«История Соединенных Штатов, Том 2»

pistareen would bring only a Yankee shilling, sixteen and two-thirds

cents; the half-pistareen, only eight cents; the real, ten; the

half-real, five.

Massachusetts Twopence of 1722.

The denominations of the colonial money of account were also still in

daily use, and, indeed, might be heard so late as the Civil War. The

"real," twelve and one-half cents, was in New York a shilling, being

one-twentieth of the pound once prevalent in the New York colony. In New

England it was a "nine-pence," constituting nearly nine-twelfths, or

nine of the twelve pence of an old New England shilling of sixteen and

two-thirds cents. Twenty such shillings had been required for the New

England pound, which was so much more valuable than the pound of the New

York colony. But neither one or any colonial pound was the equivalent of

the pound sterling.

Pine Tree Twopence.

"IN MASATHVSET" "NEW ENGLAND" "1662"

Pine Tree Threepence.

"MASATHVSET" "NEW ENGLAND" "1652" "III"

In the middle colonies, including Pennsylvania, the pound had possessed

still a different value, the Spanish dollar, in which the Continental

Congress kept its accounts, there equalling ninety pence. This is why

those accounts stand in dollars and ninetieths, a notation so puzzling

to many. A "real" would here be about one-eleventh of ninety pence,

hence called the "eleven-penny-piece," shortened into "levy." Dividing

a levy by two would give five (and a fraction); hence the term

"five-penny-piece," "fippenny," or "fip," for the half-real or six and

one-quarter cent piece. There are doubtless yet people in Virginia and

Maryland who never say "twenty-five cents," but instead, "two levies and

a fip."

Pine Tree Sixpence.

"IN MASATHVSET" "ANO NEW ENGLAND" "1652" "VI"

General intelligence had improved, partly from the greater number,

better quality, and quicker and fuller distribution of newspapers.

Correspondents were numerous. Intelligent persons visiting at a distance

from home were wont to write long letters to their local newspapers,

containing all the items of interest which they could scrape together.

Papers sprung up at every considerable hamlet. Even the Ohio Valley did

not lack. Perhaps four and a half million copies a year were issued in

the whole country by 1800. They were admitted now--not so, however,

under the original postal law--as a regular part of the mails, and thus

found their way to nearly all homes. The news which they brought was

often old news, of course, post riders requiring twenty-nine and

one-half hours between Philadelphia and either New York or Baltimore;

but they were read with none the less avidity. Its first mail reached

Buffalo in 1803, on horseback. Mail went thither bi-weekly till 1806,

then weekly. Postal rates were high, ranging for letters from six cents

for thirty miles to twenty-five for four hundred and fifty miles or

over. So late as 1796 New York City received mails from North and from

South, and sent mails in both directions, only twice weekly between

November 1st and May 1st, and but thrice weekly the rest of the year. In

1794 the great cities enjoyed carriers, who got two cents for each

letter delivered. In 1785 there were two dailies, The Pennsylvania

Packet and The New York Advertiser, but, as yet, no Sunday paper

appeared, nor any scientific, religious, or illustrated journal, nor any

devoted to literature or trade. The New York Medical Repository began in

1797, the first scientific periodical in America. In 1801 seventeen

dailies existed. Paper was scarce and high, so that appeals were

published in most of the news sheets imploring people to save their

rags.

Pine Tree Shilling.

"IN MASATHVSET" "ANO NEW ENGLAND" "1652" "XII"

Postal Progress, 1776-1876.

The press was more violently partisan and indecently personal than now.

To oppose the federalist United States Gazette the republican National

Gazette had been started, which, with brilliant meanness, assailed not

only Washington's public acts, but his motives and character. Him, and

still more Adams, Hamilton, and the other leading Federalists, it, in

nearly every issue, charged with conspiracy to found a monarchy.

Republican journals reeked with such doggerel as:

"See Johnny at the helm of State,

Head itching for a crowny;

He longs to be, like Georgy, great,

And pull Tom Jeffer downy."

