Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812. Volume 1

This the United States immediately proceeded to do. Though the motive differed somewhat, the action was precisely that suggested. On the same day that Jefferson's message was received, the Senate passed an Embargo Bill. This was sent at once to the House, returned with amendments, amendments concurred in, and bill passed and approved December 22. This rapidity of action—Sunday intervened—shows a purpose already decided in general principle; while the enactment of three supplementary measures, before the adjournment of Congress in April, indicates a precipitancy incompatible with proper weighing of details, and an avoidance of discussion, commendable only on the ground that no otherwise than by the promptest interception could American ships or merchandise be successfully jailed in port. The bill provided for the instant stoppage of all vessels in the ports of the United States, whether cleared or not cleared, if bound to any foreign port. Exception was made only in favor of foreign ships, which of course could not be held. They might depart with cargo already on board, or in ballast. Vessels cleared coastwise were to be deterred from turning foreign by bonds exacted in double the value of ship and cargo. American export and foreign navigation were thus completely stopped; and as the Non-Importation Act at last went into operation on December 14,²²⁰ there was practical exclusion of all British vessels, for none could be expected to enter a port where she could neither land her cargo nor depart.

In communicating the embargo to Pinkney, for the information of the British Government,²²¹ Madison was careful to explain, as he had to the British minister at Washington, that it was a measure of precaution only; not to be considered as hostile in character. This was scarcely candid; coercion of Great Britain, to compel the withdrawal of her various maritime measures objectionable to the United States, was at least a silent partner in the scheme, as formulated to the consciousness of Jefferson and his followers.²²² The motive transpired, as such motives necessarily do; but, even had it not, the operation of the Act, under the conditions of the European war, was so plainly partial between the two belligerents, as to amount virtually to co-operation with Napoleon by the preponderance of injury done to Great Britain. It deprived her of cotton for raw material; of tobacco, which, imported in payment for British manufactures, formed a large element in her commerce with the Continent; of wheat and flour, which to some extent contributed to the support of her people, though in a much less degree than many supposed. It closed to her the American market at the moment that Napoleon and Alexander were actively closing the European; and it shut off from the West Indies American supplies known to be of the greatest importance, and fondly, but mistakenly, believed to be indispensable.

All this was well enough, if national policy required. Great Britain then was scarcely in a position to object seriously to retaliation by a nation thinking itself injured; but to define such a measure as not hostile was an insult to her common-sense. It was certainly hostile in nature, it was believed to be hostile in motive, and it intensified feelings already none too friendly. In France, although included in the embargo, and although her action was one of the reasons alleged for its institution, Napoleon expressed approval. It was injurious to England, and added little to the pressure upon France exerted by the Orders in Council through the British control of the ocean. Senator Smith of Maryland, a large shipping merchant, bore testimony to this. "It has been truly said by an eminent merchant of Salem, that not more than one vessel in eight that sailed for Europe within a short time before the embargo reached its destination. My own experience has taught me the truth of this; and as further proof I have in my hand a list of fifteen vessels which sailed for Europe between September 1 and December 23, 1807. Three arrived; two were captured by French and Spaniards; one was seized in Hamburg; and nine carried into England. But for the embargo, ships that would have sailed would have fared as ill, or worse. Not one in twenty would have arrived." Granting the truth of this anticipation, Great Britain might have claimed that, so far as evident danger was concerned, her blockades over long coast-lines were effective.

The question speedily arose,—If the object of embargo be precaution only, to save our vessels from condemnation under the sweeping edicts of France and Great Britain, and seamen from impressment on American decks, why object to exporting native produce in foreign bottoms, and to commerce across the Canada frontier? If, by keeping our vessels at home, we are to lose the profits upon sixty million dollars' worth of colonial produce which they have heretofore been carrying, with advantage to the national revenue, why also forbid the export of the forty to fifty million dollars' worth of domestic produce which foreign ship-owners would gladly take and safely carry? for such foreigners would be chiefly British, and would sail under British convoy, subject to small proportionate risk.²²³ Why, also, to save seamen from impressment, deprive them of their living, and force them in search of occupation to fly our ports to British, where lower wages and more exposure to the pressgang await them? On the ground of precaution, there was no reply to these questions; unless, perhaps, that with open export of domestic produce the popular suffering would be too unequally distributed, falling almost wholly on New England shipping industries. Logically, however, if the precaution were necessary, the suffering must be accepted; its incidence was a detail only. The embargo was distinctly a hostile measure; and more and more, as people talked, in and out of Congress, was admitted to be simply an alternative for open war.

