1808. EMBARGO-BREAKING IN VERMONT. 297 preparations were making to break the embargo, that produce of every sort was being gathered on the lake shore, that timber was being felled, and that the moment the ice was gone great rafts loaded with all the produce raised in Vermont would go down the lake to Canada. To stop this flagrant disregard of law, Jefferson determined to try the effect of a proclamation, declared the country round about Champlain to be the seat of a conspiracy to defeat the execution of the law, described the people as insurgents, and called on them to desist.* St. Albans was the chief town in the region thus put under ban, and there the proclamation gave such great offence that the people in town-meeting answered it. They told the President that stoppage of the ocean trade had ended the sale of potash and lumber in the maritime States; that the men he was pleased to accuse of forming insurrections had then opened a trade with Canada lest they should suffer for the very necessaries of life; that, as the purpose of the embargo was the protection of American seamen, ships, and goods on the high seas, they were at a loss to know why land trade had been embargoed; that they were astonished to be called in a state of insurrection, and that they wished the act of March twelfth might be suspended. While the President was writing his proclamation the House was considering the fitness of giving him power to do just what the men of St. Albans requested. On the eighth of April George Washington Campbell, Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, rose in his place and reminded the House that the end of the session was near at hand. What might happen before they met again no one could say. A change might take place in the conduct of Great Britain and France. The orders and decrees might be revoked, and he therefore moved to give the President power in such an event to suspend the embargo till Congress met again. The resolution was sent to the Committee of the Whole. A long and rambling debate followed from day to day till April nineteenth, when a bill came down from the Senate providing for * Proclamation of April 19, 1808. Statutes at Large of the United States. Annals of Congress, 1808-1809, p. 580. the very power the House was hesitating to grant. The resolution of Campbell was instantly dropped, the Senate bill was passed, and the President authorized, if he saw fit, to suspend the embargo till twenty days after the next session of Congress began. The chance of using this power was small indeed, and five days later Jefferson signed a third Supplementary Embargo Bill more stringent than any that had gone before. The greed of a South Carolina shipper had brought to light a new and unsuspected way of smuggling. Having loaded his ship with five hundred hogsheads at Charleston, he offered bonds and applied for a clearance to carry that quantity of New England rum to New Orleans. Astounded at so large a shipment of New England rum from Charleston, the Collector sent an inspector to find out what it meant. Then the truth came out. The hogsheads were full of rice. The rice was to be taken to Havana, sold, and a cargo of rum bought and carried to New Orleans. There the Collector would certify that the rum had been landed, and the certificate taken back to Charleston would release the bond. To meet such cases it was now provided that no ship could get a clearance unless the loading was done in the presence of a revenue officer, nor sail to any port of the United States near foreign territory without special permission from the President, nor sail to any port whatever if the Collector thought the intention of the captain was to evade the embargo laws. Foreign-owned vessels were forbidden to go from port to port of the United States. Collectors were commanded to seize unusual deposits of food and lumber in ports adjacent to foreign soil. Commanders of public armed vessels and gun-boats, and masters of revenue boats and cutters, were bidden to stop and search any vessel belonging to American citizens they might believe to be engaged in illegal traffic. No boat or ship of any kind, large or small, could navigate any bay or river, sound or lake, packets and ferry-boats alone excepted, till a manifest of the cargo had been given to a collector or surveyor and a clearance obtained The cost of this clearance was fixed at twenty cents. The act went into force on the twenty-fifth, and a few 1808. WORK OF THE TENTH CONGRESS. 299 hours later the tenth Congress rose. In the last moments of the session, when all business was over, an incident occurred which, trivial as it seems, was the outcome of a rapidly-growing sentiment, and, some months later, was repeated in the Legislature of almost every State in the Union. William Bibb, of Georgia, moved that "the members of the House of Representatives will appear at their next meeting clothed in the manufacture of their own country." A dozen fierce Republicans attacked him. Macon, of Georgia, declared, with much heat, that Congress had nothing to do with the clothing of its members; that the resolution could never be enforced; that if it were a pledge he would not give it; and that if it were a law he would not obey it. John Rhea, of Tennessee, told the House that he, too, would wear such clothes as suited him. Eppes, of Virginia, defended the resolution as likely to encourage a kind of independence greatly needed. But the opposition was so savage that Bibb withdrew the motion, and the members went home. Fifty-eight acts had been passed. Among them are eight of much importance. One provided for the building of one hundred and eighty-eight gun-boats.