the tricolor was hauled down and the American Stars and Stripes took its place. Louisiana had been transferred for the sixth and last time. But what were the metes and bounds of this province which had been so often bought and sold? What had Laussat been instructed to take and give? What, in short, was Louisiana?

The elation which Livingston and Monroe felt at acquiring unexpectedly a vast territory beyond the Mississippi soon gave way to a disquieting reflection. They had been instructed to offer ten million dollars for New Orleans and the Floridas: they had pledged fifteen millions for Louisiana without the Floridas. And they knew that it was precisely West Florida, with the eastern bank of the Mississippi and the Gulf littoral, that was most ardently desired by their countrymen of the West. But might not Louisiana include West Florida? Had Talleyrand not professed ignorance of the eastern boundary? And had he not intimated that the Americans would make the most of their bargain? Within a month Livingston had convinced himself that the United States could rightfully claim West Florida to the Perdido River, and he soon won over Monroe to his way of thinking. They then reported to Madison that "on a thorough examination of the subject" they were persuaded that they had purchased West Florida as a part of Louisiana.

By what process of reasoning had Livingston and Monroe reached this satisfying conclusion? Their argument proceeded from carefully chosen premises. France, it was said, had once held Louisiana and the Floridas together as part of her colonial empire in America; in 1763 she had ceded New Orleans and the territory west of the Mississippi to Spain, and at the same time she had transferred the Floridas to Great Britain; in 1783 Great Britain had returned the Floridas to Spain which were then reunited to Louisiana as under French rule. Ergo, when Louisiana was retro-ceded "with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it," it must have included West Florida.

That Livingston was able to convince himself by this logic, does not speak well for his candor or intelligence. He was well aware that Bonaparte had failed to persuade Don Carlos to include the Floridas in the retrocession; he had tried to insert in the treaty an article pledging the First Consul to use his good offices to obtain the Floridas for the United States; and in his midnight dispatch to Madison, with the prospect of acquiring Louisiana before him, he had urged the advisability of exchanging this province for the more desirable Floridas. Livingston therefore could not, and did not, say that Spain intended to cede the Floridas as a part of Louisiana, but that she had inadvertently done so and that Bonaparte might have claimed West Florida, if he had been shrewd enough to see his opportunity. The United States was in no way prevented from pressing this claim because the First Consul had not done so. The fact that France had in 1763 actually dismembered her colonial empire and that Louisiana as ceded to Spain extended only to the Iberville, was given no weight in Livingston's deductions.

Having the will to believe, Jefferson and Madison became converts to Livingston's faith. Madison wrote at once that in view of these developments no proposal to exchange Louisiana for the Floridas should be entertained; the President declared himself satisfied that "our right to the Perdido is substantial and can be opposed by a quibble on form only"; and John Randolph, duly coached by the Administration, flatly declared in the House of Representatives that "We have not only obtained the command of the mouth of the Mississippi, but of the Mobile, with its widely extended branches; and there is not now a single stream of note rising within the United States and falling into the Gulf of Mexico which is not entirely our own, the Appalachicola excepted." From this moment to the end of his administration, the acquisition of West Florida became a sort of obsession with Jefferson. His pursuit of this phantom claim involved American diplomats in strange adventures and at times deflected the whole course of domestic politics.

The first luckless minister to engage in this baffling quest was James Monroe, who had just been appointed Minister to the Court of St. James. He was instructed to take up the threads of diplomacy at Madrid where they were getting badly tangled in the hands of Charles Pinckney, who was a better politician than a diplomat. "Your inquiries may also be directed," wrote Madison, "to the question whether any, and how much, of what passes for West Florida be fairly included in the territory ceded to us by France." Before leaving Paris on this mission, Monroe made an effort to secure the good offices of the Emperor, but he found Talleyrand cold and cynical as ever. He was given to understand that it was all a question of money; if the United States were willing to pay the price, the Emperor could doubtless have the negotiations transferred to Paris and put the deal through. A loan of seventy million livres to Spain, which would be passed over at once to France, would probably put the United States into possession of the coveted territory. As an honest man Monroe shrank from this sort of jobbery; besides, he could hardly offer to buy a territory which his Government asserted it had already bought with Louisiana. With the knowledge that he was defying Napoleon, or at least his ministers, he started for Madrid to play a lone hand in what he must have known was a desperate game.

The conduct of the Administration during the next few months was hardly calculated to smooth Monroe's path. In the following February (1804) President Jefferson put his signature to an act which was designed to give effect to the laws of the United States in the newly acquired territory. The fourth section of this so-called Mobile Act included explicitly within the revenue district of Mississippi all the navigable waters lying within the United States and emptying into the Gulf east of the Mississippi—an extraordinary provision indeed, since unless the Floridas were a part of the United States there were no rivers within the limits of the United States emptying into the Gulf east of the Mississippi. The eleventh section was even more remarkable since it gave the President authority to erect Mobile Bay and River into a separate revenue district and to designate a port of entry.

This cool appropriation of Spanish territory was too much for the excitable Spanish Minister, Don Carlos Martinez Yrujo, who burst into Madison's office one morning with a copy of the act in his hand and with angry protests on his lips. He had been on excellent terms with Madison and had enjoyed Jefferson's friendship and hospitality at Monticello; but he was the accredited representative of His Catholic Majesty and bound to defend his sovereignty. He fairly overwhelmed the timid Madison with reproaches that could never be forgiven or forgotten; and from this moment he was persona non grata in the Department of State.

Madison doubtless took Yrujo's reproaches more to heart just because he felt himself in a false position. The Administration had allowed the transfer of Louisiana to be made in the full knowledge that Laussat had been instructed to claim Louisiana as far as the Rio Bravo on the west but only as far as the Iberville on the east. Laussat had finally admitted as much confidentially to the American commissioners. Yet the Administration had not protested. And now it was acting on the assumption that it might dispose of the Gulf littoral, the West Florida coast, as it pleased. Madison was bound to admit in his heart of hearts that Yrujo had reason to be angry. A few weeks later the President relieved the tense situation, though at the price of an obvious evasion, by issuing a proclamation which declared all the shores and waters "lying Within the Boundaries of The United States" * to be a revenue district with Fort Stoddert as the port of entry. But the mischief had been done and no constructive interpretation of the act by the President could efface the impression first made upon the mind of Yrujo. Congress had meant to appropriate West Florida and the President had suffered the bill to become law.

* The italics are President Jefferson's.

