ister has become a classic in our diplomatic history. Merry considered it a deliberate insult and wrote home to that effect. The further actions of Jefferson and Madison lend color to this sinister interpretation. Shortly after the presentation of Merry, the President gave a dinner in his honor, at which he further offended Merry's sense of fitness by walking out with one of the cabinet ladies instead of Mrs. Merry. Contrary to all custom in the case of nations at war, he especially invited Pichon to the dinner to witness the discomfiture of his rival. Yet Pichon's report of the incident, in spite of satisfaction at Jefferson's rude treatment of the British minister, betrays a wounded amour propre. As himself a member of the diplomatic corps, he could not be indifferent to slights imposed upon his fellow members. As if all this were not enough, the Secretary of State followed the President's example by a dinner at which Mrs. Merry was again slighted. Her husband's cup of wrath brimmed full. The only explanation he could see was that Jefferson intended war."

In truth, like many others, the injured minister much over-estimated the President's belligerency. Tactless as the expression of it proved to be, the theory which underlay the President's apparent rudeness was democracy, it being the Jeffersonian opinion that since one gentleman was as good as another, rules of precedence for entering rooms or sitting down at table were no better than an insult. Jefferson was determined to express the nation's sovereignty by prescribing his own rule of "pell mell," as he called it. The courts of Europe might impose within their own borders such etiquette as they chose. America must equally determine her own conduct. There was, however, in this action of the mild-mannered Jefferson more than a hint of that screaming of the eagle long destined to bring the country into disrepute abroad.

Granting the right to our own system, the manner of its promulgation left much to be desired. Certainly nothing was to be gained in the intercourse of nations by failing to inform the British minister of the principles determining 17 Adams, Henry, Op. Cit. II, 361-377.

the government's policy until two months of injury and insult had brought him to a permanent hostility. Nor, in the face of centuries of diplomatic precedent, was it easy to reconcile the haughty Yrujo to equality with his own chargé. Pichon, too, found little to admire in these new evidences of republican simplicity. And Turreau, his successor, was eager to set the wild Republicans within their proper bounds. On the whole, it boded ill for Jefferson's second term that in the first he should so completely have antagonized the agents of all those Powers on whom our welfare most depended.

Nor was it advantageous to the government that the serious internal problems confronting it in 1804 should tempt the foreign ministers to intrigue. Disgruntled Federalists found a natural friend in Merry the aggrieved. The minister's despatches indicate a close acquaintance with New England in 1804 and its incipient movement for secession. Burr also found in him a friend. Merry was not the only foreign minister interested in the possibilities of Louisiana. The hostility of the province to Claiborne, its American governor, and the demand from New Orleans for equal rights of citizenship made cheerful items in the news budgets of Turreau and Yrujo. Burr's overtures to Merry, like Wilkinson's to Yrujo, seemed to warrant serious consideration. Burr had the talents to justify a British subsidy for his Louisiana project. Was he sufficiently reliable to deserve it? 18

When Monroe reported to London as successor to Rufus King, the ministry of Addington had fallen, and William Pitt, once more in power, was infusing a new energy into British life. The navy was affected most of all, and old issues of desertion, American citizenship papers, and impressment were arousing new antagonisms. The change in atmosphere was sensed at once by Monroe who, unaware of the indignities endured by Merry, was amazed at the gruffness of the British minister.

The commercial privileges in the treaty of 1794 were 18 Adams, Henry, Op. Cit. II, 395, 402-403, 408.

just expiring. Monroe's instructions called for their renewal, together with a complete renunciation of impressment and the right of search. To these latter demands the government of Pitt would not assent. On the contrary Lord Harrowby, the foreign minister, declared it a great favor that the treaty as it stood in 1794 should be renewed. Conditions were thus deadlocked when Monroe set out for an eight months' absence in France and Spain, leaving a secretary to guard the interests of America. Before his departure, however, he gave to Jefferson full warning of the new spirit in control at London. British concerns, the President might well foresee, must needs be reckoned with in the next four years.19

One ray of light shone through the gathering clouds. Jefferson, whose scheme of world coöperation against the Barbary pirates had broken down after the manner of cooperative ventures in a world of competition, had now the supreme satisfaction of seeing his Commodores Preble and Barron and a band of younger heroes humble the Bashaw of Tripoli, and pave the way for a peace in which in utter disregard of precedent no pledge was made of tribute. To Tobias Lear, American agent at Algiers, who was sent to Tripoli for this special negotiation, fell the honor of harvesting for the pacific Jefferson these early laurels of American sea power.