[Footnote: 2 McMaster, 383]

Federalists were not behind in warfare of this sort. Jefferson was the

object of their continual and vilest slander. In New England, the

stronghold of Federalism, nearly every Sunday's sermon was an

arraignment of the French, and impliedly of their allies, the

Republicans. [Footnote: 2 McMaster, 383] From Jefferson's election--he

was a conservative free-thinker--they seemed to anticipate the utter

extermination of Christianity, though the man paid in charities, mostly

religious, as for Bibles, missionaries, chapels, meeting-houses, etc.,

one year of his presidency, $978.20; another year, $1,585.60. One

preacher likened the tribute which Talleyrand demanded of Adams's envoys

to that which Sennacherib required of Hezekiah. [Footnote: Isaiah, 36]

Another compared Hamilton, killed in a duel, to Abner, the son of Ner,

slain by Joab. Another took for his text the message which Hezekiah sent

to the Prophet Isaiah: "This is a day of trouble and of rebuke and of

contumely," [Footnote: Isaiah, 37: 3 seq.] etc. Another attacked

Republicanism outright from the words: "There is an accursed thing in

the midst of thee, O Israel." [Footnote: Joshua. 7: 13] The coolest

federalist leaders could fall prey to this partisan temper. Lafayette

meditated settling in this country. Such was his popularity here that no

one would have dared to oppose this openly. Hamilton, however, while

favoring it publicly, yet, lest the great Frenchman's coming should help

on the republican cause, secretly did his utmost to prevent it. Even

Washington, who was human after all, connived, it seems, at this piece

of duplicity.

According to a federalist sheet, Hamilton's death called forth "the

voice of deep lament" save from "the rancorous Jacobin, the scoffing

deist, the snivelling fanatic, and the imported scoundrel." "Were I

asked," said an apologist, "whether General Hamilton had vices, in the

face of the world, in the presence of my God, I would answer, No."

Another poetized of the

"Great day

When Hamilton--disrobed of mortal clay--

At God's right hand shall sit with face benign,

And at his murderer cast a look divine."

In 1800 instrumental music might have been heard in some American

churches. There were Roman Catholic congregations in Boston, New York,

Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Baltimore had its Catholic bishop. The

Protestant Episcopal Church in America had been organized. Methodism,

independent of England since 1784, was on its crusade up and down the

land, already strong in New York and the South, and in 1790 a Methodist

church had been gathered in Boston.

The manufacture of corduroys, bed-ticking, fustian, jeans, and

cotton-yarn had been started. Iron ore and iron ware of nearly all sorts

was produced. Syracuse was manufacturing salt. Lynn already made morocco

leather, and Dedham, straw braid for hats. Cotton was regularly exported

in small quantities from the South. In New York one could get a decayed

tooth filled or a set of false teeth made. Four daily stages ran between

New York and Philadelphia. The Boston ship Columbia had circumnavigated

the globe. The United States Mint was still working by horse-power, not

employing steam till 1815. Whitney's cotton-gin had been invented in

1793. Terry, of Plymouth, Conn., was making clocks. There were in the

land two insurance companies, possibly more. Cast-iron ploughs, of home

make, were displacing the old ones of wood. Morse's "Geography" and

Webster's "Spelling-book" were on the market, and extensively used.

Cotton Plant.

The Cotton-Gin.

From the original model.

The great industrial inventions which were to color the entire

civilization of mankind had a powerful effect upon America. So early as

1775, in England, Crompton's mule-jenny had superseded Hargreaves'

spinning machine. The latter had improved on the old spinning-wheel by

making eight, and later eighty, threads with the effort and time the old

arrangement had required for one; but the threads were no better, and

could be used only for woof, linen being required for warp. Arkwright's

roller arrangement was an improvement upon Hargreaves'. It bettered the

quality of the threads, making them evener, so that they could serve for

warp as well as woof. Crompton's mule was another quantitative

improvement, combining the excellences of both Hargreaves and Arkwright.

One man could with this machinery work twenty-two hundred spindles, and

they went much faster than by the ancient wheel. Then came steam-power.

Watts's engine was adapted to spinning and carding cotton at Manchester

in 1783. Two years later the cylinder printing of cottons was invented,

and a little after began the use of acid in bleaching.

Eli Whitney.

These mighty industrial devices did not cross to America immediately,

but were all here before the time of which we now write. A

spinning-jenny was indeed exhibited in Philadelphia so early as 1775.

During the Revolution, Philadelphia was a seat of much manufacture. We

have in an earlier chapter remarked that Beverly, Mass., had a cotton

factory in 1787. Oxen furnished its power, as a horse did that for the

first Philadelphia mill. A cotton mill was also started very early at

Worcester, but whether in 1780 or 1789 may admit of doubt. There is some

evidence that before July, 1790, a cotton factory run by water, with

ginning, carding, and spinning machines, the last of eighty-four

spindles apiece, was in operation near Statesburg, S. C.; but whether it

was successful or not is not known. Oliver Evans was operating a

single-flue boiler for steam-power by 1786. Soon after he had one with

two flues, and in 1779 a high-pressure or non-condensing engine, the

principle of which he is by many believed to have invented. He was the

earliest builder of steam-engines in the United States, having in 1804

secured a patent for the high-pressure device. His factory furnished

engines to all parts of the country.