Nor was Pinckney's conduct at Madrid likely to make Monroe's mission easier. Two years before, in 1802, he had negotiated a convention by which Spain agreed to pay indemnity for depredations committed by her cruisers in the late war between France and the United States. This convention had been ratified somewhat tardily by the Senate and now waited on the pleasure of the Spanish Government. Pinckney was instructed to press for the ratification by Spain, which was taken for granted; but he was explicitly warned to leave the matter of the Florida claims to Monroe. When he presented the demands of his Government to Cevallos, the Foreign Minister, he was met in turn with a demand for explanations. What, pray, did his Government mean by this act? To Pinckney's astonishment, he was confronted with a copy of the Mobile Act, which Yrujo had forwarded. The South Carolinian replied, in a tone that was not calculated to soothe ruffled feelings, that he had already been advised that West Florida was included in the Louisiana purchase and had so reported to Cevallos. He urged that the two subjects be kept separate and begged His Excellency to have confidence in the honor and justice of the United States. Delays followed until Cevallos finally, declared sharply that the treaty would be ratified only on several conditions, one of which was that the Mobile Act should be revoked. Pinckney then threw discretion to the winds and announced that he would ask for his passports; but his bluster did not change Spanish policy, and he dared not carry out his threat.

It was under these circumstances that Monroe arrived in Madrid on his difficult mission. He was charged with the delicate task of persuading a Government whose pride had been touched to the quick to ratify the claims convention, to agree to a commission to adjudicate other claims which it had refused to recognize, to yield West Florida as a part of the Louisiana purchase, and to accept two million dollars for the rest of Florida east of the Perdido River. In preparing these extraordinary instructions, the Secretary of State labored under the hallucination that Spain, on the verge of war with England, would pay handsomely for the friendship of the United States, quite forgetting that the real master of Spain was at Paris.

The story of Monroe's five weary months in Spain may be briefly told. He was in the unstrategic position of one who asks for everything and can concede nothing. Only one consideration could probably have forced the Spanish Government to yield, and that was fear. Spain had now declared war upon England and might reasonably be supposed to prefer a solid accommodation with the United States, as Madison intimated, rather than add to the number of her foes. But Cevallos exhibited no signs of fear; on the contrary he professed an amiable willingness to discuss every point at great length. Every effort on the part of the American to reach a conclusion was adroitly eluded. It was a game in which the Spaniard had no equal. At last, when indubitable assurances came to Monroe from Paris that Napoleon would not suffer Spain to make the slightest concession either in the matter of spoliation claims or any other claims, and that, in the event of a break between the United States and Spain, he would surely take the part of Spain, Monroe abandoned the game and asked for his passports. Late in May he returned to Paris, where he joined with General Armstrong, who had succeeded Livingston, in urging upon the Administration the advisability of seizing Texas, leaving West Florida alone for the present.

Months of vacillation followed the failure of Monroe's mission. The President could not shake off his obsession, and yet he lacked the resolution to employ force to take either Texas, which he did not want but was entitled to, or West Florida which he ardently desired but whose title was in dispute. It was not until November of the following year (1805) that the Administration determined on a definite policy. In a meeting of the Cabinet "I proposed," Jefferson recorded in a memorandum, "we should address ourselves to France, informing her it was a last effort at amicable settlement with Spain and offer to her, or through her," a sum not to exceed five million dollars for the Floridas. The chief obstacle in the way of this programme was the uncertain mood of Congress, for a vote of credit was necessary and Congress might not take kindly to Napoleon as intermediary. Jefferson then set to work to draft a message which would "alarm the fears of Spain by a vigorous language, in order to induce her to join us in appealing to the interference of the Emperor."

The message sent to Congress alluded briefly to the negotiations with Spain and pointed out the unsatisfactory relations which still obtained. Spain had shown herself unwilling to adjust claims or the boundaries of Louisiana; her depredations on American commerce had been renewed; arbitrary duties and vexatious searches continued to obstruct American shipping on the Mobile; inroads had been made on American territory; Spanish officers and soldiers had seized the property of American citizens. It was hoped that Spain would view these injuries in their proper light; if not, then the United States "must join in the unprofitable contest of trying which party can do the other the most harm. Some of these injuries may perhaps admit a peaceable remedy. Where that is competent, it is always the most desirable. But some of them are of a nature to be met by force only, and all of them may lead to it."

Coming from the pen of a President who had declared that peace was his passion, these belligerent words caused some bewilderment but, on the whole, very considerable satisfaction in Republican circles, where the possibility of rupture had been freely discussed. The people of the Southwest took the President at his word and looked forward with enthusiasm to a war which would surely overthrow Spanish rule in the Floridas and yield the coveted lands along the Gulf of Mexico. The country awaited with eagerness those further details which the President had promised to set forth in another message. These were felt to be historic moments full of dramatic possibilities.

Three days later, behind closed doors, Congress listened to the special message which was to put the nation to the supreme test. Alas for those who had expected a trumpet call to battle. Never was a state paper better calculated to wither martial spirit. In dull fashion it recounted the events of Monroe's unlucky mission and announced the advance of Spanish forces in the Southwest, which, however, the President had not repelled, conceiving that "Congress alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war." He had "barely instructed" our forces "to patrol the borders actually delivered to us." It soon dawned upon the dullest intelligence that the President had not the slightest intention to recommend a declaration of war. On the contrary, he was at pains to point out the path to peace. There was reason to believe that France was now disposed to lend her aid in effecting a settlement with Spain, and "not a moment should be lost in availing ourselves of it." "Formal war is not necessary, it is not probable it will follow; but the protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our country, require that force should be interposed to a certain degree. It will probably contribute to advance the object of peace."

After the warlike tone of the first message, this sounded like a retreat. It outraged the feelings of the war party. It was, to their minds, an anticlimax, a pusillanimous surrender. None was angrier than John Randolph of Virginia, hitherto the leader of the forces of the Administration in the House. He did not hesitate to express his disgust with "this double set of opinions and principles"; and his anger mounted when he learned that as Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means he was expected to propose and carry through an appropriation of two million dollars for the purchase of Florida. Further interviews with the President and the Secretary of State did not mollify him, for, according to his version of these conversations, he was informed that France would not permit Spain to adjust her differences with the United States, which had, therefore, the alternative of paying France handsomely or of facing a war with both France and Spain. Then Randolph broke loose from all restraint and swore by all his gods that he would not assume responsibility for "delivering the public purse to the first cut-throat that demanded it."

Randolph's opposition to the Florida programme was more than an unpleasant episode in Jefferson's administration; it proved to be the beginning of a revolt which was fatal to the President's diplomacy, for Randolph passed rapidly from passive to active opposition and fought the two-million dollar bill to the bitter end. When the House finally outvoted him and his faction, soon to be known as the "Quids," and the Senate had concurred, precious weeks had been lost. Yet Madison must bear some share of blame for the delay since, for some reason, never adequately explained, he did not send instructions to Armstrong until four weeks after the action of Congress. It was then too late to bait the master of Europe. Just what had happened Armstrong could not ascertain; but when Napoleon set out in October, 1806, on that fateful campaign which crushed Prussia at Jena and Auerstadt, the chance of acquiring Florida had passed.



