CLOSE OF JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION.

175

men were carried off. The British ministry promptly disavowed the act. The indignity was left for several years unredressed. After the battle of Trafalgar, France had scarcely a ship-of-war on the ocean, and Great Britain was alone able to commit such offences.

THE EMBARGO.

28. An act prohibiting importation from England had been passed previous to this time. The President ordered all the war vessels of Britain from American harbors, and forbade intercourse with them. These measures proved insufficient. All efforts to secure a satisfactory treaty failed. An

1807. 18 Dec.

embargo was, therefore, passed, prohibiting the departure of American vessels from American ports. This act produced much injury and small benefit. The embargo was evaded. It was resisted by the Federalists, who acquired new strength from the ineffectual measures, which were ruinous to American commerce. The immediate consequence was the division of the political parties into the war party and the peace party. Unhappily, the division was, in the main, geographical. The agricultural States of the South formed the war party. The commercial States of the North were the party opposed to war.

CLOSE OF JEFFERSON'S ADMINISTRATION.

29. The war did not break out during the Presidency of Jefferson. He retired to his home at Monticello, in Virginia, after declining, like Washington, a third election. He died on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, on the same day with John Adams, his predecessor in the Presidency.

CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY.

30. The progress of the country under Jefferson's

sailing under a foreign flag, for the purpose of ascertaining whether they had persons or goods on board liable to seizure, or rendering the vessel liable to capture.

kinds was flourishing. The exports had increased sixfold in sixteen years, and had risen to $108,000,000. Cotton was shipped to the amount of sixty-two million pounds. The invention or improvement of the cotton-gin by Whitney tenormously extended the manufacture and the culture of cotton.

* Robert Fulton (1765-1815) was a miniature painter, and was sent to London to be instructed by Gilbert West. Hearing of the experiments of Fitch and Evans, he studied mechanics and engineering, and constructed a steam-vessel. The success of his invention was established in 1807, by a voyage from New York to Albany and back, at the rate of five miles an hour. He afterwards turned his attention to torpedoes and marine batteries. Thomas Carlyle says Fulton derived his scheme from Miller's steamboat on the Thames, in 1793.

+ The War of the Revolution broke up the trade of South Carolina and Georgia in rice and indigo, which were procured during that period from the East Indies. The raising and exportation of cotton seem also to have been abandoned, and not revived for some time. A Southern representative said in Congress, in 1789: "Cotton was in contemplation amongst them; and, if good seed could be procured, he hoped it might succeed."

Eli Whitney (1765-1825) invented the cotton-gin, for separating the seed from the cotton, in 1793. A contrivance for the same purpose had been made by DuBreuil, in Louisiana, in 1752. Whitney was ruined by infractions of his patent, and engaged in manufacturing fire-arms.

MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION.

177

THE ADMINISTRATION OF JAMES MADISON.1809-1817.

31. James Madison,* of Virginia, succeeded Thomas Jefferson as President. George Clinton, of New York, was reëlected Vice President. Public affairs were full of perplexity and alarm. The country was drifting into war with either England or France, perhaps with both. The measures adopted to avert the danger, and yet secure redress, produced no effect upon the adverse powers. They were very damaging to the United States. The embargo proved worse than useless. It was passionately opposed in New England and elsewhere.

THE

"PRESIDENT" AND THE "LITTLE BELT."

32. The embargo was repealed. The repeal was followed by measures equally

vain and equally annoying. Negotiations were kept up, and provoked fresh resentment. The sorest grievance was the seizure of seamen on American vessels. The President was ordered to sea for the pro

JAMES MADISON.

of controversy; yet war was still delayed.

* James Madison (1751-1836) was a member of the Virginia Convention cf 1776; of

that of 1788;

and of that of 1829. He was a member of the Continental Congress in

WAR WITH TECUMSEH.

33. A great Indian war occupied the interval. It was ascribed to British instigation. A league of several tribes was formed by the Shawanee "prophet," and his brother Tecumseh-" the flying tiger." Tecumseh failed in a plot to seize General Harrison, the Governor of Indiana. He then went southward to draw the Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws into the league. In his absence General Harrison marched towards the prophet's town, situated at the junction of the Tippecanoe with the Wabash. The prophet proposed a treaty. The Indians treacherously attempted to surprise the camp of the Americans before dawn. They were discovered, repulsed, and driven into the woods, after a bloody conflict.

1811. 7 Nov.

THE WAR OF 1812 WITH GREAT BRITAIN.

1812.

34. A tardy reparation was made for the attack of the Leopard on the Chesapeake. The Orders in Council were partially revoked in favor of the United States.* The insufficient redress came too late. The war party induced Mr. Madison, as the presidential election approached, to recommend Congress to declare war. A bill for the purpose was passed, and war was proclaimed about midsummer.

19 June.

1780; of the Constituent Convention of 1787; and of the National Congress in 1789. He strenuously advocated the new Constitution, and contributed most of the essays to the Federalist. He drafted the Virginia Resolutions of 1798-1799, and sustained them in an elaborate report. He was Secretary of State under Jefferson. After ceasing to be President, he remained tranquilly at Montpelier, his home, in Orange County, Virginia.

* The American envoy did not communicate, till 20th May, Napoleon's revocation of the Berlin and Mi'an decrees in favor of the United States.