President Jefferson’s policy had been to keep the army and navy upon the cheapest footing compatible with a due regard to the public good. It was now evident that these arms of the public service must be materially strengthened, in order to secure the national safety, and the President asked Congress to augment the number and efficiency of the regular army. They did so. The measure was opposed by the Federalists, but a bill to raise seven regiments passed by a vote of ninety-eight to sixteen. Other provisions for war followed. The sum of $1,000,000 was placed at the disposal of the President for the erection of coast and harbor defenses. Another sum of $300,000 was appropriated for the purchase of arms, and $150,000 for saltpetre. The President was also authorized to call upon the governors of the several states to form an army, in the aggregate, of one hundred thousand militia, to be immediately organized, equipped, and "held in readiness to march at a moment’s warning" when called for by the Chief Magistrate. He was also authorized to construct arsenals and armories at his discretion; the sum of $200,000 was placed at his disposal for providing arms and military equipments for the whole body of the militia of the republic; and about a million of dollars were appropriated to pay the first year’s expenses of the seven new regiments. The government appropriated altogether about $5,000,000 for war purposes. 1

Efforts were made to increase the efficiency of the navy by adding to the few seamen already in the service twelve hundred and seventy-two additional men, to put on board the gun-boats then completed or in process of construction. In December [1807.] the President had been authorized to procure one hundred and eighty-eight additional gun-boats by purchase or construction, making, in all, two hundred and fifty-seven. 2 Mr. Jefferson’s idea appears to have been to have these boats in readiness, properly distributed, but not actually manned until necessity should call for their being put into commission. This proposition excited much ridicule, not only among naval officers, but among the people at large. 3 The whole gun-boat system was denounced as "wasteful imbecility, called by the name of economy," and Jefferson was pointed at as a dreaming philosopher without a whit of military knowledge, as evinced when Governor of Virginia in 1781. 4

There seemed to be, for reasons quite inexplicable, a most violent hostility to a navy, especially at the South. A member (Mr. Williams) from South Carolina said that he "was at a loss to find terms sufficiently expressive of his abhorrence of a navy. He would go a great deal farther to see it burned than to extinguish the fire. It was a curse to the country, and had never been any thing else. Navies had deceived the hopes of every country which had relied upon them." He affirmed that the people were willing to give commerce all the protection in their power, "but they could not provide a navy for that purpose." Others opposed a navy because it might be a measure for increasing Executive patronage; and no act was passed or appropriation made, either for the employment of more men, or for the placing in commission any additional vessels, until January, 1809, when the President was directed to equip the United States, 44, President, 44, Essex, 32, and John Adams, 24, the latter vessel having been cut down from a frigate to a sloop of war. 5

Meanwhile events were transpiring on both sides of the Atlantic, apparently tending to a general abandonment of the policy of the Orders, Decrees, and Embargo. The able Inquiry of Mr. Baring concerning the orders in Council, already cited, made a powerful impression upon the mercantile classes of England. He had fully exposed the inexpediency and injustice of the measures, and nobly vindicated the character and conduct of the Americans. Some of the late Cabinet associates of Mr. Fox denounced those orders as both inexpedient and unjust; and petitions for their repeal, numerously signed by the merchants and manufacturers of Hull, Manchester, Liverpool, and London, were presented to the house of Lords on the 17th and 21st of March [1808.], while a bill affirming the action of the Privy Council in the matter was pending. Henry Brougham, an eminent barrister, was the advocate of the petitioners, and was heard with profound attention, on the 6th of April, in that body of peers of the realm of which, a little more than twenty years afterward, he became a distinguished member. 6 Already, in the month of March, resolutions moved against them by Lords Erskine, St. John, Holland, and Lauderdale, and a protest signed by the Earls of Lauderdale, King, and Albermarle, had prepared the way for Brougham’s argument. These documents contained, within their brief limits, close and sound arguments on the whole subject. The motion of Erskine discussed the illegality of the new system in a constitutional view. Lord St. John’s treated of its repugnance to the law of nations. Lord Holland’s set forth with great clearness its effects upon British intercourse with foreign nations; and Lord Lauderdale’s motion showed its prejudicial tendency to British commerce in general. The protest of the three peers named discussed more particularly the consequences on the cotton trade. 7 But the efforts of these statesmen and the array of facts set forth in the minutes of evidence taken at the bar of the House of Lords, before a Committee of the whole House, on the subject of the orders, 8 were insufficient to move the majority, and the ministry triumphed. The bill affirming the action of the Council and making it permanent was passed, and Parliament fixed the amount of tribute in the form of "transit duties," just referred to, which neutrals must pay to England for permission to navigate the ocean without fear of sea-robbers.

