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carried to an enormous extent by persons who had property and commercial connections sufficient to render it practicable. Lowel, in his contemporaneously published "Road to Ruin," said:

“Encouraged and protected from infamy by the just odium against the war, they engage in lawless speculations, sneer at the restraints of conscience, laugh at perjury, mock at legal restraints, and acquire an ill-gotten wealth at the expense of public morals, and of the more sober, conscientious parts of the community.

"Administration hirelings may revile the northern States, and the merchants generally, for this monstrous depravation of morals, this execrable course of smuggling and fraud. But there is a just God, who knows how to trace the causes of human events, and He will assuredly visit upon the authors of this war all the iniquities of which it has been the occasion. If the guilty deserve our scorn or our pity, the tempters and seducers deserve our execration."

A sheriff's officer in New Hampshire, recovered a letter (dated August 16th, 1813) signed by five respectable citizens of that State, in which they made the following assurances to a British official, in regard to one Curtis Coe, an American, imprisoned as a spy at Three Rivers:

"From our acquaintance with Mr. Coe, his character and politics, we are confident that his object is far from being unfriendly to the motives which induced your government in repelling the attacks made on you by our Executive. His politics have uniformly been what we style staunch Federalism, and his object, we believe, no other than trafficking with your citizens in defiance of some of our laws. His language and conduct with us have uniformly belied even the semblance of an enemy to your government, or any of your usages in repelling the measures which our Executive has tried to enforce."

The revenue laws were constantly interrupted, and oftentimes defeated in their execution by vexatious processes and proceedings in the State courts. A member of Congress declared that he knew of fifty-six writs having been served upon a United States collector within one week. American vessels were, in a number of instances, captured, carrying British permits or licenses, and Croke, the British vice-admiralty judge at Halifax, declared in an official decision, that the object of these licenses was to directly benefit the military service of Great Britain-to give subsistence to her armies in Spain.' Individ

This decision was delivered August 2d, 1813, in the case of the Orion. This vessel sailed from New York for Lisbon, May 15th, 1813. It should be remarked that this infamous traffic does not appear to have been confined to Eastern ports. The British consul at Boston, Andrew Allen, was arrested and brought before Judge Davis, of the District Court, for countersigning one of these licenses. He was ordered to enter into recognizances for his appearance and trial at the next Circuit Court. He forfeited his recognizance, and fled to Canada. His counsel were Harrison Gray Otis and William Sullivan -the latter the author of "Familiar Letters on the Public Men of the Revolution," etc.

uals were repeatedly detected in selling provisions and stores to the enemy. On the 2d of December, 1813, formal notice was given that the British blockade previously confined to the ports and harbors of the Chesapeake, Delaware, New York, Charleston, Port Royal, Savannah, and the Mississippi, was extended to all the ports, rivers, etc., on both sides of Long Island Sound. The ports east and north of this remained unblockaded, and vessels departed from, and returned to them with so little interruption, that the fact was commented on with censure in the British House of Commons.'

The Executives of Massachusetts and Connecticut had refused to submit the militia of those States to orders issued by the President. In November, 1813, Chittenden, Governor of Vermont, by proclamation, ordered home the militia of his State from Canada. The officers, through their Commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Dixon, replied that they regarded the governor's proclamation "with mingled emotions of pity and contempt for its author." The bearer of it was held to bail for trial at Albany. A resolution was subsequently offered in Congress to instruct the Attorney-General to prosecute Chittenden for attempting to induce desertion. Though it was promptly withdrawn at the request of the Republican representatives from Vermont, Otis took occasion to offer resolutions in the Legislature of Massachusetts, pledging that State to the support of Vermont, or any other State, whose constitutional rights were invaded; and the resolutions passed.*

Commodore Decatur, in command of the frigate United States 44, the Macedonian 38, and the Hornet 18, was chased into New London by a greatly superior force, June 1st, 1813. Here these ships remained closely blockaded during the remainder of the war, and the blockading squadron had the advantage of commanding at the same time the best point on the entire sea-board of the United States for destroying their coasting trade. Decatur would

1 It was finally extended to the whole coast in April, 1814.

2 The Pennsylvania Legislature, as soon as apprised of these proceedings, passed resolutions pronouncing Chittenden's conduct worthy of punishment, and denouncing Otis's resolutions as an effort to arrest, by intimidation, an execution of the laws. And Pennsylvania avowed its determination under all circumstances to uphold the General Government in lawful measures to punish persons, whatever their station, for directly or indirectly aiding and comforting the enemy.

The New Jersey Legislature went further, avowing its "contempt and abhorrence of the ravings of an infuriated faction, whether issuing from a legislative body, a maniac governor, or discontented and ambitious demagogues;" and declaring that the people of New Jersey were prepared "to resist internal insurrection with the same readiness" that they would the invasion of a foe.

in all probability have escaped but for intelligence communicated from the town to the enemy. He officially informed the Secretary of the Navy (December 20th, 1813) that he attempted to get to sea on a dark and tempestuous night-that as soon as his movements to that end became apparent, signals to the enemy were made, by burning blue lights on both points of the harbor's mouth, and he declared: "There is not a doubt that they [the enemy] have, by signals or otherwise, instantaneous information of our movements. Notwithstanding these signals have been repeated, and seen by twenty persons at least in this squadron, there are men in New London who have the hardihood to affect to disbelieve it, and the effrontery to avow their disbelief." During a severe storm of wind and rain, in March, 1814, Decatur issued orders for the instant embarkation of his officers. In a very short time blue lights were thrown up like rockets from Long Point, and were immediately answered by three guns from the British fleet. These signals were witnessed by all the officers and men in the American lookout boats, and also by some of the officers at Fort Trumbull. They were known to be signals by those who were perfectly familiar with that species of marine communication. It is proper to say these treasonable practices were admitted and severely reprobated by a portion of the Federalists.

The newspapers representing the extreme Federalists, of course, reflected the spirit which prompted these actions. The Boston Daily Advertiser published a series of articles openly recommending the New England States to form a separate peace, urging that it was lawful and proper to do so, and if Congress should refuse its assent, it would be for wise and prudent men to decide what ought to be done. In not a few papers the American troops were openly ridiculed, and their successes deplored.'

"Ingersoll, in his "Historical Sketch of the Second War between the United States of America and Great Britain," etc., says:

"Harrison's victory over Proctor was publicly deplored. The Salem Gazette of the 22d October, 1813, announced: At length the handful of British troops, which, for more than a year have baffled the numerous armies of the United States in the invasion of Canada, deprived of the genius of the immortal Brock, have been obliged to yield to superior power and numbers.' The Boston Daily Advertiser of the next day, 23d of October, 1813, added: 'We shall surrender all our conquests at a peace. It is, indeed a hopeful exploit for Harrison, with five thousand troops, who have been assembling and preparing ever since July, 1812, to fight and conquer four hundred and fifty worn out, exhausted British regulars, whom the Indians had previously deserted.' In Rhode Island, infected by contagion with Massachusetts, a journal pronounced Harrison's victory the triumph of a crowd of Kentucky savages over a handful of brave men -no more than a march and their capture without fighting."

VOL. III.-25

Jefferson's letters during 1813, express anything but approbation of the conduct of France.' To Baron Humboldt (December 6th), he declared views in regard to the American Indians which sound like the dirge of that unfortunate race :

"You know, my friend, the benevolent plan we were pursuing here for the happiness of the aboriginal inhabitants in our vicinities. We spared nothing to keep them at peace with one another. To teach them agriculture and the rudiments of the most necessary arts, and to encourage industry by establishing among them separate property. In this way they would have been enabled to subsist and multiply on a moderate scale of landed possession. They would have mixed their blood with ours, and been amalgamated and identified with us within no distant period of time. On the commencement of our present war, we pressed on them the observance of peace and neutrality, but the interested and unprincipled policy of England has defeated all our labors for the salvation of these unfortunate people. They have seduced the greater part of the tribes within our neighborhood, to take up the hatchet against us, and the cruel massacres they have committed on the women and children on our frontiers taken by surprise, will oblige us now to pursue them to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach. Already we have driven their patrons and seducers into Montreal, and the opening season will force them to their last refuge, the walls of Quebec. We have cut off all possibility of intercourse and of mutual aid, and may pursue at our leisure whatever plan we find necessary to secure ourselves against the future effects of their savage and ruthless warfare. The confirmed brutalization, if not the extermination of this race in our America, is, therefore, to form an additional chapter in the English history of the same colored man in Asia, and of the brethren of their own color in Ireland, and wherever else Anglo-mercantile cupidity can find a two-penny interest in deluging the earth with human blood. But let us turn from the loathsome contemplation of the degrading effects of commercial avarice."

In three letters to Mr. Eppes, then chairman of the Finance. Committee in Congress, he gave his opinions at length on the subject of the banks and currency. The United States Bank had expired by the limitation of its charter in 1811, and it was now earnestly urged in Congress that the want of it mainly led to the distressing derangement prevailing in monetary affairs, and that its recharter was the only means of curing the evil, and providing the sound circulating medium necessary for the efficient prosecution of the war. Some of the earlier Republican opponents of the Bank had already begun to yield to these views. Mr. Jefferson maintained his uncompromising hostility. We can enter upon no analysis of his reasoning, and must refer the reader to the letters. Their general purport was to propose as a substitute for the bank, to issue Treasury bills

1 Particularly see one to Madame de Staël, dated May 24th.

emitted on a specific tax appropriated for their redemption.. And he even went so far as to pronounce the whole system of State banks, as then organized, unsubstantial and fraudulent-productive of evil at best, and always ready to explode and carry ruin throughout the community. He considered State banks necessary for the accommodation of business men-but thought they should offer nothing but cash in exchange for discounted bills.

If we may credit the statements of an intelligent statistician, who was not a partisan of the Administration, the currency found disturbing agents not necessarily arising from the prosecution of the war, or from other legitimate causes. Matthew Carey records in his Olive Branch, that in the winter of 1813-14, the Boston banks being in a condition to do so, entered vigorously upon an attempt "to stop the wheels of government by draining the banks in the Middle and Southern States of their specie, and thus producing an utter disability to fill the loans " which the Government was attempting to effect. Mr. Carey at first placed the amount of specie which they withdrew in eight months from the Middle and Southern banks at four millions of dollars, but subsequent inquiries satisfied him that it was between seven and eight millions. He said "the banks from New York to Norfolk inclusively, as well as most of those to the westward, were literally drained of their specie, and nearly reduced to bankruptcy." "A fearful alarm spread through the community. The issue was looked for with terror. The banks

throughout the middle and southern States were obliged to curtail their discounts. Bankruptcies took place to a considerable extent. Even wealthy men, who were wholly unprepared for such a crisis, suffered great inconvenience. Some who had subscribed to the loans were unable to comply with their engagements; and others were withheld from subscribing by the general pressure for money. In consequence, the loan, then pending, partially failed, to the very great embarrassment of the Government, and distress of the public. This was the nefarious object in view."

To show that there could be no pretext on the part of the Boston banks of a want of specie, our author gives an abstract of the statements of six Boston banks, officially published by the Secretary of the commonwealth, in January, 1814, by which it

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