As such it failed. It entailed most of the miseries of war, without any of its compensations. It could not arouse the popular enthusiasm which elevates, nor command the popular support that strengthens. Hated and despised, it bred elusion, sneaking and demoralizing, and so debased public sentiment with reference to national objects, and individual self-sacrifice to national ends, that the conduct of the many who now evaded it was reproduced, during the War of 1812, in dealings with the enemy which even now may make an American's head hang for shame. Born of the Jeffersonian horror of war, its evil communication corrupted morals among those whose standards were conventional only; for public opinion failed to condemn breaches of embargo, and by a natural declension equally failed soon after to condemn aid to the enemy in an unpopular war. Was it wonderful that an Administration which bade the seamen and the ship-owners of the day to starve, that a foreign state might be injured, and at the same time refused to build national ships to protect them, fell into contempt? that men, so far as they might, simply refused to obey, and wholly departed from respect? "I have believed, and still do believe," wrote Mr. Adams, "that our internal resources are competent to establish and maintain a naval force, if not fully adequate to the protection and defence of our commerce, at least sufficient to induce a retreat from these hostilities, and to deter from the renewal of them by either of the harrying parties;" in short, to compel peace, the first object of military preparation. "I believed that a system to that effect might be formed, ultimately far more economical, and certainly more energetic than a three years' embargo. I did submit such a proposition to the Senate, and similar attempts had been made in the House of Representatives, but equally discountenanced."²²⁴ This was precisely the effect of Jefferson's teaching, which then dominated his party, and controlled both houses. At this critical moment he wrote, "Believing, myself, that gunboats are the only water defence which can be useful to us, and protect us from the ruinous folly of a navy, I am pleased with everything which promises to improve them."²²⁵

Not thus was a nation to be united, nor foreign governments impressed. The panacea recommended was to abandon the sea; to yield practical submission to the Orders in Council, which forbade American ships to visit the Continent, and to the Decrees of Napoleon, which forbade them entrance to any dominion of Great Britain. By a curious mental process this was actually believed to be resistance. The American nation was to take as its model the farmer who lives on his own produce, sternly independent of his neighbor; whose sons delved, and wife span, all that the family needed. This programme, half sentiment, half philosophy, and not at all practical, or practicable, was the groundwork of Jefferson's thought. To it co-operated a dislike approaching detestation for the carrying trade; the very opposite, certainly, of the other ideal. American shipping was then handling sixty million dollars' worth of foreign produce, and rolling up the wealth which for some reason follows the trader more largely than the agriculturist, who observed with ill-concealed envy. "I trust," wrote Jefferson, "that the good sense of our country will see that its greatest prosperity depends on a due balance between agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, and not on this protuberant navigation, which has kept us in hot water from the commencement of our government. This drawback system enriches a few individuals, but lessens the stock of native productions, by withdrawing all the hands [seamen] thus employed. It is essentially necessary for us to have shipping and seamen enough to carry our surplus products to market, but beyond that I do not think we are bound to give it encouragement by drawbacks or other premiums." This meant that it was unjust to the rest of the community to allow the merchant to land his cargo, and send it abroad, without paying as much duty as if actually consumed in the country. "This exuberant commerce brings us into collision with other Powers in every sea, and will force us into every war with European Powers." "It is now engaging us in war."²²⁶