But the President had already taken some measures in the direction of repeal. As early as the close of April [April 31 (sic. – WDC; 06/17/2001.)] he had sent instructions to Pinkney in London and Armstrong in Paris, authorizing them to offer a repeal of the Embargo on certain conditions. To England such repeal was offered on condition of her recalling her orders in Council. To France Armstrong appears to have offered, in addition to a repeal of the Embargo Act, a declaration of war against Great Britain in the event of her not recalling her offensive orders after the Emperor should have withdrawn his Berlin, Milan, and Bayonne decrees. 9

Canning spoke for his government in a very courteous but extremely sarcastic note, assuring Mr. Pinkney of the kindly feeling of his majesty toward the United States, but expressing his unwillingness to change the policy involved in those orders, under the present aspect of the case. He could not see the impartiality of the Embargo which Mr. Pinkney claimed; 10 nor did his majesty feel inclined to recall his orders while the proclamation of the President concerning the interdiction of British ships of war in American waters remained in full force. 11 He alluded to the timeliness of the Embargo in assisting France in her blockade of Europe, but expressed an unwillingness to believe that the Americans intended, or could have any interest in "the subversion of the British power." 12 The letter concluded with a hope that a perfect understanding between the two governments might be maintained. But its tone was so ironical – so disingenuous and uncandid – so full of the spirit of a selfish strong man in his dealings with a weak one, that it irritated the American minister to whom it was addressed, and the administration that made the overture, not a little.

At home the Embargo Act met with the most violent opposition in various forms. It was talked against and acted against, especially by the leaders of the opposition in the Eastern States. They excited a very strong sectional feeling by calling it sometimes a "Virginia measure," at others a "Southern measure," and at all times a "subserviency to French dictation." They declared that it was a blow aimed intentionally at the prosperity of New England, she having greatly the preponderance in commercial and navigating interests; and that, while the whole country felt the injury inflicted by the Embargo Act more than England or France, that injury fell mostly upon the Eastern States. This deceptive statement, made chiefly for political effect, was contradicted by the commercial statistics of the United States. 13

Infractions of the Embargo were open and frequent all along the New England coast, for the magistrates winked at them; and smuggling became so general, especially by way of Lake Champlain, that the first active services of the newly-created army were enforcements of the laws on the Northern frontier, under the direction of Wilkinson, while gun-boats were sent into several of the Eastern ports for the same purpose. The leaders of the opposition, hoping to break down the Democratic party, made the Embargo Law as odious as possible, cast obstacles in the way of its execution, and used every means to induce England to believe that it was so unpopular that it would be speedily repealed in the face of the continuance of her orders in Council. "They are now playing a game," the President wrote, "of the most mischievous tendency, without perhaps being themselves aware of it. They are endeavoring to convince England that we suffer more from the Embargo than they do, and if they will but hold out a while we must abandon it. It is true, the time will come when we must abandon it. But if this is before the repeal of the orders in Council, we must abandon it only for a state of war. The day is not distant when that will be preferable to a longer continuance of the Embargo. But we can never remove that, and let our vessels go out and be taken under these orders, without making reprisals. Yet this is the very state of things which these Federal monarchists are endeavoring to bring about; and in this it is but too possible they may succeed. But the fact is, if we have war with England, it will be solely produced by these manœuvres." 14

An "Anglican party," a mere political myth in former years, was now a practical reality. 15

