XVIII.

circumstances tended to show that the property had been CHAPTER imported to a neutral country for the very purpose of being exported again to a belligerent one.

The condemnation, on these grounds, of several American vessels with very valuable cargoes, as soon as it became known in America, led to a series of public meetings in all the principal sea-ports, in which the national government was very loudly called upon for protection and redress. 4

1805.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

These proceedings of the British admiralty courts, and the by no means friendly disposition evinced by France and Spain, caused the coming together of the ninth Congress to be looked forward to with great anxi-. ety. In both branches of that body the Democrats had Dec. 2. an overwhelming majority. In the Senate the Federalists were reduced to seven: Plumer, of New Hampshire; Pickering and J. Q. Adams, of Massachusetts; Tracy and Hillhouse, of Connecticut; and Bayard and White, of Delaware. The other twenty-three members were Democrats, of whom Smith, of Maryland, and Giles, of Virginia, might be esteemed the leaders. Giles, how-. ever, was absent during most of the session. The other Democratic members of note were Baldwin and Jackson, of Georgia, and Dr. Mitchill, of New York. member from New Hampshire was Nicholas Gilman, brother of the Federal governor, but himself a Democrat.

The new

The Federalists were equally weak in the House. They could not count above twenty-five members, mostly from New England. Roger Griswold, of Connecticut, their leader during the four or five last sessions, had retired, But his former colleagues, Dana, John Cotton Smith, and Davenport, still maintained their seats; and in Josiah Quincy, who had superseded Eustis as the Boston representative, the Federalists had a new mem

CHAPTER ber who soon made himself conspicuous. Out of the XVIII. seventeen Massachusetts members, the Democrats now, 1805. for the first time, had a majority, ten in number, among them Varnum, Crowninshield, and Barnabas Bidwell. Elliot, of Vermont; Mumford, and George Clinton, a brother of De Witt's, but without his talent, from the city of New York; Sloan, of New Jersey; Gregg, Findley, Smilie, Leib, and Clay, of Pennsylvania; John Randolph, Thomas M. Randolph, and Eppes, of Virginia ; and Macon, of North Carolina, again reappeared. The larger part of the members, under the system of rotation in office, were new, of whom only one or two soared above mediocrity. Nor could the Congress, taken as a whole, compare in talent with any of its predecessors.

The

Macon was again elected speaker, but not till after three trials, and then only by a bare majority. Northern Democrats had grown tired of Southern dictation, and the greater part of them, thinking it was time to have their turn, voted for Varnum. The Federalists voted for John Cotton Smith. Macon reappointed John Randolph as chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means; but the bulk of the Northern Democrats refused any longer to acknowledge him as a leader. Dissatisfied at Jefferson's backwardness in supporting his radical measures, and at the influence over him evidently exercised by Granger and other Northern Democrats, Randolph was in a very sore and dissatisfied state, of which palpable indications very soon appeared.

The president was not able to give an account as to the condition of foreign affairs so flattering as that in his former messages. Peace, indeed, had been secured with Tripoli; but the conduct of Spain in regard to the Louisiana question-not to mention her belligerent aggressions especially the conduct of her military officers, who

XVIII.

had intruded upon territory hitherto in the possession of CHAPTER the United States, made it necessary to repel force by. force. Determined and effectual resistance was also re- 1805. quired to the new principles as to the carrying trade, interpolated by Great Britain into the law of nations.

Such being the doubtful state of foreign affairs, Jefferson again pressed his favorite gun-boat project for the protection of harbors. Whether it would be necessary to increase the regular army, events in the course of the session would determine. Meanwhile, he recommended a classification of the militia, so that in any sudden emergency the younger and more active portion might be called separately into the field—a thing often recommended before and since, and several times taken in hand by Congress; but never with success.

Attention was also called to the naval force, and to a provision of the existing law introduced in accordance with Jefferson's economical principles (but suspended during the hostilities with Tripoli), that in time of peace vessels in commission should have but two thirds their complement of men-a piece of unreasonable curtailment, which rendered them quite inefficient. It was also intimated that there were on hand, collected during Adams's administration, materials for building six ships of the line; but as to what ought to be done with those materials, the president did not venture on a hint.

During the course of the summer, on the resignation by Lincoln of the attorney generalship, an office in which he had acquired no great distinction, a change had been attempted in the Navy Department, by giving Lincoln's place to Smith, and appointing Crowninshield Secretary of the Navy. But Crowninshield was too busy in the field of commerce to accept the office, and Smith returned again to the Navy Department; the attorney general

XVIII.

CHAPTER ship being given to Breckenridge, of Kentucky, the busy politicians of which growing state were already very un1805. easy at not having what they esteemed their fair share in the distribution of office. Smith wanted the seventy

fours; but the prejudices of the Southern Democrats against the navy were inveterate; and neither he nor Jefferson dared openly to ask for them.

This little haste to get ready, notwithstanding the apparent prospect of immediate hostilities with Spain, may be easily explained. The president and his cabinet flattered themselves that a new sum of money, nominally paid to Spain, but which would redound also to the benefit of France, since France and Spain were now allies, might induce France to compel Spain to sell the Floridas, or, at least, that portion of them bordering on the Mississippi. But as the trusting great sums of money in executive hands for uncertain uses had always been very pointedly condemned both by Jefferson and Gallatin, the administration did not wish openly to broach this project by asking for the money. In order to obtain it, apparently, by a voluntary offer of Congress, a message, covering papers relating to the difficulties with Spain, Dec. 6. was sent to the House, ostensibly for the purpose of re

He

ferring to that body the question whether, and to what
extent, force should be used in repelling Spanish aggres-
sions on the side of Louisiana. This message and the
papers were read with closed doors, and referred to a se-
lect committee, of which Randolph was chairman.
was informed, first by the president himself, then by Mad-
ison, and finally by Gallatin, who furnished a plan for
raising the money, that what the administration wanted
was not troops, but two millions of dollars with which to
commence a new negotiation for purchase. Madison as-
sured him that, as things now stood, France would not

XVIIL

allow Spain to adjust her differences with us; that she CHAPTER wanted money, and we must give it to her, or have a Spanish and French war. But in the soured state of 1805. Randolph's mind, he declined to allow himself to be thus used, and he gave Madison and Gallatin, as he afterward stated, a severe private lecture on this indirect method of asking for money.

The president then sent for Bidwell and Varnum. Bidwell, himself a member of the committee, was timid. indeed, but cunning, supple, and sly. Varnum was honest, downright, and steady, but never suspected of having much head. To these two members the executive wishes were communicated, and Bidwell made some unsuccessful attempts to ingraft them into the report of the committee. He could not prevail, however, against the influence of Randolph, and the report was by no means 1806. what the president wanted. It denounced, as ample Jan. 3. cause of war, the conduct of Spain in refusing to ratify the convention of 1802, and to adjust the boundaries of Louisiana; her obstructions to the trade of the American settlements on the Tombigbee by her claim to levy a duty on American produce passing down the Mobile River; and her late violations of the American territory. But as it was the policy of the United States to improve the present season of extended commerce and great revenue from it to pay off the public debt, war, if possible, was to be avoided. By concessions on the side of Mexico, in which direction the United States claimed as far as the Rio del Norte, Spain might be induced to consent to a favorable arrangement of the eastern limits of Louisiana. Yet troops were essential to guard the territory of the United States from invasion; and the committee recommended the raising of as many as the president might deem necessary for that purpose; and they reported resolutions to that effect.