Whether for merchant ships or navies the sea was odious to Jefferson's conception of things. As a convenient medium for sending to market surplus cotton and tobacco, it might be tolerated; but for that ample use of it which had made the greatness of Holland and England, he had only aversion. This prepossession characterized the whole body of men, who willingly stripped the seaman and his employers of all their living, after refusing to provide them with an armed protection to which the resources of the state were equal. Up to the outbreak of the war not a ship was added to the navy. With this feeling, Great Britain, whose very being was maritime, not unnaturally became the object of a dislike so profound as unconsciously to affect action. Napoleon decreed, and embargoed, and sequestered, with little effect upon national sentiment outside of New England. "Certainly all the difficulties and the troubles of the Government during our time proceeded from England," wrote Jefferson soon after quitting office,²²⁷ to Dearborn, his Secretary of War. "At least all others were trifling in comparison." Yet not to speak of the Berlin Decree, by which ships were captured for the mere offence of sailing for England,²²⁸ Bonaparte, by the Bayonne Decree, April 17, 1808, nearly a year before Jefferson left office, pronounced the confiscation of all American vessels entering ports under his control, on the ground that under the existing embargo they could not lawfully have left their own country; a matter which was none of his business. Within a year were condemned one hundred and thirty-four ships and cargoes, worth $10,000,000.²²⁹

That Jefferson consciously leaned to France from any regard to Napoleon is incredible; the character and procedures of the French Emperor were repugnant to his deepest convictions; but that there was a still stronger bias against the English form of government, and the pursuit of the sea for which England especially stood, is equally clear. Opposition to England was to him a kind of mission. His best wish for her had been that she might be republicanized by a successful French invasion.²³⁰ "I came into office," he wrote to a political disciple, "under circumstances calculated to generate peculiar acrimony. I found all the offices in the possession of a political sect, who wished to transform it ultimately into the shape of their darling model, the English government; and in the meantime to familiarize the public mind to the change, by administering it on English principles, and in English forms. The elective interposition of the people had blown all their designs, and they found themselves and their fortresses of power and profit put in a moment in the hand of other trustees."²³¹

These words, written in the third of the fifteen embargo months, reveal an acrimony not wholly one-sided. It was perceived by the parties hardest hit by this essentially Jeffersonian scheme; by the people of New England and of Great Britain. In the old country it intensified bitterness. In the following summer, at a dinner given to representatives of the Spanish revolt against Napoleon, the toast to the President of the United States was received with hisses,²³² "and the marks of disapprobation continued till a new subject drew off the attention of the company." The embargo was not so much a definite cause of complaint, for at worst it was merely a retaliatory measure like the Orders in Council. Enmity was recognized, alike in the council boards and in the social gatherings of the two peoples; the spirit that leads to war was aroused. Nor could this hostile demonstration proceed from sympathy with the Spanish insurgents; for, except so far as might be inferred from the previous general course of the American Administration, there was no reason to believe that they would regard unfavorably the Spanish struggle for liberty. Yet they soon did, and could not but do so.

It is a coincidence too singular to go unnoticed, that the first strong measure of the American Government against Great Britain—Embargo—was followed by Napoleon's reverses in Spain, which, by opening much of that country and of her colonies to trade, at once in large measure relieved Great Britain from the pressure of the Continental system and the embargo; while the second, the last resort of nations, War, was declared shortly before the great Russian catastrophe, which, by rapidly contracting the sphere of the Emperor's control, both widened the area of British commerce and deprived the United States of a diversion of British effort, upon which calculation had rightly been based. It was impossible for the American Government not to wish well to Napoleon, when for it so much depended upon his success; and to wish him well was of course to wish ill to his opponents, even if fighting for freedom.

Congress adjourned April 25, having completed embargo legislation, as far as could then be seen necessary. On May 2 occurred the rising in Madrid, consequent upon Napoleon's removal of the Spanish Royal Family; and on July 21 followed the surrender of Dupont's corps at Baylen. Already, on July 4, the British Government had stopped all hostilities against Spain, and withdrawn the blockade of all Spanish ports, except such as might still be in French control. On August 30, by the Convention of Cintra, Portugal was evacuated by the French, and from that time forward the Peninsula kingdoms, though scourged by war, were in alliance with Great Britain; their ports and those of their colonies open to her trade.