Another form of opposition to the Embargo was a declaration of several eminent lawyers of Massachusetts that it was unconstitutional; and very soon the doctrine of the Virginia nullifiers, as put forth in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798, so decidedly condemned by the Federalists as tending directly to disunion, was speedily proclaimed by that same party all over New England as being orthodox. When it was known that the party was defeated, and that Madison was elected President, the unpatriotic cry of disunion was heard throughout New England, in the deceptive accents of proclamations that a state, as such, has a right to declare void any act of the National Congress that might be deemed unconstitutional. That doctrine was as boldly proclaimed in the Eastern States as it had been in Virginia and the South ten years before. 16 The arguments used by the Virginia nullifiers and secessionists in 1798 against the Alien and Sedition laws were used in New England in 1808 against the Embargo laws. Happily we are far enough removed from the din of that old conflict of parties to view the contest dispassionately, and perceive that we can, with just charity, declare that these New England leaders were no more real disunionists at heart than were Jefferson and Madison, and that both parties, having confidence in the people, ventured to use dangerous weapons in their partisan strife for the supremacy, feeling, as Jefferson said in his inaugural address, already cited, that there was safety in tolerating a great error "when reason is left free to combat it."

The policy of the administration being fully sustained, more stringent measures for enforcing the Embargo were adopted. The Enforcing Act, as it was called, caused such opposition and exasperation in New England, that action among the people and in State Legislatures assumed the aspect of incipient rebellion. Then it was that disunion sentiments, just alluded to, were freely uttered in nearly all the region eastward of the longitude of the Hudson River. Many wise men began to regard civil war as possible, if not inevitable. Some weak-kneed members of the administration part in Congress were disturbed by the mutterings of the thunder indicating an approaching tempest, and, for the purpose of pacifying the discontented people, the majority passed an act [January 19, 1809.] appointing the last Monday in May following as the time for the assembling of the new Congress, when a repeal of the Embargo would occur, and the alternative of war with Great Britain be accepted.

This postponement of the repeal and the expressed intention of going to war called forth from Quincy, 17 the Federal leader in the lower House, a most withering, denunciatory speech – a speech that stung the dominant party to the quick, and rankled like a thorn for a long time. He treated their assertion that war would be the alternative of repeal with the most bitter scorn. He had heard enough of that "eternal clamor," he said, and, if he could help it, the old women of the country should no longer be frightened by the unsubstantial bugbear. He taunted them with cowardice, and declared his conviction that no insult, however gross, that might be offered by France or Great Britain, could force the majority into a declaration of war. "To use a coarse but common expression," he said, "they could not be kicked into a war." He declared that all the officers for the new army were partisans of the administration. "If the intention had been," he said, "to unite the nation as one man against a foreign enemy, is not this the last policy which any administration ought ever to have adopted? Is not a party army the most dreadful and detestable of all engines, the most likely to awaken suspicions and to inspire discontent?" He then sneered at the idea of going to war with England – the great maritime power of the world – with "but one frigate and five sloops in commission," while the administration had not "resolution enough to meet the expenses of the paltry little navy rotting in the Potomac!"

Yet, when Joseph Story, the afterward eminent jurist, with a broader statesmanship, a wiser forecast, and a true national patriotism, suggested a fleet of fifty fast-sailing frigates for the protection of all the industrial interests of the United States, and the support of the dignity and independence of the government, scarcely a man was to be found from the region southward of the Delaware to second his views; and Williams declared that if the rights of America were only so to be saved, he was for abandoning them at once. "Impatient as he was to fight for the rights of the cotton-growers, he had not the least idea of going to war for the rights of ship-owners. While urging the navigating interest to submit quietly to destruction, in hopes of forcing a wider market for cotton, he declaimed with the most perfect unconsciousness about the self-sacrifice of the South and the selfishness of the North!" 18 – a most untruthful and ungenerous assertion, which has been constantly repeated ever since by unscrupulous demagogues for selfish purposes, to the material injury of the whole country, and especially of the slave-labor states.

