Class 
 Book 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY ADAMS. 
 
 Vols. I. and II.— The First Administration of 
 Jefferson. 1801- 1805. 
 
 Vols. III. and IV.— The Second Administration 
 of Jefferson. 1805-1809. 
 
 Vols. V. and VI.— The First Administration of 
 Madison. 1809-1813. 
 
 Vols. VII., VIIT., and IX.— The Second Adminis- 
 tration of Madison. 1813-1S17. With an 
 Index to the Entire Work. 
 
 / 
 
HISTORICAL ESSa 
 
 sfti" 1 a 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY ADAMS 
 
 
 
 
 w i 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1891 
 
21 
 
 ■h 
 
 Copyright, 1891, 
 By Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 
 2anfoersitg $ress : 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Vrimitive Rights of Women 1 
 
 Captaine John Smith 42 
 
 Harvard College. 1786-1787 80 
 
 Napoleon I. at St. Domingo 122 
 
 The Bank of England Restriction ...... 178 
 
 The Declaration of Paris. 1861 237 
 
 The Legal-Tender Act 279 
 
 The New York Gold Conspiracy 318 
 
 The Session. 1869-1870 367 
 
 Index 413 
 
HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 1 
 
 According to the generally accepted opinion of 
 writers on Primitive Institutions, the original position 
 of the married woman was one of slavery, or akin to 
 slavery. By this phrase is meant not merely sub- 
 jection to superior force, but to legalized force. In 
 all ages, the weak were the victims of the strong, 
 and were often treated with severity not essentially 
 different from the treatment of slaves ; but the ex- 
 ercise of force by the strong over the weak did not 
 constitute slavery, even in the most barbarous socie- 
 ties. Unless the law declared men or women to be 
 slaves, they were, in the view of the law, free, not- 
 withstanding their inability to obtain redress. 
 
 The common view of marriage as a primitive insti- 
 tution implies in the man more than arbitrary superi- 
 ority, such as he exercised over the child, which still 
 remained free. The woman's slavery was assumed 
 
 1 Revision of a lecture delivered at the Lowell Institute, Dec. 
 9, 1876. 
 
2 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 to be for life. As a child she was subject to the 
 absolute authority of the male parent, extending over 
 life and death. Her marriage originated, according 
 to the most recent scientific historians, either in pur- 
 chase or in capture ; and in either case the woman 
 was the property of the man. The wedding ring was 
 the symbol of marital power. The right of the hus- 
 band to sell his wife still survives in the popular 
 traditions of England ; the forms of capture are still 
 common in barbarous society, and may be seen even 
 in highly civilized countries ; while the forms of pur- 
 chase are thought to be well-nigh universal. " While 
 wives were captured, if there was any sense of prop- 
 erty at all, wives would be regarded as property. 
 When, at a later stage, they came to pass from the 
 houses of their birth into alien houses, by purchase, 
 they would still be property." 1 The recorded his- 
 tory of early society offers numberless illustrations of 
 the unbounded power which the husband exercised 
 over his wife, and the Roman law was especially 
 emphatic in extending over her the patria potestas, 
 in which the Romans blended their conceptions of 
 the family relation. " The family was based not 
 upon actual relationship, but upon power ; and the 
 husband acquired over his wife the same despotic 
 power which the father had over his children." 2 
 
 1 McLennan's Studies in Ancient History, pp. 136, 137. Edi- 
 tion of 1886. 
 
 2 The Early History of the Property of Married Women. A 
 Lecture delivered March 25, 1873, by Sir H. S. Maine. See the 
 Early History of Institutions, p. 312. 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 3 
 
 Starting from the assumption that the wife was in 
 origin a slave, either by capture or by purchase, the 
 commonly received theory of her escape from this 
 degradation assumed a gradual rise in the moral 
 standard of civilized society, and finally attributed 
 the complete triumph of women to the influence of 
 Christianity, with its high moral ideals and its pas- 
 sionate adoration of the Virgin Mother. 
 
 Such seems to be the doctrine of modern investi- 
 gators. In theory they have carried back the origin 
 of society to a stage anterior to the institution of 
 marriage, — a stage of communism. The original 
 community is believed to have had no idea, or only 
 a rudimentary idea, of private property ; and as men 
 emerged from the condition of animals, they possibly 
 held all things in common within their communal 
 association. Theoretically, men and women, like all 
 else, in the earliest stage of society were communal 
 property. No tie connected individual men and 
 women together. No man had the right to appropri- 
 ate any one woman to himself, nor had any woman 
 the right to appropriate to herself any one man. 
 Such communities were large families and small 
 States, with a strongly democratic organization and 
 an elected chief or chiefs. All their members were 
 equal, for all were brothers and sisters. Mothers 
 there were, but fathers were unknown. Where no 
 permanent tie existed between men and women there 
 could be no conception of paternity and no notion of 
 paternal authority. The mother alone was important 
 
4 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 in the parental relation. The earliest family there- 
 fore, so far as it could exist at all, was a system 
 of relationship through women ; and the germ of 
 the future family organization was embodied in the 
 mother, not in the father. 
 
 Such pure communism, if it ever existed in real 
 life, ceased at a very early time. No such communal 
 society, — that is to say, no society in which com- 
 munal marriage was practised, — has been found or 
 is recorded as existing in times past ; nor is it essen- 
 tial to history that precisely such an institution as 
 communal marriage should ever have existed in the 
 strictness of its forms. A mass of evidence has been 
 collected, which leaves no reasonable doubt that the 
 first organized human society approximated more or 
 less nearly to this type. In all countries and through 
 all ages its traces have been found ; and in this re- 
 spect the primitive tribes of Africa, of Asia, and of 
 America, both north and south, unite in telling a 
 common tale. In its day this social organization was 
 a step in the progress of the race. Under the shel- 
 ter of communal society man found such protection 
 against the dangers that beset his first steps as to 
 cause its development over the world. If primitive 
 communism had not been beneficent in its results, it 
 could never have attained such development. Wild 
 as man was, and disgusting as the more degraded 
 tribes and communities were, the best of them, and 
 all those from which further advance came, were 
 marked by good qualities, or they could never have 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 5 
 
 risen to a higher stage. Many communities were 
 doubtless mild in manners and not unhappy in their 
 modest range of interests. Where the conditions of 
 life were favorable and wilder hordes remote, these 
 communities cultivated their common fields from year 
 to year, from century to century, from era to era, and 
 did no conscious wrong. They had wars, and these 
 were no doubt cruel ; they had superstitions, which 
 were no doubt both cruel and gross ; their range 
 of thought was narrow and their mode of life low ; 
 their relations with the world beyond their tribal con- 
 nection were those of war ; but within the bounds of 
 their own society they succeeded in constructing a 
 social fabric that compared with any that succeeded 
 to it for successful adaptation of means to ends. 
 After it had long passed away the world still looked 
 back to it with regret, and not a few of the prettiest 
 and tendercst verses of the classical poets recalled 
 that idealized golden age when men lived together as 
 brothers, when peace«and content reigned on earth, 
 when mankind was not devoured by the thirst for 
 gold, when all were of one family, and all the pro- 
 ducts of the earth or of industry were held by 
 brothers in common. 
 
 Assuming that any typical form of primitive com- 
 munal society ever existed, no long time can have 
 elapsed before some communities must have begun 
 to depart from the normal type ; and in some cases 
 this departure must have taken that direction which 
 the strongest human instincts pointed out. Of these 
 
6 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 instincts few if any are more energetic than the in- 
 stinct of property, f Man loves most that which is 
 his own ; and that which he most loves he is most 
 anxious to have for his own A Here and there in the 
 rudest human society passions must have developed 
 which are recognized even in animals. Probably this 
 development went on simultaneously in many centres, 
 and worked in many different lines. In this respect 
 the characteristics of all the great races were already 
 sharply marked at their first appearance in recorded 
 history. We cannot know what special influences 
 caused some to throw off more completely than 
 others the old habits of communism, to substitute 
 the practices of private property ; but enough re- 
 mains to show that the distinctions between races 
 were to no small degree founded upon this difference 
 of policy. 
 
 Probably the institution of marriage had its origin 
 in love of property. Both men and women were 
 united- in this, — that whatever they loved best, they 
 wished to possess. The usual theory holds that the 
 communal system would not permit the gratification 
 of this desire at the expense of communal rights, 
 and that therefore men were driven to gratify their 
 passion by purchasing or by capturing women from 
 neighboring and hostile tribes. In support of this 
 doctrine the extraordinary frequency of the forms 
 of purchase and capture is relied upon as conclusive 
 evidence ; but if so, the position of the purchased or 
 captured wife must have been regulated by laws very 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 7 
 
 different from those that controlled the disposition 
 of other purchased or captured property. 
 
 American students of primitive history have one 
 great advantage. To them archaic communistic so- 
 ciety is not, or at least need not be, a mere histo- 
 rical theory. The entire race of American Indians 
 from Behring's Straits to the Straits of Magellan 
 were, and to a certain extent still are, in the stage 
 of communism. The American Indian is the best 
 representative of the social system to which he be- 
 longed. Communism in Europe and Asia has been 
 disturbed or affected by subsequent complicated de- 
 velopments ; in America it was subjected to no such 
 strain. If it be assumed, as is becoming inevitable, 
 that the American Indian was a branch from a pri- 
 mitive stock, from which it became separated at a 
 very early day, and thenceforth pursued a course of 
 development little influenced from without, institu- 
 tions common to American Indians must have been 
 inherited from that primitive ancestry which belonged 
 to them and to Asia alike. This is the more proba- 
 ble, because the communism of the North American 
 Indian and the general character of his institutions 
 were but one or two steps more primitive than those 
 of the Germans when the Germans first came into 
 the light of history. 
 
 Every Indian tribe was subdivided into clans, and 
 the first remarkable characteristic of the clan was 
 that it simulated the supposed form of the primitive 
 commune. The men were classed as brothers, the 
 
8 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 women as sisters ; but what was most suggestive, 
 marriage between them was prohibited as incestuous, 
 and, unlike many of the prohibitions of archaic law, 
 the rule was rigidly enforced. Men and women mar- 
 ried only into other clans than their own. 
 
 Marriage was the rule of Indian customary law, 
 and every form of primitive marriage common else- 
 where was common among the Indians ; but the ap- 
 parent historical relation between these forms was 
 not what European writers have adopted in explana- 
 tion of their so-called marriages by capture, pur- 
 chase, and other modes, implying slavery or absolute 
 property in the woman. 
 
 The formal Indian marriage, and probably the old- 
 est of all legal forms, was " marriage by legal appoint- 
 ment ; " that is, the selection and allotment, by the 
 elders of the clans, of some woman belonging to one 
 clan, to live with some man belonging to another. 1 
 
 This form of marriage often took the appearance 
 of purchase. The parents of the woman received 
 gifts from the suitor, according to the advantages of 
 the match. 2 In some tribes the practice grew into 
 an abuse, as private property became more common ; 
 girls were sold, and custom authorized the sale ; 3 but 
 in its origin the so-called purchase was only a detail 
 of the primitive formal marriage, as appears from its 
 
 1 Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-1882, lix. 
 
 2 Dorsey's Omaha Sociology ; Report of Ethnological Bureau 
 1881-1882, p. 258. 
 
 3 Clark's Indian Sign-Language, pp. 243-246. 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 9 
 
 legal consequences. A true sale would have deprived 
 the woman of her position in the clan ; but in law 
 the Indian woman remained after such a marriage 
 as before a member of her family and tribe, entitled 
 to her rights and proper protection, like any other 
 woman or any man. Nothing but her own miscon- 
 duct could deprive the woman of her position in the 
 tribe, and even her misconduct rather affected her 
 social position than her legal rights. She could as- 
 sert her rights as long as she had friends. Indians 
 have been known to sell their wives ; but such an 
 abuse, like similar abuses among other races, left the 
 woman still free, with her customary rights intact, 
 and by no means trifling in extent. 
 
 Marriage by legal appointment, with gifts, was the 
 formal customary Indian marriage ; but primitive 
 law, after recognizing the rigor of custom, commonly 
 provided for legalizing violations of the strict code. 
 Equitable processes existed by the side of formal 
 processes for most acts that required the sanction 
 of the clan, whether in America, Asia, or Europe. 
 Several irregular forms of marriage were recognized 
 and sanctioned by Indian custom. 
 
 1. Elopement, which was evidently in some de- 
 gree a protest against constraint of the woman's 
 choice. Any runaway couple, escaping to the forest, 
 living there until the next regular day of limitation, 
 might then return to their clans, and their marriage 
 was held to be valid. Every tribe usually fixed a day 
 of limitation for such offences against strict forms, at 
 
10 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 least one in each year, when pursuit or punishment of 
 offenders must cease. 
 
 2. Capture, not as an act of war or from another 
 tribe, but always from a clan of the same tribe. If 
 the attempt at capture was successfully resisted, it 
 could not be repeated in the particular case. If it 
 succeeded, the man kept the woman, the marriage 
 was valid, and no punishment was allowed. 
 
 Such a form of capture affected in no respect the 
 rights of the captured woman in the Indian commu- 
 nity. She became neither a slave nor property, but 
 remained as before, in most cases, a member of her 
 own family and clan ; her children followed her line 
 of descent, and the husband belonged to her as much 
 as she belonged to her husband. In some tribes the 
 husband seemed to belong to the wife even more than 
 the wife to the husband. 
 
 3. Capture in war. So little had the form of cap- 
 ture to do with creating in the captor a right of prop- 
 erty in the woman captured, that when women of 
 enemy tribes were taken in war, they were necessarily 
 adopted into some clan before they could be appro- 
 priated as wives. Captives could live only as brothers 
 or sisters of some group. They became, by the act of 
 adoption and marriage, members of clans, with the 
 rights of other members. Slavery was unknown to 
 the great families of Indians between the Atlantic 
 and the Rocky Mountains, and no such social insti- 
 tution was recognized in their customary law. Cap- 
 tives were either killed or adopted. 
 
PKIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 11 
 
 4. Another more curious form of irregular mar- 
 riage was by duel. Under certain conditions, not pre- 
 cisely explained, a young man without a wife might 
 challenge a man to whom more than one wife had 
 been assigned ; and if he succeeded in the combat, he 
 had an admitted right to the woman. 
 
 All these forms of marriage had the same legal 
 effect. In certain respects the woman came under 
 the power of her husband ; in other respects she re- 
 tained rights of no little importance. She had the 
 right of divorce, and might return to her own family, 
 or dismiss her husband. She could, if she preferred, 
 claim the protection of her own family against her 
 husband ; and her claim was effective, if she had 
 relations strong enough to enforce her rights. Her 
 murder was atoned for or avenged, like that of any 
 other member of the tribe. In most cases she was 
 the head of the family ; her husband usually came 
 to live with her, not she with him, and her children 
 belonged to her clan, not to their father's. 
 
 The line of inheritance and descent was commonly 
 through females ; titles descended through females. 
 The property of the husband and wife was usually 
 kept distinct during marriage, and held in separate 
 ownership ; in case of separation each took his or 
 her effects. A striking illustration of the position 
 of the Indian women was offered by the well-known 
 custom that when an Iroquois sachem died, and a 
 council was held to elect his successor, this council 
 consisted of all the adult male and female members 
 
12 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 of the tribe ; and among the latter the mother of the 
 deceased ruler exercised a decisive influence. 
 
 The marriage relation was of a very shifting kind, 
 but the wife, as such, was neither a slave captured 
 in war nor purchased property, nor property of any 
 kind in the strict sense ; she was a free member of 
 her own tribe and clan. The rule among the Indian 
 race was that the family meant the mother's family ; 
 but as if to show that even in the extreme antiquity 
 of society all the great lines of development had 
 already been seen and marked out, according to Mr. 
 Morgan there were tribes in Central America, and 
 those naturally the most advanced, which had adopted 
 the conception of relationship through the father, and 
 founded their polity on this principle. 
 
 From the American Indians turn to the oldest re- 
 cords of European and Asiatic society. To Egypt of 
 course we look first for light ; and though the field of 
 Egyptian history has been as yet barely touched, the 
 most superficial examination shows evidence suffi- 
 cient for the present purposes. No one can enter 
 an Egyptian Museum without seeing the weakness of 
 any theory which assigns to Egyptian women, even 
 in extreme antiquity, the position of slaves. On the 
 contrary, the further one's inquiries are carried into 
 the remotest regions of Egyptian history, — even 
 into that age of the pyramid-builders, so remote that 
 Egyptologists hesitate to fix for it a date within a 
 possible error of some thousands of years, — the evi- 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 13 
 
 deuce which proves the social position of women to^ 
 have been highest in the ages most distant becomes 
 more convincing. The female line of descent was 
 followed regularly if not invariably among Egyptians, 
 as among American Indians. The queen sat on the 
 throne with her husband ; her statue rests in the 
 tomb by his side. At all periods the sister and 
 the wife were held in the highest respect, and a 
 trace of the old communal society remained in the 
 well-known Egyptian custom by which the sister fre- 
 quently if not habitually became the wife. " The 
 Egyptian woman," says Mariette Bey, " occupied a 
 large place in the family. The rights which were 
 hers by birth were not absorbed in those of her hus- 
 band, and she transmitted them intact to her chil- 
 dren. At certain epochs the family tables often name 
 the mother to the exclusion of the father. In the 
 most ancient inscriptions the love between husband 
 and wife is sometimes expressed in delicate and 
 touching language." 
 
 The position taken by woman in the Egyptian phi- 
 losophy and religion is more curious and still more 
 decisive. Among the commonest Egyptian monu- 
 ments are the famous triads or trinity of deities. 
 This trinity represents a man, a woman, and a child. 
 The male deity, most widely known under the name 
 of Osiris, appears to have represented the creative 
 power, the principle of light struggling with dark- 
 ness, and overcome by it only to be brought again 
 to life through the aid of the woman. Osiris was 
 
14 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the generator, — the fructifying force of Nature ; the 
 sun with its mysterious energy which called life into 
 being. By his side sat the woman, Isis, the sister, 
 the wife, — that mysterious power which according 
 to the physiological ideas of that day gave only shel- 
 ter and protection to the germ of being, resembling 
 the earth teeming with life under the beams of the 
 sun. The third member of the Egyptian trinity was 
 the child, Horus or Ra, who completed the myste- 
 rious circle, returning again to the father, never 
 designated as the son, but represented as the father 
 self-engendered ; for in the Egyptian trinity, as in 
 the Christian, the father and the son were one, — the 
 insoluble mystery of generation, insoluble then as 
 now, ever returned upon itself. 
 
 In so elevated and philosophic a system of the- 
 ology where shall we look for the degradation of 
 the woman? Not surely in the mere fact that the 
 place assigned to the mother was of secondary im- 
 portance, inasmuch as the father and not the mother 
 was considered as author of the child's existence. 
 The mother was as essential to the trinity as the 
 father or the son. Isis stood on the same plane as 
 Osiris. Never from the beginning to the end of that 
 marvellous history whose records still remain the 
 most astonishing monuments of human development, 
 can we find reason to suppose that the family sprang 
 from the exercise of force, and that the wife was a 
 slave or the descendant of slaves. The Christian 
 philosophers of a later period, probably influenced 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 15 
 
 by their close connection with Alexandria, adopted 
 the trinity, and in adopting it, dethroned the woman 
 from her place. Yet even then, notwithstanding this 
 degradation, the irresistible spread of Mariolatry, the 
 worship of the Virgin Mother, proved how strongly 
 human nature revolted against the change. 
 
 The races of Western Europe showed tendencies 
 more strongly marked. In all branches of what is 
 commonly known as the Aryan stock, — Celt, Roman, 
 Greek, German, and Scandinavian, — are indications 
 that at some period antecedent to recorded history, 
 a social rebellion against the old communal system 
 had been felt. The institution of marriage, the law of 
 descent in the male line, the importance of the family 
 and the authority of the father, are characteristics so 
 distinct in the whole Aryan group as to countenance 
 the idea that this was in fact the real origin of the 
 race, and that the primitive Aryan stock broke away 
 from the original communal society with no other 
 distinctive principle. Perhaps the institution of the 
 family was the means of their extraordinary success, 
 and of the domination which they established wher- 
 ever they set their feet. Historically, the family is 
 but an example of the energetic realization of those 
 natural affections and that passion of property which 
 lie deepest of all passions in humanity. The race 
 which followed this path with the most vigor must 
 have been the strongest race and the best fitted to 
 conquer. Such a race had a natural instinct for law ; 
 its taste for the acquisition of private property re- 
 
16 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 quired development of legal principles ; its faculty 
 of adopting reforms in society proves its intellectual 
 versatility ; and what are all these but the same char- 
 acteristics which appear again ages afterward, in the 
 greatest of all the works of their descendants, — in 
 the civil law of Rome, and in the common law of 
 England ? 
 
 Turning to the Greeks and to their literature, un- 
 mistakable traces prove the existence at no very re- 
 mote time of the same class of institutions as those 
 of the American Indians. Descent and inheritance 
 through women to the exclusion of men ; subjec- 
 tion of the persons of women to obligations which 
 seem to have had their origin in the old communal 
 ties ; even distinct efforts to force them back under 
 the burden of those obligations after they had once 
 freed themselves, — all these are recorded, and all 
 point in one direction. Yet it may be doubted 
 whether these were any part of pure Greek civili- 
 zation. Probably they belonged to the races which 
 the Greek overran and ruled ; and if traces of the 
 old communistic system are found in Greek litera- 
 ture or history, they crept in, as afterward the cor- 
 ruption of the East crept into the society of Rome. 
 Fortunately something is known of the heroic age of 
 the Greeks. The Homeric poems are a monument 
 of early Greek society ; and the peculiarity of the 
 Homeric poems which causes them to stand in sharp 
 contrast with later Greek literature is, that they in- 
 variably treated women and the marriage contract 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. IT 
 
 with respect which subsequent literature of no coun- 
 try or age can show. If marriage were really the 
 child of force, if the wife were a captured or a pur- 
 chased slave, we should find a trace of it here ; but 
 no such trace exists. 
 
 Ulysses in one of his accounts of his origin said,— 
 " It is my boast that I am of the race 
 
 Who dwell in spacious Crete, — a rich man's son, 
 
 Within whose palace many other sons 
 
 Were born and reared, the offspring of his wife; 
 
 But me a purchased mother whom he made 
 
 His concubine brought forth to him. 
 
 And yet Castor Hylacides from whom I sprang 
 
 Held me in equal favor with the rest." 
 
 The wife, in contrast with the purchased mother, 
 was always a free woman, with rights which her hus- 
 band could not disregard. The whole story both of 
 the Iliad and the Odyssey is little more than a run- 
 ning commentary on the Greek law of marriage. I 
 will not stop to discuss the legal status of Helen of 
 Troy, although her position offers some remarkable 
 illustrations of law; but the Odyssey offers little else. 
 This poem opens with an account of the state of af- 
 fairs at Ithaca after Ulysses had been absent twenty 
 years. The neighboring chiefs, assuming Ulysses to 
 be dead, made common cause to compel his widow 
 Penelope to choose a second husband. They came 
 in a body to the abode of Ulysses, and there seated 
 themselves with the formal intention of eating Pe- 
 nelope and her son Telemachus out of house* and 
 home if she did not accede to their wish. In this 
 
 2 
 
18 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 case what was the legal status of Penelope, the as- 
 sumed widow ? Was she a slave ? Was she under 
 the authority of her husband's family, or of her own 
 son ? Or had she fallen back under the authority of 
 her own family ? What were her legal rights, if she 
 had any ? How did the suitors show their sense of 
 her inferiority as a woman to their dignity as men ? 
 How did they expect to compel her to carry out their 
 wishes ? 
 
 It was not the beauty of Penelope which brought 
 the suitors to her house with a system of wooing so 
 energetic. Homer represents Penelope as still hand- 
 some, but she could hardly have been less than forty 
 years old, and most if not all her suitors were young 
 enough to have been her sons. Distinct evidence is 
 given that not merely her youth and beauty caused 
 her to be so ardently sought ; she possessed attrac- 
 tions independent of these, and more potent to fix 
 the affections of the Achaian suitors. Penelope was 
 the widow of the chosen chieftain of all the Ithacans ; 
 she was wealthy in her own right ; she carried with 
 her to her future husband a certain claim to the 
 coveted position of chieftain which her husband had 
 held, and this too in face of the claim by inheritance 
 which belonged to her son Telemachus. 
 
 Telemachus was the heir to his father's wealth ; 
 he was the owner of the house in which his mother 
 lived ; he was head of the family in his father's 
 absence ; but his property was encumbered by his 
 mother's claims, and he could not pay off these 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 19 
 
 claims without reducing himself to the position of a 
 comparatively poor man. He would have been well 
 pleased had his mother settled the difficulty by ac- 
 cepting and marrying one of the suitors, even on 
 the chance of his father's return. He would have 
 been still better pleased had his mother consented to 
 go back to her own father, and so relieve him and 
 his estate ; but he did not dare to send her back, 
 since such an act on his part would have been an 
 infraction of the terms of the marriage contract be- 
 tween Ulysses and Penelope, and would have sub- 
 jected Telemachus to the claims of his mother's 
 family for large damages on her behalf, — claims that 
 would certainly have been enforced. Penelope was 
 mistress to decide what to do, and she preferred to 
 make no decision. We are left to surmise her mo- 
 tives. What hindered her from at once dismissing 
 the suitors and insisting upon maintaining her wid- 
 owhood ? Possibly she feared their resentment ; but 
 probably the Greek custom, which amounted to law, 
 required that the widow should marry again, if not 
 too old. At all events she did not decide, and the 
 suitors, to the disgust of Telemachus, went on eat- 
 ing day by day the flocks and herds which were the 
 bulk of his wealth. Between his mother and the 
 suitors Telemachus was in despair ; and the sec- 
 ond book of the Odyssey shows him calling a pub- 
 lic council to force a solution of the difficulty. 
 The story continues, in the words of Mr. Bryant's 
 translation : — 
 
20 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 " He took the seat 
 Of his great father, and the aged men 
 Made way for him. And then iEgyptius spake: 
 
 ' Hear, men of Ithaca, what I shall say. 
 No council, no assembly have we held 
 Since great Ulysses in his roomy ships 
 Departed from our isle. Who now is he 
 That summons us 1 ' 
 
 As thus he spake, Ulysses' son rejoiced 
 In his auspicious words, nor longer kept 
 His seat, but yielding to an inward force 
 Rose midst them all to speak, while in his hand 
 Pisenor, the sagacious counsellor 
 And herald, placed the sceptre. Then he turned 
 To the old man iEgyptius, speaking thus: 
 
 ' aged man, not far from thee is he 
 Who called this council, as thou soon shalt know. 
 Mine chiefly is the trouble ; I have brought 
 No news of an approaching foe, . . . 
 Nor urge I other matters which concern 
 The public weal ; my own necessity, 
 The evil which has fallen on my house, 
 Constrains me. It is twofold : first, that I 
 Have lost an excellent father, who was king 
 Among you, and ruled o'er you with a sway 
 As gentle as a fathers. Greater yet 
 Is the next evil, and will soon o'erthrow 
 My house and waste my substance utterly. 
 Suitors, the sons of those who in our isle 
 Hold the chief rank, importunately press 
 Round my unwilling mother. They disdain 
 To ask her of Icarius, that the king 
 • Her father may endow her, and bestow 
 His daughter on the man who best may gain 
 His favor ; but with every day they come 
 Into our palace, sacrificing here 
 Oxen and sheep and fatling goats, and hold 
 
 i 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 21 
 
 High festival, and drink the purple wine 
 
 Unstinted, with unbounded waste ; for here 
 
 Is no man like Ulysses to repel 
 
 The mischief from my house. Not such are we 
 
 As he was to resist the wrong. We pass 
 
 For weaklings, immature in valor; yet 
 
 If I had but the power assuredly 
 
 I would resist, for by these men are done 
 
 Insufferable things, nor does my house 
 
 Perish with honor.' "... 
 
 To this speech Antinous, one of the suitors, made 
 the following significant answer : — 
 
 " Telemachus, thou youth of braggart speech 
 And boundless in abuse, what hast thou said 
 To our dishonor ? Thou wouldst fix on us 
 A brand of shame. The blame is not with us, 
 The Achaian suitors; 'tis thy mother's fault, 
 Skilled as she is in crafty shifts. . . . 
 
 . . . Now let the suitors make 
 Their answer to thy words, that thou mayst know 
 Our purpose fully, and the Achaians all 
 May know it likewise. Send thy mother hence, 
 Requiring that she wed the suitor whom 
 Her father chooses and herself prefers. 
 But if she still go on to treat the sons 
 Of Greece with such despite, too confident 
 In gifts which Pallas has bestowed on her 
 So richly, ... so long will we consume 
 Thy substance and estate as she shall hold 
 Her present mood. . . . She to herself 
 Gains great renown, but surely brings on thee 
 Loss of much goods. And now we go not hence 
 To our affairs nor elsewhere till she wed 
 Whichever of the Greeks shall please her most.' 
 
 And then rejoined discreet Telemachus : 
 
22 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ' Antinous, grievous wrong were it to send 
 Unwilling from this palace her who bore 
 And nursed me. . . . 
 And should I of my own accord and will 
 Dismiss my mother, I must make perforce 
 Icarius large amends, and that were hard. 
 
 . . . Think not I 
 Will ever speak that word.'" 
 
 The conference broke up, and a temporary suspen- 
 sion of hostilities was effected. Telemachus on the 
 one hand was determined to drive out the suitors, 
 and even to kill them if he could ; while the suitors 
 were well disposed to forestall him by putting him to 
 death at once, and sharing his estate among them- 
 selves, while the succession to the throne should be 
 decided by the choice which Penelope should make 
 of a husband. In their deliberations, the suitors 
 expressed their intentions with frankness, especially 
 Antinous, their most active leader : — 
 
 " Let us be first to strike 
 And slay him in the fields or on the way, 
 And taking his possessions to ourselves, 
 Share equally his wealth. Then may we give 
 This palace to his mother and the man 
 Whom she may wed, whoever he may be." 
 
 The father and the brothers of Penelope counselled 
 her to wed Eurymachus, the wealthiest and the least 
 objectionable of the suitors, and it was understood 
 that she would carry to him the rank which Ulysses 
 had held. The widow's choice would in this respect 
 decide the election ; and Telemachus distinctly ad- 
 mitted that this solution would be satisfactory to him 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 23 
 
 if it relieved his estate quickly from the impending 
 ruin. 
 
 In the face of all this, Penelope paid no attention to 
 the opinions or wishes of any one. She regarded the 
 desperation of her son with as little sympathy as she 
 did the cool advice of her father and brothers and the 
 too marked attentions of her suitors. Her action was 
 contrary to the advice and wishes of her relatives and 
 connections on both sides. She was perfectly inde- 
 pendent. She relied on her legal rights, which until 
 the death of her husband was formally ascertained 
 were sufficient to protect her ; and according to the 
 poem these rights were respected. Neither the suit- 
 ors nor Telemachus, nor any of the family of Ulysses, 
 nor her own family, ventured to restrain her indepen- 
 dence of action. 
 
 This is but one example from many which Homer 
 offers of the position of women in the earliest Greek 
 society. Turning next from Greece to Rome, the in- 
 quiry is checked by the difficulty that Romans were 
 not a very poetic or a romantic people. No great mon- 
 ument of their primitive condition, like the Homeric 
 poems, is extant ; probably none ever existed. Hardly 
 a vestige of their early history has survived in an au- 
 thentic form. The most primitive of their extant laws 
 belongs to a period of development far in advance of 
 that now in question. Moreover, the Romans threw 
 themselves into the reaction against primitive com- 
 munism with a degree of energy, not to say of vio- 
 lence, which went far beyond anything known in 
 
24 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 other branches of the Aryan stock. The Roman 
 family not only exaggerated the characteristics of the 
 wide-spread hostility to old communistic ideas, and 
 asserted in the strongest manner the principle of 
 relationship through males, but it went even to the 
 extravagance of annihilating relationship through fe- 
 males ; not only did it make the father the head of 
 the family, it absorbed the family in the father ; 
 not only did it raise the authority of the husband over 
 the wife, it asserted the astounding principle that the 
 wife was the daughter of her husband. Alone among 
 Aryan races the Romans, with their extravagant logi- 
 cal sequence, inferred from the premise of paternal 
 headship the conclusion that that headship carried 
 with it the rights of absolute property ; and if of ab- 
 solute property over the chattels of the family, why 
 not also over the children ; and if over the children, 
 then since the father, in giving his daughter in mar- 
 riage, conveyed with her to her husband all the rights 
 which he himself enjoyed, it necessarily followed 
 that the wife stood toward her husband in the posi- 
 tion of a daughter, and that his power over her was 
 unlimited. 
 
 This was already the theory of the law when the 
 law first becomes known ; but this theory was limited 
 and controlled in practice by influences which were 
 also peculiar to the Romans. In no country has the 
 family been so serious and so sacred a thing as among 
 the Romans at the time when this theory of their law 
 prevailed. The sanctity with which it was invested, 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 25 
 
 elevated and dignified the position of wife and child 
 in spite of the perverted letter of the law. No com- 
 plaint comes from Roman history of the abuse of the 
 enormous power thus vested in the father. Nowhere 
 has the family been so intimate and so united a fabric 
 as in Rome. Almost from the first the Romans seem 
 to have felt that their family law was not defensible 
 in practice, and was inconsistent with the theory of 
 the State. During a long series of years the Roman 
 jurists continued to devise new expedients for evading 
 the consequences of their own legal doctrines. Step 
 by step they emancipated the wife ; they emancipated 
 the son ; they tried to explain or to smooth away the 
 extravagances of their own creation, until at last 
 they did it so successfully that not only was the 
 husband's authority over the wife destroyed, but the 
 whole family organization was shaken to pieces. 
 
 In any case the authority conferred upon the hus- 
 band by the Roman law did not prove the degradation 
 of women. Whatever that authority was, it was exer- 
 cised over the wife, not because she was a woman, but 
 because she was a daughter. To the paternal power 
 the man as well as the woman was subject ; and 
 no matter what age the man had attained, he was, 
 during the lifetime of his father, under the same 
 domestic rule as his sister or his mother. 
 
 There remain to be considered the institutions of 
 the great German race from which we more directly 
 claim descent. Like the other branches of the Indo- 
 European stock, the German founded his society 
 
26 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 firmly on the family, with its masculine peculiarities ; 
 but the German family was still, as compared with 
 * the Roman, a loose and flexible structure, and more 
 than one suggestion is to be found in the early 
 German law pointing to that communal society so 
 evidently the starting place of human institutions. 
 
 Like the Greeks, some of the German tribes had 
 strong romantic tendencies and poetic instincts. Lit- 
 tle of the pure German poetry which has survived 
 illustrates the subject now under discussion, but the 
 rudest and least Romanized branch of the German 
 race left some extraordinary literary monuments ; and 
 among the northern barbarians who struggled most 
 desperately against the civilizing and centralizing in- 
 fluences of their clay were portions of the Scandina- 
 vians, who, when their power was at last finally 
 broken, and their country lay helpless at the feet of 
 their conqueror, still refused to accept the fate of 
 war, and abandoning their homes, betook themselves 
 to the sea, with the resolution to accept life only 
 on the condition of preserving undiminished those 
 rights which consisted principally in recognizing no 
 one as master, and in waging private war on their 
 private enemies. One considerable mass of these 
 men, carrying their families with them, crossed the 
 ocean, and a thousand years ago found the absolute 
 freedom which they sought in a spot where they 
 were little likely to be disturbed. They established 
 a commonwealth in Iceland ; and there they lived, 
 and after their own manner flourished for many 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 27 
 
 years in the complete enjoyment of all their archaic 
 liberties. Their society was in many respects re- 
 markable, but in none more so than in that, of its 
 literature. Iceland alone among western countries 
 has left an heroic poem, which, for historical inter- 
 est if not for artistic merit, can stand by the side 
 of the Odyssey. The « Njalsaga," as it is called, is a 
 piece of pure, or nearly pure, and authentic primitive 
 history, and offers an invaluable picture of Scandina- 
 vian society, at a period of development not very un- 
 like that described in the Odyssey. 
 
 The Njalsaga, like the poems of Homer, turns on 
 the character of a woman, and I will use the language 
 of Mr. Dasent's translation in order not to lose the 
 vivacity and quaintness of the original. Halloerda 
 was her name. She was fair-haired, and had so much 
 of it that she could hide herself in it; but she was 
 lavish and hard-hearted. A suitor named Thorwald 
 asked her of her father in marriage. The father 
 warned his future son-in-law of her temper; but his 
 answer was : " Lay down the terms of the match, for 
 I will not let her temper stand in the way of our 
 bargain." Then they talked over the terms of the 
 bargam; and Hauskuld, the father, never asked his 
 daughter what she thought of it, for his heart was set 
 on giving her away, and so they came to an under- 
 standing as to the terms of the match. Hauskuld 
 then told Hallgerda of the bargain he had made, and 
 she said : « Now that has been put to the proof which 
 I have all along been afraid of, that thou lovest me 
 
28 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 not so much as thou art always saying, when thou 
 hast not thought it worth while to tell me a word of 
 all this matter. Besides, I do not think this match so 
 good a one as thou hast always promised me." 
 
 Hauskuld's reply indicates the power which the 
 father in almost every period exercised over his 
 daughter's choice of a husband. " I do not set so 
 much store by thy pride as to let it stand in the way 
 of my bargains ; and my will, not thine, shall carry 
 the day if we fall out on any point." 
 
 Hallgerda gave way, and the marriage took place. 
 But she revenged herself upon her husband by her 
 intolerable temper, until one day within the first year 
 of their marriage her husband was stung by an insult 
 to such anger that he gave her a blow on the face 
 that drew blood. That same day she caused him to 
 be murdered, and then she rode home to her father. 
 He was obliged to pay the legal atonement for the 
 life of his son-in-law to the family of the murdered 
 man, while Hallgerda took up her residence again in 
 her father's house, and her property accumulated till 
 it had reached a great sum. 
 
 After a time another suitor appeared. His name was 
 Glum. This time the father was better advised than 
 to dispose of his daughter without consulting her. 
 They sent for Hallgerda and she came thither, and 
 two women with her. She had on a cloak of rich 
 blue wool, and under it a scarlet kirtle, and a silver 
 girdle round her waist ; but her hair came clown on 
 both sides of her bosom, and she had turned the locks 
 
PRIMITIVE EIGHTS OF WOMEN. 29 
 
 up under her girdle. She sat down; greeted them 
 all with kind words and spoke well and boldly, and 
 asked what was the news. After that she ceased 
 speaking. 
 
 Then Glum said : " There has been some talk be- 
 tween thy father and my brother and myself about a 
 bargain. It was that I might get thee, Hallgerda, if 
 it be thy will as it is theirs ; and now, if thou art a 
 brave woman, thou wilt say right out whether the 
 match is at all to thy mind ; but if thou hast anything 
 in thy heart against this bargain with us, then we will 
 not say anything more about it." 
 
 Hallgerda said : " I know well that you are men of 
 worth and might, ye brothers ; I know too that now I 
 shall be much better wedded than I was before ; but 
 what I want to know is, what you have said already 
 about the match, and how far you have given your 
 words in the matter. But so far as I now see of thee, 
 I think I might love thee well, if we can but hit it off 
 as to temper." 
 
 So Glum himself told her all about the bargain and 
 left nothing out, and then he asked Hauskuld and 
 Hrut whether he had told it right. Hauskuld said he 
 had, and then Hallgerda said : " Ye have dealt with 
 me so well in this matter, my father and Hrut, that I 
 will do what ye advise, and this bargain shall be 
 struck as ye have settled it." 
 
 After that Hallgerda's goods were valued, and Glum 
 was to lay down as much against them, and they were 
 to go shares, half and half, in the whole. The mar- 
 
30 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 riage took place, and Hallgerda kept her word. She 
 lived happily with her husband for a time ; but her 
 want of heart was again the cause of her second hus- 
 band's murder by the same hand which had slain the 
 first. Hallgerda went back again to her father's 
 house, and was there in the course of time married to 
 a third husband, one of the heroes of the story. He 
 was a wise and high-minded man. His wife made 
 his life miserable, and developed the utmost ingenuity 
 in the effort to embroil him with his friends and 
 neighbors in quarrels of every sort ; but he succeeded 
 for the most part in keeping his temper and in ward- 
 ing off the clangers caused by her conduct. Even 
 toward her his patience seemed inexhaustible, until 
 one day he detected her in a peculiarly base theft ; 
 and in his wrath at the disgrace she had brought 
 upon him, he slapped her face. She said she would 
 bear that slap in mind, and repay it if she could. As 
 usual she was as good as her word. Gunnar, her 
 husband, was at last attacked in his house one night, 
 and was hard pressed by the attacking party. He 
 wounded eight men and killed two, but his enemies 
 succeeded in cutting his bowstring, and he could not 
 hope to hold them at bay unless he could procure 
 another string. 
 
 Then Gunnar said to Hallgerda : " Give me two 
 locks of thy hair ; and ye two, thy mother and thou, 
 twist them together into a bowstring for me." 
 
 " Does aught lie on it ? " said she. 
 
 " My life lies on it," he said ; " for they will never 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 31 
 
 come to close quarters with me if I can keep them off 
 with my bow." 
 
 "Well" S he said, "now I will call to thy mind 
 that slap on the face which thou gavest me ] and 1 
 care never a whit whether thou boldest out a long 
 while or a short." 
 
 She sat by, all that night, and saw her husband 
 slowly exhausted by one wound after another, until at 
 last his enemies could come near enough to kill him ■ 
 but he did not turn his hand against her, and Halt 
 gerda lived to enjoy the wealth acquired from her 
 three murdered husbands, and to bring more misery 
 and death on her friends. 
 
 Surely a woman of this stamp was no slave, 
 no descendant of slaves, no possible connection of 
 slaves. All the fierce and untamable instincts of 
 infinite generations of free, wild animals were em- 
 bodied ,n her. Nor were her legal rights those of a 
 dependant. No Norse pirate, no Danish jarl, enjoyed 
 more completely than she the legal rights of a free 
 citizen. Marriage is described as a sale, and this pas- 
 sage might be quoted to prove that the father sold his 
 daughter to her first husband without her consent- 
 but what sort of a sale was that which carried with 
 it no rights of property over the thing sold ? The 
 father conveyed to the husband no more than the 
 father himself had, and the patria potestas was no 
 part of Scandinavian or German law. The father 
 conveyed to the husband simply the rights of guar- 
 dianship, not rights of property, -the right to act as 
 
32 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 her representative, with the corresponding duties ; 
 the right to the control and charge of her property 
 while she remained his wife, and certain rights of in- 
 heritance in case of her death, though these apparently 
 depended in each case on the terms of the contract. 
 In that stage of society the rights of the husband over 
 the wife were less extensive than they now are. Her 
 position was more independent; her ability to hold 
 property was quite as complete ; her protection against 
 ill-treatment, if anything, was more effective than it 
 is now. 
 
 One final resource the wife always had. The Scan- 
 dinavians were not yet much advanced beyond the 
 Indians of America in their view of marriage as a 
 voluntary association, which might be terminated at 
 the will of either party. Another passage of the 
 Njalsaga throws light on the Scandinavian law of 
 divorce. Unna, wife of Hrut, was dissatisfied with 
 her husband and wished to leave him. She took 
 counsel with her father, who on hearing her reasons 
 was satisfied with their force, and being the best law- 
 yer in Iceland advised her as to the proper way of 
 securing her divorce without risk of opposition or of 
 personal constraint. She was to throw her husband 
 off his guard by appearing happy and good-tempered, 
 and then when he was absent from home in the 
 summer on necessary business, and when all the men 
 of the district had ridden away to the annual meet- 
 ing of the Thing, or popular assembly and court 
 of law, she must summon her own people to ride 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN". 33 
 
 with her to the Thing ; and when she was ready to 
 start she must, in the presence and with the witness 
 of the men who were to bear her company, go be- 
 fore her marriage bed and declare herself separated 
 from her husband by such separation as would hold 
 good before the laws of the land and the judgment of 
 the great Thing. At the door of the house she must 
 take the same witness. After this she must make 
 her way as safely as she could to her father at the 
 Thing. 
 
 All this she did, and successfully joined her father 
 at the Thing. Then she went to the hill of laws and 
 declared herself separated from Hrut, her husband ; 
 and this proceeding constituted a full and valid di- 
 vorce according to Scandinavian law. Her husband 
 came home, and on learning what had happened, knit 
 his brows and held his peace. He saw that the di- 
 vorce was accomplished, and that he could do noth- 
 ing to invalidate it. The affair did not end there. 
 Unna had carried a marriage portion to her husband, 
 of which he during the marriage had the possession 
 and management. Naturally Hrut was not disposed 
 to be generous in a case where he had been so un- 
 generously treated, and he therefore took no steps to 
 return the property. His wife's father consequently 
 brought a suit against him to compel surrender. 
 Hrut met and defeated the suit by challenging the 
 father to the wager of battle, — a challenge which 
 the father's age and inferior strength made it folly to 
 accept. This broke off the suit so far as the father 
 
34 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 was concerned. Unna, however, the divorced wife, 
 was still the rightful owner of the property, and could 
 recover possession whenever she could find a repre- 
 sentative whose physical strength and legal knowledge 
 were sufficient to overcome Hrut. This she ultimately 
 did, and the affair ended in the recovery of the prop- 
 erty and the maintenance of the divorce. 
 
 The sole legal inferiority of women to men con- 
 sisted in their subjection to guardianship. This limi- 
 tation of their legal capacity seems to have been due 
 to their physical inability to perform the public duties 
 of men. A woman could not go to war. She could 
 not act as her own champion in the inevitable wager 
 of battle. She had to act through her next of kin, 
 or through some person whom she appointed as her 
 legal representative ; but one of the most firmly es- 
 tablished principles of society obliged her family to 
 protect her in such cases, and until such a protector 
 or representative was found, her rights simply lay 
 dormant. 
 
 This is not the place to enter into any elaborate 
 examination of the other codes of northern law to 
 find light on this subject. The same principles will 
 be found to underlie the whole fabric of northern 
 society. That women as a weaker class suffered 
 from violent deprivation of their rights, and that in 
 many cases, perhaps habitually, they were treated 
 without much regard to them, may be true ; so doubt- 
 less were children ; but violation of law never was 
 law. One must look back beyond the records of his- 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 35 
 
 tory for any condition of pure force among the races 
 from which modern institutions and theories are de- 
 rived. Among these races can be found no evidence 
 of a lawless stage of society. If one may judge from 
 the faint indications that remain, their faculty for in- 
 stituting progressive laws gave them their superiority 
 over rival races. 
 
 A favorite theory has insisted upon regarding the 
 wedding ring as a badge of servitude or a symbol of 
 purchase. This idea cannot be maintained. The 
 wedding ring appears in its origin to have been 
 merely the earnest money which bound the contract 
 of marriage between the father and the husband, and 
 was not the only symbol of the kind in early cus- 
 tom, although no other survives in modern use. The 
 ring proved, not that marriage was a sale, but that 
 marriage was a civil contract executed according to 
 the strict formalities of contracts in the primitive 
 law ; it proved, not that women were deprived of 
 rights, but that their rights were secured to them 
 in marriage by the most careful provisions known to 
 early society. 
 
 On a world made up of the two great elements of 
 Roman society, with its ruined family system and its 
 debauched morality on the one side, and Germany, 
 with barbarism resting on a strong family organi- 
 zation, on the other, the Christian church began its 
 work of creating a new unity and a new morality for 
 mankind. For more than a thousand years the Church 
 profoundly affected and even controlled the conditions 
 
36 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 of social existence and the ethical tendencies of law. 
 On no branch of law did it exercise a more marked 
 influence than on the law of marriage. Historians, 
 aware of this influence, have naturally assumed that 
 the elevation of women from what was supposed to 
 have been their previous condition of degradation and 
 servitude was due to the humanitarian influence of 
 the Church. In truth, the share of the Church in the 
 elevation of women was for the most part restricted 
 to a partial restoration of rights which the Church 
 herself had a principal share in taking away from 
 them. The Church was a Roman church ; it rose to 
 power under the intense moral reaction against the 
 corruptions of the Empire ; and of all the corruptions 
 of the Empire none had been more scandalous and 
 more fatal than the corruption of the women. For 
 sufficient cause the women of the later Empire found 
 little favor in the eyes of the Church. In the early 
 days the ascetic principle was strong in religion, and 
 women as such, even the best of women, were not 
 sought by men whose present existence was as noth- 
 ing in their eyes, and to whom the price of eternal 
 happiness lay in the avoidance even of temptation to 
 worldly life. Next to the purification of morals, and 
 indeed as one principal means toward it, the Church 
 felt with most intensity the necessity of discipline and 
 obedience in society, and taught that lesson with only 
 too much earnestness and success. The rise of Chris- 
 tianity marked the diminution of women's social and 
 legal rights both in the old imperial world and in 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 37^ 
 
 the new Germanic race, which flung itself with all the 
 ardor of its fresh enthusiasm into the ideas of the 
 new religion. A long time elapsed before the pure 
 humanitarian influences of Christianity got the upper 
 hand, and began to struggle with the manifest in- 
 justice toward women which the Church had either 
 stimulated or permitted. 
 
 In the mean time church doctrines were more fre- 
 quently calculated to inculcate the duties than the 
 rights of women. The moral aspect of marriage and 
 its religious meaning were pressed with emphasis, 
 which did not often stop to weigh the immediate 
 importance of the legal and temporal contract. The 
 Church regarded as of greater consequence to the 
 happiness of mankind, here and hereafter, that women 
 should be obedient to their bishops and their hus- 
 bands than that they should be encouraged to pro- 
 tect themselves. Perhaps anything that tended to 
 depress the legal status and the civil rights of women, 
 tended at the same time to make them more and 
 more dependent on the Church, and to turn their 
 minds more passionately toward the one channel 
 through which consolation and protection came. 
 
 The Church ultimately made persistent and partly 
 successful efforts to protect women from the inevita- 
 ble results of its own policy, but these efforts could 
 never have gone to the point of restoring them to 
 the independent position they held either under the 
 Roman or the German law. The Church, for exam- 
 ple, frowned upon divorce and sternly forbade it ; yet 
 
38 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 which was likely to suffer most under an enforced 
 yoke, the man or the woman, — and why was the law 
 not as competent then to make a contract that should 
 protect the woman, as the Church was to intervene by 
 a purely ecclesiastical principle ? The Church felt 
 with reason that society should be taught to obey ; 
 and of all classes of society, the women who were 
 least in need of learning that lesson were obliged to 
 learn it most thoroughly. The Church established a 
 new ideal of feminine character. Thenceforward not 
 the proud, self-confident, vindictive woman of German 
 tradition received the admiration and commanded 
 the service of law and society ; not the Hallgerdas, 
 the Brunhildas, the Fredegundas, were the women 
 whose acts were chronicled and whose will was 
 obeyed. Such women were the horror and the shame 
 of the Church, unless, like the great Countess Matilda 
 of Tuscany, they paid to the Church that obedience 
 which they refused to their husbands. In reprobation 
 of these the Church raised up, with the willing co- 
 operation of the men, the modern type of Griselda, — 
 the meek and patient, the silent and tender sufferer, 
 the pale reflection of the Mater Dolorosa, submissive 
 to every torture that her husband could invent, but 
 more submissive to the Church than to her husband. 
 For her and such as her was the kingdom of heaven 
 reserved, while a fate of a very different kind was in 
 store for the defiant heroine of the heroic age. 
 
 These mediaeval conceptions belonged to a time 
 when the most pressing necessity of society was con- 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 39 
 
 centration, and when discipline was the chief lesson to 
 be learned. The process by which the free and demo- 
 cratic German world had to be trained was long and 
 painful. The wretchedness of feudal tyranny was 
 succeeded only by the sharper inflictions of concen- 
 trated power. For centuries the most intelligent 
 part of society set its heart on building up a social 
 fabric which should rest not on human but on divine 
 authority. The principle of authority was essential ; 
 and authority, when not resting on the will of society, 
 could find no other logical support than the divine 
 will. The conditions of their existence precluded the 
 Church, the arbitrary monarch, the feudal noble, and 
 the husband of that day from resting the claim of 
 authority on the consent of society. Thus the family, 
 like the State, took on the character of a petty abso- 
 lutism ; and to justify in theory the sacrifice of rights 
 thus surrendered by the wife and children, whether 
 in the form of the harsh provisions of the law toward 
 women or the even harsher rules of primogeniture, 
 men fell back on what they called the patriarchal 
 theory, and derived the principles they required from 
 a curious conglomeration of Old Testament history 
 and pure hypothesis. 
 
 England was the country Avhich carried these theo- 
 ries to the most extreme conclusions in her law ; but 
 England was also the country which resisted their 
 application most successfully. Luther led the way 
 by overthrowing in northern Germany the divine 
 authority of the Roman church. England struck the 
 
40 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 first blow at the whole system in her rebellion against 
 the theory of divine right in the State. Luther and 
 Cromwell were conservatives in a wider sense than 
 they imagined. They represented more than the pro- 
 test against religious or political absolutism. The 
 movement which they led could not come to a legiti- 
 mate end without effecting a readjustment of the 
 whole social balance, which the exigencies of a press- 
 ing immediate necessity had for a thousand years 
 thrown from its natural equilibrium. 
 
