Federalist journals had a black list of fifteen ships confiscated in American ports under what they called Gallatin's decree.

The event of the campaign, however, was the Federalist meeting at Faneuil Hall on the Sunday night before election day. Upward of five thousand are said to have been present, and these, after listening to earnest speeches, adopted a long series of resolutions. Nothing, they said, in our foreign relations could justify the late conduct of the Government. The French decrees were not repealed. The offers of France to relax them were deceptive. The act of March was unjust, oppressive, and tyrannical. It tended to ruin and impoverish some of the most industrious and meritorious citizens of the commonwealth. The only means, short of an appeal to force, to prevent such a calamity was the election of men to the various offices in the State government who would "oppose by peaceable but firm measures the execution of laws which, if persisted in, must and would be resisted." *

There was little in these sentiments to call for remark. The tone was not new to New England. They were uttered by excited men, on the eve of a hotly contested election, against the administration which had, in their belief, robbed them of their money, goods, and ships. Yet when the election was over and Gerry had won, he took up the resolutions and in a long speech before the General Court answered them in detail. The Federalist press answered him. The Republican newspapers replied, and an event of purely local importance became for a time an event of general interest. His speech was in bad taste. The charges had been answered at the polls, where the Republicans carried everything. The governorship was theirs by three thousand majority. The Assembly was theirs by a majority of twenty-two, and for the first time in the history of their party they secured a majority of the Senate. The triumph was indeed a real one, for it enabled the Republicans to send Joseph B. Varnum to the Senate

*New England Palladium, April 5, 1811. The threat of resistance called forth a pamphlet, Resistance to the Laws of the United States; considered in Four Letters to the Hon. Harrison Gray Otis, Esq., late President of the Senate of Massachusetts. By Leolin. Boston, 1811.

Columbian Centinel, June 8, 1811.

1811.

"THE PLUNDERING ACT."

423

of the United States in place of Timothy Pickering, whose term had expired, and, at a critical moment in our history, made Massachusetts a Republican State.

The excitement in New England did not go down with the spring election. As the summer wore on, the distress caused by the Plundering Act-so the Federalists nicknamed the Non-importation Law-threatened to renew the scenes of the O-grab-me days. The working of this law and the fearful penalties it entailed may be illustrated by a single case. The ship Lothair had sailed from Liverpool for Boston on the fifteenth of February. The Plundering Act had not then been passed. She ought, therefore, by civilized usage to have been exempt. By the ruling of Gallatin's circular, however, she fell under the law and incurred the fines and forfeitures prescribed by the fifth and sixth sections of the revised act of 1809. These were of three kinds. In the first place, the owner or owners of the cargo forfeited their goods and three times the value of the goods. In the second place, the owner of the vessel forfeited his craft and three times the value of the cargo. In the third place, the master of the Lothair was subject to a fine of three times the value of the cargo. The ship was worth twelve thousand dollars; the cargo was appraised at four hundred thousand dollars, and the total fine laid on captain, ship-owner, and importers was four millions and twelve thousand dollars ! * For what crime was this terrible punishment visited upon her? She had left England two weeks before the act under which she suffered had been passed. Injustice so gross was too much for the judge, who gladly took refuge in the fact that she had cleared out on the last day of January, and released her. No such mercy was

shown to ships clearing three days later. That such fines should be laid on ships which at any time sailed in ignorance of the law was bad enough. But that they should be imposed on vessels leaving port before the law existed was declared to be simply infamous. Seizures, however, went on, and by the middle of May forty-four informations were advertised for trial in Boston alone.

What took place in Boston on a large scale took place on a smaller scale in every port of entry along the coast. At New Haven the merchants appointed a committee to correspond with the neighboring towns and petitioned Madison to call Congress together. They told him that they were deeply engaged in the West India trade. Their exports had been sent out the previous autumn, had been sold on credit, and were to be paid for in produce when the crops were marketed in March or April. Under the Non-importation Law these crops could not come in at all. They reminded him of the suffering this brought down on them, on the ship-owners, and on the seamen, and asked by what constitutional authority the law was passed. He should remember that "cutting off trade" was one of the grievances mentioned in the Declaration of Independence; and that one of the objects of the revolution was the establishment of trade. Possibly he might not think commercial distress extraordinary enough to justify an extra session of Congress. But how was it with the behavior of France? Did not her refusal to revoke her decrees after solemnly promising to do so make a session necessary

*

Madison assured the merchants that the Plundering Act was a regulation, not a destruction, of commerce, and perfectly constitutional; that it was always the fate of a few to suffer for the good of all, and that the Berlin and Milan decrees, so far as the United States was concerned, were repealed.† Against this statement the Federalists brought up four stubborn facts. The first was the report of Cadore to Napoleon, t

*May 4, 1811. Columbian Centinel, May 11, 1811.

May 24, 1811. True American, June 17, 1811.

"Sire, aussi long-temps que l'Angleterre persistera dans ses arrêts du conseil V. M. persistera dans ses décrets. Elle opposera au blocus des côtes le blocus continental, et au pillage sur les mers le confiscation des marchandises anglaises

1811.

DECREES NOT REVOKED.

425

which they read in the newspapers early in February,* and which declared that the decrees should not be revoked while England maintained her blockade. The second was the report made to the French Senate on the annexation of the Hanse Towns to the empire. The chairman of the committee was the Comte de Semonville, and in his report he said: "The decrees of Berlin and Milan are the reply to the orders in council of Britain. Europe receives these decrees as her code, and that code shall be the palladium of the seas." The third was the speech of Napoleon to the Deputies of the Hanse Towns-Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen-in which he distinctly averred that "the decrees of Berlin and Milan are the fundamental laws of my empire. . . . England is in a state of blockade as to those nations which submit to the orders of 1806." # This was made public in the newspapers about the middle of May. The fourth was the language used by Napoleon to the merchants and bankers who came to congratulate him on the birth of a son. The rambling and excited way in which he spoke, the threats which he made against the whole world, led many who were present to write down from memory what he said. Several reports, differing in details but agreeing in the main, were soon travelling over Europe. That which reached America and was read by the people early in June contained the words: "The decrees of Berlin and Milan are the fundamental laws of my empire. The fate of American commerce will soon be decided. I will

sur le continent." Rapport du ministre des relations extérieures à S. M. l'Empéreur et Roi. Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel, 15 Décembre 1810. *Columbian Centinel, February 2, 1811.

"Ce jour est arrivé; les décrets de Berlin et de Milan sont la réponse aux arrêts du conseil. Le cabinet britannique les a, pour ainsi dire, dictés à la France. L'Europe les reçoit pour son code, et ce code sera la palladium de la liberté des mers." Gazette Nationale ou Le Moniteur Universel, 17 Décembre 1810.

True American, April 5, 1811.

# "Les décrets de Berlin et de Milan sont la loi fondamentale de mon empire. Ils ne cessent d'avoir leur effet que pour les nations que defendant leur souverainete et maintiennent la religion de leur pavillon. L'Angleterre est en état de blocus pour les nations qui se soumittent aux arrêts de 1806." Le Moniteur Universel, 20 Mars 1811.

Columbian Centinel, May 15, 1811.

favor it if the United States conform to these decrees. In a contrary case their ships will be driven from my empire."* Here is a mass of evidence, the Federalists triumphantly exclaimed, which cannot be gainsaid. Out of the mouth of Napoleon and his officials do we judge France.

Such evidence was indeed most embarrassing; but it must be explained away, and the duty of making such explanations was laid on the National Intelligencer. Selecting the speech to the bankers and merchants, the editor began by doubting whether it had ever been made. Admitting that it had, he was at a loss to know why it concerned America. What had the people of the United States to do with what Napoleon said to his officers and confidants? Not his chit-chat, but his acts concerned us. His acts, however, seemed to be strangely misunderstood. Many people supposed the decrees of Berlin and Milan had not been revoked. Yet they had been revoked as to the United States, and that was all that could be demanded. True, American ships were seized, but the seizures were made under the municipal laws of France. This was certainly offensive and insulting to us, but it had nothing whatever to do with the Berlin and Milan decrees, which involved abstract principles of blockade.†

At this stage in the quarrel the British frigate Minerva, with Minister Foster on board, dropped anchor in Hampton Roads and then went on to Annapolis. All eyes were now turned on him, and both parties waited anxiously for news from Washington. As the weeks passed and none came, grave fears of a rupture were engendered. Some thought the affair of the Little Belt had proved an obstacle. Some thought the President must have been too unyielding. But not till the National Intelligencer published the proclamation calling Congress together, and gave the reasons for the call, was all hope extinguished. Foreign relations, the Intelligencer informed the people, had made the meeting of Congress necessary. The communications received from Foster did. not come up to the reasonable expectations of the Government. The repeal of the orders in council was made to de

* Aurora, June 5, 1811.

+ National Intelligencer, June 15, 1811.