surer, the sailor, the ship-owner if one of the unqualified assertions is true. And when they tell you, as they surely will tell you, No, then ask yourself if such a mass of falsehoods warrants a naked declaration of war. You are told that the voice

of the people is for war. But the present maladministrators of affairs will find before the year ends that they have sadly mistaken the voice of the people. That voice is not for war. It is loud for peace. The shouts which they hear is the clamor of empty heads, of unsound hearts, of office-holders, levellers, bawling for place. The war hawks tell you that the war is one for the redress of grievances. It is nothing of the kind. It is waged in the hope of conquering Canada, of forever ruining the growing commerce of New England, of helping Napoleon in his attempt to break in pieces the empire of Great Britain. You are basely sold to the tyrant of France. You are bound and covenanted to aid him in all his wicked schemes. Were this the worst, we might, perhaps, endure it. We might, perhaps, bring ourselves to behold with remorse and shame the spectacle of the republic of the New World united in close union with the destroyer of the republics of the Old World. But this is not the worst, for to humiliation must soon be added ruin. Our enemy is the greatest maritime power that has ever been on earth, and to her we offer the most tempting prizes. Our merchantmen are on every sea. Our rich cities lie along the Atlantic seaboard close to the water's edge. And to defend these from the cruisers of Great Britain we are to have an army of raw recruits yet to be raised and a navy of gunboats now stranded on the beaches and frigates that have long been rotting in the slime of the Potomac."

received in many places Bells were tolled, shops

In New England the news was with public manifestations of grief. were shut, business was suspended, and in some of the seaports flags on the embargoed shipping were put at half-mast. Expecting a violent outburst of wrath, the Massachusetts Senate endeavored to rouse Republicans by a strong address in favor of war.

The people were reminded how, in a time of profound peace, when no disputes over territory aroused her avarice, when no army and no navy awakened her jealousy, when every

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OPPOSITION TO WAR.

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merchant seemed intent on feeding her subjects and filling her coffers till they overflowed, Great Britain had wantonly heaped untold injuries on the citizens of the United States. How our merchants were hunted from the seas; how their property was taken; how their ships were boarded; how their seamen were dragged into bondage of the most cruel kind. How, eager for peace, the people of America had sought it with every sacrifice. How they had borne without murmuring injuries that were slight and had remonstrated only against those that were great; how they forbore till forbearance became shameful and then quit the ocean in the hope that a spirit of moderation would follow the spirit of violence and rapine. How they were chased to their very shores of their country and outrages done them in the waters of their harbors and bays. How spies were sent into their cities to plot with the malcontents for the overthrow of the Government. How the savages were incited to take up the tomahawk and fall upon the frontier towns. How, driven to it, the constituted authorities of the United States had at last declared war for the protection of commerce, for the defence of the citizens, for the preservation of our republican form of government.

The enemies of the republic, the people were assured, had seized on this crisis as a fitting time for attempting to tear the Union apart. This was made plain by declarations from responsible sources; by intrigues held with an authorized British spy; by a settled determination to hinder the Government in waging the war forced upon it. But this opposition, it was insisted, must now stop. The duty of every man was to give a warm support to Government, rally under committees of public safety in every town, district, and plantation, and, if need be, join the militia and be ready to march at a moment's notice to the sea.

The people, however, were determined to give no such support. All over Massachusetts town-meeting after townmeeting was held to denounce the war. The men of Salem had framed a petition to Congress begging that war might not be declared, and were on the point of sending it off when they heard that the evil they so much dreaded had actually come. They now threw aside the petition and sent a strong remon

strance to the General Court. Well they might be alarmed, for eight hundred of their townsmen were on the sea. Newbury described the war as brought on the country by French intrigue and as offering no reasonable hope of success. Newburyport used language stronger still, and pronounced the war ruinous, costly, and mad; the death-blow to liberty, the last struggle of the last republic under the sun. Lancaster was sure the war could bring nothing but an enormous debt, unparalleled taxation, and the giving up of the few maritime rights the country still possessed. Shrewsbury would not only withhold all aid, but would spare no pains to show up and condemn the folly of the measure. From Gloucester, from Sterling, from Longmeadow, came resolutions of a like kind. At Dedham on the fourth of July Jefferson was toasted as Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to walk in sin. Madison was Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, who walked in the way of his father and in his sin. The ministers almost to a man were against the war and suffered no Sabbath to pass by without a sermon on its iniquity. The text of one was, "I am for peace"; another preached on the words, "With good advice make war"; a third strove to answer the call, “Watchman, what of the night?" a fourth labored hard to convince his congregation that "If a kingdom be divided against itself that kingdom cannot stand." When the day set apart for fasting, humiliation, and prayer came, the denunciations of the ministers were stronger than ever, and their sermons, printed as pamphlets, were scattered by thousands over the country.

And now between the great parties, the Republicans intent on a vigorous prosecution of the war and the Federalists determined to give no aid or countenance to the war, there appeared a third party which assumed the name of Friends of Commerce and of Peace. On the fourth of July, while the Federalists of Dedham were toasting Jefferson and Madison as Jeroboam and Nadab, a convention of the Friends of Peace from every county in New Jersey met at Trenton, framed an address, and began the organization of the party. They declared peace to be most necessary, asserted that it could not be secured till the Republicans were driven from power, and called a new convention to meet in August and name electors

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BALTIMORE RIOTS.

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of a President and Vice-President on a peace ticket. Two days later the Friends of Peace in Pennsylvania met at Carlisle, drew up a memorial against war and embargoes, and sent a hundred copies through the State for signature. In Virginia a few Federalists of Fauquier County assembled and denounced the war. At Baltimore the expression of such opinion was

not tolerated.

There was at that time published at Baltimore a newspaper called the Federal Republican. The editor in chief was Jacob Wagner, who had as his assistant a young man named Alexander C. Hanson. Wagner had served as chief clerk in the State Department from the time of Pickering to the time of Madison, and was a Federalist of the black cockade school. As such he had denounced the administration and the war with a savage bitterness which roused the deadly hatred of the Democrats. Long before the war was declared this conduct had called forth fierce replies in the newspapers, and had led numbers of distinguished characters to say that, if it were continued after war was declared, the Federal Republican should be silenced. The denunciation was continued, and on the evening of June twentieth a well-organized mob destroyed the type, smashed the presses, and pulled down the building in which the Federal Republican was printed. Made bold by success, the mob rose again the next night, scoured the city in search of men whom they hated, sacked another private house, hurried to the docks, stripped two vessels ready for sea, burned the house of a free negro, and were about to fire the African church when they were scattered by a troop of horse.

On the night the mob pulled down the printing-house Hanson was not in Baltimore. But he was quickly informed of the fact by John Howard Payne, known to every Englishspeaking people as the author of "Home, Sweet Home." He urged Hanson not to be downed by the mob, but to go on with his paper, assert that liberty of the press of which every Republican from Jefferson down to the lowest demagogue had prated so persistently, and, if need be, defend it with arms. After many consultations with their friends, the editors decided to print the Federal Republican at Georgetown, where the press and types would be safe, and issue it from the house

lately occupied by Wagner in Baltimore. Knowing that trouble would follow, the building was at once turned into a small fort. Arms were gathered. Food was laid in. Barricades were made ready for the windows and doors, and a garrison of some twenty friends collected. In command were two old soldiers of revolutionary fame-General James Maccubin Lingan and "Light Horse Harry" Lee. On July twenty-seventh copies of the paper arrived and were distributed. That night the mob rose in force, pelted the house with stones, beat in the door, brought up a cannon, and were about to blow the building to pieces, when the Mayor and the commander of the militia effected a compromise. The garrison were to surrender. The mob were to do no further harm to life or property. The terms were accepted. The prisoners were marched to jail and the house instantly gutted. During the following night the jail was stormed. Eight of the prisoners mingled with the mob and escaped in the darkness. Nine were taken, dragged to the door, where a butcher beat them down with a club and flung their bodies in a pile at the foot of the steps. The crowd now fell on the senseless bodies, beat them with clubs, thrust pen-knives into their cheeks, and poured candlegrease into their eyes, and finally gave them to the jail doctor to make skeletons of. It was then found that Lingan was dead, and Lee a cripple for life. Some of the others were hidden in hay-carts and sent to friends out of town. Others, too badly hurt to be moved, were cared for at the jail hospital.*

Concerning this shameful riot at Baltimore the Republican newspapers had little to say, and that little was generally praise. But the Federal newspapers had much to say. They reminded their readers of the days of the Sedition Law; of the violence with which the Republicans then cried out for free speech and a free press; how it was then declared to be the duty of every patriot to watch the acts of the servants of the people, and

*

My account of the conduct of the mob is taken from the affidavits of the survivors of the garrison. True American, August 18, 19, 1812. Report of the Joint Committee of both branches of the City Council to the Mayor of Baltimore. Aurora, August 11, 1812; also, Testimony taken before the Committee of Grievances and Courts of Justice, relative to the late Riots and Mobs in the City of Baltimore.