This of itself was a severe blow to the embargo, which for coercive success depended upon the co-operation of the Continental system. It was further thwarted and weakened by extensive popular repudiation in the United States. The political conviction of the expediency, or probable efficacy, of the measure was largely sectional; and it is no serious imputation upon the honesty of its supporters to say that they mustered most strongly where interests were least immediately affected. Tobacco and cotton suffered less in keeping than flour and salt fish; and the deterioration of these was by no means so instant as the stoppage of a ship's sailing or loading. The farmer ideal is realizable on a farm; but it was not so for the men whose sole occupation was transporting that which the agriculturist did not need to markets now closed by law. Wherever employment depended upon commerce, distress was immediate. The seamen, improvident by habit, first felt the blow. "I cannot conceive," said Representative [afterwards Justice] Story, "why gentlemen should wish to paralyze the strength of the nation by keeping back our naval force, and particularly now, when many of our native seamen (and I am sorry to say from my own knowledge I speak it) are starving in our ports."²³³ The Commandant of the New York Navy Yard undertook to employ, for rations only, not wages, three hundred of those adrift in the streets; the corporation of the city undertaking to pay for the food issued.²³⁴ They moved off, as they could get opportunity, towards the British Provinces; and thus many got into the British service, by enlistment or impressment. "Had your frigate arrived here instead of the Chesapeake," wrote the British Consul General at New York, as early as February 15, 1808, "I have no doubt two or three hundred able British seamen would have entered on board her for his Majesty's service; and even now, was your station removed to this city, I feel confident, provided the embargo continues, you would more than complete your complement."²³⁵ Six months later, "Is it not notorious that not a seaport in the United States can produce seamen enough to man three merchant ships?"²³⁶ In moving the estimates for one hundred and thirty thousand seamen a year later (February, 1809), the Secretary of the Admiralty observed that Parliament would learn with satisfaction that the number of seamen now serving in the navy covered, if it did not exceed, the number here voted.²³⁷ It had not been so once. Sir William Parker, an active frigate captain during ten years of this period, wrote in 1805, "I dread the discharge of our crew; for I do not think the miserable wretches with which the ships lately fitted out were manned are equal to fight their ships in the manner they are expected to do."²³⁸ The high wages, which the profits of the American merchant service enabled it to pay, outbade all competition by the British navy. "Dollars for shillings," as the expression ran. The embargo stopped all this, and equivalent conditions did not return before the war. The American Minister to France in 1811 wrote: "We complain with justice of the English practice of pressing our seamen into their service. But the fact is, and there is no harm in saying it, there are at present more American seamen who seek that service than are forced into it."²³⁹

After the seamen followed the associated employments; those whose daily labor was expended in occupations connected with transportation, or who produced objects which men could not eat, or with which they could dispense. Before the end of the year testimony came from every quarter of the increase of suffering among the deserving poor; and not they only, but those somewhat above them as gainers of a comfortable living. They were for the most part helpless, except as helped by their richer neighbors. Work for them there was not, and they could not rebel. Not so with the seafarers, or the dwellers upon the frontiers. On the great scale, of course, a sure enforcement of the embargo was possible; the bulk of the shipping, especially the bigger, was corralled and idle. In the port of New York, February 17, 1808, lay 161 ships, 121 brigs, and 98 smaller sea-going vessels; in all 380 unoccupied, of which only 11 were foreign. In the much smaller port of Savannah, at this early period there were 50. In Philadelphia, a year later, 293, mostly of large tonnage for the period. "What is that huge forest of dry trees that spreads itself before the town?" asked a Boston journal. "You behold the masts of ships thrown out of employment by the embargo."²⁴⁰ "Our dismantled, ark-roofed vessels are indeed decaying in safety at our wharves, forming a suitable monument to the memory of our departed commerce. But where are your seamen? Gone, sir! Driven into foreign exile in search of subsistence."²⁴¹ Yet not all; for illicit employment, for evading the Acts, enough remained to disconcert the Government, alike by their numbers and the boldness of their movements.

"This Embargo law," wrote Jefferson to Gallatin, August 11, 1808, "is certainly the most embarrassing we ever had to execute. I did not expect a crop of so sudden and rank growth of fraud, and open opposition by force, could have grown up within the United States."²⁴² Apostle of pure democracy as he was, he had forgotten to reckon with the people, and had mistaken the convictions of himself and a coterie for national sentiment. From all parts of the country men began silently and covertly to undermine the working of the system. Passamaquoddy Bay on the borders of New Brunswick, and St. Mary's on the confines of Florida, remote from ordinary commerce, became suddenly crowded with vessels.²⁴³ Coasters, not from recalcitrant New England only, but from the Chesapeake and Southern waters, found it impossible to reach their ports of destination. Furious gales of wind drove them from their course; spars smitten with decay went overboard; butts of planking started, causing dangerous leaks. Safety could be found only by bearing up for some friendly foreign port, in Nova Scotia or the West Indies, where cargoes of flour and fish had to be sold for needed repairs, to enable the homeward voyage to be made. Not infrequently the vessel's name had been washed off the stern by the violence of the waves, and the captain could remember neither it nor his own. The New York and Vermont frontiers became the scene of widespread illegal trade, the shameful effects of which upon the patriotism of the inhabitants were conspicuous in the following war. A gentleman returning from Canada in January, 1809, reported that he had counted seven hundred sleighs, going and returning between Montreal and Vermont.²⁴⁴ This on one line only. A letter received in New York stated that, during the embargo year, 1808, thirty thousand barrels of potash had been brought into Quebec.²⁴⁵ "While our gunboats and cutters are watching the harbors and sounds of the Atlantic," said a senator from his place, "a strange inversion of business ensues, and by a retrograde motion of all the interior machinery of the country, potash and lumber are launched upon the lakes, and Ontario and Champlain feel the bustle of illicit traffic.... Violators of the laws are making fortunes, while the conscientious observers of them are suffering sad privations."²⁴⁶ Not the conscientious only, but the unlucky. Unlike New York, North Carolina had not a friendly foreign boundary nigh to her naval stores.

Under these circumstances the blow glanced from the British dominions. At the first announcement of the embargo, prices of provisions and lumber rose heavily in the West Indies; but reaction set in, as the leaks in the dam became manifest and copious. The British Government fostered the rebellious evasions of American citizens by a proclamation, issued April 11, directing commanders of cruisers not to interrupt any neutral vessel laden with provisions or lumber, going to the West Indies; no matter to whom the property belonged, nor whether the vessel had any clearance, or papers of any kind. A principal method of eluding the embargo, Gallatin informed Jefferson, was by loading secretly and going off without clearing. "Evasions are chiefly effected by vessels going coastwise."²⁴⁷ The two methods were not incompatible. Besides the sea-going vessels already mentioned as lying in New York alone, there were there over four hundred coasters. It was impossible to watch so many. The ridiculous gunboats, identified with this Administration, derisively nicknamed "Jeffs"²⁴⁸ by the unbelieving, were called into service to arrest the evil; but neither their numbers nor their qualities fitted them to cope with the ubiquity and speed of their nimble opponents. "The larger part of our gunboats," wrote Commodore Shaw²⁴⁹ from New Orleans, "are well known to be dull sailers." "For enforcing the embargo," said Secretary Gallatin, "gunboats are better calculated as a stationary force, and for the purpose of stopping vessels in certain places, than for pursuit."²⁵⁰ A double bond was a mockery, when in West Indian ports the cargo was worth from four to eight times what it was at the place of loading. These were the palmier days of the embargo breakers; the ease and frequency with which they escaped soon brought prices down. Randolph, in the House, asserted that in the first four months of embargo one hundred thousand barrels of flour had been shipped from Baltimore alone; and the West India planters, besides opening new sources of supply, devoted part of their ground to raising food. They thus turned farmer, after the Jefferson ideal, supporting themselves off their own grounds; an economical error, for sugar was their better crop, but unavoidable in the circumstances. With all this, the difficulty in the way of exportation so cheapened articles in the United States as to maintain a considerable disproportion in prices there and abroad, which kept alive the spirit of speculation, and maintained the opportunity of large profits,²⁵¹ at the same time that it distressed the American grower.