20

Beyond a doubt, the real glory of the administration of Thomas Jefferson was in the paths of peace. Fortuitous though the Purchase may have been, and haphazard though negotiations were in detail, the key to Jefferson's diplomacy no less at first than later was his unwearying desire for peace. If the Louisiana Purchase was the harvest, and the severest tests came later, it is none the less true that in success as well as failure, the quest for peace obscures the minor inconsistencies of the most versatile of men, and gives to his career a fundamental unity. So long as Jefferson should rule, the purposes of America were peaceful.

19 Ibid. II, 422.

20 An account of these events constitutes one of the most cheerful passages in Jefferson's Fifth Annual Message.

N

CHAPTER VII

PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES

GROWING EMBARRASSMENTS

OTWITHSTANDING the peaceful intentions of the administration, its desire for Florida, and the irritations thus created, made war or a substitute for war inevitable. The unhappy precursors of the crisis were a series of humiliations perhaps unavoidable, but not the less embarrassing.

The forerunner of the storm came properly enough from Spain, whose causes for hostility were undeniably well founded. On Monroe's arrival, he and Pinckney, the resident minister, jointly presented their demands. These Cevallos, foreign minister under Godoy and Charles IV, examined and refuted with a leisure as exasperating as his logic. Florida, he asserted, required no further arguments. As for the western boundary of Louisiana, a line drawn midway between the furthest settlements of France and Spain would represent it best and would at the same time give to Spain the western portion of the present state of Louisiana. Commercial claims should count for nothing. The monarchy had more reason to complain of American tirades and abuse than had Americans of the temporary and partial closing of the Mississippi after they had enjoyed its commerce for four years beyond the time allotted in the treaty. As for the French claims, both Spain and the United States were barred by Talleyrand from their consideration.1

Having teased Monroe along through fruitless months, Cevallos gladly sped the parting guest upon his way to England. Absent in the critical period of Pitt's return to power

1 Adams, Henry, History of the United States of America (New York, 1921), III, 24-36.

and change of front, Monroe arrived at London just as a celebrated opinion on the Essex case was handed down. The Essex was a ship of American registry sailing from Barcelona, Spain, to Salem, Massachusetts, and from there to Havana, Cuba. The stop at Salem was intended only to give an American character to the trade, for Americans might not, according to the Rule of 1756, take advantage of war conditions to trade directly between Spain and a colony from which in times of peace they would have been excluded. According to America's contention, circuitous voyage and reshipment of cargo, with a payment of duties at an American port, legalized the trade. It had become a common practice, and Great Britain tacitly accepted it. As Professor William E. Lingelbach has shown, however, she never gave it formal sanction. Accordingly when the British seized the Essex, the Rule of 1756 came up for re-examination. The decision to confiscate the Essex did not reverse a policy. It simply reaffirmed it. The case hung fire from August, 1803, to May, 1805. When finally adjudicated the doctrine of the broken voyage became no longer tenable, and American ships in great numbers were exposed to seizure. Lord Grenville and other liberals condemned the British practice of seizure and confiscation as a degradation of the national character. Indeed it was not far removed from piracy. Thus the Essex case of 1805 was a breeder of ill will between the Anglo-Saxon nations.*

It should be remembered, however, in the interest of justice and fair understanding, that the Essex decision and the extensive seizures of American vessels following upon it, were not aimed wholly at the United States as such. Great Britain was at death's grips with Napoleon in a conflict not less menacing to the Empire and to her national existence than the war of 1914 to 1918. British policy first and foremost was accordingly directed toward Napoleon. What promised injury to him was worthy of a trial. Neutral trade helped furnish him equipment. To cut off neutral commerce was to handicap Napoleon. If these restrictions 2 Lingelbach, William E., Op. Cit.