Mr. Erskine had made such representations to his government that Mr. Canning instructed him to offer to propose to the Americans a reciprocal repeal of all the prohibitory laws upon certain conditions. But these conditions were so partial to England – requiring the Americans to submit to the detested "rule of 1756," and to allow British cruisers to capture all American vessels attempting to trade with France – that they were rejected. But an arrangement was speedily made, by which, upon the orders in Council being recalled, the President should issue a proclamation declaring a restoration of commercial intercourse with Great Britain, but leaving all restrictive laws against France in full force. Mr. Erskine offered, in addition, reparation for the insult and injury in the case of the Chesapeake, and also assured the American government that Great Britain would immediately send over an envoy extraordinary "invested with full powers to conclude a treaty on all points of the relations between the two governments." This arrangement was completed on the 18th of April [1809.]. On the following day the Secretary of State received a note from Mr. Erskine, saying, "I am authorized to declare that his majesty’s orders in Council of January and November, 1807, will have been withdrawn, as respects the United states, on the tenth day of June next." On the same day President Madison (only forty-four days after his inauguration) issued a proclamation [April 19.] declaring that trade with Great Britain might be renewed after the tenth day of the following June. 19

The joy of the Americans was brief. On the 31st of July Mr. Erskine communicated to the President the mortifying fact that his government had refused to affirm his arrangement. This refusal was made ostensibly because the minister had exceeded his instructions, and was not authorized to make any such arrangement. It was charged that this was not the true reason, because the arrangement as made was perfectly just to both parties, and more favorable to England than to the United States. To America it offered simply a repeal of the orders in Council and atonement for the outrage on the Chesapeake; to England it offered a restoration of all the advantages of a vast and valuable commerce, and a continuance of non-intercourse between the United States and France. The most plausible conjectures for the disavowal of an arrangement so desirable were, first, that the implied censure of the British government respecting the conduct of Admiral Berkeley, contained in one of the letters of the Secretary of State to Mr. Erskine, 20 so irritated the old monarch, who had always hated the Americans, that he refused his assent; secondly, that the recent violent proceedings in New England in relation to the enforcement of the Embargo Act deceived the British ministry into the belief that the American government would be compelled by popular clamor to repeal the Embargo, and leave England’s restrictive policy unimpaired. To the comprehension of the writer, the true reason for the rejection may be found in the fact that such an arrangement would interfere in a deep-laid scheme to break up the American Union, by fomenting sectional antagonisms based chiefly upon the clashing of apparently diverse interests. Two years later it was discovered that the British authorities in Canada had an accredited agent in Boston for that purpose, the British government ignorantly supposing the opposition of the Federalists to be real disloyalty. 21 Whatever may have been the true reason for the rejection, the historical fact remains that England spurned the olive-branch so confidingly offered. The orders in Council stood unrepealed, Mr. Erskine was recalled, 22 and a proclamation of the President of the United States, dated 9th of August, 1809, declared the Non-intercourse Act to be again in full force in regard to Great Britain. The British government also issued orders to protect from capture such American vessels as had left the United States in consequence of the President’s proclamation of April preceding.

Francis James Jackson, who had been the British minister at Copenhagen in 1807, succeeded Mr. Erskine. He was an unscrupulous diplomat, and, because of his complicity in the unwarrantable attack by British land and naval forces upon the capital of Denmark in early September, 1807, he was known as "Copenhagen Jackson." 23 The infamy of that affair made every person connected with it odious to the people of the United States. It was a foul blot upon the boasted civilization and Christianity of Great Britain; and the sending of Jackson, who had been a conspicuous actor in the tragedy, as minister to Washington while causes for serious irritation between the two governments existed, was regarded as a meditated insult by the extreme members of the dominant party.

Jackson was received with cool courtesy, but his deportment soon excited the thorough dislike of those with whom he came in contact. He was insolent, irritable, and quarrelsome. He had an unbounded admiration of the greatness of the people he represented, and a corresponding contempt for the people he had been sent to. He regarded the Americans as an inferior people, and treated the officers of government with the hauteur which he had practiced toward weak and bleeding Denmark when he negotiated with her at the mouths of British cannon. His manners were so offensive that, after the second verbal conference with him, Secretary Smith refused any farther correspondence except in writing. The insolent diplomat was offended, and wrote an impudent letter to the secretary. He was soon informed that no farther communications would be received from him. Disappointed and angry, he left Washington, with every member of his diplomatic family, and retired to New York. 24 The American government requested his recall, and early in 1810 he was summoned back to England. But his government manifested the greatest indifference as to its relations with the United States. The request for his recall was received with the most perfect coolness, and no other minister was sent to Washington until early in 1811.

In the early part of 1810 [March.] the President received intimations from abroad that a way was probably opened for a repeal of the restrictive orders and decrees. M. de Champagny (Duke de Cadore), the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, in a letter to Minister Armstrong, said that if England would revoke her blockade against France, the latter would revoke her Berlin Decree. 25 Minister Pinkney, still in London, on receiving this information, approached the British ministry on the subject, and he expressed to his own government his hope that the restrictive measures of the belligerents would be speedily removed. 26 To aid in negotiations to that effect, Congress, on the 1st of May, 1810, repealed the Non-intercourse and Non-importation laws, and substituted an act excluding both British and French armed vessels from the waters of the United States. It farther provided that, in case either Great Britain or France should so revoke or modify its acts before the 3d of March, 1811, as that they should cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States, and if the other nation should not, within three months thereafter, in like manner revoke or modify its edicts, the provisions of the Non-intercourse and Non-importation laws should, at the expiration of the three months, be revived against the nation neglecting or refusing to comply.

Having exhausted all arguments in endeavoring to convince the British ministry of the reality of the French revocation, 27 and to effect a recall of the orders, Mr. Pinkney left England and returned home, satisfied that, while she could sustain herself in the prosecution of the war, she would never yield an iota of her power to oppress the weak. At this very time, spurned as they had been, the United States proceeded to open another door of reconciliation, by an act of Congress providing that, in case at any time "Great Britain should revoke or modify her edicts, as that they shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States, the President of the United States should declare the fact by proclamation, and that the restrictions previously imposed should, from the date of such proclamation, cease and be discontinued." 28

To this friendly proposition England was deaf. She would listen to no appeals to her justice or her magnanimity. For long years she had been the aggressor and the oppressor, and yet she refused to heed the kindly voice of her best friend when it pleaded for simple justice. At that very time she was exercising, by the might of her navy, the most despotic sway upon the ocean, and committing incessant injuries upon a friendly power. She had, at that time, impressed from the crews of American merchant vessels, peaceably navigating the high seas, not less than SIX THOUSAND MARINERS who claimed to be citizens of the United States, and who were denied all opportunity to verify their claims. She had seized and confiscated the commercial property of American citizens to an incalculable amount. She had united in the enormities of France in declaring a great proportion of the terraqueous globe in a state of blockade, effectually chasing the American merchant from the ocean. She had contemptuously disregarded the neutrality of the American territory, and the jurisdiction of the American laws within the waters and harbors of the United States. She was enjoying the emoluments of a surreptitious trade, stained with every species of fraud and corruption {original text has "corrruption".}, which gave to the belligerent powers the advantage of a peace, while the neutral powers were involved in the evils of war. She had, in short, usurped and exercised on the water a tyranny similar to that which her great antagonist had usurped and exercised on the land. And, amid all these proofs of ambition and avarice, she demanded that the victims of her usurpations and her violence should revere her as the sole defender of the rights and liberties of mankind! 29

At about the time when Mr. Pinkney left England, Augustus J. Foster, who had been secretary to the British legation at Washington, was appointed [February 15, 1811.] envoy extraordinary to the United States, charged with the settlement of the affair of the Chesapeake and other matters in dispute between the two governments. 30 He had just fairly entered upon the duties of his peaceful mission, when an event occurred that produced great complications and ill feelings.