England did her best to prevent all knowledge of the new manufacturing

machinery from crossing the Atlantic. The Act 21 George III., c. 37,

denounced upon anyone who should aid toward giving America any tool,

machine, or secret relating to manufacture in any branch, a penalty of

200 pounds and one year's imprisonment. In vain. Partly by smuggling,

partly by invention, the new arts soon flourished here as there. Some

Scotch artisans who came to Bridgewater, Mass., by invitation from Mr.

Hugh Orr, of that town, constructed, about 1786, the first

cotton-spinning machines in America, including the Arkwright inventions.

To build and launch the English machinery with full success was,

however, reserved for Samuel Slater, a native of Belper, Derbyshire,

England, who, in 1790, erected at Pawtucket, R. I., the Old Mill in rear

of Mill Street, which still stands and runs. Slater had served his time

at the making of cotton-manufacturing machinery with J. Strutt, who, had

been Arkwright's partner. In Strutt's factory he had risen to be

overseer. So thoroughly had he mastered the business that, on arriving

here, he found himself able to imitate the foreign machines from memory

alone, without model, plan, or measurement. Having gotten his gear in

readiness, almost solely with his own hands, December 20, 1790, he

started three cards, drawing and roving, also seventy-two spindles, all

on the Arkwright plan, the first of the kind ever triumphantly operated

on this side of the ocean. President Jackson styled Slater "the father

of American manufactures," and 1790 may be taken as the birth-year of

the American factory system.

The Tariff, the embargo policy of President Jefferson, and the hatred

toward England, taking form in organizations pledged to wear only

home-made clothing, all powerfully stimulated the erection of factories.

A report in 1810, of Albert Gallatin, Madison's Secretary of the

Treasury, states that by the end of the year preceding, eighty-seven

cotton factories had arisen in this country, calculated for eighty

thousand spindles. The power loom, however, not used in England till

about 1806, did not begin its work here till after the War of 1812.

[Footnote: See. further, Period II., Chap. VIII.]

CHAPTER IX.

DEMOCRACY AT THE HELM

[1801]

By the original mode of election, President and Vice-President could not

be separately designated on electors' tickets, so that, soon as party

spirit led each elector to vote for the same two men, these two were

tied for the first place. This occurred in 1801. The republican

candidates were Jefferson and Burr. Each had the same number of

electoral votes, seventy-three, against sixty-five for Adams, sixty-four

for C. C. Pinckney, and one for John Jay. There being no choice, the

election went to the House. This had a federalist majority, but was, by

the parity of the two highest candidates, constitutionally shut up to

elect between these, both of them Republicans. Jefferson as the abler

and from the South, was more than Burr an object of federalist hate.

Against Hamilton's advice, to his honor be it remembered, the

Federalists agreed to throw their votes for Burr. But the vote then, as

to-day in such a case, had to be by States. There were sixteen States,

nine being necessary to a choice. In nineteen ballots on February 11th,

nine the 12th, one the 13th, four the 14th, one each the 16th and 17th,

thirty-five in all, Jefferson every time carried eight States and Burr

six, while Maryland and Vermont were equally divided, and therefore

powerless.

The fear at last began to be felt that the Union would go to pieces and

the Federalists be to blame. Accordingly, on the 36th ballot, five

Federalists from South Carolina, four from Maryland, one from Vermont,

and one from Delaware--Mr. Bayard, grandfather to President Cleveland's

first Secretary of State--did not vote, enabling the republican members

from Vermont and Maryland to cast the votes of those States for

Jefferson. Thus, with ten States, he was elected, Burr becoming

Vice-President. This crisis led, in 1804, to the XIIth Amendment to the

Constitution, which directs each elector to vote for Vice-President as

such. There can hardly now be a tie between the two leading presidential

candidates, and if there is for any reason delay in electing the

President, the Senate may proceed to elect the Vice-President at once.

The improvement became manifest when, in 1825, the House again had to

elect the President, and chose John Quincy Adams over Crawford and

Jackson.

Thomas Jefferson.

From the painting by Gilbert Stuart--property of T. Jefferson Coolidge.