CHAPTER VI. AN AMERICAN CATILINE

With the transfer of Louisiana, the United States entered upon its first experience in governing an alien civilized people. At first view there is something incongruous in the attempt of the young Republic, founded upon the consent of the governed, to rule over a people whose land had been annexed without their consent and whose preferences in the matter of government had never been consulted. The incongruity appears the more striking when it is recalled that the author of the Declaration of Independence was now charged with the duty of appointing all officers, civil and military, in the new territory. King George III had never ruled more autocratically over any of his North American colonies than President Jefferson over Louisiana through Governor William Claiborne and General James Wilkinson.

The leaders among the Creoles and better class of Americans counted on a speedy escape from this autocratic government, which was confessedly temporary. The terms of the treaty, indeed, encouraged the hope that Louisiana would be admitted at once as a State. The inhabitants of the ceded territory were to be "incorporated into the Union." But Congress gave a different interpretation to these words and dashed all hopes by the act of 1804, which, while it conceded a legislative council, made its members and all officers appointive, and divided the province. A delegation of Creoles went to Washington to protest against this inconsiderate treatment. They bore a petition which contained many stiletto-like thrusts at the President. What about those elemental rights of representation and election which had figured in the glorious contest for freedom? "Do political axioms on the Atlantic become problems when transferred to the shores of the Mississippi?" To such arguments Congress could not remain wholly indifferent. The outcome was a third act (March 2, 1805) which established the usual form of territorial government, an elective legislature, a delegate in Congress, and a Governor appointed by the President. To a people who had counted on statehood these concessions were small pinchbeck. Their irritation was not allayed, and it continued to focus upon Governor Claiborne, the distrusted agent of a government which they neither liked nor respected.

Strange currents and counter-currents ran through the life of this distant province. Casa Calvo and Morales, the former Spanish officials, continued to reside in the city, like spiders at the center of a web of Spanish intrigue; and the threads of their web extended to West Florida, where Governor Folch watched every movement of Americans up and down the Mississippi, and to Texas, where Salcedo, Captain-General of the Internal Provinces of Mexico, waited for overt aggressions from land-hungry American frontiersmen. All these Spanish agents knew that Monroe had left Madrid empty-handed yet still asserting claims that were ill-disguised threats; but none of them knew whether the impending blow would fall upon West Florida or Texas. Then, too, right under their eyes was the Mexican Association, formed for the avowed purpose of collecting information about Mexico which would be useful if the United States should become involved in war with Spain. In the city, also, were adventurous individuals ready for any daring move upon Mexico, where, according to credible reports, a revolution was imminent. The conquest of Mexico was the day-dream of many an adventurer. In his memoir advising Bonaparte to take and hold Louisiana as an impenetrable barrier to Mexico, Pontalba had said with strong conviction: "It is the surest means of destroying forever the bold schemes with which several individuals in the United States never cease filling the newspapers, by designating Louisiana as the highroad to the conquest of Mexico."

Into this web of intrigue walked the late Vice-President of the United States, leisurely journeying through the Southwest in the summer of 1805.

Aaron Burr is one of the enigmas of American politics. Something of the mystery and romance that shroud the evil-doings of certain Italian despots of the age of the Renaissance envelops him. Despite the researches of historians, the tangled web of Burr's conspiracy has never been unraveled. It remains the most fascinating though, perhaps, the least important episode in Jefferson's administration. Yet Burr himself repays study, for his activities touch many sides of contemporary society and illuminate many dark corners in American politics.

According to the principles of eugenics, Burr was well-born, and by all the laws of this pseudo-science should have left an honorable name behind him. His father was a Presbyterian clergyman, sound in the faith, who presided over the infancy of the College of New Jersey; his maternal grandfather was that massive divine, Jonathan Edwards. After graduating at Princeton, Burr began to study law but threw aside his law books on hearing the news of Lexington. He served with distinction under Arnold before Quebec, under Washington in the battle of Long Island, and later at Monmouth, and retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1779. Before the close of the Revolution he had begun the practice of law in New York, and had married the widow of a British army officer; entering politics, he became in turn a member of the State Assembly, Attorney-General, and United States Senator. But a mere enumeration of such details does not tell the story of Burr's life and character. Interwoven with the strands of his public career is a bewildering succession of intrigues and adventures in which women have a conspicuous part, for Burr was a fascinating man and disarmed distrust by avoiding any false assumption of virtue. His marriage, however, proved happy. He adored his wife and fairly worshiped his strikingly beautiful daughter Theodosia.

Burr throve in the atmosphere of intrigue. New York politics afforded his proper milieu. How he ingratiated himself with politicians of high and low degree; how he unlocked the doors to political preferment; how he became one of the first bosses of the city of New York; how he combined public service with private interest; how he organized the voters—no documents disclose. Only now and then the enveloping fog lifts, as, for example, during the memorable election of 1800, when the ignorant voters of the seventh ward, duly drilled and marshaled, carried the city for the Republicans, and not even Colonel Hamilton, riding on his white horse from precinct to precinct, could stay the rout. That election carried New York for Jefferson and made Burr the logical candidate of the party for Vice-President.

These political strokes betoken a brilliant if not always a steady and reliable mind. Burr, it must be said, was not trusted even by his political associates. It is significant that Washington, a keen judge of men, refused to appoint Burr as Minister to France to succeed Morris because he was not convinced of his integrity. And Jefferson shared these misgivings, though the exigencies of politics made him dissemble his feelings. It is significant, also, that Burr was always surrounded by men of more than doubtful intentions—place-hunters and self-seeking politicians, who had the gambler's instinct.

As Vice-President, Burr could not hope to exert much influence upon the Administration, since the office in itself conferred little power and did not even, according to custom, make him a member of the Cabinet; but as Republican boss of New York who had done more than any one man to secure the election of the ticket in 1800, he might reasonably expect Jefferson and his Virginia associates to treat him with consideration in the distribution of patronage. To his intense chagrin, he was ignored; not only ignored but discredited, for Jefferson deliberately allied himself with the Clintons and the Livingstons, the rival factions in New York which were bent upon driving Burr from the party. This treatment filled Burr's heart with malice; but he nursed his wounds in secret and bided his time.

Realizing that he was politically bankrupt, Burr made a hazard of new fortunes in 1804 by offering himself as candidate for Governor of New York, an office then held by George Clinton. Early in the year he had a remarkable interview with Jefferson in which he observed that it was for the interest of the party for him to retire, but that his retirement under existing circumstances would be thought discreditable. He asked "some mark of favor from me," Jefferson wrote in his journal, "which would declare to the world that he retired with my confidence"—an executive appointment, in short. This was tantamount to an offer of peace or war. Jefferson declined to gratify him, and Burr then began an intrigue with the Federalist leaders of New England.