 Future history can hardly produce any new expe- 
 rience which has not its prototype in the past. If 
 modern society is destined to move at all, it can only 
 move on the same lines which have already and re- 
 peatedly been followed out to their conclusions. If 
 it carries the tendency toward the independence of 
 women to its logical extreme, it will find that Rome 
 has already travelled that path. If it reacts toward 
 a re-establishment of the family in sterner aspect, 
 it will find that this reaction has again and again 
 told its whole story. If it seeks a moral from which 
 to draw all the light that history can throw on its 
 true interests, this moral is obvious and trite. All 
 new discoveries in the record of human development 
 point to the familiar facts that the most powerful in- 
 stincts in man are his affections and his love of prop- 
 erty ; that on these the family is built ; that no other 
 institution can be raised on the same or on equally 
 strong foundations ; that for this reason the family is 
 the strongest and healthiest of all human fabrics ; 
 
PRIMITIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN. 41 
 
 that it always has and probably always will trample 
 every rival system under its feet ; and finally, that 
 just in the measure that society has on the one side 
 carried the theory of the family to an exaggeration, 
 or has allowed it to fall into contempt, has been the 
 violence of the reaction. 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 1 
 
 SOMETIME GOVERNOUR IN VIRGINIA, AND ADMIRALL OF NEW 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 Captain John Smith belonged to the extraordinary 
 school of adventurers who gave so much lustre to the 
 reign of Elizabeth, and whose most brilliant leader 
 King James brought to the Tower and the block. 
 Like Raleigh, though on a much lower level, Smith 
 sustained many different characters. He was a sol- 
 dier or a sailor indifferently, a statesman when cir- 
 cumstances gave him power, and an author when 
 occasion required. Born in Lincolnshire in 1579, of 
 what is supposed to have been a good Lancashire 
 family, at a very early age he became a soldier of 
 fortune in the Low Countries, and drifted into the 
 Austrian service, where he took part in the campaign 
 of 1600 against the Turks. Afterward he reappeared 
 as a soldier of the Prince of Transylvania, who gave 
 him a coat-of-arms, which was registered at the 
 Herald's College in London. His extraordinary ad- 
 ventures during the three or four years of his life in 
 Eastern Europe were related in his Autobiography, 
 
 1 Originally printed in the North American Review for Jan- 
 nary, 1867. 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 43 
 
 or " True Travels," a work published in London in 
 1630, near the close of his life. Dr. Palfrey's His- 
 tory of New England contains the earliest critical 
 examination of this portion of Smith's story from 
 an historical and geographical point of view, with a 
 result not on the whole unfavorable to Smith. 1 
 
 In 1604 Smith was again in England, where he 
 soon began to interest himself in the enterprise of 
 colonizing America. 
 
 On the 10th of April, 1606, King James conferred 
 a charter upon certain persons in England, who took 
 the title of the Virginia Company, and who proceeded 
 to fit out an expedition of three small vessels, contain- 
 ing, in addition to their crews, one hundred and five 
 colonists, headed by a Council, of which Edward Maria 
 Wingfield was chosen President, and Captains Bar- 
 tholomew Gosnold, John Smith, John Ratcliffe, John 
 Martin, and George Kendall were the other mem- 
 bers. After various delays this expedition dropped 
 down the Thames December 20 of the same year, 
 but was kept six weeks in sight of England by un- 
 favorable winds. After a long and difficult voyage, 
 and a further delay of three weeks among the West 
 India Islands, the headlands of Chesapeake Bay were 
 passed April 26, 1607. On the 14th of May following, 
 the colonists formally founded Jamestown. 
 
 In the mean while trouble had risen between Smith 
 and his colleagues. Smith's story was told in the 
 " Generall Historie " as follows : — 
 
 1 Palfrey's History of New England, i. pp. 89-92, note. 
 
44 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 " Now, Captain Smith, who all this time from their de- 
 parture from the Canaries was restrained as a prisoner 
 upon the scandalous suggestions of some of the chief e, 
 (envying his repute), who fained he intended to usurpe 
 the Government, murther the Councell, and make himselfe 
 King ; that his confederats were dispersed in all the three 
 ships, and that divers of his confederats that revealed it 
 would affirm it. For this he was committed as a prisoner. 
 Thirteen weeks he remained thus suspected, and by that 
 time the ships should returne, they pretended out of their 
 commisserations to refer him to the Councell in England 
 to receive a check, rather then by p articulating his de- 
 signes make him so odious to the world, as to touch his 
 life; or utterly overthrow his reputation." 
 
 Captain Newport, who was about to return to Eng- 
 land, exerted his influence so strongly in favor of 
 harmony that Smith was allowed to resume his seat 
 among the Council ; but he was not liked by the per- 
 sons in control of the expedition, and some little light 
 on the causes of their dislike or suspicion may be 
 found in a passage of Wingfield's " Discourse," which 
 said of Smith that " it was proved to his face that he 
 begged in Ireland, like a rogue without a lycence," — 
 and he adds, " To such I would not my name should 
 be a companyon." If Smith was accused of con- 
 spiring to obtain power, the dark events and ques- 
 tionable expedients of his varied and troubled career 
 might well be flung in his face, and produce a con- 
 siderable influence on the minds of his judges. Har- 
 mony was a blessing little known among the unhappy 
 colonists, and before the close of the year, Captain 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 45 
 
 George Kendall, another of the members of the Coun- 
 cil, was accused of the same crime with which Smith 
 had been charged, and was tried, convicted, and act- 
 ually executed. 
 
 Newport, who had great influence over the colo- 
 nists, sailed for England June 22, leaving three 
 months' supplies behind him, and promising to re- 
 turn in seven months with a new company of set- 
 tlers. His departure was followed by disasters and 
 troubles of every description. The mortality was 
 frightful. More than forty deaths took place before 
 September, some caused by fevers and sickness, some 
 by the Indians, but the larger number by famine. 
 The kindness of the Indians alone, according to the 
 express statement of Percy, who was among the sur- 
 vivors, preserved the remaining colonists from the 
 fate of the lost Roanoke settlement of 1585. 
 
 Even this condition of the colony, though during 
 five months together not five able-bodied men could 
 mount the defences, had no effect in quieting the 
 jealousies and dissensions of the leaders. Captain 
 Gosnold died, leaving only Wing-field, Ratcliffe, 
 Smith, and Martin in the Council. The last three 
 combined to depose Wingfield ; and this revolution 
 took place September 10, without resistance. Rat- 
 cliffe, as the next in order, was chosen President. 
 
 " As at this time," said Smith, " were most of our 
 chiefest men either sicke or discontented, the rest 
 being in such dispaire as they would rather starve 
 and rot with idleness then be perswaded to do any- 
 
46 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 thing for their owne reliefe without constraint, — our 
 victualles being now within eighteene dayes spent, 
 and the Indians' trade decreasing, I was sent to the 
 mouth of ye river to trade for Corne, and try the 
 River for Fish ; but our fishing we could not effect by 
 reason of the stormy weather." Fortunately the In- 
 dians were found willing to trade for corn, and by 
 means of their supplies the lives of the settlers were 
 saved. On the 9th of November, Smith made a 
 longer excursion, partially exploring the Chickahom- 
 iny, and was received with much kindness by the 
 Indians, who supplied him with corn enough to have 
 " laded a ship." Elated by his success and encour- 
 aged by the friendly attitude of the savages, — or, ac- 
 cording to his own account, eager " to discharge the 
 imputation of malicious tungs, that halfe suspected I 
 durst not, for so long delaying," — he determined to 
 carry on his exploration of the Chickahominy to its 
 source. On the 10th of December he started in the 
 pinnace, which he left at a place he called Apocant, 
 forty miles above the mouth of the Chickahominy, 
 and continued his journey in a barge. Finally, rather 
 than endanger the barge, he hired a canoe and two 
 Indians to row it, and with two of his own company, 
 named Robinson and Emry, went twenty miles higher. 
 " Though some wise men may condemn this too bould 
 attempt of too much indiscretion, yet if they well con- 
 sider the friendship of the Indians in conducting me, 
 the desolatenes of the country, the propabilitie of 
 [discovering] some lacke, and the malicious judges 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 47 
 
 of my actions at home, as also to have some matters 
 of worth to incourage our adventurers in England, 
 might well have caused any honest minde to have 
 done the like, as wel for his own discharge as for the 
 publike good." 
 
 At length they landed to prepare their dinner, and 
 Smith with one Indian walked on along the course 
 of the river, while Robinson and Emry with the other 
 Indian remained to guard the canoe. Within a quar- 
 ter of an hour he heard a hallooing of Indians and a 
 loud cry, and fearing treachery, he seized his guide, 
 whose arm he bound fast to his own hand, while 
 he prepared his pistol for immediate use. As they 
 a went discoursing," an arrow struck him on the right 
 thigh, but without harm. He soon found himself at- 
 tacked by some two hundred savages, against whose 
 arrows he used his guide as a shield, discharging his 
 pistol three or four times. The Indian chief, Ope- 
 chankanough, then called upon him to surrender, and 
 the savages laid their bows on the ground, ceasing 
 to shoot. 
 
 " My hinde treated betwixt them and me of conditions 
 of peace ; lie discovered me to be the Captaine. My 
 request was to retire to ye boate ; they demauuded my 
 amies ; the rest they saide were slaine, only me they 
 would reserve ; the Indian importuned me not to shoot. 
 In retiring, being in the midst of a low quagmire, and 
 minding them more then my steps, I stept fast into the 
 quagmire, and also the Indian in drawing me forth. 
 Thus surprised, I resolved to trie their mercies ; my 
 
48 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 armes I caste from me, till which none durst approach 
 me. Being ceazed on me, they drew me out and led me 
 to the King." 
 
 Thus far, to avoid confusion, the account has fol- 
 lowed the " True Relation," written by Smith, and 
 published in London in 1608, the year after the events 
 described. 1 In 1624 Smith published in London his 
 " Generall Historie," which contained a version of the 
 story varying essentially from that of the " True Rela- 
 tion." In continuing the account of his captivity, the 
 two narratives will be placed side by side, for con- 
 venience of comparison, and the principal variations 
 will be printed in Italics. 
 
 After describing the circumstances of his capture, 
 which took place far up the Chickahominy River, 
 Smith continued in his double narrative : — 
 
 A TRUE RELATION. THE GENERALL HISTORIE. 
 
 1608. 1624. 
 ' ' They drew me out and led " Then according to their 
 me to the King. I presented composition they drew him 
 him with a compasse diall. . . . forth and led him to the fire 
 With kinde speeches and bread where his men were slain e. 
 he requited me, conducting me Diligently they chafed his be- 
 where the Canow lay, and John numbed limbs. He demanding 
 Robinson slaine, with 20 or 30 for their Captaine they showed 
 arrowes in him. Emry I saw not. him Opechankanough king of 
 I perceived by the aboundan^e Pamaunkee, to whom he gave 
 of fires all over the woods, at a round ivory double-compass 
 each place I expected when they Dyall. Much they marvailed 
 
 1 A True Relation of Virginia. By Captain John Smith. 
 With an Introduction and Notes, by Charles Deane. Boston. 
 1866. 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 49 
 
 A TRUE RELATION THE GEXERALL HISTORIE 
 
 (Continued). (Continued), 
 would execute me, yet they used at the playing of the Fly and 
 me with what kindnes they could. Needle. . . . Notwithstanding, 
 Approaching their Towne, which within an houre after they tied 
 was within 6 miles where I was him to a tree, and as many as 
 taken, . . . the Captaine con- could stand about him prepared 
 ducting me to his lodging, a to shoot him, but the King hold- 
 quarter of venison and some ten ing up the Compass in his hand, 
 pound of bread I had for sup- they all laid down their bowes 
 per; what I left was reserved and arrowes, and in a trium- 
 for me, and sent with me to my phant manner led him to Ora- 
 lodging. Each morning 3 women paks, where he was after their 
 presented me three great plat- manner kindly feasted and 
 ters of fine bread; more venison well used. . . . Smith they 
 than ten men could devour I had; conducted to a long house where 
 my gowne, points and garters, thirtie or fortie tall fellowes did 
 my compas and a tablet they guard him, and ere long more 
 gave me again ; though 8 ordi- bread and venison was brought 
 narily guarded me, I wanted him than ivould have served twen- 
 not what they could devise to tie men. I think his stomach 
 content me; and still our longer at that time was not very good; 
 acquaintance increased our bet- what he left they put in bas- 
 ter affection. ... I desired he kets and tyed over his head; 
 [the King] would send a mes- about midnight they set the 
 senger to Paspahegh [James- meat again before him. All this 
 town] with a letter I would time not one of them would eat 
 write, by which they shold nn- a bit with him, till the next 
 derstand how kindly they used morning they brought him as 
 me, and that I was well, least much more, and then did they 
 they should revenge my death; eate all the olde, and reserved 
 this he granted, and sent three the newe as they had done the 
 men, in such weather as in other; which made him think 
 reason were impossible by any they would fat him to eate him. 
 naked to be endured. . . . The Yet in this desperate estate to de- 
 next day after my letter came a fend him from the cold, one Mao- 
 salvage to my lodging with his cassater brought him his gowne 
 sword to have slaine me. ... in requitall of some beads and 
 This was the father of him I had toyes Smith had given him at 
 slayne, whose fury to prevent, his first arrival in Virginia. 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 A TRUE RELATION 
 
 (Continued). 
 the King presently conducted 
 me to another Kingdome, upon 
 the top of the next northerly 
 river, called Youghtanan. Hav- 
 ing feasted me, he further led 
 me to another branch of the 
 river called Mattapament; to 
 two other hunting tovvnes they 
 led m3, and to each of these 
 countries a house of the great 
 Emperor of Pewhakan, whom 
 as yet I supposed to bee at the 
 Fals; to him I told him I must 
 yoe, and so returne to Paspahegh. 
 After this foure or five dayes 
 march, we returned to Rasaw- 
 rack, the first towne they 
 brought me too, where bind- 
 ing the Mats in bundles, they 
 marched two dayes journey and 
 crossed the river of Youghta- 
 nan where it was as broad as 
 Thames ; so conducting me to 
 a place called Menapacute in 
 Pamaunke, where y e King in- 
 habited, . . . 
 
 "From hence this kind King 
 conducted mee to a place called 
 Topahanocke, a kingdome upon 
 another River northward. The 
 cause of this was, that the yeare 
 before, a shippe had beene in the 
 River of Pamaunke, who having 
 been kindly entertained by Pow- 
 hatan their Emperour, they re- 
 turned thence, and discovered 
 the River of Topahanocke, where 
 being received with like kind- 
 
 THE GENERALL HISTORIE 
 
 (Continued). 
 
 "Two dayes after, a man 
 would have slaine him (but 
 that the guard prevented it) for 
 the death of his sonne, to whom 
 they conducted him to recover 
 the poore man then breathing 
 his last. ... In part of a Table 
 booke he writ his minde to them 
 at the Fort, and . . . the mes- 
 sengers . . . according to his 
 request went to Jamestowne in 
 as bitter weather as could be of 
 'frost and snow, and within three 
 dayes returned with an answer. 
 
 "Then they led him to the 
 Youthtanunds, the Mattaponi- 
 ents, the Payankatanks, the 
 Nantaughtacunds, and Omaw- 
 manients upon the rivers of 
 Rapahannock and Pataviomeck, 
 over all those rivers and back 
 againe by divers other several 1 
 nations to the King's habitation 
 at Pamaunkee, where they en- 
 tertained him with most strange 
 and fearfull Conjurations. . . . 
 
 "At last they brought him 
 to Meronocomoco, where was 
 Powhatan their Emperor. Here 
 more than two hundred of those 
 grim Courtiers stood wonder- 
 ing at him, as he had been a 
 monster; till Powhatan and his 
 trayne had put themselves in 
 their greatest braveries. . . . 
 At his entrance before the King, 
 all the people gave a great 
 shout. The Queene of Appa- 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 51 
 
 A TRUE RELATION THE GENERALL HISTORIE 
 
 (Continued). (Continued). 
 
 nesse, yet he slue the King and matuck was appointed to bring 
 
 tooke of his people; and they him water to wash his hands, 
 
 supposed I were hee, but the and another brought him a 
 
 people reported him a great man bunch of feathers, instead of a 
 
 that was Captaine, and using Towell to dry them. Having 
 
 mee kindly, the next day we feasted him after their best bar- 
 
 departed. . . . barous manner they could, a long 
 
 " The next night I lodged at consultation was held ; but the 
 
 a hunting town of Powhatams, conclusion ivas, two great stones 
 
 and the next day arrived at were brought before Powhatan; 
 
 Waranacomoco upon the river then as many as could lay their 
 
 of Pamauncke, where the great hands on him dragged him to 
 
 king is resident. . . . them, and thereon laid his head ; 
 
 " Arriving at Weramocomo- and being ready ivith their clubs 
 co, their Emperour . . . kindly to beate out his braines, Pocahon- 
 welcomed me with good wordes tas the King's dearest daughter, 
 and great Platters of sundrie when no intreaty could prevaile, 
 Victuals, assuring mee his friend- got his head in her armes, and 
 ship, and my libertie within foure laid her oivne upon his to save 
 dayes. . . . Hee desired mee to him from death ; whereat the Em- 
 forsake Paspahegh, and to live perour was contented he should 
 with him upon his River, — a live to make him hatchets, and 
 Countrie called Capa Howa- her bells, beads, and copper. . . . 
 sicke; hee promised to give me " Two dayes after, Powhatan 
 Come, Venison, or what I having disguised himselfe in the 
 wanted to feede us ; Hatchets most fearfullest manner he could 
 and Copper wee should make . . . more like a devil than a 
 him, and none should disturbe man, Avith some two hundred 
 us. This request I promised to more as blacke as himselfe, came 
 performe; and thus having with unto him and told him now they 
 all the kindnes hee could de- were friends, and presently he 
 vise, sought to content me, hee should goe to Jamestowne, to 
 sent me home with 4 men, one send him two great gunnes and 
 that usually carried my Gowne a gryndstone, for , which he 
 and Knapsacke after me, two would give him the Country 
 other loded with bread, and one of Capahowosick, and for ever 
 to accornpanie me. . . . esteeme him as his sonne Nan- 
 
 " From Weramocomoco is but tauuoud. So to Jamestowne 
 
52 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 A TRUE RELATION 
 
 (Continued). 
 12 miles, yet the Indians trifled 
 away that day, and would not 
 goe to our Forte by any persvva- 
 sions; but in certaine olde hunt- 
 ing houses of Paspahegh we 
 lodged all night. The next 
 morning ere Simne rise, we set 
 forward for our Fort, where we 
 arrived within an houre, where 
 each man with truest signes of 
 joy they could expresse wel- 
 comed mee, except M. Archer, 
 and some 2 or 3 of his, who 
 was then in my absence sworne 
 Counsellour, though not with 
 the consent of Captaine Martin. 
 Great blame and imputation was 
 laide upon mee by them for the 
 losse of our two men which the 
 Indian slew; insomuch that they 
 purposed to depose me; but in 
 the midst of my miseries it 
 pleased God to send Captaine Nu- 
 port, who arriving there the sams 
 night so tripled our joy as for a 
 while these plots against me were 
 deferred, though with much mal- 
 ice against me, which Captain 
 Newport in a short time did 
 plainly see." 
 
 THE GENERATE HISTORIE 
 
 (Continued). 
 with 12 guides Powhatan sent 
 him, he still expecting (as he 
 had done all this long time of his 
 imprisonment*) every houre to bs 
 put to one death or other, for 
 all their feasting . But almightie 
 God (by his divine providence) 
 had mollified the hearts of those 
 sterne Barbarians with compas- 
 sion. The next morning betimes 
 they came to the Forte. . . . 
 
 " Now in Jamcstowne they were 
 all in combustion, tlie strongest 
 preparing once more to run away 
 ivith the Pinnace ; which with the 
 hazzard of his life, ivith Sabre, 
 falcon, and musket shot, Smith 
 forced now the third time to stay 
 or sinke. Some, no better than 
 they should be, had plotted with 
 the President the next day to 
 have put him to death by the 
 Leviticall law, for the lives of 
 Robinson and Eniry, pretend- 
 ing the fault was his that had 
 led them to their ends: but he 
 quickly tooke such order with 
 such lawyers, that he layd them 
 by the heels till he sent some of 
 them prisoners for England. . . . 
 
 "Newport got in and ar- 
 rived at James Towne not long 
 after the redemption of Captaine 
 Smith. . . . 
 
 "Written by Thomas Stud- 
 ley, the first Cape Merchant in 
 Virginia, Robert Fenton, Ed- 
 ward Harrington, and J. S." 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 53 
 
 Comparison of the two narratives thus for the first 
 time placed side by side, betrays a tone of exaggera- 
 tion in the later story. Eight guards, which had been 
 sufficient in 1G08, were multiplied into thirty or forty 
 tall fellows in 1624. What was enough for ten men 
 at the earlier time would feed twenty according to 
 the later version. In 1608 four guides were an am- 
 ple escort to conduct Smith to Jamestown, but they 
 were reinforced to the number of twelve sixteen years 
 afterward. With the best disposition toward Smith, 
 one cannot forget that he belonged to the time when 
 Falstaff and his misbegotten knaves in Kendal Green 
 appeared upon the stage. The execution wrought 
 upon the lawyers who wished to try Smith for his life 
 on his return to Jamestown was prompt and decisive 
 according to the story of 1624, but in 1608 " in the 
 midst of my miseries it pleased God to send " Captain 
 Newport to defer the plots of Smith's enemies. With 
 sabre, falcon, and musket-shot he forced the mutinous 
 crew of the pinnace to stay or sink, according to the 
 " Generall Historie," while the " True Relation " was 
 silent as to any feat of arms, but simply said that 
 Captain Newport arrived the same evening. 
 
 The same exaggeration marked the account of 
 Smith's treatment among the savages. According 
 to the story written a few months after the event, 
 a people was described, savage, but neither cruel nor 
 bloodthirsty ; reckless perhaps of life in battle, but 
 kind and even magnanimous toward their captive. 
 The " True Relation " implied that no demonstration 
 
54 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 was made against Smith's life, such as he described 
 in 1624 as occurring within an hour after his cap- 
 ture. Only a few days after he was taken prisoner, 
 he directed Opechankanough to take him to Pow- 
 hatan, and even then he knew that he was to be 
 allowed to return to Jamestown. " To him I told 
 him I must go, and so return to Paspahegh." Pow- 
 hatan received him with cordiality, and having sought 
 to content him with all the kindness he could devise, 
 sent him with a guard of honor back to his friends. 
 In the " True Relation," the behavior of the Indi- 
 ans toward Smith was more humane than he would 
 have received at the hands of civilized peoples. He 
 found no cause to fear for his life, except from a 
 savage whose son he had killed, and from whom 
 Opechankanough protected him. One line indeed 
 alluded to a fear that they fed him so fat as to 
 make him much doubt they meant to sacrifice him; 
 but this evidence of the kindness of the Indians 
 implied that he believed himself to have been mis- 
 taken in having entertained the suspicion. Yet 
 in 1624, throughout his long imprisonment, he was 
 still expecting every hour to be put to one death or 
 another. 
 
 These variations would not concern the ordinary 
 reader of colonial history, if they stopped at trifling 
 inconsistencies. They would merely prove the earlier 
 narrative to be the safer authority for historians to 
 follow, which is an established law of historical criti- 
 cism. The serious divergence occurred in Smith's 
 
CAPTAINS JOHN SMITH. 55 
 
 account of his visit to Powhatan, which in 1608 was 
 free from the suspicion of danger to his life, but in 
 1624 introduced Pocahontas as his savior from a cruel 
 execution. The absence of Pocahontas, and of any 
 allusion to her interference, or of reference to the 
 occasion on which she interfered, makes the chief 
 characteristic of the earlier story, and if the law of 
 evidence is sound, requires the rejection of the latter 
 version as spurious. 
 
 Smith's silence in 1608 about his intended execu- 
 tion and his preservation by Pocahontas was the more 
 remarkable, because the " True Relation " elsewhere 
 mentioned Pocahontas, with every appearance of 
 telling the whole share she had in Smith's affairs. 
 Smith's captivity occurred in December. In the 
 following month of May, Smith imprisoned at James- 
 town some Indians whom he suspected of treachery. 
 The " True Relation " continued : — 
 
 " Powhatan, understanding we detained certaine Sal- 
 vages, sent his daughter, a child of tenne yeares old, 
 which not only for feature, countenance, and proportion 
 much exceedeth any of the rest of his people, but for 
 wit and spirit the only Nonpareil of his Country: this 
 he sent by his most trustie messenger, called Rawhunt, 
 as much exceeding in deformitie of person, but of a 
 subtill wit and crafty understanding. He with a long 
 circumstance told me how well Powhatan loved and 
 respected mee, and in that I should not doubt any way 
 of his kindnesse he had sent his child, which he most 
 esteemed, to see me : . . . his little daughter he had 
 taught this lesson also." 
 
56 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Smith regarded Pocahontas as a person so much 
 worth winning to his interests that he surrendered 
 the prisoners to her. 
 
 " We guarded them as before to the Church, and after 
 prayer gave them to Pocahontas, the King's Daughter, 
 in regard of her father's kindnesse in sending her. . . . 
 Pocahontas also we requited, with such trifles as con- 
 tented her, to tel that we had used the Paspaheyaus very 
 kindly in so releasing them." 
 
 Had Pocahontas saved Smith's life four months 
 before, Smith would have been likely to surrender 
 the prisoners out of gratitude to her, rather than 
 " in regard of her father's kindnesse in sending " his 
 favorite child to ask a return for his own hospitality. 
 
 No American needs to learn that Pocahontas is 
 the most romantic character in the history of his 
 country. Her name and story are familiar to every 
 schoolboy, and families of the highest claim to merit 
 trace their descent from the Emperor's daughter 
 that saved the life of Captain John Smith. In the 
 general enthusiasm, language and perhaps common- 
 sense have been strained to describe her attributes. 
 Her beauty and wild grace, her compassion and dis- 
 interestedness, her Christian life and pure character, 
 have been dwelt upon with warmth the more natural 
 as the childhood of the nation furnished little lati- 
 tude to imagination. One after another, American 
 historians have contented themselves with repeating 
 the words of the " Generall Historie," heaping praises 
 which no critics were cynical enough to gainsay, now 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 57 
 
 on the virtues of Pocahontas, and now on the courage 
 and constancy of Smith. 
 
 The exclusive share of the later narrative in shap- 
 ing popular impressions was well shown by the 
 standard authority for American history. In the 
 early editions of Bancroft's " History of the United 
 States," the following version of Smith's adventure 
 was given : — 
 
 " The gentle feelings of humanity are the same in 
 every race, and in every period of life ; they bloom, 
 though unconsciously, even in the bosom of a child. 
 Smith had easily won the confiding fondness of the 
 Indian maiden ; and now, the impulse of mercy awakened 
 within her breast, she clung firmly to his neck, as his 
 head was bowed to receive the strokes of the tomahawk. 
 Did the childlike superstition of her kindred reverence 
 her interference as a token from a superior power ? Her 
 fearlessness and her entreaties persuaded the council to 
 spare the agreeable stranger, who might make hatchets 
 for her father, and rattles and strings of beads for her- 
 self, the favorite child. The barbarians, whose decision 
 had long been held in suspense by the mysterious awe 
 which Smith had inspired, now resolved to receive him as 
 a friend, and to make him a partner of their councils. 
 They tempted him to join their bands, and lend assistance 
 in an attack upon the white men at Jamestown ; and when 
 his decision of character succeeded in changing the cur- 
 rent of their thoughts, they dismissed him with mutual 
 promises of friendship and benevolence." 
 
 In a note appended to these paragraphs the author 
 quoted : — 
 
58 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 " Smith, I. 158-162, and II. 29-38. The account is 
 fully contained in the oldest book printed on Virginia, 
 in our Cambridge library. It is a thin quarto, in black- 
 letter, by John Smith, printed in 1608, — A True 
 Relation, etc." 
 
 The story, in passing through the medium of Mr. 
 Bancroft's mind, gained something which did not 
 belong to the original, or belonged to it only in a 
 modified degree. The spirit of Smith infused itself 
 into the modern historian, as it had already infused 
 itself into the works of his predecessors. The lights 
 were intensified ; the shadows deepened ; the grada- 
 tions softened. The copy surpassed its model. This 
 tendency went so far that the author quoted the 
 " True Relation " as the full authority for what was to 
 be found only in the " Generall Historie," if indeed it 
 was all to be found even there. When Mr. Bancroft 
 collated his version of the story with the black-letter 
 pamphlet in the Cambridge library, the popular repu- 
 tation of Smith had already created an illusion in his 
 mind resembling the optical effect of refracted light. 
 He saw something which did not exist, — the exag- 
 gerated image of a figure beyond. 
 
 The labors of Charles Deane have made necessary 
 a thorough examination into the evidence bearing on 
 Smith's story ; and Deane's notes make such an in- 
 quiry less laborious than the mass of material seemed 
 to threaten. With that aid, an analysis of the evi- 
 dence can be brought within narrow compass. 
 
 The first President of the colony was Edward 
 
CAPTATNE JOHN SMITH. 59 
 
 Maria Wingfield, who in September, 1607, was de- 
 prived of his office, and placed in confinement by 
 Smith and the other members of the Council. When 
 Newport — who with a new company of settlers ar- 
 rived at Jamestown Jan. 8, 1608, immediately after 
 Smith's release — began his second return voyage to 
 London, he took the deposed President Wingfield 
 with him, and they arrived safely at Blackwall on the 
 21st of May. Wingfield kept a diary during his stay 
 in Virginia, and after his return he wrote with its 
 assistance a defence of himself and his administra- 
 tion, privately circulated in manuscript, and at a later 
 period used by Purchas, but afterward forgotten and 
 bidden in the dust of the Lambeth Library. From 
 this obscurity it was drawn by Mr. Deane, who pub- 
 lished it with notes in the fourth volume of the 
 Archseologia Americana in I860. 1 Excepting a few 
 papers of little consequence, this is the earliest known 
 writing which came directly from the colony. The 
 manuscript of Smith's " True Relation," i+s only pos- 
 sible rival, could not have reached England before 
 the month of July, while Wingfield's manuscript was 
 intended for immediate circulation in May or June. 
 Wingfield's work, which was called " A Discourse of 
 Virginia," is therefore new authority on the early his- 
 tory of the colony, and has peculiar value as a test for 
 
 1 A Discourse of Virginia. By Edward Maria Wingfield, 
 the First President of the Colony. Edited by Charles Deane, 
 Member of the American Antiquarian Society, and of the Massa- 
 chusetts Historical Society. Boston: Privately printed. 1860. 
 
60 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the correctness of the " True Relation." Its account 
 of Smith's captivity could only have been gained from 
 his own mouth, or from those to whom he told the 
 story, and its accuracy can be tested by the degree 
 of its coincidence with the " True Relation." 
 
 A number of passages in this short pamphlet 
 would be worth extracting ; but the inquiry had 
 best be narrowed to the evidence in regard to 
 Pocahontas. The passage from Wingfield, telling 
 of Smith's adventures among the Indians, ran as 
 follows : — . 
 
 " Dec. The 10th of December Mr. Smith went up 
 the ryver of the Chechohomynies to trade for corne. He 
 was desirous to see the heade of that river ; and when 
 it was not passible with the shallop, he hired a cannow 
 and an Indian to carry him up further. The river the 
 higher grew worse and worse. Then he went on shoare 
 with his guide, and left Robinson and Emmery, twoe of our 
 men in the cannow, which were presently slaine by the 
 Indians, Pamaonke's men, and he himself taken prysoner ; 
 and by the means of his guide his lief was saved. And 
 Pamaonche haveing him prisoner, carryed him to his 
 neybors wyroances to see if any of them knewe him for 
 one of those which had bene, some two or three yeres 
 before us, in a river amongst them Northward, and taken 
 awaie some Indians from them by force. At last he 
 brought him to the great Powaton (of whome before wee 
 had no knowledg) , who sent him home to our towne the 
 viii th of January. . . . 
 
 "Mr. Archer sought how to call Mr. Smith's lief in 
 question, and had indited him upon a chapter in Leviticus 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 61 
 
 for the death of his twoe men. He had had his try all 
 the same daie of his retorne, and I believe his hanging 
 the same or the next daie, so speedie is our law there ; 
 but it pleased God to send Captn. Newport unto us the 
 same evening to our unspeakable comfort, whose arrivall 
 saved Mr. Smyth's life and mine." 
 
 Deane, in editing Wingfield in 1860, furnished a 
 note upon this passage, in which for the first time a 
 doubt was thrown upon the story of Pocahontas's 
 intervention. Yet the discovery of Wingfield's nar- 
 rative added little to the evidence contained in the 
 " True Relation," — always a well-known work. The 
 " Discourse " supplied precise dates, fixing Smith's 
 departure on the 10th of December, and his return 
 on the 8th of January, his absence being exactly four 
 weeks in length ; it said that Smith's guide saved his 
 life, which might be a variation from the story of the 
 " True Relation ; " it dwelt on the danger Smith ran, 
 from the enmity of Archer, which might be only the 
 result of Wingfield's dislike of that person. In gen- 
 eral, this new evidence, though clearly independent of 
 the " True Relation," confirmed it in essentials, and 
 especially in the omission of reference to Pocahontas. 
 So remarkable an incident as her protection of Smith, 
 if known to Wingfield, would scarcely have been 
 omitted in this narrative, which must have contained 
 the version of Smith's adventures current among the 
 colonists after his return to Jamestown. 
 
 These two works are the only contemporaneous au- 
 thority for the first year of the colonial history. A 
 
62 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 wide gap intervenes between them and the next work ; 
 and the strength of Deane's case rests so largely on 
 the negative evidence offered by the " True Relation " 
 and the " Discourse," that for his purpose further 
 search was useless. Every one, whether believing or 
 disbelieving the " Generall Historie," must agree that 
 Pocahontas was not mentioned, either by name or 
 by implication, as the preserver of Smith's life either 
 by Smith in the " True Relation " or by Wingfield in 
 his " Discourse." The inquiry might stop here, and 
 each reader might be left to form his own opinion 
 as to the relative value of the conflicting narratives ; 
 but the growth of a legend is as interesting as the 
 question of its truth. 
 
 Newport returned to England April 10, 1608, carry- 
 ing Wingfield with him, and leaving Ratcliffe Presi- 
 dent of the Colony, with Martin, Smith, and Archer 
 in the Council, together with a new member, Matthew 
 Scrivener, who had arrived with Newport. Smith in 
 June explored successfully a part of Chesapeake Bay, 
 and returning July 21, found, according to the " Gen- 
 erall Historie," the colonists in a miserable condi- 
 tion, unable to do anything but complain of Ratcliffe, 
 whose principal offence appears to have been his 
 obliging the colonists to build him " an unnecessary 
 building for his pleasure in the woods." Ratcliffe, 
 whose real name was Sicklemore, was a poor crea- 
 ture, if the evidence in regard to him can be be- 
 lieved. He was deposed, and Scrivener, Smith's 
 "deare friend," though then exceedingly ill, succeeded 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 63 
 
 him as President. This revolution was rapidly ef- 
 fected ; for three days later, July 24, Smith again 
 set out with twelve men, to finish his explorations, 
 and made a complete tour round the bay, which sup- 
 plied his materials for the map published at Oxford 
 in 1612. He did not return to Jamestown till the 
 7th of September, and on the 10th he assumed the 
 Presidency, " by the Election of the Councell and re- 
 quest of the Company." Scrivener appears merely 
 to have held the office during Smith's pleasure, and 
 voluntarily resigned it into his hands. 
 
 The history of Smith's administration of the colony 
 from Sept. 10, 1608, till the end of September, 1609, 
 is given in the " Generall Historie," and may be 
 studied with advantage as an example of Smith's 
 style. Whatever may have been the merits of his 
 government, he had no better success than his pre- 
 decessors, and he not only failed to command obedi- 
 ence, but was left almost or quite without a friend. 
 He was ultimately deposed and sent to England un- 
 der articles of complaint. The precise tenor of these 
 articles is unknown ; but Mr. Deane has found in 
 the Colonial Office a letter of Ratcliffe, alias Sickle- 
 more, dated Oct. 4, 1609, in which he announced 
 to the Lord Treasurer that " this man [Smith] is 
 sent home to answere some misdemeanors whereof 
 I perswade me he can scarcely clear himselfe from 
 great imputation of biame." Beyond a doubt the dif- 
 ficulties of the situation were very great, and the men 
 Smith had to control were originally poor material, 
 
64 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 and were made desperate by their trials ; but certainly 
 his career in Virginia terminated disastrously, both 
 for himself and for the settlement. The Virginia 
 Company, notwithstanding his applications, never 
 employed him again. 
 
 The colony went from bad to worse. George Percy, 
 a brother of the Earl of Northumberland, succeeded 
 Smith in the Presidency. The condition of the colo- 
 nists between Smith's departure in October, 1609, 
 and the arrival of Sir Thomas Gates in May, 1610, 
 was terrible. Percy was so " sicke hee could neither 
 goe nor stand." Ratcliffe, with a number of others, 
 was killed by Indians. The remainder fed on roots, 
 acorns, fish, and actually on the savages whom they 
 killed, and on each other, — one man murdering 
 his wife and eating her. Out of the whole number, 
 said to have been five hundred, not more than sixty 
 were living when Gates arrived ; and he immediately 
 took them on board ship, and abandoning James- 
 town, set sail for England. Only by accident they 
 met a new expedition under Lord Delaware, at the 
 mouth of the river, which brought a year's provisions, 
 and restored the fortunes of the settlement. In spite 
 of the discouragement produced in England by these 
 disasters, the Company renewed its efforts, and again 
 sent out Sir Thomas Gates with six vessels and three 
 hundred men, who arrived in August, 1611. The 
 government was then in the hands of Sir Thomas 
 Dale, who assumed it in May, 1611, and retained it 
 till 1616. If the ultimate success of the colony was 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 65 
 
 clue to any single man, the merit appears to belong 
 to Dale ; for his severe and despotic rule crushed the 
 insubordination that had been the curse of the State, 
 compelled the idle to work, and maintained order 
 between the colonists and the Indians. 
 
 In the mean while Smith, who had taken final leave 
 of the colony, appears to have led a quiet life in Lon- 
 don during several years. Lost from sight during 
 the years 1610 and 1611, he appeared again in 1612 
 busied in the same direction as before. In that year 
 he published at Oxford a short work called " A Map 
 of Virginia. With a Description of the Countrey, 
 the Commodities, People, Government, and Religion. 
 Written by Captaine Smith, sometimes Governour of 
 the Countrey. Whereunto is annexed the proceedings 
 of those Colonies, &c, by W. S." The latter part of 
 the publication, which purported to be drawn from the 
 writings of certain colonists, was afterward reprinted, 
 with alterations, as the Third Book of the " Generall 
 Historie," from the title of which it appears that 
 " W. S." stood for the initials of William Simons, 
 Doctor of Divinity. 
 
 In this tract only one passage bore upon Smith's 
 story of Pocahontas. Among the customs described 
 as peculiar to the Indians was the form of execution 
 practised against criminals. Their heads, Smith said, 
 were placed upon an altar, or sacrificing-stone, while 
 " one with clubbes beates out their braines." During 
 his captivity Smith added, not indeed that he had 
 actually seen this mode of execution, but that an 
 
66 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Indian had been beaten in his presence till he fell 
 senseless, without a cry or complaint. The passage- 
 is remarkable for more than one reason. In the first 
 place, the mode of execution there described was 
 uncommon, if not unknown, among the Indians of 
 the sea-coast ; in the second place, the passage con- 
 tained the germ of Smith's later story. Practised 
 lawyers may decide whether, under the ordinary 
 rules of evidence, this passage implies that Smith 
 had himself not been placed in the position de- 
 scribed, and future students may explain why Smith 
 should have suppressed his own story, supposing it 
 to have been true. The inference is strong that 
 if anything of the sort had occurred, it would have 
 been mentioned here ; and this argument is strength- 
 ened by a short narration of his imprisonment given 
 in the second part of the pamphlet, for which Dr. 
 Simons was the nominal authority. This version ran 
 as follows : — 
 
 "A month those barbarians kept him prisoner. Many 
 strange triumphs and conjurations they made of him ; yet 
 he so demeened himself amongst them as he not only 
 diverted them from surprising the fort, but procured his 
 own liberty, and got himself and his company such esti- 
 mation among them that those savages admired him as 
 a Demi God. So returning safe to the Fort, once more 
 stayed the pinnace her flight for England." 
 
 This work was, as above mentioned, afterward re- 
 printed, under the author's name, as the Third Book 
 of the " Generall Historic" The passage just quoted 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 67 
 
 was there reproduced with the evidently intentional 
 substitution of " six or seven weekes " for " a month," 
 as in the original. In the " Generall Historie " the 
 concluding paragraph was omitted, and in its place 
 stood, "The manner how they used and delivered 
 him is as followeth." Then, breaking abruptly into 
 the middle of the old narrative, the story which has 
 been quoted was interpolated. 
 
 The narrative in the second part of the "Map of 
 Virginia," of which the above extract forms a part, 
 was signed by the name of Thomas Studley alone, 
 while in the " Generall Historie " the enlarged ac- 
 count bore also the signatures of Edward Harring- 
 ton, Robert Fenton, and Smith himself. A question 
 may arise as to the extent to which these persons 
 should be considered as dividing with Smith the re- 
 sponsibility for the story. Thomas Studley died on 
 the 28th of August, 1607. Both he and Edward 
 Harrington had lain four months in their graves 
 before Smith ever heard of Powhatan or Pocahontas. 
 The date of Robert Fenton's death is not so clear, 
 but there is no reason to suppose that he had any 
 share in the narration of events which Smith alone 
 witnessed. 
 
 The argument so far as the Oxford tract is con- 
 cerned would be strong enough, if it went no further ; 
 but it becomes irresistible when this tract not only 
 mentions Pocahontas, but introduces her as the savior 
 of Smith's life, although it says no word of her most 
 famous act in this character. The allusion occurred 
 
68 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 toward the end of the pamphlet, where the assumed 
 writer took occasion to defend Smith against certain 
 charges, one of them being an alleged scheme on his 
 part of marrying Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas in 
 order to acquire a claim to the throne. The writer 
 denied the charge, and added : — 
 
 "It is true she was the very nonpareil of his king- 
 dome, and at most not past 13 or 14 yeares of age. Very 
 often shee came to our fort with what shee could get for 
 Captaine Smith, that ever loved and used all the countrie 
 well, but her especially he ever much respected ; and she 
 so well requited it that when her father intended to have 
 surprised him, shee, by stealth in the darke night, came 
 through the wild woods and told him of it." 
 
 The Oxford tract of 1612 may be considered deci- 
 sive that down to that date the story of Pocahontas 
 had not been made public. Here we take leave of 
 Smith as an authority for a period of some ten years, 
 during which he published but one work, not relat- 
 ing to the present subject. An entirely new class of 
 colonists had in 1610-1611 taken the place of the 
 first settlers, almost exterminated by the disasters of 
 1609-1610. Among the new-comers in the train of 
 Lord Delaware, in 1610, was William Strachey, who 
 held the office of Secretary of the Colony, Little is 
 known of Strachey, except that after his return to 
 England he compiled a work called the " Historie of 
 Travaile into Virginia," never completed in its origi- 
 nal plan, but still extant in two neatly written manu- 
 scripts, printed by the -Hakluyt Society in 1849. The 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 69 
 
 date of its composition was probably about the year 
 1615. It consisted largely of extracts from Smith's 
 previous works, though without acknowledgment of 
 their origin ; it also contained original matter, and 
 especially some curious references to Pocahontas, 1 
 but no reference, direct or indirect, to her agency in 
 saving Smith's life, and no trace of the high esteem 
 which such an act would have won for her. 
 
 Next in order after Strachey's manuscript comes a 
 work which is quite original, and gives perhaps the 
 best account of the colony ever made public by an 
 eye-witness. This is a small volume in quarto, printed 
 in London in 1615, and called " A True Discourse 
 of the Present Estate of Virginia . . . till the 18th 
 of June, 1614, together with . . . the Christening of 
 Powhatan's daughter and her Marriage with an Eng- 
 lishman. Written by Raphe Hamor, late Secretarie 
 in the Colonic" It contains a minute and graphic 
 story how " Pocahuntas, King Powhatan's daughter, 
 whose fame has spread even to England, under 
 the name of Non Parella," while staying with some 
 tribe, subject to her father, on the Potomac, was 
 seized and carried away by Captain Argol, who had 
 sailed up that river on a trading expedition. Her 
 imprisonment as a hostage at Jamestown, her visit 
 to her father's residence with Sir Thomas Dale and 
 a strong force of English, Powhatan's failure to 
 redeem her, and her subsequent marriage to John 
 Rolfe April 5, 1613, are all circumstantially nar- 
 1 See Dearie's edition of the True Relation, p. 72. 
 
70 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 rated; and finally an extremely interesting account 
 is given of a visit which Hamor made to Powhatan, 
 and of the conversation he had with that extraordi- 
 nary savage. Besides this work of Hamor, the vol- 
 ume also contains several letters from persons in 
 Virginia, one of which is by John Rolfe, written with 
 the object of justifying his marriage. Afterward, 
 when the arrival of Pocahontas in England had ex- 
 cited an interest throughout Europe in her story, 
 Hamor's book was translated and published in 
 Germany. 
 
 Although repeated allusions to Pocahontas occur in 
 the works already mentioned, in Hamor she makes, 
 for the first time, her appearance as a person of 
 political importance. In the " True Relation " Smith 
 represented her as a pretty and clever child ten years 
 old, once sent with a trusted messenger by Pow- 
 hatan to the fort to entreat the liberation of some 
 Indians whom Smith had seized. The Oxford tract 
 mentioned her as a friend of Smith, but a mere 
 child. Strachey gave a curious description of her in- 
 timate relations with the colony during his residence 
 there : — 
 
 " Pocahuntas, a well featured but wanton yong girle, 
 Powhatan's daughter, sometymes resorting to our fort, 
 of the age then of eleven or twelve yeares, would get the 
 boyes forth with her into the niarkett place, and make 
 them wheele, falling on their hands, turning up their 
 heeles upwards, whome she would followe and wheele 
 so her self, naked as she was, all the fort over." 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 71 
 
 Pocahontas was then apparently considered as a 
 child like any other ; but from the time when Argol 
 treacherously seized her she took an important posi- 
 tion, — in the first place, as the guaranty of a peace 
 which Powhatan promised, and preserved during the 
 remainder of her life and of his own ; in the sec- 
 ond place, as a person calculated to excite interest 
 in England in behalf of the colony ; and finally, as 
 an eminent convert to the English Church, through 
 whom a religious influence might be exercised among 
 her father's subjects. Hamor's book was filled with 
 her history, and Rolfe's letter showed much anxiety 
 to prove the propriety of his course in marrying her. 
 Both writers were interested in exciting as much 
 sympathy for her as could be roused. Yet neither 
 the one nor the other alluded to the act which has 
 since become her first claim to praise, and which has 
 almost thrown the rest of her story out of sight. 
 There is no reason to suppose that in Virginia in 
 1614 the persons best informed were yet aware that 
 Pocahontas had saved Smith's life. 
 
 In the month of June, 1616, Sir Thomas Dale ar- 
 rived at Plymouth on his return home, bringing with 
 him among his suite the baptized Pocahontas, then 
 called Rebecca Rolfe, who with her husband and 
 child came at the charge of the Company to visit 
 England, and to prove to the world the success of 
 the colony. She became at once the object of extra- 
 ordinary attention, and in the following winter she 
 was the most distinguished person in society. Her 
 
72 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 portrait taken at that time still exists, and shows 
 a somewhat hard-featured figure, with a tall hat and 
 ruff, appearing ill at ease in the stiff and ungraceful 
 fashions of the day. Gentlemen of the court sent the 
 engraving, as the curiosity of the season, in their let- 
 ters to correspondents abroad. The Church received 
 her with great honor, and the Bishop of London gave 
 her an entertainment, celebrated in enthusiastic terms 
 by Purchas. At the court masque in January, 1617, 
 Pocahontas was among the most conspicuous guests. 
 The King and Queen received her in special audi- 
 ences ; and to crown all, tradition reports, with rea- 
 sonable foundation, that King James, in his zeal for 
 the. high principles of divine right and the sacred 
 character of royalty, expressed his serious displeasure 
 that Rolfe, who was at best a simple gentleman, 
 should have ventured so far beyond his position as 
 to ally himself with one who was of imperial blood. 
 
 Just at that time, when the influence of London 
 society had set its stamp of fashion on the name of 
 the Indian girl, and when King James had adopted 
 her as rightfully belonging within the pale of the 
 divinity that hedges a king, Samuel Purchas, " Par- 
 son of St. Martin's by Ludgate," published the third 
 edition of his " Pilgrimage." Purchas, although not 
 himself an explorer, was an enthusiast on the subject 
 of travels and adventures ; and in compiling the col- 
 lection now so eagerly sought and so highly valued by 
 collectors of books, he had, so far as related to Vir- 
 ginia, the direct assistance of personal witnesses, and 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 73 
 
 also of manuscripts now unhappily lost except for his 
 extracts. He was well acquainted with Smith, who 
 "gently communicated" his notes to him, and who 
 was in London, and visited Pocahontas at Brentford. 
 Purchas himself saw Pocahontas. He was present 
 when " my Hon ble and Rev d - Patron the Lord Bishop 
 of London, D r King, entertained her with festivall 
 state and pompe beyond what I have seen in his great 
 hospitalitie afforded to other ladies," in his " hopefull 
 zeale by her to advance Christianitie." He knew 
 Tomocomo, an Indian of Powhatan's tribe, who came 
 with her to England. " With this savage I have often 
 conversed at my good friend's Master Doctor Gold- 
 stone, where he was a frequent guest ; and where I 
 have both seen him sing and dance his diabolicall 
 measures, and heard him discourse of his conn trey 
 and religion, Sir Thomas Dale's man being the inter- 
 pretour." He knew Rolfe also, who lent him his 
 manuscript Discourse on Virginia. Yet Purchas's 
 book contained no allusion to the heroic interven- 
 tion on behalf of Smith, the story of whose captivity 
 is simply copied from Simons's quarto of 1612 ; the 
 diffuse comments on men and manners in Virginia 
 contain no trace of what would have been correctly 
 regarded as the most extraordinary incident in colo- 
 nial history. 
 
 Silence in a single instance, as in Wingfield or in 
 Strachey, might be accounted for, or at all events 
 might l)e overlooked ; but silence during a long period 
 of years and under the most improbable circumstances, 
 
74 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 cannot be ignored. Wingfield, Smith himself, Simons, 
 Strachey, Hamor, Rolfe, and Purchas, all the authori- 
 ties without exception known to exist, are equally 
 dumb when questioned as to a circumstance which 
 since 1624 has become the most famous part of colo- 
 nial history. The field is exhausted. No other sources 
 exist from which to draw authentic information. 
 Nothing remains but to return to Smith, and to in- 
 quire when it was that this extraordinary story first 
 made its appearance, and how it obtained authority. 
 
 The blaze of fashionable success that surrounded 
 Pocahontas in London lighted the closing scene of 
 her life. She was obliged, against her will as was 
 believed, to set out on her return to Virginia, but she 
 never actually left the shores of England. Detained 
 in the Thames by several weeks of contrary winds, 
 her failing strength altogether gave way ; and in 
 March, 1617, in the word-play of Purchas, " she came 
 at Gravesend to her end and grave." Her father, 
 Powhatan, survived her less than a year. 
 
 Smith in the mean while was busied with projects 
 in regard to New England and the fisheries. His 
 efforts to form a colony there and to create a regu- 
 lar system of trade had little success ; but to spread 
 a knowledge of the new country among the people of 
 England, he printed, in 1616, a small quarto, called 
 " A Description of New England," and in 1620 he 
 published another pamphlet, entitled " New England's 
 Trials," a second and enlarged edition of which ap- 
 
CAPTATNE JOHN SMITH. 75 
 
 peared in 1622. There at last, in 1622, the long- 
 sought allusion to his captivity occurred in the fol- 
 lowing words : — 
 
 "For wronging a soldier but the value of a penny I 
 have caused Powhatan send his own men to Jamestowne 
 to receive their punishment at my discretion. It is true 
 in our greatest extremitie they shot me, slue three of my 
 men, and by the folly of them that fled took me pris- 
 oner ; yet God made Pocahontas the King's daughter the 
 means to deliver me ; and thereby taught me to know 
 their treacheries to preserve the rest." 
 
 The first appearance of this famous story can there- 
 fore be fixed within five years, — between 1617 and 
 1622, — although the complete account is only to be 
 found in the " Generall Historie," printed in 1624, 
 from which copious extracts have already been quoted! 
 Only one point of difficulty still requires attention. 
 
 Smith there said (pp. 121-123) that when Poca- 
 hontas came to England he wrote for her a sort of 
 letter of introduction to the Queen, or, in his own 
 words, " a little booke to this effect to the Queen, an 
 abstract whereof followed." 
 
 " Some ten yeeres agoe, being in Virginia and taken 
 prisoner by the power of Powhatan their chiefe King, 
 I cannot say I felt the least occasion of want that was in 
 the power of those my mortall foes to prevent, notwith- 
 standing al their threats. After some six weeks fatting 
 amongst those Salvage Courtiers, at the minute of my exe- 
 cution, she hazarded the beating out of her owne braines 
 to save mine, and not onely that, but so prevailed with 
 her father that I was safely conducted to Jamestowne." 
 
76 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 This letter rests on the authority of the " Generall 
 Historie," and has neither more nor less weight than 
 that work gives it. Smith's " abstract of the effect " 
 of the little book was as liable to interpolations as 
 the text of the " Generall Historie " elsewhere. At 
 the time it was published, in 1624, not only had Poca- 
 hontas long been dead, but Queen Anne herself had 
 in 1619 followed her to the grave, and Smith remained 
 alone to vouch for his own accuracy. The Virginia 
 Company had no interest in denying the truth of a 
 story so well calculated to draw popular sympathy 
 toward the colony. 
 
 Smith's character was always a matter of doubt. 
 Thomas Fuller, one of Smith's contemporaries, pub- 
 lished the " Worthies of England " some thirty years 
 after Smith's death, when the civil wars had in- 
 tervened to obliterate the recollection of personal 
 jealousies, and when Smith must have been little re- 
 membered. Fuller devoted a page to Smith's history 
 in the following vein : — 
 
 " From the Turks in Europe he passed to the Pagans 
 in America, where, towards the latter end of the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth, such his perils, preservations, dangers, 
 deliverances, they seem to most men above belief, to 
 some beyond truth. Yet have we two witnesses to attest 
 them, the prose and the pictures, both in his own book ; 
 and it soundeth much to the diminution of his deeds that 
 he alone is the herald to publish and proclaim them." 
 
 The essential evidence on each side of this curious 
 question has now been exhausted, although it would 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 77 
 
 be easy to argue indefinitely in regard to Smith's 
 general character. This must be done by the first 
 historian who attempts again to deal with the his- 
 tory of the Virginia Colony. The argument may be 
 left for future and final judgment, but some rea- 
 sonable theory is still required to explain the exis- 
 tence of the story assumed to be false. Deane, like 
 Palfrey, hints that Smith in the latter part of his life 
 fell into the hands of hack-writers, who adapted his 
 story for popular effect. Perhaps the truth may be 
 somewhat as follows. 
 