The Democratic Party proved to have entered upon a long lease of power.

For forty years its hold upon affairs was not relaxed, and it was in no

wise broken even by the elections of Harrison in 1840 and Taylor in

1848. Nor did it ever appear probable that the Whigs, upon anyone of the

great issues which divided them from the Democrats, were in a way to win

permanent advantage. Not till after 1850 had the ruling dynasty true

reason to tremble, and then only at the rise of a new party, the modern

Republicans, inspired by the bold cry of anti-slavery, which the Whigs

had never dared to raise.

As to its main outlines, the democratic policy was well foreshadowed in

Jefferson's first inaugural. It favored thrift and simplicity in

government, involving close limitation of army, navy, and diplomatic

corps to positive and tangible needs. It professed peculiar regard for

the rights and interests of the common man, whether of foreign or of

native parentage. Strict construction of the Constitution, which was to

a great extent viewed as a compact of States, was another of its

cherished ideas. It also maintained special friendliness for agriculture

and commerce. From its strict constructionism sprung, further, its

hostility to internal improvements; from this and from its regard to

agriculture and commerce resulted its dislike to restrictive tariffs.

Particularly after the whig schism, about 1820, did these ideas stand

forth definite and pronounced as the authoritative democratic creed. In

and from Jackson's time they were more so still.

Yet in most respects Jefferson has remained the typical Democrat, He had

genuine faith in the people, in free government, in unfettered

individuality, His administration was frugal almost to a fault. He

insisted upon making the civil power supreme over the military, and

scorned all pretensions on the part of any particular class to rule, In

two points only was his democracy ideal rather than illustrative of that

which followed, viz., adroitness in giving trend and consistency to

legislation, and non-partisan administration of the civil service. In

the former no executive has equalled him, in the latter none since

Quincy Adams.

Growing up as a scholar and a gentleman-farmer, with refined tastes,

penning the great Declaration, which was early scouted for its

abstractions, long minister to France, where abstract ideas made all

high politics morbid, the sage of Monticello turned out to be one of the

most practical presidents this nation has ever had. If he overdid

simplicity in going to the Capitol on horseback to deliver his first

inaugural, tying his magnificent horse, Wildair, to a tree with his own

hands, he yet entertained elegantly, and his whole state as President,

far from humiliating the nation, as some feared it would, was in happy

keeping with its then development and nature. His cabinet, Madison,

Gallatin, Dearborn, Smith, and Granger, was in liberal education

superior to any other the nation has ever had, every member a college

graduate, and the first two men of distinguished research and

attainments.

As to the civil service, Jefferson, it is true, made many removals from

office, some doubtless unwise and even unjust; but in judging of these

we must remember his profound and unquestionably honest conviction that

the Federalists lacked patriotism. It was this belief which dictated his

prosecution, almost persecution, of Burr, whom Federalists openly

befriended and defended.

Aaron Burr.

From a painting by Vallderlyn at the New York Historical Society.

Aaron Burr was the brilliant grandson of President Edwards. Graduating

at Princeton at the early age of seventeen, he studied theology a year,

then law, which on the outbreak of the Revolution he deserted for army

life at Boston. He went in Arnold's expedition to Canada, was promoted

to be colonel, and served on Washington's staff. In Canada he did

service as a spy, disguised as a priest and speaking French or Latin as

needed. His legal studies completed, 1783 found him in practice in New

York, office at No. 10 Little Queen Street. Both as lawyer and in

politics he rose like a meteor, being Hamilton's peer in the one, his

superior in the other. Organizing his "Little Band" of young

Republicans, spite of federalist opposition and sneers from the old

republican chiefs, he became Attorney-general of New York in 1789. In

1791, superseding Schuyler, he was United States senator from that

State, and in 1800, Vice-President.

Higher he could not mount, as federalist favor cursed him among his own

party, yet was too weak to aid him independently. It was kept down by

Hamilton, who saw through the man and opposed him with all his might.

For this Burr forced him to a duel, and fatally shot him, July 11, 1804.

Indicted for murder, Burr now disappears from politics, but only to

emerge in a new role. During all the early history of our Union the

parts beyond the Alleghanies were attached to it by but a slender

thread, which Spanish intrigue incessantly sought to cut. At this very

time Spain was pensioning men in high station there, including General

Wilkinson, commanding our force at New Orleans. Could not Burr detach

this district or a part of it from our Government and make here an

empire of his own? Or might he not take it as the base of operations for

an attack on Spanish America that should give him an empire there? Some

vision of this sort danced before the mad genius's vision, as before

that of Hamilton in the Miranda scheme. Many influential persons

encouraged him, with how much insight into his plan we shall never know.

