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CH. IV.]

RELATIONS WITH SPAIN.

ously co-operate with Congress in every measure which might tend to secure the liberty, property, and personal safety of our fellow-citizens, and to consolidate the republican forms and principles of our government."

Three days afterwards the president sent a confidential message to Congress, on the subject of our relations with Spain, and the serious nature 1805. of the existing controversy with that power. This message was referred to a select committee, of which John Randolph was chairman; and by the proceedings which took place, as Mr. Tucker states, "it soon appeared that Mr. Randolph was no longer to be numbered amongst the supporters of the administration."

Spain, as we have before stated, (p. 42,) was very indignant at the manner in which she was used by Napoleon in regard to Louisiana; and she determined to throw every obstacle possible in the way of a peaceful settlement of the question with the United States, as to the boundaries of the newly acquired province. "The original claim of France had been from the Perdido East to the Rio Bravo West of the Mississippi. Mobile had been originally a French settlement, and all West Florida was as distinctly within the claim of France, as the mouth of the Mississippi first discovered by La Salle. Such was the understanding of the American plenipotentiaries and of Congress, who accordingly authorized the president to establish a collection district, on the shores, waters, and inlets of the Bay and River Mobile, and of rivers both east and west of the same. But Spain on

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her part reduced the province of Louisiana to little more than the Island of New Orleans. She assumed an attitude menacing immediate war; refused to ratify a convention made under the eye of her own government at Madrid, for indemnifying citizens of the United States, plundered under her authority during the preceding war; harassed and ransomed the citizens of the Union and their property on the waters of Mobile; and marched military forces to the borders of the Sabine, where they were met by troops of the United States, with whom a conflict was spared only by a temporary military convention between the respective commanders."*

In this juncture of affairs, James Monroe was directed to proceed from London to join Mr. Pinckney at Madrid, in order to procure the ratification of the former convention, and to come to an understanding with Spain as to the boundaries of Louisiana. "After nearly five months of fruitless endeavors," as the message states, "to bring them to some definite and satisfactory result, our ministers ended the conferences without having been able to obtain indemnity for spoliation of any description, or any satisfaction as to the boundaries of Louisiana, other than a declaration that we had no right eastward of the Iberville, and that our line to the west was one which would have left us but a string of land on that bank of the River Mississippi."

1805.

Monroe had conveyed to the Spanish

J. Q. Adams's "Life of James Monroe," p. 259.

court an offer to take the Rio Colorado as the western limit of the purchase, and to give up the demands for spoliations, etc., in exchange for the coveted territory east of the Mississippi; but his proposition was promptly rejected. The president was far from pleased with the manner in which Napoleon behaved as to this subject. "The conduct of France," he said in the message," and the part she may take in the misunderstanding between the United States and Spain, are too important to be unconsidered. She was prompt and decided in her declarations, that our demands on Spain for French spoliations carried into Spanish ports, were included in the settlement between the United States and France. She took at once the ground that she had acquired no right from Spain, and had meant to deliver us none, eastward of the Iberville; her silence as to the western boundary leaving us to infer, her opinion might be against Spain in that quarter." The American envoys found that the Spanish government was entirely impracticable, and there seems no reason to doubt that war was contemplated against the United States. Mr. Monroe, after his fruitless labors, returned in the summer of 1805, to London; and the boundary question was left unsettled for the present.

The select committee, of which Mr. Randolph was chairman, made a report on the 3d of January, 1806, in which it was declared, that the aggressions of Spain afforded ample cause of 1806. war, but, as peace was on every account desirable for the United States, the hope was expressed that Spain |

would not proceed to extremities, but would honorably fulfil her engagements. Yet, in consequence of the insulting character of Spanish proceedings, the committee submitted a resolution, “that such a number of troops as the president should deem sufficient to protect the southern frontier from insult, should be immediately raised." This was not what Mr. Jefferson wished: his desire, as privately intimated, was for money, not troops. War was very repugnant to his views, and he thought much more could be accomplished with money than by fighting about Louisiana and Florida. Randolph sturdily opposed every thing of the sort, as derogatory to the dignity and independence of our country, and not unlike putting ourselves under tribute whenever France, or any other European nation saw fit to exact it.

