History of the United States Volume Ii Part 21

From the outset the West proved more loyal than he hoped, and when, at the critical moment, Wilkinson betrayed him, he knew that all was lost.

Sinking his chests of arms in the river near Natchez, he took to the Mississippi woods, only to be recognized, arrested by Jefferson's order, and dragged to Richmond to jail. As no overt act was proved, he could not be convicted of treason; and even the trial of him for misdemeanor broke down on technical points. The Federalists stood up for Burr as if he had been their man, while Jefferson on his part pushed the prosecution in a fussy and personal way, ill becoming a President.

Jefferson's most lasting work as national chief-magistrate was his diplomacy in purchasing for the Union the boundless territory beyond the Mississippi, prized then not for its extent or resources, both as yet unknown, but as a.s.suring us free navigation of the river, which sundry French and Spanish plots had demonstrated essential to the solid loyalty of the West. Louisiana, ceded by France to Spain in 1762, became French again in 1801. Napoleon had intended it as the seat of a colonial power rivalling Great Britain's, but, pressed for money in his new war with that kingdom, concluded to sell. He wished, too, the friendship of the United States against Great Britain, and knew not the worth of what he was bargaining away. Willing to take fifty million francs, he offered for one hundred million, speedily closing with Livingston and Monroe's tender of eighty, we to a.s.sume in addition the French spoliation claims of our citizens. The treaty of purchase was signed May 2, 1803, and ratified by the Senate the 17th of the following October.

This stupendous transaction a.s.sured to our Republic not only leading hand in the affairs of this continent, but place among the great powers of the world. Its 1,124,685 square miles doubled the national domain. It opened path well toward, if not to, the Pacific, and made ours measureless tracts of agricultural and mining lands, rich as any under the sun.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Stephen Decatur.

If it originated many of the most perplexing questions which have agitated our national politics, as those relating to slavery in this territory itself, to the acquisitions from Mexico, to the Pacific railways, and to the Indians and the Chinese, all this has been amply compensated by the above and countless other benefits.

Equally brilliant if less impressive was another piece of Jefferson's foreign policy. He might be over-friendly to France, but elsewhere he certainly did not believe in peace at any price. The Barbary powers had begun to annoy our commerce soon after Independence. The Betsey was captured in 1784, next year the Maria, of Boston, and the Dauphin, of Philadelphia, and their crews of twenty-one men carried to a long and disgraceful captivity in Algiers.

The Dey's bill for these captives, held by him as slaves, was:

3 Captains at $6,000 $18,000 2 Mates at $4,000 8,000 2 Pa.s.sengers at $4,000 8,000 14 Seamen at $1,400 19,600 --------- $53,600 For custom, eleven per cent 5,896 --------- $59,496

Later a single cruise lost us ten vessels to these half-civilized people.

Following European precedent, Washington had made, in 1795, a ransom-treaty with this nest of pirates, to carry out which cost us a fat million. The captives had meantime increased to one hundred and fifteen, though the crews of the Maria and the Dauphin had wasted away to ten men. Nearly a million more went to the other North-African freebooters. The policy of ransoming was, indeed, cheaper than force.

Count d'Estaing used to say that bombarding a pirate town was like breaking windows with guineas. The old Dey of Algiers, learning the expense of Du Quesne's expedition to batter his capital, declared that he himself would have burnt it for half the sum.

Yet it makes one's blood hot to-day to read how our fathers paid tribute to those thieves. The Dey had, in so many words, called us his slaves, and had actually terrorized Captain Bainbridge, of the man-of-war George Washington, into carrying despatches for him to Constantinople, flying the Algerine pirate flag conspicuously at the fore. After anchoring--this was some requital--Bainbridge was permitted to hoist the Stars and Stripes, the first time that n.o.ble emblem ever kissed the breeze of the Golden Horn.

[1803]

Jefferson loathed such submission, and vowed that it should cease.

Commodore Dale was ordered to the Mediterranean with a squadron to protect our ships there from further outrage. One of his vessels, the Experiment, soon captured a Tripoli cruiser of fourteen guns, the earliest stroke of any civilized power for many years by way of showing a bold front to these pestilent corsairs.

This was on August 6, 1801. In 1803 Preble was placed in command of the Mediterranean fleet, with some lighter ships to go farther up those shallow harbors. Bainbridge had the misfortune while in pursuit of a Tripoli frigate to run his ship, the Philadelphia, on a rock, and to be taken prisoner with all his crew. The sailors were made slaves.