Wilkinson was one of these. Blennerhassett, whose family and estate Burr

irreparably blasted, was another. He expected aid from Great Britain,

and from disaffected Mexicans.

From the outset the West proved more loyal than he hoped, and when, at

the critical moment, Wilkinson betrayed him, he knew that all was lost.

Sinking his chests of arms in the river near Natchez, he took to the

Mississippi woods, only to be recognized, arrested by Jefferson's order,

and dragged to Richmond to jail. As no overt act was proved, he could

not be convicted of treason; and even the trial of him for misdemeanor

broke down on technical points. The Federalists stood up for Burr as if

he had been their man, while Jefferson on his part pushed the

prosecution in a fussy and personal way, ill becoming a President.

Jefferson's most lasting work as national chief-magistrate was his

diplomacy in purchasing for the Union the boundless territory beyond the

Mississippi, prized then not for its extent or resources, both as yet

unknown, but as assuring us free navigation of the river, which sundry

French and Spanish plots had demonstrated essential to the solid loyalty

of the West. Louisiana, ceded by France to Spain in 1762, became French

again in 1801. Napoleon had intended it as the seat of a colonial power

rivalling Great Britain's, but, pressed for money in his new war with

that kingdom, concluded to sell. He wished, too, the friendship of the

United States against Great Britain, and knew not the worth of what he

was bargaining away. Willing to take fifty million francs, he offered

for one hundred million, speedily closing with Livingston and Monroe's

tender of eighty, we to assume in addition the French spoliation claims

of our citizens. The treaty of purchase was signed May 2, 1803, and

ratified by the Senate the 17th of the following October.

This stupendous transaction assured to our Republic not only leading

hand in the affairs of this continent, but place among the great powers

of the world. Its 1,124,685 square miles doubled the national domain. It

opened path well toward, if not to, the Pacific, and made ours

measureless tracts of agricultural and mining lands, rich as any under

the sun.

Stephen Decatur.

If it originated many of the most perplexing questions which have

agitated our national politics, as those relating to slavery in this

territory itself, to the acquisitions from Mexico, to the Pacific

railways, and to the Indians and the Chinese, all this has been amply

compensated by the above and countless other benefits.

Equally brilliant if less impressive was another piece of Jefferson's

foreign policy. He might be over-friendly to France, but elsewhere he

certainly did not believe in peace at any price. The Barbary powers had

begun to annoy our commerce soon after Independence. The Betsey was

captured in 1784, next year the Maria, of Boston, and the Dauphin, of

Philadelphia, and their crews of twenty-one men carried to a long and

disgraceful captivity in Algiers.

The Dey's bill for these captives, held by him as slaves, was:

3 Captains at $6,000 $18,000

2 Mates at $4,000 8,000

2 Passengers at $4,000 8,000

14 Seamen at $1,400 19,600

Total

$53,600

For custom, eleven per cent

5,896

Grands Total

$59,496

Later a single cruise lost us ten vessels to these half-civilized

people.

Following European precedent, Washington had made, in 1795, a

ransom-treaty with this nest of pirates, to carry out which cost us a

fat million. The captives had meantime increased to one hundred and

fifteen, though the crews of the Maria and the Dauphin had wasted away

to ten men. Nearly a million more went to the other North-African

freebooters. The policy of ransoming was, indeed, cheaper than force.

Count d'Estaing used to say that bombarding a pirate town was like

breaking windows with guineas. The old Dey of Algiers, learning the

expense of Du Quesne's expedition to batter his capital, declared that

he himself would have burnt it for half the sum.

Yet it makes one's blood hot to-day to read how our fathers paid tribute

to those thieves. The Dey had, in so many words, called us his slaves,

and had actually terrorized Captain Bainbridge, of the man-of-war George

Washington, into carrying despatches for him to Constantinople, flying

the Algerine pirate flag conspicuously at the fore. After

anchoring--this was some requital--Bainbridge was permitted to hoist the

Stars and Stripes, the first time that noble emblem ever kissed the

breeze of the Golden Horn.

[1803]

Jefferson loathed such submission, and vowed that it should cease.