 The examination of Smith's works has shown that 
 his final narrative was the result of gradual additions. 
 The influence exercised by Pocahontas on the affairs 
 of the colony, according to the account given in 1608, 
 was slight. In 1612 she first appeared in her heroic 
 character. Her capture and her marriage to Rolfe 
 gave her importance. Her visit to England made her 
 the most conspicuous figure in Virginia, and romantic 
 incidents in her life were likely to be created, if they 
 did not already exist, by the exercise of the popular 
 imagination, attracted by a wild and vigorous picture 
 of savage life. 
 
 The history of the emperor's daughter became, as 
 Smith implied, a subject for the stage. Nothing was 
 mure natural or more probable. It is not even neces- 
 sary to assume that Smith invented the additions to 
 his own story. He may have merely accepted them 
 after they had obtained a hold on the minds of his 
 contemporaries . 
 
78 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 In the mean while Smith's own career had failed, 
 and his ventures ended disastrously, while in most 
 cases he did not obtain the employment which he 
 continued to seek with unrelaxed energy. In 1622 
 a disaster occurred in Virginia which roused the 
 greatest interest and sympathy in England, and gave 
 occasion for renewed efforts in behalf of the colony. 
 The Indians rose against the English, and in the 
 month of May a massacre took place around James- 
 town. The opportunity was one not to be lost by a 
 man who like Smith, while burning to act, was still 
 smarting under what he considered undeserved neg- 
 lect, and he hastened to offer his services to the Com- 
 pany, with a plan for restoring peace ; but his plan 
 and his offer of services were again declined. Still, 
 the resource which he had frequently used remained, 
 and by publishing the " Generall Historie " he made a 
 more ambitious appeal to the public than any he had 
 yet attempted. In this work he embodied everything 
 that could tend to the increase of his own reputation, 
 and drew material from every source that could illus- 
 trate the history of English colonization. Pocahontas 
 was made to appear in it on every possible occasion, 
 and his own share in the affairs of the colony was 
 magnified at the expense of his companions. None 
 of those whose reputations he treated with harsh- 
 ness appeared to vindicate their own characters, far 
 less to assert their knowledge in regard to Pocahon- 
 tas. The effort indeed failed of its object, for he re- 
 mained unemployed and without mark of distinction. 
 
CAPTAINE JOHN SMITH. 79 
 
 " He led his old age in London, where his having a 
 Prince's mind imprisoned in a poor man's purse ren- 
 dered him to the contempt of such who were not 
 ingenuous. Yet he efforted his spirits with the re- 
 membrance and relation of what formerly he had 
 been and what he had done." So Fuller wrote, who 
 might have known him in his later years. Smith 
 died quietly in his bed, in London, in June, 1631. 
 His will has been published by Deane, but furnishes 
 little new information. In the absence of criticism, 
 his book survived to become the standard authority 
 on Virginian history. The readiness with which it 
 was received is scarcely so remarkable as the cre- 
 dulity which has left it unquestioned almost to the 
 present day. 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 1 
 
 For the large and increasing class of instructors, or 
 persons interested in the improvement of instruction 
 in this country, few more entertaining and suggestive 
 books could be written than a history of instruction 
 at Harvard College, — an account, not of the num- 
 bers of students, or the gifts of donors, but of the 
 processes tried, the experiments that failed, the disci- 
 pline enforced, the customs observed, and, above all, 
 the improvement in scholarship. One wishes to 
 know with what standard the college started, and 
 to what extent the standard has been raised or low- 
 ered. Since its foundation the college has greatly 
 altered its character, and will continue to experiment 
 with new methods and in new directions as rapidly 
 as is safe. Its history is of no small importance to 
 illustrate the growth of American society. Both as 
 a social and as an educational question, the matter 
 has interest. 
 
 Such a story to be well told should come directly 
 from first sources, — and, with the exception of the 
 college records, first sources are not easily reached. 
 
 1 From the " North American Review" for January, 1872. 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 178G-1787. 81 
 
 The college records have the disadvantage of telling 
 a formal tale of boys' experiences and discipline, 
 without entering into boys' feelings. One wishes to 
 know what the student thought of himself, of his 
 studies, and of his instructors ; what his studies and 
 his habits were ; how much he knew and how thor- 
 oughly ; with what spirit he met his work, and what 
 amount of active aid and sympathy he received 
 from his instructors in his work or his amusements. 
 The past left traditions of solid learning and care- 
 ful training in the branches of study it assumed 
 to deal with. One would like to know whether the 
 present generation, in making what it calls its pro- 
 gress, has sacrificed anything once useful to its pre- 
 decessors, aside from the further question whether 
 such a sacrifice, if ever made, was a matter of 
 necessity. 
 
 Unfortunately the means are wanting ; but this is 
 not all. Attempts without number have been made 
 to use college life as a groundwork for fiction, and 
 the result has commonly been failure, for the reason 
 that the field of interest is too narrow, and the at- 
 tempt to enlarge it by introducing forced situations 
 is more fatal to success than the narrowness of the 
 field. The same difficulty would be found in a prac- 
 tical treatment of the subject. The details are nu- 
 merous and fatiguing, the possible combinations few 
 and simple. The treatment must make atonement for 
 the want of incident ; and such treatment could come 
 only from a critic who could employ his labor to 
 
82 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 more effect in matters of wider and deeper interest. 
 The student must remain content to have no history 
 of education written from his stand-point. 
 
 Yet the family records of more than one household 
 in New England contain papers that might be of ser- 
 vice in following out this path of inquiry. One such 
 manuscript record at least offers a curious and char- 
 acteristic picture of the education given at Cambridge 
 toward the close of the last century. The record is 
 a student's diary for fifteen months in the years 1786- 
 1787, 1 — years of great depression in America, im- 
 mediately following the peace with Great Britain, but 
 preceding the establishment of a responsible national 
 government. The winter was famous for the out- 
 break and forc;ole repression of Shays's rebellion, 
 which was the principal subject of interest in Massa- 
 chusetts, and threatened for a time to affect the col- 
 lege. The student in question was a young man in 
 his nineteenth year, who came late to the University, 
 and joined the junior class March 15, 1786. He had 
 a fair share of youthful crudities, but was as free 
 from extreme prejudices as could be expected from 
 a young man of his age, while his manner of look- 
 ing at things occasionally betrayed a mind which had 
 come into closer contact with grown and educated 
 men than with people of his own age. 
 
 The student applied for admission to the junior 
 class, in the third term of the junior year, when 
 more than half the year's work was done. His 
 1 The diary of John Quincy Adams. 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 83 
 
 examination showed the minimum required by the 
 college after about three years of college education. 
 The examination itself was a formal proceeding, and 
 although the proportion of absolute rejections was 
 small, yet admission was far from a matter of course. 
 In this instance the applicant had a special examina- 
 tion, as he applied for admission at a time when no 
 one else wished to enter. 
 
 March 15, 1786. Between 9 and 10 in the morning 
 1 went to the President's, and was there admitted before 
 the President, the four tutors, three professors, and Li- 
 brarian. The first book was Horace, where Mr. James, 
 the Latin tutor, told me to turn to the Carmen saaculare, 
 where I construed three stanzas and parsed the word 
 sylvarum, but called potens a substa .Give. Mr. Jenni- 
 son, the Greek tutor, then put me tc the beginning of 
 
 the fourth book of Homer. I construed lines, but 
 
 parsed wrong dAJbJAous. I had then TrapafiXrjSev given 
 me. I was then asked a few questions in Watts's Logic 
 by Mr. Hale, and a considerable number in Locke on 
 the Understanding, very few of which I was able to an- 
 swer. The next thing was geography, where Mr. Read 
 asked me what was the figure of the earth, and several 
 other questions, some of which I answered, and others 
 not. Mr. Williams asked me if I had studied Euclid and 
 arithmetic, after which the President conducted me to 
 another room and gave me the following piece of English 
 to turn into Latin, from the World: "There cannot 
 certainly be an higher ridicule than to give an air of 
 importance to amusements, if they are in themselves 
 contemptible and void of taste ; but if they are the ob- 
 ject and care of the judicious and polite, and really de- 
 
84 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 serve that distinction, the conduct of them is certainly 
 of consequence." I made it thus: " Nihil profecto risu 
 dignior quam magni aestimare delectamenta, si per se 
 despicienda sunt atque sine sapore. At si res oblataa 
 atque cura sunt sagacibus et artibus excultis et revera 
 banc distinctionem merent, administratio eorum haud 
 dubie utilitatis est." I take it from memory only, as 
 no scholar is suffered to take a copy of the Latin he 
 made at his examination. The President then took it, 
 was gone about \ of an hour, returned and said, " You 
 are admitted ; " and gave me a paper to carry to the 
 steward. 
 
 The examination was not difficult, and the candi- 
 date, according to his own account, made no brilliant 
 figure at it. Setting aside Watts and Locke, no 
 longer so important a part of the liberal education 
 as they formerly were, a candidate for the freshman 
 class of to-day would think himself happy to escape 
 with no more severe an examination than this. Yet 
 this examination, so far as concerned the classics, 
 represented not the minimum but the maximum of 
 requirements, not for the junior year, but for the 
 entire college course. Homer, Horace, Terence, and 
 Caesar were all that the student attempted to study. 
 With the junior year, instruction in the classics ended. 
 The following entry shows the condition of classical 
 studies in the University : — 
 
 July 5, 1786. Mr. James gave us a piece of Latin 
 to make, — the first the class have had since I have been 
 here. This is the last week that we attend the Latin tu- 
 tor, and last week we closed with Mr. Jennison (Greek). 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 85 
 
 In the senior year there are no languages studied in 
 college. It is very popular here to dislike the study of 
 Greek and Latin. 
 
 All that the student could do in college, in the di- 
 rection of classical acquirements, was limited within 
 a narrow margin represented by the examination de- 
 scribed above. Another extract shows the student's 
 opinion of his classical instruction. 
 
 May 10, 1786. We finished the Andria of Terence 
 this morning. The class began it last February. I went 
 through it at Haverhill in three evenings. However, it 
 must be said that they study it only one week in four, 
 and that week only four mornings ; but even in that way 
 it has taken thirteen lessons to go through this one play. 
 We recite afternoons the Latin week in Caesar, but I have 
 had nothing to say this week. The class is so numerous 
 that he (the tutor) cannot hear more than one half of 
 them recite at once, and so he takes turns. 
 
 Students dropped the classics at Cambridge in the 
 last century where they begin it in the present one. 
 Homer and Horace, or Terence and a sentence in 
 Latin composition, represented all the classical knowl- 
 edge that Harvard gave ; and beyond the simple con- 
 struing of the text and the application of elementary 
 rules of grammar, nothing was attempted. 
 
 In regard to mathematics, the same rule held. 
 Euclid and arithmetic are no further advanced as 
 mathematics than Homer and Horace as classics, if 
 indeed they are so far ; but mathematics were con- 
 tinued through the senior year, and apparently with 
 
86 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 comparative energy. Any other requirement, with 
 the exception of logic and metaphysics, seems to 
 have been unknown, unless geography were some- 
 thing more than the form which the single question 
 repeated in the diary implies. 
 
 So far, then, as the standard of knowledge was con- 
 cerned, it was low ; and to judge from the account 
 of the student, his success in satisfying even this 
 low standard was not brilliant. Yet the best acquire- 
 ments of the highest scholars in his class were no 
 greater. Among the fifty graduates of his year, no 
 one of sufficient superiority appeared to prevent him 
 from carrying away an English oration at his Com- 
 mencement, — a prize commonly given only to the 
 best scholars. 
 
 The examination being over, the new student was 
 fairly a member of the college. He did not appear 
 at the college exercises until a week after his admis- 
 sion, when he went to the President. 
 
 March 22. Immediately after prayers I went to the 
 President, who said, "You may live with Sir Ware, a 
 Bachelor of Arts." I made a most respectful bow, and 
 retired. 
 
 To persons who have forgotten this use of the title 
 Sir, another extract may be of interest : — 
 
 July 19. Commencement Day. The new Sirs got 
 quite high in the evening, at Derby's chamber, and 
 made considerable of a noise. 
 
 Recitations then began. For one week the class 
 recited in Euclid. The following week it recited in 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 87 
 
 Homer and the Greek Testament ; the third week, in 
 Locke ; the fourth, in Terence and Caesar. This was 
 the round of studies ; and when the four weeks were 
 passed, the process began again. The weeks were 
 classed as mathematical, metaphysical, Greek, and 
 Latin weeks, and no two of these subjects were ever 
 recited at the same time. 
 
 Six recitations in these branches occurred every 
 week. On Mondays and Wednesdays, both morning 
 and afternoon ; on Tuesdays and Thursdays, only in 
 the morning. Friday was a leisure day for the whole 
 college, so far as regarded recitations. Saturdays 
 brought one early recitation in Doddridge's Divinity. 
 These were all the recitations. In addition frequent 
 lectures were given, both philosophical and doctrinal, 
 which the students of all classes attended ; and lite- 
 rary exercises, as well as a regular exercise in decla- 
 mation, took place. 
 
 May 3, 1786. Wednesday and Monday are our two 
 busiest days in the week. This morning (Wednesday) 
 at 6 we went in to prayers, after which we immediately 
 recited (Homer). This took us till 7J. At 7£ we break- 
 fasted. At ten we had a lecture on Divinity from Mr. 
 Wigglesworth ; it was upon the wisdom of all God's 
 actions, and justifying those parts of Scripture which 
 some have reproached as contrary to justice. At 11 we 
 had a philosophical lecture from Mr. Williams upon the 
 mechanical powers, and particularly the lever and the 
 pulley. At 12J-, dinner. At 3, an astronomical public 
 lecture upon the planet Mercury, a very circumstantial ac- 
 count of all its transits over the sun's disk. At 4 again 
 
88 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 we recited (Greek Testament), and at 5 attended prayers 
 again, after which there are no more exercises for this 
 day, but we are obliged in the evening to prepare our 
 recitation for to-morrow morning. This I think is quite 
 sufficient employment for one day, but the three last days 
 in the week we have very little to do, — Thursdays and 
 Saturdays reciting ouly in the morning, and Fridays a 
 philosophical lecture. 
 
 A modern student would not think this work se- 
 vere, for except the two recitations nothing required 
 preparation. Perhaps the most curious part of the 
 old arrangement was the subordinate place filled by 
 recitations, and it is certainly interesting to hear a 
 student in 1786, who had but seven recitations a 
 week, finding fault with the system: — 
 
 September 4, 1786. As we have no metaphysical tutor 
 here at present, we supposed that for the ensuing fort- 
 night we should have no reciting. But the government 
 have determined that we shall continue to attend Mr. 
 Read. This is not an agreeable circumstance. A person 
 who does not belong to the University and hears only 
 the word " reciting," naturally concludes that the schol- 
 ars are an idle set of fellows, because they are always 
 averse to recitations. Now the fact is just the contrary. 
 A person fond of study regards the time spent in re- 
 citing as absolutely lost. He has studied the book before 
 he recites ; and the tutors here are so averse to giving 
 ideas different from those of the author whom they are 
 supposed to explain, that they always speak in his own 
 words and never pretend to add anything of their own. 
 Reciting is indeed of some service to idle fellows, be- 
 cause it brings the matter immediately before them and 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 89 
 
 obliges them at least for a short time to attend to some- 
 thing. But a hard student will always dislike it, because 
 it takes time from him which he supposes might have 
 been employed to greater advantage. 
 
 A change in the recitations occurred in the senior 
 year. Greek and Latin were dropped, and during 
 the first quarter the seniors recited in mathematics 
 alone, because the tutor in metaphysics had resigned, 
 and his place had not been filled. Only on the 3d 
 of October did the new tutor make his appearance 
 and begin upon Burlamaqui's Natural Law, after which 
 the two studies alternated during the rest of the year. 
 The lectures were continued, and a new course, " very 
 dry," was added, upon language. The principal pro- 
 fessor did not satisfy the more zealous students : — 
 
 April 5, 1787. At 11 this forenoon Mr. Williams 
 gave us the second philosophical lecture. It was upon 
 the incidental properties of matter, and excepting very 
 few deviations, was expressed in the same terms with 
 that we had last year upon the same subject. Indeed, 
 whether the professor's time is taken up by other studies, 
 or whether he is too indolent to make any improvements 
 in his lectures, it is said he gives every year the same 
 course, without adding or erasing a line. 
 
 April 7. Mr. Williams gave us this forenoon a lec- 
 ture upon motion, the same which we heard a twelve- 
 month past upon that subject. 
 
 Except for reading Burlamaqui and wTiting a large 
 number of literary disquisitions, of a stereotyped 
 and academic class, for college societies and public 
 
90 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 occasions, the best students had little employment. 
 After the winter vacation, ending in the middle of 
 February, afternoon recitations were dropped in the 
 senior year, and the class had but five recitations a 
 week for nine weeks, when recitations ceased. 
 
 This analysis of the college studies leads to the 
 conclusion, enforced by every word of the diary, that 
 for the ordinary enjoyments of University life, the 
 last century was the golden age of the college. The 
 most modest capacity could maintain itself upon such 
 a level. This impression prevailed among the stu- 
 dents, for the writer of the diary, speaking of a class- 
 mate in his twenty-fifth year, said : — 
 
 " He was, as he says himself, too old when he entered 
 the University. From fourteen to eighteen I should sup- 
 pose the best age for entering. The studies which are 
 pursued here are just calculated for the tender minds of 
 youth." 
 
 One cannot detect a sign of coercion on the part 
 of the college government. An examination of any 
 kind was strange to the college career. Rank was 
 apparently unknown, except so far as it was vaguely 
 intimated in the assignment of parts at exhibitions. 
 These parts, if President Willard was to be believed, 
 were the only incentive to study : — 
 
 April 11, 1787. I went down this morning to the 
 President to know the determination of the corporation 
 with respect to a private Commencement, and was told 
 that the petition of the class was rejected, because they 
 supposed that if public Commencements were lain aside, 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 91 
 
 there would be no stimulus to study among the scholars, 
 and they are afraid that by granting our petition they 
 might establish a precedent which the following classes 
 would take advantage of, and claim as a right what we 
 only request as a favor. Another reason which Mr. 
 Willard said had weight, although the gentlemen did not 
 choose to avow it publicly, was the fear of offending the 
 future Governor by depriving him of that opportunity 
 to show himself in splendor and magnificence. 
 
 Another extract indicated patriarchal simplicity. 
 On the student's first day in college, — 
 
 March 23, 1786. I did not hear the bell ring this 
 morning, and was tardy at prayers. Every time a stu- 
 dent is tardy at prayers he is punished a penny, and 
 there is no eluding that law ; so that a student must pre- 
 fer not attending prayers at all to being half a minute 
 too late. 
 
 The instructors trusted only their general im- 
 pressions in awarding distinctions. Misdemeanors, 
 absences, and other shortcomings were punished by 
 fines. The recitations were ordinary school-lessons : 
 
 June 13, 1786. This reciting in Locke is the most 
 ridiculous of all. When the tutor inquires what is con- 
 tained in such a section, many of the scholars repeat the 
 two first lines in it, which are very frequently nothing to 
 the purpose, and leave the rest for the tutor to explain, 
 which he commonly does by saying over again the words 
 of the author. 
 
 In regard to vacations and permissions of absence, 
 the college law was not rigorous. In April the stu- 
 
92 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 dents had two weeks holiday by law, but in practice 
 at least three. The summer vacation began July 
 13, and closed by law August 16, lasting five weeks, 
 but recitations were only resumed on the 21st. Two 
 weeks more were given in October, with the same 
 liberal margin. In the middle of December, 1786, 
 the supply of fire-wood fell short, and as none could 
 be obtained from the country, the students were sent 
 home and enjoyed a vacation of eight weeks, till Feb- 
 ruary 7. Recitations began on the 12th. On the 
 23d " about half the class " had arrived. Thus in 
 the course of the year the college had seventeen weeks 
 of vacation, and twenty-one weeks of freedom from 
 required exercises. Add to this a liberal interpreta- 
 tion of the rule of attendance, and an equally lib- 
 eral practice in regard to leaves of absence, and the 
 working terms of the college were by no means un- 
 reasonably long or severe. When the exercises were 
 most regular, many interruptions occurred, and the 
 amount of work accomplished, from a modern point 
 of view, was small. 
 
 A few extracts will illustrate the college practice : 
 
 April 26, 1786. Put my name in at the buttery. 
 At the end of each vacation every scholar must go in 
 person and give his name to the butler. Any scholar 
 who stays away after the expiration of the vacancy, 
 unless he gives good reasons for it, forfeits Is. 6d. 
 every night. 
 
 April 27. No reciting this day, nor indeed this week. 
 The scholars that live near Cambridge commonly come 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 93 
 
 and enter their names in the buttery, and then go home 
 again and stay the remainder of the week. 
 
 April 28. About half the college are now here. The 
 bill at prayers is not kept till the Friday after the 
 vacation ends. 
 
 May 1. We recite this week, etc. 
 
 August 17. The scholars are coming in very fast. 
 
 August 19. Almost all the college have got here now, 
 and the new monitors, who must always belong to the 
 junior class, took their seats yesterday. 
 
 August 21. We recite this week, etc. 
 
 December 12. The government this morning deter- 
 mined that if more than half the students should be des- 
 titute of wood, the college should be dismissed. The 
 President went to Boston to consult the corporation upon 
 the subject, and he informed Little this evening that the 
 students would be permitted to disperse to-morrow 
 morning. 
 
 December 13. This morning, immediately after prayers, 
 the President informed us that the vacation would begin 
 at present, and be for eight weeks, and hinted that the 
 spring vacation might on that account be omitted. 
 
 The spring vacation was not in the least shortened 
 by the hint. 
 
 With these eight weeks the student had a right to 
 do what he pleased ; yet since the exertions which 
 were evidently not made in term-time may have 
 fallen on the vacation, the inquiry how the most 
 distinguished students of the oldest standing occupied 
 their two months of winter vacation is not imper- 
 tinent. The writer of the diary remained in college 
 
94 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 rooms to devote his time to his work, with less inter- 
 ruption than was otherwise possible. 
 
 "As I thought I should be able to study much more 
 conveniently here than anywhere else, I obtained leave to 
 remain in town. Bridge proposes staying likewise, and 
 we shall live together. Bridge engaged for us both to 
 board at Professor Wigglesworth's." 
 
 Other young men remained, no doubt for the same 
 purpose, since their names occurred afterward on 
 the list of parts at Commencement, attached to Eng- 
 lish orations and other honors. They were not with- 
 out other society : — 
 
 December 18, 1786. The } r oung ladies at Mr. Wig- 
 glesworth's dined at Judge Dana's. I went down there 
 with Bridge to tea, and passed the evening very sociably. 
 The conversation turned upon divers topics, and among 
 the rest upon love, which is almost always the case when 
 there are ladies present. 
 
 Love was not mentioned as one of the college stud- 
 ies ; but if it was always discussed when ladies were 
 present, these young gentlemen during this vacation 
 devoted more attention to it than they had paid to 
 Locke or Euclid. 
 
 The next day a slight improvement in tone was 
 apparent : — 
 
 December 19. Several of the class still remain, and 
 until they are gone it will be impossible for us to study 
 much. As they expect to go every day, they are rather 
 dissipated, and more or less make us so. 
 
 December 20. I have been rather more attentive to- 
 day, and have written considerably. 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 95 
 
 After this spark of energy came a relapse. De- 
 scriptions of young ladies recurred with frequency, 
 while, except for a single reference to Montesquieu, 
 no evidence of absorbing mental application was 
 recorded : — 
 
 December 22. Miss is but eighteeu, rather 
 
 giddy and inexperienced. She has a very fair com- 
 plexion and good eyes, of which she is sensible. Her 
 face is rather capricious than beautiful, and some of her 
 features are not handsome. Of this she is not so well 
 apprised. Her shape is not inelegant, but her limbs are 
 rather large. She is susceptible of the tender sentiments, 
 but the passion rather than the lover is the object of 
 her affection. 
 
 December 26. Mason finally took his leave and left 
 us to ourselves, so that we shall henceforth be able to 
 study with much less interruption than we have hitherto 
 done. 
 
 December 27. In the evening we went down with Mr. 
 Ware and Freeman to Judge Dana's. We conversed and 
 played whist and sung till 10 o'clock. The ladies seem 
 to have settled that we are to be in love ; but ideas of 
 this kind are very common with the ladies, who think it 
 impossible to live without love. 
 
 January 17, 1787. After tea we went down to Mr. 
 Dana's. Miss E. was there, and Miss J. with her. 
 Bridge accompanied this lady home, and after they were 
 gone I had a deal of chat with Miss E., who has a 
 larger share of sense than commonly falls to an indi- 
 vidual of her sex. We conversed upon diverse subjects, 
 but I can never give anything but general accounts of 
 conversations, for I cannot always keep this book under 
 
96 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 lock and key, and some people have a vast deal of 
 curiosity. 
 
 January 22. Almy has a larger share of sense than 
 commonly falls to the lot of her sex, and that sense 
 is cultivated and improved, — a circumstance still more 
 uncommon. 
 
 March 2. I went to take tea at Mr. Pearson's. I 
 got seated between Miss E. and Miss H., but could not 
 enjoy the pleasures of conversation, because the music 
 was introduced. Music is a great enemy to sociability, 
 and however agreeable it may be sometimes, there are 
 occasions when I should wish it might be dispensed 
 with. 
 
 By that time the vacation had expired, and the 
 student returned to the labors of five recitations 
 a week. Besides the " Spirit of Laws," he had read, 
 so far as can be gathered from his diary, Watson's 
 " Chemical Essays," Sheridan's " Lectures on Elocu- 
 tion," a volume of the " Idler," and some algebra, in 
 two months. He had also developed an uncommonly 
 strong fancy for the study of female character, — a 
 study not embraced in the official college curriculum, 
 either then or afterward. 
 
 The 7th of February began the" new term. On the 
 12th recitations began, one every day, except Friday. 
 On the 15th a ball was given, at which Miss E. headed 
 the list of ladies. The young gentlemen, among 
 whom were most of the first scholars, retired to bed 
 " at about four o'clock," and " rose just before the 
 commons bell rang for dinner, quite refreshed, and 
 not more fatigued than I commonly am." The 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 97 
 
 dances became nearly as frequent as the recitations. 
 On the 23d, " about one half the class are here." 
 On the 27th, " almost all our class have arrived." 
 Among other lectures, March 5 " Professor Pearson 
 gave a lecture with which he concluded his obser- 
 vations upon the article. I did not hear many of 
 them ; " but the same evening there was a meeting 
 of the $BKat Cranch's chamber, at which a dis- 
 sertation was read, of which the text is preserved, 
 on the erudite question, " Whether love or fortune 
 ought to be the chief inducement to marriage." This 
 essay was done with much reflection and knowledge 
 of the human heart, but was not a college exercise. 
 March 7 he went to Haverhill, and returned on the 
 10th. On the 12th the parts were distributed for the 
 next exhibition, and he received an English " Confer- 
 ence," with Freeman and Little, upon the Compara- 
 tive Utility of Law, Physic, and Divinity. 
 
 March 14, 1787. Was employed almost ail day in 
 thinking upon the subject of my Conference. Wrote a 
 few lines with much difficulty. Did not like the subject. 
 Wished the Conference to the Devil. 
 
 Little and Freeman were of the same mind. After 
 a week's labor the Conference was written, and the 
 next week was devoted to the voluntary work of cal- 
 culating the elements for a solar eclipse for May 15, 
 1836. This was also for an exhibition. 
 
 March 30. I have been somewhat idle for several 
 days, and expect to continue so till the exhibition is over, 
 for so long as that is before me I can pay very little at- 
 
98 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 tention to anything else. I found this to be the case last 
 fall, and do now still more so ; but thank fortune I have 
 only one more trial, at the worst, of this kind to go 
 through, which will be at Commencement, unless we 
 should obtain a private one. Distinctions of this kind 
 are not, I think, very desirable ; for besides the trouble 
 and anxiety which they unavoidably create, they seldom 
 fail of raising the envy of other students. I have often- 
 times witnessed this with respect to others, and I am 
 much deceived if I have not lately perceived it with respect 
 to myself. 
 
 April 9. This is the last week on which our class 
 attend recitations. 
 
 If such w r ere the duties of the most distinguished 
 scholars, those students who were not remarkable for 
 scholarship could not have been overworked ; but on 
 that point no certain information was given, be- 
 yond allusions to gunning, fishing, and an occasional 
 " high-go." 
 
 Meanwhile a difficulty occurred. 
 
 August 26, 1786. Immediately after prayers we had 
 a class-meeting for the purpose of choosing a Valedictory 
 Orator and Collectors of Theses. When the votes were 
 collected it was found that there was no choice. A sec- 
 ond attempt was made, equally fruitless. It was then 
 resolved that the choice of an Orator should be deferred, 
 and that the class should proceed to that of the choice of 
 Collectors. The one for Technology, Grammar, and Rhet- 
 oric was first balloted. Abbot 2d was chosen. The sec- 
 ond Collector, for Logic, Metaphysics, Ethics, Theology, 
 and Politics, was then chosen. Fiske was the person. 
 The Mathematical part fell to Adams, and the Physical to 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 99 
 
 Johnstone. The meeting at about seven o'clock was ad- 
 journed till Monday evening, when we shall proceed to the 
 choice of an Orator. 
 
 August 28. After prayers the class met by adjourn- 
 ment. The second ballot was between Freeman, Little, 
 and Waldo. The third was between Freeman and Little, 
 who finally carried it by a considerable majority. The 
 class then all went to his chamber, but did not stay there 
 more than an hour. 
 
 August 31. We had a class-meeting immediately 
 after prayers. The committee of the class that was 
 appointed to inform the President of the choice for an 
 Orator, etc., reported that the President had not given 
 his consent to have the Oration in English, because he 
 thought it would show a neglect of classical learning. I 
 motioned that the vote for havino- i* i'i English should 
 be reconsidered, but there was a considerable majority 
 against it. It was then voted that the President should 
 be informed that the class had determined to have an 
 English Oration or none at all. The former commit- 
 tee all declined going again. Johnstone, Fiske, and 
 Welch were chosen, but declined. It was much like 
 JEsop's fable of the mice, who determined to have a bell 
 tied round the cat's neck ; they were all desirous that it 
 should be done, but no one was willing to undertake the 
 performance of it. The meeting was finally adjourned 
 till Monday next. 
 
 September 12. We had a class-meeting after prayers 
 for determining the matter concerning a Valedictory Ora- 
 tion. By dint of obstinate impudence, vociferation, and 
 noise, the minority so wearied out those on the other 
 side that several of them went out ; after which a vote 
 was passed ratifying the proceedings of the last meeting. 
 
100 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Johnson, Sever, and Chandler 3d were then chosen as a 
 committee to inform the President of the proceedings in 
 the class. 
 
 September 18. We had a class-meeting after break- 
 fast. The committee that was sent to inform the Presi- 
 dent of the proceedings of the class, informed that he had 
 said he feared he should be obliged to direct the class to 
 have the Oration in Latin. Notwithstanding this, it was 
 voted by a majority of two that the class should still 
 persist. 
 
 The President carried his point so far that there 
 was no Class Day. In consequence of this, the mem- 
 bers of the class began to leave Cambridge before the 
 21st of June, the usual day for separation. The parts 
 for Commencement were distributed May 17. 
 
 May 24, 1787. Our class having no college exer- 
 cises to attend to, and many of them having now finished 
 their parts for Commencement, are generally very indo- 
 lent. Biding and playing and eating and drinking em- 
 ploy the chief part of their time. 
 
 Long before Class Day the graduating students were 
 scattered in every direction, only to return on the 18th 
 of July to Commencement. Thus, as the result of 
 the half-year since the 13th of December, the students 
 who were to take their degrees had attended recita- 
 tions at the rate of five per week, for nine weeks, and 
 had further prepared exercises for one exhibition and 
 Commencement. They had listened to one course of 
 lectures, which they had for the most part already 
 heard, and another on " the parts of speech," which 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 101 
 
 the best of them thought a waste of time. They dis- 
 persed in May, without conception that there could be 
 such a thing in the student world as an examination 
 for degrees. 
 
 One or two more extracts, to illustrate the stringency 
 of rules during term-time, must be admitted : — 
 
 May 4, 1786. No reciting this morning on account 
 of last night's class-meeting. This is a privilege that all 
 the classes enjoy, and I am told there have been in our 
 class fellows so lazy and so foolish as to call a class- 
 meeting merely for that purpose. 
 
 Naturally, class-meetings were frequent. 
 
 April 10, 1786. No reciting this day because the gov- 
 ernment met to examine the reasons of those scholars that 
 are absent, or have been within the last two quarters. 
 
 September 22. Mr. Read sent for me this morning ; 
 informed me that the exhibition was to come on next 
 Thursday, and offered to excuse me from recitations till 
 then, in case I was not prepared, as the time that had 
 been given for getting ready was so short. But, as it 
 happened, I was not in need of more time. 
 
 October 9. No reciting. Mr. Burr is engaged to 
 preach several Sundays at Hingham, and does not re- 
 turn early enough for the next morning recitation. 
 
 The rules were not more rigidly applied in regard 
 to required exercises than in other respects, and 
 neither instructors nor students considered them- 
 selves to be under any inflexible law. 
 
 Students who lived under so mild a government 
 should have had no just cause of complaint, unless 
 
102 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 that the means of the college did not satisfy the re- 
 quirements of a liberal education. They might urge 
 that Euclid and Burlamaqui were dry nutriment to 
 satisfy the hunger of a whole year, but they could 
 scarcely maintain that a stepmother's hand, when 
 they cried for bread, threw them husks. Under a 
 system so nearly voluntary, a thorough accord should 
 have existed between the instructors and their best 
 scholars. 
 
 The President, Joseph Willard, was a graduate of 
 the year 1765, still a comparatively young man. 
 Many instructive hints as to his character were scat- 
 tered through this diary : — 
 
 "It is against the laws of the college to call any un- 
 dergraduate by any bnt his sir-name, and I am told the 
 President, who is remarkably strict on all those matters, 
 reproved a gentleman at his table for calling a student 
 Mr. while he was present." 
 
 Again : — 
 
 March 24, 1786. After prayers I declaimed, as it is 
 termed ; two students every evening speak from memory 
 any piece they choose, if it be approved by the President. 
 It was this evening my turn, and I spoke from " As you 
 like it," — "All the world 's a stage," etc. When I came 
 to the description of the Justice, in fair, round belly, with 
 good capon lined, tutors and scholars all laughed, as I 
 myself truly represented the character. But the Presi- 
 dent did not move a feature of his face. And indeed I 
 believe it is no small matter that shall extort a smile from 
 him when he is before the college. 
 
 September 10, 1786. Cranch and myself dined at the 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 103 
 
 President's. He is stiff and formal, attached to every 
 custom and trifling form, as much as to what is of con- 
 sequence. However, he was quite sociable ; much more 
 so, indeed, than I should have expected. 
 
 A portrait of the President in the pulpit was 
 included : — 
 
 February 18, 1787. The President preached in the 
 afternoon, when we were improved by a very laborious 
 encomium upon Moses. Whatever the President's liter- 
 ary talents may be, he is certainly not an elegant com- 
 posuist nor a graceful orator. 
 
 June 21, 1786. Class Day. This day the seniors 
 leave college. There is no recitation in the morning, 
 and prayers are deferred till 10 o'clock. The class then 
 went down in procession two by two with the Poet at 
 their head, and escorted the President to the chapel. The 
 President made a very long prayer, in which, in addition 
 to what he commonly says, he prayed a great deal for the 
 seniors ; but I think he ought to get his occasional prayers 
 by heart before he delivers them. He bungled always 
 when he endeavored to go out of the beaten track, and 
 he has no talent at extempore composition. 
 
 April 6, 1786. Fast Day. The President preached 
 two sermons ; that in the afternoon especially I thought 
 excellent, — no flowers of rhetoric, no eloquence, but 
 plain common-sense, and upon a liberal plan. But the 
 President has by no means a pleasing delivery. He ap- 
 pears to labor and struggle very much, and sometimes 
 strains very hard, and making faces, which do not render 
 his harsh countenance more agreeable. 
 
 The description indicated no ill-feeling toward the 
 President ; but a man cast in such a mould was not 
 
104 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 likely to throw life or novelty into the system over 
 which he presided. He was an excellent representa- 
 tive of the old New England school, but he had little 
 immediate connection with the undergraduates. The 
 burden of labor fell on the four tutors, although the 
 tutors were not obliged to perform so much work as 
 would alarm the most lightly burdened tutor of the 
 present day. Six or seven hours a week in the reci- 
 tation-room, and the simplest instruction in the letter 
 of the text-book represented the full extent of their 
 duties, beyond the charge of the college discipline. 
 A considerable opportunity for usefulness was open 
 to the four tutors, and at least one or two of them 
 might be supposed to impress the students with sym- 
 pathetic activity. The relations between students 
 and tutors were the subject of frequent comments in 
 the diary : — 
 
 May 1, 1786. The Greek tutor is a young man; in- 
 deed much too young (A. B. of 1782), as are all the 
 tutors, for the place he occupies. Before he took his 
 second degree, which was last Commencement, he was 
 chosen a tutor of mathematics, in which he betrayed his 
 ignorance often. Last fall he changed departments, and 
 took up the Greek. His own class, the freshmen, were 
 the first that laughed at him in that. He has improved 
 since that, but still makes frequent mistakes. It is cer- 
 tainly wrong that the tutors should so often be changed, 
 and be so young as they are. It would be better to 
 choose a person immediately after he has taken his 
 degree, than as they do ; because when a youth leaves 
 college he is obliged to turn his attention to other studies, 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787, 105 
 
 and forgets a great deal of what he studied at college, 
 whereas when he has lately graduated he has all fresh in 
 his mind. The Doctor affects a great deal of popularity 
 in his class, and with the help of the late disagreement 
 between the classes, he has pretty well succeeded ; but 
 he does not seem to care what the other classes think 
 of him. 
 
 May 2. Our tutor gave us this morning a most ex- 
 traordinary construction of a passage in Homer. Abbot 
 1st was beginning to construe the 181st line of the 6th 
 book. 
 
 Hpoade \ecoi>, &indev 5e dpaKUv, fieacr-q 5e xt'/xaipa, 
 
 he said, — "a lion before ; " but the Doctor corrected him 
 by saying it meant " superior to a lion." Abbot immedi- 
 ately took the hint and made it, " superior to a lion, in- 
 ferior to a dragon, and equal to a wild boar." 
 
 An account of the metaphysical tutor was still less 
 flattering : — 
 
 May 15, 1786. We recite this week to Mr. Hale in 
 Locke. This is, upon the whole, the most unpopular 
 tutor in college. He is hated even by his own class. 
 He is reputed to be very ill-natured and severe in his 
 punishments. He proposes leaving college at Com- 
 mencement, and I believe there is not an individual 
 among the students who is not very well pleased with 
 it. One of my classmates said the other day, "I do 
 not believe it yet ; it is too good news to be true." 
 Such are the sentiments of all the students with respect 
 to him. 
 
 The writer felt no regard for the mathematical 
 tutor : — 
 
106 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 May 22, 1786. We recite this week to our own tutor, 
 in Gravesande's Experimental Philosophy. This gentle- 
 man is not much more popular than the rest of the tutors. 
 He is said to be very prejudiced and very vindictive. He 
 is liked in general by the class, however, and this may be 
 a reason why I have not heard as much said against him 
 as against the others. 
 
 He closed the list with a blast of indignation against 
 the Latin tutor : — 
 
 May 8. We recite this week in Terence and Caesar to 
 Mr. James. This is the tutor of the oldest standing in 
 the college ; he is very well acquainted with the branch 
 he has undertaken, and persons that are not students say 
 that he is much of a gentleman. But it seems almost to 
 be a maxim among the governors of the college to treat 
 the students pretty much like brute beasts. There is an 
 important air and a haughty look that every person be- 
 longing to the government (Mr. [Professor] Williams ex- 
 cepted) assumes, which indeed it is hard for me to sub- 
 mit to. But it may be of use to me, as it mortifies my 
 vanity ; and if anything in the world can teach me hu- 
 mility, it will be to see myself subjected to the commands 
 of a person that I must despise. Mr. James is also ac- 
 cused of having many partialities and carrying them to 
 very great length ; and moreover that those partialities do 
 not arise from any superior talents or virtues in the stu- 
 dents, but from closer and more interested motives. 
 There are some in our class with whom he has been par- 
 ticularly severe, and some he has shown more favor than 
 any tutor ought to show to a student. I wish not his 
 favor, as he may prize it too high ; and I fear not his 
 severity, which he can never display if I do my duty. 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787, 107 
 
 The " interested motives " were more than a figure 
 of speech : — 
 
 May 3, 1786. We had after prayers a class-meeting 
 about making a present to our tutor. It is customary at 
 the end of the freshman year to make a present to the 
 tutor of the class ; but it has been delayed by ours to the 
 present time, and many would still delay it and lay it 
 wholly aside. The custom, I think, is a bad one, because 
 it creates partialities in a tutor, because it increases the 
 distinction between the wealthy and the poor scholars, 
 because it makes the tutor in some measure dependent 
 upon his class, and because to many that subscribe it is a 
 considerable expense ; but the salaries of the tutors being 
 so low, and it having been for many years an universal 
 custom, I am sorry to see our class so behindhand, and 
 several who could well afford it and have really sub- 
 scribed meanly endeavoring to put off the matter from 
 quarter to quarter till they leave college. 
 
 A year later the writer became aware that the 
 question had two sides. Speaking of one of his 
 classmates, he said : — 
 
 "His spirit he discovers by relating how many times 
 he has insulted the President and the tutors, particularly 
 Mr. Read (the class tutor). He damns Mr. Read for be- 
 ing partial towards those who have always treated him 
 with respect, and against those who have always made it 
 a practice to insult him." 
 
 The relations between instructors and scholars were 
 far from satisfactory. Thoroughly cordial these rela- 
 tions never could be so long as college discipline re- 
 mained in the hands of the instructors. The duty of 
 
108 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 giving instruction, and the duty of judging offences 
 and inflicting punishment, could never be intrusted to 
 the same hands without injury to the usefulness of 
 the instructor. This evil was conspicuous in the last 
 century. Gentle as the rein was, and mild as were 
 the punishments, hostility between students and in- 
 structors was a traditional custom of the college, 
 and the one which created most annoyance to both 
 divisions of the University, — the teachers as well as 
 the taught. The system was wrong. While perhaps 
 more liberal in its forms than any that succeeded it, 
 the assumption of social superiority galled every one 
 subjected to it. The assumption created opposition, 
 and the records of the college showed persistent at- 
 tempts, on the part of the students, to break down the 
 social barrier. Generation after generation followed 
 the same course. Rebellion after rebellion broke out 
 among the undergraduates. Only in proportion as 
 the college government began to act upon the prin- 
 ciple that the student was the social equal of the 
 instructor, entitled to every courtesy due to equals, 
 did these disorders begin gradually to subside. Even 
 then the question of discipline remained a source of 
 incessant uneasiness, and the instructor known as a 
 strict disciplinarian, who attempted to combine his 
 duties as police-officer, judge, jury, and executioner 
 with his duties of instruction, sacrificed no inconsid- 
 erable share of his usefulness as instructor. 
 
 That the spirit of insubordination so persistently 
 exhibited was not due to distinctions of age, or hos- 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 109 
 
 tility to the instructing body as such, was proved by 
 conflicts with others than the instructors. Another 
 series of extracts illustrated this point : — 
 
 August 21, 1786. This afternoon, after prayers, the 
 customs were read to the freshmen in the chapel. They 
 are read three Mondays running in the beginning of every 
 year, by the three first in the sophimore class, who are 
 ordered to see them put in execution. 
 
 March 27, 178G. After prayers the senior class had 
 a class-meeting, in order to check the freshmen, who, they 
 suppose, have taken of late too great liberties. By the 
 laws of the college all freshmen are obliged to walk in 
 the yard with their heads uncovered, unless in stormy 
 weather, and to go on any errand that any other scholar 
 chooses to send them, at a mile distance. But the pre- 
 sent freshmen have been indulged very much with respect 
 to those laws, and it is said they have presumed further 
 than they ought to have done. 
 
 March 28, 1786. After prayers, Bancroft, one of 
 the sophimore class, read the customs to the freshmen, 
 one of whom (McNeal) stood with his hat on all the 
 time. He with three others were immediately hoisted 
 (as the term is) before a tutor, and punished. There 
 was immediately after a class-meeting of the freshmen, 
 who, it is said, determined they would hoist any scholar 
 of the other classes who should be seen with his hat on in 
 the yard, when any of the government are there. 
 
 June 14, 1786. The freshmen, by their high spirit 
 of liberty, have again involved themselves in difficulties. 
 The sophimores consider themselves as insulted by them, 
 and in a class-meeting, last evening, determined to oblige 
 all the freshmen to take off their hats in the yard, and to 
 
110 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 send them. There has been a great deal of business be- 
 tween them to-day. Mr. Hale has had several of them 
 before him. 
 
 June 15, 1786. The struggle between the freshmen 
 and sophimores still continues. They have been mutually 
 hoisting one another all day. 
 
 July 12, 1786. The freshmen carry their enmity 
 against the sophimores a great deal too far. They in- 
 jure themselves both in the eyes of the other class and 
 in those of the government. This afternoon, while Cabot 
 was declaiming, they kept up a continual groaning and 
 shuffling and hissing, as almost prevented him from 
 going through. 
 
 The freshmen ultimately carried their point, and 
 established their right to social equality ; but they 
 were obliged to struggle both against the college 
 system and against their immediate masters. Their 
 disorders were but a repetition, against a different 
 authority, of still greater disorders on the part of 
 older classes, in the attempt to establish social rights 
 against college government. 
 
 The habits and manners of the time were not 
 rigorously correct : — 
 
 March 22, 1786. As we passed by Milton Hall, we 
 saw the ruins of the windows. On the 21st of March 
 the junior sophister class cease reciting at 11 in the 
 forenoon. They generally in the evening have a frolic. 
 Yesterday they had it at Milton Hall, and as they are not 
 by any means at such time remarkable for their discre- 
 tion, we saw many fractures in the windows of the hall 
 they were in. 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. Ill 
 
 March 15, 1786. The sophimore class had what is 
 called in college a high-go. They assembled all to- 
 gether in the chamber of one of the class, where some 
 of them got drunk, then sallied out and broke a number 
 of windows for three of the tutors, and after this sublime 
 manoeuvre staggered to their chambers. Such are the 
 great achievements of many of the sons of Harvard ! 
 Such the delights of many of the students here ! 
 
 The manners indicated by these extracts were cer- 
 tainly free ; but such offences were not considered 
 heinous by the college government or by public 
 opinion. The severity of discipline in the college 
 was by no means such as to explain the ill-will be- 
 tween the students and the government. Although 
 students considered such discipline annoying at the 
 time, they learned afterward to accept, without a 
 murmur, punishments which in the last century 
 would have been thought monstrous ; and this sub- 
 mission was due to the subsidence of the old an- 
 tipathy to college government. In 1786 punishments, 
 so far from being severe, were remarkably light, not- 
 withstanding loud complaints against them. 
 
 As mentioned above, certain members of the col- 
 lege, on the night of March 15, 1786, indulged them- 
 selves in a drunken disturbance in the college 
 grounds : — 
 
 March 23, 1786. After prayers the President read a 
 paper to this effect : That on the evening of the 15th it 
 appeared the sophimores had assembled at the chambers 
 of one of the class and had behaved in a tumultuous, noisy 
 
112 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 manner ; that at length they sallied out and were very 
 riotous, to the disturbance and dishonor of the University. 
 But as their conduct till then had been such as deserved 
 approbation, and was submissive, and as they early shew 
 a proper repentance for their fault, having presented an 
 humble petition to be forgiven, — therefore it had been 
 voted that no further notice should be taken of it ; but it 
 was hoped the students would not abuse the lenity of the 
 government, but rather show that they were deserving 
 of it. The freshmen, who are always as a class at va- 
 riance with the sophimores, thought the government had 
 
 been partial ; and the consequence was that Mr. , 
 
 the tutor of the sophimore class, and who was supposed 
 to have favored them, and to have been the means of 
 saving them from severe punishment, had four squares 
 of glass broken in his windows. Such was the effect of 
 the lenity which was to induce the students to do their 
 duty. 
 
 A more curious case was the following : — 
 
 May 23, 1786. This morning a number of the seniors 
 were sent for by the President to go to his house at 
 8 o'clock. They went, and the parts were distributed 
 thus : Thompson, English Oration, A. M. ; Champlin, 
 Latin Oration, A. M. ; Fowle and Gardner 2d, each a 
 Poem; Blake, English, and Andrews 1st, Latin Orations, 
 P. M. ; Harris, Dwight, Hubbard, and Parker, a Con- 
 ference ; Bigelow and Crosby, Lowell and Taylor, Loring 
 and Sullivan, Forensics ; Lincoln and Warland, a Greek 
 Dialogue ; Bradford, Norton, Simpkins, and Wyeth, re- 
 spondents in Syllogistics, and all the rest opponents to 
 the same. These Syllogistics are very much despised by 
 the scholars, and no attention seems to be paid to them 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 113 
 
 by the company at Commencement. The scholars in 
 general think that the government in giving them those 
 parts write on their foreheads dunce in capital letters. 
 Notwithstanding this, some of the most learned men in 
 the country had Syllogisties when they graduated here. 
 The good parts, as they are called, are more numerous 
 this year than they have ever been. Before this there 
 has been only one English and one Latin Oration, and 
 no Poems. It is a doubt whether they intend to estab- 
 lish this as a precedent, or whether it is only a distin- 
 guished favor to the present class, who pretend to be the 
 best class for learning and genius that ever graduated 
 here. It is said that the parts have been exceedingly 
 well distributed, and all the college are pleased. How- 
 ever that may be, the Syllogists all got together this 
 evening and drank till not one of them could stand 
 straight, or was sensible of what he did. A little after 
 9 they sallied out, and for a quarter of an hour made 
 such a noise as might be heard at a mile distant. The 
 tutors went out, and after a short time persuaded them 
 
 to disperse. Mr. had two squares of his windows 
 
 broke. 
 
 May 24. It is feared that some bad consequences will 
 ensue from the high-go of the Syllogists last evening. 
 Borland, it seems, was the most active of them all ; he 
 
 collared Mr. and threw a handful of gravel in his 
 
 face, and was rather disrespectful to Mr. . He went 
 
 this morning to the former to make an apology for his 
 conduct, but was told it could not be received, as the 
 matter was already laid before the government. Thus 
 those fellows play the tyrants here ; they have no regard, 
 no allowances, for youth and circumstances. They go 
 out when they are almost certain of being insulted, and 
 
 8 
 
114 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 then bring the scholar for a crime of which he knew 
 nothing under public censure. They cannot with any 
 face say that a scholar ought to be so severely punished 
 for depriving himself of his senses. For there are here 
 in college persons who have seen as much intoxi- 
 cated as Borland was yesterday and behaving quite as 
 ill. But compassion is too great a virtue ever to be 
 admitted into the breast of a tutor here. It is supposed, 
 however, that Borland's punishment will not be very 
 severe, because it requires a unanimous vote among the 
 governors of the college to punish a student, and they 
 are said to be at such variance one with the other that 
 they can very seldom all agree. 
 
 May 25. Government met and were assembled almost 
 all this day to determine what punishment to inflict upon 
 Borland. He was informed of it in the evening, and the 
 class petitioned that it might be mitigated, but probably 
 without much success. 
 
 May 26. This morning after prayers Borland was 
 called out to read an humble confession, signifying his 
 repentance of his conduct, etc. The President read the 
 votes of the government ; the affair was stated, and it 
 was said that Borland had insulted, in a flagrant manner, 
 two of the governors of the University. Whereupon it 
 was voted, that he read a confession ; and secondly, that 
 he be degraded to the bottom of his class, and that he 
 take his place there accordingly. The other scholars were 
 warned by this example not to run into such excesses, 
 and to behave respectfully. I wanted, I think, neither 
 of these warnings, but the event has warned me to alter 
 
 my opinion concerning . I thought him the best of 
 
 the tutors, but now I do not think he is a jot better than 
 the rest. 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 115 
 
 Six weeks afterward Borland was restored to his 
 regular place in class. 
 
 No student of a later day would have dreamed of 
 calling such a penalty severe. Any undergraduate 
 of the nineteenth century who indulged in the agree- 
 able but dangerous amusement of collaring an un- 
 popular tutor and rubbing gravel in his face, would 
 have accepted the extremest penalty of the law with- 
 out a murmur, recognizing the fundamental princi- 
 ple of society, that no man can violate the law and 
 enjoy it at the same time ; while the notion that 
 drunkenness is anything but an aggravation of 
 the offence hardly commends itself to modern New 
 England. 
 
 Such difficulties were common under this regime; 
 occasionally they were due really to the instructors. 
 The following may have been such a case : — 
 
 May 31, 1786. Election Day. There is a custom 
 among the scholars here which some of the classes fol- 
 low and others do not. It is choosing a governor and 
 lieutenant-governor for the class. They commonly take 
 some rich fellow who can treat the class, now and then. 
 The seniors this morning chose Champlin governor, 
 and Lowell lieutenant-governor. The lieutenant-governor 
 treated immediately, and they chose their other officers. 
 At Commons they all went into the hall in procession. 
 Thomas, who was appointed sheriff, marched at their 
 head, with a paper cockade in his hat, and brandishing 
 a cane in his hand instead of a sword. He conducted 
 the governor and lieutenant-governor to their seats, 
 made his bow, and retired to the other table, for which 
 
116 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Jackey Hale punished him four shillings. However, he 
 performed his part so well that the spectators were much 
 pleased, and clapped their hands. Hale happened to see 
 Baron, the junior, clapping, and sent orders for him to 
 go to him after Commons. Baron, not happening to go 
 before 2 o'clock, was punished five shillings for impu- 
 dence, and four for disobedience. That is the way these 
 modest tutors tyrannize over us. As there was a little 
 noise in the hall, Hale struck the handle of his knife three 
 times on the table to still it, but instead of that almost 
 every knife in the hall was struck on the table three 
 times. At last the tutors rose, and as they were going 
 out about half-a-dozen fellows hissed them. They were 
 enraged, turned round and looked as if they would 
 devour us ; but they did not discover one person, which 
 made them look silly enough. When they turned their 
 backs again, there was nothing but hissing and groaning 
 and clapping hands and stamping heard in the hall, till 
 they got into the yard, where a few potatoes were sent 
 out to meet them. 
 