The rise of a Republican party of challenging strength in New England cast Federalist leaders into the deepest gloom. Already troubled by the annexation of Louisiana, which seemed to them to imperil the ascendancy of New England in the Union, they now saw their own ascendancy in New England imperiled. Under the depression of impending disaster, men like Senator Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts and Roger Griswold of Connecticut broached to their New England friends the possibility of a withdrawal from the Union and the formation of a Northern Confederacy. As the confederacy shaped itself in Pickering's imagination, it would of necessity include New York; and the chaotic conditions in New York politics at this time invited intrigue. When, therefore, a group of Burr's friends in the Legislature named him as their candidate for Governor, Pickering and Griswold seized the moment to approach him with their treasonable plans. They gave him to understand that as Governor of New York he would naturally hold a strategic position and could, if he would, take the lead in the secession of the Northern States. Federalist support could be given to him in the approaching election. They would be glad to know his views. But the shifty Burr would not commit himself further than to promise a satisfactory administration. Though the Federalist intriguers would have been glad of more explicit assurances they counted on his vengeful temper and hatred of the Virginia domination at Washington to make him a pliable tool. They were willing to commit the party openly to Burr and trust to events to bind him to their cause.

Against this mad intrigue one clear-headed individual resolutely set himself—not wholly from disinterested motives. Alexander Hamilton had good reason to know Burr. He declared in private conversation, and the remark speedily became public property, that he looked upon Burr as a dangerous man who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government. He pleaded with New York Federalists not to commit the fatal blunder of endorsing Burr in caucus, and he finally won his point; but he could not prevent his partisans from supporting Burr at the polls.

The defeat of Burr dashed the hopes of the Federalists of New England; the bubble of a Northern Confederacy vanished. It dashed also Burr's personal ambitions: he could no longer hope for political rehabilitation in New York. And the man who a second time had crossed his path and thwarted his purposes was his old rival, Alexander Hamilton. It is said that Burr was not naturally vindictive: perhaps no man is naturally vindictive. Certain it is that bitter disappointment had now made Burr what Hamilton had called him—"a dangerous man." He took the common course of men of honor at this time; he demanded prompt and unqualified acknowledgment or denial of the expression. Well aware of what lay behind this demand, Hamilton replied deliberately with half-conciliatory words, but he ended with the usual words of those prepared to accept a challenge, "I can only regret the circumstance, and must abide the consequences." A challenge followed. We are told that Hamilton accepted to save his political leadership and influence—strange illusion in one so gifted! Yet public opinion had not yet condemned dueling, and men must be judged against the background of their times.

On a summer morning (July 11, 1804) Burr and Hamilton crossed the Hudson to Weehawken and there faced each other for the last time. Hamilton withheld his fire; Burr aimed with murderous intent, and Hamilton fell mortally wounded. The shot from Burr's pistol long reverberated. It woke public conscience to the horror and uselessness of dueling, and left Burr an outlaw from respectable society, stunned by the recoil, and under indictment for murder. Only in the South and West did men treat the incident lightly as an affair of honor.

The political career of Burr was now closed. When he again met the Senate face to face, he had been dropped by his own party in favor of George Clinton, to whom he surrendered the Vice-Presidency on March 5, 1805. His farewell address is described as one of the most affecting ever spoken in the Senate. Describing the scene to his daughter, Burr said that tears flowed abundantly, but Burr must have described what he wished to see. American politicians are not Homeric heroes, who weep on slight provocation; and any inclination to pity Burr must have been inhibited by the knowledge that he had made himself the rallying-point of every dubious intrigue at the capital.

The list of Burr's intimates included Jonathan Dayton, whose term as Senator had just ended, and who, like Burr, sought means of promoting his fortunes, John Smith, Senator from Ohio, the notorious Swartwouts of New York who were attached to Burr as gangsters to their chief, and General James Wilkinson, governor of the northern territory carved out of Louisiana and commander of the western army with headquarters at St. Louis.

Wilkinson had a long record of duplicity, which was suspected but never proved by his contemporaries. There was hardly a dubious episode from the Revolution to this date with which he had not been connected. He was implicated in the Conway cabal against Washington; he was active in the separatist movement in Kentucky during the Confederation; he entered into an irregular commercial agreement with the Spanish authorities at New Orleans; he was suspected—and rightly, as documents recently unearthed in Spain prove—of having taken an oath of allegiance to Spain and of being in the pay of Spain; he was also suspected—and justly—of using his influence to bring about a separation of the Western States from the Union; yet in 1791 he was given a lieutenant-colonel's commission in the regular army and served under St. Clair in the Northwest, and again as a brigadier-general under Wayne. Even here the atmosphere of intrigue enveloped him, and he was accused of inciting discontent among the Kentucky troops and of trying to supplant Wayne. When commissioners were trying to run the Southern boundary in accordance with the treaty of 1795 with Spain, Wilkinson—still a pensioner of Spain, as documents prove—attempted to delay the survey. In the light of these revelations, Wilkinson appears as an unscrupulous adventurer whose thirst for lucre made him willing to betray either master—the Spaniard who pensioned him or the American who gave him his command.

In the spring of 1805 Burr made a leisurely journey across the mountains, by way of Pittsburgh, to New Orleans, where he had friends and personal followers. The secretary of the territory was one of his henchmen; a justice of the superior court was his stepson; the Creole petitionists who had come to Washington to secure self-government had been cordially received by Burr and had a lively sense of gratitude. On his way down the Ohio, Burr landed at Blennerhassett's Island, where an eccentric Irishman of that name owned an estate. Harman Blennerhassett was to rue the day that he entertained this fascinating guest. At Cincinnati he was the guest of Senator Smith, and there he also met Dayton. At Nashville he visited General Andrew Jackson, who was thrilled with the prospect of war with Spain; at Fort Massac he spent four days in close conference with General Wilkinson; and at New Orleans he consorted with Daniel Clark, a rich merchant and the most uncompromising opponent of Governor Claiborne, and with members of the Mexican Association and every would-be adventurer and filibuster. In November, Burr was again in Washington. What was the purpose of this journey and what did it accomplish?

It is far easier to tell what Burr did after this mysterious western expedition than what he planned to do. There is danger of reading too great consistency into his designs. At one moment, if we may believe Anthony Merry, the British Minister, who lent an ear to Burr's proposals, he was plotting a revolution which should separate the Western States from the Union. To accomplish this design he needed British funds and a British naval force. Jonathan Dayton revealed to Yrujo much the same plot—which he thought was worth thirty or forty thousand dollars to the Spanish Government. To such urgent necessity for funds were the conspirators driven. But Dayton added further details to the story which may have been intended only to intimidate Yrujo. The revolution effected by British aid, said Dayton gravely, an expedition would be undertaken against Mexico. Subsequently Dayton unfolded a still more remarkable tale. Burr had been disappointed in the expectation of British aid, and he was now bent upon "an almost insane plan," which was nothing less than the seizure of the Government at Washington. With the government funds thus obtained, and with the necessary frigates, the conspirators would sail for New Orleans and proclaim the independence of Louisiana and the Western States.