Commodore Dale was ordered to the Mediterranean with a squadron to

protect our ships there from further outrage. One of his vessels, the

Experiment, soon captured a Tripoli cruiser of fourteen guns, the

earliest stroke of any civilized power for many years by way of showing

a bold front to these pestilent corsairs.

This was on August 6, 1801. In 1803 Preble was placed in command of the

Mediterranean fleet, with some lighter ships to go farther up those

shallow harbors. Bainbridge had the misfortune while in pursuit of a

Tripoli frigate to run his ship, the Philadelphia, on a rock, and to be

taken prisoner with all his crew. The sailors were made slaves.

Lieutenant Decatur penetrated the Tripoli harbor under cover of night,

and burned the Philadelphia to the water's edge. Tripoli was bombarded,

and many of its vessels taken or sunk. Commodore Barron, who had

succeeded Preble, co-operated with a land attack which some of the

Pasha's disaffected subjects, led by the American General Eaton, made

upon Tripoli. The city was captured, April 27th, and the pirate prince

forced to a treaty. Even now, however, we paid $60,000 in ransom money.

Lieutenant Decatur on the Turkish Vessel during the Bombardment of Tripoli.

CHAPTER X.

THE WAR OF 1812

[1807]

Although paying, so long as Jay's treaty was in force, for certain

invasions of our commerce, Great Britain had never adopted a just

attitude toward neutral trade. She persisted in loosely defining

contraband and blockade, and in denouncing as unlawful all commerce

which was opened to us as neutrals merely by war or carried on by us

between France and French colonies through our own ports.

The far more flagrant abuse of impressment, the forcible seizure of

American citizens for service in the British navy, became intolerably

prevalent during Jefferson's administration. Not content with reclaiming

deserters or asserting the eternity of British citizenship, Great

Britain, through her naval authorities, was compelling thousands of men

of unquestioned American birth to help fight her battles. Castlereagh

himself admitted that there had been sixteen hundred bona fide cases of

this sort by January 1, 1811. And in her mode of asserting and

exercising even her just claims she ignored international law, as well

as the dignity and sovereignty of the United States. The odious right of

search she most shamefully abused. The narrow seas about England were

assumed to be British waters, and acts performed in American harbors

admissible only on the open ocean. When pressed by us for apology or

redress, the British Government showed no serious willingness to treat,

but a brazen resolve to utilize our weak and too trustful policy of

peace.

One instance of this shall suffice. Commodore Barron, in command of the

United States war vessel Chesapeake, was attacked by the Leopard, a

British two-decker of fifty guns, outside the mouth of Chesapeake Bay,

to recover three sailors, falsely alleged to be British-born, on board.

Their surrender being refused, the Leopard opened fire. The Chesapeake

received twenty-one shots in her hull, and lost three of her crew killed

and eighteen wounded. She had been shamefully unprepared for action, and

was hence forced to strike, but Humphreys, the Leopard's commander,

contemptuously declined to take her a prize. There was no excuse

whatever for this wanton and criminal insult to our flag, yet the only

reparation ever made was formal, tardy, and lame.

James Madison.

From a painting by Gilbert Stuart--property of T. Jefferson Coolidge.

Bad was changed to worse with the progress of the new and more desperate

war between Great Britain and Napoleon. The Emperor shut the

North-German ports to Britain; Britain declared Prussian and all West

European harbors in a state of blockade. The Emperor's Berlin decree,

November, 1806, paper-blockaded the British Isles; his Milan decree,

December, 1807, declared forfeited all vessels, wherever found,

proceeding to or from any British port, or having submitted to British

search or tribute. In fine, Britain would treat as illicit all commerce

with the continent, France all with Britain. But while Napoleon, in

fact, though not avowedly, more and more receded from his position,

England maintained hers with iron tenacity.

[1810]

Sincere as was our Government's desire to maintain strict neutrality in

the European conflict, it naturally found difficulty in making England

so believe. Their opponents at home ceaselessly charged Jefferson,

Madison, and all the Republicans with partiality to France, so that

Canning and Castlereagh were misled; and they were confirmed in their

suspicion by Napoleon's crafty assumption that our embargo or

non-intercourse policy was meant to act, as it confessedly did,

favorably to France. Napoleon's confiscation of our vessels, at one time

sweeping, he advertised as a friendly proceeding in aid of our embargo.

Yet all this did not, as Castlereagh captiously pretended, prove our

neutrality to be other than strict and honest. At this time it certainly

was both. So villainously had Napoleon treated us that all Americans now

hated him as heartily as did any people in England.