 A difficulty of such a kind would probably in later 
 times have been avoided by good-nature and for- 
 bearance on the part of the tutor ; but the student 
 of 1786 cared little whether he was in the right or 
 the wrong. The true grievance lay in the position of 
 semi-hostility to the students taken by the college 
 officers, who refused to acknowledge them ..as entitled 
 to active assistance and sympathy. The manner, not 
 the act, of discipline was the cause of the evil. Hence 
 the mildest punishments were made a cause of as 
 much complaint as arbitrary vexations. 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 117 
 
 March 14, 1787. The junior class being displeased 
 with the distribution of parts for exhibition, so far as 
 respected their class, assembled this evening at Prescott's 
 chamber and made a great deal of noise. 
 
 March 17. The government met this forenoon to 
 make inquiries concerning the noise at Prescott's and at 
 Wier's chamber. 
 
 March 19. This morning the juniors Prescott and 
 Wier were publicly admonished for having had riotous 
 noises at their chambers last week. The sentence is 
 considered all over college as uncommonly severe, and 
 by many as wholly unmerited, at least on the part of 
 Prescott. 
 
 March 22. In consequence of the late severity of 
 the college governors there has been, yesterday and this 
 day, a subscription paper handed about among all the 
 classes to promote a meeting of the whole college to- 
 morrow evening in the chapel, every person having a 
 pipe, a glass, and a bottle of wine, and there to con- 
 vince the government that the students are possessed of 
 ' ' a noble spirit, — a spirit which shall nip the bud of 
 tyrannical oppression." They will get as drunk as beasts, 
 and probably break every tutor's windows in college. 
 This absurd and ridiculous plan has found so many vo- 
 taries that a large majority of every class, except ours, 
 have already subscribed ; but I am happy that in our 
 class there are but few who have joined the association, 
 and as it is to take place only upon condition that there 
 be a majority of every class, the plan will most probably 
 fail. 
 
 At the risk of serious injury to the dignity of 
 history, already compromised by this sketch, the ex- 
 
118 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 treme leniency of the government in the punishment 
 inflicted in this case shall be shown by a final ex- 
 tract from the diary so often quoted. Some verses, 
 not absolutely contemptible, represented the impres- 
 sion made by the different members of the govern- 
 ment on the students more exactly than the regular 
 entries of a prosaic diary could do. The verses were 
 entitled 
 
 LINES UPON THE LATE PROCEEDINGS OF THE 
 COLLEGE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 BY A STUDENT. 
 
 The government of college met, 
 
 And Willard ruled the stern debate. 
 
 The witty Jennison declared 
 
 That he had been completely scared. 
 
 " Last night," says he, " when I came home, 
 
 I heard a noise in Prescott's room. 
 
 I went and listened at the door, 
 
 As I have often done before. 
 
 I found the juniors in a high rant; 
 
 They called the President a tyrant; 
 
 They said as how I was a fool, 
 
 A long-eared ass, a sottish mule, 
 
 Without the smallest grain of spunk; 
 
 So I concluded they were drunk. 
 
 From Xenophon whole pages torn 
 
 As trophies in their hats were worn. 
 
 Thus all their learning they had spread 
 
 Upon the outside of the head ; 
 
 For I can swear without a sin 
 
 There 's not a line of Greek within. 
 
 At length I knocked, and Prescott came ; 
 
 I told him 't was a burning shame 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 119 
 
 That he should give his classmates wine, 
 And he should pay a heavy fine. 
 Meanwhile the rest grew so outrageous 
 That, though I boast of being courageous, 
 I could not help being in a fright, 
 For one of them put out the light, 
 And 't was, as you may well suppose, 
 So dark I could not see my nose. 
 I thought, it best to run away, 
 And wait for vengeance till to-day ; 
 For he 's a fool at any rate 
 Who '11 fight when he can rusticate. 
 When they found out that I was gone, 
 They ran through college up and down, 
 And I could hear them very plain 
 Take the Lord's holy name in vain. 
 To Wier's chamber they repaired, 
 And there the wine they freely shared. 
 They drank and sung till they were tired, 
 And then they peacefully retired." 
 When this Homeric speech was said, 
 With drawling tongue and hanging head, 
 The learned Doctor took his seat, 
 Thinking he'd done a noble feat. 
 Quoth Joe: "The crime is great, I own 
 Send for the juniors one by one! 
 By this almighty wig I swear, 
 Which with such majesty I wear, 
 And in its orbit vast contains 
 My dignity, my power, and brains, 
 That Wier and Prescott both shall see 
 That college boys must not be free ! n 
 He spoke, and gave the awful nod, 
 Like Homer's Dodonean God. 
 The college to its centre shook, 
 And every pipe and wine-glass broke. 
 
120 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Williams, with countenance humane, 
 
 Which scarce from laughing could refrain, 
 
 Thought that such youthful scenes of mirth 
 
 To punishments should not give birth; 
 
 Nor could he easily divine 
 
 What was the harm of drinking wine. 
 
 But Pearson, with an awful frown, 
 
 Full of his article and noun, 
 
 Spoke thus: " By all the parts of speech 
 
 Which with such elegance I teach, 
 
 By all the blood which fills my veins, 
 
 By all the power of Handel's strains, 
 
 With mercy I will -never stain 
 
 The character which I maintain. 
 
 Pray tell me why the laws were made, 
 
 If they are not to be obeyed." 
 
 James saw 't would be in vain t' oppose, 
 
 And therefore to be silent chose. 
 
 Read, with his two enormous eyes 
 
 Enlarged to thrice their common size, 
 
 And brow contracted, staring wild, 
 
 Said government was much too mild. 
 
 "Were I," said he, "to have my will, 
 
 I soon would teach them to be still. 
 
 Their wicked rioting to quell, 
 
 I 'd rusticate, degrade, expel ; 
 
 And rather than give up my plan, 
 
 I 'd clear the college to a man." 
 
 Burr, who has little wit or pride, 
 
 Preferred to take the strongest side; 
 
 And Willard soon received commission 
 
 To give a public admonition. 
 
 With pedant strut to prayers he came, 
 
 Called out the criminals by name. 
 
 Obedient to his dire command, 
 
 Before him Wier and Prescott stand: 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE. 1786-1787. 121 
 
 " The rulers, merciful and kind, 
 
 With equal grief and wonder find 
 
 That you should laugh and drink and sing, 
 
 And make with noise the college ring. 
 
 I therefore warn you to beware 
 
 Of drinking more than you can bear. 
 
 Wine an incentive is to riot, 
 
 Destructive of the public quiet. 
 
 Full well your tutors know this truth, 
 
 For sad experience taught their youth. 
 
 Take then this friendly exhortation ! 
 
 The next offence is rustication." 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 1 
 
 In his history of the Consulate and the Empire, 
 Thiers explained how the First Consul, after finding 
 his scheme of Egyptian and Oriental conquest frus- 
 trated by the British navy, adopted a system of com- 
 pensation in the New World. " If Egypt was to be 
 torn from us, the First Consul wished to have done 
 something for the colonial greatness of France. If 
 Egypt lost could no longer offer a compensation for 
 St. Domingo, the First Consul hoped to find it in 
 Louisiana." 2 
 
 Thiers could not often be charged with underesti- 
 mating the merit of Napoleon's schemes, but in this 
 instance he failed to describe the First Consul's true 
 object. Louisiana was not intended to be a compen- 
 sation for St. Domingo, but was subsidiary to the pur- 
 pose of recovering St. Domingo from the control of 
 the blacks, who had held it, nominally in dependence 
 on France, since 1791. Napoleon gave the first place 
 in his scheme with good reason to St. Domingo, be- 
 
 1 Originally printed in the Kevue Historique, Paris, January- 
 February, 1884. 
 
 2 Consulat et Empire, ii. 121. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 123 
 
 cause the island had been the centre of French colo- 
 nial interests more valuable than all the other colonies 
 of France together ; but in any case if France in- 
 tended to remain a colonial and maritime power, the 
 recovery of St. Domingo was essential. Guadeloupe 
 and Martinique were in constant danger, and must 
 remain comparatively worthless, until the supremacy 
 of the whites should be re-established in the colonial 
 centre. 
 
 France had never relinquished the hope of restor- 
 ing order and prosperity to St. Domingo, and the idea 
 of turning French energies in that direction, as soon 
 as war in Europe should be ended, was never lost 
 from sight by the French republic. In 1795 the Re- 
 public obliged Spain, much against her will, to cede 
 the Spanish part of the island to France, — a measure 
 pointing to a great extension of the French colony ; 
 for the Spanish part, though much poorer, was much 
 larger than the French portion of the island. After 
 1795 the republic waited only for peace in order to 
 begin the task of restoring its complete authority 
 over St. Domingo, and in the mean time encouraged 
 Toussaint Louverture to prepare the way. 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte obtained control of the French 
 government by the coup cVetat of the 18th brumaire, 
 or Nov. 9, 1799. Toward the end of August, 1800, 
 he sent Berthier to Madrid to prepare a large exten- 
 sion of the colonial scheme. Berthier was ordered to 
 negotiate a treaty with Spain for the retrocession of 
 Louisiana to France. The motive for including Loui- 
 
124 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 siana in the scheme of which St. Domingo was the 
 centre, was the natural result of the local and mili- 
 tary difficulties that embarrassed the administration 
 of St. Domingo. 
 
 Bonaparte explained the subject in confidential 
 papers, which would not have been secret unless they 
 had expressed his true objects. St. Domingo, like all 
 the West Indies, suffered as a colony under a serious 
 disadvantage, being dependent for its supplies chiefly 
 on the United States, — a dangerous neighbor both 
 by its political example and its commercial or mari- 
 time rivalry with the mother country. The First Con- 
 sul hoped to correct the evil by substituting Louisiana 
 for the United States as the source of supplies for 
 St. Domingo. In case of war, either with the United 
 States or England, St. Domingo and the other French 
 colonies in the West Indies could be safely left to 
 themselves, if Louisiana and perhaps also Florida 
 could be made a certain base of supplies, — for the 
 islands had only famine to fear. 
 
 In the words of Bonaparte's secret instructions to 
 the captain-general whom he ordered in November, 
 1802, to take command over Louisiana, — 
 
 " The system of this colony, as in all those that we 
 possess, should aim at concentrating its commerce in the 
 national commerce. Its special function should be to 
 establish its relations with our Antilles, with a view to 
 take the place, in those colonies, of American com- 
 merce for all objects whose importation or exportation 
 is permitted." 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 125 
 
 The same purpose was more concisely expressed in 
 another draft of these instructions : — 
 
 "Its magistrates should convince themselves of the 
 possibility of substituting this colony [Louisiana] in the 
 place of the United States for the objects which are per- 
 mitted to the commerce between the L T nited States and 
 the French colonies." * 
 
 When Bonaparte, in the year 1800, began the exe- 
 cution of his plan for restoring on a larger scale the 
 colonial greatness of France, three difficulties were to 
 be overcome or avoided. The first was the war then 
 raging between France and England, which, owing 
 to the superiority of the British navy, precluded the 
 possibility of French interference in St. Domingo 
 until peace should be made. The second was Tous- 
 saint Louverture, who maintained practical indepen- 
 dence in St. Domingo, with the support of a black 
 army not to be despised. The third was the possi- 
 bility of trouble with the United States, where any 
 French interference with Louisiana was likely to 
 excite alarm. 
 
 Bonaparte rapidly restored order in Europe, and 
 removed his first great obstacle by negotiating pre- 
 liminary articles of peace with Great Britain, which 
 were signed at London, Oct. 1, 1801, and ratified 
 five days afterward at Paris. Without a moment's 
 delay, the First Consul issued orders, October 7, 
 organizing the colonial force for the service of St. 
 
 1 Instructions secretes approuveea par le Premier Consul le 
 5 frimaire, an 11 (Nov. 26, 1302). Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 
126 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Domingo, Martinique, and Guadeloupe. The next 
 day, October 8, he summoned his brother-in-law 
 General Leclerc to Paris, with his staff, to command 
 the expedition ; and the preparations were pressed 
 with such activity that within six weeks after the sig- 
 nature of the preliminary articles at London, Leclerc 
 began the embarkation of his forces at Brest. The 
 command was regarded as a high distinction to Le- 
 clerc, who wrote to the First Consul from Brest, 
 immediately before sailing, requesting him to soothe 
 the feelings of Bernadotte, whose claims had been 
 set aside. 
 
 Leclerc to Ncqxjleon. 1 
 
 Brest, 2 frimaire (Nov. 23, 1801). 
 ... I have especial reason to be pleased with the 
 delicate course of General Bernadotte toward me. I 
 have been the more sensible of it because he expected to 
 have the command of this expedition. He desires only a 
 little ease in his circumstances ; if you should give it to 
 him, you would acquire a right to his gratitude. He is 
 frank and loyal. He is pained to see this command pass 
 into other hands than his own, but he is an admirer of 
 yours ; he is grateful for what you did for him after the 
 18th brumaire. I should like to have him know that I 
 have spoken to you about him. 
 
 As early as July 27 the First Consul requested from 
 the King of Spain the delivery of Louisiana, and he 
 repeated the demand August 15 ; but the official order 
 was signed by Charles IV. only a year later, Oct. 15, 
 
 1 Archives nationales, a. f. iv. 1213. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 127 
 
 1802, at Barcelona. The delay mattered little ; for 
 Louisiana could not be made useful until St. Domingo 
 should be thoroughly subdued, and for the moment 
 Bonaparte's energies were turned wholly to the task 
 of restoring French authority in the islands. Leclerc 
 hastened to depart; his wife, Pauline Bonaparte, ac- 
 companied him. An immense fleet, carrying great 
 numbers of troops, set sail in November and Decem- 
 ber, 1801 ; and for the next year St Domingo became 
 a point of extreme interest to the world. 
 
 At that day the necessity of overthrowing the black 
 government of St. Domingo, and of restoring slavery 
 throughout the French colonies was generally admit- 
 ted. Bonaparte wished to effect the result without a 
 violent shock to the peace of St. Domingo ; but any 
 restoration of French authority that fell short of re- 
 storing slavery would have failed to satisfy the wishes 
 of the French commercial class, and would probably 
 have insured the ultimate failure of the whole colonial 
 scheme, which required a system of enforced labor 
 for its success. Political reasons dictated the same 
 course. " The interest of civilization," Bonaparte 
 said, required him " to destroy the new Algier which 
 had organized itself in the middle of America." 1 As 
 Leclerc set out, Bonaparte ordered Talleyrand to as- 
 sure the British government that " in the resolution I 
 have taken to annihilate the government of the blacks 
 at St. Domingo, I have been guided less by considera- 
 
 1 Napoleon to Talleyrand, Oct. 30, 1801; Correspondance, vii. 
 307. 
 
128 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 tions of commerce and finance than by the necessity 
 of stifling in all parts of the world every sort of germ 
 of disquietude and trouble ; but I am aware that St. 
 Domingo, if reconquered by the whites, would be dur- 
 ing many years a weak point, needing the support of 
 peace and the parent country, while the liberty of the 
 blacks, if recognized at St. Domingo, would be at all 
 times a point of support for the republic in the New 
 World." i 
 
 Twenty years afterward, Napoleon at St. Helena 
 dictated four notes on the Memoirs of General Pam- 
 phile de Lacroix and the affairs of St. Domingo. 2 
 The subject was not agreeable to him, and he aimed 
 only to place it in the least repulsive light ; but his 
 narrative was accepted by French authorities, and 
 served for the next fifty years to prevent the ac- 
 ceptance of a truer version. As Napoleon wished to 
 represent his action at St. Domingo, the fault and 
 responsibility belonged in the first instance to Tous- 
 saint Louverture : — 
 
 "The prosperous situation of the republic after the 
 peace of Luneville, in 1801," said the Emperor at St. 
 Helena, " foreshadowed the moment when England would 
 be obliged to lay down arms, and when we should have 
 power to adopt a definite course about St. Domingo. 
 Two such policies then suggested themselves to the 
 meditations of the First Consul. The first was to invest 
 
 1 Bonaparte to Talleyrand, 22 brumaire, an x. (Nov. 13, 1801); 
 Corre^pondance, vii. 319. 
 
 3 Quatre Notes ; Correspondance, xxx. 525-536, 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 129 
 
 General Toussaint Louverture with the civil and military 
 authority and the title of governor-general of the colony ; 
 to trust to the black generals the command ; to con- 
 solidate, to legalize the system of labor established by 
 Toussaint, which had already been crowned with happy 
 results ; to oblige the black farmers to pay rent to the 
 old French proprietors ; to preserve to the mother coun- 
 try the exclusive commerce of the whole colony, causing 
 the coasts to be watched by numerous cruisers. The 
 second course consisted in reconquering the country by 
 force of arms, recalling to France all the blacks who had 
 occupied grades superior to that of major, disarming the 
 blacks while assuring them of civil liberty, and restoring 
 to the colonists their estates." 
 
 According to Napoleon's later recollection, he in- 
 clined as First Consul to the course of recognizing 
 Toussaint, and legalizing the black conditions of 
 society and property ; but this plan required the 
 concurrence of the blacks, and their loyalty to the 
 mother country : — 
 
 " Such was the state of St. Domingo, and the policy 
 adopted by the French government in respect to it, when 
 Colonel Vincent arrived in Paris. He brought the con- 
 stitution that Toussaint Louverture had adopted by his 
 own authority, had caused to be printed and put in ex- 
 ecution, and notified to France. Not only the authority, 
 but also the honor and the dignity of the republic were . 
 outraged. Of all ways of proclaiming his independence 
 and raising the flag of rebellion, Toussaint Louverture 
 had chosen the most outrageous. From that moment 
 further deliberation was impossible. The black chiefs 
 
 9 
 
130 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 were ungrateful and rebellious Africans, with whom it 
 was impossible to establish any system ; the honor as 
 well as the interest of France required that they should 
 be reduced to nothing. Thus the ruin of Toussaint Lou- 
 verture, the misfortunes that weighed on the blacks, were 
 the effect of that insane step. ... As Toussaint Lou- 
 verture was the most moderate of the black generals, 
 and Dessalines, Christophe, Clairvaux, etc. were more 
 exaggerated, more disaffected, and still more opposed to 
 the authority of the mother country, there was no room 
 for deliberation. The first course was no longer practi- 
 cable ; and it was necessary to adopt the second, and to 
 make the sacrifice it exacted." 
 
 The arrival of Colonel Vincent was mentioned in 
 the "Moniteur" of Oct. 14, 1801, where he was an- 
 nounced as bringing " officially the constitution that is 
 presented for the approbation of the mother country. 
 . . . Possibly several articles of the constitution pro- 
 posed by Toussaint will not be adopted in France." 
 The next day the "Moniteur" printed the constitution 
 and the letters of Toussaint accompanying it. The 
 constitution was chiefly remarkable for making Tous- 
 saint governor for life, with the right to choose a suc- 
 cessor in case of his death. It was doubtless an act 
 of quasi independence ; but Toussaint presented it for 
 the approbation of the government, and in profession 
 it assumed the continued dependence of the island 
 upon France. 
 
 If the First Consul ever seriously thought of adopt- 
 ing what he described afterward as his first plan, 
 and intrusting the colony to Toussaint and the black 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 131 
 
 generals, he had given it up before the arrival of 
 Vincent with the constitution. The preliminary arti- 
 cles of peace with England were signed October 6 ; 
 but already, October 7, Bonaparte allotted the regi- 
 ments for the service of St. Domingo. Had he 
 meant to leave the government to Toussaint, he would 
 have sent at most two thousand men, as Toussaint 
 wished ; but his detachment of troops for St. Domingo 
 numbered eighteen thousand rank-and-file, 1 with his 
 brother-in-law in command, who could not have been 
 intended to serve under Toussaint. The First Consul 
 wrote the same day to Decres, the Minister of Marine, 
 ordering Admiral Villaret Joyeuse to leave Brest with 
 twelve French and five Spanish line-of-battle ships, 
 carrying six or seven thousand troops. "He will pass 
 by Rochefort, where he will unite with the squadron 
 there, which will have twenty-five hundred men on 
 board. He will sail directly to the Cape [Franc.ais] to 
 cause the rights of the mother country to be respected 
 in St. Domingo.' ' 
 
 Vincent's arrival in Paris occurred nearly a week 
 after these orders were given. No trace of hesitation 
 appeared in Napoleon's acts from the moment the 
 peace with England permitted him to act at all ; and 
 his reasons for annihilating the black government, as 
 given to the British government in the A\ T ords already 
 quoted, implied that he was decided in his course by 
 the determination to prevent the negroes from hold- 
 
 1 Note pour ^organisation des troupes coloniales, 15 vende- 
 miaire, an x. (Oct. 7, 1801); Correspondance, vii. 273. 
 
132 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ing power, because " in that case the sceptre of the 
 New World would fall sooner or later into the hands 
 of the blacks." 
 
 In truth, Toussaint's constitution merely added one 
 more cause of irritation to man} 7 already existing; and 
 the scheme which Napoleon at St. Helena affirmed to 
 have been his preference in 1801, although it might 
 be his secret choice, was never seriously considered as 
 a policy of government. The recognition of Toussaint 
 at St. Domingo, and the rule of black generals over a 
 black society, was inconsistent with the plan of recon- 
 structing the French colonial system, and especially 
 with the extension of that system implied by the 
 recovery of Louisiana. 
 
 The letter explaining to the British government 
 the decision to " annihilate " the government of the 
 blacks at St. Domingo was written Nov. 13, 1801 ; and 
 five days afterward, November 18, the First Consul 
 wrote a somewhat famous letter to Toussaint himself, 
 to be taken to St. Domingo by General Leclerc. 
 
 "We send you," said Bonaparte to Toussaint, 1 "the 
 citizen Leclerc, our brother-in-law, in the character of 
 captain-general, as the first magistrate of the colony. 
 He is accompanied by forces sufficient to make the sov- 
 ereignty of the French people respected. In these cir- 
 cumstances we are pleased to hope that you are about 
 to prove to us, and to all France, the sincerity of the 
 sentiments which you have constantly expressed in the 
 different letters you have written us." 
 
 1 Correspondance, vii. 322. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 133 
 
 With the threat to punish rebellion Bonaparte 
 joined the promise of honors and rewards for 
 obedience : — 
 
 " Assist the captain-general with your counsels, your 
 influence, and your talents. What can you desire, — the 
 liberty of the blacks ? You know that in every country 
 where we have been, we have given it to the people who 
 had it not. Consideration, honors, fortune? After the 
 services you have rendered, and those you can render in 
 these circumstances, together with the particular senti- 
 ments we have for } t ou, you should not be uncertain of 
 your consideration, 3 T our fortune, and the honors that 
 await you." 
 
 Obliged to threaten the " brave blacks " with the 
 consequences of rebellion, Bonaparte made an effort 
 to calm them on the subject of their freedom. Be- 
 sides the implied pledge just quoted, the letter to 
 Toussaint contained another assurance, " that hence- 
 forward the peace and the force of the government 
 assure their prosperity and their liberty." In the 
 Expose* de la Situation de la Republique, dated No- 
 vember 22, Bonaparte sent to the legislature a third 
 pledge of freedom to the blacks : — 
 
 " A fleet and an army that are preparing to leave the 
 ports of Europe will soon dissipate all clouds, and St. 
 Domingo will return entirely under the laws of the Re- 
 public. At St. Domingo and at Guadeloupe there are no 
 longer slaves ; all is there free ; all will there remain 
 free. Wisdom and time will restore order there, and will 
 re-establish cultivation and works." 
 
134 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Finally, a fourth pledge was given in a proclama- 
 tion to the blacks themselves, which began, 1 — 
 
 " Inhabitants of St. Domingo! whatever may be your 
 origin and your color, } t ou are all French ; you are all 
 free and all equals before God and before the Republic. 
 . . . The Government sends you the Captain-General 
 Leclerc. He brings with him great forces to protect you 
 against your enemies, and against the enemies of the 
 Republic. If you are told, ' These forces are intended 
 to ravish your liberty from you,' reply, ' The Republic 
 has given us liberty ; the Republic will not suffer it to 
 be taken from us.' " 
 
 Bonaparte's true intentions were probably expressed 
 in his instructions to General Leclerc, but these were 
 never made public. In the notes on Pamphile de 
 Lacroix's Memoirs, Napoleon at St. Helena related 
 the story of Lcclerc's expedition as he wished it to be 
 represented in history, and gave a version of his 
 instructions with the object of showing that Leclerc 
 alone was to blame for his own misfortunes : 2 — 
 
 " Captain-General Leclerc had, it is true, received on 
 his departure, from Napoleon's own hand, secret instruc- 
 tions on the political direction to be followed in the 
 government of the colony. These instructions have re- 
 mained unknown ; at the death of General Leclerc they 
 were transferred under seal to his successor. . . . Cap- 
 tain-General Leclerc would have spared himself many 
 misfortunes, and would have avoided many troubles, had 
 
 1 Proclamation, 17 brumaire, an x. (Nov. 8, 1801); Corres- 
 pondance, vii. 315. 
 
 2 Correspondance, xxx. 533 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 135 
 
 he scrupulously followed the spirit of these instructions. 
 They prescribed the greatest confidence to be put by him 
 in the mulattoes who were to be treated as equals of the 
 whites ; marriages of mulatto men with white women, and 
 of mulatto women with white men, were to be favored ; 
 but a wholly contrary system was to be followed with the 
 negro chiefs. Within the same week when the colony 
 should be pacified, he was to notify to all the black 
 generals, adjutant-generals, colonels, and majors, orders 
 of service, in their grades, in the Continental divisions of 
 France ; he was to embark them on eight or ten vessels 
 in all the ports of the colony, and direct them to Brest, 
 Rochefort, and Toulon ; he was to disarm the blacks, pre- 
 serving ten battalions, each of six thousand men, com- 
 manded by one third black, one third mulatto, and one 
 third white officers and non-commissioned officers ; finally 
 he was to take all required measures to assure and secure 
 the enjoyment of civil liberty to the blacks, by confirm- 
 ing the order of classes and of labor established by 
 Toussaint Louverture." 
 
 In one respect at least this account of Leclerc's in- 
 structions, given at St. Helena from memory twenty 
 years after they were written, must have been correct. 
 The First Consul ordered Leclerc to lose no time in 1 
 sending the black generals to Europe. The character 
 of the instruction on that point was proved by re- 
 peated letters written afterward. The instructions 
 were dated Nov. 10, 1801. Bonaparte's next letter 
 to Leclere was dated March 16, 1802,* and repeated 
 the previous orders : — 
 
 1 Bonaparte to Leclerc, 25 ventose, an x. (March 16, 1802); 
 Correspondence, vii. 413. 
 
136 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 u Follow exactly your instructions ; and the instant you 
 shall have rid yourself (vous vous serez defait) of Tous- 
 saint, Christophe, Dessalines, and the principal brigands, 
 and the masses of the blacks shall be disarmed, send 
 back to the Continent all the blacks and mnlattoes who 
 have played a part in the civil troubles." 
 
 The secret instructions certainly prescribed the ar- 
 rest and exile not only of all the black generals, but 
 also of every man, black or mulatto, who had played 
 a part in the civil troubles. Perhaps this idea was 
 not precisely expressed by Napoleon in the words : 
 " II clevait faire notifier a tous les generaux des or- 
 dres de service, dans leurs grades, dans les divisions 
 continentales de la France ; " but Napoleon seldom 
 remembered with entire accuracy. The instructions 
 of November 10, as repeated March 16, ordered Le- 
 clerc to send to France every man, negro or mulatto, 
 who had taken part in the civil troubles of St. Do- 
 mingo, without regard to the question whether they 
 peaceably submitted to Leclerc's authority, or offered 
 armed resistance. 
 
 The same instructions were repeated in Bonaparte's 
 next letter, elated July 1, 1802 : 1 — 
 
 " I count that before the end of September you will 
 have sent here all the black generals ; without that, we 
 shall have done nothing, and an immense and beautiful 
 colony would be always on a volcano, and would inspire 
 no confidence in capitalists, colonists, or in commerce. 
 I comprehend perfectly that this may occasion move- 
 
 1 Bonaparte to Leclerc, 12 messidor, an x. (July 1, 1802); 
 Correspondance, vii. 503. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 137 
 
 ments ; but you will have the whole season before you to 
 repress them. Whatever results the sendiug the black 
 generals to France may produce, it will be only a small 
 evil compared with that of their continued stay in St. 
 Domingo. . . . From the moment the blacks shall be 
 disarmed and the principal generals sent to France, you 
 will have done more for the commerce and civilization 
 of Europe than one accomplishes in the most brilliant 
 campaigns." 
 
 Probably the original instructions left untouched 
 the question of ultimate freedom or slavery to the 
 black race. As a beginning, Bonaparte was satisfied 
 to retain the severe labor-system of Toussaint. Yet 
 the necessity of ultimate restoration of slavery was so 
 well understood that no one in private doubted it, and 
 the impression was so general in France that it pro- 
 duced a similar general impression in St. Domingo. 
 The old colonial proprietors made no secret of their 
 confidence. On that point, Napoleon at St. Helena 
 preserved silence ; but his silence implied that he had 
 never intended to deprive the blacks at St. Domingo 
 of their freedom. 
 
 " The general law of the republic was the liberty of 
 the blacks," said the Emperor. " Martinique, where 
 slavery continued during British occupation, was the 
 exception. The decree of the 28th flore*al, 1801, 
 which ordered that the slavery of the blacks should 
 be maintained at Martinique and the -Ile-de-France, as 
 the liberty of the blacks should he maintained for St. 
 Domingo, Guadeloupe, and Cayenne, was just, politic, 
 
138 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 necessary." In this sentence a number of errors of 
 memory united to produce confusion. The decree in 
 question was not of the 28th floreal, 1801, but of the 
 30th floreal, 1802, as was correctly said in the Me- 
 moirs of Pamphile de Lacroix, 1 which Bonaparte had 
 been reading, and as will be shown in the course of 
 this story. 2 The decree did not maintain freedom at 
 St. Domingo and Guadeloupe, but restored slavery 
 there, and in principle everywhere. According to 
 that decree the general law of the republic became 
 the slavery, not the freedom, of the blacks ; 3 and 
 Napoleon's comments proved only the wish to con- 
 ceal or ignore the intention of restoring them to 
 slavery. 
 
 Under the version which Napoleon adopted of the 
 instructions he had given to Leclcrc, he assumed that 
 Leclerc's failure to follow them was the cause of his 
 subsequent troubles at St. Domingo. Leclerc,he said, 
 offended the mulattoes ; he sent their chief, Rigaud, 
 out of the colony ; he gave his confidence to the ne- 
 gro generals Dessalines, Christophe, and others. 
 
 " When the First Consul was informed of this conduct, 
 he was greatly afflicted. The authority of the mother 
 country in the colony could be consolidated only by the 
 influence of the mulattoes. In postponing the sending 
 of the black chiefs out of the colony, there was reason to 
 fear losing the opportunity. It was impossible that in- 
 dividuals who had governed as sovereigns, whose vanity 
 
 1 Memoirs, ii. 226. 2 See infra, pp. 158-159. 
 
 3 Pieces 6053, 6054, 6055 ; Correspondence, vii. 444-446. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 139 
 
 equalled their ignorance, could live tranquil in submis- 
 sion to the orders of the mother country ; the first 
 condition for the security of St. Domingo was that of 
 removing one hundred and fifty or two hundred chiefs. 
 In reality the decree [of the 30th florcal] relative to the 
 blacks was only a pretext [for their revolt] ; they re- 
 volted as a result of the intrigues of England ; they took 
 arms because the cruel malady, which swept away the 
 best of our troops, restored their hopes. It was then 
 that the captain-general repented of having been too 
 indulgent, — of not having executed the orders of the 
 First Consul. All would have been well had he rid the 
 colony of one hundred and fifty or two hundred black 
 chiefs. In politics as in war, the lost moment never 
 returns." 
 
 These were the opinions of Napoleon some twenty 
 years after the event. In reality, the tale was differ- 
 ent. As Leclcrc told in his letters and despatches 
 the story of his disasters and their cause, the true 
 reasons for his failure were apparent, and they were 
 not altogether such as Napoleon wished to represent 
 them. 
 
 Leclerc landed at Cap Francais, Feb. 5, 1802, and 
 found, as he probably expected, that he must fight 
 a campaign for the possession of the island. Chris- 
 tophe, who under Toussaint's orders commanded at 
 Cap Frangais, burned the town, laid waste the plan- 
 tations, and retired to the mountains. Leclerc be- 
 gan his task of conquest in a ravaged country, where 
 the inhabitants depended on him for support. His 
 first despatches, of which a free version was printed 
 
140 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 in the "Moniteur" of March 15, 1802, described his 
 
 situation. 
 
 Leclerc to Decr^s. 1 
 
 Headquarters at the Gate, 
 February 9, 1802 (20 pluviose, an x.). 
 ... I have much anxiety on account of food ; part of 
 the supplies on board the squadron are spoiled. Happily 
 the Spaniards have come to our support by leaving us 2000 
 quintals of biscuit; they have also left us 100,000 quin- 
 tals of powder. In the city are some provisions saved 
 from the fire. The merchants at the Cape will sell them 
 only at excessive prices, and want ready money. Still, I 
 will arrange so as to get them. A score of American 
 vessels are in port, which have also some provisions. 
 They are Jews with whom it is impossible for me to deal ; 
 yet we shall have to deal with them notwithstanding. 
 By adding all my resources together, I calculate that we 
 shall be very happy to have supplies for two months and 
 a half. I cannot depend on any commercial house here. 
 These men are not French ; they know no country but 
 the United States. The United States have brought here 
 guns, cannon, powder, and all the munitions of war. It 
 is they who excited Toussaint to defence. I am thor- 
 oughly convinced that the Americans have formed the 
 plan of exciting all the Antilles to independence because 
 they hoped to have the exclusive commerce, as they have 
 had that of St. Domingo. It would not be unfortunate 
 for me if England and France were to unite to intimidate 
 them. . . . 
 
 Next to the hostility of the blacks, the attitude of 
 the United States was Leclerc's chief annoyance, and 
 1 Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 141 
 
 his free language on the subject, being spread in all 
 the seaports of America, embarrassed the French 
 charge' at Washington, who remonstrated somewhat 
 warmly with the General. 
 
 Pichon to Leclerc. 
 
 March 30, 1802 (9 germinal, an x.). 
 
 ... We are disposed, I fear, to find complaint with them 
 [the United States] ; to look upon acts committed during 
 a misunderstanding as though they had been committed 
 in full peace ; to demand account from them, according 
 to our own feelings, of what they could or should do con- 
 sulting only their interests ; in short to exact from them 
 what we should not exact from a nation of whose force 
 and means we had a higher idea. At least, that is what 
 I fear I perceive in the correspondence, the remarks and 
 the reports that reach us from your colony. 
 
 Considering only interest, General, ours is to remove 
 all impressions of this kind, and see only a country from 
 which exclusively you can draw your resources, and where 
 they can famish you. Experience proves it. Only our 
 unfortunate misunderstanding with them caused the re- 
 volt of our colonies. We can recover our colonies only 
 by them. These truths are weightier than the hasty sat- 
 isfaction we might be able to give to national grievances 
 that we may have, and to those that misfortune inspires 
 in individuals. I have put you, General, on 3 T our guard. 
 The United States have their interests, we ours ; it is our 
 business to observe them, and as far as they act in peace 
 with us, to live in harmony with them. Minds at this 
 moment are much excited ; the affair of Louisiana agi- 
 tates them ; the coercions applied at the Cape embitter 
 them ; and these two incidents, I observe, indispose 
 
142 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 and embarrass prodigiously the government. A nothing 
 would suffice to kindle a new flame. You will doubt- 
 less approve, General, of my speaking to you on this 
 subject with all the frankness with which I speak to the 
 government. 
 
 Leclerc was far from approving Pichon's frankness, 
 and not only wrote to Pichon refusing to hold further 
 relations with him, but wrote also to the First Consul 
 that Pichon was a " fripon " and a " miserable," and 
 demanding his recall. After this outbreak, which 
 probably led to Pichon's subsequent disgrace, Leclerc 
 recovered his temper, and not only forgave Pichon, 
 but followed his advice. 
 
 Leclerc's second despatch to the government was 
 dated February 17, when he was about to begin a for- 
 mal campaign against Toussaint and the black gen- 
 erals. His position was still serious in regard to 
 supplies. 
 
 Leclerc to Decr&s. 1 
 
 February 17, 1802 (28 pluviose, an x.). 
 . . . At every moment I learn that our position is 
 worse in respect to provisions. The vessel which went 
 ashore carried the provisions of the two other ships. 
 Few American vessels were in harbor, and the resources 
 they contained were small. Every day in ascertaining 
 the state of supply of the vessels, damage is discovered. 
 Our hospital effects were disembarked to-day. They 
 were on the ' Danae.' They are all damaged. I know 
 not how we shall manage. Come quick to our aid. We 
 are bare-foot. Send me thirty thousand pairs of shoes. 
 
 1 Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 143 
 
 The campaign was short, vigorous, and successful, 
 but not without efforts and losses severely felt by the 
 army. Leclerc wrote ten days later to report the 
 result at that moment. 
 
 Leclerc to Deere* s. 1 
 
 February 27, 1802 (8 ventose, an x. ). 
 . . . Here is the actual situation of the colony : I am 
 master of the northern part, but nearly everything has 
 been burned there, and I can expect no resources from it. 
 Cultivators are assembled behind at a score of different 
 points. . . . The rebels are still masters of a part of the 
 west, and have burned the points they no longer occupy ; 
 I can expect no resources from there for the moment. The 
 south is in part preserved. ... As for the Spanish part, 
 it has been so squeezed by Toussaint that we must rather 
 give to it than demand of it. I am nearly master there. 
 ... In order to appreciate the work of the brave army 
 I have the honor to command, you must know that I 
 entered the campaign without horses, without cavalry, 
 without means of transport. The soldiers filled their 
 knapsacks with cartridges and biscuit. On leaving Brest, 
 I was given a statement which assured me that I had 
 fifteen thousand pairs of shoes on board ; on arriving at 
 St. Domingo I found only four thousand bad pairs. I 
 was assured that I had camp effects, but I have not found 
 a kettle to give to a soldier, nor a single can. According 
 to my lists, these things should have been brought by the 
 " Fidele," but they have not been found in her. The hos- 
 pital effects were so badly stowed on the " Danae " that 
 they arrived altogether damaged. Yet I have thirty-five 
 hundred men in hospital whom I know not how to care 
 1 Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 
144 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 for, the burning of the cities having deprived me of all re- 
 sources. ... In the different combats I have had to fight 
 I have lost six hundred men killed and fifteen hundred 
 wounded ; I have two thousand sick. . . . My military 
 position is not bad, as you see, citizen Minister, but it 
 would become so if you should not come promptly to 
 my aid. 
 
 The winter passed before Leclerc had succeeded in 
 bringing the colony to complete submission. Tous- 
 saint and his generals, with a few troops, still held 
 out, and occupied refuges in the mountains. Leclerc 
 reported to the government in sombre colors the 
 difficulties he foresaw. 
 
 Leclerc to Decr&s. 1 
 
 April 21, 1802 (1 floreal, an x.). 
 . . . Toussaint still holds the mountains. He has under 
 his orders about four thousand colonial troops and a very 
 considerable quantity of armed cultivators. . . . I cannot 
 terminate this war without occupying in force, after hav- 
 ing conquered them, the mountains of the north and those 
 of the west ; and in attacking these points I shall always 
 need to occupy all that I now hold where the cultivators are 
 beginning to return. I need twenty-five thousand effective 
 troops to complete the conquest of St. Domingo, and re- 
 store it wholly to France. I have for the moment eleven 
 thousand European troops, and seven thousand colonial 
 troops on whom I am very far from relying entirely. As 
 long as I am successful they will remain with me, and if 
 I have a reverse they may well serve to double the ene- 
 my's means. I have already made several attempts to 
 
 1 Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 145 
 
 induce Toussaint and all the black generals to surren- 
 der, but without success. I am going to busy myself 
 seriously with that affair. I believe dissensions exist 
 among the chiefs by which I can profit ; but yet, citizen 
 Minister, though I should succeed in causing the submis- 
 sion of these men, I could not take the measures of rigor 
 which would assure to France the fixed possession of St. 
 Domingo until I shall have twenty-five thousand Euro- 
 peans present under arms. 
 
 A few days afterward Christophe made submission, 
 and came to a meeting with Leclerc. " After the as- 
 surance which I gave him that we had not come to 
 destroy liberty," reported Leclerc, May 6, " he declared 
 to me that he was ready to execute all my orders." 
 The defection of Christophe obliged Toussaint to ask 
 terms, and Leclerc reported to the government the 
 terms offered. 
 
 Leclerc to Decres. 1 
 
 May 6, 1802 (16 flor&il, an x.). 
 . . . Two days afterward General Toussaint sent me 
 his adjutant-general with a letter that meant little, but in 
 which I saw a very pronounced desire to surrender. I 
 replied to General Toussaint that I would receive his sur- 
 render, but that if he did not yield promptly I would 
 march on him ; and that he had best send me some confi- 
 dential agent to tell me what he wanted to obtain. He 
 sent me his private secretary, with one of his aids, to let 
 me know that he wanted the grade of lieutenant-general 
 and a particular command ; that each of his generals 
 should resume the command he had at the time of my 
 
 1 Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 10 
 
146 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 arrival ; and that he should have troops alone under his 
 orders. I answered that he would not be employed ; that 
 he would retire to one of his residences, and could not 
 leave it without permission ; that his generals would be 
 employed as well as his troops, but where I should think 
 proper and useful ; as for him, he must surrender to me 
 at the Cape, and I would give him my word of honor that 
 after the conference he should have the liberty to go 
 where he would ; finally, that his troops should be all 
 united and ready to execute my orders within four days. 
 I wrote this last letter only two days ago. . . . 
 
 Such leniency was contrary to the spirit of Leclerc's 
 instructions, and he closed his letter by saying, — 
 
 " If circumstances force me sometimes, citizen Minis- 
 ter, to appear to deviate from the end of my instruc- 
 tions, believe me that I do not lose them from sight, and 
 that I yield something to circumstances only to master 
 them afterward and make them serve the execution of 
 my plans." 
 
 Toussaint appeared within the term fixed, and had 
 an interview with the captain-general. Unquestion- 
 ably he asked for conditions and received them, — 
 probably those prescribed in Leclerc's letter to him ; 
 but Leclerc made no report of what passed. He 
 announced very briefly Toussaint's submission. 
 
 Leclerc to Decris. 1 
 
 May 8, 1802 (18 floreal, an x.). 
 General Toussaint has been here. He went away 
 perfectly content with me, and ready to execute all my 
 
 1 Archives cle la Marine MSS. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO, 147 
 
 orders. I believe that he will execute them, because if 
 he did uot I should make him repent it. I must have 
 inspired him with great confidence, since he slept at the 
 headquarters of one of my generals, and had with him 
 only a few men. I lose not an instant to restore tran- 
 quillity, and to have nothing to fear in the colony from 
 any cause whatever. 
 
 According to the First Consul's instructions the 
 time had come when Leclerc should at once — within 
 a week — order the black generals to Europe, or send 
 them there by force. Leclerc would have been glad 
 to do so, but the pacification had consumed three 
 months, from February 5 till May 8, and the summer 
 had begun with disastrous effects on his army, as he 
 notified the government on the same day with Tous- 
 saint's surrender. 
 
 Leclerc to Decr&s. 
 
 May 8, 1802 (18 floreal, an x.). 
 Sickness makes frightful ravages in the army that I 
 command. You will be convinced of it when you look 
 at the accompanying army report. You will see that 
 the army which you calculated at twenty-six thousand 
 men is reduced at this moment to twelve thousand. . . . 
 I have at this moment thirty-six hundred men in hospital. 
 In the last fortnight I have lost from thirty to fifty men a 
 day in the colony, and there is no day when from two 
 hundred to two hundred and fifty men do not enter the 
 hospital, while more than fifty never come out. My hos- 
 pitals are crowded. I give every care to them, — but 
 observe that I arrived in a colony where the principal 
 establishments were burned ; that my hospital effects 
 
148 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 were all left behind ; that the garrisons I have in the 
 cities suffer much because there are no barracks ; that 
 the soldiers want hammocks, the fleet having carried them 
 almost all away. If my men fall ill, it is not for want of 
 being well nourished, for the composition of the ration is 
 excellent. . . . This consumption of men is truly appal- 
 ling, anc\ I am assured that it will only increase. To be 
 master of St. Domingo I need twenty-five thousand men 
 present under arms. You see that I have only the half. 
 Not an instant should be lost in sending me reinforce- 
 ments whatever may be my actual position. . . . 
 
 Although Leclerc did not arrest at once all the 
 black generals, he began the deportation of the less 
 important negroes, sending them by hundreds to the 
 various prisons or galleys of France, while he made 
 his arrangements for seizing Toussaint. He explained 
 to the First Consul the reasons why he was obliged to 
 spare for a time the other black generals. 
 
 Leclerc to the First Consul. 1 
 
 June 6, 1802 (17 prairial, can x.). 
 My position becomes worse from day to day. Sick- 
 ness carries away men. . . . Toussaint is treacherous, as I 
 expected ; but I have gained from his submission the end 
 I intended, which was to detach Dessalines and Chris- 
 tophe with their troops from him. I am going to order his 
 arrest, and I believe I can count on Dessalines, whose 
 spirit I have mastered, sufficiently to charge him with 
 the errand of arresting Toussaint. I do not think I shall 
 fail ; but if I should miss him, I will have him pursued by 
 Christophe and Dessalines. The season does not permit 
 1 Archives nationales MSS. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 149 
 
 of my making war with European troops, and I can still 
 
 use the blacks to advantage. What makes me take this 
 resolution, citizen Consul, is my need of raisins in the 
 colony by some act of vigor the idea of my strength I 
 •shall sustain it well for the first moment, but if I should 
 not receive reinforcements my position would become 
 bad. As soon as I have received four thousand men 
 whom I will give out for six thousand, I count on under! 
 takmg the disarmament of the cultivators by means of the 
 black generals These measures are always subordinate 
 to those I shall be obliged to take either after Toussainfs 
 arrest or his escape. Do not be surprised if I say I nnv 
 miss him. Within a fortnight the man has become ex 
 tremely suspicious. Not that I have given occasion for 
 his distrust, but he regrets his power ; and his regrets, fre- 
 quently expressed, give rise to the idea of renewing his 
 party. By my course in regard to his followers I have 
 left him very few partisans. As soon as I have secured 
 his person, I shall send him to Corsica, and I will give 
 orders for imprisoning him in one of the castles of that 
 island I shall send there a great part of those I mean 
 o get rid of. I despatch fifty to-day on the « Maizon." 
 I write to citizen Miot that he can employ them on pub- 
 
 IheX. l ^ ^ 1Den Wh ° -** be ***£ * 
 
 Soon every prison in the seaports of France was 
 tilled to overflowing with negroes from St. Domingo 
 until the ports remonstrated strongly against the' 
 stream of naked, diseased, and helpless barbarians 
 that poured into them. In this respect Bonaparte's 
 orders were carried out, but the exile of subordinate 
 negro officers or officials did not relieve the least of 
 
150 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Leelerc's difficulties. On the day when he announced 
 to Bonaparte the intended arrest of Toussaint, he 
 wrote to Decres in discouragement. 
 
 Leclerc to Decr&s. 1 
 
 June 6, 1802 (17 prairial, an x. ). 
 . . . The month of germinal cost me twelve hundred 
 men dead in hospital ; the month of floreal cost me 
 eighteen hundred, and I fear much that this month will 
 cost me two thousand. This mortality will hist another 
 three months. I have at most only ten thousand Euro- 
 peans present under arms at this moment. My posi- 
 tion, citizen Minister, becomes every day worse owing 
 to the way I am neglected by government. . . . Every 
 day the blacks recover audacity. I am not strong 
 enough to order the disarmament, nor the necessary 
 measures. If the war begins again here, as is possi- 
 ble, it will not be my fault, who have done more than 
 my physical strength permitted from me ; it will be 
 the fault of the government, which does not come to 
 my aid. . . . 
 
 Decres was obliged to admit that the extraordinary 
 burden of these colonial expeditions, falling suddenly 
 on the navy, had overtasked its resources. Leclerc 
 had not received the reinforcements or outfit he had 
 been promised. 
 
 Weak though Leclerc was, and burdened with 
 increasing anxieties, he took the step of arresting 
 Toussaint. His report to Decres on the subject was 
 printed, with variations, in the " Moniteur " of the 
 
 1 Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 
NAPOLEON T. AT ST. DOMINGO. 151 
 
 28th messidor, July 17, 1802. His letter to Bona- 
 parte was never printed. 
 
 Leclerc to the First Consul. 1 
 
 June 11, 1802 (22 pvairial, an x.). 
 I have taken a step that will do much good to the 
 colony. I have, as I warned yon, arrested General Tous- 
 saint, and I send him to France to you with all his family. 
 This operation was not easy ; it has succeeded as happily 
 as possible. Within some days he had collected near him 
 six or seven hundred cultivators and a number of desert- 
 ers. He had refused to go to two rendezvous that Gen- 
 eral Brunet gave him. Some days before, he had written 
 me to complain of my having stationed troops at Dennery, 
 which he had chosen as his residence. I answered that 
 to remove all ground for complaint I authorized him to 
 confer with General Brunet on the station of the troops 
 in that canton. He went to General Brnnet. There he 
 was arrested and embarked. A score of his adherents 
 were arrested in the neighborhood. I shall send them to 
 Cayenne. I have issued a proclamation to make his con- 
 duct known ; nevertheless assemblages have taken place. 
 I am making the black generals march against them, and 
 I hope to restore order. The blacks are without a com- 
 pass ; they are divided among themselves. . . . Tous- 
 saint is removed ! It is a great point, but the blacks are 
 armed, and 1 must have forces to disarm them. Sickness 
 makes frightful progress here, and it is impossible to 
 calculate where it will stop. Possibly less than four 
 thousand French troops will remain in St. Domingo by 
 October. Judge what will then be my position. . . . 
 My health is still bad, and if my position were sufficiently 
 1 Archives rationales MSS. 
 
152 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 secure to cause me no anxiety, I can assure you that I 
 should demand my successor at once ; but I will do my 
 best, by sparing myself, to last six mouths more here. 
 By that time I shall have completed everything, if the 
 minister of marine does not neglect me as he has done 
 till now. . . . Toussaint must not be free. Imprison 
 him in the interior of the republic, so that he shall never 
 see St. Domingo again. 
 
 To Decres the captain-general wrote, supplicating 
 assistance more earnestly than ever. 
 
 Lederc to Decrds. 1 
 
 June 11, 1802 (22 prairial, an x.). 
 ... I send to France this man, so dangerous to 
 St. Domingo. The government, citizen Minister, must 
 have him put in a strong place situated in the middle 
 of France, so that he can have no means of escaping 
 and returning to St. Domingo, where he has all the influ- 
 ence of a religious chief. If within three years that 
 man should reappear at St. Domingo, perhaps he would 
 destroy all that France should have done there. ... I 
 have taken from the blacks their rallying point, but I 
 am very weak, and supply my physical strength only 
 by moral force. For pity's sake send me aid ; without 
 it I cannot undertake the disarmament, and without the 
 disarmament I am not master of the colony. Send me 
 money ; my penury is extreme. Do something for us, 
 and do not leave us abandoned as you have done till 
 now. This is, I assure you, the only motive for disgust 
 I encounter in the difficult enterprise with which I am 
 charged. 
 
 1 Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 153 
 
 Before pursuing further the story} of Leclerc, the 
 fate of Toussaint merits attention. In the painful 
 history of St. Domingo, Toussaint was the most inter- 
 esting actor, and his sudden disappearance from the 
 public view invested his life with a mystery that 
 added to his fame. 
 
 The First Consul received the news of Toussaint's 
 arrest, July 22, and immediately wrote to Leclerc 
 approving the measure and announcing reinforce- 
 ments. " We wait with impatience the arrival of 
 Christophe and Dessalines in France. The arrival of 
 Toussaint has been extremely honorable to you, and 
 is a subject of tranquillity and hope for our com- 
 merce." 1 The next day he signed a secret decree 
 ordering Toussaint to be taken as a prisoner to the 
 Fortress of Joux, to be kept in secrecy without power 
 of writing or communicating with any one but his 
 domestic 2 Apparently the First Consul intended to 
 bring Toussaint to trial and punish him by legal 
 methods, for Decrees wrote to Leclerc requesting him 
 to forward proofs of Toussaint's guilt; but Leclerc 
 replied that he had no proofs. 
 
 Leclerc to Decr&s. 3 
 
 Sept. 26, 1802 (4 vendemiaire, an x.). 
 ... I have proof enough to serve for his trial if 
 recourse be had to what was done before the amnesty I 
 
 1 Bonaparte to Leclerc, July 22, 1802; Correspondence, vii 
 529. 
 
 2 Decret, July 23, 1S02 ; Correspondance, vii. 533. 
 
 3 Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 
154 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 granted him ; since then I have none. In the actual 
 situation of affairs his trial and execution would merely 
 embitter the minds of the blacks. . . . 
 
 Obliged to abandon the design of punishing Tons- 
 saint according to law for crimes he had not com- 
 mitted, the First Consul was still able to inflict equal 
 punishment on him for the crimes for which he had 
 been pardoned. Toussaint was taken, with every 
 precaution of secrecy, to the Fortress of Joux in the 
 Jura mountains, and every week the commandant 
 of the Fortress reported to Decres the condition of 
 the captive. As the cold weather of autumn set in, 
 Toussaint began to fail in health. 
 
