a trying post. When his employer was Napoleon his work was hard indeed. Unlike Foster, however, the Frenchman enjoyed the advantage of conditions in America. The President, having once accepted Napoleon's promises, and asserted that they were fulfilled, owed it to his own consistency to act accordingly. And if Monroe, who neither loved Napoleon nor shared the President's policy toward him, took pleasure in berating the French minister, at any rate his victim was consoled by a reflection that the military preparations at last on foot could scarcely aim at France. There was always a possibility, of course, that the government might accept the logic of events and seek revenge on both its enemies. But the difficulties of such a course, and the unyielding attitude of England made that event unlikely.

Serurier did not improve his standing by his connection with a charlatan who imposed himself on Madison in connection with a British agent offering confidential papers for sale. John Henry, who in 1808 had made an investigation in New England of the state of Federalist loyalty, vainly undertook to sell his wares in London. Disappointed in his purpose, he turned to America. On ship-board, he fell in with an adventurer, the so-called Count de Crillon, who undertook to dispose of his papers and to take the money received for them, turning over to Henry ancestral properties in southern France. De Crillon gained the favor of Madison, sold the papers for $50,000, disposed of Henry by false documents, and suddenly made off, ostensibly to France. The papers revealed little; the Federalists took heart, and ridicule fell on Madison when it was learned that Crillon, his title, and estates, were all a fraud.22

Serurier would have been happier had he understood more fully the spirit of the Congress assembling in December, 1811. Henry Clay and Felix Grundy, Langdon Cheves, Peter Buel Porter, and John C. Calhoun were among the seventy new members. They infused a spirit long unknown. War had for them no terrors. Of insult they were weary. They must overcome, however, a vast inertia and apathy. If England was the object of their wrath, like Madison and 22 Adams, Henry, Op. Cit. VI, 176-185.

his cabinet they must deny the injuries of France. England even aided their plans, by renewing a blockade of New York and making numerous seizures. And as if the Western fever of Clay and his comrades was not high enough already, British support of Tecumseh and the Prophet, the extent of which became fully known after the Battle of Tippecanoe on the Upper Wabash in November, 1811, fanned the flames of American resentment. Unless England should yield, and Foster had no intimation that she would, the duplicity of Napoleon, and Madison's connivance, were heading toward a war which Madison by no means sought. His was not the genius for war, and well he knew it.

What appeared to be the final word from England was dated April 10th-a message from Lord Castlereagh, who had succeeded Wellesley, that England could not possibly make exception of America in the operation of her blockade against Napoleon. Apparently there was nothing more to hope. Madison always pointed to this paper as the final impetus to war. The weakness in this argument was that there was no more reason then for war than had existed for the past five years; less in fact than ever, for Castlereagh offered to remove the license system of vessels bound for France, and confine restrictions to the blockade as it was then enforced.

THE WEST DECIDES

All this suggests that the preceding explanation for the entry of the United States into the War of 1812 is not complete. Even when the war began the East was but halfhearted in its prosecution. It was a war of Westerners and Southerners. The so-called War Hawks, who transformed the peaceful policy of Jefferson and Madison into one of action and belligerency, were chiefly young men from the West and South, not greatly motivated by concern for Eastern shipping and the wrongs imposed by British press gangs. They nursed a grievance against Great Britain on the north and Spain on the south because of the protection they af

forded to the Indians and the threat thus constantly suspended over the American frontier. At the same time that these grievances and injuries were rankling, the leaders of the Western country believed, with all the zeal of youth and frontier hardihood, that Canada and Eastern Florida were ripe for plucking, the natural prizes of a manifest destiny, though that phrase had not been coined. In this they were supported by many sympathizers in the tide-water South, who, like Jefferson, never long lost sight of Western interests. While the East was luke-warm, the West and South were kindling to the conflict. A general history of the United States is bound to take this into account, more especially since the appearance of Professor Julius W. Pratt's very informing chapters in "The Expansionists of 1812." 23 But fear of Indians and desire for conquest were not the ostensible motives for the war. The immediate issues of diplomacy as such, and therefore the chief concern for the present text, were maritime almost exclusively. On these the war was based, at least ostensibly.

On June 1st, Madison submitted to Congress his war message-a recital of injuries long notorious but which, in the absence of previous resentment, would have justified an ultimatum rather than the immediate declaration of war. Not until the 18th did the bill for declaring war pass its third reading in both houses, so powerful was the opposition not only from the Federalists but in administration ranks. And the United States, almost on the verge of internal dissolution, embarked on the least popular war in their history.

A paradox of history lay in the dating of the war, for its avowed object was achieved the day before it was declared. British opinion, slowly awakening to the seriousness of America's intentions, and impressed, no doubt, by Pinkney's quitting of his post, was throughout the year of 1812 increasingly prepared to make concessions. Lord Castlereagh's note of April 10th marked a decided step in this

23 Western influence in precipitating the war is also stressed by McCaleb, Walter F., The Aaron Burr Conspiracy and New Orleans, (New York, 1903.)

direction. When every ounce of energy was required against Napoleon, common sense opposed the added burden of a commercial war with the United States. Not timid of war, but long accustomed to analyze its benefits and hazards, Great Britain perceived no benefits accruing from an American war. To avoid this war she actually repealed her Orders in Council, the original rock of offense. Had America possessed at London a minister with the insight and authority of Pinkney, a true perception of the drift in British policy might have averted war, at any rate until the final outrages of Napoleon were known, in which event the enemy might better have been France. Even without a minister, a cable would have served. But that was yet to be invented. With the repeal of the Orders in Council, June 17, 1812, the United States scored a diplomatic victory; one of the most brilliant in our history, the significance of which can be measured only by the stubbornness of British temper. The sacrifice came just too late. America was already committed to the war it might once have averted. In the moment of a triumph not yet known America became in fact but not in form the ally of Napoleon just setting out for Russia. America, so long abused and duped by the tyrant, was fighting his battles against the champions of neutral commerce, for such was the position assumed by Russia. when she rejected the Continental system. In a military sense America's position was still worse. The catastrophe in Russia, by revealing the true weakness of Napoleon, exalted England at the moment when the United States stood alone against her.

The peaceful diplomacy of Madison had truly broken down. But failure in peace unfortunately did not augur success in war.

T

CHAPTER IX

PEACE AT ANY PRICE

HE war having once begun must run its course. The irritation and astonishment over American victories at sea merely roused the English to greater stubbornness. Three frigates and 500 merchant ships on the list of captures called loudly for revenge. The blockade of the Chesapeake and the Delaware was no more eloquent of British purpose than the exemption of Boston and New England from military inconvenience. Great Britain imitated General Hull's appeal to Canada by inviting disaffection in New England. The Northeast she treated in all respects as neutral, purchased supplies at rates advantageous to the natives, and, to the intense indignation of the Federal Government, by a system of licenses threw open to New England the commerce of the West Indies. Just as the extent of Napoleon's defeat stood revealed, the determination of Great Britain for a finish fight was evident.

In 1813, therefore, it appeared that peace at almost any price was the alternative to a war of indefinite duration, which would throw the United States back into the anarchy of the Confederation, to bankruptcy and secession. But the road to peace was winding. The best approach lay through the Tsar.

PEACE PRELIMINARIES

Alexander I in spite of close alliance with England in their joint war on Napoleon could not forget that he was fighting for the freedom of the seas. His minister, Roumanzoff, long favorable to the interests of Napoleon, was slow to adopt the British point of view. Hence John Quincy Adams, whose position was logically impossible at a court which could not fail to look upon the American war as the