1806.

On the same day, a resolution was offered by Mr. Bidwell, of Massachusetts, in accordance with the wishes of Mr. Jefferson, "that an appropriation be made for the purpose of defraying any extraordinary expenses that might be incurred in the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations, to be applied under the direction of the president." In the debate that followed, which was with closed doors, the two compliant members of the committee, Messrs. Bidweli and Varnum, seconded by others less dogged and self-asserting than Randolph, to whom they hinted the presi dent's real desire, contrived to effect all that was required. that was required. And after a fortnight's debate in Congress, the wishedfor $2,000,000 were appropriated to meet "extraordinary expenses of for

CH. IV.]

THE TWO MILLION APPROPRIATION.

eign intercourse," the Senate being informed, by a communication sent with the bill, but forming no part of it, that it was to enable the president to purchase the Spanish territories east of the Mississippi, that the appropriation was made. Randolph, scouting with all the impulsiveness of his nature, this having a "double set of opinions and principles, the one ostensible, to go upon the journals and before the public, the other the efficient and real motives to action," subsequently spoke of the conclusion of the fortnight's discussion most characteristically thus,-"the doors were "the doors were closed, and the minority, whose motives were impeached, and whose motives were almost denounced, were voted down without debate."*

Congress having decided, as Mr. Tucker remarks, "on making the appropriation of two millions for the purchase of Florida, (although it is worth remembering, the resolution spoke only of "extraordinary expenses of foreign intercourse,") the president determined upon a last effort to effect an amicable settlement, at Paris, of all matters of dispute with Spain. He appointed General Armstrong of New York, and Mr. Bowdoin of Massachusetts, joint commissioners for that purpose, and proposed to add Colonel Wilson C. Nicholas of Virginia, as a third. But on that gentleman's declining the mission, the whole was left to the management of the two first." We We may men

* For a more full account of this whole matter, with extracts from Randolph's keen and caustic remarks in the House, see Garland's "Life of John Randolph," vol. i., pp. 213–228. See also, Tucker's "Life of Jefferson," vol. ii., pp. 187–196.

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tion, in this connection, that, probably nothing but the destruction of the Spanish navy at Trafalgar, October 21st, 1805, prevented a war between Spain and the United States. General Wilkinson was actually ordered to meet hostilities by hostilities, so pressing and menacing were the Spanish advances in the south, and so little had been ef fected by negotiations. In fact, nothing of moment was accomplished during Mr. Jefferson's administration; for the American envoys at Paris, ere long were irreconcileably at variance, and the progress of negotiation was virtually at a complete standstill.

In regard to the $2,000,000 voted for the president to use at his discretion, it was charged directly upon the administration, that, as France wanted money and must have it, this pretty sum went into Napoleon's coffers, the United States ship Hornet having carried it out to the American ministers at Paris, for this very purpose. Mr. Tucker speaking of this matter says, in reply to the charge, "After Congress made the appropriation of two millions for the purchase of Florida, it was deemed of sufficient importance to despatch the Hornet sloop-of-war, to communicate the fact to the American ministers at Paris, and to furnish them with the means of paying the money forthwith; which was by enabling them to draw on funds in Holland placed there to discharge the foreign debt. These facts gave some color to the imputation which Mr. Jefferson's enemies had thrown out in the newspapers, that the two millions were meant to bribe France to compel Spain to make a cession of

the Floridas; and that the Hornet actually carried out the money. The calumny, bold as it was when first propagated, has been so improved of late as to assert, not only that the two millions were carried in specie to France, but were actually paid to Bonaparte, without any consideration whatever; though the Hornet did not carry out a dollar, but only letters of credit, to be used if wanted for the purchase of Florida; and no part of which was used, as a reference to the treasury accounts would show, if the fact had not been established by a subsequent investigation in Congress."

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In the course of the vast and deadly struggle between Napoleon, now aspiring to universal dominion, and England, the most formidable of his enemies and supreme on the ocean, the policy adopted by the mistress of the seas, was vexatious and unjust in the extreme to neutral nations. The United States, profiting by the position of affairs in Europe, had greatly enlarged their commerce, and were reaping a rich harvest from the present golden opportunity. But Great Britain looked with no favorable eye upon these advantages which neutrals enjoyed from commercial intercourse with France and her allies; and she determined to interpose her power in order to put a stop to all trade of the kind, and to substitute a forced commerce between her own subjects and their enemies. For two years or more she had suffered neutral navigation to have the benefit of principles in the law of natious, for

1805.

* Tucker's "Life of Jefferson," vol. ii., p. 210.

merly recognized by herself in the correspondence between Mr. King and Lord Hawkesbury, shortly before the close of the preceding war. But now, "suddenly, as if by a concerted signal, throughout the world of waters which encompass the globe, our hardy and peaceful, though intrepid mariners, found themselves arrested in their ca reer of industry and skill; seized by British cruisers; their vessels and cargoes conducted into British ports, and by the spontaneous and sympathetic illumination of British courts of viceadmiralty, adjudicated to the captors, because they were engaged in a trade with the enemies of Britain, to which they had not usually been admitted in time of peace. Mr. Monroe had scarcely reached London, when he received a report from the consul of the United States, at that place, announcing that about twenty of their vessels had, within a few weeks, been brought into the British ports on the channel, and that by the condemnation of more than one of them, the admiralty court had settled the prin ciple."*

It was not only with respect to the carrying trade, however, that serious difficulties existed between our country and England. There was another and a very galling one to Americans, which England pressed or relaxed as she saw fit; it was what John Quincy Adams forcibly calls the claim to the "right of man-stealing from the vessels of the United States." Officers of the British navy boarded American ships, and, down to the beardless midshipmen,

* J. Q. Adams's "Life of James Monroe," p. 264.

CH. IV.]

STATE OF FOREIGN RELATIONS.

seized upon any seaman whom they chose to take for a British subject. In this high-handed manner, not less than three thousand American sailors had been forced to serve in the British navy. No independent nation could possibly submit to such outrages; and the United States uniformly protested against the course adopted by England, and denied totally any and every claim of right to impress seamen from their vessels, or within their jurisdiction.

In the president's message, at the opening of Congress, he had stated, that "the aspect of our foreign relations" had much changed. The coasts were infested and the harbors watched by private armed vessels; our ships were captured in the very act of entering our ports, and plundered at sea: their crews were taken out, maltreated, and abandoned. It had therefore been found necessary to equip a force to cruise within our own seas, and bring in the offenders for trial as pirates. Notwithstanding this highly suggestive fact, he persisted in recommending his pet scheme of defence by gunboats, and declared that it was desirable to "have a competent number of gunboats; and the number, to be competent, must be considerable." In order to stimulate the zeal of Congress, the president sent a special message, on the 17th of January, 1806, relating both to the interruption of the neutral trade, and to the impressment of the seamen; from which it appeared, that Mr. Madison at Washington, and Mr. Monroe at London, had been in communication with the ministers of Great Britain upon these questions.

VOL. III.-10

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Congress perceived the difficulty in the position of affairs; committees attempted to deal with it, but vainly; and it was proposed, in a committee of the whole, to suspend all importation from Great Britain, until "equitable and satisfactory arrangements were made." Then came other resolutions, retaliat ory in intention, for the annoyances of the navigation laws, and other parts of the British maritime code. Others proceeded still further; certain articles should be declared contraband, as far as importation from England was concerned; no intercourse should be carried on with any European colonies, unless the Americans had a fair share in the trade; all intercourse with Great Britain should cease. In the end, by a large majority, Congress voted, in April, to prohibit certain articles of British growth or manufacture, after the 15th of the following November. Intercourse with revolted Hayti was strictly forbidden. The sum of $150,000 was appropriated for fortifying the ports and harbors, and $250,000 for building gunboats.

1806.

In the debates in the House, Randolph and others of the republicans, looking upon Napoleon, who had now mounted the imperial throne, as the enemy to free government and national independence, were disposed to pursue a more conciliatory and respectful course towards England. The federalists voted with these, not only because they agreed in opinion respecting the purposes of the emperor Napoleon, but also because they deemed the ground taken by the administration against British interference with the neutral trade to be un

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