CHAPTER XIX.

WAR WITH ENGLAND.

IN May, 1811, there occurred one of those accidents which happen on purpose, and often serve as a relief when the public temper is in an exasperated and almost dangerous condition. This was the fight between the American frigate President, of forty-four guns, and the English sloopof-war, Little Belt, of eighteen guns. This vessel belonged to the British squadron, which was ordered to the American coast to break up the trade from the United States to France; and the President was one of the few ships the Government had for the protection of her commerce. The ships met a few miles south of Sandy Hook, chased each other in turn, then fired into each other without any reasonable pretext for the first shot, which each accused the other of having fired. The loss on board the English ship, in an encounter which lasted only a few minutes, was over thirty in killed and wounded, while only a single man was slightly wounded on board the President. It was, as Mr. Madison said, an 66 occurrence not unlikely to bring on repetitions," and that these

would "probably end in an open rupture or a better understanding, as the calculations of the British government may prompt or dissuade from war." This certainly was obvious enough; though it would be a great deal easier for England to bring on a war than to avert it, in the angry mood in which the majority of the Democratic party then was. But Mr. Madison preserved his equanimity. Considering his old proclivity for France, and his old dislike of England, his impartiality between them is rather remarkable. But his aim was still to keep the peace while he abated nothing of the well-founded complaints he had against both powers. When a new Congress assembled in the autumn he was careful to point out in his message the delinquencies of France as well as the offenses of England. He insisted that, while England should have acknowledged the Berlin and Milan decrees to be revoked and have acted accordingly, France showed no disposition to repair the many wrongs she had inflicted upon American merchants, and had lately imposed such "rigorous and unexpected restrictions" upon commerce that it would be necessary, unless they were speedily discontinued, to meet them by "corresponding restrictions on importations from France."

This tone is even more pronounced in his letters for some following months. If anything, it is France rather than England that seems to be looked upon as the chief offender, with whom there

was the greater danger of armed collision. A fortnight after Congress had assembled he wrote to Barlow, the new minister to France, that though justified in assuming the French decrees to be so far withdrawn that a withdrawal of the British orders might be looked for, "yet the manner in which the French government has managed the repeal of the decrees and evaded a correction of other outrages, has mingled with the conciliatory tendency of the repeal as much of irritation and disgust as possible." "In fact," he adds, "without a systematic change from an appearance of crafty contrivance and insatiate cupidity, for an open, manly, and upright dealing with a nation whose example demands it, it is impossible that good-will can exist; and that the ill-will which her policy aims at directing against her enemy should not, by her folly and iniquity, be drawn off against herself." French depredations upon American commerce in the Baltic were "kindling a fresh flame here," and, if they were not stopped, "hostile collisions will as readily take place with one nation as the other; nor would there be any hesitation in sending American frigates to that sea, "with orders to suppress by force the French and Danish depredations," were it not for the "danger of rencounters with British ships of superior force in that quarter."

By this time, however, Congress, under the lead of younger, vigorous men-chief among them

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Clay and Calhoun -panting for leadership and distinction, was beginning its clamor for war with England. How much respect had Madison for this movement, and how much faith in it? A letter to Jefferson of February 7 answers both questions. Were he not evidently amused he would seem to be contemptuous. "To enable the Executive to step at once into Canada," he says, "they have provided, after two months' delay, for a regular force requiring twelve to raise it, and after three months for a volunteer force, on terms not likely to raise it at all for that object. The mixture of good and bad, avowed and disguised motives, accounting for these things, is curious enough but not to be explained in the compass of a letter." This is not the tone of either hope or fear. If war was in his mind at that time, it was not war with England. Three weeks later, he writes to Barlow at Paris. On various points of negotiation between that minister and the French government, he observes much that "suggests distrust rather than expectation." He complains of delay, of vagueness, of neglect, of discourtesy, of a disregard of past obligations as to the liberation of ships and cargoes seized, and of late condemnations of ships captured in the Baltic; and concerning all these and other grievances he says,

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we find so little of explicit dealing or substantial redress mingled with the compliments and encouragements which cost nothing because they

mean nothing, that suspicions are unavoidable; and, if they be erroneous, the fault does not lie with those who entertain them." France, he believes, in asking for a new treaty, which he thinks quite unnecessary, is only seeking to gain time that it may take advantage of future events. The commercial relations between the two countries are so intolerable, that trade "will be prohibited if no essential change take place." Unless there be indemnity for the great wrongs committed under the Rambouillet decree, and for other spoliations, he declares that "there can be neither cordiality nor confidence here; nor any restraint from self-redress in any justifiable mode of effecting it." The letter concludes with the emphatic assertion that, if dispatches soon looked for " do not exhibit the French government in better colours than it has yet assumed, there will be but one sentiment in this country; and I need not say what that will be."

Congress all this while was lashing itself into fury against England. The ambitious young leaders of the Democratic party in the House were, so to speak, "spoiling for a fight," and they chose to have it out with England rather than with France. Not that there was not quite as much reason for resentment against France as against England. Some, indeed, of the more hot-headed were anxious for war with both; but these were of the more impulsive kind, like Henry Clay, who