The kernel of truth in these accounts is not easily separated from the chaff. The supposition that Burr seriously contemplated a separation of the Western States from the Union may be dismissed from consideration. The loyalty of the Mississippi Valley at this time is beyond question; and Burr was too keen an observer not to recognize the temper of the people with whom he sojourned. But there is reason to believe that he and his confederates may have planned an enterprise against Mexico, for such a project was quite to the taste of Westerners who hated Spain as ardently as they loved the Union. Circumstances favored a filibustering expedition. The President's bellicose message of December had prepared the people of the Mississippi Valley for war; the Spanish plotters had been expelled from Louisiana; Spanish forces had crossed the Sabine; American troops had been sent to repel them if need be; the South American revolutionist Miranda had sailed, with vessels fitted out in New York, to start a revolt against Spanish rule in Caracas; every revolutionist in New Orleans was on the qui vive. What better time could there be to launch a filibustering expedition against Mexico? If it succeeded and a republic were established, the American Government might be expected to recognize a fait accompli.

The success of Burr's plans, whatever they may have been, depended on his procuring funds; and it was doubtless the hope of extracting aid from Blennerhassett that drew him to the island in midsummer of 1806. Burr was accompanied by his daughter Theodosia and her husband, Joseph Alston, a wealthy South Carolina planter, who was either the dupe or the accomplice of Burr. Together they persuaded the credulous Irishman to purchase a tract of land on the Washita River in the heart of Louisiana, which would ultimately net him a profit of a million dollars when Louisiana became an independent state with Burr as ruler and England as protector. They even assured Blennerhassett that he should go as minister to England. He was so dazzled at the prospect that he not only made the initial payment for the lands, but advanced all his property for Burr's use on receiving a guaranty from Alston. Having landed his fish, Burr set off down the river to visit General Jackson at Nashville and to procure boats and supplies for his expedition.

Meanwhile, Theodosia—the brilliant, fascinating Theodosia—and her husband played the game at Blennerhassett's Island. Blennerhassett's head was completely turned. He babbled most indiscreetly about the approaching coup d'etat. Colonel Burr would be king of Mexico, he told his gardener, and Mrs. Alston would be queen when Colonel Burr died. Who could resist the charms of this young princess? Blennerhassett and his wife were impatient to exchange their little isle for marble halls in far away Mexico.

But all was not going well with the future Emperor of Mexico. Ugly rumors were afloat. The active preparations at Blennerhassett's Island, the building of boats at various points along the river, the enlistment of recruits, coupled with hints of secession, disturbed such loyal citizens as the District-Attorney at Frankfort, Kentucky. He took it upon himself to warn the President, and then, in open court, charged Burr with violating the laws of the United States by setting on foot a military expedition against Mexico and with inciting citizens to rebellion in the Western States. But at the meeting of the grand jury Burr appeared surrounded by his friends and with young Henry Clay for counsel. The grand jury refused to indict him and he left the court in triumph. Some weeks later the District-Attorney renewed his motion; but again Burr was discharged by the grand jury, amid popular applause. Enthusiastic admirers in Frankfort even gave a ball in his honor.

Notwithstanding these warnings of conspiracy, President Jefferson exhibited a singular indifference and composure. To all alarmists he made the same reply. The people of the West were loyal and could be trusted. It was not until disquieting and ambiguous messages from Wilkinson reached Washington-disquieting because ambiguous—that the President was persuaded to act. On the 27th of November, he issued a proclamation warning all good citizens that sundry persons were conspiring against Spain and enjoining all Federal officers to apprehend those engaged in the unlawful enterprise. The appearance of this proclamation at Nashville should have led to Burr's arrest, for he was still detained there; but mysterious influences seemed to paralyze the arm of the Government. On the 22d of December, Burr set off, with two boats which Jackson had built and some supplies, down the Cumberland. At the mouth of the river, he joined forces with Blennerhassett, who had left his island in haste just as the Ohio militia was about to descend upon him. The combined strength of the flotilla was nine bateaux carrying less than sixty men. There was still time to intercept the expedition at Fort Massac, but again delays that have never been explained prevented the President's proclamation from arriving in time; and Burr's little fleet floated peacefully by down stream.

The scene now shifts to the lower Mississippi, and the heavy villain of the melodrama appears on the stage in the uniform of a United States military officer—General James Wilkinson. He had been under orders since May 6, 1806, to repair to the Territory of Orleans with as little delay as possible and to repel any invasion east of the River Sabine; but it was now September and he had only just reached Natchitoches, where the American volunteers and militiamen from Louisiana and Mississippi were concentrating. Much water had flowed under the bridge since Aaron Burr visited New Orleans.

After President Jefferson's bellicose message of the previous December, war with Spain seemed inevitable. And when Spanish troops crossed the Sabine in July and took up their post only seventeen miles from Natchitoches, Western Americans awaited only the word to begin hostilities. The Orleans Gazette declared that the time to repel Spanish aggression had come. The enemy must be driven beyond the Sabine. "The route from Natchitoches to Mexico is clear, plain, and open." The occasion was at hand "for conferring on our oppressed Spanish brethren in Mexico those inestimable blessings of freedom which we ourselves enjoy." "Gallant Louisianians! Now is the time to distinguish yourselves .... Should the generous efforts of our Government to establish a free, independent Republican Empire in Mexico be successful, how fortunate, how enviable would be the situation in New Orleans!" The editor who sounded this clarion call was a coadjutor of Burr. On the flood tide of a popular war against Spain, they proposed to float their own expedition. Much depended on General Wilkinson; but he had already written privately of subverting the Spanish Government in Mexico, and carrying "our conquests to California and the Isthmus of Darien."

With much swagger and braggadocio, Wilkinson advanced to the center of the stage. He would drive the Spaniards over the Sabine, though they outnumbered him three to one. "I believe, my friend," he wrote, "I shall be obliged to fight and to flog them." Magnificent stage thunder. But to Wilkinson's chagrin the Spaniards withdrew of their own accord. Not a Spaniard remained to contest his advance to the border. Yet, oddly enough, he remained idle in camp. Why?

Some two weeks later, an emissary appeared at Natchitoches with a letter from Burr dated the 29th of July, in cipher. What this letter may have originally contained will probably never be known, for only Wilkinson's version survives, and that underwent frequent revision.* It is quite as remarkable for its omissions as for anything that it contains. In it there is no mention of a western uprising nor of a revolution in New Orleans; but only the intimation that an attack is to be made upon Spanish possessions, presumably Mexico, with possibly Baton Rouge as the immediate objective. Whether or no this letter changed Wilkinson's plan, we can only conjecture. Certain it is, however, that about this time Wilkinson determined to denounce Burr and his associates and to play a double game, posing on the one hand as the savior of his country and on the other as a secret friend to Spain. After some hesitation he wrote to President Jefferson warning him in general terms of an expedition preparing against Vera Cruz but omitting all mention of Burr. Subsequently he wrote a confidential letter about this "deep, dark, and widespread conspiracy" which enmeshed all classes and conditions in New Orleans and might bring seven thousand men from the Ohio. The contents of Burr's mysterious letter were to be communicated orally to the President by the messenger who bore this precious warning. It was on the strength of these communications that the President issued his proclamation of the 27th of November.