Lieutenant Decatur penetrated the Tripoli harbor under cover of night, and burned the Philadelphia to the water's edge. Tripoli was bombarded, and many of its vessels taken or sunk. Commodore Barron, who had succeeded Preble, co-operated with a land attack which some of the Pasha's disaffected subjects, led by the American General Eaton, made upon Tripoli. The city was captured, April 27th, and the pirate prince forced to a treaty. Even now, however, we paid $60,000 in ransom money.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hand-to-fighting with swords and pistols.]

Lieutenant Decatur on the Turkish Vessel during the Bombardment of Tripoli.

CHAPTER X.

THE WAR OF 1812

[1807]

Although paying, so long as Jay's treaty was in force, for certain invasions of our commerce, Great Britain had never adopted a just att.i.tude toward neutral trade. She persisted in loosely defining contraband and blockade, and in denouncing as unlawful all commerce which was opened to us as neutrals merely by war or carried on by us between France and French colonies through our own ports.

The far more flagrant abuse of impressment, the forcible seizure of American citizens for service in the British navy, became intolerably prevalent during Jefferson's administration. Not content with reclaiming deserters or a.s.serting the eternity of British citizenship, Great Britain, through her naval authorities, was compelling thousands of men of unquestioned American birth to help fight her battles. Castlereagh himself admitted that there had been sixteen hundred bona fide cases of this sort by January 1, 1811. And in her mode of a.s.serting and exercising even her just claims she ignored international law, as well as the dignity and sovereignty of the United States. The odious right of search she most shamefully abused. The narrow seas about England were a.s.sumed to be British waters, and acts performed in American harbors admissible only on the open ocean. When pressed by us for apology or redress, the British Government showed no serious willingness to treat, but a brazen resolve to utilize our weak and too trustful policy of peace.

One instance of this shall suffice. Commodore Barron, in command of the United States war vessel Chesapeake, was attacked by the Leopard, a British two-decker of fifty guns, outside the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, to recover three sailors, falsely alleged to be British-born, on board.

Their surrender being refused, the Leopard opened fire. The Chesapeake received twenty-one shots in her hull, and lost three of her crew killed and eighteen wounded. She had been shamefully unprepared for action, and was hence forced to strike, but Humphreys, the Leopard's commander, contemptuously declined to take her a prize. There was no excuse whatever for this wanton and criminal insult to our flag, yet the only reparation ever made was formal, tardy, and lame.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

James Madison.

From a painting by Gilbert Stuart--property of T. Jefferson Coolidge.

Bad was changed to worse with the progress of the new and more desperate war between Great Britain and Napoleon. The Emperor shut the North-German ports to Britain; Britain declared Prussian and all West European harbors in a state of blockade. The Emperor's Berlin decree, November, 1806, paper-blockaded the British Isles; his Milan decree, December, 1807, declared forfeited all vessels, wherever found, proceeding to or from any British port, or having submitted to British search or tribute. In fine, Britain would treat as illicit all commerce with the continent, France all with Britain. But while Napoleon, in fact, though not avowedly, more and more receded from his position, England maintained hers with iron tenacity.

[1810]

Sincere as was our Government's desire to maintain strict neutrality in the European conflict, it naturally found difficulty in making England so believe. Their opponents at home ceaselessly charged Jefferson, Madison, and all the Republicans with partiality to France, so that Canning and Castlereagh were misled; and they were confirmed in their suspicion by Napoleon's crafty a.s.sumption that our embargo or non-intercourse policy was meant to act, as it confessedly did, favorably to France. Napoleon's confiscation of our vessels, at one time sweeping, he advertised as a friendly proceeding in aid of our embargo.

Yet all this did not, as Castlereagh captiously pretended, prove our neutrality to be other than strict and honest. At this time it certainly was both. So villainously had Napoleon treated us that all Americans now hated him as heartily as did any people in England.

[1812]

The non-intercourse mode of hostility, a boomerang at best, had played itself out before Jefferson's retirement; and since George's ministry showed no signs whatever of a changed temper, guiltily ill-prepared as we were, no honorable or safe course lay before us but to fight Great Britain. Clay, Calhoun, Quincy Adams, and Monroe--the last the soul of the war--deserved the credit of seeing this first and clearest, and of the most st.u.r.dy and consistent action accordingly. Their spirit proved infectious, and the Republicans swiftly became a war party.

