by Mark Zuehlke
That suited Clay, for he was a man of the new west, where most men held modest land holdings. They tilled fields with ploughs either dragged by a mule or propelled forward by nothing but the brute strength of a man’s shoulders and back. Food was what could be raised or grown. Wives spun the family’s clothing from cotton or wool either produced on the farm or bartered for, and it was easy to place a man’s social position by whether he wore homespun or imported British broadcloth. Cash was of little importance to such men, for during an entire lifetime of toil few would ever see a hundred dollars pass through their hands.16 In recent years, as anti-British sentiment rose to fever pitch in Kentucky, a wise politician like Clay had stored most of his broadcloth fineries and donned the rough homespun of his neighbours. But that would not do in Washington. His luggage contained the clothes that had given him the reputation of a dandy in earlier years.
Clay rode into a Washington in turmoil. Jefferson was gone, President James Madison just eleven months into his term after taking the oath of office on March 4, 1809. The government was in crisis, beset by how to respond with any effect to what many Americans called the British outrages. Clearly Jefferson’s embargo, brought into effect on December 22, 1807, was a failure. Described as “a self-blockade of the purest water,” the Embargo Act had prohibited departure of all vessels, American or foreign, from U.S. harbours for any foreign port. Stranded foreign ships could leave American waters only in ballast and with empty holds. This exception had been added to the act at the insistence of the always pragmatic secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin, who feared that holding the few non-American ships would encourage other countries—particularly Britain and France—to retaliate in kind.17
Although the embargo was the brainchild of Jefferson and then Secretary of State Madison, enforcing the act had fallen on Gallatin’s shoulders. By cutting Europe and European colonies off from the vast quantities of agricultural products they imported from America, Jefferson believed France and Britain could be brought to their knees without recourse to war. Madison asserted that “the power of this great weapon, the embargo,” would force the two countries to negotiate terms that would end the trade restrictions that had wreaked havoc on America’s maritime trade.18
The fact that the two European powers had imposed the restrictions in order to wage economic war on each other rather than to harm the United States offered cold comfort to America’s government and maritime traders. Although Britain had fired the first volley, it was Napoleon’s retaliatory response that collaterally struck American shipping. On May 16, 1806, the House of Commons enacted its first order-in-council that proclaimed the coast of continental Europe from the Elbe River to Brest under a state of blockade. While this effectively closed all French ports, it did not curtail America’s ability to trade with Europe, as all Iberian, Mediterranean, and Baltic ports remained open to shipping. Although inconvenienced, it was still possible for France to receive American imports through these routes.
France had not been quiescent before the blockade. Ever since 1793, the French had done their best to keep British goods out of the areas of Europe they controlled. During the Republic, the French Republic Directory had seized any ship known to have put into a British port and then sailed into French waters. The French Republic Directory believed it possible to defeat Britain—so reliant on trade for its survival—by cutting off its exports, thereby forcing a reduction in its gold stock and ultimately bankrupting the government. Soon after Napoleon seized power, he introduced the continental system, whereby Britain was to be barred from any commercial activity with the rest of Europe and ultimately isolated from any world trade outside its own colonies. With his naval power greatly limited after the destruction of most of France’s naval fleet at Trafalgar, Napoleon sought to conquer the oceans that he could not control through a war fought on European soil. The defeat of Prussia in the Battle of Jena gave him possession of much of the Baltic coast and provided the opportunity to put his economic strategy into force. On November 21, 1806, Napoleon’s Berlin Decree imposed a blockade on the British Isles; any ships coming into French ports from either Britain or its colonies would be seized. Russia, demoralized by the defeat of the Prussians, agreed to adhere to the decree, and when Spain and Portugal fell to France in 1808 virtually all European ports were slammed shut to British ships and those from neutral nations that had entered her ports.
The British retaliated with another order-in-council, on January 7, 1807, forbidding ships from carrying out coastwise trade with France or her allies or from entering ports closed to her. Napoleon struck back with the Fontainebleau and Milan decrees of the same year that declared that any neutral ships conforming to the British orders-in-council would be subject to seizure. Britain’s final retort came on November 11, 1807, with a proclamation that all French ports and those of her allies, and of all countries closed to British trade, were now blockaded. Further, all trade in goods from blockaded countries was forbidden, and any ships carrying such goods would be subject to capture and condemnation of both goods and ships. Any ship carrying a certificate of origin issued by France could also be taken by the Royal Navy as a prize. In an attempt to offset the economic losses sure to result from its inability to trade with Europe, the British government also declared that neutral ships entering its ports were to be considered under its direction and must purchase licences. This, it was hoped, would provide funds for the hard-pressed treasury.19
For Britain, the effect of the French measures was significant. In 1807, almost 44 percent of trade passing through British ports was aboard neutral ships, and many decided not to risk Napoleon’s wrath or lose all possibility of trade with continental Europe—including Russia—in order to have access to British ports and markets. Able to trade with only a few nearby countries, such as Sweden (until it fell within France’s sphere of influence in 1811), Britain’s exports fell by 10 percent within the year.