* What is usually accepted as the correct version is printed by McCaleb in his "Aaron Burr Conspiracy," pp. 74 and 75, and by Henry Adams in his "History of the United States," vol. III, pp. 253-4.

While Wilkinson was inditing these misleading missives to the President, he was preparing the way for his entry at New Orleans. To the perplexed and alarmed Governor he wrote: "You are surrounded by dangers of which you dream not, and the destruction of the American Government is seriously menaced. The storm will probably burst in New Orleans, where I shall meet it, and triumph or perish!" Just five days later he wrote a letter to the Viceroy of Mexico which proves him beyond doubt the most contemptible rascal who ever wore an American uniform. "A storm, a revolutionary tempest, an infernal plot threatens the destruction of the empire," he wrote; the first object of attack would be New Orleans, then Vera Cruz, then Mexico City; scenes of violence and pillage would follow; let His Excellency be on his guard. To ward off these calamities, "I will hurl myself like a Leonidas into the breach." But let His Excellency remember what risks the writer of this letter incurs, "by offering without orders this communication to a foreign power," and let him reimburse the bearer of this letter to the amount of 121,000 pesos which will be spent to shatter the plans of these bandits from the Ohio.

The arrival of Wilkinson in New Orleans was awaited by friends and foes, with bated breath. The conspirators had as yet no intimation of his intentions: Governor Claiborne was torn by suspicion of this would-be savior, for at the very time he was reading Wilkinson's gasconade he received a cryptic letter from Andrew Jackson which ran, "keep a watchful eye on our General and beware of an attack as well from your own country as Spain!" If Claiborne could not trust "our General," whom could he trust!

The stage was now set for the last act in the drama. Wilkinson arrived in the city, deliberately set Claiborne aside, and established a species of martial law, not without opposition. To justify his course Wilkinson swore to an affidavit based on Burr's letter of the 29th of July and proceeded with his arbitrary arrests. One by one Burr's confederates were taken into custody. The city was kept in a state of alarm; Burr's armed thousands were said to be on the way; the negroes were to be incited to revolt. Only the actual appearance of Burr's expedition or some extraordinary happening could maintain this high pitch of popular excitement and save Wilkinson from becoming the ridiculous victim of his own folly.

On the 10th of January (1807), after an uneventful voyage down the Mississippi, Burr's flotilla reached the mouth of Bayou Pierre, some thirty miles above Natchez. Here at length was the huge armada which was to shatter the Union—nine boats and sixty men! Tension began to give way. People began to recover their sense of humor. Wilkinson was never in greater danger in his life, for he was about to appear ridiculous. It was at Bayou Pierre that Burr going ashore learned that Wilkinson had betrayed him. His first instinct was to flee, for if he should proceed to New Orleans he would fall into Wilkinson's hands and doubtless be court-martialed and shot; but if he tarried, he would be arrested and sent to Washington. Indecision and despair seized him; and while Blennerhassett and other devoted followers waited for their emperor to declare his intention, he found himself facing the acting-governor of the Mississippi Territory with a warrant for his arrest. To the chagrin of his fellow conspirators, Burr surrendered tamely, even pusillanimously.

The end of the drama was near at hand. Burr was brought before a grand jury, and though he once more escaped indictment, he was put under bonds, quite illegally he thought, to appear when summoned. On the 1st of February he abandoned his followers to the tender mercies of the law and fled in disguise into the wilderness. A month later he was arrested near the Spanish border above Mobile by Lieutenant Gaines, in command at Fort Stoddert, and taken to Richmond. The trial that followed did not prove Burr's guilt, but it did prove Thomas Jefferson's credulity and cast grave doubts on James Wilkinson's loyalty.* Burr was acquitted of the charge of treason in court, but he remained under popular indictment, and his memory has never been wholly cleared of the suspicion of treason.

* An account of the trial of Burr will be found in "John Marshall and the Constitution" by Edward S. Corwin, in "The Chronicles of America".



CHAPTER VII. AN ABUSE OF HOSPITALITY

While Captain Bainbridge was eating his heart out in the Pasha's prison at Tripoli, his thoughts reverting constantly to his lost frigate, he reminded Commodore Preble, with whom he was allowed to correspond, that "the greater part of our crew consists of English subjects not naturalized in America." This incidental remark comes with all the force of a revelation to those who have fondly imagined that the sturdy jack-tars who manned the first frigates were genuine American sea-dogs. Still more disconcerting is the information contained in a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury to President Jefferson, some years later, to the effect that after 1803 American tonnage increased at the rate of seventy thousand a year, but that of the four thousand seamen required to man this growing mercantile marine, fully one-half were British subjects, presumably deserters. How are these uncomfortable facts to be explained? Let a third piece of information be added. In a report of Admiral Nelson, dated 1803, in which he broaches a plan for manning the British navy, it is soberly stated that forty-two thousand British seamen deserted "in the late war." Whenever a large convoy assembled at Portsmouth, added the Admiral, not less than a thousand seamen usually deserted from the navy.

The slightest acquaintance with the British navy when Nelson was winning immortal glory by his victory at Trafalgar must convince the most sceptical that his seamen for the most part were little better than galley slaves. Life on board these frigates was well-nigh unbearable. The average life of a seaman, Nelson reckoned, was forty-five years. In this age before processes of refrigeration had been invented, food could not be kept edible on long voyages, even in merchantmen. Still worse was the fare on men-of-war. The health of a crew was left to Providence. Little or no forethought was exercised to prevent disease; the commonest matters of personal hygiene were neglected; and when disease came the remedies applied were scarcely to be preferred to the disease. Discipline, always brutal, was symbolized by the cat-o'-nine-tails. Small wonder that the navy was avoided like the plague by every man and seaman.

Yet a navy had to be maintained: it was the cornerstone of the Empire. And in all the history of that Empire the need of a navy was never stronger than in these opening years of the nineteenth century. The practice of impressing able men for the royal navy was as old as the reign of Elizabeth. The press gang was an odious institution of long standing—a terror not only to rogue and vagabond but to every able-bodied seafaring man and waterman on rivers, who was not exempted by some special act. It ransacked the prisons, and carried to the navy not only its victims but the germs of fever which infested public places of detention. But the press gang harvested its greatest crop of seamen on the seas. Merchantmen were stopped at sea, robbed of their able sailors, and left to limp short-handed into port. A British East Indiaman homeward bound in 1802 was stripped of so many of her crew in the Bay of Biscay that she was unable to offer resistance to a French privateer and fell a rich victim into the hands of the enemy. The necessity of the royal navy knew no law and often defeated its own purpose.