 The Commandant Bailie to Decrds. 1 
 
 Chateau de Joux, Oct. 30, 1802. 
 . . . Since my last 1 can say nothing of Toussaint 
 Louverture except that he has continual indispositions 
 caused by internal pains, headaches, and some attacks 
 of fever which are not continuous. He complains 
 always of cold, though making a great fire. Heretofore 
 the officer on guard could see him, without power of 
 speaking to him except of matters regarding his usual 
 wants, and then only during the time when his food 
 or firewood and other needs were supplied ; but now 
 no one is allowed to see him but myself ; and when he 
 is obliged to enter his chamber I make him pass to the 
 next room, formerly occupied by his domestic. He can 
 shave himself only before me, who give him his razor, 
 and take it back when he has finished. The constitution 
 
 1 Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 155 
 
 of negroes resembling in no respect that of Europeans, 
 I dispense with giving him either physician or surgeon, 
 who would be useless for him. 
 
 The Commandant Bailie, whose acquaintance with 
 negro physiology dispensed him from providing a 
 physician for Toussaint, was succeeded by another 
 commandant, Amiot, who gave still better reasons 
 for not calling medical aid. 
 
 The Commandant Amiot to Decr&s. 1 
 
 Chateau de Joux, March 19, 1803. 
 Since my letter of the 13th instant the situation of 
 Toussaint is always the same. He complains continually 
 of pains in the stomach, and has a continual cough ; for 
 some days he has kept his left arm in a sling on account 
 of pains. I perceive that in the last three days his 
 voice is much changed. He has never asked for a 
 physician. 
 
 Nine months of this treatment sufficed. Toussaint 
 grew steadily weaker, and his cough grew constantly 
 worse, until April 7. Major Amiot's reports ceased 
 with one dated the 19th germinal, or April 9, 1803. 
 
 The Commandant Amiot to Decrees. 
 
 April 9, 1803. 
 I had the honor to render you an account of Tous- 
 saint's condition by my letter of the 16th germinal. The 
 17th, at eleven and a half o'clock in the morning, on 
 carrying his food to him, I found him dead, seated on 
 his chair, near the fire. ... I have caused him to be 
 
 1 Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 
156 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 interred by a priest of the commune, in the vault under 
 the old chapel, lettered G, in the Fort of Joux, where 
 formerly the soldiers of the garrison were buried. 
 
 The commandant directed an autopsy to be made 
 by the surgeon and physician of Pontarlier, Ta- 
 vernier, who reported on the 18th germinal, that 
 " apoplexy-pleuro-peripneumonia " caused Toussaint's 
 death. 
 
 The severity with which Toussaint was treated in 
 prison, without pretence of authority in law, re- 
 sulted from the orders of the First Consul, given 
 through Decres to the commandant. These orders 
 had some historical interest, showing the system 
 under which prisoners of state were managed during 
 the consulate. 
 
 Decres to the Commandant Ba'ille. 
 
 Oct. 27, 1802 (5 brumaire, an xi.). 
 . . . The First Consul has charged me to inform 
 you that you are responsible for his [Toussaint's] person 
 with your head. I have no need to add anything to an 
 order so formal and so positive. Toussaint Louverture has 
 no right to other consideration than such as humanity com- 
 mands. Hypocrisy is a vice as familiar to him as honor 
 and loyalty to you, citizen Commandant. . . . Toussaint's 
 only means of seeing his lot ameliorated would have 
 been to lay aside all dissimulation. His personal inter- 
 est, the religious sentiments with which he should be 
 penetrated to expiate all the evil he has done, imposed 
 on him the duty of truth ; but he is very far from per- 
 forming it, and by his continual dissimulation he dispenses 
 those who approach him of all interest in his lot. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 157 
 
 The French people prided themselves on their 
 keen sense of the ridiculous, and in that respect, as in 
 others, Bonaparte was not French, else he would 
 never have preached to Toussaint a sermon so grim 
 m its defiance of absurdity. Between Toussaint, De- 
 cres, Leclerc, and Bonaparte, critics might perhaps 
 differ in establishing the correct ordeiMn dissimu- 
 lation and hypocrisy ; but the position of Toussaint 
 at Joux proved decisively that he was the least pro- 
 ficient of the four. 
 
 As the First Consul recorded his opinion of Tous- 
 saint, Toussaint's opinion of the First Consul and his 
 agents should be allowed expression. The Command- 
 ant Bailie was obliged to report it. 
 
 The Commandant Battle to Decres. 
 
 Nov. 6, 1802. 
 ^ I have the honor to observe to you that Toussaint 
 is naturally quick and passionate, and when I make 
 observations to him on the complaints of want of justice 
 which he pretends to suffer here, he stamps his feet and 
 strikes his head with his two fists. . . . When he is in this 
 state, which seems to me a sort of delirium, he says the 
 most indecent things of General Leclerc ; and as he has 
 gall in his heart, and has in his retreat time to color his 
 lying impertinences with a certain substratum of intelli- 
 gence, and lacking judgment (in my opinion), he colors 
 his sayings with insidious motives which have an ap- 
 pearance of truth Three days ago, my General, 
 
 he was impudent enough to tell me that in France there 
 were none but men wicked, unjust, calumniators (those 
 were his terms), from whom justice could not be had. 
 
158 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 The life of Toussaint, after his arrest in June, 1802, 
 was short ; that of Leclerc was still shorter, and quite 
 as tragic. In any case the situation of Leclerc in 
 the summer of 1802 was desperate, and even though 
 his government had given him all the support he 
 expected, he must probably have perished ; but the 
 First Consul needlessly overloaded him with trouble. 
 Exhausted by the unnecessary efforts imposed upon 
 him by the neglect of his appeals, Leclerc began the 
 summer enfeebled and discouraged. His arrest of 
 Toussaint was a desperate step, but had he not ar- 
 rested Toussaint, he knew that Toussaint would soon 
 arrest him ; and only a few days before he decided 
 at St. Domingo to risk the danger of a new revolt, 
 Bonaparte at Paris took a measure that made revolt 
 inevitable. As early as April 6, a month before the 
 black generals accepted Leclerc's amnesty, and while 
 Leclerc was still struggling with every sort of diffi- 
 culty, the First Consul ordered Decres to organize a 
 commission to discuss and draft a plan " to fix the 
 status of the blacks " in the colonies. 1 About three 
 weeks later, five projects were referred to the con- 
 suls for selection and approval. 2 According to the 
 general scheme, the colonies were to be divided into 
 two classes, — those in winch the blacks had been 
 freed since 1789, and those in which slavery had been 
 preserved. St. Domingo and Guadeloupe belonged 
 
 1 Arrete, 16 germinal, an x. ; Correspondance, vii. 430. 
 
 2 Bonaparte to Canibaceres, 7 floreal, an x. (27 April, 1802); 
 Correspondance, vii. 444. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 159 
 
 to the first class ; Martinique, Sta Lucia, Tabago, and 
 the Ile-de-France belonged to the second. 
 
 In all colonies of the second class the blacks, hav- 
 ing never been freed, were to remain slaves, and all 
 laws regarding these colonies passed by different 
 legislatures since 1789 were annulled at a single 
 stroke, while the slave-trade was restored. 
 
 For colonies of the first class — St. Domingo and 
 Guadeloupe — slavery was also to be restored, but 
 the freedom of individuals was to be maintained. 
 Lists were to be made of all blacks who were free 
 before the 26 [16?] pluviose, an II. 1 (Feb. 14, 1794), 
 when the republic decreed the general liberty of all 
 the slaves, and declared St. Domingo an integral part 
 of France ; lists were also to be made of blacks who 
 had defended or served the state. All these individu- 
 als were to be declared free ; the rest, comprising in 
 effect the entire black population, were to be replaced 
 under the slave code of 1789, and the slave-trade was 
 to be restored. 
 
 The First Consul signed, May 20, 1802 (30 floral, 
 an x.), the necessary decree restoring slavery in cer- 
 tain specified colonies, but it was not published in 
 the " Moniteur," nor was the decree avowedly appli- 
 cable to St. Domingo, but only to colonies of the 
 second class. St. Domingo and Guadeloupe remained 
 apparently exempt from its operation. The news of 
 Toussaint's submission and the restoration of order 
 in St. Domingo arrived in France three weeks after- 
 1 Article l er - Piece 6054 ; Correspondance, vii. 445. 
 
160 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ward, and was published in the " Moniteur " of June 
 12. Without delay the First Consul ordered the 
 minister of marine to send the law of May 20 (30 
 floreal) to General Richepanse commanding at Gua- 
 deloupe, and to General Leclcrc commanding at St. 
 Domingo, with instructions to regulate their conduct. 
 These letters, which were never made public, pos- 
 sess much historical interest. 
 
 Decrds to Richepanse. 1 
 
 Paris, June 14, 1802 (25 prairial, an x.). 
 I send you, General, some printed copies of the law 
 of May 20 (30 floreal), concerning slavery and the slave- 
 trade. It is textually applicable only to the colonies 
 named in it. You will easily penetrate the motive for 
 this. The state of crisis existing at St. Domingo and 
 the troubles that continued at Guadeloupe did not allow 
 of irritating by direct provisions the spirit of resistance 
 and rebellion. Already the valor of our troops and the 
 courage of the chief who commands them have subjected 
 the insurgents of the Leeward Islands. We should not 
 be long in hearing of equally happy success on your part, 
 either by force of arms or by that of persuasion, against 
 the insurgents of your island [Guadeloupe]. Y r et in 
 order to run no risk in a matter so serious, the govern- 
 ment prefers to trust only to your wisdom for the pub- 
 lication or the non-publication of the law in question, 
 according as you shall think it suitable, and especially 
 on the weight you shall place on its explanation accord- 
 ing to circumstances which you, better than any one, are 
 able to appreciate. But whatever course you may take, 
 
 1 Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 161 
 
 he recommends to you two things that he regards as being 
 of the greatest importance. The first is to establish in 
 the ateliers a police for order and labor so vigilant as to 
 resemble the discipline of the old slavery, and reassure 
 the neighboring colonies against the dangers of an incon- 
 gruous regime ; by that means you will prepare the way 
 for a return of legal uniformity as soon as prudence shall 
 permit its establishment. I need not impress on you that 
 good treatment b} T the masters will be the most powerful 
 vehicle for it. The second will be to favor the markets 
 for the slave-trade by giving every guaranty to buyers 
 for the state of servitude of the blacks bought of French 
 or foreign shippers. I do not doubt that } T our confidence 
 in the Colonial Prefect will cause you to invite the aid 
 of his counsels in a conjuncture so delicate. The un- 
 certainty about the resolution you may think proper to 
 take, prevents me from writing directly to him on this 
 occasion. 
 
 Decres to Leclerc. 
 
 Paris, June 14, 1802. 
 The text of the law of the 30th floreal, several 
 printed copies of which I am ordered to address to you, 
 could not and should not, when it was made, contain 
 mention of the colony of St. Domingo ; it is nominally 
 applicable, as concerns slavery, only to the establish- 
 ments which we recover in consequence of the peace, and 
 to the eastern colonies. But it re-establishes the slave- 
 trade, and all our colonial possessions have need of it. 
 On these two intimately connected points, equally deli- 
 cate and important, I have to send you to-day the instruc- 
 tions of the government. As far as concerns the return 
 to the old regime of the blacks, the bloody struggle from 
 
 11 
 
162 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 which you have just emerged, glorious and conqueror, 
 commands the greatest caution. Perhaps we should only 
 plunge ourselves into it anew if we tried to break precipi- 
 tately that idol of liberty in whose name so much blood 
 has flowed till now. During some time yet vigilance, 
 order, and a discipline both rural and military must 
 replace the positive and pronounced slavery of the col- 
 ored people of your colony. Especially the good treat- 
 ment of the master must attach them to his rule. When 
 they shall have felt by comparison the difference between 
 a usurping and tyrannical yoke and that of the legiti- 
 mate proprietor interested in their preservation, then 
 the moment will have come to make them return to their 
 original condition, from which it has been so disastrous 
 to have drawn them. As for the slave-trade, it is more 
 necessary than ever to recruit the ateliers after the im- 
 mense void that ten years of trouble and stoppage of 
 supply have made there. So you should undoubtedly fa- 
 vor it, encouraging the buyer by the formal assurance of 
 the right he will acquire to full proprietorship. For the 
 rest, General, all is subordinated to your wisdom, even 
 the publication of the law in question. You will suspend 
 it if you think proper ; circumstances will determine you. 
 Nobody knows better than you how to estimate them. In 
 the uncertainty of your decision I abstain from writing to 
 the citizen Prefect of the colony ; but I doubt not that 
 your confidence in him will cause you to consult him on 
 an object of such high importance. 
 
 These letters were duly forwarded to Guadeloupe 
 and St. Domingo. General Richepanse at Guade- 
 loupe, feeling confidence in his entire control of the 
 colony, published the decree, and announced the res- 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 163 
 
 toration of slavery in that island. The story of 
 Leclerc's experiences in St. Domingo is best contin- 
 ued in his own words. 
 
 Leclerc to Decrds. 
 
 July 6, 1802 (17 messidor, an x.). 
 After the erabarkment of Toussaint some men wanted 
 to make trouble. I have had them shot or sent off. 
 Since then some colonial troops have had the air of 
 revolting. I have ordered the chiefs to be shot, and at 
 this moment those troops hide their discontent ; but the 
 disbanding operates. The black generals now see clearly 
 that I am going to destroy wholly their influence in this 
 country ; but they dare not raise the standard of rebellion, 
 first, because they all detest each other, and know well 
 that I would destroy one by means of another ; second, 
 because the blacks are not brave, and this war has terri- 
 fied them ; third, because they fear measuring themselves 
 with one who has destroyed their chief. In the circum- 
 stances I move steadily with long steps toward my end. 
 The south and west are nearly disarmed ; the north will 
 begin to be so in a week. The gendarmerie is organizing, 
 and as soon as the disarmament is finished and the gen- 
 darmerie placed, I will strike the last blows. If I suc- 
 ceed, as is probable, St. Domingo will then be truly re- 
 stored to the republic. . . . The mortality continues, and 
 at present makes its ravages through the whole colony. 
 The month of prairial may have cost me three thousand 
 men ; the month of messidor will cost me more ; till now 
 it has cost me one hundred and sixty men a day. I 
 have ordered a review of the army by corps. I have 
 hardly more than eight thousand five hundred men now 
 present under arms, not including the two thousand I 
 
164 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 have just received. My troops are nevertheless as well 
 nourished as it is possible for them to be, and they suffer 
 no fatigue. . . . Since the 21st germinal (April 11) I have 
 received no letter from you. I have corresponded with 
 you very exactly, and you answer none of my letters. 
 The abandonment you leave me in is cruel. I have 
 asked you for money, clothes, hospital effects, artillery 
 effects, workmen. You have sent me nothing ; you an- 
 nounce to me nothing. . . . 
 
 The same day Leclerc wrote to the First Consul in 
 a hopeful tone i 1 "In two months I will declare St. 
 Domingo restored to France. I count on making this 
 declaration on the 1st vendemiaire (September 23). 
 Then I will celebrate the fete of the general peace. 
 At that epoch no one will annoy me more at St. Do- 
 mingo, and you will be satisfied." Yet the captain- 
 general's situation had never been more critical, and 
 the air was almost as full of conspiracy as of pesti- 
 lence. His next letters, only a week later, showed 
 incessant anxieties. 
 
 Leclerc to Decr&s. 2 
 
 July 12, 1802 (23 messidor, an x.). 
 I have not yet been able to order the disarmament of 
 the north. That operation is very delicate. It is impos- 
 sible for me to think of marching European troops now. 
 A battalion of the Legion of the Cape lost three hundred 
 men in six hundred after three days' march. My black 
 troops are very weak, and the reformed officers agitate 
 
 1 Leclerc to Bonaparte, 17 messidor, an x. Archives nation- 
 ales MSS. 
 
 2 Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 165 
 
 them. My garrison at the Cape is very weak, and I can- 
 not increase it without exposing myself to lose the half 
 of the troops I shall place there. I am obliged to use 
 much circumspection to succeed. . . . Within a week as- 
 semblages by night have taken place in the plain and even 
 in the city. I do not yet know the chiefs, but I watch 
 them. The conspirators' object is the massacre of the 
 Europeans. They are to begin with the generals. I will 
 leave them no means of executing their designs. I press 
 the organization of the gendarmerie and the disarma- 
 ment. I shall not be at ease till these two operations 
 are finished. 
 
 The next despatch, ten days afterward, announced 
 the outbreak of new revolt. 
 
 Leclerc to Decr&s. 
 
 July 23, 1802 (4 thermidor, an x.). 
 Just now I learn a disagreeable incident ; the disar- 
 mament at La Tortue has been badly ordered ; the blacks 
 have revolted and have burned some houses. I am go- 
 ing to send troops there. At the Port de Paix a similar 
 insurrection has occurred. I have no details. It is im- 
 possible for me to make the European troops march ; 
 they break down on the way. I have few colonial troops ; 
 I have given many leaves of absence ; it did not suit me 
 to keep a great number of them. I will advise you here- 
 after about these insurrections within a few days. That 
 at Port au Paix might be serious, but I hope to suppress 
 
 Leclerc to the First Consul. 
 
 August 9, 1802 (21 thermidor, an x.). 
 My situation since my last despatch is the better for 
 the arrival of about two thousand men from Genoa and 
 
166 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Toulon. I have put these troops to use at once, and 
 their presence has arrested the progress of the insurrec- 
 tion, which is much, in present circumstances. To-mor- 
 row I mean to move on different points all the forces I 
 can assemble, both European and colonial. I expect 
 happy results from this operation. I shall have the honor 
 of telling them to you as soon as the operation is finished ; 
 but from now until the 1st vendemiaire (September 23) I 
 expect to be annoyed by handsful of brigands. At that 
 date I shall destroy everything that will not obey me. I 
 am content with Dessalines, Christophe, and Morpas. 
 These three alone have influence ; the others are null. 
 Christophe and Morpas especially have served me much 
 in the late circumstances. Christophe and Dessalines 
 have begged me not to leave them here after my depart- 
 ure ; by that you can judge the confidence they have in 
 me. I hope in the last days of brumaire (November 10- 
 20) to be able to send to France or elsewhere what is in 
 my way here. I hope to leave in ventose (February- 
 March, 1803) ; without doubt you will have sent me a 
 successor by that time. I can assure you that I shall 
 have well deserved rest, for I am nearly crushed here, 
 being almost alone. When I depart, the colony will be 
 ready to receive the regime you shall wish to give it, but 
 it will be for my successor to take the last step. I will 
 do nothing contrary to what I have printed here. 
 
 The " last step," the restoration of slavery, was far 
 beyond Leclerc's power to effect, apart from his scru- 
 ples of consistency. Richepanse had already made 
 the experiment at Guadeloupe, and the mere rumor 
 alarmed Leclerc for the safety of St. Domingo. The 
 blacks became frantic with despair. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 167 
 
 Leclerc to Decrds. 1 
 
 August 9, 1802 (21 thermidor, an x.). 
 I have united all the disposable troops I have, colo- 
 nial and European. To-morrow I shall attack the rebels 
 on all points. The black generals conduct the columns ; 
 they are well surrounded. I have ordered them to make 
 terrible examples, and I always use them when I have to 
 do much harm. This battle will last at least ten days ; 
 I will let you know the results. . . . The decrees of 
 General Richepanse circulate here and cause much evil. 
 That which re-establishes slavery, on account of having 
 been published three months too soon, will cost many 
 lives to the army and colony of St. Domingo. I learn 
 news of a bloody combat fought by General Boyer at 
 the Gros Morne. The rebels have been exterminated ; 
 fifty prisoners have been hung. These men die with 
 incredible fanaticism ; they laugh at death ; it is the 
 same with the women. The rebels of the Moustique 
 have attacked and carried Jean Rabel ; it should be re- 
 taken by this time. This fury is the work of General 
 Richepanse's proclamation and the inconsiderate talk of 
 the colonists. 
 
 At last Bonaparte's incessant orders to send the 
 black generals to Europe, as though Leclerc were 
 not the best judge of the situation, irritated the 
 captain-general ; and he wrote expressly to explain 
 that the black generals had nothing to do with 
 his troubles ; on the contrary they were his only 
 support. 
 
 1 Archives de la Marine MSS, 
 
108 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Leclerc to Decr&s. 1 
 
 August 25, 1802 (7 fmctidor, an x.). 
 It appears to me that you have no exact idea of my 
 position, by the orders you send me. You order me to 
 send the black generals to Europe. It is very simple to 
 arrest them all the same day ; but these generals serve 
 to arrest the insurgents who are always at work, and who 
 have taken an alarming character in certain cantons. 
 Morpas is treacherous ; he serves me now, but he will 
 be arrested shortly. Charles Belair has revolted ; I am 
 marching troops against him. Dessalines and Christophe 
 do well, and I am under veritable obligations to them. 
 I have just discovered a great plot which aimed to revolt 
 the whole colony at the end of thermidor (August 15), 
 but was executed only partially for want of a single 
 head. It is not everything to have removed Toussaint ; 
 there are two thousand chiefs here to be removed ; there 
 is not an overseer but has influence enough to raise his 
 atelier at will. Nevertheless, as I take away the arms, 
 the taste for insurrection diminishes. I have already 
 brought in about twenty thousand guns ; about as many 
 more remain in the hands of the cultivators. I must 
 certainly have them. ... I long for the moment when I 
 can send away those who trouble me here, and they will 
 mount to two thousand ; but I cannot do it without hav- 
 ing enough troops to enter at once into the campaign and 
 march on all the points where I shall find rebels. 
 
 Sept. 13, 1802 (26 fructidor). 
 This is my position ! Of the twelve thousand three 
 hundred and two men you announce as to arrive from 
 
 1 Archives de la Marine MSS. 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 169 
 
 different points, I have received .... six thousand 
 seven hundred and thirty-two. I have received nothing 
 more. As these troops arrived I have been obliged to 
 put them into the field to repress the general insurrec- 
 tions of which I have given you account in my last des- 
 patches. During the first days the troops have acted and 
 have obtained success ; but sickness has affected them, 
 and with the exception of the Polish Legion, all the 
 reinforcements yet arrived are destroyed. ... I can- 
 not give you an exact idea of my position. Each day 
 makes it worse. ... If I can have by the 15th ven- 
 demiaire (October 7) four thousand Europeans in condi- 
 tion to march, including all you have- sent me, and all 
 I brought with me, I shall be very fortunate. . . . To 
 give you an idea of my loss, know that the Seventh of 
 the line arrived here thirteen hundred and ninety-five 
 strong ; it has now eighty -three sickly men, and one hun- 
 dred and seven in the hospitals ; the rest have perished. 
 The Eleventh light regiment arrived with nineteen hun- 
 dred men ; it has one hundred and sixty-three men in 
 the corps and two hundred and one in the hospitals. 
 The Seventy-First, which has received about a thousand 
 men, has nineteen men with the flags and one hundred 
 and thirty-three in the hospitals. It is the same with the 
 rest of the army. So make yourself an idea of my posi- 
 tion in a country where civil war has existed for ten 
 years, and where the insurgents are persuaded that we 
 mean to reduce them to slavery. . . . During four 
 months I have snstained myself only by address without 
 having real strength. Judge whether I can carry out the 
 instructions of the government. 
 
170 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Leclerc to the First Consul. 
 
 Sept. 16, 1802 (29 fructidor). 
 . . . Immediately on arrival of the news of the re- 
 establishment of slavery at Guadeloupe, the insurrec- 
 tion which till then had been only partial became general, 
 and being unable to make face on all sides, I was obliged 
 to abandon certain points which have suffered. Happily 
 reinforcements arrived in my greatest difficulties. I 
 employed them with success ; but after twelve days cam- 
 paign these corps were annihilated, and the insurrection 
 recovered strength for want of means of repression. . . . 
 Yesterday I caused La Grande Riviere, Ste Suzanne le 
 Dondon, and La Marmalade to be attacked. We suc- 
 ceeded on some points, but the principal positions could 
 not be carried. I had united all my troops for that 
 attack, which renders my position so much the more un- 
 pleasant. Here I am, once more obliged to remain on 
 the defensive in the plain of the Cape until the arrival of 
 new reinforcements. My troops are discouraged by ef- 
 fect of climate. This is the condition of my black gen- 
 erals. Morpas is a dangerous rascal. Within a few 
 days I will have him arrested and will send him to you. 
 I am not strong enough just now to arrest him, because 
 his arrest would produce an insurrection in his quarter, 
 and I have already enough for the present. Christophe, 
 to repair the folly he committed in uniting with the 
 blacks, has so maltreated them that they execrate him, 
 and I shall send him to you without fear that his depar- 
 ture will make the least insurrection. I am not satisfied 
 with his conduct yesterday. Dessalines is at this mo- 
 ment the butcher of the blacks ; I cause all odious meas- 
 ures to be executed by him. I shall keep him as long as 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 171 
 
 I need him. I have attached two aides-de-camp to him, 
 who watch him, and talk constantly of the happiness one 
 has in France in having fortune [du bonheur qiCon a en 
 France rV avoir de la fortune]. He has already begged 
 me not to leave him behind in St. Domingo. Laplume, 
 Clairvaux, and Paul Louverture are three imbeciles, of 
 whom I will rid myself at my pleasure ; this will be as 
 soon as I can. Vernet is a cowardly knave ; I shall send 
 him off shortly. Charles Belair has been condemned and 
 will be shot. . . . Yes, citizen Consul ! such has been 
 my position ; there is no exaggeration. Every day I have 
 been occupied in discovering means of remedying yester- 
 day's evils. Never a consoling idea has come to efface 
 or diminish the cruel impressions of the present and the 
 future ; and since the departure of Toussaint, the pre- 
 servation of St. Domingo is a thing more surprising than 
 my first appearance in this island and the removal of that 
 general. 
 
 Leclerc to Decres. 
 
 Sept. 17, 1802 (30 fructidor). 
 . . . The failure of my attack of the 28th (Septem- 
 ber 15) renders my position bad in the north. I am go- 
 ing to keep the defensive in the plain of the Cape. . . . 
 I shall be able to protect the plain, supposing always that 
 the sickness stops in the first ten days of vendemiaire. 
 ... To curb the mountains when I shall reach that ob- 
 ject, 1 shall be obliged to destroy all the provisions and 
 a great part of the cultivators, who, accustomed to bri- 
 gandage for the past ten years, will never submit to 
 work. I shall have to make a war of extermination, and 
 it will cost me many men. A great part of my colonial 
 troops have deserted and gone over to the enemy. . . . 
 
172 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 During this cruel malady, I have sustained myself only 
 by my moral strength and the rumors I have spread of 
 the arrival of troops ; but the news of the re-establish- 
 ment of slavery at Guadeloupe caused me to lose a great 
 part of my influence over the blacks, and the troops which 
 have already arrived are destroyed like the others. . . . 
 
 Leclerc to the First Consul. 
 
 Sept. 26, 1802 (4 vendemiaire). 
 My position becomes worse every day. . . . Every 
 day the insurgents' party increases, and mine diminishes 
 by the loss of whites and the desertion of blacks. Des- 
 salines, who till then had not thought of revolt, is now 
 thinking of it ; but I have his secret, — he will not escape 
 me. This is how I discovered his idea. Not being strong 
 enough to dismiss Dessalines, Christophe, and others, I 
 hold them, the one by the other. All three are suited to 
 be party chiefs ; none will declare himself as long as 
 he has the others to fear. In consequence, Dessalines has 
 begun to make reports to me against Christophe and Mor- 
 pas, insinuating that their presence is harmful to the col- 
 ony. He has under his orders a remnant of the Fourth 
 Colonial, which has always been the corps devoted to 
 him ; he has just asked me to let him raise it to a thou- 
 sand men. A month ago, in the expeditions I ordered 
 him to make, he destroyed the arms ; to-day he destroys 
 no more, and does not maltreat the blacks as he did then. 
 He is a rogue ; I know him. I cannot have him arrested 
 to-day ; I should terrify all the blacks who are with me. 
 Christophe inspires me with a little more confidence. I 
 send to France his eldest son, whom he wants to give an 
 education. Morpas is a scamp ; but I cannot yet have 
 him carried off. I may cause Morpas to be first taken, 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 173 
 
 but Christophe and Dessalines will follow the same day. 
 Never did a general find himself in a more trying posi- 
 tion. The troops arrived within a month no longer exist. 
 Every day the rebels make attacks in the plain ; they 
 barn, and their musketry is heard at the Cape. I cannot 
 possibly take the offensive ; it crushes my troops, and I 
 have not enough means for taking it and following up 
 the advantages that I could obtain. ... I have told you 
 my opinion of the measures taken by General Riehepanse 
 at Guadeloupe. Unfortunately the event justifies it ; the 
 last news announce that colony in flames. . . . 
 
 Leclerc to Decres. 
 
 Sept. 26, 1802 (4 vendemiaire). 
 . . . All my army is destroyed, even the reinforce- 
 ments you have sent me. . . . Every day the blacks quit 
 me. The unfortunate decree of General Richepanse, 
 which restored slavery at Guadeloupe, is the cause of 
 our evils. 
 
 The last letter from Leclerc that threw light on 
 his situation was written a fortnight after these, and 
 seemed written purposely to answer the complaints 
 of his conduct which were to be made by Napoleon 
 at St. Helena. 
 
 Leclerc to the First Consul. 
 
 Oct. 7, 1802 (15 vendemiaire). 
 . . . The sickness continues, . . . and I estimate my 
 loss every day at one hundred and thirty men in the 
 whole colony. . . . During messidor and a part of ther- 
 midor, I held the country without real force. At the end 
 of thermidor the war began, and doubled my losses in 
 men. At the end of fructidor my army and my rein- 
 
174 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 forcemeats were destroyed. Then the blacks, witnessing 
 my weakness, became bold. However wise my decree 
 for the raising of sequestrations may have been, the 
 farmers, who saw that at the expiration of their leases 
 they would lose their farms, believed that if they took 
 advantage of our disasters they would end by driving us 
 out of the colony. The black generals, who had been 
 till then held back by fear, fomented these insurrections. 
 They spread among the colonial troops the rumor of our 
 approaching embarkation to induce those to desert who 
 were still faithful to us. Their plan succeeded only too 
 well ; very few colonial troops remain with me. A battal- 
 ion of the Eleventh Colonial, which had been united with 
 the Legion of the Cape, having furnished a number of 
 deserters, one hundred and seventy-six men of this battal- 
 ion were embarked from Jacmel for Port Republican ; 
 of this number, one hundred and seventy-three strangled 
 themselves on the way, their major at their head. These 
 are the men we have to fight ! . . . I have ordered the 
 arrest of Morpas and Dessalines, who have much to do 
 with all this ; I will also arrest Vernet. I have no occa- 
 sion to spare the blacks further ; they are all in insurrec- 
 tion. You will perhaps blame me for not having sooner 
 got rid of the black chiefs ; but bear in mind that I have 
 never been in a position to do it, and that I had expected 
 to be able at this season to act against them. I have 
 no false measure here to reproach myself with, citizen 
 Consul ; and if my position, from being a very good one, 
 has become very bad, no blame can be attached here to 
 anything except the sickness that destroyed my army, 
 the premature re-establishment of slavery at Guadeloupe, 
 and the journals and letters from France which talked 
 only of slavery. . . . 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 175 
 
 The despatches of October 7 were the last that 
 Leclerc sent home. Worn out and disheartened, he 
 was attacked by a slow fever which gradually reduced 
 his strength, until he died November 2, leaving the 
 colony in a condition of revolt more obstinate than he 
 had found on arriving. 
 
 During all this time Bonaparte seemed to have but 
 one idea, — " Get rid of these gilded Africans, and 
 there will be nothing more to desire." 1 Christophe, 
 Dessalines, and their lieutenants represented to him 
 the whole revolt, when in truth the revolt began in 
 spite of them, and received no considerable support 
 from them until it had succeeded. " The decree of 
 the 28th floreal, 1801 (30 flordal, 1802)," said Na- 
 poleon at St. Helena, " was only a pretext ; the blacks 
 revolted as a consequence of the intrigues of England. 
 . . . Then the captain-general repented having been 
 so indulgent, and 'not having executed the orders of 
 the First Consul. All would have passed very differ- 
 ently had he disembarrassed the colony of one hun- 
 dred and fifty or two hundred black chiefs." The 
 clinging to one small idea in an analysis of such vast 
 errors marked a feature of Napoleon's character. 
 
 The idea that leaders were everything and masses 
 without leaders were nothing, was a military view of 
 society which led Napoleon into all his worst miscal- 
 culations. The tragedy of Toussaint at Dennery was 
 repeated six years afterward at Madrid by different 
 actors with identical results, — the same revolts, the 
 
 1 Bonaparte to Leclerc, July 1, 1802 ; Correspondance, vii. 503. 
 
176 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 same massacres, the same want of leaders up among 
 the insurgents, the same frightful waste of life on 
 both sides, and the same miserable failure, concealed 
 less successfully by the same effort to throw blame on 
 subordinates. Unfortunately for Napoleon, he could 
 not abandon Spain as he abandoned his colonies ; he 
 could only shut his eyes to his own errors, and hurry 
 to repeat the same mistakes in Germany and Russia, 
 until he had roused to desperation the masses of all 
 Northern Europe as he had roused the negroes of St. 
 Domingo and the peasantry of Spain. 
 
 Even the death of Leclerc did not necessarily cost 
 France her colony. The sickly season was then 
 passed ; a new army of sixteen thousand men was 
 on its way to St. Domingo, which raised the force 
 above twenty thousand men, and a competent gen- 
 eral, well supported, might have made short work of 
 resistance. Nothing less than extermination would 
 have suppressed the revolt ; but Leclerc and his offi- 
 cers expected and intended to exterminate, until the 
 entire male population of certain districts, capable of 
 bearing arms, should be killed. Leclerc was on the 
 point of beginning operations on this plan when he 
 died. He meant to isolate one district after another, 
 and apply, in succession to each, a process resembling 
 extermination. 
 
 Had Bonaparte followed Leclerc's repeated advice, 
 by sending officers competent to relieve his cares or 
 to succeed him, and had the French government ad- 
 hered obstinately to its colonial policy, giving to the 
 
NAPOLEON I. AT ST. DOMINGO. 177 
 
 captain-general the support he wanted, the negroes 
 must have succumbed. None of the French generals 
 doubted that, with time and means, the military re- 
 sult could be attained. Instead of following Leclerc's 
 wishes, Bonaparte neglected the colony, except by fits 
 and starts ; he sent out no competent officer to aid 
 or succeed Leclerc, but busied himself with European 
 quarrels, and showed that the colonial scheme was 
 little to his taste. As Leclerc had foreseen, the com- 
 mand fell at his death on General Rochambeau, an 
 incompetent officer, who began his administration, 
 December 7, by writing a demand for thirty-live thou- 
 sand men, and then introduced a period of senseless 
 and debauched cruelty and violence without a parallel 
 even in the history of the Empire. He was in the 
 midst of a frantic career, when the First Consul sud- 
 denly began a new war with England, which served 
 the double purpose of hiding from France the loss of 
 St. Domingo and Louisiana, and of restoring to Bona- 
 parte his freedom of action on the only field where he 
 could display his true instincts without restraint. 
 
 12 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 
 
 1797-1 821. 1 
 
 During the eighteenth century the mechanism of 
 trade was elaborated in Great Britain to a high point 
 of perfection. London became in a great degree the 
 centre of commerce for the world, while the Bank of 
 England was the business centre of London. The 
 Bank had a double sphere of usefulness. As a pri- 
 vate corporation it exercised, not less by the high 
 character of its directors than by the amount of its 
 capital and the privileges of its charter, great influ- 
 ence over all foreign and domestic trade. By com- 
 mon agreement, its notes circulated within London 
 to the exclusion of other bank-paper. Its discounts 
 represented a great proportion of the active capital of 
 England. Its operations were not restricted within 
 the limits of ordinary banking ; it was also a recog- 
 nized official agent. As a national establishment, it 
 issued the coin, managed the debt, took charge of 
 government deposits, and made advances to the Ex- 
 chequer and the Treasury, on security of Exchequer 
 
 1 From the North American Review for October, 1867. 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION". 179 
 
 bills. In the same capacity it was expected to main- 
 tain a supply of gold, not merely for circulation, but 
 in anticipation of any sudden drain which might cause 
 a run upon the other banking institutions of the coun- 
 try. It was obliged, therefore, to purchase at a fixed 
 rate all the gold brought to its counters. Thus as a 
 bank of discount it held the exclusive privilege of dis- 
 counting government paper ; as a bank of deposit it 
 held the public balances ; as a bank of issue, its circu- 
 lation alone passed through the hands of the govern- 
 ment as well as of the public. Its notes, when not 
 issued in loans on Exchequer bills to the government, 
 or in payment for the precious metals, could pass into 
 circulation only through discounts furnished to mer- 
 chants. At no time has the Bank had other than 
 these three means of issuing its paper ; and as no 
 notes could be paid for bullion which did not rep- 
 resent their equivalent in bullion brought in, the 
 only modes of issuing an excess of paper were 
 either by loans to the government on security of Ex- 
 chequer bills, or in regular and legitimate commercial 
 discounts. 
 
 All foreign and most provincial pa} T ments were ulti- 
 mately settled by drafts on London ; but the country 
 merchants and others, who had occasion to extend 
 their connections beyond the limits of a district, found 
 it convenient to deal through the local bankers of 
 their neighborhood rather than to draw upon corre- 
 spondents of their own. In 1797 about three hun- 
 dred and fifty such country banks existed in England 
 
180 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 and Wales, most of which were banks of issue ; and 
 as they were always obliged to redeem their notes 
 either in gold, in Bank of. England notes, or in 
 bills of exchange drawn on London, their circulation 
 was subject to the variations of the London money- 
 market. 
 
 Besides this practical check, another control was 
 exercised by the Bank of England over the credit 
 operations of the country. Every private banker 
 naturally felt that his credit depended upon the sol- 
 vency of his customers ; and he was obliged, by the 
 nature of his business, to acquire accurate knowledge 
 of the people who dealt with him. In the same way 
 the London banker, his correspondent, looked care- 
 fully to the country client's credit, and to the charac- 
 ter of the bills in which he dealt ; while the London 
 banker was subjected to the scrutiny of the business 
 community of London, whose opinions, centring upon 
 one point, guided the policy and the particular dis- 
 counts and accommodations of the Bank of England. 
 Thus again the Bank was at once the head and heart 
 of English credit ; it exercised a controlling influence 
 even upon the remote provincial trader. 
 
 So far as concerned the currency, the Bank could 
 by contracting its issues affect in a short time the 
 whole circulation of England ; and naturally, when 
 such a contraction had taken place, a renewed expan- 
 sion on its part would be likely to result in a similar 
 movement on the part of private bankers. The anti- 
 quated and mischievous legislation of Parliament still 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 181 
 
 maintained, and in spite of practical lessons long 
 continued to maintain, a legal maximum of interest 
 at five per cent, even when the government itself was 
 borrowing at six. At present the Bank regulates its 
 discounts by raising or lowering its rate according to 
 the value of money in the open market ; but while 
 the usury laws were in force, the Bank continued to 
 lend its credit at five per cent, whether the market 
 value was at two or at twenty ; and it possessed no 
 means of restricting its discounts and contracting its 
 circulation other than that of refusing a certain pro- 
 portion of each applicant's paper, without regard to 
 his solvency or credit. Such a measure was seldom 
 resorted to, since it was calculated to aggravate the 
 evils of a financial pressure by sacrificing the public 
 in order to save the Bank. In practice, the Bank 
 avoided the exercise of any other control over its dis- 
 counts and circulation than was implied by a proper 
 regard for the soundness of the bills it discounted. 
 The directors might exercise more or less caution in 
 their loans, according as individual credit varied ; but 
 they never during the restriction attempted to act 
 upon exchange or general credit, either by contracting 
 or by expanding their issues. 
 
 The average amount of Bank of England notes in 
 circulation during ten years before the restriction, was 
 £10,800,000. The best authorities estimate that the 
 coin in circulation may have then amounted to about 
 .£20,000,000, or somewhat more. A large quantity of 
 country bank-paper was also circulated ; while certain 
 
182 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 wealthy districts, as Lancashire for example, used no 
 other currency than bills of exchange, which were 
 passed from hand to hand, and in ever}; case in- 
 dorsed by the holder. No reasonable confidence 
 can be placed in any estimate which assumes to es- 
 tablish a fixed sum representing the value of Eng- 
 lish currency previous to the restriction. Perhaps 
 £40,000,000 would be a moderate value to assign for 
 it ; and from this calculation Scotland and Ireland 
 are excluded, since their currency systems were in- 
 dependent of England, and exercised no more influ- 
 ence upon hers than those of Holland or Hamburg. 
 
 The great war, which continued, with only a few 
 months' intermission, for upward of twenty years, be- 
 gan in February, 1793. It was preceded and accom- 
 panied by a commercial crisis throughout Europe, 
 which caused in England a great number of bankrupt- 
 cies and a fall in prices, the country banks suffering 
 especially ; but the Bank of England succeeded in 
 maintaining its credit unimpaired under the shock, 
 and in spite of every difficulty continued its specie 
 payments and its ordinary discounts, to the relief 
 of the mercantile community. Two years of the war 
 passed without altering this position of affairs. Not 
 until 1795 did a drain of bullion to the Continent 
 begin, which obliged the Bank directors to contract 
 their issues by rejecting a certain proportion of the 
 applications made upon them for discounts, without 
 regard to the credit of the applicants. During the 
 next two years the Bank circulation was steadily 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 183 
 
 diminished, as the supply of gold became smaller ; 
 but the policy of contraction was hampered by the 
 necessities of Mr. Pitt, then prime minister, who in- 
 sisted upon advances, which the directors could not 
 properly furnish. The Bank records were rilled with 
 repeated remonstrances addressed to Pitt on this ac- 
 count, and in February, 1796, these were carried to 
 the extent of an absolute refusal to discharge the 
 bills drawn ; while again, in July of the same year, 
 a similar refusal was overcome only by the positive 
 assurance of Pitt that the most serious and distress- 
 ing embarrassments to the public service could not 
 be avoided unless advances to the extent of £800,000 
 were made. The Bank yielded, but only under pro- 
 test, declaring that nothing but the extreme pressure 
 and exigency of the case could justify the directors in 
 acceding. 
 
 Whether this source of difficulty was due to bad 
 management on the part of Pitt, or whether he had 
 no choice but to lean upon the Bank, is of little 
 consecpience. The directors carried out their policy 
 of contraction. While the drain of gold continued, 
 and their treasure fell from £6,000,000 in 1795 to 
 £2,000,000 in August, 1796, the circulation was sim- 
 ultaneously reduced from £14,000,000 to £9,000,000. 
 Violent as this contraction was, it failed to counteract 
 the causes of the drain. Foreign subsidies, the pay- 
 ment for large quantities of imported grain, and of 
 articles the price of which had been enormously in- 
 creased by the war demand, prevented the exchanges 
 
184 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 from rising*. For three years, from 1794 to 1796, 
 these extraordinary payments were estimated at 
 X40,000,000, — a calculation certainly not extrava- 
 gant, if compared with the length of time and the 
 amount of pressure required to restore the exchanges. 
 
 The Bank could hardly do more to preserve the 
 country from the evils of an inconvertible currency. 
 The directors might have refused to advance another 
 shilling in loans, and in order to save themselves 
 might have forced a national bankruptcy, as well as 
 general private ruin ; but they could scarcely have 
 reduced their issues more resolutely than they did, or 
 resisted more obstinately the entreaties of the mer- 
 chants. These last were sacrificed ; and their fate 
 was especially hard, since the crisis was caused by 
 no act of theirs, but by a combination of political and 
 natural agencies, by bad harvests and foreign wars, 
 over which they could have exercised no control, and 
 on the occurrence or the cessation of which they could 
 not have calculated. 
 
 The measures thus taken by the Bank were success- 
 ful. Early in 1797 the tide had already turned ; the 
 foreign exchanges began to improve ; and had the 
 Bank been able to stand another month or two of 
 pressure, gold would probably have flowed into its cof- 
 fers. Precisely at the time of extreme exhaustion, 
 after the foreign drain had been checked, but when 
 the Bank was too weak for further resistance, a sud- 
 den panic seized the people of England. An un- 
 grounded alarm of French invasion caused a run 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 185 
 
 upon the banks of Newcastle, and obliged them to 
 suspend payment. From Newcastle the panic spread 
 in all directions. Every country banker rushed to the 
 Bank of England for assistance or for gold. The Bank 
 responded by forcing its issues down to £ 8,640,000, 
 while its treasure fell to £ 1,200,000, and the panic 
 naturally grew more and more violent. Hopeless of 
 averting their fate, the directors at last sent word to 
 Pitt that suspension was inevitable ; and on the morn- 
 ing of Monday, the 27th of February, an Order in 
 Council, issued the preceding day, was posted on the 
 doors of the Bank, forbidding further payments in 
 cash. 
 
 The policy of the Bank throughout the crisis has 
 been since that day generally criticised ; and the di- 
 rectors themselves afterward expressed the opinion 
 that the contraction had been pressed too far, until it 
 contributed to bring about the difficulty it was in- 
 tended to preclude. A bolder course might have been 
 adopted ; the discounts might have been liberally in- 
 creased, and the gold paid out to the last guinea. In 
 support of this policy is instanced the celebrated crisis 
 of 1825, when the Bank, in face of a drain which 
 reduced its stock of gold to £1,027,000, increased its 
 issues from £17,000,000 to £25,000,000, and suc- 
 ceeded in restoring confidence and maintaining its 
 payments. However this may be, Pitt should not 
 have sanctioned suspension before exhausting every 
 alternative. At the worst, the Bank could only have 
 refused to redeem its notes. While a chance of escap- 
 
186 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ing this final disaster remained, neither Pitt nor the 
 Bank directors were justified in neglecting it. The 
 mere political consequences of suspension, in that 
 disastrous year, were a triumph to the enemy as im- 
 portant as the mutiny at the Nore or the Treaty of 
 Leoben. 
 
 Pitt felt only the necessity of maintaining the 
 credit of the Bank, and thought that this might be 
 done by giving to the suspension an official appear- 
 ance, throwing upon it the character of a compulsory 
 act of government. He represented the Bank as a 
 passive, or even unwilling, instrument in the hands 
 of the Privy Council. The expedient was unlikely to 
 deceive any person, however dull of comprehension, 
 but its result was fortunate ; for while Pitt declared 
 that the affairs of the Bank were in the most affluent 
 and flourishing condition, and that the restriction 
 was only a precautionary government measure, which 
 in a few weeks would be removed, he established a 
 legal fiction of some value. Parliament never recog- 
 nized any incapacity on the part of the Bank to meet 
 its obligations, but only a temporary restriction, cre- 
 ated by Parliament itself, and limited by law to a cer- 
 tain period. A distinction favorable to national pride 
 and private credit was involved in this idea that no 
 actual bankruptcy existed, but that the government 
 had seen fit, for the public convenience, to relieve 
 the Bank for a time from a duty which it was still 
 ready and able to perform. 
 
 Pitt was glad to use this or any other device in 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 187 
 
 order to quiet the general alarm. The idea of incon- 
 vertible currency was, in 1797, associated with the 
 Continental paper of the American Congress, and 
 with the assignats of the French Directory. Men 
 like Fox and Lord Lansdowne supposed that the 
 mere fact of inconvertibility must soon destroy that 
 confidence in paper which enabled it to represent 
 values. A few months were believed sufficient to 
 bring about this decay of credit. To provide against 
 such a disaster, extraordinary efforts were required. 
 On the day of suspension, a great meeting was held 
 at the Mansion House, the Lord Mayor presiding ; 
 and more than three thousand business men pledged 
 themselves, by resolution, to receive and to make 
 their payments in bank-notes, as equivalent to coin. 
 A nearly similar paper was signed and published by 
 the Lords of the Council. In modern times such a 
 pledge would, in similar circumstances, be considered 
 superfluous ; but in that day it had a value, and 
 tended to restore public confidence. Had the foreign 
 drain still continued, bank paper would no doubt have 
 fallen to a discount, in spite of all the resolutions 
 that could be passed ; but this cause of difficulty had 
 ceased to act. The only effect of suspension was to 
 lower the exchanges for a few days, after which they 
 again rallied, and before the close of the year they 
 rose to the highest point ever known. The Bank 
 increased its issues, and commerce returned to its 
 regular routine. 
 
 The suspension having taken place, Parliament was 
 
188 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 obliged to intervene, not merely to legalize the act, 
 but to establish the new condition of the Bank. A 
 secret committee was appointed, which made elab- 
 orate investigations, and concluded by reporting a 
 bill indemnifying the governor and directors for all 
 acts done in pursuance of the Order in Council, 
 superseding all actions which might have been 
 brought against them for refusing payments, pro- 
 hibiting them from issuing cash except in sums 
 under twenty shillings, sheltering them from prose- 
 cutions for withholding payment of notes for which 
 they were willing to offer other notes in exchange, 
 restricting them from advancing to the Treasury any 
 sum exceeding £600,000, obliging the collectors of 
 revenue to receive bank-notes in payment, protecting 
 the subject from arrest for debt unless the affidavit 
 to hold him to bail contained a statement that the 
 amount of debt claimed had not been tendered in 
 money or bank-notes, and limiting the duration of 
 the restriction to the 24th of June following. 
 
 The policy of Pitt may not have been bold or neces- 
 sarily correct, but it was at least free from the mis- 
 takes which ruined or dishonored almost every other 
 country where an inconvertible currency existed. He 
 began by treating the suspension as a temporary diffi- 
 culty, and limiting its duration. In this respect, his 
 successors followed his example ; and never, during 
 the next twenty-three years, did Parliament allow the 
 country to consider the restriction as other than a 
 temporary measure, for the termination of which a 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 189 
 
 provision was made by law. Pitt further pledged the 
 government not to make an improper use of the Bank 
 resources, or to tamper with the currency by obtain- 
 ing excessive advances ; and this pledge he observed. 
 Finally, he refused to make the bank-note a legal 
 tender except between the government and the public, 
 still allowing the creditor to insist upon payment in 
 coin if he chose to do so, and leaving open to him 
 his ordinary process in law, except only the power of 
 arrest in the first instance. England probably owed 
 much to Pitt for his forbearance in regard to the cur- 
 rency. His necessities were great, and his power was 
 unlimited. He might have used paper money as was 
 done by contemporary financiers ; but the example 
 he set became a law for his successors, so that what- 
 ever mistakes he or his imitators made, they did 
 not tamper with the currency. 
 
 The Restriction Act passed without opposition, and 
 in June was continued till one month after the com- 
 mencement of the next session. In the mean time 
 gold began again to flow into the Bank, which held 
 in August treasure to the amount of £4,000,000, 
 against a circulation of £11,000,000. When Parlia- 
 ment again met in the autumn, the Bank directors 
 announced themselves ready to resume payments, " if 
 the political circumstances of the country do not 
 render it inexpedient." 
 
 Had Pitt been able to foresee the course of events 
 during the next ten years, he would surely have acted 
 upon this opportunity. The dangers and tempta- 
 
190 HISTORICAL ESSAYS.. 
 
 tions of irredeemable paper were too obvious for any 
 statesman to incur them unless under necessity. Pitt 
 probably foresaw something very different from what 
 actually occurred. He had reason to expect a series 
 of monetary convulsions and commercial misfortunes, 
 such as had harassed him since 1792. On the other 
 hand, he saw that none of the prophesied evils fol- 
 lowed restriction. Bank-paper did not depend for 
 its credit merely on its convertibility. Month after 
 month passed, not only without bringing depreciation, 
 but even rapidly increasing the stream of precious 
 metals which flowed toward England, so that people 
 were little inclined to dwell upon the dangers or 
 temptations of restriction, and probably overestimated 
 its value as a safeguard against panic. They were 
 already demoralized. Pitt was not ashamed to fall 
 back upon the hint given by the Bank directors, and 
 to declare " that the avowal by the enemy of his in- 
 tention to ruin our public credit was the motive for 
 an additional term of restriction," — thus, as Tierney 
 rejoined, in order to leave the enemy no credit to at- 
 tack, destroying it himself ; for France was prevented 
 by the restriction from no action upon public credit, 
 except that of causing another restriction. 
 
 The bill by which the measure was continued till 
 one month after the conclusion of peace passed with 
 little opposition, Fox and his friends having ceased 
 to take part in the debates. Had the Bank been 
 obliged to resume its cash payments, it would have 
 had no great difficulty in maintaining them till 1808 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 191 
 
 or 1809 when it must, from political causes have 
 again broken down ; but the occasion was lost, and 
 from that time the restriction took its place among 
 the permanent war-measures of the government. 
 
 Previous to the suspension, no bank-note of less 
 than five pounds in value was allowed to circulate. 
 Under the new state of affairs this prohibition was 
 removed, and notes of one and two pounds began to 
 drive gold from ordinary use. With this exception, 
 the public was unaffected by the change in the cur- 
 rency. Throughout the year 1798 the Bank con- 
 tinued to receive treasure and the foreign exchanges 
 continued favorable, until at the end of February, 
 1T99, more than £7,500,000 had accumulated in the 
 Bank vaults, cagainst a note circulation of less than 
 X 13, 000,000. Apparently nothing could be more 
 solid than such a position. No expansion of conse- 
 quence occurred in the Bank circulation ; yet by the 
 close of 1799 the exchanges turned against England, 
 and the gold began to disappear almost as rapidly 
 as it had accumulated. The explanation of this sud- 
 den revolution was simple. A deficient harvest had 
 caused large importations of corn ; a severe commer- 
 cial crisis at Hamburg produced a pressure for the 
 immediate transmission of funds from England ; and 
 the war on the Continent created a perpetual demand 
 for gold to supply the armies. Had the Bank been 
 obliged to redeem its notes, it might probably have 
 contracted its issues. Instead of doing so, it extended 
 them in proportion to the increased demand for dis- 
 
192 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 counts thrown upon it by the rise in the market-rate 
 of interest, and the circulation rose till in the first 
 quarter of 1801 it averaged nearly £16,500,000. The 
 price of gold also rose, until it stood at a premium 
 of ten per cent. 
 
 These events naturally caused uneasiness ; they 
 gave rise, indeed, to the first currency controversy. 
 Mr. Boyd, a member of Parliament, published a pam- 
 phlet with the object of proving that the depreciation 
 was due to the excess of bank-notes. He was an- 
 swered by Sir Francis Baring and Mr. Henry Thorn- 
 ton, whose work remains to this day a standard 
 authority. The question then raised was practically 
 identical with that which ten years afterward excited 
 elaborate and earnest discussion. Events soon de- 
 cided in favor of Boyd's opponents. The Bank con- 
 tinued its policy undisturbed ; the pressure ceased ; 
 during 1801 and 1802 the foreign exchanges again 
 rose, and gold fell almost to par. The temporary 
 depreciation of 1801 was preceded by the fall of ex- 
 change and was caused by it ; and when the acci- 
 dental foreign demand for gold had been satisfied, 
 the currency "returned to its natural value, without 
 effort on the part of the Bank, or artificial pressure 
 on credit or on circulation. 
 
 The Treaty of Amiens was signed in March, 1802 ; 
 and the interval of peace allowed Great Britain a 
 momentary relief of inestimable value. The Restric- 
 tion Act was again continued for another term, and 
 the Bank circulation rose to nearly £17,400,000, 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 193 
 
 without producing any sensible effect on exchange or 
 on the price of gold. War was resumed in May, 
 1803, but without affecting the currency, which dur- 
 ing the next five years remained stationary in its 
 amount, or varied slightly between £16,000,000 and 
 £ 17,000,000. The Bank, anxious to maintain its re- 
 serve of bullion, offered a standing premium of about 
 three per cent for gold, which caused a common be- 
 lief that bank-notes were depreciated to that extent. 
 This was not the case. Under such circumstances 
 the exchanges became the only true standard, and in 
 those days the quotations of exchange included any 
 existing depreciation of paper ; the nominal, not the 
 real, exchange was always given, so that in the want 
 of fair quotations of gold, its fluctuations in value 
 were recorded only by the recorded fluctuations in 
 exchange. These were slight, and rather in favor of 
 England than against her, so that the Bank had 
 accumulated in 1805 the unusual sum of .£7,600,000, 
 — a result showing that the bank-notes with which 
 this treasure was bought could not have been depre- 
 ciated to the full extent of the three-per-cent bonus 
 offered as an inducement to the seller. During the 
 whole of this period from 1803 to 1808, Bank paper 
 was in fact at par, or not enough below it to make 
 the exportation of gold profitable in a time of specie 
 payments. At intervals no doubt the Bank lost gold, 
 but if the average of each year be taken, the ex- 
 changes were uniformly favorable. 
 
 No comparison can be just between such a state of 
 
 13 
 
194 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 things and the ordinary forced issues of government 
 paper, known in most countries suffering under pro- 
 longed difficulties. A distinct difference exists be- 
 tween the two cases, which removes the English 
 currency from the same class with ordinary instances 
 of depreciation. Usually the issue of paper has been 
 assumed by governments, and such issues have been 
 made directly in payment of expenses, without pro- 
 viding on the same scale for a return of the paper put 
 out, or consulting the wants of the people. Bank of 
 England paper was in no sense a government issue. 
 It was not even government paper, but merely that 
 of a private banking corporation, conducted on strict 
 banking principles, whose notes, so far as they were 
 in excess of public wants, were inevitably returned at 
 once to the Bank counters. The government was not 
 to blame if paper was issued in excess ; in such a case 
 the Bank directors must have failed to observe proper 
 rules in their extensions of credit either to the gov- 
 ernment or to individuals. 
 
 It is necessary, therefore, to turn aside for a mo- 
 ment in order to examine the Bank rules of that day 
 in their ordinary action upon circulation, since there 
 the secret will be found, not only of the steadiness 
 which marked the currency during the first ten years 
 of war, but of its extraordinary fluctuations after- 
 ward, — fluctuations quite inexplicable on the suppo- 
 sition of a forced issue. The usury laws fixed the 
 highest legal rate of interest at five per cent. The 
 Bank rule during the whole period of restriction 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 195 
 
 was to discount at that rate all good mercantile bills 
 offered, having not more than sixty-one days to run ; 
 and in making these advances the only duty which 
 the directors considered themselves obliged to ob- 
 serve was that of throwing out, so far as possible, 
 all bills which were believed to represent speculative 
 transactions. In other respects the Bank was pas- 
 sive, neither contracting nor expanding its issues, but 
 allowing the public demand to contract or expand 
 the currency, in the conviction that the public would 
 not retain more notes than were actually required. 
 Naturally the demand for discount at the Bank varied 
 according to the market-rate of interest outside ; and 
 when private bankers lent money at three per cent, 
 comparatively few persons cared to pay five to the 
 Bank of England. During the early part of the war 
 the Bank-rate was in fact almost always higher than 
 that in the open market, and consequently the Bank 
 issues were moderate. By a regularly self-balancing 
 principle, the advances made to government in an 
 ordinary state of affairs diminished the private de- 
 mand, since the government at once paid away to the 
 public the notes it received from the Bank, — and this 
 money coming back to the private bankers, enabled 
 them to extend their discounts and to accommodate 
 those merchants who would otherwise have been 
 obliged to apply to the Bank. The theoretical ques- 
 tion what would have been the result had govern- 
 ment obliged the Bank to make excessive advances 
 on its account, requires no reply. In point of fact 
 
196 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the case did not occur, and government contented 
 itself with moderate accommodation ; while, as a rule, 
 private demands were greatest when the advances to 
 government Ave re at the lowest point. 
 
 Thus the Bank was a mere channel of credit. It 
 did not, and under these rules it could not, exercise 
 direct control over its issues, and it conducted its busi- 
 ness upon much the same principles as would have reg- 
 ulated any sound private banker, whether he issued 
 notes or not. The Bank thought itself in no way 
 bound to regard the exchanges or the price of gold, 
 or to interfere with the course of business. Its sole 
 duty was to lend capital ; the public and each indi- 
 vidual merchant must see that his affairs were in a 
 proper condition, that speculation was avoided, that 
 the exchanges were watched, or take the consequences 
 of neglecting such precautions. 
 
 So long as each individual did observe a proper 
 degree of precaution, or until political difficulties or 
 some other accidental cause deranged the ordinary 
 state of credit, these rules of the Bank answered the 
 purpose for which they were made ; but while the 
 usury laws remained in force, any rise in the market- 
 rate of interest was certain to precipitate the whole 
 body of merchants upon the Bank of England ; and 
 any crisis which obliged private bankers to seek 
 instead of furnishing credit, was sure to bring the 
 whole nation to the counters of the Bank. In either 
 of these cases the Bank was liable to be driven into 
 an excessive issue of its paper and extension of its 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 197 
 
 credit ; but such an expansion did not necessarily 
 lead to a permanent increase of the circulation. On 
 the contrary, whenever the crisis was over, and the 
 rate of interest again had fallen below the Bank 
 standard, the demand for discount would naturally 
 decline, and the circulation would return to its normal 
 state. 
 
 For two or three years after the war had been re- 
 sumed, everything continued in a sound and regular 
 course. Great Britain might have carried on hostili- 
 ties indefinitely, had she been subjected to no greater 
 pressure. The currency retained its value and trade 
 its regularity, but taxation was greatly augmented 
 and the cost of production increased. Prices steadily 
 rose, until they attained in 1805 almost as high a 
 range as ever afterward. With the exception of 
 grain, an#article peculiarly liable to be affected by 
 accidental causes, almost the whole rise in prices — 
 afterward attributed to depreciation of currency — 
 took place during the first twelve or fifteen years of 
 the war, when no depreciation existed. Much of it 
 occurred at a time when paper was highest in credit, 
 and the same thing would probably have happened if 
 the Bank had continued its specie payments. 
 
 This comparatively happy and prosperous state of 
 affairs was not destined to continue. While the Eng- 
 lish waged a cheap and effective war on the ocean 
 and in the colonies ; while Nelson crushed the com- 
 bined navies of France and Spain at Trafalgar, and 
 Wellington subdued the Mahrattas in India, Napo- 
 
198 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Icon reached Vienna, and turning from Austerlitz to 
 Berlin, swept the whole of Germany into the hands 
 of France. From Berlin he turned to Russia, and at 
 Friedland stopped for want of other countries to 
 conquer. 
 
 Such successes promised little good to England. 
 Napoleon hastened to turn his new power against her. 
 From Berlin, in November, 1806, he issued the fa- 
 mous decree declaring the British Islands in a state 
 of blockade, confiscating English property wherever 
 found, and prohibiting all intercourse with the British 
 nation. Russia joined the coalition in the following 
 year, and Sweden in 1809. Thus the Continent was 
 closed to English commerce. 
 
 Napoleon's Continental system was a prodigious 
 shock to Great Britain. There seemed no end to the 
 losses and complications which it caused.* Yet one 
 country remained beyond its reach, whose commerce 
 was of inestimable importance. The United States 
 of America continued to be an open market, and the 
 Berlin Decree almost forced the United States into 
 the arms of England. Yet the British government 
 actually assisted Napoleon to extend his Continental 
 system even to America. The Berlin Decree, and 
 that of Milan which followed it, declared the Brit- 
 ish Islands to be in a state of blockade, and ordered 
 that no ship should enter any port under the con- 
 trol of France if she came from England, or had 
 touched at England, or if any part of her cargo was 
 English. The British government retaliated in Jan- 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 199 
 
 uary, 1807, by issuing an Order in Council interdict- 
 ing the passage of vessels between any two ports not 
 open to British commerce; and in November it de- 
 clared all ports closed to the British flag to be in a 
 state of blockade, and all vessels trading to or from 
 such ports, or carrying any produce of such coun- 
 tries, to be, with their cargoes, lawful prize. The 
 American government responded to these outrages 
 by interdicting commerce with both England and 
 France. 
 
 No ordinary review can undertake so difficult and 
 complicated a labor as that of examining the various 
 effects of these measures on English credit and cur- 
 rency. That British trade with the Continent was 
 annihilated, that the course of exchange was for a 
 time impossible to determine, and indebtedness be- 
 yond reach or recovery was but the most obvious 
 and immediate result, No sooner were the decrees 
 enforced, than all articles for a supply of which 
 England depended on the Continent rose to specu- 
 lative prices. Flax, linseed, tallow, timber, Spanish 
 wool, silk, hemp, even American cotton, advanced in 
 1807 and 1808 to prices two or three times those 
 till then prevailing. While one class of imports was 
 thus thrown into the hands of speculative holders, 
 another class, consisting of colonial produce, under- 
 went an opposite process. The European market 
 was closed to it. Sugar and coffee sold at Calais 
 for three, four, and five times their price at Dover. 
 Meanwhile the almost omnipotent naval force of 
 
200 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Great Britain contributed under the Orders in Coun- 
 cil to aggravate the evil, and to pile up still vaster 
 quantities of unsalable goods in British warehouses, 
 by compelling every neutral ship to make for an 
 English port. 
 
 A wild spirit of speculation then took possession of 
 the British people. Brazil and the South American 
 colonies of Spain happened to offer a new market, 
 and merchants flung themselves into it as though it 
 had no limit. The beach at Rio Janeiro was for 
 a time covered with English merchandise, with no 
 warehouses to hold and no chance of selling it. In 
 London, a rage for visionary joint-stock enterprises 
 characterized the years 1807 and 1808. None of the 
 symptoms were wanting which long experience has 
 shown to be precursors of commercial disaster. 
 
 The Bank of England still preserved its steady and 
 conservative routine. The issues were not increased, 
 the price of gold did not vary, the exchanges had not 
 fallen below par, as late as September, 1808. So far 
 as concerned the Bank, no unusual speculation ex- 
 isted. It neither lent itself nor was asked to lend 
 itself to speculative objects. Speculators did not act 
 through the Bank ; but if one turns to the private 
 and country bankers, and out of the almost impene- 
 trable obscurity in which this part of the subject 
 is hidden attempts to gather evidence of their con- 
 dition, one will find, not indeed that their paper 
 was depreciated, — for that it could not be without 
 immediately bankrupting the issuer, — but that their 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 201 
 
 credit had been extended beyond moderate limits. 
 The number of country banks had been more than 
 doubled in ten years, but of greater consequence than 
 this was the change which had gradually crept into 
 their mode of conducting business. Originally their 
 rules of discount had been the same as those of the 
 Bank of England ; they accepted only short bills, rep- 
 resenting, so far as they could judge, real transac- 
 tions. They gradually began to make advances upon 
 bills of longer date, and then to lend money without 
 security of any kind. Paper which could not be dis- 
 counted in London was sent down to them by their 
 London agents. Their West Indian bills had from 
 twelve to thirty-six months to run. They made little 
 inquiry as to what might be accommodation paper, 
 and still less about the speculative transactions of 
 their customers. The reaction which ultimately fol- 
 lowed, at the time when the Bank circulation was 
 greatly increased and increasing, proved the extent 
 to which private credit had been abused. 
 
 To this point the subject offers comparatively few 
 difficulties. Beyond it, the whole region has been a 
 favorite battle-ground for armies of currency theo- 
 rists. Only within the last thirty years a fair com- 
 prehension of the matters in dispute has been made 
 possible through the great work of Thomas Tooke. 
 The opinions first advocated, and the facts first proved 
 by the author of the " History of Prices," have since 
 been accepted by some of the highest authorities in 
 political economy, of whom John Stuart Mill stands 
 
202 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 at the head. That they are still contested in Eng- 
 land only adds to the interest of the inquiry. 
 
 Until September, 1808, the exchanges remained 
 favorable to England, and the price of gold continued 
 firm. During the first half-year, the average Bank 
 circulation had been £ 16,950,000 ; at the end of Au- 
 gust, £17,200,000 were in issue. These sums were 
 not excessive. If the small notes — which merely 
 supplied the place of coin withdrawn — are deducted, 
 the real circulation was but £12,993,000, less than 
 had frequently been in issue before, and considerably 
 less than has always been in issue since. 1 The prices 
 
 1 Bank Circulation. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Notes of £b 
 
 Bank 
 
 Price of 
 
 and upward 
 
 Treasure. 
 
 Gold 
 
 1797, 28 February 
 
 £9,674,780 
 
 £9,674,780 
 
 £1,086,170 
 
 100 
 
 31 August 
 
 11,114,120 
 
 10,246,535 
 
 4,089,620 
 
 100 
 
 1798, "28 February 
 
 13,095,830 
 
 11,647,610 
 
 5,828,940 
 
 100 
 
 31 August 
 
 12,180,610 
 
 10,649,550 
 
 6,546,100 
 
 100 
 
 1799, 28 February 
 
 12.959,800 
 
 11,494,150 
 
 7,563,900 
 
 100 
 
 31 August 
 
 13,389,490 
 
 12,047,790 
 
 7,000,780 
 
 100 
 
 1800, 28 February 
 
 16,844,470 
 
 15,372,930 
 
 6,144.258 
 
 109 
 
 31 August * 
 
 15,047,180 
 
 13,448,540 
 
 5,150.450 
 
 109 
 
 1801, 28 February 
 
 16,213,280 
 
 13,678,520 
 
 4,640,120 
 
 107 85 
 
 31 August 
 
 14,556,110 
 
 12,143,460 
 
 4,335,260 
 
 106.5 
 
 1802, 28 February 
 
 15,186,880 
 
 12,574,860 
 
 4,152,950 
 
 106.2 
 
 31 Auo-ust 
 
 17,097,630 
 
 13,848,470 
 
 3,891,780 
 
 103 
 
 1803, 28 February 
 
 15,319, 930 
 
 12,350,970 
 
 3,776,750 
 
 103 
 
 31 August 
 
 15.983,330 
 
 12,217,390 
 
 3,592,500 
 
 103 
 
 1804, 28 February 
 
 17,077,830 
 
 12,546,560 
 
 3,372,140 
 
 103 
 
 31 August ' 
 
 17,153,890 
 
 12,466,790 
 
 5,879,190 
 
 103 
 
 1805, 28 February 
 
 17,871,170 
 
 13,011,010 
 
 5,883,800 
 
 103 
 
 31 August 
 
 16,388,400 
 
 11,862,740 
 
 7,624,500 
 
 103 
 
 1806, 28 February 
 
 17,730,12!) 
 
 13,271,520 
 
 5,987,190 
 
 103 
 
 31 August" 
 
 21,027,470 
 
 16,757,930 
 
 6,215,020 
 
 103 
 
 1807, 28 February 
 
 16,950,680 
 
 12,840,790 
 
 6,142,840 
 
 103 
 
 31 August 
 
 19,678,360 
 
 15,432,990 
 
 6,484,350 
 
 103 
 
 1808, 28 February 
 
 18,188,860 
 
 14,093,690 
 
 7,855,470 
 
 103 
 
 31 August" 
 
 17,111,290 
 
 12,993,020 
 
 6,015,940 
 
 103 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 203 
 
 of all commodities, except grain, had already reached 
 their highest point, or reached it within six months 
 afterward. At this time, when no change except 
 ordinary fluctuations had occurred in the currency for 
 seven years, the exchanges suddenly turned, and the 
 price of gold rose. 
 
 The Continental system had begun to act. The 
 mercantile ventures of the last year proved ruinous ; 
 the enormous importations at fabulous prices required 
 to be paid for ; the unfortunate military expeditions 
 which Great Britain was renewing against the Conti- 
 nent demanded the transmission of gold. England 
 was paying money in every direction, and she was 
 selling her goods nowhere. No one watched this 
 process of exhaustion more carefully, or understood 
 its consequences better, than Napoleon. 
 
 The Bank, following its invariable routine of busi- 
 ness, took no notice of the sharp fall in exchanges, or 
 of the heavy drain which rapidly reduced its treasure, 
 and instead of contracting its issues, allowed them 
 slowly to expand, according to the demand for dis- 
 count, From £13,000,000 in 1808, the circulation 
 in notes of £b and upward rose to £14,325,000 in 
 November, 1809. The exchanges indicated already 
 a difference of about fifteen per cent between paper 
 and gold. Meanwhile the government expenses re- 
 quiring transmission of coin abroad had increased 
 to above £10,000,000 for the year. The excessive 
 prices of that class of goods which could be obtained 
 only from the Continent stimulated merchants to 
 
204 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 procure them. Ships' papers were regularly forged 
 as a matter of business ; licenses for trading were 
 obtained at great expense from both governments. 
 Importations were by these means greatly increased, 
 and large quantities of grain were bought to supply 
 an unusual deficiency in the harvest. The receipts of 
 cotton were more than doubled, and the market was 
 again overwhelmed with colonial produce. Thus no 
 opportunity was allowed for a recovery of the ex- 
 changes, and the country continued to be drained 
 steadily of its gold. 
 
 Throughout the year 1810 the same process was 
 continued. Again the importations were greatly in- 
 creased, and the quantity of grain brought from 
 abroad was far in excess of what had been imported 
 in any year since 1801. Wellington was in the lines 
 of Torres Vedras, requiring continual supplies of 
 gold ; the military efforts made by England on the 
 Continent were greater than ever before, and the for- 
 eign expenditure rose beyond £12,000,000 for the 
 year. The exchanges continued to fall, although at 
 one time there was a tendency to recovery ; gold re- 
 mained at about the same premium as in 1809, while 
 the government and the public equally increased their 
 demands on the Bank, until in August the circulation 
 of large notes rose to £17,570,000. 
 
 If irredeemable government paper had been forced 
 upon the public without regard to its wants, until 
 within a space of two years the currency had swelled 
 from a total of £17,000,000 to one of £24,500,000, 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 205 
 
 the result would have been a rise in prices and an 
 increase of speculation. According to old currency 
 theories, such ought to have been the case with Eng- 
 land. In fact, the contrary result took place. During 
 the last months of 1809 and the whole of 1810 a fall 
 of prices and a destruction of private credit occurred, 
 which for severity remains perhaps to this day with- 
 out a parallel, as it was then without a precedent. 
 Half the traders in the kingdom became bankrupt, or 
 were obliged to compound. Country banks by dozens 
 were swept out of existence. Rich and poor alike 
 were plunged in distress, while the crash extended to 
 the Continent and to America. This universal col- 
 lapse of credit, by driving the whole trading-class for 
 assistance to the Bank, obliged the Bank to increase 
 its issues. Nothing but an absolute refusal of dis- 
 counts could have prevented suspension, had the 
 Bank been paying its notes in specie. According to 
 one theory, the withdrawal of so much country bank- 
 paper should have restored gold to par, since the 
 Bank issues supplied only a part of the vacancy. 
 This would no doubt have been the case if the de- 
 preciation had been the result of over-issue ; but 
 the depreciation was due to unfavorable foreign ex- 
 changes, and England had not the means of correct- 
 ing it. The foreign debt of England was enormous ; 
 its immediate payment was necessary ; gold was the 
 only exportable commodity, and gold was not to be 
 had. Alexander Baring declared in the House of 
 Commons, that, if his firm wished to obtain fifty thou- 
 
206 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 sand pounds sterling for transmission abroad, he did 
 not know how such a sum was to be procured even 
 at a premium of fifty per cent. The export of more 
 bulky goods was impossible. The British merchant 
 was sending sugar by sea to Salonica, and thence on 
 horseback through Servia and Hungary, in order to 
 reach Vienna ; one parcel of silk sent from Bergamo 
 to England, by way of Smyrna, was twelve months on 
 its passage ; another, sent by way of Archangel, was 
 two years. The British government attempted to es- 
 tablish a smuggling depot at Heligoland, in order to 
 overcome the obstructions caused by the Continental 
 system. A single licensed cargo to a French port 
 cost for freight alone twenty times the cost of the 
 vessel which carried it. Gold alone was compara- 
 tively easy to export, and naturally bullion rose in 
 value. 
 
 All this was clear evidence of a terrible convul- 
 sion in commerce and, no doubt, of a previous ex- 
 pansion in credit, followed by excessive contraction ; 
 but nothing indicated an excess of currency in the 
 sense commonly ascribed to the effect of forced is- 
 sues on prices. Undoubtedly a depreciation of ten 
 or fifteen per cent, or even more, occurred in paper 
 compared with gold, and perhaps the Bank was bound 
 to restrict its issues till that difference was removed ; 
 but so long as the usury laws remained in force, the 
 Bank could not act upon the exchanges by raising 
 its rate of interest, and its refusal of accommodation 
 would have ruined such merchants as had hitherto 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 207 
 
 succeeded in surviving the shock. Even had the 
 Bank resorted to this desperate measure, such was 
 the preponderance of foreign payments over receipts 
 from abroad that no possible pressure could have im- 
 mediately restored the balance of exchange. In ordi- 
 nary times a monetary crisis effects this result by re- 
 ducing prices, and thus making it possible to export 
 goods at a profit ; but no reduction of prices could 
 well have had such an effect in 1810, since for years 
 before that time Holland and Hamburg could not 
 obtain, even at three and four times their English 
 price, the goods Avhich overwhelmed the British mar- 
 ket. The only result of Bank contraction must have 
 been to stop importations ; but the general fall in 
 prices was alone sufficient to produce that result, as 
 was proved in 1811 ; grain was at famine rates ; the 
 people must be fed ; the foreign expenditure of the 
 government also defied laws of political economy, and 
 Wellington's army in Portugal required millions in 
 gold. If the Bank had attempted to put a still more 
 severe pressure on the exchanges, it would have found 
 itself paralyzed by the government at its first step ; 
 and in the struggle which must have followed, the 
 people would have been ground into the dust. Even 
 under the liberal system adopted, there was a time, 
 in 1811 and 1812, when the general distress shook 
 society to its foundations. Had the Bank wilfully in- 
 tensified and prolonged this distress, not improbably 
 Napoleon's Continental system might have proved the 
 greatest success of his life. 
 
208 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 The fall in foreign exchange during 1808 and 1809 
 did not attract very much public attention until Ri- 
 cardo published a pamphlet on the subject, — " The 
 High Price of Bullion a Proof of the Depreciation of 
 Bank-notes." Shortly after the meeting of Parlia- 
 ment in 1810, a committee was appointed, at the 
 instance of Francis Horner, to investigate the causes 
 of the high price of gold bullion. This was the 
 famous Bullion Committee, whose report made so 
 marked an era in currency problems that it might 
 almost be called their pons asinorum. Its doctrines, 
 rejected by Parliament in 1811 only to be triumph- 
 antly adopted in 1819, acquired through the conver- 
 sion of Sir Robert Peel an overruling ascendency, 
 and embodied in the Bank Charter Act of 1844 still 
 hold sway in England, although more liberal econo- 
 mists have long since protested against the application 
 given to them. 
 
 The bullion report was based upon three proposi- 
 tions : first, that Bank paper was depreciated as com- 
 pared with gold ; second, that this depreciation was 
 caused by over-issues ; third, that the price of gold 
 and the state of foreign exchange should regulate the 
 issues of paper. The report closed by recommending 
 that the Bank should be obliged to resume payments 
 within two years. 
 
 Had the government been in the hands of able or 
 dextrous men, Horner's resolutions, in which the 
 substance of his report was embodied, need not have 
 been so difficult to deal with as they proved. The 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 209 
 
 first proposition was indeed incontrovertible, and no 
 sensible being could have fallen into the blunder of 
 disputing it; the third was, if not indisputable, at 
 least not necessary to dispute under certain limita- 
 tions ; but the second was far from evident in the 
 sense which Horner gave to it, and Thornton, per- 
 haps the highest authority in the House, appears 
 to have understood it as not inconsistent with the 
 idea that the depreciation might be due to a deeper 
 cause; while the concluding practical measure was 
 supported by scarcely any one besides Mr. Horner, 
 its author. 
 
 The government was held by a class of men equally 
 incapable of seeing their own mistakes, and of profit- 
 ing by those of their opponents. The ministers began 
 by plunging into the grossest absurdity they could 
 have found, — they denied that Bank-notes were de- 
 preciated at all. Assuming that the sale of coin for 
 more than its nominal value in paper was forbidden 
 by law, they undertook to affirm that the Bank-note 
 and the guinea still maintained their relative worth in 
 regard to each other. They denied that bullion was 
 the true standard of value, and they affirmed that it 
 was the stamp and the stamp alone which made the 
 guinea a standard. They denied that the amount of 
 circulation affected the price of gold, or that the 
 Bank issues had anything to do with the course of 
 exchange. Yet at intervals they were obliged prac- 
 tically to admit the conclusions which they were so 
 eager to contest, until their accurate statements and 
 
 14 
 
210 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 forcible reasoning became inextricably entangled in a 
 mass of inconsistent arguments. 
 
 On the other hand, they had as opponents some of 
 the ablest men whom England has produced. Mr. 
 Vansittart, Mr. Rose, and Lord Castlereagh were help- 
 less in the grasp of Mr. Horner, Mr. Huskisson, and 
 Mr. Canning. The mistakes of the bullionists are 
 hidden by the brilliancy of their oratory, the sparkle 
 of their wit, the vigor and solidity of their genius. 
 Sympathy is attracted to their side, when they are 
 shown exercising magnificent powers to convince 
 an unreasoning majority of the simplest principles 
 in practical business. After all these efforts, they 
 thought themselves fortunate in being defeated by a 
 vote of only two to one. 
 
 Vansittart and his associates would have done well 
 to rest satisfied with this negative upon the resolu- 
 tions offered by Horner. Victorious in defence, they 
 thought it necessary to establish their advantage 
 permanently by a vigorous assertion of what they 
 deemed the true principles of credit and currency. 
 Vansittart accordingly moved, in his turn, a long 
 series of resolutions. 
 
 The third of these has been the chief means of 
 preserving Vansittart's memory. It was worded as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee 
 that the promissory notes of the Bank of England have 
 hitherto been, and are at this time, held in public estima- 
 tion to be equivalent to the legal coin of the realm, and 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 211 
 
 generally accepted as such in all pecuniary transactions 
 to which such coin is lawfully -applicable." 
 
 This position was beyond the reach of argument, 
 but not of ridicule. In the range of Parliamentary 
 oratory, few examples of sarcasm were so happy as 
 that which Canning poured upon this unfortunate 
 resolution in his speech of May 13, 1811. Although 
 the House sustained Vansittart by a vote of 7(3 to 24, 
 from that day to this the resolution has stood, an 
 object of laughter and wonder to each succeeding 
 generation. 
 
 Thus the Bullion Committee was disposed of, but 
 the subject was further than ever from a satisfactory 
 settlement. Within two months of the passage of 
 this resolution, in which Parliament gravely pledged 
 the people to believe that Bank-notes were equivalent 
 to coin, two events almost simultaneously occurred, 
 which obliged the government to take active measures 
 in order to compel the people to accept these Bank- 
 notes. The first of these difficulties was due to an 
 unexpected interpretation of the law. Two obscure 
 individuals — one a Jew pedler named De Yonge, the 
 other a guard on the Liverpool mail-coach — had been 
 taken in the act of buying guineas at a premium, — 
 an act supposed to be illegal, and, like the exportation 
 of coin, subjecting the delinquent to the penalties of 
 a misdemeanor. Government determined to make an 
 example of these persons, and they Avere accordingly 
 indicted under an obsolete statute of Edward VI. ; 
 and the facts being clearly proved, they were duly 
 
212 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 found guilty of the acts charged in the indictment. 
 Their counsel raised the point of law, that the act 
 as laid in the indictment and proved in evidence was 
 not an offence in law, inasmuch as the statute of 
 Edward VI. was intended to apply only to the ex- 
 change of one sort of coin for another. Judgment 
 was respited until the opinion of the twelve judges 
 ;n the Court of the Exchequer Chamber could be ob- 
 tained on this point ; but at length, July 4, 1811, 
 Lord Ellenborough pronounced the unanimous deci- 
 sion of the Court, that the exchange of guineas for 
 Bank-notes, such guineas being taken at a higher 
 value than they were current for under the King's 
 proclamation, was not an offence against the statute 
 upon which the indictment was founded. Thus the 
 government theory in regard to paper money was 
 at once overthrown. 
 
 Almost at the same time with this blow, the famous 
 third resolution was attacked from another side with 
 a vigor more alarming. The law of 1797 had by no 
 means made Bank paper a legal tender. The case 
 of Grigby v. Oakes, in 1801, established the principle 
 that Bank of England notes might be refused by the 
 creditor, and the debtor must in that case discharge 
 his debt in coin. In usage the Bank-note had been 
 received as equivalent to coin, except in some remote 
 districts of Ireland, where the unfortunate peasants 
 were obliged to buy guineas at a premium from the 
 landlord, in order to discharge their rents. 
 
 The government policy seemed calculated to chal- 
 
THE BANK OF % ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 213 
 
 lenge attack, and the bullionists, who saw no limit to 
 the possible depreciation, naturally resorted to the 
 last means left for compelling government to check 
 it. Lord King, a nobleman of high character and 
 strong liberal principles, issued a circular to such of 
 his tenants as held leases dated before the deprecia- 
 tion began, requiring them in future to pay their rents 
 either in gold or in Bank paper representing the mar- 
 ket value of gold. Even the dignity of the House of 
 Lords was almost overthrown by this unexpected at- 
 tack. A storm of indignation burst on the head of 
 Lord King, whose practical sarcasm was more exas- 
 perating to the Ministry than the satire of Canning ; 
 but Lord King was in his right, — he was acting from 
 conscientious motives, and he would not yield. Yet 
 after the passage of Yansittart's resolution, this act 
 tended to bring Parliament into public contempt. 
 " My Lords," said Lord Grenville, in opening his 
 speech on the subject, " it is painful to me to observe, 
 that I cannot remember in the course of my life to 
 have ever seen the ministers of this country placed in 
 so disgraceful a situation as that in which they appear 
 this night." Obviously some action had become neces- 
 sary, but ministers hesitated, in the hope that Lord 
 King's example would not be followed. The judges' 
 decision in De Yonge's case turned the scale ; but 
 even then, such was the general dislike to a law of 
 legal tender, and such was the difficulty of forcing a 
 contraction in the Bank discounts, that ministers were 
 placed in an embarrassing situation. There was ap- 
 
214 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 parently a third alternative, — that of allowing Lord 
 King to proceed; but this would have established two 
 scales of prices throughout the country, and the re- 
 sult would ultimately have been that the Bank rather 
 than endure the discredit thus attached to its paper, 
 would have preferred to withdraw it. 
 
 Ministers were saved from this dilemma by Lord 
 Stanhope, one of their ordinary opponents. He in- 
 vented one of the curiosities of legislation, — a mea- 
 sure which disposed of Lord King, and established the 
 law for such cases as that of De Yonge, but neither 
 made paper a legal tender, nor contained the trace of 
 a legal principle. The Act, which has since been com- 
 monly known as Lord Stanhope's, made the purchase 
 or sale of coin for more than its legal value in Bank- 
 notes or other lawful money a misdemeanor, as also 
 the reception or payment of notes for less than their 
 nominal value ; and it further deprived the creditor 
 of the power of distraining, in case a tender in Bank- 
 notes to the amount of the debt had been made. 
 
 Strange to say, this preposterous statute answered 
 its purpose. The courts seem never to have been 
 asked to interpret it, nor did any creditor attempt 
 to enforce his rights. The law officers of the Crown 
 did not venture to express an opinion upon the bill 
 while on its passage through Parliament. During 
 the ten years that the Restriction Act still remained 
 in force, with Lord Stanhope's measure as its supple- 
 ment, no man in England knew what the law was, or 
 the extent to which Bank-notes were recognized as 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 215 
 
 the lawful equivalent of coin. In the failure of any 
 judicial declaration on the subject, one can only refer 
 to an opinion expressed in debate by Sir Samuel 
 Romilly. That eminent lawyer pointed out to Parlia- 
 ment, that, if the object of government were to pre- 
 vent Lord King or any other landlord or creditor 
 from insisting upon payment in coin, the bill was far 
 from answering its purpose. Creditors would still 
 have the right to demand gold, and no court could 
 refuse in such a case to give judgment against the 
 debtor, who was yet apparently debarred by the Act 
 from obtaining gold without incurring the penalties 
 of a misdemeanor. The creditor having obtained his 
 judgment, need not, and probably would not, proceed 
 by way of distraint upon the goods of his debtor. If 
 a landlord, he would resort to an ejectment. In any 
 case, however, he might proceed against the person, 
 and shut up the debtor in jail indefinitely, or until 
 he made himself liable to further imprisonment by 
 purchasing coin. One means of escape alone seemed 
 open to him. The law prohibited the trade in coin, 
 not that in bullion. If the debtor chose to purchase 
 bullion, and have it coined at the mint, he might so 
 evade the law. 
 
 Ministers gave it to be understood that if creditors 
 pressed their rights to this point, Parliament would 
 intervene by making Bank-notes a legal tender. It 
 is difficult to see what was gained by a resort to these 
 subterfuges, or why a legal-tender act should not have 
 been passed outright, since Lord Stanhope's bill was 
 
216 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 intended to have, and did in fact produce, the same 
 effect, except that it went beyond the limits of rea- 
 sonable legislation, and accomplished its purposes 
 only by creating a new offence hitherto unknown to 
 the law. The plea that it successfully met the emer- 
 gency was an excuse for slovenly legislation. 
 
 This Act, hurried through Parliament in July, 1811, 
 just at the close of the session, was the sole result of 
 the currency controversy, unless Vansittart's resolu- 
 tions shared its credit. From that time no interfer- 
 ence by government in monetary matters was to be 
 looked for, but the Bank retained that exclusive con- 
 trol which it had hitherto possessed. This result 
 was probably fortunate for the country. The Bank 
 directors, if not great masters of statesmanship, 
 were at least convinced that arbitrary action would 
 aggravate the evils of the situation, while if the for- 
 eign and domestic policy of the government in other 
 respects gave an idea of the probable result of its 
 interference in Bank affairs, it might have brought 
 inextricable confusion upon the credit and resources 
 of the community. 
 
 The financial crash of 1809 and 1810 threw the 
 country into profound distress and depression, but 
 it prepared the way for a rapid change at the first 
 sign of military success. The year 1811 marked 
 perhaps the lowest point of England's fortunes ; but 
 in the autumn of that year the prospect became 
 brighter. Napoleon had broken with Russia, and was 
 preparing his great campaign to Moscow, while Well- 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 217 
 
 ington achieved unusual success in Portugal. There 
 was hope that both the Russian and the Spanish 
 ports would soon be reopened, while the colonies and 
 South America were again consuming large quanti- 
 ties of British goods. Importations into England had 
 meanwhile fallen to a low point, and the exchanges 
 were slowly creeping upward. The pressure upon 
 the Bank for assistance and for discounts fell off 
 as credit recovered, until the circulation, which had 
 reached £17,570,000 in August, 1810, contracted it- 
 self to £15,365,000 in August, 1812, the small notes 
 excluded. 
 
 What was only hope in 1811 became certainty in 
 1812. Napoleon was driven both from Russia and 
 from Spain. In another year all Europe was again 
 open to British commerce, and in April, 1814, 
 peace was restored. During this period, many of 
 the dangerous symptoms of 1807 and 1808 again 
 made their appearance. The circulation had become 
 much smaller, but nevertheless prices rose ; specula- 
 tion was as general, if not so desperate, as in 1808 ; 
 the Continent was flooded with English goods, while 
 in England the price of wheat rose in 1812 to nearly 
 one hundred and sixty shillings the quarter ; but al- 
 though the circulation was diminished by £ 2,000,000, 
 and although the exchanges became considerably 
 more favorable, still gold showed no sign of falling 
 in value. The premium had risen to forty-two per 
 cent in September, 1812, and after various fluctua- 
 tions it was again forty-two per cent in the autumn 
 
218 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 of 1813. Then at last the fall began, and for a 
 twelvemonth gold continued to decline steadily, until 
 at the close of 1814 the premium was less than 
 twelve per cent. 
 
 The rise in value of Bank-paper was coincident 
 with another very large extension of issues, which 
 reached £18,700,000. This extension was due partly 
 to government, but partly, as in 1810, to the private 
 demand. The fabric which speculators had raised 
 for themselves on the apparently solid basis of sup- 
 posed European necessities, crumbled to pieces at 
 the first shock. Europe was too poor to buy or too 
 thoroughly plundered to pay for English merchandise. 
 The speculations abroad failed at the time when a 
 prodigious fall in the price of grain ruined the Eng- 
 lish farmers and the country bankers, who depended 
 upon agricultural prosperity. The collapse was gen- 
 eral and disastrous ; England was again plunged into 
 distress at the time when her success was most bril- 
 liant ; for two years after 1814 trade stagnated and 
 merchants became bankrupt, without reference to 
 the price of gold or the amount of circulation ; nor 
 could the Bank have prevented, or even shortened, 
 the distress by any action upon the currency. 
 
 However devoted might be the adherence of the- 
 orists to their favorite currency dogma, the most 
 ardent follower of Horner could scarcely have re- 
 gretted that the Bank followed its own course during 
 the year 1815. The evils of inconvertible paper were 
 no doubt many, but there were also advantages in 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 219 
 
 the system during times of political trouble ; and the 
 violent convulsions of 1815 would have proved too 
 severe a trial for any but the most elastic form of 
 credit. During January and February gold stood at 
 about 115, compared with paper. The Emperor re- 
 turned from Elba and arrived in Paris on the 20th 
 of March. At the next quotation of gold, April 4, 
 at one leap it rose to 137, — almost as high a point 
 as it had reached during the war. The exchanges 
 went down with almost equal violence; but the Bank 
 circulation remained absolutely stationary. 1 After the 
 first panic was over, gold began again to fall slowly, 
 and on the news of Waterloo it declined to 128. 
 On the 1st of September gold resumed the position 
 it had held in January ; but instead of resting there, 
 it continued to fall, until at the close of the year the 
 premium was only five per cent ; and in July, 1816, 
 
 1 Bank Circtlation. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Note 8 of £5 
 
 Bank 
 
 Price of 
 
 and upward. 
 
 Treasure. 
 
 Gold. 
 
 1809, 28 February 
 
 £18,542,860 
 
 £14,241,300 
 
 £4,488,700 
 
 115.5 
 
 31 August" 
 
 19,574,180 
 
 14.393,110 
 
 3,652,480 
 
 115 
 
 1810, 28 February 
 
 21,019,600 
 
 15,159,180 
 
 3,501,410 
 
 115 
 
 31 August 
 
 24,793,990 
 
 17,570,780 
 
 3,191,850 
 
 115 
 
 1811,28 February 
 
 23,360,220 
 
 16,246,130 
 
 3,350.940 
 
 118.75 
 
 31 August"' 
 
 23,280,850 
 
 15,692,490 
 
 3,243,300 
 
 125 
 
 1812, 29 February 
 
 23,408,320 
 
 15,951,290 
 
 2,983,190 
 
 122 
 
 31 August 
 
 23,026,880 
 
 15,385,470 
 
 3,099.270 
 
 128.5 
 
 1813, 27 February 
 
 23,210,930 
 
 15,497,320 
 
 2,884.500 
 
 130 
 
 31 August 
 
 24,828,120 
 
 16,790,980 
 
 2,712.270 
 
 142 
 
 1814, 28 February 
 
 24,801,080 
 
 16,455,540 
 
 2,204,480 
 
 140 
 
 31 August 
 
 28,368,290 
 
 18,703,210 
 
 2,097,680 
 
 115.5 
 
 1815, 28 February 
 
 27,261,650 
 
 18,226,400 
 
 2,036,910 
 
 115 
 
 31 August 
 
 27,248,670 
 
 17,766,140 
 
 3,409,040 
 
 115 
 
220 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 it was nothing at all, or at most only about one per 
 cent. The Bank circulation meanwhile expanded or 
 contracted itself according to the demand, averaging 
 rather more than X 17, 500,000, exclusive of the small 
 notes. 
 
 The equilibrium was therefore restored, and it was 
 restored without interference by government. The 
 system vindicated itself, and was entitled to the high 
 credit that properly belonged to so brilliant a success. 
 Unfortunately, this success gave occasion for another 
 dispute among currency writers, involving the whole 
 question in its historical as well as in its theoretical 
 bearings. 
 
 There were in 1816, and there still are, two classes 
 of political economists, so far as the currency is 
 concerned. The one has found in bank paper and 
 its over-issues an explanation for every rise or fall 
 in prices, and for every financial disaster. The other 
 has denied to such a medium of exchange any in- 
 fluence whatever upon prices, and insists that if 
 every bank-note were destroyed, speculation and 
 abuses of credit would flourish not less than now. 
 The bullionists of 1810 and their successors were 
 strong in the belief that the Bank issues did control 
 prices, and the price of gold especially. They were 
 obliged to explain how it happened that gold fell 
 about forty per cent to par, while the Bank issues 
 were actually increased. Obviously the dilemma was 
 serious. 
 
 The bullionists had a reply, and a reasonable one. 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 221 
 
 McCulloch argued that although no contraction of 
 Bank issues occurred which could explain the fall in 
 gold, yet such a contraction did occur in the entire 
 circulation, taking the country banks into the cal- 
 culation ; and that the rise in value of Bank of Eno-- 
 
 o 
 
 land paper was in fact due to the destruction of 
 country bank-notes during the disastrous years of 
 1814, 1815, and 1816. If the inquiry be carried a 
 step further by seeking the cause of the disasters, 
 McCulloch explained that the fall of grain from 155 
 shillings the quarter, in 1812, to 67 shillings in 1814 
 spread universal ruin among the agricultural class. 
 
 So obvious an explanation as this may well be suf- 
 ficient ; yet the view taken by Tooke and Fullarton 
 appears more philosophical and more exact than that 
 of McCulloch. They maintained that the fall in gold 
 was due simply to the fact, that with the final turn 
 of exchange in favor of England gold ceased to be an 
 object of demand, and, like other commodities in the 
 same position, rapidly fell to its ordinary value. 
 
 McCulloch's facts are unquestioned, but they ap- 
 pear to be only a part of the truth. The prodigious 
 decline in the price of grain was coincident with a 
 general decline in prices, which naturally checked 
 importations and stimulated export. The grain alone 
 imported in 1814 was estimated at £2,800,000 in 
 value ; in 1815 it was but £800,000, and in 1816 only 
 £940,000. Silk and wool, coffee, flax, linseed, and 
 most of the great staples of import fell off between 
 1814 and 1816. Under any circumstances the ex- 
 
222 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 changes must have risen without regard to the cur- 
 rency, and gold must have fallen, since considerable 
 sums were actually brought from abroad during 1815 
 and 1816. 
 
 The force of this argument becomes evident by 
 comparison with previous cases. If the rise in ex- 
 change and the appreciation of paper in 1815 and 
 1816 were caused by the withdrawal of private bank- 
 notes, the same reason should hold good for the simi- 
 lar events in 1814. If at the later time the currency 
 were so depreciated from excess as to regain its value 
 only by contraction, it was certainly more in need of 
 that relief at the earlier period ; yet a fall of thirty 
 per cent in gold was then coincident with an increase 
 of paper throughout the country. 
 
 Allowing that McCulloch was right, and that the 
 restoration of paper was caused by involuntary con- 
 traction, that contraction was at all events only tem- 
 porary, and the re-establishment of the credit of the 
 country banks of issue should have renewed the de- 
 preciation. The Bank issues rose in 1817 and 1818 
 to a higher point than ever before, and the country 
 banks again extended their credit in every direction. 
 Under these circumstances, the depreciation should 
 have been great, even after every reasonable allowance 
 had been made ; yet in fact gold was at a premium of 
 only about five per cent, and this slight advance ap- 
 pears to have been caused merely by a temporary 
 pressure on the foreign exchanges. 
 
 If these arguments seem still insufficient to show 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 223 
 
 that the theory of excessive issues fails to meet the 
 difficulties of the case, the circulation of 1814 and 
 1815, which is said to have lost twenty per cent or 
 more of its value through its excess, may be com- 
 pared with that which existed after specie payments 
 were resumed. Such comparisons are not a fair 
 proof of either excess or deficiency, since the pub- 
 lic demand varies, and the same amount of circula- 
 tion is at one time less and at another more than is 
 required. Allowing for such variations, one may com- 
 pare the three different periods of general expansion 
 between 1813 and 1825. The small notes having 
 been withdrawn at the resumption and their place 
 supplied by coin, must be excluded in each case. 
 
 The highest point reached by the Bank circulation 
 in any quarterly average between 1812 and 1815 was 
 .£19,067,000, in the third quarter of 1814 ; the price 
 of gold being about 112. Between 1816 and 1822 
 the highest average was in the second quarter of 1817, 
 or £21,517,000; and it remained above £20,000,000 
 until July, 1818, the country banks expanding gener- 
 ally. Gold was then at about 105. Between 1823 
 and the close of 1825 the highest average was in the 
 first quarter of 1825, a time of universal expansion, 
 when it reached £20,665,000, the Bank redeeming its 
 notes in coin. 
 
 If, then, two thirds or three fourths of the whole 
 depreciation was removed in 1814 without with- 
 drawal of paper; if the circulation was restored to 
 its widest range in 1818 without any effect of conse- 
 
224 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 quence upon the price of gold ; and if after the re- 
 sumption the circulation remained undiminished in 
 amount, and its issue subject to the same general 
 laws as before, — there seems to be no necessity for 
 resorting to the theory of involuntary contraction in 
 order to explain the fall of gold in 1816. That 
 theory needs no dispute, if it means merely that the 
 contraction was itself a part of a general movement 
 of trade and credit, and as such contributed to hasten 
 the result ; but if more than this is intended, the 
 effect produced was out of proportion to the cause 
 assigned. 
 
 The whole subject of private banking, for many 
 years assigned as the source of all financial troubles, 
 has in fact very little to do with the question of 
 depreciation during the French wars. The country 
 banks held then precisely the same position they had 
 held before suspension, nor did the resumption change 
 it. They never suspended payments. At any time 
 gold might have been demanded for their notes. At 
 all times they did in fact redeem their notes on de- 
 mand, by exchanging them for those of the Bank of 
 England. Their circulation was limited by that of 
 the Bank, and the same general laws controlled the 
 whole. 
 
 Country bank-paper could not have been in excess 
 of the public wants then, any more than it could now 
 be, although the credit of such banks might be and 
 no doubt was abused then, as it may be now. On the 
 other hand, the Bank of England was not obliged to 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 225 
 
 redeem its notes. Through the channel of permanent 
 loans to government, it might have forced any given 
 amount of paper into circulation had it chosen to do 
 so ; but it did not force a single note upon the public. 
 It lent notes, but never paid them away. At the end 
 of two months every such loan had to be paid back 
 into the coffers of the Bank by the borrower ; and 
 although the advances to government were to some 
 degree permanent, they were not excessive, and, as 
 has been already shown, they tended to lower the 
 private demand. Whatever action may have been 
 caused by the restriction was upon credit in the first 
 place, and not upon currency. The encouragement 
 it may have afforded to speculation could not have 
 been very great, or ten years would not have passed 
 without showing it ; but when taxes, bad seasons, or 
 the operations of war, or other causes, combined to 
 raise prices and to stimulate speculation, the credit 
 system was not then, nor is it now, adapted to check 
 the rise. When a stagnation in business and a fall 
 in prices followed, as must ultimately be the case, 
 the circulation contracted as a necessary conse- 
 quence ; but in every instance, before the resumption 
 and since, the rise in prices has preceded the ex- 
 pansion, and the fall has preceded the contraction. 
 
 In the early part of 1817 the supply of bullion in 
 the Bank had risen to £ 10,000,000, the average total 
 circulation for the quarter being somewhat in excess 
 of £ 27,000,000, while the exchanges were considerably 
 above par. The directors considered the experiment 
 
 15 
 
226 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 of partial resumption to be safe, and by a series of 
 steps taken during that year they undertook to re- 
 deem all notes dated previous to the 1st of January. 
 This was, in fact, resumption. During the next two 
 years any holder of Bank-notes could obtain gold for 
 them at the Bank, either directly, or by exchanging 
 them for such as were dated previous to January 1, 
 
 1817. Had the exchanges remained firm, there would 
 have been no further question of an easy and regular 
 return to the normal condition of the currency. 
 
 Unfortunately, the year 1817 was one of renewed 
 speculation, and the imports again rose to an extrava- 
 gant point. Grain alone to the value of £17,300,000 
 was brought into England in the two years 1817 and 
 
 1818. Another cause which could not well have been 
 foreseen, tended powerfully to depress the exchanges 
 and to carry gold abroad. Nearly all the governments 
 of Europe were borrowing large sums of money, and 
 the English capitalists negotiated several of their 
 largest loans. How much money was sent abroad for 
 this purpose is not easily said, but certainly not less 
 than £10,000,000. The effect upon exchange was 
 immediate ; yet the extreme variation in gold was not 
 more than five per cent, although no effort was made 
 to counteract the pressure. So far from resorting to 
 the theory of excessive issues for an explanation of 
 this temporary rise in gold, one may well feel sur- 
 prise that under the circumstances no greater dis- 
 turbance of the market occurred. The return of 
 peace must have largely increased English resources, 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 227 
 
 to enable them to bear so easily the pressure of enor- 
 mous foreign payments. 
 
 The slight variation of five per cent was not of 
 long duration Again in 1819, as before in 1816 and 
 in 1814, the system vindicated itself without artifi- 
 cial pressure, by the mechanical operation of its own 
 laws. The excessive importations of 1817 and 1818 
 resulted in stagnation of business and decline in 
 prices. The foreign loans were discharged. The ex- 
 changes, relieved from pressure, rose. The demand 
 for gold ceased, and in July, 1819, the Bank-note was 
 again at par. There it remained thenceforward ; and 
 from that day to this there has been no depreciation 
 in the value of Bank of England paper. 1 
 
 i Bank Circulation. 
 
 
 
 Notes of £5 
 
 Bank 
 
 Price of 
 
 Date. 
 
 Total. 
 
 and upward. 
 
 Treasure. 
 
 Gold. 
 
 1816, 29 February 
 
 £27,013,620 
 
 £18,012,220 
 
 £4,G40,880 
 
 105 
 
 31 August 
 
 26,758,720 
 
 17,661,510 
 
 7,562,780 
 
 101.5 
 
 1817, 28 February 
 
 27,397,900 
 
 19,261,630 
 
 9,680,970 
 
 100.8 
 
 30 August 
 
 29.543,780 
 
 21,550,630 
 
 11,668,260 
 
 103 
 
 1818, 28 February 
 
 27,770,970 
 
 20,370,290 
 
 10,055,460 
 
 104.5 
 
 31 August 
 
 26,202,150 
 
 18,676.22(1 
 
 6.363,160 
 
 104.5 
 
 1819, 27 February 
 
 25,126,700 
 
 17,772,470 
 
 4,184,620 
 
 104 
 
 31 August 
 
 25,252,690 
 
 18,017,450 
 
 3,595,360 
 
 100 
 
 1820, 29 February 
 
 23,484,110 
 
 16,794,980 
 
 4,911,050 
 
 100 
 
 31 August 
 
 24,299,340 
 
 17,600,730 
 
 8,211,080 
 
 100 
 
 1821, 28 February 
 
 23.884,920 
 
 17,447,360 
 
 11.869,900 
 
 100 
 
 31 August 
 
 20,295,300 
 
 17,747,070 
 
 11,283,590 
 
 100 
 
 1822, 28 February 
 
 18,665,350 
 
 17,290,500 
 
 11,057,150 
 
 100 
 
 31 August 
 
 17,464,790 
 
 16,609,460 
 
 10,097,960 
 
 100 
 
 Average circulati 
 
 3ii of bank-note 
 
 s of £ 5 and up 
 
 ward for the } 
 
 ears 
 
 1823. 
 
 IS 
 
 24. 
 
 1825. 
 
 
 £18,033,635 
 
 £19,f 
 
 127,120 
 
 £19,679,12 
 
 
 
228 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 In the mean while Parliament had taken alarm. 
 The Bank directors, after paying out £4,000,000 in 
 redemption of their notes under the conditions speci- 
 fied in 1817, seeing no immediate prospect of a rise 
 in exchange, and fearful of the entire exhaustion of 
 their treasure, applied to Parliament early in 1819 to 
 be relieved from the further performance of their own 
 promises of redemption. Committees were appointed 
 by both Houses, whose first act was to renew the 
 restriction in its whole extent. Then, with a view to 
 the final establishment of a fixed government policy 
 in regard to resumption, the two committees entered 
 into a separate and extended investigation of the 
 whole subject, resulting in two reports made in the 
 course of April and May, which with the accompany- 
 ing evidence fill a volume, and furnish a mass of 
 readable matter not less interesting than bulky. 
 
 Robert Peel, afterward the celebrated Prime Min- 
 ister, was chairman of the House committee. Hith- 
 erto an opponent of the bullionists, his opinions were 
 changed by the testimony offered before his commit- 
 tee, and he became a convert to the doctrines which 
 Horner and his friends advocated in 1810. He car- 
 ried almost his whole party with him. Bank-paper 
 was generally acknowledged in Parliament to be de- 
 preciated in regard to gold, and a forcible contraction 
 would restore the equilibrium. This principle was 
 the foundation of his report. 
 
 The most serious resistance to resumption came 
 from a new party, which made an alarming use of 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 229 
 
 the doctrine of depreciation. The trifling difference 
 between paper and gold was affirmed, and probably 
 with truth, to be no measure of the actual deprecia- 
 tion in paper as compared with commodities generally. 
 The rise in prices during the war had been as much 
 as fifty or one hundred per cent upon the old scale. 
 A return to the original standard would lie a flagrant 
 injustice to the community. The fund-holders alone 
 would be benefited by it, and the people would be 
 ground by additional taxes solely to pamper the capi- 
 talist. If Parliament determined to restore specie 
 payments, it should at least create a new standard, 
 and reduce the value of sterling money by twenty- 
 five per cent; or it should accompany the resump- 
 tion by allowing an equivalent deduction to every 
 debtor on the amount of his debt. In other words, a 
 general repudiation to the extent of twenty-live per 
 cent was demanded by a party which contained some 
 leading and influential members of Parliament not 
 inclined to act the part of demagogues. 
 
 The House of Commons was faithful to one princi- 
 ple, in which it justly considered the national honor 
 to be involved. The restriction had been a war 
 measure merely. Since peace had been restored, Par- 
 liament, while consenting to renew the law from year 
 to year, had repeatedly pledged itself to ultimate re- 
 sumption. Every government loan had been raised 
 on the faith of these pledges ; the interest of the 
 national debt had been paid in paper, on the ground 
 of its equivalence to gold ; every public or private 
 
230 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 debt since 1797 had been contracted under the in- 
 fluence of Acts of Parliament prescribing the time of 
 resumption ; every Bank-note bore a promise to pay 
 upon its face. Four years had already been allowed 
 to pass, and nothing had yet been done. Further con- 
 cession, either to public timidity or to class interests, 
 would endanger the national credit, if indeed it did 
 not proclaim criminal dishonesty in those to whom 
 the duties of legislation were intrusted. 
 
 Resistance to the principle of resumption in its 
 purest and simplest form was summarily swept aside, 
 yet Peel thought necessary to invent a clumsy and 
 ponderous engine to bring about a simple result. At 
 the time when his committee was sitting, there was 
 a premium of about five per cent upon gold, and his 
 first object was to restore the equilibrium between 
 paper and coin. Beyond that comparatively easy re- 
 sult, he aimed to create a system under which paper 
 could not fall again below par. The latter purpose 
 could, as he believed, be effected by requiring that 
 the circulation should be forcibly contracted as the 
 exchanges became unfavorable ; or, in other words, 
 that the Bank should diminish its issues whenever 
 its treasure was diminished. As the Bank directors 
 obstinately denied the efficacy of this contrivance, Peel 
 undertook to frame his bill in such a manner as to 
 leave them no option but to follow his theory. 
 
 The project began by an order for the repayment 
 by the government of ten millions out of the twenty- 
 three millions advanced to it by the Bank. This re- 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 231 
 
 payment was not made for the purpose of necessa- 
 rily contracting the Bank loans or issues, but because 
 the Bank could more easily control its circulation 
 when made in short private loans than when made 
 in more permanent advances to government, and 
 would therefore be more able to act energetically 
 should a fall in the exchanges threaten the success 
 of the plan. 
 
 Having thus removed one possible impediment, 
 Peel's next step was to propose the following resolu- 
 tion : "That from the 1st of February, 1820, the 
 Bank shall be liable to deliver on demand gold of 
 standard fineness, having been assayed and stamped 
 at his Majesty's mint, a quantity of not less than 
 sixty ounces being required in exchange for such an 
 amount of notes by the Bank as shall be equal to the 
 value of the gold so required, at the rate of £4 Is. 
 per ounce ; " that is to say, any person presenting 
 Bank-notes to the amount of £243 at the Bank 
 counter should receive in return a bar of gold worth 
 £233. After the 1st of October he Avas to pay only 
 £238 for the same quantity of gold, and after May 1, 
 1821, the ingot of sixty ounces was to be purchas- 
 able at its par value in notes. After this experi- 
 ment had been fully tried during a space of two 
 years, May 1, 1823, the Bank was to redeem its notes 
 in coin. 
 
 Such was Peel's famous bill, which excited warm 
 controversies during a whole generation. So far as 
 tfs ultimate purpose of effecting an unconditional re- 
 
232 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 turn to specie payments was concerned, it deserved 
 all praise ; but the merits of Peel's bill as a practical 
 measure were hardly great, nor apart from its gen- 
 eral tendency could it exercise any great influence on 
 the result. A simple resolution requiring the Bank 
 to resume on a certain day would have answered the 
 purpose better. 
 
 The elaborate mechanism by which the price of 
 gold was to be forced down involved an official ac- 
 knowledgment of depreciation, the Bank-note being 
 made the legal equivalent of a smaller sum in gold 
 than that named upon its face. No actual coin was 
 to pass, but the gold ingots were as much coin as if 
 they had been guineas. To reverse the policy of the 
 war, and at that late moment to proclaim that the 
 government had for years cheated its creditors by 
 paying them in depreciated paper, was unnecessary, 
 and doubtful in principle. 
 
 In the second place, had Peel's bill been tested, — 
 had the event occurred for which it was designed 
 to provide, — it would probably have proved useless. 
 Few admirers of that Act can deny that the theory 
 of regulating the currency by the movements of ex- 
 change does not and cannot exclude violent fluctua- 
 tions in credit, — in fact, that it for the time aggra- 
 vates them. Had the exchanges become unfavorable 
 in 1820, as they did in 1825, no amount of contrac- 
 tion could have saved the specie of the Bank. If in 
 the face of such a drain the Bank had undertaken to 
 increase it by selling gold two per cent cheaper than 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 233 
 
 before, as Peel's Act required, it would have again 
 broken down. 
 
 As Ricardo pointed out to Parliament, its duty 
 was to establish the principle ; the Bank was to carry 
 that principle out in action. Peel's Act provided 
 not merely for the resumption of specie payments, 
 but also for the regulation of commerce and credit ; 
 it undertook to control both the currency and the 
 exchanges. Such efforts have hitherto failed. The 
 valuable part of the bill was that which fixed a 
 day for the resumption, and that which repealed the 
 penal statutes against melting or exporting coin. 
 Had the rest been omitted, the measure would have 
 been improved. 
 
 Whatever may have been the theoretical merits or 
 demerits of the scheme, in practice it was inoperative. 
 Within a few months of its adoption, and without ope- 
 ration upon the currency, gold again fell to par, and 
 there it has since remained. The Bank prepared its 
 bars of bullion, but no one would have them. On the 
 contrary, large amounts- of gold were brought into its 
 vaults. Weary of prolonging an obviously useless de- 
 lay, the directors applied to Parliament early in 1821, 
 and procured the passage of a new Act, under which 
 cash payments Avere at length resumed on the 1st of 
 May of that year. The public was unconscious of the 
 event. The Bank system was not altered, nor was 
 the circulation diminished, except so far as sovereigns 
 were substituted for notes of one and two pounds; 
 and after twenty-four years of an irredeemable paper 
 
234 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 currency, Great Britain returned smoothly and easily 
 to its ancient standard, and redeemed its pledged 
 honor. 
 
 Yet between the years 1818 and 1822 a general 
 and severe fall in prices occurred, which was then, 
 and is still, commonly referred to the action of Peel's 
 bill ; but in truth, other causes tended much more 
 strongly to produce the same result. The agricultu- 
 ral class, which uttered the loudest complaints, had, 
 under the influence of an excessive stimulus, brought 
 more land under cultivation than was required by the 
 public wants, and a long time passed before a proper 
 equilibrium was again established. The shipping 
 interest was in much the same condition. The popu- 
 lation at large did not suffer ; on the contrary, the 
 condition of the mass of Englishmen steadily im- 
 proved after 1817. At the time when prices were 
 falling, the manufacturing interests were rapidly ex- 
 tending and enriching themselves ; less and less was 
 heard of political discontent and internal disorder, 
 as reviving prosperity brought with it social repose, 
 while even among the bankers and traders fewer 
 bankruptcies occurred during the three years end- 
 ing in 1821 than in any similar period since 1809. 
 If the resumption was to be held responsible for the 
 misfortunes of certain branches of industry, justice 
 required that the general prosperity of others should 
 outweigh the complaint ; but both complaint and 
 praise were equally thrown away. The system after 
 resumption was identical with that which had existed 
 
 
THE BANK OF ENGLAND RESTRICTION. 235 
 
 before. The only effect of the long suspension was 
 to breed a race of economists who attributed an un- 
 due degree of power to currency, and who delayed 
 for years a larger and more philosophical study of 
 the subject by their futile experiments upon paper 
 money. 
 
 Without applying England's experience to other 
 cases of depreciation, though no richer field could be 
 wished, a wide distinction must be drawn between in- 
 convertible bank-notes, issued on good security merely 
 as loans payable within a short definite period, and 
 inconvertible government paper, issued like so much 
 gold or silver, yet not capable of being melted like 
 the precious metals into an article of commerce, nor 
 of being returned to the issuer and not again bor- 
 rowed, like bank-notes. In one case the public regu- 
 lates the supply by its own wants ; in the other, it is 
 compelled to regulate prices by the supply. No coun- 
 try laboring under the latter difficulty can draw con- 
 solation from England's example. If in addition to 
 the £ 60,000,000 which may have circulated in British 
 paper during the last ten years of restriction, there 
 had been another £60,000,000 of government currency 
 forced upon the public, and if the private banks of 
 issue had been under a less rigorous central control, 
 some parallel might be drawn between the difficulties 
 of resumption in 1821 and those under which other 
 nations have been weighed dow r n. In this case, too, 
 the return to cash payments on the old system would 
 not have been so easily brought about ; and if Eng- 
 
236 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 land had succeeded in ultimately restoring her credit, 
 if she had redeemed her pledges and vindicated her 
 honor, she would have accomplished more than any 
 nation has done down to the year 1867, although 
 many have been placed in a similar situation. 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 
 
 At the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, Great 
 Britain and France agreed to respect neutral com- 
 merce, whether under its own flag or under the flag 
 of an enemy. Great Britain expressly limited the 
 concession to the special emergency : a To preserve 
 the commerce of neutrals Great Britain is willing for 
 the present to waive a part of the belligerent rights 
 appertaining to her by the law of nations. . . . Her 
 Majesty will waive the right of seizing enemy's prop- 
 erty laden on board a neutral vessel unless it be con- 
 traband of war." 
 
 At the close of the Crimean War the Congress of 
 Paris adopted, April 16, 1856, a Declaration embracing 
 four heads, — 
 
 1. Privateering is and remains abolished. 
 
 2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the 
 exception of contraband of war. 
 
 3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband 
 of war, are not liable to capture under enemy's flag. 
 
 4. Blockades in order to be binding must be effec- 
 tive ; that is to say, maintained by forces sufficient 
 really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy. 
 
238 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Great Britain, France, Prussia, Russia, Austria, and 
 Turkey adopted this mutual agreement, and pledged 
 themselves to make it known to States not repre- 
 sented in the Congress, and invite their accession to it, 
 on two conditions, — (1) That the Declaration should 
 be accepted as a whole, or not at all ; and (2) That 
 the States acceding should enter into no subsequent 
 arrangement on maritime law in time of war without 
 stipulating for a strict observance of the four points. 
 On these conditions every maritime power was to be 
 invited to accede, and had the right to become a party, 
 to the agreement. Accordingly nearly all the States 
 of Europe and South America in course of time no- 
 tified their accession, and became, equally with the 
 original members, entitled to all the benefits and sub- 
 ject to the obligations of the contract. 
 
 The government of the United States was also 
 invited to accede, and like the other Powers had 
 the right to do so by simple notification. Secretary 
 Marcy notified the French government, July 28, 1856, 
 that the President could not abandon the right to use 
 privateers, unless he could secure the exemption of 
 all private property, not contraband, from capture at 
 sea ; but with that amendment the United States 
 would accede to the Declaration. The French govern- 
 ment made no objection to the Marcy amendment ; 
 Russia favored it ; Prussia, Italy, and the Netherlands 
 were friendly to it. Great Britain was understood to 
 oppose it. 
 
 Before the negotiation was fairly begun, President 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 239 
 
 Pierce was succeeded, March 4, 1857, by President Bu- 
 chanan, who directed the negotiations to be arrested 
 for the purpose of enabling him to examine the ques- 
 tions involved. During the four years of Buchanan's 
 administration the subject remained untouched ; and 
 when, March 4, 1861, President Lincoln began his 
 term of office, his Secretary of State found the Dec- 
 laration of Paris among the most important of the 
 unsettled subjects calling for attention. 
 
 At that anxious moment, when the fate of the 
 Union depended on many uncertain forces, any step 
 which promised to conciliate Europe and convince 
 Great Britain and France of the advantages they 
 might expect from a Northern rather than a Southern 
 influence in the United States, seemed to President 
 Lincoln and his Cabinet good policy. 1 They decided 
 to give the accession of the United States to the 
 Declaration of Paris. The decision was taken early, 
 and promptly acted upon. About six weeks after the-" 
 inauguration, Secretary Seward sent a circular des- 
 patch, dated April 24, 1861, to the American minis- 
 ters in Great Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, Austria, 
 Belgium, and Denmark, instructing them to ascertain 
 whether those governments were " disposed to enter 
 into negotiations for the accession of the government 
 of the United States to the Declaration of the Paris 
 Congress, with the conditions annexed by that body 
 to the same ; and if } r ou shall find that government 
 so disposed, you will then enter into a convention to 
 1 Seward to Dayton, July 6, 1861. Infra, p. 257 
 
240 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 that effect, substantially in the form of a project for 
 that purpose herewith transmitted to you, — the con- 
 vention to take effect from the time when the clue 
 ratifications of the same shall have been exchanged." 
 
 Meanwhile the subject attracted the attention of the 
 British government. Lord John Russell, the For- 
 eign Secretary in Lord Palmerston's Ministry, wrote 
 to Earl Cowley, the British ambassador at Paris, May 
 6, an important despatch, 1 which began by announc- 
 ing that her Majesty's government considered the 
 Confederacy of the Southern States as a belligerent, 
 invested with all a belligerent's rights and preroga- 
 tives. As both belligerents, North and South, were 
 about to enter on maritime operations, Lord John 
 Russell suggested to the Emperor Napoleon that they 
 should be invited " to act upon the principles laid 
 down in the second and third Articles of the Decla- 
 ration of Paris of 1856, which relates to the security 
 of neutral property on the high seas." 
 
 The form thus suggested was somewhat peculiar. 
 Scarcely five years had then elapsed since April 16, 
 1856, when the plenipotentiaries at the Congress of 
 Paris, including the representative of England, signed 
 the protocol to the proceedings of that day : — 
 
 "On the proposition of Count Walewski and recog- 
 nizing that it is for the general interest to maintain the 
 indivisibility of the four principles mentioned in the 
 Declaration signed this day, the plenipotentiaries agree 
 
 1 Russell to Cowley, May 6, 1861 ; Papers presented to Par- 
 liament, 1862 ; North America, No. 3, p. 1. 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 241 
 
 that the Powers which shall have signed it, or which 
 shall have acceded to it, cannot hereafter enter into any 
 arrangement in regard to the application of the rights of 
 neutrals in time of war, which does not at the same time 
 rest on the four principles which are the object of the 
 said Declaration." 
 
 In 1856 England and France pledged themselves to 
 enter into no arrangement with each other or any 
 third Power unless it started from the indivisible four 
 Articles. In 1861 England invited France to do the 
 thing which both Powers had pledged themselves not 
 to do. 
 
 The act was the more significant, because under 
 ordinary circumstances, as a matter of courtesy, the 
 adhesion of both belligerents to the Declaration as 
 a whole should have been first invited, previous to 
 suggesting their adhesion to half the principles in- 
 volved. The discourtesy was not due to any peculiar 
 interest of England in the two principles thus put in 
 the foreground. Russell's wish went no further than 
 to secure the immunity of the British flag when cov- 
 ering belligerent goods, and of British goods under 
 the belligerent flag. The abandonment of privateer- 
 ing and the definition of a binding blockade seemed 
 equally important to neutrals, but to these points 
 Russell made no allusion. 
 
 Earl Cowley had an interview, May 9, with M. 
 Thouvenel, then Foreign minister of Napoleon III., 
 and wrote 1 the same day to Lord John Russell that 
 
 1 Cowley to Russell, May 9, 1861. Papers No. 3, p. 3. 
 16 
 
242 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the Imperial government concurred entirely in the 
 views of the British government, and was prepared to 
 act jointly in asking from the belligerents " a formal 
 recognition of the second and third Articles of the 
 Declaration of Paris." Thouvenel suggested that a 
 friendly communication should be made to both gov- 
 ernments in the same language, " that the govern- 
 ments of Great Britain and France intended to ab- 
 stain from all interference, but that the commercial 
 interests of the two countries demanded that they 
 should be assured that the principles with respect to 
 neutral property laid down by the Congress of Paris 
 should be adhered to, — an assurance which the two 
 governments did not doubt they should obtain, as the 
 principles in question were in strict accordance with 
 those that had been always advocated by the United 
 States." 
 
 Lord John Russell acknowledged the receipt of 
 Cowley's despatch May 13, and on the same day the 
 new minister of the United States to England arrived 
 in London. A few days intervened before Mr. Adams 
 could begin upon business, 1 and these were actively 
 employed by Russell in fixing the attitude of England 
 beyond remonstrance. The Proclamation of Neutral- 
 ity, recognizing the Confederate States of America as 
 belligerents, was signed May 13, and published May 
 15 ; while Russell wrote to Cowley, May 16, trans- 
 mitting to the French government the draft of a des- 
 
 1 Adams to Seward (No. 1), May 17, 1861 ; Papers relating 
 to Foreign Affairs ; Diplomatic Documents, p. 69. 
 
THE DECLARATION* OF PARIS. 1861. 243 
 
 patch requesting the accession of the belligerents to 
 the second and third Articles of the Declaration of 
 Paris. 1 The draft sketched the history of the sub- 
 ject, showing that the United States government had 
 in principle acceded to the second, third, and fourth 
 Articles of the Declaration, and withheld its assent 
 only from the first, which regarded privateering. On 
 that point, Russell announced that Great Britain must 
 hold any government issuing letters of marque respon- 
 sible for losses sustained in consequence of privateers 
 which did not respect the established laws of war. 
 
 Lord Cowley reported, May 17, that Thouvenel 
 concurred entirely in the draft, and had already 
 written in the same terms to the French minister at 
 Washington, M. Mercier. 2 Cowley's report reached 
 Russell May 18, and Russell immediately, on the 
 same day, sent the despatch to Lord Lyons, the Brit- 
 ish minister at Washington, together with instruc- 
 tions for his action. 3 The personal instructions con- 
 tained matter not included in the formal despatch 
 intended for communication to the United States 
 government : — 
 
 u I need not tell your Lordship that her Majesty's gov- 
 ernment would very gladly see a practice which is calcu- 
 lated to lead to great irregularities, and to increase the 
 calamities of war, renounced by both the contending 
 
 1 Russell to Cowley, May 16, 1861 ; British Papers, No. 3, 
 p. 3. 
 
 2 Cowley to Russell, May 17, 1861 ; Papers No. 3, p. 4. 
 
 3 Russell to Lyons, May 18, 1861; Papers No. 3, pp. 4-6. 
 
244 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 parties in America as it has been renounced by almost 
 every other nation in the world ; and therefore you will 
 not err in encouraging the Government to which you are 
 accredited to carry into effect any disposition which they 
 may evince to recognize the Declaration of Paris in 
 regard to privateering, as her Majesty's government do 
 not doubt that they will, without hesitation, recognize 
 the remaining Articles of the Declaration to which you 
 are now instructed to call their attention. You will 
 clearly understand that her Majesty's government cannot 
 accept the renunciation of privateering on the part of the 
 government of the United States if coupled with the 
 condition that they should enforce its renunciation on 
 the Confederate States, either by denying their right to 
 issue letters of marque, or by interfering with the bellig- 
 erent operations of vessels holding from them such let- 
 ters of marque, so long as they carry on hostilities 
 according to the recognized principles and under the' 
 admitted liabilities of the law of nations." 
 
 At noon, Saturday, May 18, before these despatches 
 could have left the Foreign Office, Adams appeared at 
 Pembroke Lodge, Lord John Russell's country house 
 nine miles from London, to claim an interview with 
 the minister. 1 Their conversation was long and 
 serious ; not till toward its close did Adams reach 
 the subject of the Declaration of Paris. Then he 
 said that he had the- necessary powers to negotiate, 
 " together with a form of a convention " which he 
 would submit if the British government was disposed 
 
 1 Adams to Russell, May 21, 1861; Diplomatic Documents, 
 p. 74. 
 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 245 
 
 to pursue the matter. Lord John Russell did not 
 express a wish to pursue the matter in London, nor 
 did he ask to see the draft of convention, " but he 
 seemed to desire to leave the subject in the hands 
 of Lord Lyons, to whom he intimated that he 
 had already transmitted authority to assent to any 
 modification of the only point in issue which the 
 government of the United States might prefer. On 
 that matter he believed there would be no difficulty 
 whatever." Under these circumstances Adams post- 
 poned further action until he should receive new 
 instructions. 
 
 Russell reported the substance of this conversation 
 in a short despatch to Lord Lyons, 1 dated May 21, 
 that may be quoted in full : — 
 
 " In the course of our conversation on the 18th, Mr. 
 Adams told me that his Government was disposed to 
 adhere to the provisions of the Declaration of Paris, 
 and that he had powers to negotiate upon that question ; 
 but upon my saying that both Great Britain and France 
 had given instructions to their ministers at Washington 
 upon this subject, he thought it would be well not to 
 pursue the matter here, but to leave it in the hands of 
 the Secretary of State." 
 
 These two reports of what was apparently a brief 
 and clear exchange of views, differed in effect. Rus- 
 sell understood Adams to suggest leaving the subject 
 to be treated at Washington. Adams understood 
 Russell to prefer that course, with the addition that 
 
 1 Russell to Lyons, May 21, 1861, Papers No. 3, p. 6. 
 
246 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the British government had already transmitted "au- 
 thority " to assent to any modification of the arti- 
 cle on privateering, " the only point in issue," which 
 the United States government might prefer. " On 
 that matter he believed there would be no difficulty 
 whatever." That Adams should have misunderstood 
 Russell was highly improbable, the more so because 
 Russell's language, as reported, harmonized with the 
 language of his despatch to Lord Lyons, which he 
 signed only an hour or two before or afterward. 
 
 The next step was taken by Mr. Dayton, the 
 United States minister at Paris. Dayton-notified the 
 French government, May 25, that he was fully au- 
 thorized to enter into a convention on the points of 
 the Declaration of Paris. In conversation, May 28 or 
 29, Dayton added that he was authorized to accept 
 the four Articles, although he preferred to make the 
 offer in the first place with the addition of Marcy's 
 amendment. 1 Thouvenel, according to his own re- 
 port to the British charge, replied that the imperial 
 government would be glad if that of the United States 
 acceded " purely and simply " to the Declaration of 
 Paris. 2 He gave Dayton no reason to suppose that 
 France was opposed to the Marcy amendment; but 
 after three weeks of delay and consultation with 
 the British government he replied that the Ameri- 
 can proposition must be addressed jointly to all the 
 
 1 Dayton to Seward, May 30, 1861; Diplomatic Documents, 
 p. 200. 
 
 2 Grey to Russell, June 14, 1861; Papers No. 3, p. 7. 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 247 
 
 Powers associated in the treaty. In other words, 
 Thouvenel, like Russell, evaded the offer of the 
 United States government. After consulting Rus- 
 sell, Thouvenel no longer wished that the United 
 States should simply accede to the four Articles. 
 
 Between May 18, when Lord John Russell had 
 his first interview with Adams, and June 20, when 
 Thouvenel made his reply to Dayton, the govern- 
 ments of England and France changed their attitude. 
 Before learning that the United States offered pure 
 and simple adhesion, both Governments expressed a 
 wish or willingness for that result ; after learning- 
 it, both Governments evaded an answer. 
 
 The misunderstanding in the case of Thouvenel 
 was greater than in the case of Russell. Thouvenel 
 sent word to the British government that Dayton had 
 made him two propositions, 1 — 
 
 1. That the United States should adhere to the 
 four Articles with the addition of the Marcy amend- 
 ment. To this, Thouvenel replied, according to his 
 story to the British government, that it was out of 
 the question. Dayton on the contrary affirmed that 
 Thouvenel never made such a reply. 
 
 2. Thouvenel represented Dayton as asking " that 
 privateering being abolished by the adoption of the 
 first Article of the Declaration of Paris, amended 
 as proposed, the privateers sent out by the so-called 
 Southern Confederacy should be considered as pirates." 
 
 1 Russell to Grey, June 12, 1861. Grey to Russell, June 14, 
 1861. Papers No. 3, p. 7. 
 
248 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Dayton declared that he never made such a propo- 
 sition. He certainly never did make it. 
 
 Another complication then occurred. Lord Lyons 
 wrote from Washington, June 4, a letter received 
 June 17, saying that Adams would propose adhesion 
 to all the Articles of the Declaration of Paris. 
 
 "There is no doubt," added Lyons, 1 " that this ad- 
 herence will be offered in the expectation that it will bind 
 the Governments accepting it to treat the privateers of 
 the Southern Confederacy as pirates. ... It seems to 
 be far from certain that the United States Congress 
 would ratify the abolition of privateering, nor do I sup- 
 pose that the Cabinet will abide by its proposal when it 
 finds that it will gain nothing toward the suppression of 
 the Southern privateering by doing so." 
 
 The animus of Lord Lyons's remarks was evident ; 
 and he was clear in the opinion that President 
 Lincoln, after the recognition of Southern bellig- 
 erency, would not renew liis offer to accept the 
 four Articles. 
 
 Ten days afterward, June 15, Lord Lyons and M. 
 Mercier waited together on Secretary Seward at the 
 State Department, to communicate the joint action 
 of their Governments in regard to neutral flags. As 
 their proposed communication was founded on the 
 assumption that the Southern States were to be re- 
 garded as belligerents, Seward declined to receive it, 
 and complained that England and France should con- 
 cert, and announce their concert of action on such a sub- 
 1 Lyons to Russell, June 4, 1861 ; Papers No. 3, p. 8. 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 249 
 
 ject. He asked them to leave their instructions with 
 him informally, that he might understand the views 
 of the two governments and found his despatches on 
 clear apprehension. They did so, and the discussion 
 closed. Lyons reported the result to his Government, 
 June 17, and in another despatch of the same day 
 added that Secretary Seward seemed to have con- 
 cluded, from a despatch he had received from Min- 
 ister Adams, that Lyons had received authority to 
 enter into a separate negotiation on the offered ad- 
 hesion to the treaty or Declaration of Paris. When 
 Lyons undeceived him, Seward said he thought he 
 had reason to complain of the Avant of notice taken 
 by the governments of Europe of the offer to ad- 
 here ; but he should authorize Adams to renew it 
 without delay. 1 
 
 Few Secretaries of State would have borne such 
 treatment with such temper. When Minister Adams 
 in London learned what had occurred at Washing- 
 ton, he was still less favorably impressed by the 
 manner in which he and his Government had been 
 treated by Lord Russell and M. Thouvenel. He too 
 kept his temper, but the affair made a lasting impres- 
 sion on his mind, and shook his faith in the straight- 
 forwardness of the British government. When he 
 received renewed instructions from Secretary Seward, 
 dated July 1, repeating the order to accede to the 
 Declaration of Paris, he wrote to Seward express- 
 ing his " profound surprise " at the remarkable se- 
 1 Lyons to Russell, June 17, 1861; Papers No. 3, p. 10. 
 
250 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ries of misunderstandings that had occurred, of 
 which he then knew only a part ; and he added 
 that he had already written to Lord John Russell 
 a letter intended " to bring this matter to a dis- 
 tinct issue." x He meant to trust no longer to oral 
 communications. 
 
 The note was dated July 11, and brought the 
 matter " to a distinct issue." 
 
 "I certainly understood your Lordship to say that 
 the subject had already been committed to the care of 
 Lord Lyons at Washington with authority to accept the 
 proposition of the government of the United States, 
 adopting three Articles of the Declaration of Paris, and 
 to drop the fourth altogether." 
 
 As Lord Lyons was not authorized to enter into a 
 convention, Adams offered to present his own project 
 of convention to Russell at any moment he should 
 appoint. 2 
 
 To this letter Russell replied, July 13, in language 
 undoubtedly chosen with care : — 
 
 ' ' In the first conversation I had the honor to hold with 
 you, on the 18th of May, I informed you that instruc- 
 tions had been sent to Lord Lyons to propose to the gov- 
 ernment of the United States to adopt the second, third, 
 and fourth Articles of the Declaration of Paris, dropping 
 the first altogether. You informed me that you had in- 
 structions on the same subject ; but I understood you to 
 
 1 Adams to Seward, July 12, 1861; Diplomatic Documents, 
 p. 97. 
 
 2 Adams to Euasell, July 11, 1861; Diplomatic Documents, 
 p. 99. 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 251 
 
 express an opinion, in which I fully concurred, that it 
 would be well to leave the question in the hands of the 
 Secretary of State at Washington. Lord Lyons had in- 
 structions to make an agreement with the government of 
 the United States, but he had no express authority to sign 
 a convention." 
 
 Lord John next said that the States which had 
 adhered to the Declaration of Paris had done so by 
 notes or despatches. He did not expressly say that 
 the United States had, by the terms of the Declara- 
 tion, the same right to adhere to the four Articles 
 by a simple notification, — no such admission was 
 required, since no one questioned the right; but ? 
 he added, as Mr. Adams was instructed to present 
 a convention, he might do so the same day at the 
 Foreign Office at three o'clock. 
 
 Evidently Lord John, with his usual spirit, meant 
 to meet Adams's issue as distinctly as it was made ; 
 but the note of July 13 was still an extremely curious 
 paper, and caused Adams much perplexity, which 
 time increased rather than diminished. 
 
 Comparison of the note to Adams of July 13 with 
 the despatch to Lyons of May 21 shows that Russell 
 evidently referred to the earlier paper to refresh his 
 memory while writing the later. He could hardly 
 have done otherwise. No minister could venture to 
 write a second report of conversation without refer- 
 ring to his first. The despatch of May 21 was before 
 Russell's eyes when he wrote the note of July 13 ; 
 but the despatch of May 21 was unknown to Adams, 
 
252 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 and could not at that time be appealed to. Russell 
 was at liberty to make any changes that suited 
 his purposes or position, without immediate danger 
 of criticism. Conversely, every change he thought 
 proper to make must have been made with the object 
 of suiting some purpose. 
 
 In the letter of May 21, Russell began by saying: 
 " Mr. Adams told me that his Government was dis- 
 posed to adhere to the provisions of the Declaration 
 of Paris." In the letter of July 13 he represented 
 that the subject was not introduced by Adams, but by 
 himself : " I informed you that instructions had been 
 sent to Lord Lyons. . . . You informed me that you 
 had instructions on the same subject." In the letter 
 of May 21, Russell said that both Great Britain and 
 France " had given instructions " to their ministers 
 at Washington. In the letter of July 13 he said that 
 instructions " had been sent to Lord Lyons." In 
 strictness, the instructions dated May 18 might per- 
 haps be said to have been " given," but they had 
 certainly not been " sent ; " and in both cases the 
 intention was obvious to conceal from Adams that 
 the instructions were not yet sent. In those days 
 the Foreign Office despatch-bag, like the despatch- 
 bag at the United States Legation, was closed and 
 sent Saturday evening to go by messenger to Queens- 
 town for Sunday's steamer. Russell could hardly 
 have said at three o'clock Saturday afternoon, May 
 18, that despatches had been " sent " which were still 
 in the Foreign Office, if not on his own table, and 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 253 
 
 could not start for America till nine o'clock that 
 night or thereabout. 
 
 The next divergence was more significant. The 
 note of May 21 gave Adams's words : " Mr. Adams 
 told me that his Government was disposed to adhere 
 to the provisions of the Declaration of Paris, and that 
 he had powers to negotiate upon that question." The 
 note of July 13 ignored Adams's proposal. " You in- 
 formed me that you had instructions on the same sub- 
 ject." For some reason not expressed, Lord John 
 preferred that the nature and extent of Adams's pro- 
 posal should not be repeated to Adams in the note of 
 July 13. 
 
 At three o'clock the same afternoon of July 13, 
 Adams promptly appeared at the Foreign Office with 
 the draft of a convention in his hand. Lord John 
 took and examined it; then, in the language of 
 Adams's report, — 
 
 " The first remark which he made was that it was es- 
 sentially the Declaration of Paris. He had never known 
 until now that the government of the United States was 
 disposed to accede to it. He was sure that I had never 
 mentioned it. To this I assented." 
 
 Apparently Adams's memory deceived him, and 
 he allowed too much credit to that of his opponent. 
 Russell's report of May 21 proved that Adams had 
 mentioned it, and Russell's suppression of that report, 
 only two or three hours before he made the assertion, 
 proved that Russell had motives for not recalling it 
 to memory. Within two or three hours of writing 
 
254 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 to Adams the note of July 13, which was but a copy 
 of the despatch of May 21, with the inversion of one 
 fact and the suppression of another, Russell affirmed 
 that he never had heard of the fact he himself 
 suppressed. 
 
 If this were all, Lord John's reputation would 
 repel the charge ; but this was not all. Russell told 
 Adams, July 13, that " he had never known until 
 now that the government of the United States was 
 disposed to accede" to the Declaration of Paris, — ■ 
 he had never known a fact of newspaper notoriety. 
 A few months afterward he himself published for Par- 
 liament a blue-book containing the official letters on 
 this subject, and among these was the despatch from 
 Lord Lyons, dated June 4, marked as received June 
 17, and containing the passages already quoted : — 
 
 "It is probable that Mr. Adams may, before this de- 
 spatch reaches your Lordship, have offered, on the part 
 of his Government, to adhere to Article 1 of the Decla- 
 ration of Paris as well as to the others, and thus to declare 
 privateering to be abolished. There is no doubt that this 
 adherence will be offered in the expectation that it will 
 bind the government accepting it to treat the privateers 
 of the Southern Confederacy as pirates. ... It seems 
 to be far from certain that the United States Congress 
 would ratify the abolition of privateering ; nor do I sup- 
 pose that the Cabinet will abide by its proposal when it 
 finds that it will gain nothing toward the suppression 
 of the Southern privateering by doing so." 
 
 Lord John Russell was then near his seventieth 
 year, and at that age failure of memory is common ; 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 255 
 
 but whatever was the true cause of his inversion and 
 perversion of truth in this instance, no European 
 diplomatist with whom he had ever come in contact 
 during his long public career, would have hesitated 
 in regard to the interpretation to be put on his con- 
 duct. Diplomacy cannot afford, and never has admit- 
 ted, the possibility of accidents like these. Statesmen 
 who made such slips were always, in European di- 
 plomacy, understood as meaning to deceive. Ameri- 
 can diplomatists in Europe could do nothing else 
 than accept European rules. When Adams learned 
 these contradictions, as he did within a few months, 
 he was obliged to infer that Russell had intended to 
 mislead him. 
 
 Two months had then elapsed since Adams's arrival 
 in London, and during that time the British govern- 
 ment had done no act which impressed him as honest 
 or straightforward. Russell's reception of the project 
 of convention, July 13, was as little calculated as all 
 the other acts of the British government to inspire 
 confidence. 
 
 An American would have supposed that any British 
 minister must welcome an offer from the United 
 States government to adhere to the Declaration of 
 Paris. So great was the concession, that, as Lord 
 Lyons justly said, Congress would probably have 
 rejected it. So strong was the feeling against it 
 among Americans abroad that Dayton, the United 
 States minister in Paris, refused to carry out Secre- 
 tary Seward's order, and gave the British and French 
 
256 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 governments a pretext for a misunderstanding, by 
 coupling the Marcy amendment to the offer of adhe- 
 sion. By no device could Great Britain have gained 
 so much from the United States, at so little cost, as 
 by accepting on the spot Adams's offer of adhesion 
 pure and simple. Had Russell signed Adams's con- 
 vention on the spot, he would have gained what nine 
 Americans in every ten regarded as a great advantage 
 over the United States. 
 
 Russell showed no such understanding of the mat- 
 ter. Taking the copy of the project " for the purpose 
 of submitting it to the consideration of his colleagues 
 in the Cabinet," he said he would let Adams know 
 when he should be ready for another meeting. There 
 the matter rested five days, till July 18, when Lord 
 John wrote a formal note, beginning with two re- 
 marks : (1) That hitherto States had adhered to 
 the Declaration by simple notice of adherence ; and 
 (2) That the Declaration was not an insulated en- 
 gagement between two Powers only. Her Majesty's 
 government were willing to waive objection to the 
 form, but should be assured that the United States 
 were ready to contract with all the parties to the 
 Declaration as well as with Great Britain. As much 
 time would be required for these communications, 
 " her Majesty's government would deem themselves 
 authorized to advise the Queen to conclude a con- 
 vention on this subject with the President of the 
 United States so soon as they shall have been in- 
 formed that a similar convention has been agreed 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 257 
 
 upon, and is ready for signature, between the Presi- 
 dent of the United States and the Emperor of the 
 French, so that the two conventions might be signed 
 simultaneously and on the same day." 
 
 Once more the British government insisted upon 
 acting only in union with France, on a matter that 
 concerned France much less than England. The per- 
 sistency of this attitude of suspicion or compulsion 
 toward the United States could not be mistaken. 
 Adams felt it, as it was meant to be felt, but wrote 
 immediately to Dayton at Paris, asking to know 
 whether the joint action was within Dayton's au- 
 thority. This letter was sent July 19, and on the 
 evening of July 24 Dayton himself arrived in Lon- 
 don to help Adams in solving the mystery that had 
 hitherto baffled comprehension. 
 
 Meanwhile Seward at Washington made every ef- 
 fort for the same object. He wrote a long despatch * 
 to Dayton, July 6, to overcome Dayton's objections, 
 and gave him the positive order to make the offer of 
 adhesion to the four Articles, without raising a ques- 
 tion about the belligerent rights of the Union over the 
 States in rebellion. Dayton had feared that after the 
 recognition by France and England of belligerent 
 rights in the rebel States, accession to the Declaration 
 of Paris would cause a serious injury to the Union 
 and a sacrifice of considerable advantages, not merely 
 for the benefit of England and France, but especially 
 
 1 Seward to Dayton, July 6, 1861 ; Diplomatic Documents, 
 p. 215. 
 
 17 
 
258 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 for the rebel government. " If I understand the view 
 of these foreign governments," wrote Dayton, 1 " such 
 accession by us would merely bind our hands as re- 
 spects privateering ; it would not at all enlarge our 
 rights as against a belligerent power not a party to 
 the treaty. If they admit the Confederate States as 
 a belligerent power, and recognize them for even com- 
 mercial purposes, which, I take it, is what they mean 
 to do, our accession to the Treaty of Paris will not 
 change their action on this question." The sound- 
 ness of this opinion was obvious ; but Seward's action 
 rested on different views. 
 
 " The United States, 1 ' wrote 'Seward to Dayton, " have 
 never disclaimed the employment of letters of marque as 
 a means of maritime war. The insurgents early an- 
 nounced their intention to commission privateers. AVe 
 knew that friendly nations would be anxious for guar- 
 antees of safety from injury by that form of depredation 
 upon the national commerce. We knew also that such 
 nations would desire to be informed whether their flags 
 should be regarded as protecting goods, not contraband 
 of war, of disloyal citizens found under them, and whether 
 the goods, not contraband, of subjects of such nations 
 would be safe from confiscation when found in vessels of 
 disloyal citizens of the United States." 
 
 The object to be gained by Seward was evident, but 
 
 it had nothing to do with Dayton's fears. Seward 
 
 wished to quiet foreign Powers and exclude them 
 
 from interest in the war. He regarded the abandon- 
 
 1 Dayton to Seward, June 7, 1861 ; Diplomatic Documents, 
 p. 204. 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861.. 259 
 
 ment of privateering as not practically important to 
 the United States, and he was undoubtedly right ; but 
 he believed that the Union was vitally interested in 
 precluding every excuse for interference by Europe. 
 The conduct of Great Britain was already demon- 
 strating to him, and every other American, that there 
 again he was right, and that at any sacrifice of small 
 interests the vital interest of the Union must be pro- 
 tected, — if, indeed, protection was still possible. The 
 attitude of England and France became more equivocal 
 every week. 
 
 On the same day of writing the long despatch to 
 Dayton, Seward called on Lord Lyons and tried to 
 remove obstacles on that side. Lyons, like his French 
 colleague Mercier, made little disguise of his lean- 
 ings, and no one was ignorant that the whole social 
 weight of both Legations was thrown in the scale 
 against the Union. Lyons had no faith in the suc- 
 cess of the national government, or in its profes- 
 sions ; and his influence with his own government 
 was exercised in that sense. Seward struggled to 
 win him over. The visit of July 6* had no other ob- 
 ject than if possible to draw Lyons into a friendlier 
 attitude. 
 
 Seward had been obliged to take a strong measure 
 in refusing to receive the joint action of the two 
 Powers, or to recognize their concession of belligerent 
 rights to the rebel States. He exerted himself to 
 assure the two ministers that the United States gov- 
 ernment, though evidently unable to admit or even 
 
260 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 to discuss a denial of its own sovereignty, would 
 ignore the action of England and France. Seward 
 asked only that England and France should not in- 
 sist on forcing their measures upon the attention of 
 the United States government. He assured Lyons 
 that if Europe would but consent to let the Presi- 
 dent shut his eyes, the President would not open 
 them. The Declaration of Paris was the test. Evi- 
 dently to influence British opinion, Seward told Lyons 
 of Dayton's fears and of his own course, and in effect 
 begged him to prevent the raising of obstacles. 
 
 " Now," Mr. Seward went on to say, " if, on the one 
 hand, the government of the United States declared that 
 they held their accession to the Paris Declaration to im- 
 pose an obligation on France with regard to all the States 
 of the Union, the disloyal as well as the loyal ; or if, on 
 the other hand, the government of France announced that 
 it did not intend, by accepting the accession of the United 
 States, to contract any engagement affecting the States 
 in revolt, — then Mr. Dayton's apprehensions might be well 
 founded. But if nothing was said on either side concern- 
 ing this particular point, the accession of the United 
 States might be given at once, and accepted, and the ef- 
 fect of it in regard to the States in revolt be determined 
 afterward." 
 
 Lyons understood, as he was intended to under- 
 stand, that Seward wished his assistance to deter the 
 governments of England and France from preventing 
 the adhesion of the United States by imposing any 
 condition that should imply recognition of the South- 
 ern Confederacy. Everything else the United States 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 261 
 
 would do to please England, but recognize the rebels 
 they could not. 
 
 Lyons listened to Seward's remarks without further 
 comment than to say that he supposed the accession 
 of the United States would be received with great 
 satisfaction by every government. He then reported 
 the conversation to Lord John Russell. His report, 
 dated July 8, closed with the following paragraph : l 
 
 " Notwithstanding the opinion expressed by Mr Seward, 
 I continue to think it very important, with a view to pre- 
 venting serious disputes in future, that Great Britain and 
 France should not accept the accession of this govern- 
 ment to the Declaration of Paris without stating to it, 
 formally and distinctly beforehand, the effect which their 
 so doing is intended by them to have with regard to the 
 seceded States." 
 
 Lord Lyons knew that his advice, if followed, 
 would prevent the United States from acceding to 
 the Declaration of Paris. His motive, as he ex- 
 plained it, was to prevent serious disputes in future. 
 In his mind the advantages to be gained by the ad- 
 hesion of the United States were outweighed by the 
 risk of disputes. 
 
 In these complications certain points gradually be- 
 came clear. That the governments of Great Britain 
 and France were unwilling that the United States 
 should accede to the Declaration of Paris pure and 
 simple, was evident. Under the Declaration of Paris 
 they were bound to invite the United States govern- 
 
 1 Papers No. 3 ; p. 14. 
 
262 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ment to adhere to the four Articles in their entirety, 
 and were especially pledged to enter into no other 
 arrangement. In violation of the pledge, they invited 
 the United States government to enter into another 
 arrangement, and did not invite it to accede " purely 
 and simply." They persistently ignored, evaded, and 
 postponed attention to the offer of pure and simple 
 adhesion. Lord Lyons, when requested by Seward 
 to use his influence to facilitate the accession pure 
 and simple, acted in the opposite sense, and pressed 
 his Government to impose a condition which he was 
 warned would prevent accession. France acted only 
 as the ally of England, and was guided by the wishes 
 of the British cabinet. Palmerston and Russell were 
 the chief agents in the affair, and their wish to pre- 
 vent the United States from acceding was the cause 
 of the whole difficulty. The mystery that neither 
 Seward nor Adams could penetrate was the motive 
 that actuated the British cabinet. To that point 
 Adams directed his attention. 
 
 Dayton having arrived in London, July 24, had an 
 interview with Adams, July 25, and " under the cir- 
 cumstances felt it his duty to say to Mr. Adams that 
 there need be no delay on his account." l Dayton 
 asked only that before offering accession pure and 
 simple, Adams should obtain from Russell a distinct 
 refusal to entertain the Marcy amendment. Adams 
 accordingly wrote to Russell, July 29, informing him 
 
 1 Dayton to Seward, July 30, 1861; Diplomatic Documents, 
 p. 220. 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 263 
 
 of Dayton's wish to be assured on that point, and 
 promising that as soon as he should receive an 
 explicit assurance that the Marcy amendment was 
 inadmissible, Dayton would apprise the French gov- 
 ernment of his intention to accede to the Declaration 
 of Paris pure and simple. 
 
 Russell replied July 31, giving the required assur- 
 ance, and adding that he was ready to carry on the 
 negotiation so that the convention should be signed 
 simultaneously at London and Paris. His note closed 
 with a significant phrase : " I need scarcely add that 
 on the part of Great Britain the engagement will be 
 prospective, and will not invalidate anything already 
 done." 1 
 
 In transmitting this note to his Government, Au- 
 gust 2, Adams said : " I must frankly admit that I do 
 not understand the meaning of the last paragraph." 2 
 The persistent creation of difficulties by Russell caused 
 in Adams an equally persistent determination to force 
 Russell into an avowal of his true position. Adams 
 took no notice of the reservation, and waited for Rus- 
 sell to take the next step. If Russell wished only 
 to reserve the right to disregard future complaints or 
 claims of the United States, this formal notice seemed 
 sufficient. He would in that case sign the convention 
 without more delay. 
 
 1 Russell to Adams, July 31, 1861; Diplomatic Documents, 
 p. 110. 
 
 2 Adams to Seward, Aug. 2, 1861 ; Diplomatic Documents, 
 p. 108, 
 
264 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Russell waited until August 19. Then he wrote to 
 Adams a note enclosing a formal declaration which 
 he meant to make on signing the convention. 1 
 
 "In affixing his signature to the convention of this 
 day between her Majesty, the Queen of Great Britain 
 and Ireland, and the United States of America, the Earl 
 Russell declares, by order of her Majesty, that her 
 Majesty does not intend thereby to undertake any en- 
 gagement which shall have any bearing, direct or indi- 
 rect, on the internal difficulties now prevailing in the 
 United States." 
 
 On the same day Russell transmitted a copy of this 
 declaration to Paris, and it was adopted by Thouvenel 
 for communication to Dayton. 
 
 To Russell's note of August 19 Adams replied in a 
 long and carefully prepared note, 2 dated August 23, 
 recapitulating the story of the negotiation down to 
 the actual moment, when the " novel and anomalous 
 proceeding" of Earl Russell arrested it. 
 
 " Obviously," said Adams, " a consent to accept a par- 
 ticular exception, susceptible of so wide a construction of 
 a joint instrument, made by one of the parties to it in its 
 own favor at the time of signing, would justify the idea 
 that some advantage is, or may be suspected to be, in- 
 tended to be taken by the other. The natural effect of 
 such an accompaniment would seem to be to imply that 
 the government of the United States might be desirous 
 
 1 Russell to Adams, Aug. 19, 1861; Diplomatic Documents, 
 p. 118. 
 
 2 Adams to Russell, Aug. 23, 1861; Diplomatic Documents, 
 p. 120. 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 265 
 
 at this time to take a part iu the Declaration, Dot from 
 any high purpose or durable policy, but with a view 
 of securing some small temporary object in the unhappy 
 struggle which is going on at home. Such an inference 
 would spoil all the value that might be attached to the 
 act itself. The mere toleration of it would seem to be 
 equivalent to a confession of their own weakness. Rather 
 than that such a record should be made, it were a thou- 
 sand times better that the Declaration remain unsigned 
 forever. If the parties to the instrument are not to sign 
 it upon terms of perfect reciprocity, with all their duties 
 and obligations under it perfectly equal, and without 
 equivocation or reservation of any kind on any side, 
 then it is plain that the proper season for such an engage- 
 ment has not yet arrived. It were much wiser to put it 
 off until nations can understand each other better." 
 
 To this note Russell replied at equal length, August 
 28, 1 evidently feeling that his position was seriously 
 assailed. His defence of the proposed declaration 
 was contained in a few sentences : — 
 
 ' ' It would follow from the position taken by the United 
 States that the privateers of the Southern States might 
 be decreed to be pirates ; and it might be further argued 
 by the government of the United States that a European 
 power signing a convention with the United States de- 
 claring that privateering was and remains abolished, 
 would be bound to -treat the privateers of the so-called 
 Confederate States as pirates. Hence instead of an 
 agreement, charges of bad faith and violation of a con- 
 vention might be brought in the United States against 
 
 1 Russell to Adams, Aug. 28, 1861; Diplomatic Documents, 
 p. 128. 
 
266 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the Power signing such a convention and treating the pri- 
 vateers of the so-called Confederate States as those of a 
 belligerent power. . . . It is in this spirit that her Maj- 
 esty's government decline to bind themselves, without a 
 clear explanation on their part, to a convention which, 
 seemingly confined to an adoption of the Declaration of 
 Paris of 185G, might be* construed as an engagement to 
 interfere in the unhappy dissensions now prevailing in 
 the United States." 
 
 This explanation was remarkable for admitting the 
 correctness of Adams's criticism ; but it raised doubts 
 of another kind, which could not but strengthen the 
 growing conviction in the minds of all Americans 
 who followed the negotiation, that behind the Brit- 
 ish evasions and excuses some unavowed motive was 
 still concealed. 
 
 The ostensible plea was clear. Lord Russell 
 wished to avoid the vortex of American wars. 
 Equally clearly the proposed declaration would not 
 answer that purpose, even though the American gov- 
 ernment had accepted it. It could not be a part of 
 the four Articles of the Declaration of Paris. The 
 United States government could at any moment, by 
 merely writing a formal note, accede to those Articles 
 as they stood, and Great Britain was pledged to ac- 
 cept the adhesion unconditionally. Adams asked for 
 a convention because the Senate must have some in- 
 strument to ratify in order to make it valid at home ; 
 but had the United States government chosen to act 
 directly, it could have done so, as far as regarded 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 267 
 
 foreign Powers, without the possibility of condition 
 or refusal from Great Britain. 
 
 The proposed declaration was merely a notice given 
 by Earl Russell that the British government would 
 follow a certain course ; but the notice would bind the 
 United States in no way, and left President Lincoln 
 still free to call upon Great Britain to fulfil all the 
 obligations of the four Articles, whatever they were. 
 In that case the British government, with or without 
 the declaration, stood in the same attitude. The 
 declaration merely warned the United States that 
 Great Britain, in case of a demand to fulfil certain 
 duties resulting from the treaty, meant to refuse 
 compliance; but it could not prevent the demand 
 if the United States government chose to make it. 
 
 Lord Russell knew that the United States always 
 had considered Great Britain bound to treat the South- 
 ern cruisers, whether public or private, as pirates, on 
 grounds altogether separate from the Declaration of 
 Paris, though in American eyes much stronger. The 
 British ministry had emphatically refused to do so by 
 recognizing them as belligerents. The act, unfriendly 
 to the United States at best, had been made more so 
 by its adoption on the day when Adams reached 
 London, as though Russell wished to preclude discus- 
 sion. President Lincoln had not acquiesced in that 
 decision, but had not made it ground of quarrel. 
 Russell showed extravagant bias against the United 
 States government if he supposed that President Lin- 
 coln meant to seek a contest over the Declaration of 
 
268 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Paris, when Lincoln had made every effort to prove 
 that he did not mean to quarrel over the proclama- 
 tion of Southern belligerency. The Declaration of 
 Paris was a side issue. The main issue was the belli- 
 gerency of the rebel States ; and the British govern- 
 ment had already by proclamation given formal and 
 sufficient notice, by creating them belligerents, that 
 Great Britain did not intend to treat Southern priva- 
 teers as pirates. 
 
 The proposed declaration Avas superfluous as far as 
 concerned its ostensible object ; it was discourteous, 
 for it implied that the United States government was 
 laying a trap for Great Britain ; it had no binding 
 power on the United States ; and it was a measure 
 which Russell knew, through the warning of Seward 
 to Lyons, would prevent further proceedings on the 
 part of the United States. 
 
 As a matter of history the story stops there. The 
 motives of the British government were not further 
 avowed, and its action led to no apparent conse- 
 quence. Earl Russell's course in 1861 was all of one 
 character ; and whether in a single point it was con- 
 trolled by fear of Seward's supposed tricks or by un- 
 avowed motives, is immaterial. In either case it was 
 equally unfriendly. History abstains from imputing 
 motives and adopting uncertain conclusions ; but what 
 history avoids, diplomacy is obliged habitually to do. 
 No diplomatist in the service of a European govern- 
 ment ever received such treatment as was received by 
 Adams and Dayton without searching for unavowed 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 269 
 
 reasons to account for it. Least of all would an Eng- 
 lish diplomatic agent have been satisfied with the 
 official explanations in this case ; for among diplo- 
 matists the English, not without excuse, were always 
 most prone to act on the assumption that truth was 
 an English virtue, and that falsehood was a diplo- 
 matic profession. During the year 1861 the United 
 States Legation in London stood in an attitude of 
 anxiety not easy to realize ; and in the face of hos- 
 tility or distrust so openly avowed by Earl Russell, no 
 member of that Legation could afford to pass over so 
 extraordinary an experience without framing some 
 explanation that could be used for guidance through 
 the darkness and danger that surrounded him. 
 
