1808.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

287

the passing excitement of the hour cannot be doubted, for he reached Boston on the eve of a General Court election and just after the publication of a bitter letter from Pickering. It was addressed to Governor Sullivan, to be by him laid before the Legislature of Massachusetts. But the Governor refused to transmit it. A copy was thereupon given by George Cabot to the press, and it soon appeared both in the newspapers and in pamphlet form. The title-page of the pamphlet declares that the purpose of Pickering of Pickering was to exhibit to his constituents the imminent danger of an unnecessary and ruinous war. Undoubtedly this was true; but it was not the whole truth, for back of it lay the intention to so influence the election that John Quincy Adams should not be returned to the Senate of the United States.

*

John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams and Abigail Smith, was born in 1767, in the North Parish of Braintree, or, as it is now called, the town of Quincy, Massachusetts. Of all Americans of his time, he alone may be said to have been bred a statesman. From the day when he stood at his mother's side and heard the cannon at Bunker Hill and saw the smoke go up from the burning village of Charlestown, his career had been one long training for public life. Before he was twelve he accompanied his father on two missions to Paris. At fourteen his own diplomatic career began when, as Secretary he went with Francis Dana to Russia. Little came of the mission, and, after six months spent in travel, Adams returned to Paris, where, as an assistant secretary, he helped to draw up the papers and documents used in the peace negotiations of 1782 and 1783. Two years later he might have gone with his father on the English mission; but he chose to come back to the United States; graduated at Harvard and studied law. In 1790 he was admitted to the bar, but his clients were few; his political training began to tell, and he drifted rapidly into politics. Over the signature of Publicola he attacked the doctrine of Paine's "Rights of Man." As Marcellus he defended and

* A Letter from the Hon. Timothy Pickering, a Senator of the United States from the State of Massachusetts, exhibiting to his Constituents a View of the Imminent Danger of an Unnecessary and Ruinous War. Addressed to his Excellency, James Sullivan, Governor of the State. Boston, March 9, 1809.

explained the proclamation of neutrality. As Columbus and as Barneveldt he denounced and held up to public condemnation the conduct of Citizen Genet. Services of this sort were not to go unrewarded, and in 1794 Washington sent him to Holland as Minister Resident at the Hague. From Holland he was soon ordered to repair to Portugal, but, before he started, the order was countermanded, and he went as Minister to Berlin. On the defeat of his father and the fall of the Federal party from power, he once more came back to Boston, was made a commissioner in bankruptcy, was promptly removed from the office by Jefferson, and in 1802 took his seat in the State Senate. From there, a year later, he was sent to the Senate of the United States.

His conduct on the chief question then before Congress was of a piece with his conduct on every public question on which he ever had a voice. For what might be Federal doctrine, or Republican doctrine, as to the purchase of Louisiana he cared nothing. But, considering the measure aside from politics, he declared the acquisition of the territory most desirable and the manner of the acquisition most unconstitutional. An amendment of the Constitution legalizing the purchase was therefore, in his opinion, necessary. When, however, he moved for a committee to consider such an amendment, not a Senator present would second him. From that moment he ceased to be counted a Federalist, and became a man without a party. Now his vote was with the Federalists, now it was cast for some favorite measure of the Republicans. Always, and under all circumstances, it was determined by his own independent judgment. He supported the purchase of Louisiana. He voted for the acquittal of Pickering and Chase. He introduced resolutions condemning impressment and the right of search. He voted for non-intercourse. He took part with both Republicans and Federalists in their Boston meetings on the Chesapeake affair. He was a member of the committee that reported the Embargo Bill, and he spoke and voted for it. He had now committed the unpardonable sin, and the Federalists cast him out with loathing and contempt. Yet his career did not by any means seem ended. The Republicans had of late years made great gains in Massachusetts. The

1808.

DISTRESS OF THE SAILORS.

289

embargo was not yet felt in all its severity, and, if Adams was to be defeated, something must be done to turn every Federalist against him. This Pickering undertook to do, and did with his letter. It became the campaign document of the hour. Sullivan made haste to answer it; but his ill-temper defeated his purpose. Adams answered it with spirit and courage. But Pickering triumphed. The election was carried, and on June third, 1808, the General Court chose James Lloyd, Jr., a Senator to succeed Adams.* The insult was marked, for the choice of a successor might well have been put off till the Legislature met in January, 1809. On June eighth Adams resigned, and the next day Lloyd was elected to fill his unexpired term. †