Most of the "war-hawks," as they were derisively styled, were from the South and the southern Middle States. Fearing that, if it were a naval war, glory would redound to New England and New York, which were hotbeds of the peace party, they wished this to be a land war, and shrieked, "On to Canada." They made a great mistake. The land operations were for the most part indescribably disgraceful. Except the exploits of General Brown and Colonel Winfield Scott, subsequently the head of the national armies, not an action on the New York border but ingloriously failed.

The national Capitol was captured and burnt, a deed not more disgraceful to England in the commission than to us in the permission. Of the officers in command of armies, only Harrison and Jackson earned laurels.

Harrison had learned warfare as Governor of Indiana, where, on November 7, 1811, he had fought the battle of Tippecanoe, discomfiting Tec.u.mseh's braves and permanently quieting Indian hostilities throughout that territory. In the new war against England, after Hull's pusillanimous surrender of Detroit, the West loudly and at length with success demanded "Tippecanoe" as commander for the army about to advance into Canada. Their estimate of Harrison proved just. Overcoming many difficulties and aided by Perry's flotilla on Lake Erie, he pursued Proctor, his retreating British antagonist, up the River Thames to a point beyond Sandwich. Here the British made a stand, but a gallant charge of Harrison's Kentucky cavalry irreparably broke their lines. The Indians, led by old Tec.u.mseh in person, made a better fight, but in vain. The victory was complete, and Upper Canada lay at our mercy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Tec.u.mseh

Andrew Jackson also began his military experience by operations against Indians. The southern redskins had been incited to war upon us by British and Spanish emissaries along the Florida line. Tec.u.mseh had visited them in the same interest. The horrible ma.s.sacre at Fort Mims, east of the Alabama above its junction with the Tombigbee, was their initial work. Five hundred and fifty persons were there surprised, four hundred of them slain or burned to death. Jackson took the field, and in an energetic campaign, with several b.l.o.o.d.y engagements, forced them to peace. By the battle of the Horse-Shoe, March 27, 1814, the Creek power was entirely crushed.

Subsequently placed in command of our force at New Orleans, Jackson was attacked by a numerous British army, made up in large part of veterans who had seen service under Wellington in Spain. Pakenham, the hero of Salamanca, commanded. Jackson's position was well chosen and strongly fortified. After several preliminary engagements, each favorable to the American arms, Pakenham essayed to carry the American works by storm.

The battle occurred on January 8, 1815. It was desperately fought on both sides, but at its close Jackson's loss had been trifling and his line had not been broken at a single point, while the British had lost at least 2,600, all but 500 of these killed or wounded. The British immediately withdrew from the Mississippi, leaving Jackson entirely master of the position.

But the naval operations of this war were far the most famous, exceeding in their success all that the most sanguine had dared to hope, and forever dispelling from our proud foe the charm of naval invincibility.

The American frigate Const.i.tution captured the British Guerriere. The Wasp took the Frolic, being soon, however, forced to surrender with her prize to the Poitiers, a much larger vessel. The United States vanquished the Macedonian, and the Const.i.tution the Java. One of the best fought actions of the war was that of McDonough on Lake Champlain, with his craft mostly gunboats or galleys. His victory restored to us the possession of Northern New York, which our land forces had not been able to maintain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Oliver H, Perry.

[1813-1814]

The crowning naval triumph during the war, one of the most brilliant, in fact, in all naval annals, was won by Oliver Hazard Perry near Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie, September 10, 1813, over the Briton, Barclay, a naval veteran who had served under Nelson at Trafalgar. The fleets were well matched, the American numbering the more vessels but the fewer guns. Barclay greatly exceeded Perry in long guns, having the latter at painful disadvantage until he got near. Perry's flag-ship, the Lawrence, was early disabled. Her decks were drenched with blood, and she had hardly a gun that could be served. Undismayed, Perry, with his insignia of command, crossed in a little boat to the Niagara. Again proudly hoisting his colors, aided by the wind and followed by his whole squadron, he pressed for close quarters, where desperate fighting speedily won the battle. Barclay and his next in command were wounded, the latter dying that night. "We have met the enemy and they are ours,"

Perry wrote to Harrison, "two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop."