or any of her allies. If caught doing so, ship and cargo were to be lawful prize.*

receive it.

Intelligence of these things soon began to reach the United States. Early in February came the letter of Monroe and Pinkney declaring they were about to break away from their instructions and make such a treaty as they could. They were instantly notified that the President would not Then came the Berlin decree, and on the evening of March third a copy of the treaty. The copy was that intended for the English Minister, David Montague Erskine, who a few months before had succeeded Anthony Merry. With the paper in his hand, Erskine at once set off for the Department of State. There was much need of haste, for the last session of the ninth Congress was to end in a few hours. If the senators were to be called to meet in executive session they ought to be summoned at once, for many of them would by sunrise of the next day be on their way home. To Erskine's chagrin, Madison received the document with every manifestation of astonishment and regret, told him no treaty could be approved which left unsettled the question of impressment and search, and declared that the note concerning the Berlin decree would of itself prevent ratification. That the Senate would have withheld its assent may well be doubted. But Jefferson, with a manly courage he often showed, determined that the senators should never see the treaty. When, therefore, toward midnight, the joint committee from the House and Senate called upon the President to tell him that Congress was about to adjourn, the senators were surprised to hear there would be no executive session, for by that time it was well known in Washington that a copy of the treaty had arrived. ‡ He was, they reported, angry; had expressed his anger in strong terms, and had assured them that when the official treaty came from London he would instantly send it back.

On March fifteenth the official copy came, was filed, and Monroe and Pinkney were bidden to go on with the negotiation as previously marked out till further instructions reached

* American State Papers, Foreign Affairs, vol. iii, pp. 5–7.

November 4, 1806.

Memoirs of J. Q. Adams, vol. i, p. 466.

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LEOPARD AND THE CHESAPEAKE.

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them. The more the treaty was studied the more did its faults stand out, so that two months passed before the instructions were ready, and two more before they reached London. Six changes were demanded. Provisions against impressment must be inserted. Restrictions on the colonial trade must be removed. The article forbidding trade with the Indies save in ships coming directly from or going directly to the United States must be stricken out. Sufferers by illegal capture must be indemnified. Two articles, giving to English cruisers and their prizes better treatment in the ports of the United States than was given to their enemies, must be altered. No such alternative as that set forth in the declaratory note could be listened to.

Before these instructions reached Monroe the Whigs once more fell from power. Lord Howick, who followed Fox, was in turn followed by Canning. Canning knew nothing about American affairs, and a new delay occurred while he studied them. At last, on July twenty-fourth, a formal offer to renew negotiation with a view to amending the treaty was made him. On that day, however, the first rumor of the attack of the Leopard on the Chesapeake reached London, and the character of the negotiation changed completely.

The affair of the Chesapeake was but one of a long series of insolent acts which British officers had been committing along our coast. For three years they had kept the country in a state of blockade. Some cruised along the coast from Eastport to Cape Ann. Some lay off the Long Island shore. Some searched vessels and impressed men within a league of Sandy Hook. One squadron passed within the capes of Chesapeake Bay and anchored in Hampton Roads. Such indeed was the impudence of the English commanders that the Driver, which in the proclamation of the year before had been commanded never again to enter any port or harbor of the United States, sailed boldly into Rebellion Roads and dropped anchor off Fort Johnson. The commandant of the fort was dumfounded. He could hardly trust his eyes, and, not knowing what to do, sent to ask the Governor how the intruder should be driven out. The Governor could not be found. Sentries were therefore posted on the wharves to cut

off supplies, and a correspondence, which was long remembered, opened with Captain William Love, of the Driver. He was reminded of the proclamation; he was asked to leave port within twenty-four hours, and a hope was expressed that no blood should be spilled. The reply of the captain was long and insolent. He declared that Mr. Jefferson's proclamation would have disgraced the sanguinary pen of Robespierre or the most miserable and petty state of Barbary; intimated that he would sail when ready; asserted his readiness to punish any insult offered to his master's flag; and threatened that, if water was not furnished him, he would take it by force. Nor was he worse than his word. A plentiful supply of water was secured, and the Driver, to the shame of our Government, sailed unmolested away. The letter of Love meantime was sent on to Washington, and at Washington was carefully placed on file.

Worse yet was the behavior of Lieutenant John Flintoph, of his Majesty's armed schooner Pogge. Early in the evening of a June day he entered the bay of Passamaquoddy, boarded and searched the shipping, fired on the town of Passamaquoddy, and sent a shot rolling between children at play. A month later he was again in port. This time he fired on a revenue boat, searched half a dozen American vessels, impressed some American sailors, and with round shot cut to pieces the sails and rigging of a schooner.

The favorite station on the coast was, however, Chesapeake Bay. In the summer of 1806 a fine French squadron of frigates and ships of the line encountered a cyclone off our coast, was dispersed, and a part forced to take refuge in Chesapeake Bay. Thither an English squadron followed and established a close blockade. There at almost any time might be seen just without the capes or riding at anchor in Lynnhaven Bay the Bellona, the Triumph, the Halifax, the Chichester, the Melampus, the Belleisle. Their tenders scoured the waters of the bay, fired on vessels that would not stop, searched those that did, and inflicted on Norfolk, Hampton, and Baltimore much of the rigor of a blockade. In April the Melampus, when off Cape Henry and not two miles from shore, made

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DESERTERS FROM THE MELAMPUS.

255

prize of the Three Brothers, impressed ten of the crew, and detained her passengers. In May she overhauled the Mercury, rifled the mail, and examined all the papers on board. In June a revenue cutter with the revenue flag at her masthead and the Vice-President on board was hotly chased and fired on by an armed boat belonging to the squadron. Insolent as this was, an act more insolent still was soon to follow.

The

In the course of the month of February, 1807, the Melampus happening to be at anchor in Hampton Roads, the officers made use of the opportunity and gave a fine entertainment on board. When the festivity was at its height, when the attention of all was taken up by the toasting and the singing, five of the crew, noticing that the officers' gig was not hoisted in, slipped over the side and rowed for the shore. A shower of bullets followed them; but the beach was reached, and, giving three cheers, the men fled to Norfolk. names of the five were William Ware, Daniel Martin, John Strachan, John Little, and Ambrose Watts. At Norfolk Lieutenant Sinclair was enlisting men for the navy of the United States, and with him Martin, Ware, and Strachan engaged for service on the frigate Chesapeake. A demand for their arrest and return as deserters was made by the English Consul at Norfolk, was duly sent to the Secretary of the Navy, and was by him referred to Commodore Barron for reply. Not one of the three, the Commodore assured the Secretary, was a subject of King George. Strachan had been born on the eastern shore of Maryland; Ware was a mulatto and a native of the same State; Martin was a negro, came from Massachusetts, and had been impressed at the same time as Ware. Of Watts and Little nothing was known, as no enlisting officer had returned their

names.

Letters were still passing to and fro between the Consul, the Captain, and the authorities at Washington when more seamen escaped from the fleet. It should seem that on the seventh of March five British sailors, while weighing anchor on the Halifax, a sloop-of-war, rose, silenced the officer with threats of murder, seized the jolly-boat, escaped to the Virginia

shore,* and the next day enlisted with Lieutenant Sinclair as part of the crew of the Chesapeake. They were named Richard Hubert, a sailmaker, impressed at Liverpool; George North, captain of the main-top; Henry Saunders, yeoman of the sheets; William Hill, of Philadelphia, who had enlisted at Antigua, and Jenkin Ratford, of London. Their names were hardly on the enlistment roll when the commander of the Halifax applied for their return. Recruiting officers had been ordered not to accept British deserters. Sinclair ought therefore to have discharged the men. But he gave an evasive answer and kept them at the recruiting station. Applications were then made by the commander of the Halifax to Decatur, by the British Consul to the Mayor of Norfolk, and by the English Minister to the Secretary of State, who replied that reasons had already been given for not granting such requests. Thus protected, the men were in time sent to Washington, were there put on board the Chesapeake, and remained on board till the frigate came down the Potomac, when all but Jenkin Ratford deserted.

Most of these facts-how the men had escaped from the Melampus and the Halifax; how the Consul had made a demand for their return; how the authorities of the United States had refused to return them; how the men from the Halifax had enlisted on board the frigate Chesapeake; how they had been seen parading the streets of Norfolk protected by the American flag, the magistrates of the town, and the recruiting officer-were all duly reported at Halifax to George Cranfield Berkeley, vice-admiral of the white and commanderin-chief of his Majesty's ships and vessels on the North American station. What he heard seems to have filled him with indignation, and, while angry, he sat down and wrote an order which is not likely to be forgotten so long as the history of our country is read. He dated it June first, addressed it to the captains and commanders of his Majesty's ships and vessels on the North American station, bade them watch for the Chesapeake, and, when met without the limits of the United

*Norfolk Ledger, June 24, 1807.