Since the favorable arrangement with France, British cruisers hovering upon the American coast had become more and more annoying to commerce. A richly-laden American vessel bound to France had been captured within thirty miles of New York; 31 and early in the month of May a British frigate, supposed to be the Guerriere, Captain Dacres, stopped an American brig only eighteen miles from New York, and a young man, known to be a native of Maine, was taken from her and impressed into the British service. 32 Similar instances had lately occurred, and the government resolved to send out one or two of the new frigates 33 immediately for the protection of the coast trade from the depredators.

The President, Captain Ludlow, was then anchored off Fort Severn, 34 at Annapolis, bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Rodgers, the senior officer of the navy. The commodore was with his family at Havre de Grace, seventy miles distant; 35 the President’s sailing-master was at Baltimore, forty miles distant; her purser and chaplain were at Washington, an equal distance from their posts, and all was listlessness on board the frigate, for no sounds of war were in the air. Suddenly, at three o’clock in the afternoon of the 7th of May, while Captain Ludlow was dining on board the sloop-of-war Argus, lying near the President, the gig was seen, about five miles distant, sailing at the rate of ten miles an hour, with the commodore’s broad pennant flying, denoting that he was on board. 36 Rodgers was soon on the President’s quarter-deck. He had received orders [May 6, 1811.] from his government to put to sea at once in search of the offending British vessel, and on the 10th he weighed anchor and proceeded down the Chesapeake, with the intention of cruising off New York as an inquirer concerning the impressment. He stopped on his way down the bay for munitions, and on the 14th passed the Virginia capes out upon the broad ocean. He lingered there as an observer for a day or two, and at about noon on the 16th, Cape Henry bearing southwest, and distant about forty miles, he discovered a strange sail on the eastern horizon. The squareness of her yards and symmetry of her sails proclaimed her a war vessel. She was bearing toward the President under a heavy press of sail. Thinking she might be the offender, the President stood for the stranger, and at two o’clock displayed her broad pennant 37 and ensign. The stranger made several signals. These were unanswered, and she bore away southward. 38 Anxious to speak with her, Rodgers gave chase. The President gained upon her, and at three in the afternoon was so near that her hull was seen upon the horizon; but the breeze slackened, and night fell upon the waters before the two vessels were near enough to each other to discern their respective characters.

At twenty minutes past eight in the evening the President brought-to on the weather-bow, or a little forward of the beam of the stranger, and, when within about a hundred yards of her, Rodgers hailed, and asked "What ship is that?" No answer was given, but the question was repeated from the stranger, word for word. After a pause of fifteen or twenty seconds Rodgers reiterated his inquiry, and, before he could take his trumpet from his mouth, was answered by a shot that cut off one of the main-top-backstays of his vessel, and lodged in her mainmast. He was about to order a shot in return, when a gun from the second division of his ship was fired. 39 At almost the same instant the antagonist of the President fired three guns in quick succession, and then the rest of her broadside, with musketry. This provocation caused the President to respond by a broadside. "Equally determined," said Rodgers, "not to be the aggressor, or suffer the flag of my country to be insulted with impunity, I gave a general order to fire." 40 In the course of five or six minutes his antagonist was silenced, and the guns of the President ceased firing, the commander having discovered that his assumed enemy was a feeble one in size and armament. But, to the surprise of the Americans, the stranger opened her fire anew in less than five minutes. This was again silenced by the guns of the President, when Rodgers again demanded "What ship is that?" The wind was blowing freshly at the time, and he was able to hear only the words, "His majesty’s ship – " but the name he could not understand. He immediately gave the name of his own vessel, displayed many lights to show his whereabouts in case the disabled ship should need assistance, and bore away.

At dawn the President discovered her antagonist several miles to the leeward, and immediately bore down upon her to offer assistance. Lieutenant Creighton was sent in a boat to learn the names of the vessel and her commander, to ascertain the extent of damage, offer assistance, and to express the regret of the commodore that necessity on his part had led to such results. Lieutenant Creighton brought back the information that the ship was the British sloop-of-war Little Belt, 18, Captain A. B. Bingham, who had been sent to the waters off Charleston, South Carolina, in search of the Guerriere, and, not finding her, was cruising northward for the same purpose, according to his instructions. 41 Captain Bingham politely refused aid, because he did not need it, and sailed away to Halifax, where he reported to "Herbert Sawyer, Esq., Rear-admiral of the Red," the commander-in-chief on the American station. 42 The President proceeded on her voyage toward New York, and "off Sandy Hook," on the 23d [May, 1811.], Commodore Rodgers wrote the dispatch to the Secretary of the Navy from which the foregoing facts have been drawn.

The reports of the occurrence by Rodgers and Bingham were utterly contradictory in respect to the most essential fact, namely, as to the aggressor. Rodgers stated positively that he hailed twice, and his words were repeated by the stranger; that she first fired one shot, which struck his vessel, then three shots, and immediately afterward the remainder of her broadside, before he opened his guns upon her, except the single one which one of the deserters declared was discharged by accident. This account was fully corroborated, before a court of inquiry, by every officer and some of the subordinates who were on board the President, under oath. On the contrary, Captain Bingham reported that he hailed first, and that his words were twice repeated from the President, when that vessel fired a broadside, which the Little Belt immediately returned. This statement was fully corroborated before a court of inquiry, held at Halifax on the 29th of May [1811.], by the officers of the Little Belt, and two deserters from the President, under oath. Bingham and his supporting deponents declared that the action lasted from forty-five minutes to one hour; while Rodgers declared that it lasted altogether, including the intermissions, not more than fifteen minutes. 43 Bingham also intimated in his dispatch that he had gained the advantage in the contest. 44

When intelligence of this affair went over the land it produced intense excitement. Desires for and dread of war with England were stimulated to vehement action, and conflicting views and expressions, intensified by party hate, awoke spirited contentions and discussions in every community. The contradictions of the two commanders were in due time made known, and added fuel to the fires of party strife. Each government naturally accepted the report of its own servant as the true one. Not so with all the people of the United States. The opposition politicians and newspapers, with a partisanship more powerful for a while than patriotism, took sides with the British; and, eager to convict the administration of belligerent intentions, while at the same time they inconsistently assailed it because of its alleged imbecility and want of patriotism in not resisting and resenting the outrages and insults of Great Britain, or making efficient preparations for such resistance and resentment, circulated a report, with the fiercest denunciations, that Rodgers had sailed with orders from Washington to rescue by force the young man lately impressed from a Portland brig. 45 They exultingly drew a comparison between the late and present Democratic administration, the former denying the right of the Leopard to take a seaman by force from the Chesapeake, the latter ordering Rodgers to do what Captain Humphreys had been condemned by the Americans and punished by his own government for doing. Rodgers himself, who had behaved most prudently, gallantly, and magnanimously in the matter, received his full share of personal abuse from the opponents of the administration; and, strange as it may seem, when the question was reduced to one of simple veracity on the part of the two commanders, a large number of his countrymen, even with the overwhelming testimony of all the officers and many of the subordinates of the President against that of five officers and two deserters produced by Captain Bingham, were so misled by party zeal as to express their belief that the British commander uttered nothing but truth, and that Rodgers and his people all committed perjury! But these ungenerous and unpatriotic assaults soon lost their chief sustenance when the Secretary of State officially declared that no orders had been given for a forcible rescue of the impressed American; and the satisfaction of Mr. Foster, the British minister at Washington (who had requested an inquiry into the conduct of Rodgers), that the statements of that commander were substantially true, was manifested by the fact that the subject was dropped in diplomatic circles, was never revived there, and the affair of the Chesapeake was settled in accordance with the demands of the government of the United States.

2 The engraving on the following page shows the different forms of the gun-boats at that time. The group is made from drawings presented to me when visiting the navy yard at Gosport, opposite Norfolk, in Virginia, in the spring of 1853. I am indebted to Mr. James Jarvis for them. The drawings were made by one who assisted in their construction, and who was then engaged in service at Gosport.

4 In the political poem quoted from on page 164, the author thus alludes to Mr. Jefferson at that time: