formed the American government that His Majesty was willing to enter upon a direct negotiation for peace. The president accepted this proposition, and it was communicated to Lord Castlereagh that envoys would be immediately sent to Gottenburg, for the purpose of carrying it into effect.

When the names of the gentlemen sent on this mission came before the Senate, Adams and Bayard were confirmed without difficulty; strong opposition, however, was made to Mr. Gallatin, because, as was urged, it was manifestly improper that the office of secretary of the treasury and that of envoy extraordinary should be held by the same person. At first, his nomination was rejected by a vote of eighteen to seventeen; but having subsequently resigned the secretaryship, the Senate approved the nomination. Captain Jones, of the navy department, discharged the duties of secretary of the treasury in connection with those properly devolving on him, till the 9th of February, 1814, when George W. Campbell, of Tennessee, was appointed sccretary of the treasury, in the place of Mr. Gallatin. Other nominations made by the president were treated much in the same way by those senators who were warm friends of De Witt Clinton; and the executive was a good deal embarrassed, at times, by the opposition of those who in all other respects were decided friends of democratic measures and principles. Mr. Jonathan Russell, nominated as minister to Sweden, was one of those whom the Senate refused to approve. During this extra session, Congress

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1813.

was principally occupied in giving at tention to measures for relieving the national finances from embarrassment. The presidential question being settled, there was less hesitation in bringing forward certain plans which it was not deemed expedient before this to press. Necessity compelled the adoption of unpopular measures. The existing duties on imports were doubled, and the assessment and collection of direct taxes and internal duties were also provided for.

This was, in fact, Mr. Gallatin's plan, which had been rejected previously; but now, since there seemed to be no other way practicable, it was proposed to raise an annual revenue sufficient to pay the ordinary expenses of government, and the interest of such sums as it would become necessary to borrow; and to support the war by a series of loans.

Accordingly, acts were passed imposing duties on refined sugars, salt, carriages, auction sales, licenses for distilleries, and for retailing wine, spirit, and foreign goods, with stamp duties on bank notes, bills of exchange, and other notes; (which were expected to produce $2,000,000 yearly;) and a direct tax on houses, lands, and slaves, at their assessed value, amounting to $3,000,000 a year. But the advantages expected from this resumption of the system of internal taxation, which Jefferson had so earnestly denounced, could not be enjoyed before the following year; and for the current year, another loan of $7,500,000 was authorized. The treasury notes, five millions of which had been issued, were, how

ever, at a great discount; and although the former loan had been taken at par, for six per cent. stock, this second loan, apparently taken at the same rate, was all paid in depreciated currency. The finances were, in fact, in a very serious state of embarrassment. The banks had suspended specie payments, excepting a few in New England. The demands upon the treasury had far exceeded what had been anticipated; and when the militia was called out, they all, but particularly those of the middle states, were found insufficiently clothed and equipped in every respect. The regular army, too, was deficient both in blankets and clothing for the soldiers, owing to the prohibition of importations from England, and the incapability of the home manufactures to supply the demand.*

In connection with the important and always difficult topic of the finances during a state of war, Mr. Adams's remarks are worth quoting: "Among the Among the severest trials of the war, was the deficiency of adequate funds to sustain it, and the progressive degradation of the national credit. By an unpropitious combination of rival interests, and of political prejudices, the first Bank of the United States, at the very outset of the war, had been denied the renewal of its charter: (p. 753) a heavier blow of illusive and contracted policy, could scarcely have befallen the Union. The

* Early in July, the legislature of Massachusetts sent in a strong remonstrance to the House, denouncing the war as impolitic and unjust, defending the course of Great Britain, and charging the party in power with blind devotion and even subserviency to France.

polar star of public credit, and of commercial confidence, was abstracted from the firmament, and the needle of the compass wandered at random to the four quarters of the heavens. From the root of the fallen trunk, sprang up a thicket of perishable suckers-never destined to bear fruit: the offspring of summer vegetation, withering at the touch of the first winter's frost. Yet, upon them was our country doomed to rely: it was her only substitute for the shade and shelter of the parent tree. The currency soon fell into frightful disorder: banks, with fictitious capital, swarmed throughout the land, and spunged the purse of the people, often for the use of their own money, with more than usurious extortion. The solid banks, even of this metropolis, (Boston,) were enabled to maintain their integrity, only by contracting their operations to an extent ruinous to their debtors, and to themselves. A balance of trade, operating like universal fraud, vitiated the channels of intercourse between north and south, and the treasury of the Union was replenished only with countless millions of silken tatters, and unavailable funds; chartered corporations, bankrupt, under the gentle name of suspended specie payments, and without a dollar of capital to pay their debts, sold, at enormous discounts, the very evidence of those debts, and passed off, upon the government of the country, at par, their rags-purchasable, in open market, at depreciations of thirty and forty per cent."*

"Life of James Monroe," p. 271.

CH. X.]

Yet, as Mr. Ingersoll states, in giving the principal causes of the administrative success of the system of 1813, "it may be averred, to the honor of 1813. our country, that never were taxes, especially new ones, more promptly or cheerfully paid, nearly the whole amount accruing within the four years, being paid within that period; when the currency was deranged; without National Bank, or other general regulation; and of what was called money, little more than state bank notes, most of which, during the latter part of the war, were not convertible into coin, but mere promises to pay. The cost, of collection never exceeded six per cent.”*

Congress adjourned on the 2d of August, 1813, after a session of more order, system, vigor, and advantage, than is usual for the legislature of a country such as ours, where the right of free discussion prevails. The majority of the House, Ingersoll asserts, were unanimous and harmonious. There was some dissidence in the Senate; but hardly any in the House, certainly no dissension, among the supporters of the war, whose pressure suppressed whatever inherent tendency to discord there might and must be in such bodies. The opposition were also united and active; but their efforts were bestowed principally upon questions which affected the mode of carrying on the war rather than in respect to the war itself. There were not many who denied the Justice of the war; but the opposition contended, that it should include France

203

as well as England, or should have been put off for fuller preparation.*

During the progress of events at the north and west, as we have related them in preceding chapters, affairs in the south-west were gradually assuming a shape calculated to excite great alarm and anxiety. The southern Indians, under the humane system adopted by Washington, had, many of them, been induced to forsake the savage mode of life, and very great expense was freely incurred to endeavor to win them to the ways in which their white neighbors lived and made advances in wealth and happiness. The Creeks especially had enjoyed every favor at the hand of the United States; their lands had never been encroached upon; and they had, to some considerable extent, intermarried with the whites. Among these, and their neighbors the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Cherokees, there were not a few who had learned rightly to estimate the arts of civilized life; and who perceived that war with the Americans could not be successful, and might bring destruction upon their nation. These resisted the endeavors of Tecumseh with great energy, and strove to dissuade their fellow tribesmen from joining in his perilous and perfectly hopeless scheme. Nevertheless, his influence amongst the younger and more

*At the request of Congress, the president recom

mended, that the second Thursday in September "be

observed by the people of the United States with re

ligious solemnity, and the offering of fervent supplica

ardent men, who there, as every where else, were ready for any thing new, was very great, and he did not fail to use it to its fullest extent.

Towards the close of. 1812, Tecumseh made his appearance again in the Creek towns, not to tell of impracticable confederacies, and the resumption of old and half-forgotten habits and rites of the Indian races, but to arouse them if he could to war. All the smouldering passions of the savages, who cherished the traditions of the times when as yet no hated pale-faces had trodden the western continent, and who despised the effeminacy of the recreants, whom the fascinations of those pale-faces had won to emulate their mode of life; all the petty feuds which were sure to exist in communities composed as these were; every thing that could be employed by one skilled as he was, was turned by Tecumseh now to this end, that by attacking the United States in the south, whilst he and his allies, the British, attacked them in the north, he should obtain his personal revenge, even though he might never hope to wreak upon these foes of his race the vengeance he had desired to inflict on them for all the wrongs, real and imagined, which they were guilty of in his sight, towards his ancestors, and the forefathers of the other Indian tribes.

The war spirit, naturally enough grew stronger and stronger. The party in favor of peace and civilization did all in their power to make head against the hostile portion; but without success. Murders were committed on the frontiers, and the legislature of Ten

nessee, in alarm at the prospect, gave authority to the governor to call out ten thousand militia, and make war upon the Creeks, even to extermination, unless the murderers were given up. A state of civil war soon after eventuated, and the opposing parties arranged themselves under their respective leaders. Acts of violence ensued, and several of the friendly chiefs were murdered in cold blood. Gaining strength, they proceeded to new acts of violence; regardless of the legitimate authorities, they deposed and put to death the friends of peace, until the nation was involved in general bloodshed. The war party at length prevailed, and all opposition was summarily crushed by arbitrary force.

1813.

Parties of hostile warriors began to assemble in various parts of the Creek nation, with the avowed purpose of commencing hostilities against the white settlements of the Mississippi Territory, and of Georgia, and Tennessee. Emissaries were employed in efforts to induce the Choctaws to unite with them in the general league, Tecumseh having been unsuccessful in his efforts, among the chiefs of that nation. In these efforts, it appears, they failed. Mushulatubbe, and other Choctaw chiefs, succeeded in preserving the nation's loyalty to the United States unsullied.

Throughout the white settlements on the Tombigbee and Alabama Rivers, the liveliest alarm prevailed; and a brigade of nine hundred volunteers and militia was organized by Governor Holmes, to quiet the apprehensions of the settlers, and at the same time to