Death or desertion offered the only way of escape to the victim of the press gang. And the commander of a British frigate dreaded making port almost as much as an epidemic of typhus. The deserter always found American merchantmen ready to harbor him. Fair wages, relatively comfortable quarters, and decent treatment made him quite ready to take any measures to forswear his allegiance to Britannia. Naturalization papers were easily procured by a few months' residence in any State of the Union; and in default of legitimate papers, certificates of citizenship could be bought for a song in any American seaport, where shysters drove a thrifty traffic in bogus documents. Provided the English navy took the precaution to have the description in his certificate tally with his personal appearance, and did not let his tongue betray him, he was reasonably safe from capture.

Facing the palpable fact that British seamen were deserting just when they were most needed and were making American merchantmen and frigates their asylum, the British naval commanders, with no very nice regard for legal distinctions, extended their search for deserters to the decks of American vessels, whether in British waters or on the high seas. If in time of war, they reasoned, they could stop a neutral ship on the high seas, search her for contraband of war, and condemn ship and cargo in a prize court if carrying contraband, why might they not by the same token search a vessel for British deserters and impress them into service again? Two considerations seem to justify this reasoning: the trickiness of the smart Yankees who forged citizenship papers, and the indelible character of British allegiance. Once an Englishman always an Englishman, by Jove! Your hound of a sea-dog might try to talk through his nose like a Yankee, you know, and he might shove a dirty bit of paper at you, but he couldn't shake off his British citizenship if he wanted to! This was good English law, and if it wasn't recognized by other nations so much the worse for them. As one of these redoubtable British captains put it, years later: "'Might makes right' is the guiding, practical maxim among nations and ever will be, so long as powder and shot exist, with money to back them, and energy to wield them." Of course, there were hair-splitting fellows, plenty of them, in England and the States, who told you that it was one thing to seize a vessel carrying contraband and have her condemned by judicial process in a court of admiralty, and quite another thing to carry British subjects off the decks of a merchantman flying a neutral flag; but if you knew the blasted rascals were deserters what difference did it make? Besides, what would become of the British navy, if you listened to all the fine-spun arguments of landsmen? And if these stalwart blue-water Britishers could have read what Thomas Jefferson was writing at this very time, they would have classed him with the armchair critics who had no proper conception of a sailor's duty. "I hold the right of expatriation," wrote the President, "to be inherent in every man by the laws of nature, and incapable of being rightfully taken away from him even by the united will of every other person in the nation."

In the year 1805, while President Jefferson was still the victim of his overmastering passion, and disposed to cultivate the good will of England, if thereby he might obtain the Floridas, unforeseen commercial complications arose which not only blocked the way to a better understanding in Spanish affairs but strained diplomatic relations to the breaking point. News reached Atlantic seaports that American merchantmen, which had hitherto engaged with impunity in the carrying trade between Europe and the West Indies, had been seized and condemned in British admiralty courts. Every American shipmaster and owner at once lifted up his voice in indignant protest; and all the latent hostility to their old enemy revived. Here were new orders-in-council, said they: the leopard cannot change his spots. England is still England—the implacable enemy of neutral shipping. "Never will neutrals be perfectly safe till free goods make free ships or till England loses two or three great naval battles," declared the Salem Register.

The recent seizures were not made by orders-in-council, however, but in accordance with a decision recently handed down by the court of appeals in the case of the ship Essex. Following a practice which had become common in recent years, the Essex had sailed with a cargo from Barcelona to Salem and thence to Havana. On the high seas she had been captured, and then taken to a British port, where ship and cargo were condemned because the voyage from Spain to her colony had been virtually continuous, and by the so-called Rule of 1756, direct trade between a European state and its colony was forbidden to neutrals in time of war when such trade had not been permitted in time of peace. Hitherto, the British courts had inclined to the view that when goods had been landed in a neutral country and duties paid, the voyage had been broken. Tacitly a trade that was virtually direct had been countenanced, because the payment of duties seemed evidence enough that the cargo became a part of the stock of the neutral country and, if reshipped, was then a bona fide neutral cargo. Suddenly English merchants and shippers woke to the fact that they were often victims of deception. Cargoes would be landed in the United States, duties ostensibly paid, and the goods ostensibly imported, only to be reshipped in the same bottoms, with the connivance of port officials, either without paying any real duties or with drawbacks. In the case of the Essex the court of appeals cut directly athwart these practices by going behind the prima facie payment and inquiring into the intent of the voyage. The mere touching at a port without actually importing the cargo into the common stock of the country did not alter the nature of the voyage. The crucial point was the intent, which the court was now and hereafter determined to ascertain by examination of facts. The court reached the indubitable conclusion that the cargo of the Essex had never been intended for American markets. The open-minded historian must admit that this was a fair application of the Rule of 1756, but he may still challenge the validity of the rule, as all neutral countries did, and the wisdom of the monopolistic impulse which moved the commercial classes and the courts of England to this decision.*

* Professor William E. Lingelbach in a notable article on "England and Neutral Trade" in "The Military Historian and Economist" (April, 1917) has pointed out the error committed by almost every historian from Henry Adams down, that the Essex decision reversed previous rulings of the court and was not in accord with British law.

Had the impressment of seamen and the spoliation of neutral commerce occurred only on the high seas, public resentment would have mounted to a high pitch in the United States; but when British cruisers ran into American waters to capture or burn French vessels, and when British men-of-war blockaded ports, detaining and searching—and at times capturing—American vessels, indignation rose to fever heat. The blockade of New York Harbor by two British frigates, the Cambrian and the Leander, exasperated merchants beyond measure. On board the Leander was a young midshipman, Basil Hall, who in after years described the activities of this execrated frigate.

"Every morning at daybreak, we set about arresting the progress of all the vessels we saw, firing of guns to the right and left to make every ship that was running in heave to, or wait until we had leisure to send a boat on board 'to see, in our lingo, 'what she was made of.' I have frequently known a dozen, and sometimes a couple of dozen, ships lying a league or two off the port, losing their fair wind, their tide, and worse than all their market, for many hours, sometimes the whole day, before our search was completed."*

* "Fragments of Voyages and Travels," quoted by Henry Adams, in "History of the United States", vol. III, p. 92.

One day in April, 1806, the Leander, trying to halt a merchantman that she meant to search, fired a shot which killed the helmsman of a passing sloop. The boat sailed on to New York with the mangled body; and the captain, brother of the murdered man, lashed the populace into a rage by his mad words. Supplies for the frigates were intercepted, personal violence was threatened to any British officers caught on shore, the captain of the Leander was indicted for murder, and the funeral of the murdered sailor was turned into a public demonstration. Yet nothing came of this incident, beyond a proclamation by the President closing the ports of the United States to the offending frigates and ordering the arrest of the captain of the Leander wherever found. After all, the death of a common seaman did not fire the hearts of farmers peacefully tilling their fields far beyond hearing of the Leander's guns.

