1810. THE RAMBOUILLET DECREE. 367 of Holland, and of Spain, because (and the reason was not founded on fact) French ships had been confiscated in America. What Napoleon would do with the ships he held Cadore did not attempt to say. But Armstrong was not left long in doubt. In March he was informed that the Emperor had ordered those in Spain to be sold. In May he received a copy of the Rambouillet decree. The cause of the decree was distinctly declared to be the Non-intercourse Act of 1809; and after the provisions of that act the provisions of the decree were modelled. The act prescribed that after May twentieth, 1809, no ship of France should enter any port of the United States. The decree prescribed that the ports of France and of countries subject to France should be considered as having been closed to the ships of the United States on May twentieth, 1809. The act prescribed that if any French ship did enter a port of the United States after May twentieth, it should be seized and confiscated. The decree prescribed that every vessel bearing the American flag which had, since May twentieth, 1809, entered a port of France, or of any colony of France, or of any country occupied by the army of France, or might enter there hereafter, was to be sold and the money placed in the "caisse de l'amortissement." Though signed in March,* the public knew nothing of it till May. By that time ships and cargoes to the value of ten millions of dollars had been seized in France, Spain, Holland, and Naples, and under it were soon condemned and sold.‡ This high-handed robbery was at its height when, toward the end of June copies of the Gazette of the United States containing the Macon act of May first, 1810, reached Paris. No communication on the subject had then come from the State Department to Armstrong. He took a Gazette, however, and sent it to Cadore, with the assurance that the text of the Macon act as therein printed might be considered as official. *March 23, 1810. + May 14, 1810. American State Papers, Foreign Affairs, vol. iii, p. 384. In France, fifty-one ships; in Spain, forty-four ships; in Naples, twentyeight ships; in Holland, eleven. The value of the one hundred and thirty-four exceeded four million dollars. The previous seizures at Antwerp and in Spain were valued at six millions. Napoleon could hardly have finished reading the act before his decision was made. He would accept the offer of the United States. He would promise to revoke his decrees without ever intending to do so, and he would, meanwhile, admit just enough American goods to relieve that distress of the manufacturers of which Cadore had complained. He could not have supposed that such conduct would influence Great Britain in the slightest. Indeed, it was not intended to. His purpose was to regain that control of our commercial affairs which he had lost by the decrees of Berlin and Milan, and to embroil us still further in our dispute with Great Britain. Within a week from the time Cadore received the Gazette a new decree issued restoring trade in a limited degree with France.* Under certain restrictions thirty American vessels were to be suffered to bring cotton, oil, dye-wood, salt fish, codfish, and peltry from the United States to France. But they must bring these goods and no others; they must come from the ports of Charleston or New York, and no others; they must take in exchange for their cargo French wines, French brandy, silks and linen cloths made in French looms, and jewelry and household furniture made in French factories; and each captain, to prove that he came from Charleston or New York, must bring a newspaper published in the city from which he sailed on the day he sailed; and a certificate from the French Consul with a sentence written in cipher. Cadore next addressed to Armstrong a letter † with the comfortable assurance that on the first day of November the decrees of Berlin and Milan would cease to be in force if, by that time, Great Britain had repealed her orders in council or the United States had caused her "rights to be respected by the English." This was the intelligence which, one morning in August, 1810, Pinkney read in the London Times. With as little delay as possible he laid it before Lord Wellesley and begged to be allowed to assure his Government that the orders in council of 1807 and of April, 1809, were revoked. In the reply *July 15, 1810. American State Papers, Foreign Affairs, vol. iii, p. 400. † August 5, 1810. August 18, 1810. 1810. NON-INTERCOURSE THREATENED. 369 Pinkney was reminded that, two years before,* a promise had been given that England would abandon her system of orders when France abandoned her system of decrees; and that when the Berlin and Milan decrees had really been revoked, when the commerce of neutrals was really free, his Majesty would gladly make the promise good. To move Wellesley from this position, to persuade him that France was really sincere, to convince him that the decrees would be revoked, was impossible. Indeed, he would not so much as return an answer. Nor is it likely that he could have answered if he would. He had quarrelled with his colleagues. His colleagues returned his hate a hundred fold. Public business was at a standstill; the old King for the last time went insane, and when November first came the whole Government was in dire confusion. On November second Madison put forth his proclamation, and three months' notice was served on Great Britain. Just a week before he had by another proclamation served what might well have been called a notice of ejectment on Spain. The