Upon the whole, after making allowance for the boasts which succeeded the first fright in the West Indies, the indications seem to be that they escaped much better than had been expected, either by themselves or by the American Government. Just before adjourning, Congress had passed a supplementary measure, which, besides drawing restrictions tighter, authorized the President to license vessels to go abroad in ballast, in order to bring home property belonging to American citizens. These dispersed in various directions, and in very large numbers.²⁵² Many doubtless remained away; but those which returned brought constant confirmation of the numerous American shipping in the various ports of the West Indies, and the general abundance of American produce. A letter from Havana, September 12, said: "We have nearly one hundred American vessels in port. Three weeks ago there were but four or five. If the property, for which these vessels were ostensibly despatched, had been really here, why have they been so long delayed? The truth is, the property is not here. A host of people have been let loose, who could not possibly have had any other motive than procuring freight and passengers from merchants of this country, or from the French, who are supposed to be going off with their property [in consequence of the Spanish outbreak]. The vast number of evasions and smugglers which the embargo has created is surprising. For some days after the last influx of American vessels, the quays and custom-house were every morning covered with all kinds of provisions, which had been landed during the preceding night."²⁵³

To Quebec and Halifax the embargo was a positive boon, from the diversion upon them of smuggling enterprise, by the lakes and by land, or by coasters too small to make the direct voyage to the West Indies. In consequence of the embargo, these towns became an entrepôt of commerce, such as the Orders in Council were designed to make the British Islands. There was, of course, a return trade, through them, of British manufactures smuggled into the United States. These imports seem to have exceeded the exports by the same route. A New Bedford town meeting, in August, affirmed that gold was already at a premium, from the facility with which it was transported through the country, and across the frontier, in payment of purchases.²⁵⁴ At the end of the summer one hundred and fifty vessels were despatched from Quebec with full cargoes, and it may be believed they had not arrived empty. "From a Canada price current now before us, it will be seen that since the embargo was laid the single port of Quebec has done more foreign business than the whole United States. In less than eleven months there cleared thence three hundred and thirty-four vessels."²⁵⁵ An American merchant visiting Halifax wrote home: "Our embargo is an excellent thing for this place. Every inhabitant of Nova Scotia is exceedingly desirous of its continuance, as it will be the making of their fortunes."²⁵⁶ Independent of the entrepôt profit, the British provinces themselves produced several of the articles which figured largely among the exports of the middle and eastern states; not to the extent imagined by Sheffield, sufficient to supply the West Indies, but, in the artificial scarcity caused by the embargo, the enhanced prices redounded directly to their advantage. Sir George Prevost, governor of Nova Scotia, summed up the experience of the year by saying that "the embargo has totally failed. New sources have been resorted to with success to supply deficiencies produced by so sudden an interruption of commerce, and the vast increase of export and import of this province proves that the embargo is a measure well adapted to promote the true interests of his Majesty's American colonies."²⁵⁷

Upon the British Islands themselves the injury was more appreciable and conspicuous. It was, moreover, in the direction expected by Jefferson and his supporters. The supply of cotton nearly ceased. Mr. Baring, March 6, 1809, said in the House of Commons that raw material had become so scarce and so high, that in many places it could not be procured. "In Manchester during the greatest part of the past year, only nine cotton mills were in full employment; about thirty-one at half work, and forty-four without any at all."²⁵⁸ Flaxseed, essential to the Irish linen manufactures, and of which three fourths came from America, had risen from £2-½ to £23 the quarter.²⁵⁹ The exports for the year 1808 had fallen fifteen per cent; the imports the same amount, involving a total diminution in trade of £14,000,000. An increase of distress was manifested in the poor rates. In Manchester they had risen from £24,000 to £49,000. On the other hand, the harvest for the year, contrary to first anticipation, had been very good; and, in part compensation for intercourse with the United States, there was the opening of Spain, Portugal, and their extensive colonies, the effect of which was scarcely yet fully felt.