A year full of troublesome happenings passed; scores of American vessels were condemned in British admiralty courts, and American seamen were impressed with increasing frequency, until in the early summer of 1807 these manifold grievances culminated in an outrage that shook even Jefferson out of his composure and evoked a passionate outcry for war from all parts of the country.

While a number of British war vessels were lying in Hampton Roads watching for certain French frigates which had taken refuge up Chesapeake Bay, they lost a number of seamen by desertion under peculiarly annoying circumstances. In one instance a whole boat's crew made off under cover of night to Norfolk and there publicly defied their commander. Three deserters from the British frigate Melampus had enlisted on the American frigate Chesapeake, which had just been fitted out for service in the Mediterranean; but on inquiry these three were proven to be native Americans who had been impressed into British service. Unfortunately inquiry did disclose one British deserter who had enlisted on the Chesapeake, a loud-mouthed tar by the name of Jenkin Ratford. These irritating facts stirred Admiral Berkeley at Halifax to highhanded measures. Without waiting for instructions, he issued an order to all commanders in the North Atlantic Squadron to search the Chesapeake for deserters, if she should be encountered on the high seas. This order of the 1st of June should be shown to the captain of the Chesapeake as sufficient authority for searching her.

On June 22, 1807, the Chesapeake passed unsuspecting between the capes on her way to the Mediterranean. She was a stanch frigate carrying forty guns and a crew of 375 men and boys; but she was at this time in a distressing state of unreadiness, owing to the dilatoriness and incompetence of the naval authorities at Washington. The gundeck was littered with lumber and odds and ends of rigging; the guns, though loaded, were not all fitted to their carriages; and the crew was untrained. As the guns had to be fired by slow matches or by loggerheads heated red-hot, and the ammunition was stored in the magazine, the frigate was totally unprepared for action. Commodore Barron, who commanded the Chesapeake, counted on putting her into fighting trim on the long voyage across the Atlantic.

Just ahead of the Chesapeake as she passed out to sea, was the Leopard, a British frigate of fifty-two guns, which was apparently on the lookout for suspicious merchantmen. It was not until both vessels were eight miles or more southeast of Cape Henry that the movements of the Leopard began to attract attention. At about half-past three in the afternoon she came within hailing distance and hove to, announcing that she had dispatches for the commander. The Chesapeake also hove to and answered the hail, a risky move considering that she was unprepared for action and that the Leopard lay to the windward. But why should the commander of the American frigate have entertained suspicions?

A boat put out from the Leopard, bearing a petty officer, who delivered a note enclosing Admiral Berkeley's order and expressing the hope that "every circumstance... may be adjusted in a manner that the harmony subsisting between the two countries may remain undisturbed." Commodore Barron replied that he knew of no British deserters on his vessel and declined in courteous terms to permit his crew to be mustered by any other officers but their own. The messenger departed, and then, for the first time entertaining serious misgivings, Commodore Barron ordered his decks cleared for action. But before the crew could bestir themselves, the Leopard drew near, her men at quarters. The British commander shouted a warning, but Barron, now thoroughly alarmed, replied, "I don't hear what you say." The warning was repeated, but again Barron to gain time shouted that he could not hear. The Leopard then fired two shots across the bow of the Chesapeake, and almost immediately without parleying further—she was now within two hundred feet of her victim—poured a broadside into the American vessel.

Confusion reigned on the Chesapeake. The crew for the most part showed courage, but they were helpless, for they could not fire a gun for want of slow matches or loggerheads. They crowded about the magazine clamoring in vain for a chance to defend the vessel; they yelled with rage at their predicament. Only one gun was discharged and that was by means of a live coal brought up from the galley after the Chesapeake had received a third broadside and Commodore Barron had ordered the flag to be hauled down to spare further slaughter. Three of his crew had already been killed and eighteen wounded, himself among the number. The whole action lasted only fifteen minutes.

Boarding crews now approached and several British officers climbed to the deck of the Chesapeake and mustered her crew. Among the ship's company they found the alleged deserters and, hiding in the coal-hole, the notorious Jenkin Ratford. These four men they took with them, and the Leopard, having fulfilled her instructions, now suffered the Chesapeake to limp back to Hampton Roads. "For the first time in their history," writes Henry Adams, * "the people of the United States learned, in June, 1807, the feeling of a true national emotion. Hitherto every public passion had been more or less partial and one-sided;... but the outrage committed on the Chesapeake stung through hidebound prejudices, and made democrat and aristocrat writhe alike."

* History of the United States, vol. IV, p. 27.

Had President Jefferson chosen to go to war at this moment, he would have had a united people behind him, and he was well aware that he possessed the power of choice. "The affair of the Chesapeake put war into my hand," he wrote some years later. "I had only to open it and let havoc loose." But Thomas Jefferson was not a martial character. The State Governors, to be sure, were requested to have their militia in readiness, and the Governor of Virginia was desired to call such companies into service as were needed for the defense of Norfolk. The President referred in indignant terms to the abuse of the laws of hospitality and the "outrage" committed by the British commander; but his proclamation only ordered all British armed vessels out of American waters and forbade all intercourse with them if they remained. The tone of the proclamation was so moderate as to seem pusillanimous. John Randolph called it an apology. Thomas Jefferson did not mean to have war. With that extraordinary confidence in his own powers, which in smaller men would be called smug conceit, he believed that he could secure disavowal and honorable reparation for the wrong committed; but he chose a frail intermediary when he committed this delicate mission to James Monroe.



CHAPTER VIII. THE PACIFISTS OF 1807

It is one of the strange paradoxes of our time that the author of the Declaration of Independence, to whose principle of self-determination the world seems again to be turning, should now be regarded as a self-confessed pacifist, with all the derogatory implications that lurk in that epithet. The circumstances which made him a revolutionist in 1776 and a passionate advocate of peace in 1807 deserve some consideration. The charge made by contemporaries of Jefferson that his aversion to war sprang from personal cowardice may be dismissed at once, as it was by him, with contempt. Nor was his hatred of war merely an instinctive abhorrence of bloodshed. He had not hesitated to wage naval war on the Barbary Corsairs. It is true that he was temperamentally averse to the use of force under ordinary circumstances. He did not belong to that type of full-blooded men who find self-expression in adventurous activity. Mere physical effort without conscious purpose never appealed to him. He was at the opposite pole of life from a man like Aaron Burr. He never, so far as history records, had an affair of honor; he never fought a duel; he never performed active military service; he never took human life. Yet he was not a non-resistant. "My hope of preserving peace for our country," he wrote on one occasion, "is not founded in the Quaker principle of nonresistance under every wrong."