[1812]

The non-intercourse mode of hostility, a boomerang at best, had played

itself out before Jefferson's retirement; and since George's ministry

showed no signs whatever of a changed temper, guiltily ill-prepared as

we were, no honorable or safe course lay before us but to fight Great

Britain. Clay, Calhoun, Quincy Adams, and Monroe--the last the soul of

the war--deserved the credit of seeing this first and clearest, and of

the most sturdy and consistent action accordingly. Their spirit proved

infectious, and the Republicans swiftly became a war party.

Most of the "war-hawks," as they were derisively styled, were from the

South and the southern Middle States. Fearing that, if it were a naval

war, glory would redound to New England and New York, which were hotbeds

of the peace party, they wished this to be a land war, and shrieked, "On

to Canada." They made a great mistake. The land operations were for the

most part indescribably disgraceful. Except the exploits of General

Brown and Colonel Winfield Scott, subsequently the head of the national

armies, not an action on the New York border but ingloriously failed.

The national Capitol was captured and burnt, a deed not more disgraceful

to England in the commission than to us in the permission. Of the

officers in command of armies, only Harrison and Jackson earned laurels.

Harrison had learned warfare as Governor of Indiana, where, on November

7, 1811, he had fought the battle of Tippecanoe, discomfiting Tecumseh's

braves and permanently quieting Indian hostilities throughout that

territory. In the new war against England, after Hull's pusillanimous

surrender of Detroit, the West loudly and at length with success

demanded "Tippecanoe" as commander for the army about to advance into

Canada. Their estimate of Harrison proved just. Overcoming many

difficulties and aided by Perry's flotilla on Lake Erie, he pursued

Proctor, his retreating British antagonist, up the River Thames to a

point beyond Sandwich. Here the British made a stand, but a gallant

charge of Harrison's Kentucky cavalry irreparably broke their lines. The

Indians, led by old Tecumseh in person, made a better fight, but in

vain. The victory was complete, and Upper Canada lay at our mercy.

Tecumseh

Andrew Jackson also began his military experience by operations against

Indians. The southern redskins had been incited to war upon us by

British and Spanish emissaries along the Florida line. Tecumseh had

visited them in the same interest. The horrible massacre at Fort Mims,

east of the Alabama above its junction with the Tombigbee, was their

initial work. Five hundred and fifty persons were there surprised, four

hundred of them slain or burned to death. Jackson took the field, and in

an energetic campaign, with several bloody engagements, forced them to

peace. By the battle of the Horse-Shoe, March 27, 1814, the Creek power

was entirely crushed.

Subsequently placed in command of our force at New Orleans, Jackson was

attacked by a numerous British army, made up in large part of veterans

who had seen service under Wellington in Spain. Pakenham, the hero of

Salamanca, commanded. Jackson's position was well chosen and strongly

fortified. After several preliminary engagements, each favorable to the

American arms, Pakenham essayed to carry the American works by storm.

The battle occurred on January 8, 1815. It was desperately fought on

both sides, but at its close Jackson's loss had been trifling and his

line had not been broken at a single point, while the British had lost

at least 2,600, all but 500 of these killed or wounded. The British

immediately withdrew from the Mississippi, leaving Jackson entirely

master of the position.

But the naval operations of this war were far the most famous, exceeding

in their success all that the most sanguine had dared to hope, and

forever dispelling from our proud foe the charm of naval invincibility.

The American frigate Constitution captured the British Guerriere. The

Wasp took the Frolic, being soon, however, forced to surrender with her

prize to the Poitiers, a much larger vessel. The United States

vanquished the Macedonian, and the Constitution the Java. One of the

best fought actions of the war was that of McDonough on Lake Champlain,

with his craft mostly gunboats or galleys. His victory restored to us

the possession of Northern New York, which our land forces had not been

able to maintain.

Oliver H, Perry.

[1813-1814]

The crowning naval triumph during the war, one of the most brilliant, in

fact, in all naval annals, was won by Oliver Hazard Perry near

Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie, September 10, 1813, over the Briton, Barclay, a

naval veteran who had served under Nelson at Trafalgar. The fleets were

well matched, the American numbering the more vessels but the fewer

guns. Barclay greatly exceeded Perry in long guns, having the latter at

painful disadvantage until he got near. Perry's flag-ship, the Lawrence,

was early disabled. Her decks were drenched with blood, and she had

hardly a gun that could be served. Undismayed, Perry, with his insignia

of command, crossed in a little boat to the Niagara. Again proudly

hoisting his colors, aided by the wind and followed by his whole

squadron, he pressed for close quarters, where desperate fighting

speedily won the battle. Barclay and his next in command were wounded,

the latter dying that night. "We have met the enemy and they are ours,"

Perry wrote to Harrison, "two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one

sloop."