The American Embargo Act was more devastating. No sooner had it come into effect than nationwide shortages of timber, grain, and cotton caused inflation. Before the embargo the United States exported about 46 million pounds of cotton per year, with 80 percent of that going to Britain. The embargo slashed that source of cotton to nothing, and alternative markets for supply had yet to be developed. Across the country textile mills were forced to cut back or shut down, causing a surge of unemployment, which was only slowly alleviated by increasing cotton imports from Brazil.20 Meanwhile, the Royal Navy was hard hit by the timber shortage, as it was virtually dependent on Scandinavian and North American lumber and spars for shipbuilding.
The embargo also sharply reduced British exports because America had become one of its primary trade partners. In 1806 more than half of cotton and wool products—$41 million worth—had been shipped to the United States. Almost a quarter of all British exports were to America. Loss of this market threatened the country with an economic depression.21
France also faced shortages because of the embargo, particularly of tobacco and cotton, but with all Europe under its heel and Russia opting for continental trade rather than backing Britain—its traditional ally—imports and exports remained relatively strong. And with each passing month Napoleon added more territory to the empire’s reach. That Napoleon’s continental system might prove a viable economic strategy seemed increasingly likely.
Although Napoleon’s decrees equally threatened U.S. trade and freedom of the seas, politicians, the newspapers, and most Americans railed against Britain’s orders-in-council and seldom seemed aware of the French role. Many was the Republican, particularly those from the new western states, who believed against all logic that the emperor somehow still embodied the revolutionary spirit of France and was the “agent chosen to spread its great benefits and reforms to Europe’s oppressed peoples.” Among these true believers was Henry Clay, who thought Napoleon a healthy foil to Britain and “rejoiced at the continued blows he struck” at the Crown.22
Not all Americans held Bonapart
e in such regard. Jefferson considered him a tyrant who had hijacked a revolution that had promised to sow liberty in Europe. But even the best-informed Republican thought a war between France and Britain would be advantageous to the United States. Like most Republicans, Jefferson and Madison believed that, were it not for the European war that absorbed Britain’s attention and military might, the Union would be in jeopardy. While not wanting to see France conquer Britain, Jefferson would happily see her humbled at Napoleon’s hands. Federalists, on the other hand, generally looked fondly on Britain, thinking her the “world’s last hope” and fearing that if France prevailed then it would not be long before America was added to her conquests. Though they would welcome Napoleon’s downfall, most feared the consequences to the balance of power in Europe and the world that might come from a complete French defeat.23
Balance of power was something that the president, his administration, the Senate, and the House of Representatives all gave much thought to and generally agreed upon. So long as France and Britain remained equal—the Royal Navy mastering the sea, the Grande Armée the soil of Europe—America was unlikely to be directly threatened by either and would be free to prosper by trading with both great empires. Only a few cranks on either side of the political spectrum advocated the United State.’ aligning itself with either Britain or France; the prevailing view was that America should instead keep isolated from European affairs. Since Independence, isolationism had dominated the country’s approach to foreign policy and affairs. Jefferson summed up American feeling when he wrote that the country was “kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradation of the others; possessing a chosen country.”24
Most Americans considered it an inarguable fact that the United States was a country chosen by God and hence morally superior to all others. Why else had the Union managed to prevail during the revolution against a vastly more powerful foe? That moral purity remained possible only so long as the country maintained a strictly neutral stance. “The moment we enlist ourselves by sliding even imperceptibly into European politics, intrigue and warfare, we must abandon our peaceful, commercial, and hitherto prosperous system,” warned the General Republican Committee of the City and County of New York in the midst of the embargo crisis.25
Pure isolationism, of course, was impossible. No matter how much it might want to, America could not simply withdraw into itself and ignore the outside world, because of a need for imported manufactured goods and an inability to sell all of its own production entirely within the United States. This made it necessary to foray out into the dangerous world across the sea to engage in the international commerce essential to ensuring prosperity. And with the implementation of Britain’s orders-in-council and Napoleon’s various decrees, those seas had become very dangerous indeed for American merchantmen.
Until Napoleon’s attack on neutrals trading with Britain and the introduction of the orders-in-council, American traders had developed a system that enabled them to profit hugely from France’s lack of either a powerful navy or a significant merchant fleet. By importing large quantities of such products as coffee, cotton, and sugar from the colonies of France and Spain to the United States, American traders were then able to re-export to ports in continental Europe without Britain being able to claim that the ships carried products that originated directly from the colonies of its enemies. By this means, in 1806 alone U.S. merchants moved 146 million pounds of sugar, 47 million pounds of coffee, and 2 million pounds of cotton into the country and out again to France. Effectively the American merchantmen were using their neutrality to provide supplies that France desperately needed and could acquire by no other means.
The U.S. government not only condoned this circumvention of the Royal Navy’s efforts to cut off the flow of goods from the colonies of its enemies but actively encouraged the practice. Both the government and the merchants prospered mightily from the war. Between 1802 and 1810 the American maritime service grew from 558,000 tons to 981,000. Before the war, imported and exported goods were never worth more than $30 million in a single year. At the high-water mark, in 1807, exports totalled $108 million and imports $138.5 million. While Britain’s military spending ballooned its national debt, Jefferson and Madison were steadily able to reduce America’s indebtedness—which, in 1801, had stood at $82 million.26 While France and Britain had been at war, Secretary Treasurer Albert Gallatin had steadily paid down this debt with intent to eliminate it entirely over sixteen years. In 1808, for example, he was able to apply $8 million to debt reduction. The source of funds for this aggressive assault on the public debt was largely customs duties, about $9.5 million a year before the invocation of the embargo.27
Well aware of what the Americans were doing, the British government repeatedly accused the U.S. government and its merchants and ship owners of being allied with Napoleon. For his part, Napoleon was happy to receive trade goods from his colonies by means of American ships, but he did not consider those exports vital to the maintenance of France’s economy and he had only scant interest in sustaining the overseas colonies. What he wanted was to ruin Britain’s economy, and to that end he sought to force America to cease all trade with her.
No sooner were his decrees issued than France struck hard at American shipping. Despite Napoleon’s meagre navy, he was able to seize a great number of U.S. ships, mostly by detaining those that entered French ports unaware that these were no longer safe havens. Between 1807 and 1812, a report prepared by Secretary of State James Monroe disclosed, France and her allies seized 479 American ships compared with 389 detained by Britain.28 Yet the anti-British sentiment prevailing in the popular press and on the House floor was so implacable that French seizures went largely unmentioned. Instead, most Americans, particularly the likes of Henry Clay, singled out Britain for condemnation, for Britain’s seizures of shipping were inextricably linked with another, graver marine depredation that the British lion imposed upon the American eagle.
TWO
Insult to the Flag
JUNE 1811
When Henry Clay rose in the United States Senate on February 22, 1810, to denounce the depredations visited upon America by Britain, it was not the orders-in-council that fired his righteous indignation into hot fury.
While conceding that France and Britain were each guilty “of mercantile spoliations, inflicted and menaced” that provided “just cause of war with both,” Clay believed that if “we are forced into a selection of our enemy, then am I for war with Britain; because I believe her prior in aggression, and her injuries and insults to us were atrocious in character.
“Britain,” he declared, “stands pre-eminent, in her outrage on us, by her violation of the sacred personal rights of American freemen, in the arbitrary and lawless impressment of our seamen.”1
The Royal Navy’s impressment practice had been authorized during every war fought over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Despite her mastery of the seas, when not at war Britain mothballed most of her fleet and discharged the bulk of her sailors. This saved vast sums of money, but also ensured that with each new war Britain must scramble to refloat the powerful navy vital to defence of an island nation dependent on a global empire. First, a bounty was offered for volunteers. Naval service being a grim duty frequented by death, maiming, or debilitating sickness, the volunteer call inevitably fell short of requirement. The Admiralty then authorized a “hot press.” Press gangs comprising trusted naval ratings roamed port-town streets to round up merchant sailors and fishermen as they stumbled out of bars or appeared on the quays and docks to rejoin their vessels. Without recourse to formal protest or complaint, the men suddenly found themselves serving before the mast—a fate that had likely befallen many during earlier wars. Land-based press gangs were common, but the majority operated from boats that lurked off the entrances to the empire’s harbours to scoop crews off merchant and fishing vessels entering port.2
Although hugely unpopular with those Britons who made a living by going down to the sea, impressment was enshrined in legal precedent. A 1743 court ruling upheld subsequently by repeated courts declared the “right of impressing mariners for the public service … a prerogative inherent in the crown, founded upon common law and recognized by many acts of Parliament.”3
Until the first Franco-British war, in 1793, impressment had met the Royal Navy’s wartime needs. But this time it was soon clear that the mariner pool available for impressment was too small to meet the navy’s insatiable appetite while also keeping Britain’s merchant and fishing fleets at sea. In 1795 the government voted to bolster the naval ranks to 100,000 men, but where were such numbers to be found?
Beggars, pickpockets, thieves, and other criminals, known or suspected, were dragooned, prisoners-of-war were forced into service against their homeland, and foreign mariners were rounded up. No longer was impressment limited to British ports. Press gangs rowed ashore from ships anchored in foreign ports to troll dockyards and streets for potential victims. When the frigate HMS Macedonian put into Lisbon it sent ashore a “press-gang … made up of [the] most loyal men armed to the teeth.” They captured several deserters who had fled other Royal Navy ships in the harbour, yanked in some crewmen from British merchantmen conducting trade ashore, and detained any foreign sailors who had the misfortune to cross their path. “Among them were a few Americans,” noted one of Macedonian’s crew. “They were taken without respect to their protections, which were often taken from them and destroyed. Some were released through the influence of the American consul: others, less fortunate, were carried to sea to their no small chagrin. To prevent recovery of these men by their consul, the press-gang usually went ashore in the night previous to our going to sea so that, before they were missed, they were beyond his protection.”4