The Administration of James Madison began with what seemed like a
diplomatic triumph. Negotiations with the new British minister, Erskine,
led to a complete agreement on all the points in dispute. Full
reparation was to be made for the Chesapeake affair. The offensive
orders in council of 1807 were to be withdrawn on a fixed date.
Thereupon, with undisguised satisfaction, the President issued a
proclamation, April 21, 1809, renewing commercial intercourse with Great
Britain. General rejoicing followed. Ships which had been tied up to
wharves for eighteen months put to sea with crowded holds. Those
Republicans who had stanchly upheld the Jeffersonian policy of peaceable
coercion boldly claimed for the embargo the credit of having brought
about this happy consummation. Some misgivings were excited, to be sure,
by the report of a new order in council which substituted a blockade of
Holland, France, and Italy for the order of November, 1807; yet weeks of
smug satisfaction were enjoyed by the Administration before it was
bewildered by the tidings that Canning had recalled Erskine and
repudiated all his acts. Madison had to submit to "the mortifying
necessity" of issuing another proclamation reviving the Non-Intercourse
Act against Great Britain.
Erskine was replaced by Francis James Jackson, a typical representative
of the governing class,--intolerant, overbearing, and contemptuous. He
had been chosen in 1807 for the brutal destruction of the Danish fleet
at Copenhagen. Pinkney described him as "completely attached to all
those British principles and doctrines which sometimes give us trouble."
Madison was speedily convinced that conciliation was not the keynote of
this man's mission. After the first exchange of notes, he took the pen
out of the hand of Robert Smith, his incompetent Secretary of State, in
order to deal more effectually with the adversary. When Jackson
intimated that Erskine had been disavowed for disobedience to
instructions and that the Administration was somehow responsible for
this misconduct, Madison warned him sharply that "such insinuations are
inadmissible in the intercourse of a foreign minister with a government
that understands what it owes itself"; and a few days later, after an
exhibition of domineering temper on the part of Jackson, Madison
informed him that no further communications would be received. Months
passed, however, before Jackson was recalled; and in the mean time he
made a tour through the Eastern States where he was warmly welcomed by
the Federalists. No better evidence was needed to convince the
Administration of the unpatriotic and pro-British attitude of Federalist
New England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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