Long before this time, however, the embargo began to be felt, and felt seriously. In the large shipping towns business of every kind fell off, and soon utterly ceased. The ropewalks were deserted. The sail-makers were idle. The shipwrights and the draymen had scarcely anything to do. Pitch and tar, hemp and flour, bacon, salt fish, and flaxseed became drugs upon the shippers' hands. But the greatest sufferers of all were the sailors. In Boston one hundred of them bearing a flag went in procession to the Government house demanding work or bread. The Governor told them he could do nothing for them, and they went off. Some sharpers next took up their cause, and sent to the selectmen a petition bearing the names of one hundred and ten sailors. The selectmen sent it to the General Court, and the General Court chose a committee to meet twenty-five of the signers. Six came to the meeting. From them it appeared that the petition had been drawn by an unknown man; that he sat at an open window, and whenever a sailor went by called him in and made him put down his name, or, if he could not write, put it down for him. As more than a third of the names were thus obtained, the petition was not heeded. At New York the Common Council thought for a time of employing the sailors to

* In the Senate Adams had 17; Lloyd, 21. In the House Adams received 213; Lloyd, 248.

The term of Adams ended March 4, 1809.

VOL. III.-20

grade the streets, cut down hills, and fill up swamps and deep lots. But a better arrangement was finally made with the officer in command of the Navy Yard. The sailors were to sign articles to remain in the service of the United States during their own pleasure, and do such work as the commanding officer should prescribe. The Common Council were to find food, grog, fuel, candles, and pay. The sailors, who had a wholesome dread of the discipline of the navy, at first declared they had rather starve than sign; but when the Common Council promised they should not be trepanned, great numbers made haste to sign. In Philadelphia a band of seamen with a flag paraded the streets, drew up before the State House, and sent a committee in to see the Mayor. The Mayor assured them he had no power to grant any relief, told them such conduct was highly improper, and ordered the flag put away. When this was done he went out, spoke a few words, and advised them to seek help from the Chamber of Commerce, which immediately took up the consideration of the best way to employ the idle sailors, and soon had them at work making canvas, rope, coarse mats, oakum, gaskets, and points.

The Republican newspapers praised this conduct as most patriotic; but the Federal journals ascribed it entirely to fear. Every one knew that sailors were a bold, reckless, lawdefying set. They were not filled with that love of France so often shown by the philosophic President. They were not inclined to starve in idleness at home in order that the cause of Napoleon Bonaparte might flourish abroad. It was well, therefore, to feed and pet them, lest, cold, hungry, and mad with rum, they should rise, man their ships, and set at naught not only the embargo, but even Mr. Jefferson's gun-boats, so carefully drawn up along the coast. Quieting the sailors, however, would do but little good. The ship-chandlers, and sailmakers, and rope-walkers, the merchants and the shop-keepers, would quickly feel the blight, and, long before spring came, the farmers would be crying out that their produce did not bring a cent. Then would come failure to pay the interest on their mortgages, and the Sheriff would next be busy in every State dispossessing men who, but for the embargo, would have been growing richer day by day. Embargoes, the Federal

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"O-GRAB-ME" POLICY.

291

writers would say, have hitherto been laid for some good purpose to catch sailors to man a fleet; to keep intelligence of an intended expedition from reaching an enemy; but never before has an embargo been laid to keep ships of a neutral nation from falling into the enemy's hands. The act is foolish and premature. Is an occasional loss by seizure to be compared with the sure and universal loss by embargo? Suppose that, instead of the articles of our commerce being shut up in ports without the smallest prospect of a market, they had been suffered to go to Europe and the Indies. What then would have happened? Two ships in a hundred would probably have been seized by the French. Some would reach Europe and meet a fine market. Others would go to England, get a license to sail to a Baltic or an Adriatic port, and there sell at great profit the flaxseed, the tobacco, the rice, which now lies rotting on a hundred wharves while the notes given in payment are protested at the Exchange. Can any man in his senses believe for one minute that the embargo is anything else than a blow aimed at the commerce of New England and the maritime greatness of our country? "The act ought," said one writer, "to be called the 'Dambargo." said another, "delights in the hides so well his secret wishes. have the phrase, 'O-grab-me.' read backward, and you have the Jeffersonian injunction, 'Go bar 'em.' Transpose the seven letters of the word, and you will have what the embargo will soon produce, 'mobrage.'"*

"Our President," measure because the name Read it backward, and you Divide it into syllables and

The squibs written on the embargo were countless, and, bad as they were, a few specimens deserve to be given:

Why is the embargo like sickness?

Because it weakens us.

Why is it like a whirlwind?

Because we can't tell certainly where it came from or where it is going; it knocks some down, breaks others, and turns everything topsy-turvy.

Why is it like hydrophobia?

Because it makes us dread the water.

If you spell it backward what does it say?

O grab me !