1812, 1813, and 1814. The ordinary expenses for 1812 would, the report stated, be something over nine millions, could be paid out of the receipts and the surplus, and leave a trifle in the Treasury. The extraordinary expenses would be eleven millions, and should be met by a loan. The public-debt account would need nearly six millions, which the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund should borrow. In 1813 there would be a deficit of something over six and in 1814 of something over seven millions, and these must be made good by taxation. The new taxes-the war-taxes as they came to be called-were to be of three great classes: duties of import and tonnage, internal duties, and a direct tax of three millions. The first class should comprise an additional duty of one hundred per cent. on imported goods, wares, and merchandise, a new tonnage duty, an increase of twenty-five per cent. in drawbacks on exported goods, and a duty on salt. The internal duties should be laid on licenses to distil liquors from foreign materials, on licenses to retail wines, spirits, and foreign goods, on sales at auction of foreign goods, on sugars refined, on pleasure carriages, and a stamp-tax fashioned on the hated stamp-tax of John Adams. A bill to raise eleven millions by loan bearing six per cent. interest and payable in twelve years passed at once without trouble, and by a majority of sixty-three. The remaining suggestions were then reported by the Committee of the, Whole to the House in the form of resolutions. All went well with them till the resolution to tax salt was reached, when a violent clamor was raised. Representatives from the middle country complained that it would fall on them and not on the people of the seaboard or the West. Along the Atlantic coast the farmer did not need to salt his cattle. In the West were many salt-works which supplied the people at ten cents per bushel. The farmers in the middle country had no such resource, and by them the proposed tax of twenty cents a bushel on imported salt would be paid. This was unjust. This was admitted to be so, but they were told not to look at any one tax. They should look at the whole system of taxation. The salt-tax would undoubtedly bear a little heavy on one part of the community, the tonnageduty on another, the spirit-tax on another, the carriage-tax and 1812. WAR TAXES. 443 the stamp-tax on yet others. But, taking the system as a compromise, it was as fair and equal as any that could be produced. The majority were now divided on geographical grounds; the spirit of sectionalism was rife, and the resolution to tax salt was lost by three votes. So bitter was the feeling of the South against the East and West that a motion was made to change the whiskey-tax from a tax on the capacity of the still to a tax of twenty-five cents a gallon. Clay ruled that the motion was out of order. All propositions to raise revenue must, he said, be first discussed in Committee of the Whole. The House then adjourned from Friday to Monday. During the recess every effort was made by the war leaders to close the breach and win back their majority. Southern members were told that the system of taxation proposed was one of compromise and concession. It must stand or fall as a whole. If the salt-tax were rejected because it would press heavily on the people of the South, the land-tax would have to be rejected because it would press heavily on the people of the West, and the system would go to pieces. So successful were these arguments that when the House met again a reconsideration of the vote was moved, carried, and a resolution to tax salt passed by twelve majority. But the Republicans were far from united. Again a motion was made to recommit the resolution relating to the liquor-tax in order that whiskey might be taxed at twenty-five cents the gallon. Had this been done, the Maryland fruit-grower, who distilled his two, three, or four thousand gallons of apple brandy, would have to pay five dollars into the Treasury, but the rye-growing farmer of Pennsylvania, of Virginia, of Kentucky, who distilled four thousand gallons of whiskey, would have to pay one thousand dollars into the Treasury. The gross injustice of this distinction, and the meanness of the spirit which prompted it, compelled the member from Maryland to withdraw his motion from very shame, and the resolution passed as the committee had reported it. On March fourth, all the resolutions having been passed, the committee was instructed to report by bill. It was resolved at the same time that none of these taxes should be laid unless war actually began, that none should continue longer than one year after peace, and that each State might assume and pay so much of the direct tax as fell to its share. With the help of the Federalists the war Republicans had now dragged Congress to the pass where it must decide, and decide quickly, the question of war or peace. That the question of war could not be raised with any hope of success in the present temper of the House was apparent. It was with the utmost difficulty, and with all the help the Federalists gave, that enough votes could be had to carry through what little legislation had been accomplished. It was certain that many Republicans who had voted for a regular army they did not believe could ever be enlisted; who had voted for volunteers that would never cross the border; for manning frigates that could never quit our harbors; for taxes not to be laid till war began would shrink from an open declaration of war. What the Federalists would do was most uncertain. They had, it was true, voted for war measures. But they had been silent in debate and had given no reason whatever for the votes they cast. That the aim of this conduct was to embarrass the administration was no secret. But that they would actually go so far as to declare war on their old friend and ally seemed hardly reasonable. Yet such was their intention. Silent as they were in debate, they were talkative enough in the closet of the English Minister. To him they told all-that they would vote for a declaration because they saw no end to commercial restrictions save in war; that the war would not last nine months; that the Republicans would before that time be turned out; and that the Federalists, having everything their own way, would then make a solid peace with England.* Of this the war leaders knew nothing, and, in the hope of rousing a strong war spirit in that wing of the party most lacking in it, Madison and his advisers decided to make use of some papers fortune had thrown in their way. Late in the autumn of 1811 a ship reached Boston bearing two men known to their fellow-passengers as John Henry and Count Edward de Crillon. Each had a grievance. Crillon, who traced descent from one of the oldest families in the French * Foster to Wellesley, December 11, 1811. 1812. THE HENRY LETTERS. 445 nobility, who owned great estates in Lebeur near the Spanish border, who was connected by marriage with the Maréchal Duc d'Istrie, the favorite of Napoleon, had been so unhappy as to incur the anger of the Emperor and had fled to England. Henry was the man who in the winter of 1808 travelled through New England and sent back to the GovernorGeneral of Canada long accounts of the angry feelings of the Federalists. For this he had been rewarded by the late Gov-. ernor Sir James Craig. But, thinking the reward far beneath his deserts, he went to London and there demanded thirty-two thousand pounds. At London he was treated with great distinction, was received in the highest circles, was complimented with a ticket as member of the Pitt Club, and in the course of his social pleasures fell in with Count Edward de Crillon. From Government, however, he could get nothing more than a recommendation to Sir George Prevost, Governor of Canada, and the offer of a passage to Halifax in a ship-of-war. Enraged at this treatment and burning for revenge, he determined to return to the United States, took passage in a ship bound for Boston, and on going to Ryde to await its arrival, again met Count Crillon. The Count also was bound for America on the same ship. But head winds detained her for eight weeks in the Downs. During this time, and on the voyage over, a strong friendship sprang up between the two. Crillon expressed the greatest sympathy for Henry, urged him to sell his papers to the United States, and offered to enlist the services of Serurier in his behalf. On reaching Boston, Crillon accordingly wrote to the French Minister and told the story of Henry and his papers. No notice was taken of his letter, and Crillon came to Washington, called on Serurier, and by him was sent to Monroe. The price asked for the letters was one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. The sum offered was fifty thousand. Henry was then called from Boston, and, after extorting a promise that his papers should not be given to the public till he was safe at sea, sold them. On the tenth of February the money was paid partly out of the contingent fund for foreign intercourse and partly out of the contingent fund of the * History of the People of the United States, vol. iii, pp. 285-286. Department of State.* The next stage which left Washington carried off John Henry on his way to New York. Thence he was to sail on the very first vessel, merchantman or ship-of-war, that left the port for France where he was to take possession of a fine estate he had purchased from Crillon. It was on Saturday, the seventh of March, that Monroe learned that Henry was really off for Europe. On Monday, the ninth, the letters were laid before Congress.t First in the series was a note from Secretary Ryland, ex'pressing the Governor's high appreciation of Henry's work during the winter of 1808 and inviting him to undertake another mission to Boston during the winter of 1809. Then came the instructions. Henry was to study the state of public opinion on politics and on the prospect of war, find out the true strength of the two great parties, and which was likely to prevail. It was supposed that if the Federalists came back to power in New England they would seek to break up the Union. In that event would the leaders look to England for help? If so, all communications with the Governor of Canada were to go through the hands of Henry. It is needless to say that the mission was accepted, and long letters written from Burlington, from Windsor, from Amherst, and from Boston. The excitement over the Force Act and the embargo was then at its height. Gathering his impressions of public feeling from the rumors and the angry talk he heard at the village taverns on the way, he represents the people as ripe for rebellion. He declares that the Governor of Vermont will not call out the troops to enforce the embargo, and that in case of war he will keep his State neutral. But the Federalists, he predicts, seek an alliance with England. As he passed through New Hampshire what he heard convinced him that war was near. At Boston he remained till the proclamation of Madison announcing the Erskine agreement led to his recall. Yet his letters contain nothing of the slightest importance. No names are mentioned, no facts are stated, no accounts of the condition of public feeling are given which could not have been written by * Copies of the two checks may be seen in the True American, March 21, 1812. Annals of Congress, 1811-1812, pp. 1162-1181. |