Triumph far more complete might have attended the war but for the

perverse and factious federalist opposition to the administration. Some

Federalists favored joining England out and out against Napoleon. Having

with justice denounced Jefferson's embargo tactics as too tame, yet when

the war spirit rose and even the South stood ready to resent foreign

affronts by force, they changed tone, harping upon our weakness and

favoring peace at any price. Tireless in magnifying the importance of

commerce, they would not lift a hand to defend it. The same men who had

cursed Adams for avoiding war with France easily framed excuses for

orders in council, impressment, and the Chesapeake affair.

Apart from Randolph and the few opposition Republicans, mostly in New

York, this Thersites band had its seat in commercial New England, where

embargo and war of course sat hardest, more than a sixth of our entire

tonnage belonging to Massachusetts alone. From the Essex Junto and its

sympathizers came nullification utterances not less pointed than the

Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, although, considering the sound

rebukes which the latter had evoked, they were far less defensible.

Disunion was freely threatened, and actions either committed or

countenanced bordering hard upon treason. The Massachusetts Legislature

in 1809 declared Congress's act to enforce embargo "not legally

binding." Governor Trumbull of Connecticut declined to aid, as requested

by the President, in carrying out that act, summoning the Legislature

"to interpose their protecting shield" between the people and "the

assumed power of the general Government." "How," wrote Pickering,

referring to the Constitution, Amendment X., "are the powers reserved to

be maintained, but by the respective States judging for themselves and

putting their negative on the usurpations of the general Government?" A

sermon of President Dwight's on the text, "Come out from among them and

be ye separate, saith the Lord," even Federalists deprecated as hinting

too strongly at secession. This unpatriotic agitation, from which, be it

said, large numbers of Federalists nobly abstained, came to a head in

the mysterious Hartford Convention, at the close of 1814, and soon began

to be sedulously hushed--in consequence of the glorious news of victory

and peace from Ghent and New Orleans.

Perry transferring his Colors from the Lawrence to the Niagara.

While the Congregationalists, especially their clergy, were nearly all

stout Federalists, opposing Jefferson, Madison, and the war, the

Methodists and Baptists almost to a man stood up for the administration

and its war policy with the utmost vigor, rebuking the peace party as

traitors. [Footnote: The writer's grandfather, a Baptist minister, was

as good as driven from his pulpit and charge at Templeton, Mass.,

because of his federalist sympathies in this war.] Timothy Merritt, a

mighty Methodist preacher on the Connecticut circuit, has left us from

these critical times a stirring sermon on the text, Judges v. 23, "Curse

ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants

thereof; because they came not up to the help of the Lord, to the help

of the Lord against the mighty." Meroz was the federalist party and

England's ministry and army were "the mighty."

Czar Alexander, regarding our hostility as dangerous to England, with

whom he then stood allied against Napoleon, sought to end the war. The

Russian campaign of 1812 practically finished Napoleon's career, so

leaving England free to press operations in America. In April, 1814,

Paris was captured. The United States therefore accepted Alexander's

offices. Our commissioners, Adams, Clay, Gallatin, Marshall, Bayard, and

Russell met the English envoys at Ghent, and after long discussions, in

which more than once it seemed as if the war must proceed, the treaty of

Ghent was executed, December 24, 1814, a fortnight before the battle of

New Orleans.

It was an honorable peace. If we gained no territory we yielded none.

The questions of Mississippi navigation and the fisheries were expressly

reserved for future negotiations. Upon impressment and the abuse of

neutrals, exactly the grievances over which we had gone to war, the

treaty was silent, and peace men laughed at the war party on this

account, calling the war a failure. The ridicule was unjust. Had

Napoleon been still on high, or the negotiations been subsequent to the

New Orleans victory, England would doubtless have been called upon to

renounce these practices. But experience has proved that such a demand

would have been unnecessary. No outrage of these kinds has occurred

since, nor can anyone doubt that it was our spirit as demonstrated in

the war of 1812 which changed England's temper. Hence, in spite of our

military inexperience, financial distress, internal dissensions, and the

fall of Napoleon, which unexpectedly turned the odds against us, the war

was a success.

End of Volume II.

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