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1809.

MONTICELLO.

337

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cordingly singled out to be the recipients of high honors. dine "the virtuous minority," to toast "the virtuous minority," became the delight of the Federalists of every city in which they could be induced to stop. From the moment Congress rose, the homeward journey of Pickering, of Quincy, of the New England delegation, became one long ovation. At Washington, at Baltimore, at Philadelphia, at New York, at New Haven, at Boston, the feasts given in their honor were the talk of the day.

When Pickering and his companions were about to begin their journey eastward, from one triumphant reception to another, Jefferson mounted his horse and made his way through snow and sleet to his beloved Monticello. Of all the houses yet built by man none surely was so much a part of the owner. What the shell is to the tortoise, all that was Monticello to Jefferson. The structure had grown with his growth, and bore all over it the marks of his individuality and curious inventive genius. The plan, the strange mixture of styles and orders, the bricks that formed the walls, the nails that held down the floors, much of the furniture, was the work of his own brain, or the manufacture of his own slaves. It was in the fittings and furnishings of his home, however, that the mechanical bent of his mind found free play, and carried him close to the bounds of eccentricity. On the top of the house was a weather-vane, which marked the direction of the wind on a dial placed beneath the roof of the porch. Over the main doorway hung a great clock, with one face for the porch and another for the hall. Cannon-balls were its weights, and one of them, as it passed down the wall, turned over each morning a metal plate inscribed with the day of the week. Not a sleeping-room contained a bedstead. Deep alcoves in the walls, with wooden frames for the mattresses, did duty instead. His own apartment was separated from that of his wife by two partitions, wide apart. Through these was cut an archway, taken up with the frame which supported the bed. One side of the bed was thus in the room of Mrs. Jefferson, and the other in the room of her husband. Above this archway was a closet, where in winter were stored the summer clothes and in summer the winter clothes of the entire family.

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In his library were his "whirligig chair," his tables with revolving tops, and one with extension legs, to be used for writing in any position, sitting or standing. Trivial as these things seem, they are not to be forgotten in any attempt to judge the man.

1809.

MADISON'S SECRETARIES.

339

CHAPTER XX.

DRIFTING INTO WAR.

THE sage, as the Republican journals now called Thomas Jefferson, having, as they expressed it, "retired to the shades of Monticello," the administration of Madison began in earnest. To aid and advise in the work that lay before him, Madison selected four men to be secretaries. To William Eustis, who had been a hospital surgeon during the Revolution, and a practising physician and member of Congress since the Revolution, was intrusted the Department of War. Paul Hamilton, who had once been a Governor of South Carolina, was put in charge of the few sloops and frigates and the great fleet of gun-boats that made the navy. Robert Smith, of Maryland, became Secretary of State. To describe this man as the free choice of Madison would be unjust to the President. He was forced into the Cabinet by that faction of the Senate which hated Gallatin and looked for leadership to Duane of the Aurora, and to Senators Giles and Samuel Smith. They had begun by demanding for him the Secretaryship of the Treasury, and Madison had thought for a while of giving way. But Gallatin would accept no other place; Madison could not spare him, and Smith was given the Department of State. Vain, talkative, wanting in discretion, ignorant of the duties of his post, he was wholly unfit for the great office, and in a few weeks the President was forced to add to the duties of an Executive the duties of a Secretary of State.

The letters which Erskine despatched to Canning in November and December, 1808, had produced the wished-for effect, and on January twenty-third, 1809, Canning wrote his reply. He could not see, he said, either in the assurances of

the Secretaries or in the debates in Congress, any sign of a better feeling toward England. Yet he would, at Erskine's suggestion, issue new instructions in two despatches of the same date. This was done because Erskine was sure that when Great Britain withdrew her orders in council of January and November, 1807, the United States would withdraw her restrictions against Great Britain, leaving them in force against France; because he was sure that the United States was willing to give up all claims to a colonial trade in time of war which she did not enjoy in time of peace; and because he was very sure that, in order to carry out the embargo and stop American citizens trading with France, Great Britain would be free to capture American ships engaged in such trade. The first instruction gave Erskine leave to offer reparation for the Chesapeake affair. But he was on no account to do so till a proclamation had been issued shutting the ports to French as well as English ships-of-war. Then, and not before, he might disavow the orders of Admiral Berkeley, offer to return the men taken from the deck of the Chesapeake, and promise compensation to the widows and children of those who had fallen in that shameful fight. But he was charged, and the charge was most explicit, flatly to refuse any demand for further censure on Admiral Berkeley. The Admiral had been recalled, and recall was punishment enough. Indeed, further censure was impossible, for, only a few weeks before the despatch was written, the Admiral had been given a new command, far more honorable than the old, of which he had been deprived in America. Looking on the disavowal and the return of the sailors as concessions, Canning expected that the United States would also make concessions, and what these should be he undertook to say. There must be a disavowal of Captain Barron's enlistment of British deserters, a disavowal of all the outrages perpetrated on English property and Englishmen in consequence of the Chesapeake-Leopard fight, and a promise not to countenance in any way desertions from the English army or navy.

The second despatch was concerned with the orders in council of January and November, 1807. These, Erskine was to inform the United States, would be recalled on three con

1809.

THE AGREEMENT WITH ERSKINE.

341

ditions. The three were: That all commercial restrictions of every kind-embargo laws, non-intercourse acts, non-importation acts, proclamations shutting the ports to ships-of-warmust be kept in force against France and repealed as to England; that all claims to a carrying trade in time of war not enjoyed in time of peace must be renounced; and that Great Britain should have the right to seize any American ship found violating the commercial restrictions against France. These accepted, Erskine was to promise that a minister should be sent to Washington with full power to consign them to a regular treaty. To do this would require time, and time, as Canning knew, was to be taken thought of. The United States might wish to act at once. The United States might wish to again enjoy without delay the benefits of the old trade with England and with the English colonies. If so, Erskine was empowered to agree that, whenever the United States should take off her restrictions against England, England would recall her orders in council as to the United States.

In

These despatches came early in April, and for two weeks the conditions and the offers were fully debated. Then, all being decided, three pairs of formal notes were drawn up, a proclamation written, and the whole made public in a National Intelligencer" Extra." The first note was from Erskine, and bore date April seventeenth. His Majesty, the note set forth, had been informed of the disposition shown by Congress to treat Great Britain in precisely the same way as she treated the other belligerent powers. His Majesty had thereupon commanded that, when Great Britain was so treated, offers of reparation should be made for the attack on the Chesapeake. the opinion of Erskine, the act of March first, repealing the embargo, laying non-intercourse, and shutting French ships from our ports, put Great Britain and the belligerents on an equal footing. He was ready, therefore, to disavow the conduct of Admiral Berkeley, to restore the sailors taken from the Chesapeake, and to make proper provision for the families of the slain. Canning's letter bade him say that the offer of money to the families of the killed was an act of "spontaneous generosity" on the part of the King. But Erskine departed from his instructions, dropped the words "spontaneous gener

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