* Another set apart one million dollars for the defence of the ports and harbors of the United States. A third continued. the Mediterranean fund. A fourth appropriated half a million for the purchase of arms, saltpetre, and sulphur.# A fifth ordered a hundred thousand militia of the States to be in readiness" to march at a moment's notice." A sixth empowered the President to sell arms to the States. By a seventh the regular army was increased by five regiments of infantry, one of riflemen, one of light artillery, and one of light dragoons to serve for five years. ◊ The eighth continued in force the old act of 1805 for the preservation of peace in the harbors of the United States. I The supplementary embargo of April fell with peculiar severity on men whose business it was to supply the large *Act approved December 18, 1807. The sum appropriated was $852,500. † Act approved January 8, 1808. Act approved January 17, 1808. #Act approved March 11, 1808. | Act approved March 30, 1808. A Act approved April 2, 1808. towns with provisions. Up the East river, some ten miles from New York, lived a miller whose custom it was to buy wheat in the city, carry it on his own boat to his mill, and bring back the flour in the same manner to New York. But under the new law every trip to the city became a source of endless expense and annoyance. Before he could roll a barrel into his boat he must go to New York, obtain a clearance, and give bonds to bring the flour to that city. As soon as it was landed he must get a certificate from the inspector, and with this repair to the Custom-House to prevent the forfeiture of his bond of two hundred dollars for each ton of his boat. Under this same bond he might then obtain leave to buy a certain quantity of wheat and carry it to his mill. Once there, he must go before a magistrate, six miles away, and pay a good round fee for a certificate stating that the wheat had really been landed at the mill, and this he must bring back to the Collector in New York within thirty days, or else his bond was forfeited. Harder still was the fate of the men at Greenwich, a little town some thirty miles up Long Island Sound. The farmers thereabout supplied New York with lamb, veal, poultry, and potatoes, which eight small craft were constantly busy in carrying to the city. By the new law the owners of these vessels were now required to clear at the Custom-House and give bonds to land their potatoes in New York. But Greenwich lay within the jurisdiction of the Collector at Fairfield. Fairfield was twenty miles away, and this journey they were forced to make before each trip to get their clearance and their bonds. When they came back they were again forced to make the same journey to present their certificates of landing at New York, and have their bonds cancelled. As each boat made two trips a week, the owners spent most of their time on the road between Fairfield and Greenwich. Lest the act should not prove stringent enough, the President followed it up with a circular addressed by the Secretary of the Treasury to the Collectors of Customs. No more shipments of flaxseed, of pot and pearl ashes, of lumber, of naval stores, of flour, or food of any kind were to be allowed unless undoubtedly wanted for consumption at the place they were 1808. FLOUR CERTIFICATES. 301 shipped to. He could see no reason why flour should go from one port to another on Chesapeake Bay; or from any port whatever to the Delaware or Hudson rivers. The restriction on flour fell most heavily on Massachusetts, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Georgia, and the Territory of Orleans, for the flour made in these regions was far short of the amount consumed. Jefferson therefore addressed a circular letter to the Governors, suffering them to grant permits to respectable merchants to bring in so much flour as might be needed to prevent a bread famine.* Federalists declared that the Governors sold this right, nicknamed the permits "Presidential Bulls and Indulgences," and called the men who used them "Patent Merchants" and "O-grab-me Pets." That the Governors sold them is undoubtedly false; but the charge was firmly believed and obtained some color of truth by the plentifulness of the permits. Indeed, those granted by James Sullivan, who governed Massachusetts, soon became as much an article of commerce as government scrip or bank stock. Any man who had rendered him a political service, or could call him a friend, had but to go to the Government-House in order to come away with a license for a hundred, or five hundred, or a thousand barrels in his pocket. These were promptly sent to New York or Philadelphia, or any port where flour had accumulated, and there sold to the highest bidders, who took good care to make the shipments so slowly that the price in Boston did not fall. By the fourth of July the permits issued by Governor Sullivan amounted to fifty thousand barrels of flour and one hundred thousand bushels of corn. Gallatin in alarm complained to Jefferson, who at once wrote to Sullivan to stop importing provisions.† The Governor was a Republican; but he was also a New England man, and, catching the spirit there prevailing, he declined to obey, and sent back a long dissertation on the diet of the people of Massachusetts. The seaport towns, he explained, were supplied with bread almost. 317. * Jefferson to the Governors of Orleans, etc., May 6, 1808. Jefferson to James Sullivan, July 16, 1808. Jefferson's Works, vol. v, p. Sullivan to Jefferson, July 23, 1808. |