downfall of the Spanish monarchy and the establishment of Joseph Bonaparte on the throne had been followed by revolt or by symptoms of revolt in almost every province of Spanish America. Encouraged by Great Britain, the people of Buenos Ayres rose in rebellion and drove out the viceroy appointed by the Supreme Junta of Spain. The people of Caracas quickly followed, and before midsummer Venezuela and New Granada and Mexico were in open revolt and signs of coming trouble were manifest in Cuba and West Florida. In West Florida the first district to feel the influence of the revolutionary spirit was New Feliciana, which lay along the Mississippi river just across the American boundary line of thirty-one degrees. Into it, since the purchase of Louisiana, had come hundreds of Englishmen, Spaniards, and renegade Americans, chiefly land speculators, deserters from the army, and men fleeing from debt. Seeing in the confusion spreading through all the Spanish provinces a fine opportunity to free themselves from the arbitrary rule of Spain, they began to agitate for *February 23, 1808. + Wellesley to Pinkney, August 31, 1810. American State Papers, Foreign Affairs, vol. iii, p. 366. VOL. III.-25 what they called a settled government, which meant a government of their own making, issued a call for a convention, and chose four delegates. Baton Rouge, St. Helena, and Tanchipaho responded to the call. The Governor, Don Carlos Dehault Delassus, gave his consent, and late in July the delegates met at St. John's Plains.* They sat with closed doors,† and, after deliberating two days, informed the Governor that they had chosen a committee to frame a plan of government and had adjourned to the second Monday in August. From such information as can now be gathered, it seems that the people were of three minds. Some wanted an independent government. These were the men of New Feliciana. Some were for standing by Ferdinand Seventh. But the great mass of the people were for annexation to the United States.# In this they were heartily supported by the press of Kentucky and Tennessee, which clamored loudly for meetings to express the sentiments of the people. If, said the news writers, the United States does not take West Florida, Great Britain will. And if Great Britain takes it, will the people of these States, of Mississippi Territory, of the Territories of Louisiana and Indiana, stand tamely by and see themselves again cut off from access to the Gulf and from trade on the Atlantic? Those who wished for a separate government drew up and circulated a plan, It was a curious mixture of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, and was intended to be temporary. No laws, no contracts then in force, no officers of the militia, were to be disturbed. But a government, consisting of a governor, a secretary of state, and three councillors of state, chosen by the people, was to be established. All executive power was to be vested in the Governor; all legislative powers in the three councillors, and within three years a convention was to meet at Baton Rouge and frame a constitution. Mild as this was, it was much too radical, and when the convention reassembled in August the delegates were content to suggest a few reforms, which Delassus approved and prom * Democratic Clarion and Tennessee Gazette, August 3, 1810. Democratic Clarion, August 24, 1810. #Democratic Clarion, August 3, 1810. 1810. REVOLUTION IN WEST FLORIDA. 371 ised to put into execution. They recommended a provisional government in the name of Spain; courts of justice as much like those of the United States as Spanish law would allow, a militia, land offices, naturalization of aliens, and a printing press under the control of the Supreme Court. To such a government the men who wished for independence and the men who wished for annexation to the United States vowed they would never submit, and soon had a declaration of independence, a standing army of one hundred and four men, a lone-star flag, a State, a constitution, and a president of their own. Delassus having failed to carry out the promised reforms, the convention on the twenty-second of September, under pressure from the malcontents, commanded Philemon Thomas to take the Spanish fort at Baton Rouge. Hastily collecting a crowd of boatmen, Thomas hurried to the fort, then defended by twenty half-sick and worthless men under the command of Louis Grandpré. Grandpré refusing to surrender, the Americans stormed the works, and, finding him standing, sword in hand, the solitary defender of his flag, they basely cut him down at the foot of the staff.* Among the prisoners was Governor Delassus. On hearing of the success of their general, the convention declared West Florida a free and independent State,† and bade John Rhea, its president, offer terms of annexation to the United States. The terms he named were that West Florida should be admitted into the Union as a State, or as a Territory, with leave to govern itself, or at least as part of Orleans; that it should be left in full possession of its public lands, and that one hundred thousand dollars should be loaned to it by the United States. The reply of Madison to the offer of annexation was a proclamation taking possession of the territory in the name of the United States and annexing it to Orleans, and an order to the Governor of Orleans to see to it that the proclamation was carried out. Claiborne was then at Washington. But he was sent at once in the utmost haste by the shortest route to Wash *September 23, 1810. American State Papers, Foreign Affairs, vol. iii, p. 396. |