were now added the new doctrines of the British admi- CHAPTER ralty courts as to the carrying trade.

XVIII.

The subject of the invasion of neutral rights by the 1806. belligerents had been referred, on the third day of the session, to the Committee of Ways and Means, against the efforts of Bidwell, who wanted a special committee; but, though this committee early applied to the State Department for facts, they received no answer for several weeks. Meanwhile a new communication was made to Congress by the president, under an injunction of secrecy, of parts of Monroe's diplomatic correspondence from London, and also of various memorials from the maritime towns remonstrating against the new British doctrines. The Committee of Ways and Means also communicated Jan. 29 to the House an elaborate report on neutral rights, which the Secretary of State had drawn up to be presented to the president, and which he had sent to the committee by way of answer to their inquiries. All these documents were referred to a Committee of the Whole, along with a resolution offered by Gregg, of Pennsylvania, proposing to retaliate upon Great Britain for her impressments and invasions of neutral rights by prohibiting all importations of goods the produce of Great Britain or any of her colonies.

This was but a revival of Madison's old schemes for bringing Great Britain to reason by commercial restrictions. That it proceeded directly from the cabinet, or rather from Jefferson and Madison-for the other members seem not to have been consulted-may well be conjectured from the republication not long previously in the National Intelligencer of the non-importation, nonconsumption, and non-exportation agreement of 1774, accompanied by some very grandiloquent observations in the usual style of that journal, which foreshadowed

CHAPTER the whole course of policy ultimately pursued.

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"What would England say to an imposition of heavy duties on 1806. her manufactured fabrics, the want of which we could supply in other markets? What would she say to refusing permission to any of her ships to enter our harbors? What would she say to withholding all supplies from her islands? What would she say to an embargo? What would she say to a prohibition of all intercourse? Pacific as the disposition of America is, it may be that the storm will burst before foreign nations are aware of it. But let them recollect that the thunder has long rolled at a distance that they were long since warned of the danger of awakening the lion."

Feb. 5.

Smith, of Maryland, as chairman of a Senate committee to whom had been referred the subject of British aggressions, reported in favor of the imposition of duties on certain enumerated articles, to take effect within a limited time, if Britain did not previously give satisfac

tion.

This system of policy was very warmly opposed by Randolph as leading directly to war. As to the impressment of our seamen, he suggested that, although it was now made very much of by certain speakers, being a grievance well calculated to touch the popular feeling, yet the nation had been content to bear it under three administrations for twelve years past, not, indeed, without indignant remonstrances, yet without pushing the matter to extremity; nor did he see any ground, at present, for a change of policy in that particular.

His views on the subject of neutral rights will appear by the following extract from one of his speeches. "What is the question in dispute? The carrying trade. What part of it? The fair, the honest, the useful trade, which is engaged in carrying our own productions to for

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eign markets and bringing back their productions in CHAPTER exchange? No, sir; it is that carrying trade which covers enemy's property, and carries, under a neutral 1806. flag, coffee, sugar, and other colonial products, the property of belligerents. If this great agricultural country is to be governed by Salem and Boston, New York and Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Norfolk, and Charleston, let gentlemen come out and say so, and let a committee of safety be appointed from those towns to carry on the government. I, for one, will not mortgage my property and my liberty to carry on this trade. The nation said so seven years ago. I said so then, and I say so now. It is not for the honest trade of America, but for this mushroom, this fungus of war-for a trade which, so soon as the nations of Europe are at peace, will no longer exist -it is for this that the spirit of avaricious traffic would plunge us into war.

"I will never consent to go to war for that which I can not protect. I deem it no disgrace to say to the leviathan of the deep, we are unable to contend with you in your own element, but if you come within our actual limits, we will shed our last drop of blood in defense of our territory. I am averse to a naval war with any nation whatever. I was opposed to the naval war of the last administration; I am as ready to oppose a naval war by the present administration, should they contemplate such a measure."

On these questions of going to war in defense of neutral rights, or the rights of seamen, Randolph spoke the sentiments of the great bulk of the supporters of the administration from the Southern and Middle States-indeed, those of the administration itself. To go to war with Great Britain was at this time the last thing in the intention of the government. Madison had always

CHAPTER maintained, from the first Congress downward, that his XVIII. scheme of commercial compulsion was pacific in its na1806. ture; and the present bill was advocated in the House, in opposition to Randolph, by most of the administration members as an eminently peaceful measure. Yet already appeared the germ of that war party which ultimately got the control of the government, and plunged Madison, in spite of himself, into a war which he deprecated. Crowninshield dwelt with animation, should war result, upon the ease with which Canada and Nova Scotia might be taken by the militia of Vermont and Massachusetts alone, and the immense damage which might be done to British commerce by American privateers.

"Because, during the Revolutionary war," said Randolph in reply, "at a time when Great Britain was not mistress of the ocean, privateers of this country trespassed on her commerce, the gentleman from Massachusetts has settled it that we are not only capable of contending with Great Britain on the ocean, but that we are, in fact, her superior. To my mind, nothing is more clear than that, if we go to war with Great Britain, Charleston and Boston, the Chesapeake and the Hudson, will be invested by British squadrons. Will you call on the Count de Grasse to relieve you, or shall we apply to Admiral Gravina, or Admiral Villeneuve, to raise the blockade?" This last question was particularly pointed, news having just arrived in America of the total defeat of the combined Spanish and French fleets, commanded by these two admirals, in the famous battle of Trafalgar, by which the naval power of Bonaparte was annihilated.

"But not only is there a prospect of gathering glory, and, what seems to the gentleman from Massachusetts much dearer, profit from privateering, you will be able also to make a conquest of Canada and Nova Scotia.

In

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deed! Then, sir, we shall catch a Tartar. I have no CHAPTER desire to see on this floor representatives of the French Canadians, or of the Tory refugees of Nova Scotia."

He questioned the policy of throwing the United States, from any motive, into the scale of France, so as to aid the views of her gigantic policy, aiming at supreme dominion by sea as well as by land. "Take away the British navy," he exclaimed, "and France to-morrow is the ty rant of the ocean." Randolph had not, like so many other of his late party associates, transferred to the Emperor Napoleon that extravagant attachment to the French republic which he had once entertained. He had begun, indeed, so far to agree with the Federalists as to regard Great Britain, in the struggle going on in Europe, as the champion of the liberties of the world against an audacious aspirant to universal empire.

The excessive tameness of the administration toward the Spaniards, who had actually invaded our territory, and whom it would be easy to meet, was very sarcastically contrasted with the administration's readiness to risk a war with Great Britain; a war which must be mainly on the ocean, and which there could be no hope of carrying on effectually except as the ally of France. The impropriety of taking so hostile a step while negotiations with England were still pending was also strongly urged; especially as news arrived in the course of the debate of Pitt's death, and the accession to power of Fox, from whom a more favorable disposition toward America might reasonably be expected.

1806.

After great debates in both houses, this scheme of policy took its final shape in a law, founded upon a reso- Feb. 10. lution offered by Nicholson, prohibiting the importation from Great Britain or her dependencies, or from any other country, of any of the following articles of British