Blockade of coast Another source of difficulty arose from the discovery by the British that this blockade could be more effectively and conveniently enforced off the American than the French coast. For years, it became customary for every American vessel leaving New York, the Chesapeake, and other harbors to heave to, and submit to a vigorous search. If the result created suspicion, the vessel was put in charge of a British officer and sent to Halifax for adjudication by the admiralty court there. In 1806, in the execution of this police duty, the British accidentally shot and killed an American sea-captain. Impressments Usually the vessel was allowed to proceed, but in a large number of cases with the loss of members of its crew. The impressment problem gave increasing trouble. Of the four thousand new seamen demanded each year by the merchant marine twenty-five hundred, it was reckoned, were British born, most of them sailors who preferred the better wages, food, and treatment to be found on American vessels. Such transfer of allegiance in the heat of the national life-and-death struggle was regarded by British public opinion as no less than desertion; hence the navy vigorously resorted to impressment to redress the balance. It is estimated that there were a thousand cases annually. Monroe and England It was in this state of affairs that the clauses of the Jay treaty relating to neutral rights expired. Jefferson prepared to substitute for them a new and better treaty. To bring pressure to bear upon Eng- Pinkney in land, he had Congress pass a non-importation act, prohibiting the entry of certain British goods which he esteemed not necessary to our happiness. Its operation was not to be immediate, but it was to hang like a sword of Damocles over the negotiations. Many doubted its efficiency. John Randolph derided it as "a milk and water bill, a dose of chicken broth to be taken nine months hence." To bring it to the attention of England, Jefferson appointed a commission consisting of Monroe, who had succeeded King as minister, and William Pinkney. Their instructions, drawn up by Madison, insisted upon three ultimata,namely, an agreement regarding impressments, indemnity for American vessels and cargoes condemned, as we held, unjustly, and a satisfactory provision regarding the trade of the French West Indies. "We begin to broach the idea that we consider the whole Gulf stream as our waters," said Madison, a remark which reminds one of Fauchet's comment in 1795, that America "puffs itself up with its position and the future power to which it can pretend." Happy in beginning their negotiations under the auspices of Charles James Fox, always the friend of America and now foreign minister, they found their hopes soon dashed by his death. It is probable, however, that this made little difference, for on the subjects upon which they desired acquiescence no British minister would have dared offer even compromise. Unable to obtain a single important concession they nevertheless signed a treaty on December 31, 1806, which was as unsatisfactory as that of Jay on matters of international law, besides affording none of the compensations which that treaty offered, for there were no outstanding matters at issue of a character not thought to be necessary to England's national existence. The treaty was not consummated; Jefferson never presented it to the Senate. cree With the failure of the treaty, the lightning began to play in dead earnest. In November, 1806, Napoleon had Napoleon's de- issued his Berlin decree declaring the British isles blockaded, with the result, as concerned neutrals, that no vessel coming from England or her colonies should after a nine months' notice be admitted into any French port. This was followed by the Milan decree of December 17, 1807, which declared that any vessel submitting to search by a British ship, paying duty to the British government, or coming from or destined for a British port should be good prize. British orders in council Howick to Meantime an English order in council of January 7, 1807, known as Lord Howick's order, forbade neutral vessels to engage in the French coasting trade, even between unblockaded ports. The British attitude is indicated in a dispatch from Lord Erskine, the British minister to the United States: "His Majesty, with that forbearance and moderation which has at all times distinguished his conduct, has determined for the present to confine himself to the exercise of the powers given him by his decided naval superiority in such manner only as is authorized by the acknowledged principles of the law of nations." On November 11, 1807, an order known as Spencer Perceval's established a "paper" blockade of the whole European coast from Trieste to Copenhagen. No neutral vessel could enter any port from which British vessels were excluded, unless clearing from a British port and under British regulations, including the payment of duties, a condition which ipso facto rendered it liable to seizure by France. The Leopard- affair While this clash of decrees and orders sounded but dimly in the ears of most Americans, uncertain as yet as to what they portended, an episode on the coast of America roused the nation, so observers said, more than anything had done since Lexington. The Chesapeake, an American frigate fitting for the Mediterranean, enrolled a number of men whom the British admiral off the coast claimed as deserters. Commodore Barron satisfied himself that such was not the case, and on June 22, 1807, set sail. The Chesapeake was followed by the Leopard, one of the vessels enforcing the blockade of Europe off Chesapeake Bay, and was ordered to heave to. After a formal resistance, she lowered her flag, officers from the Leopard took off the men in question, and left the Chesapeake, which promptly returned to Norfolk. This extension of the practice of impressment to national naval vessels found no support even in the elastic interna nation tional law of the day. The British government did not attempt to defend it, but it handled the matter with so unPopular indig- pardonable a stupidity that the episode remained an open sore for four years. Jefferson expressed his indignation in a proclamation of July 2, which forbade the use of American harbors to British war vessels, and on July 30 he called a special session of Congress. The measure that he recommended was not war, but it no less reflected the seriousness of his view of the situation. War he believed a barbarism; for it he would substiThe embargo tute the appeal to interest. As he believed that under normal conditions commercial discrimination was an effective instrument, so he believed that under abnormal conditions a total cessation of trade would exert all the compulsive efforts of war without its horrors. In other words, he would have us withdraw from the commerce of the world, in the belief that it would not be long before the nations would be clamoring for us to reopen our ports on our own terms. As a result of his recommendation, on December 21, 1807, a general and indefinite embargo was established. No vessel was to leave port, except (1) foreign vessels in ballast, or with such cargo as they had laded before the passage of the act, and (2) vessels engaged in the coasting trade. This embargo seemed to resemble that established at the time of Jay's mission to England; but it is to be differentiated from that because it was regarded by those who adopted it, not as a temporary expedient providing for the safety of our shipping, but as a weapon to conquer favorable terms from our adversaries. Effect of the embargo on commerce So it happened that, before our merchants could be sure what effect the rival orders and decrees might have upon their business, although they felt certain that there would be loopholes in both the French and English systems, their own government laid a restraining hand on all their ventures. It was the steady-going merchants who suffered most, those who were engaged in the regular trade with England and her colonies, and so were comparatively untouched by the regulations either of that country or of France. The more adventurous could always find opportunities for traffic by evading or disregarding the law. Until stopped by a supplementary act, many vessels cleared for an American port but found themselves driven by stress of weather to the West Indies. Once there, they sold their goods. Even when this practice was stopped, some preserved freedom by remaining away from home. April 11, 1808, an English order in council forbade the seizure of American vessels in the West Indies and South America, even if without papers. In March, April, and May sixteen American vessels were allowed to enter English ports. Although numbers of American vessels thus found employment it was, however, in carrying on the business of others, not in supplying the United States with what she desired and taking from her ports what she had for sale. Our commerce was dead. Whether or not Jefferson was right in claiming that American commerce was more essential to other nations than to ourselves, at any rate we had a governmental Failure of the organization more sensitive to public distress embargo than other nations. The embargo did cause suffering in the British empire: Newfoundland was on the point of starvation, and English mills shut down, with all the attendant woes. England, however, remained firm. embargo In the United States opposition swept down the coast. In New England the criticism of the commercial classes, unappreciative of this attempt to clear the Repeal of the seas by forbidding the use of them, rose to fury. New England statesmen talked of disunion. In the middle states the farmer, for whose crops the home market was inadequate, added his voice to that of the merchant of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Washington Irving, in his Knickerbocker history of New York, ridiculed the embargo: "Never was a more comprehensive, a more ex |