 When Adams arrived in London, May 13, 1861, the 
 American Union was universally supposed to be at an 
 end. Not one Englishman in a hundred took a differ- 
 ent view. The possibility of a civil war, believed to 
 be necessarily futile, irritated Englishmen against 
 President Lincoln and his supporters. Never in the 
 history of human events had a revolt of such a nature 
 and extent been repressed by force; and even the 
 friends of America shrank for a moment from the 
 realization that a million lives might have to pay 
 the price of Union. This state of public opinion was 
 natural, and not a subject for complaint so much as 
 for correction. Within a few months it was cor- 
 rected, and within a year the British government 
 could have adopted no unfriendly measure without 
 meeting vigorous resistance from its own ranks ; but 
 
270 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 during the summer of 1861 the United States govern- 
 ment could count on no support in England. Not 
 until Bright, Cobden, and Forster had fully entered 
 the lists and shown a temper almost resembling that 
 of the American combatants, did the American Lega- 
 tion in London draw a free breath. 
 
 The conviction that the Union was at an end lay at 
 the foundation of every act adopted by the British 
 government during the spring and summer of 1861. 
 The assumption that the United States government 
 existed only in form was evident in Russell's atti- 
 tude toward Adams from the moment of his arrival 
 until the following year. Russell intentionally fixed, 
 as far as he was concerned, the position of Adams 
 before he arrived, as the representative of half an 
 empire, and afterward showed without concealment 
 his intention to hold Adams in the position fixed 
 for him. 
 
 The Declaration of Paris was the first battle-ground 
 between Russell and Adams. For the Declaration 
 itself Adams cared as little as Russell or Dayton ; but 
 the evident intention to prevent Adams from giving 
 his Government's adherence to the Declaration of 
 Paris, and the extraordinary equivocations to which 
 Russell resorted in the effort to take from his course 
 the appearance of outrage, exasperated Adams to the 
 point of pressing the British government as far as it 
 could be induced to go in discovering its true inten- 
 tions. Evidently the British government, for some 
 reason not clearly understood, shrank from saying 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 271 
 
 how far it meant to go. Russell said only enough to 
 show that in due time he meant to say more. 
 
 The story has shown that Russell and his colleagues 
 recognized the rebels as belligerents before Adams 
 could arrive to remonstrate ; that they effected a 
 practical alliance with France against the United 
 States at the same time ; that they induced the French 
 government to violate the pledge given in the protocol 
 of the Declaration of Paris in order to offer to both 
 belligerents a partial adhesion, which must exclude 
 the United States from a simple adhesion, to the 
 Declaration of Paris, while it placed both belligerents 
 on the same apparent footing. These steps were 
 taken in haste before Adams could obtain an inter- 
 view. When Adams by an effort unexpected to Rus- 
 sell obtained an inter view at Pembroke Lodge at 
 noon of Saturday, May 18, and according to Russell's 
 report of May 21 said that the United States were 
 "disposed to adhere to the Declaration of Paris;' 
 Russell evaded the offer, saying that lie had already 
 sent sufficient instructions to Lyons, although the in- 
 structions were not sufficient, nor had they been sent. 
 When this evasion was afterward brought to his no- 
 tice by Adams, Russell, revising his report to Lyons, 
 made such changes in it as should represent the first 
 proposal as coming from himself, and the evasion to 
 have come from Adams. When at last obliged to 
 read the American offer, Russell declared that he had 
 never heard of it before, although he had himself re- 
 ported it to Lyons and Lyons had reported it to him. 
 
272 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 When compelled to take the offer for consideration, 
 Russell, though always professing to welcome adhesion 
 pure and simple, required the co-operation of Dayton. 
 When Adams overcame this last obstacle, Russell in- 
 terposed a written proviso, which as he knew from 
 Lyons would prevent ratification. When Adams 
 paid no attention to the proviso, but insisted on sig- 
 nature of the treaty, Russell at last wrote a decla- 
 ration in the nature of an insult, which could not be 
 disregarded. 
 
 Lord Russell's motives for this conduct were his 
 own affair. The United States Legation in London 
 could not undertake to say certainly what they were, 
 nor did it greatly care for an explanation, since no 
 conceivable explanation could have excused the Lega- 
 tion for acting on any principle but one of distrust. 
 By the necessities of the case, Adams had no choice. 
 Russell's acts, whether straightforward or not, bore 
 every external appearance of covert hostility. Adams 
 could do nothing else than draw inferences from 
 every step in Russell's progress. From the first, — 
 Russell's disregard of the pledge of indivisibility in 
 the protocol to the Declaration of Paris, — the Ameri- 
 can minister was obliged to infer that England no 
 longer thought her interest to require that the United 
 States should be a party to the whole Declaration. 
 From the second, — Russell's wish for accession to 
 the second, third, and fourth Articles, — it was clear 
 that the first Article, or the whole in conjunction, 
 in some manner clashed with British interests after 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 273 
 
 the dissolution of the Union. From Russell's evasion 
 of Adams's offer, May 18, Adams could only conclude 
 that the offer was in some manner inconvenient for 
 the British government, which had motives for join- 
 ing France in acting at Washington. From Russell's 
 misstatement of the interview of May 18, it appeared 
 that he wished to conceal, or not to avow, the motives 
 of his action or the action itself. From the delays 
 interposed by Russell, Adams must conclude that the 
 British cabinet was trying one device after another 
 to evade the proposition ; and finally, from the 
 written declaration of August 19 he could draw no 
 other inference than that Russell had resorted to the 
 only defensive weapon left him, in order to avoid the 
 avowal of his true motives and policy. 
 
 Just or not, these were necessary conclusions for 
 any minister of the United States in 1861, who had 
 to shape a course of conduct in the face of universal 
 ill-will. In such a situation the business of a diplo- 
 matist was to account in some way for the mysterious 
 acts of his enemies in order not to be taken by sur- 
 prise when the blow should come. A little study of 
 the history of the Declaration of Paris suggested mo- 
 tives which might offer a clew not only to Russell's 
 strange conduct in May and July, but to the danger 
 it threatened to the United States. 
 
 The Declaration of Paris while purporting to add 
 four principles to international law, did in fact offer 
 only two. The principle that neutral goods were not 
 liable to condemnation under enemy's flag, and the 
 
274 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 other that blockades to be binding must be effective, 
 were then and had always been acknowledged maxims 
 of law, as well established as any of the common rules 
 of a little respected code had usually been. Only two 
 of the principles involved new points. One was that 
 privateering should be abolished ; the other was that 
 the neutral flag covered enemy's goods. 
 
 Of the two new principles the first was indisput- 
 ably advantageous to Great Britain, and never met 
 with opposition from her. Earl Russell could have 
 no objection to the abandonment of privateering by 
 the United States. The secret of his evident un- 
 willingness to the adherence of the United States on 
 any terms to the Declaration of Paris could not be 
 found in the Article on privateering ; but if it was 
 not there in Article 1, or in Articles 3 and 4, it must 
 be sought in Article 2, that the neutral flag covered 
 enemy's goods. 
 
 Considering that England was about to become a 
 neutral, the idea of her hostility to a provision so 
 favorable to neutrals was apparently unreasonable ; 
 but in April and May, 1861, the American Union was 
 supposed likely to fall apart without serious trouble, 
 and the permanent interests of Great Britain as a 
 belligerent still outweighed her momentary interests 
 as a neutral. The principle that the neutral flag 
 covered enemy's goods was a neutral and American 
 interest against which Great Britain had fought with 
 something like desperation. 
 
 This second Article of the Treatv of Paris was 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS 1861. 275 
 
 always regarded as hostile to British power, and was 
 accepted by England only as a sacrifice under motives 
 sufficiently strong to justify it. Russell himself 
 objected to it and opposed it, and the whole con- 
 servative spirit of the kingdom uniformly maintained 
 that Great Britain had " a great and preponderating 
 interest in maintaining the legitimate rights of bel- 
 ligerents, and cannot afford to sacrifice such legiti- 
 mate exercise of belligerent power as is justified by 
 the law of nations." 
 
 The Ministry of 1854 decided to concede the sanc- 
 tity of the neutral flag for reasons well understood. 
 One of these reasons was that by this concession Ens:- 
 land obtained the abandonment of the practice of 
 privateering. The other reason was given by Lord 
 Palmerston officially from his place on the Treasury 
 Bench in the House of Commons on the night of 
 March 18, 1862. He said that had the Government 
 not taken the course it did take in 1854 ; had it in- 
 sisted on maintaining the right of search and seizure 
 of enemy's goods in neutral ships, — such persistence 
 would within six months have added a war with the 
 United States to the war they were then waging with 
 Russia. According to Palmerston, the British govern- 
 ment was forced by the great and growing power of 
 the United States into an unwilling assent to princi- 
 ples which it held to be dangerous to the maritime 
 power of England. 
 
 The continuance of the later policy was naturally 
 dependent on the continuance of the motives that led 
 
 
276 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the British government to adopt it. If fear of the 
 power of the American Union produced the leniency 
 toward neutrals, the removal of this fear would re- 
 move the motive to persevere in the leniency. The 
 same men and the same ideas ruled England in 
 1861 as in 1856 ; and both Palmerston and Russell 
 were statesmen of the old school, whose views of 
 the United States had not essentially changed since 
 the War of 1812. 
 
 The dissolution of the American Union was fore- 
 seen from the moment of Abraham Lincoln's election 
 as President in November, 1860. After five months 
 of doubt and preparation, the civil war broke out 
 beyond restraint, April 12, 1861, and the news 
 reached England, April 20. Three agents of the 
 insurgent government were already on the spot, — 
 Yancey, Rost, and Mann, — and Lord John Russell 
 admitted them to an interview, May 4, in which they 
 urged at great length the cause of their neAv repub- 
 lic. Only two days afterward, May 6, Russell wrote 
 to Cowley at Paris, directing him to invite the French 
 government to join in an effort to obtain from the 
 two contending parties in America their adherence 
 to the second, third, and fourth Articles of the De- 
 claration of Paris. Only two days after the British 
 government had reason to know officially the rupture 
 of the American Union, it began to disregard its 
 pledge given five years before in the Treaty of Paris, 
 under the avowed idea that the power of the United 
 States was too dangerous to be thwarted. The plan 
 
THE DECLARATION OF PARIS. 1861. 277 
 
 of Lord John Russell was merely to provide a tem- 
 porary arrangement protecting British neutral rights 
 while saving British belligerent practices. He pro- 
 posed " to invite the two contending parties to act 
 upon the principles laid down in the second and 
 third Articles of the Declaration of Paris." He did 
 not propose to enter into any arrangement for adopt- 
 ing principles, or for acting on them beyond the time 
 of hostilities. At the close of hostilities the proposed 
 arrangement was to terminate, and the British rights 
 of belligerency were to remain at all times intact. 
 
 The United States were required to promise only 
 that belligerent rights should not, during the coming 
 hostilities, be used against British commerce ; while 
 Russell and Palmerston retained the right to revive 
 at any future time the exercise of those belligerent 
 rights against the enfeebled and divided States which 
 they expected to survive the civil war. Had the 
 United States been permitted to accede to the De- 
 claration of Paris pure and simple, Great Britain 
 would have lost her belligerent rights beyond recall, 
 the more effectually because the United States were 
 obliged by their Constitution to record their accession 
 in the form of a treaty, whereas Great Britain had 
 entered with other Powers into a mere agreement, 
 which was binding, as Lord Malmesbury declared, 
 only so long as it was convenient to respect it. 
 
 The British government had no reason to suppose 
 that the United States would lay aside their objec- 
 tions to the Declaration of Paris, and Seward's offer 
 
278 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 to do so disconcerted Russell. In his second despatch 
 to Lyons, of May 18, he made no suggestion of adhe- 
 sion pure and simple, but he said that he could not 
 accept the renunciation of privateering on the part 
 of the United States, " if coupled with the condition 
 that her Majesty's government should enforce its re- 
 nunciation on the Confederate States ; " yet when 
 the United States offered to renounce privateering 
 without coupling to it any condition whatever, Rus- 
 sell introduced conditions on his part which he knew 
 would prevent President Lincoln from carrying out 
 his purpose. 
 
 Whether these were the motives of Russell or not, 
 they were the motives that the American Legation in 
 London was irresistibly obliged to impute to him. 
 After the manner in which Russell received the ad- 
 vances of President Lincoln, no American minister 
 in London could safely act on any other assumption 
 than that the British government meant, at the first 
 convenient opportunity, to revive the belligerent pre- 
 tences dormant since the War of 1812. 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 1 
 
 During the Rebellion the United States armies 
 suffered many disasters in the field, which for the 
 moment were felt as personal misfortunes by every 
 loyal citizen. So strong was the public feeling of 
 anger and astonishment, that Congress appointed 
 committees of investigation to examine into the 
 causes of these military failures, and subjected the 
 conduct of the war to a searching and sometimes a 
 severe criticism. In finance the nation suffered only 
 one great disaster, but its effects have extended far 
 beyond the period of the war, and are likely to be 
 felt for an indefinite time to come. The causes of 
 this catastrophe have not been investigated by Con- 
 gress ; but as the day may probably arrive when the 
 national government will admit that the act of national 
 bankruptcy was a calamity involving the credit of 
 every man in whose charge the people then placed 
 the common interests, it may be useful to point out 
 the path which any future Congressional committee on 
 the Conduct of the Finances will be obliged to follow 
 in investigating the causes which led to that mis- 
 
 1 An article by Francis A. Walker and Henry Adams, in the 
 " North American Review " for April, 1870. 
 
280 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 carriage, the results of which have exceeded in im- 
 portance any defeat of the national armies or the 
 failure of any campaign. 
 
 The timid and hesitating criticism with. which the 
 subject has been commonly treated speaks ill for 
 the sound sense of the community. The public has 
 adopted the idea that it is itself the responsible gov- 
 erning power, and its representatives only delegates 
 to enroll its orders, until the healthy process of criti- 
 cising a policy once adopted seems to it almost an 
 attack on its own authority. The confusion involved 
 in this assumption of responsibility is peculiarly un- 
 fortunate. The task of citizens who are selected to 
 govern is one thing. They bear the burden of lead- 
 ers, and they enjoy the honor ; they arc at liberty, to 
 excuse or palliate their mistakes, their ignorance, or 
 their crimes by whatever arguments they can make 
 to answer their purpose. The task of the public is 
 wholly different. It is that of insisting, without favor 
 or prejudice, on the observance of truth in legisla- 
 tion and in the execution of the laws. To apply the 
 principles of truth is the first duty of every writer for 
 the press and every speaker on the hustings. What- 
 ever seems harsh in criticism or vehement in temper 
 may be excused in the citizen who clings to the logic 
 of fundamental principles, and leaves to those whose 
 public conduct fails to reach his standard the labor 
 of justifying themselves in the best way they can. 
 
 Critics of American finance commonly begin with 
 the assumption that the Legal-Tender Act was neces- 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 281 
 
 sary and inevitable. As a matter of criticism, noth- 
 ing can be less sensible than such a beginning ; and 
 as a matter of intelligence, nothing can be feebler. 
 Congress and the country permitted no such assump- 
 tion to be made in excuse for the beaten generals at 
 Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. No satisfactory 
 conclusion can be reached from such a premise. No 
 sound result can be obtained except by assuming at 
 the outset that the Legal-Tender Act was not neces- 
 sary; that the public was not responsible for it; that 
 the men who made it law were answerable to the 
 people for their act, and arc bound to show that so 
 extraordinary and so grave a misfortune could by no 
 means have been avoided. If they fail to prove their 
 case, they are condemned. 
 
 The law of legal tender, passed by Congress in 
 February, 1862, cannot be assumed to have been 
 necessary, and its supporters are bound to prove that 
 they had no alternative. To this task Mr. Spaulding, 
 the principal author of the measure, has applied him- 
 self ; while, on the other hand, Mr. Chase, without 
 whose assent the law could not have passed, has 
 assumed the contrary ground. 1 At the outset, a 
 
 1 History of the Legal-Tender Paper Money issued during the 
 Great Rebellion, being a Loan without Interest, and National 
 Currency. Prepared by Hon. E. G. Spaulding, Chairman of 
 the Sub-Committee of Ways and Means at the time the Act 
 was passed. Buffalo. 1869. 
 
 Opinion delivered in the Supreme Court of the United States 
 by Chief- Justice Chase, on the 7th of February, 1870, in 
 Regard to the Construction of the Legal-Tender Act. 
 
282 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 strong presumption- against the law is raised by the 
 unquestionable fact that the men who in 1862 were 
 charged with the conduct of the finances, and were 
 responsible for this law in particular, had no claim to 
 confidence on the ground of their financial knowledge 
 or experience. Something better might have been 
 expected among a people devoted to commerce and 
 habituated to self-government. Military disasters 
 were to be looked for, seeing that the nation had no 
 training or taste for war ; but though war or art or 
 philosophy or abstract knowledge were beyond the 
 range of public or popular interest, an experience of 
 two hundred years ought to have insured the country 
 against mistakes in practical politics. Such was far 
 from the truth. Among the leading statesmen then 
 charged with responsibility, not one was by training 
 well fitted to perform the duties of finance minister, 
 or to guide the financial opinions of Congress. 
 
 The Secretary of the Treasury, certainly the most 
 capable of the men then connected with finance, 
 suffered under the disadvantage of inexperience. In 
 the Senate, finance, like every other subject, was 
 treated rather as though it were a branch of the 
 common or constitutional law, than as though it were 
 a system with established principles and processes of 
 its own ; but in the House of Representatives the 
 want of education was most apparent and most mis- 
 chievous, while by a significant coincidence the law 
 of legal tender, more than almost any other great 
 financial measure of the Rebellion, was peculiarly 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 283 
 
 the work of this House. Of the members who origi- 
 nated and whose activity carried through all opposi- 
 tion the Act of February, 1862, it is difficult to speak 
 in language which will not seem unduly and un- 
 reasonably severe. Yet it may honestly be doubted 
 whether since Kleon, the leather-seller, was sent by 
 the people of Athens to command its armies at 
 Sphacteria and Amphipolis, and since Aristophanes 
 on the public stage covered the powerful popular 
 leader with an immortal ridicule which surely re- 
 flected most severely on the Athenian people itself, — 
 it may honestly be doubted whether history records 
 an occasion when the interests of a great country 
 in an extreme emergency have been committed to 
 hands more eminently disqualified for the trust. 
 
 In February, 1862, Thaddeus Stevens was chairman 
 of the Committee of Ways and Means, from which 
 emanates the ordinary financial legislation of Con- 
 gress. That Mr. Stevens was as little suited to 
 direct the economical policy of the country at a crit- 
 ical moment as a naked Indian from the plains to 
 plan the architecture of St. Peter's or to direct the 
 construction of the Capitol, expresses in no extreme 
 language the degree of his unfitness. That Stevens 
 was grossly ignorant upon all economical subjects 
 and principles was the least of his deficiencies. A 
 dogmatic mind, a high temper, and an overbearing 
 will are three serious disqualifications for financial 
 success, especially when combined with contempt 
 for financial knowledge. It is no exaggeration to say 
 
284 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 that every quality of his nature and every incident 
 of his life which gave Stevens power in the House, 
 where he was almost omnipotent in the legislation 
 which belonged to the war and to reconstruction, 
 conspired to unfit him for the deliberate and difficult 
 discussions of finance. Yet the principal burden of 
 blame or praise for the financial legislation of that 
 momentous year is not to be awarded to Stevens. In 
 the press of business upon the committee, when in 
 the brief space of a few months the whole system of 
 loans, of taxation, and of currency demanded by a 
 war of tremendous proportions had to be created, so 
 to speak, out of nothing, two sub-committees were 
 formed to divide the duties which fell upon the 
 committee. One of these, under the lead of Morrill 
 of Vermont, undertook to enlarge and adjust the 
 scheme of taxation to the new necessities of the 
 government. The other, under the chairmanship of 
 the Hon. Elbridge G. Spanieling of New York, as- 
 sumed the care of the national currency, the raising 
 of loans, and the issue of Treasury notes or bonds. 
 Stevens remained chairman of the whole committee, 
 charging himself particularly with the matter of ap- 
 propriations, and lending his powerful voice to both 
 sections below him, as either by turn encountered op- 
 position in carrying its measures through the House. 
 
 The intellect of a Congressman, gifted with no 
 more than the ordinary abilities of his class, is 
 scarcely an interesting or instructive subject of 
 study ; nor are the discussions that arise among such 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 285 
 
 men likely to be rich in stores of knowledge or 
 experience; but when an accidental representative 
 carries " over the Administration and through Con- 
 gress," 1 as Spaulding is claimed to have done, and 
 he clearly did, a measure of such far-reaching conse- 
 quences as the Legal-Tender Act of 1862, the char- 
 acter of that person's mind and the facts of his life 
 cease to be matters of insignificance. One may well 
 inquire who it was that could lead a nation so far 
 astray, and what the condition of things that made it 
 possible for him to effect results of such magnitude. 
 Financiers who make an addition of hundreds of 
 millions of dollars to the debts of their countries, 
 representing not a penny of value enjoyed, are en- 
 titled to a place in history whether they boast the 
 intellectual capacity of Pitt or of Spaulding. 
 
 Unlike Stevens, Spaulding had the advantage or 
 disadvantage of a certain sort of financial experience. 
 He had been for a time treasurer of the State of 
 New York. By profession he was, in 1862, president 
 of a joint-stock bank at Buffalo, and on this circum- 
 stance he based his chief claim to speak as an 
 expert in finance. At the conference on the 11th of 
 January, 1862, at the Treasury, between the Secre- 
 tary, the committees of Congress, and the representa- 
 tives of the principal Northern banks, — a conference 
 
 1 Spaulding's share in the passage of the Act is described in 
 these words by his colleague, Hon. T. M. Pomeroy, in a speech 
 delivered in the House of Representatives Feb. 19, 1862, reprinted 
 in Spaulding's book, p. 132. 
 
286 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 whose momentous importance will require close at- 
 tention, — Spaulding expressed his convictions both 
 " as a banker and legislator." The association of 
 functions was not unimportant, and Spaulding was 
 right in laying stress upon it. Had he not been a 
 banker as well as a legislator, the Legal-Tender Act 
 might never have been enacted. Being a provincial 
 banker, and at the same time chairman of a sub- 
 committee dealing with the nominally financial but 
 really universal interests of thirty millions or more 
 of citizens, and dealing too with the whole future 
 of a nation whose development no bounds seem to 
 limit, Spaulding naturally applied to the situation 
 the principles of finance he had learned in shaving 
 notes at a country bank. 
 
 The situation was unquestionably serious ; but few 
 persons now retain any distinct recollection of its 
 actual shape. To the minds of men living in 1870 
 the events of 1862 appear bound in close connection 
 with the long series of events that have intervened. 
 The necessity of the Legal-Tender Act is now as- 
 sumed, not on account of what had happened before 
 the law was passed, or on account of anything that 
 was foreseen by its authors, but because of what after- 
 ward occurred, — the exigencies of a situation far more 
 difficult and alarming than existed at that earlier 
 time. Against such a confusion of ideas every can- 
 did man should be on his guard. The vague notion 
 that sooner or later legal-tender paper was inevita- 
 ble, is part of the loose and slovenly popular criticism 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 287 
 
 with which the subject has been habitually treated, 
 and is scarcely worth comment ; but the actual cir- 
 cumstances under which Congress declared the meas- 
 ure to be necessary are a matter of fact, and with 
 these law, history, and political science have first to 
 deal. 
 
 Congress met Dec. 2, 1861, and Secretary Chase 
 immediately set before it an account of the financial 
 situation, and his own scheme for supplying the wants 
 of the Treasury. He required about 1200,000,000, 
 in addition to resources already provided, in order 
 to meet the demands of the next half-year. His im- 
 mediate necessity was for #100,000,000 within three 
 months. He estimated that the debt would reach 
 #517,000,000 on the 1st of July, 1862, and that a 
 year later it would probably become #900,000^000. 
 hi fact it rose to #1,100,000,000. A part of the 
 heavy government expenses was to he met by taxa- 
 tion ; a part by the sale of bonds ; and for the rest 
 Secretary Chase proposed the assumption by the gov- 
 ernment of the bank circulation, amounting to some 
 #200,000,000, with a view not only of obtaining the 
 money, but of providing a sound currency on which 
 to conduct the war. The secretary did not, in this 
 connection, overlook the possibility of resorting to 
 a forced paper circulation, but " the immeasurable 
 evils of dishonored public faith and national bank- 
 ruptcy " deterred him from recommending the meas- 
 ure, or rather obliged him to reject it as dangerous 
 and unnecessary. 
 
288 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Thus, on the 1st of December, 1861, according to 
 the Secretary of the Treasury, no occasion existed for 
 resorting to the moderate measure of issuing govern- 
 ment paper, except so far as concerned a possible 
 guaranty to a new bank circulation. The idea of 
 legal tender was expressly rejected. The government 
 believed itself able to meet its demands on the basis 
 of the bank circulation, provided Congress would 
 place the bank circulation on an available footing. 
 Nothing was done by Congress toward supplying 
 the wants' of the Treasury until, toward the end of 
 December, Spaulding began to draft a bill for estab- 
 lishing a national banking currency. While prepar- 
 ing this draft, Spaulding, " upon mature reflection, 
 came to the conclusion that the bill could not be 
 passed and made available quick enough to meet the 
 crisis then pressing upon the government for money 
 to sustain the army and navy. He therefore drafted 
 a legal-tender Treasury-note section." This was done 
 about December 30 ; and this was the origin of the 
 measure destined to have a vast influence on the 
 American people. The " mature reflection " of Mr. 
 Spaulding could discover no other or better method 
 of supplying a temporary want of 1100,000,000 than a 
 resort to the last expedient known to finance, — what 
 he himself calls a forced loan, made in the first year 
 of the war by means equivalent to a debasement of 
 the standard of value and a bankruptcy of the govern- 
 ment. Any reader in the least familiar with financial 
 history must appreciate the extravagance of Spauld- 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 289 
 
 ing's assumption. That he acted with honesty and 
 good intention no one will think it worth while to 
 dispute ; but that he had a conception of the conse- 
 quences of what he was doing, or that he grasped in 
 any degree the principles of statesmanship, no un- 
 prejudiced or cool observer could imagine. Like all 
 ignorant men impatient of resistance or restraint, the 
 moment he saw an obstacle he knew but one resource, 
 — an appeal to force. 
 
 Spaulding then, " upon more mature consideration," 
 converted this section into a separate bill, and laid it 
 before his committee. The committee was by no 
 means unanimous in accepting Spaulding's views of 
 necessity. It is true that the only doubt entertained 
 by Thaddeus Stevens regarded the constitutionality of 
 the law ; and one is at loss whether most to wonder 
 at the ignorance thus betrayed or at the Constitutional 
 scruples which suggested themselves to this veteran 
 expunger of Constitutions. Stevens and one half the 
 committee approved the bill, but the other half stood 
 out firmly against it, and only as a matter of courtesy 
 allowed it to be reported to the House. 
 
 The bill, reported Jan. 7, 1862, authorized the issue 
 of #100,000,000 in Treasury notes, to be a legal ten- 
 der, and exchangeable on demand for six per cent 
 bonds. Public opinion at once became sharply di- 
 vided on the merits of the measure. Delegates from 
 the Boards of Trade and banks of the principal North- 
 ern cities appeared in Washington to oppose the bill ; 
 and on the 11th of January these gentlemen met the 
 
 19 
 
290 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Secretary of the Treasury and the finance committees 
 of the Senate and House, at Secretary Chase's office 
 in the Department. There the whole financial policy 
 of the government was made a subject of discussion, 
 and the two paths between which the country was 
 still at liberty to choose were marked out with pre- 
 cision. Spaulding, on the one hand, insisted not only 
 that his measure was the best, but that it was the 
 only means of raising the money required, and he de- 
 manded to know what alternative could be suggested. 
 On the part of the bank committees, James Gallatin 
 of New York submitted a complete financial scheme, 
 and replied to Spaulding's inquiry by the simple re- 
 mark that the government should sell its bonds in 
 the open market for what they would bring, without 
 limitation of price. To this suggestion Spaulding 
 made the following response : — 
 
 "The Sub-Committee of Ways and Means, through 
 Mr. Spaulding, objected to any and every form of ' shin- 
 ning ' by government through Wall or State streets to 
 begin with ; objected to the knocking down of govern- 
 ment stocks to seventy-five or sixty cents on the dollar, 
 the inevitable result of throwing a new and large loan on 
 the market without limitation as to price ; claimed for 
 Treasury notes as much virtue of par value as the notes 
 of banks which have suspended specie payments, but 
 which yet circulate in the trade of the North ; and fin- 
 ished with firmly refusing to assent to any scheme which 
 should permit a speculation by brokers, bankers, and 
 others in the government securities, and particularly any 
 scheme which should double the public debt of the country, 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 291 
 
 and double the expenses of the war, by damaging the credit 
 of the government to the extent of sending it to ' shin * 
 through the shaving shops of New York, Boston, and 
 Philadelphia. He affirmed his conviction as a banker 
 and legislator, that it was the lawful policy as well as 
 the manifest duty of the government, in the present exi- 
 gency, to legalize as tender its fifty millions issue of 
 demand Treasury notes, authorized at the extra session in 
 July last, and to add to this stock of legal tender, imme- 
 diately, one hundred millions more. He thought that this 
 financial measure would carry the country through the ivar, 
 and save its credit and dignity. At the same time we 
 should insist upon taxation abundantly ample to pay the 
 expenses of the government on a peace footing, and in- 
 terest of every dollar of the public obligation, and to give 
 this generation a clear show of a speedy liquidation of 
 the public debt." 
 
 Before further comment on this speech, the fact 
 must be noticed that throughout the legal-tender con- 
 test in 1862 no question was involved but one of 
 resource. The sum of one hundred million dollars 
 was wanted to carry on the government, and Spauld- 
 ing closed every mouth by asking how else the money 
 could be raised, since the banks could provide no 
 more coin, and their paper would not properly an- 
 swer the purpose. At that time no one thought of 
 any ulterior process of " floating the bonds," which 
 became the ultimate function of the legal-tender 
 paper ; and indeed this argument, which implied an 
 intentional depreciation of the paper, would in 1862 
 have scarcely worked in favor of the bill. How little 
 
292 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 weight was put on the idea of " making money easy " 
 is evident from the whole debate ; but as far as Spauld- 
 ing is concerned, the following letter, written Jan. 8, 
 1862, is sufficient : — 
 
 Dear Sir, — In reply to yours of the 4th instant, I 
 would say that the Treasury Note Bill for $100,000,000 
 agreed upon in committee yesterday is a measure of ne- 
 cessity and not one of choice. You criticise matters very 
 freely, and very likely you may be right in what you 
 say. We will be out of means to pay the daily expenses 
 in about thirty clays, and the committee do not see any 
 other way to get along till we can get the tax-bills ready, 
 except to issue temporarily Treasury notes. Perhaps you 
 can suggest some other mode of carrying on the govern- 
 ment for the next one hundred days. ... It is much 
 easier to find fault than it is to suggest practicable means 
 or measures. We must have at least $100,000,000 of 
 paying means during the next three months, or the gov- 
 ernment must stop payment. ... I will thank you to 
 suggest a better practicable mode of getting $100,000,000 
 of paying means during the next three months. I would 
 be glad to adopt it, and the committee would be glad to 
 adopt it. Let us have your specific plan for this pur- 
 pose, one that will produce the money, and we will be 
 very much obliged to you. 
 
 This curious letter, which Spaulding has published, 
 italics and all, as a valuable document, tells the story 
 of the legal tender in its origin. As a specimen of 
 American finance and Congressional ability it will 
 live in history. It presents the view on which, then 
 as now, the adherents of this measure have always 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 293 
 
 wished to place it before the public, — as the only 
 alternative to the immediate stoppage of government. 
 Not as a means of supplying currency, or of easing 
 the money market, or of " floating " bonds, was the 
 legal-tender paper first created, but solely to supply a 
 temporary want of 1100,000,000, without which the 
 Treasury must stop payments. Spaulding flung into 
 the face of every doubter his contemptuous request to 
 suggest some better mode of raising the money, or in 
 future to keep silence. 
 
 Three days after this letter was written, James Gal- 
 latin, on the part of the New York banks, replied to 
 Spaulding's entreaties by the remark of a man who 
 knew what he was talking about, that Secretary Chase 
 need only sell his bonds at their market value, and 
 obtain what money he wanted. To this suggestion 
 Spaulding was called upon for a rejoinder. Obvi- 
 ously he was bound to show that Gallatin was mis- 
 taken ; that no such alternative existed ; and that, 
 for some reason or other, government bonds could 
 not be sold in the way proposed. In the speech just 
 quoted Spaulding did undertake to answer Gallatin, 
 but he took no such ground as this ; he did not 
 deny the efficacy of the proposed measure. He did 
 not even question that the resource suggested was 
 simple and easy. He appealed to the dignity of the 
 government. 
 
 It appears, therefore, that there was an alternative 
 to legal tender, in spite of Spaulding's assertions that 
 there was none. The existence of this alternative 
 
294 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 was acknowledged by the supporters of the bill al- 
 most in the same breath with which they declared 
 legal tender to be a necessity. In his speech of 
 January 28, on introducing the bill in the House of 
 Representatives, Spaulding said : — 
 
 "The bill before us is a war measure, — a measure of 
 necessity, and not of choice. . . . We have the alternative 
 either to go into the market and sell our bonds for what 
 they will command, or to pass this bill. ... If you offer 
 to the people and put upon the market $300,000,000 to 
 the highest bidder in the present state of affairs, they 
 would not be taken except at ruinous rates of discount. 
 ... I fear the twenty years six per cent bonds would 
 under the pressure fall to 75, 70, 60, and even 50 cents. 
 . . . Why, then, go into the streets at all to borrow 
 money ? I prefer to assert the power and dignity of the 
 government by the issue of its own notes." 
 
 Samuel Hooper, who was second on Mr. Spaulding's 
 committee, said : — 
 
 " The propositions of committees from Boards of Trade 
 and banks, which recently visited Washington, differed 
 from the theory of this bill so far as to require that . . . 
 the government bonds must first be disposed of, and the 
 money received for them paid to the contractors. . . . 
 The obvious effect of such an arrangement would be to 
 put the reins of our national finances in the hands of the 
 banks. . . . To render the government financially more 
 independent, it is necessary to make the United States 
 notes a legal tender. It is possible that they would, become 
 a practical tender without providing for them to be a legal 
 tender." 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 295 
 
 The alternative, therefore, as seen by Hooper, was 
 not between legal tender and a stoppage of payments, 
 but between legal tender and dependence on the 
 banks. John A. Bingham's idea of necessity was only 
 a little more ridiculous. 
 
 "Great names," said Bingham, "have been invoked 
 [against legal tender] in this debate. For what purpose? 
 For the purpose of laying at the feet and at the mercy of 
 brokers and hawkers on 'Change the power of the people 
 over their monetary interests in this hour of their national 
 exigency." 
 
 Thaddeus Stevens, again, had views of his own in 
 regard to the meaning of the word " necessity." 
 
 " This bill," said he, " is a measure of necessity, not of 
 choice. . . . Here, then, in a few icords lies your choice. 
 Throw bonds at six or seven per cent on the market 
 between this and December enough to raise at least 
 $600,000,000, or issue United States notes. ... I main- 
 tain that the highest sum you could sell your bonds at 
 would be seventy-five per cent, payable in currency itself 
 at a discount. That would produce a loss which no 
 nation or individual doing a large business could stand a 
 year." 
 
 John Sherman also used the word " necessity " in 
 a sense which would have been ludicrous if the sub- 
 ject had concerned the metaphysical doctrine of fate 
 and free-will : " We must no longer hesitate as to 
 the necessity of this measure. That necessity does 
 exist, and now presses upon us. I rest my vote upon 
 the proposition that this is a necessary and proper 
 
296 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 measure to furnish a currency." A better example 
 of anti-climax is seldom seen in rhetoric. 
 
 It would be pleasant to Hnger over this subject, and 
 enjoy among these apparently tedious speeches the 
 touches of involuntary hunror which a critic finds so 
 difficult to resist, but evidence is not needed on a 
 point that is self-evident; and unquestionably even 
 the strongest supporters of the bill did not in any true 
 and absolute sense maintain that legal tender was 
 necessary, but only that it was preferable to the pro- 
 cess of selling bonds at a discount and retaining the 
 old bank currency. 
 
 Finance is a subject which the liveliest writer may 
 despair of making popular, since the sight or suspi- 
 cion of it is alone enough to cause every reader, except 
 the dullest, to close the most promising volume. A 
 writer can have no hope of gaining a general hearing 
 on such a topic. Rarely can he expect sympathy 
 even among business men, unless he adopts the views 
 they hold. Yet notwithstanding this, it is and will 
 remain true, and not only true but interesting, that in 
 the large experience of modern nations some solid 
 principles in finance have been established too firmly 
 to be shaken ; and whether or no busy politicians or 
 local bankers choose to believe them, and whether or 
 no the ordinary reader choose to listen to them, the 
 principles are sound, and will hold. 
 
 Hitherto in human history the mind of man has 
 succeeded in conceiving of but two means by which 
 governments can obtain money. One of these is, to 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDEK ACT. 297 
 
 take. The other is, to borrow. The hybrid and self- 
 contradictory notion of a forced loan resolves ulti- 
 mately into one or the other of these conceptions, and 
 as a permanent policy is impossible. In practice, 
 where a government does not take, it must borrow. 
 
 Almost all modern nations are, to a greater or less 
 extent, habitual borrowers so far as their governments 
 are concerned, and during two hundred years of expe- 
 rience the principles which regulate loans have been 
 studied with some care, and simplified in some degree 
 into a science. After innumerable costly experiments 
 and elaborate study of the interests and motives of 
 lenders and borrowers, the effect of complicated finan- 
 cial schemes and special pledges and conditions, it 
 seems to be now acknowledged by the shrewdest gov- 
 ernments that the simplest bargain is the best for the 
 public, and that all financial tricks and devices, all 
 attempts to coax or deceive capitalists into better con- 
 ditions than they are ready to offer, in the end injure 
 only the government and the people. Simplicity has 
 of late years been carried by the great borrowing 
 nations to a degree of perfection beyond which there 
 seems to be no possibility of passing. According to 
 this principle, governments sell their own credit with- 
 out stipulation, reserve, or condition. They sell, for 
 example, their promise to pay a thousand dollars a 
 year so long as it is demanded. To this promise no 
 condition, expressed or implied, is attached, except 
 that the payment of a nominal principal may at any 
 time discharge the debt. For this promise they ob- 
 
298 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 tain whatever they can ; and experience has proved 
 that in the competition of the world the bargain thus 
 struck is for both parties the fairest. 
 
 Another simple law has also been established : and 
 this is that lenders will always prefer, and pay most 
 for, a security on which there is a certainty of perma- 
 nence or a chance of profit, other things being equal : 
 that is to say, that a security is relatively less valua- 
 ble as it approaches its par and its redemption than it 
 should be, judging from the price paid for an exactly 
 similar security which has a better chance of perma- 
 nence or a wider limit of possible profit. The English 
 3 per cents at eighty would commonly have a marked 
 advantage in the markets over 3 \ per cents, — in the 
 first place, because the margin of possible profit would 
 be greater ; and in the second place, because there 
 would be no prospect of disturbance in the one case, 
 while in the other redemption would be near at hand. 
 Experience shows that governments as a rule obtain 
 relatively a low price for a security which they insist 
 upon selling at par. 
 
 Most governments adapt their offer to the market 
 in such a way as to combine these inducements. If 
 the market rate of interest is at 4 per cent, they com- 
 monly offer 3 J or 3 per cent, and thus dispose of their 
 credit at a discount on better terms than if they at- 
 tempted to outbid the market rate. The American 
 government has commonly pursued a different course. 
 While insisting that it will borrow only at the market 
 rate, that is, at par, it has found itself compelled to 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 299 
 
 concede something in order to borrow at all. In the 
 first place it has conceded a high rate of interest ; but 
 this is not enough. Lenders require permanence. It 
 accepts, therefore, the condition that it shall not at- 
 tempt to redeem its bonds until after the lapse of a 
 term of years, — five or ten, or whatever may be 
 agreed upon. The expedient is clumsy ; but the pre- 
 judice against usury compels its adoption, although, 
 like all such devices, it works in practice only against 
 the public interest and in favor of the capitalist. 
 
 Every established principle of finance indicated 
 that government credit could be sold to more advan- 
 tage at a certain nominal discount than if a higher 
 interest or any equivalent condition were insisted 
 upon in order to " float " it at par. If the government 
 had chosen to authorize the sale of six per cent bonds 
 at their market price, as it did in the War of 1812, 
 omitting from the contract all restriction on its own 
 free control over them, it would have done what all 
 established financial rules enjoin ; and for such bonds 
 it would have obtained the best terms then to be had, 
 while at the present day the nation would have owed 
 a homogeneous debt, with which it would have been 
 free to deal as it chose. Congress declined to do 
 this. Spaulding apparently wished to discover some 
 principle in finance by which the government might 
 raise money through a process which should be neither 
 taxation nor loan. Before three years had passed, 
 the government was selling its six per cent bonds at 
 aerate equivalent to very nearly thirty-five cents on 
 
300 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the dollar ; but in 1861 the idea of its credit selling 
 at a discount of twenty or thirty or forty per cent 
 was so revolting as not to be entertained. Gallatin 
 talked in vain. Nor were members of Congress alone 
 extravagant on this theme. At least one gentleman 
 who should have known better, — Moses H. Grinnell, 
 of New York, — encouraged the same delusion. "As 
 for G[allatin] and a few egotistical gentlemen that act 
 with him, they should be driven out of Washington, 
 as they only embarrass the government. There are 
 not eight bank presidents that side with G[allatin]. 
 He is an odd fish, — has very little influence here." 
 These were the terms used by Grinnell in a letter 
 dated Jan. 30, 1862 ; and it was a curious sign of 
 the times that the son of Albert Gallatin — the only 
 man who seems to have had a knowledge of what 
 the occasion required — should have been " an odd 
 fish." 
 
 The idea about " shinning " through Wall Street was 
 absurd, seeing that every government always does and 
 always must borrow on the best terms it can get, or 
 not borrow at all, in which case it can have no re- 
 source but to tax. The event soon showed that the 
 men who treated so contemptuously the idea of the 
 nation's credit being sold at a discount were the first 
 to convert their legal-tender paper into the instru- 
 ment by which the government was to " shin," not 
 only through Wall Street during the short emergency 
 of the war, but through every lane and alley of the 
 land during a period that now seems interminable. 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 301 
 
 Congress and the Government followed Spaulding's 
 doctrine, that the nation's credit must not be sold at 
 a discount ; and as the laws of society are inflexible, 
 while the laws of Congress are not omnipotent, a 
 period of " shinning " ensued which has seldom had a 
 parallel. The dollar which Congress set up was 
 " shaved " through Wall Street at twenty, thirty, 
 forty, fifty, and sixty cents discount. Europe bought 
 United States six per cents at about thirty-five cents 
 on the dollar, notwithstanding Stevens's asseverations 
 that no nation could afford to borrow at seventy with- 
 out being ruined in a year. If Spaulding and his 
 friends could have foreseen not only that the govern- 
 ment would be compelled to perform this process of 
 " shinning" during four long years, but that, thanks 
 to them and to them alone, the government credit and 
 its broken promises-to-pay would for years longer be 
 hawked about Wall Street at whatever price they 
 could command, and would become the support by 
 which Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr., and their like, 
 would succeed in bolstering up their scandalous 
 schemes against the pressure of sound economical 
 laws, — the statesmen of 1862 might perhaps have 
 gained more sensible ideas in regard to the treatment 
 of government credit. 
 
 In justice to the Secretary of the Treasury it must 
 be said that on the day of the conference he showed 
 no symptom of yielding to Spaulding's influence. He 
 remained then as before hostile to the principle of 
 legal tender, and before the bank delegates left Wash- 
 
302 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ington he succeeded in agreeing with them upon a 
 new financial arrangement which rejected the resort 
 to legal tender, and adopted his own policy in regard 
 to the bank currency. Spaulding and his committee 
 deemed the scheme inadequate, and withheld their 
 assent ; but a different reason caused the compromise 
 between Chase and the banks to fail. The gentle- 
 man who represented the Boston banks on that occa- 
 sion found on his return to Massachusetts that the 
 arrangement he had made was not satisfactory to 
 them, and at once telegraphed this information to 
 the secretary. Then for the first time Chase yielded 
 his better judgment, and relying on his own power 
 and will to control the issues, accepted the policy of 
 legal tender, for which Boston influence thus became 
 immediately answerable. Having once made his de- 
 termination to adopt the policy, the secretary was not 
 a man to hesitate in carrying it out. He had been 
 drawn into it against his most deeply rooted convic- 
 tions and his better judgment ; but no sooner was 
 the decision made, than he threw his whole weight 
 in favor of the bill. 
 
 Thus, in spite of the Treasury and the banks and 
 the active remonstrances of a great part of the com- 
 munity, the bill came before the House of Represen- 
 tatives as a government measure. Two months of 
 delay and confusion had seriously complicated the 
 difficulties of the case, but even yet no necessity ex- 
 isted which could in any just sense be considered to 
 require the adoption of legal tender. The cry of 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 303 
 
 necessity was indeed raised, and prolonged without a 
 pause, but it was raised merely because no solid argu- 
 ment could be found. The ablest members of Con- 
 gress denied the necessity without qualification, and, 
 as has already been shown, the ideas of necessity 
 held by the different supporters of the bill were almost 
 as various as the speeches. 
 
 The debate began January 28 by a speech from 
 Spaulding, in which he explained at considerable 
 length his reasons for forcing on the country a meas- 
 ure so generally obnoxious. Spaulding was at that 
 moment in a position of vast responsibility. His ac- 
 tivity and persistence had carried the bill " over the 
 Administration," and were to carry it through the 
 House. However open to criticism his opinions may 
 have been, Spaulding has a right to claim that they 
 were little if at all inferior in merit to those ex- 
 pressed by the other friends of the bill. The good 
 sense and high moral standard of a few men served 
 only to make more conspicuous the cloud of igno- 
 rance against which their efforts were thrown away. 
 This language is strong, but it is true. With diffi- 
 culty could any human being compress within the 
 same limited space a greater number of mistaken 
 ideas than are contained in the following extract 
 from Spaulding's speech of January 28 : — 
 
 " The bill before us is a war measure, — a measure of 
 necessity, uot of choice. . . . Congress may judge of the 
 necessity in the present exigenc} 7 . It may decide whether 
 it will authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to issue 
 
304 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 demand Treasury notes, and make them a legal tender in 
 payment of debts ; or whether it will put its six or seven 
 per cent bonds on the market, at ruinous rates of discount, 
 and raise the money at any sacrifice the money-lenders 
 may require, to meet the pressing demands upon the 
 Treasury. In the one case the government will be able 
 to pay its debts at fair rates of interest ; in the other, it 
 must go into the streets shinning for the means, like an 
 individual in failing circumstances, and sure of being 
 used up in the end by the avarice of those who may ex- 
 act unreasonable terms. But, sir, knowing the power of 
 money, and the disposition there is among men to use it 
 for the acquisition of greater gain, I am unwilling that 
 this government, with all its immense power and re- 
 sources, should be left in the hands of any class of men, 
 bankers or money-lenders, however respectable or patri- 
 otic they may be. The government is much stronger 
 than any of them. Its capital is much greater. It has 
 control of all the bankers' money and all the brokers' 
 money, and all the property of the thirty millions of peo- 
 ple under its jurisdiction. Why then should it go into 
 Wall Street, State Street, Chestnut Street, or any other 
 street, begging for money? Their money is not as secure 
 as government money. All the gold they possess would 
 not carry on the government for ninety days. They issue 
 only promises to pay, which, if Congress does its duty, 
 are not half so secure as United States Treasury notes 
 based on adequate taxation of all the property of the 
 country. Why, then, go into the streets at all to borrow 
 money? I am opposed in our present extremities to 
 all shifts of this kind. I prefer to assert the power 
 and dignity of the government by the issue of its own 
 notes." 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 305 
 
 . He would be a bold man who should undertake to 
 say that these remarks can be made intelligible, but 
 the conclusion is clear enough, and is worth attention. 
 Had Mr. Spaulding's studies ever led him to read 
 Goethe's Faust, he might at this point have recalled 
 the scene where Mephistopheles, in the character of 
 court-jester, invents for the empire a legal-tender cur- 
 rency based on the firm foundation of old treasures 
 which in past ages might have been hidden under- 
 ground, and applauds his own creation as better than 
 coin, because if the bankers refused to give coin for 
 it, the holder would at worst have only the trouble of 
 digging. The great satirist with all his genius was 
 not so great a satirist as Mr. Spaulding. He never 
 thought of carrying his sarcasm so far as to invoke 
 the dignity of the empire as the chief glory of paper 
 money, and yet Mephistopheles closed the scene with 
 the exulting exclamation, — 
 
 ' ' Wer zweif elt noch an unsers Narren Witz ! " 
 
 Yet one thing remains to be said before quitting 
 Spaulding. If he sincerely believed that the govern- 
 ment need not go into the streets to borrow money, 
 and that a simple assertion of its own dignity would 
 place it in command of indefinite resources, — in other 
 words, if he thought that the dignity of the govern- 
 ment forbade its borrowing except on its own terms, 
 and that there was no necessity for it to borrow at 
 all, he was bound to explain his consent that the 
 government should pay six per cent or even one 
 
 20 
 
306 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 per cent for money, or should promise to repay any 
 money whatever. 
 
 The argument of Samuel Hooper was less extrava- 
 gant. He avoided committing himself beyond a cau- 
 tious opinion that the paper issue would make the 
 government financially more independent, and that if 
 Secretary Chase were discreet, the quality of legal 
 tender would help him to keep the notes at par. 
 The latter opinion might perhaps be questioned, 
 and indeed the chief-justice has himself questioned 
 it in his late judgment ; but at least it was not 
 absurd. 
 
 Bingham rivalled Spanieling, though in a different 
 way. His speech was necessarily made without refer- 
 ence to financial principles, since Bingham made no 
 pretence to acquaintance with that subject. He as- 
 sumed at the outset that the bill was necessary, be- 
 cause it was said to be necessary, and then burst into 
 a denunciation of all persons who refused to believe 
 in the necessity. Roscoe Conkling was the victim 
 first immolated. 
 
 " Sir," said Bingham, " as a representative of the peo- 
 ple I cannot keep silent when I see efforts made upon 
 this side of the House and upon that, to lay the power of 
 the American people to control the currency at the feet 
 of brokers and of city bankers, who have not a tittle of 
 authority, save by the assent or forbearance of the peo- 
 ple, to deal in their paper issued as money. I am here 
 to-day to assert the rightful authority of the American 
 people as a nationality, sovereignty, under and by virtue 
 of their Constitution." 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 307 
 
 Such legal finance would not call for notice except 
 that it came from a leader in Congress, who in order 
 to protect the sovereignty of the American people 
 from bankers and brokers insisted upon creating a 
 legal-tender paper currency, which has always been 
 and always will be the most efficient instrument ever 
 discovered for the purposes of this very class of men. 
 Bingham denounced his opponents for acting with 
 the purpose of sacrificing the public interest to the 
 interest of bankers and brokers. It was mortifying 
 to observe the ignorance and vulgar prejudice with 
 which the bankers and brokers of the country were 
 always mentioned in these debates. Perhaps no other 
 single characteristic offered so much instruction in 
 regard to the temper and the range of thought ex- 
 hibited in this momentous discussion. Stevens, with 
 his usual discrimination, characterized the dealers in 
 money as " sharks and brokers," to which he after- 
 ward added "harpies." Shellabarger of Ohio, after 
 appropriating bodily and almost literally several pages 
 of Macaulay's most luminous and most familiar 
 writing, in the effort to maintain himself on Macau- 
 lay's level without Macaulay's aid could discover no 
 more original idea for his peroration than to de- 
 nounce the outside opposition to this bill as coming 
 from interested persons, in the expectation " that out 
 of the blood of their sinking country they may be 
 enabled to coin the gains of their infamy." Even 
 Henry Wilson announced that the practical ques- 
 tion lay between " brokers and jobbers and money- 
 
308 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 changers on the one side, and the people of the 
 United States on the other.' ' 
 
 Invective like this properly belonged only to a 
 debating-club of boys ; but if invective were to be 
 used, and if these bankers had been represented in 
 Congress by any person capable of using it, he might 
 have retaliated in a manner which would have left lit- 
 tle opportunity for an effective rejoinder. He might 
 have replied that men who claimed to be trusted 
 in regard to a financial exigency ; who asserted in 
 one breath that a necessity existed which in the next 
 breath they acknowledged did not exist; who pre- 
 sumed on this unwarrantable plea of necessity to ex- 
 culpate themselves from what, without exculpation, 
 was the wickedest vote the representatives of the 
 people could ever give, — a vote which delivered 
 labor to the mercy of capital ; a vote which forced 
 upon the people that as money which in no just 
 sense was money ; a vote which established as law 
 one of the most abominable frauds which law could 
 be prostituted to enforce, — that such persons were 
 not qualified to judge of other men's patriotism, 
 honesty, or good sense. 
 
 A very large part of the debate turned on the tech- 
 nical construction of the Constitution ; and many 
 members of the Legislature who hesitated about noth- 
 ing else found an insurmountable obstacle there. The 
 Constitutional argument, whatever its weight may be, 
 is one on which only lawyers will be likely to insist. 
 Whether under a strict interpretation of Constitu- 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 309 
 
 tional powers the law of legal tender is justified or 
 not, can make but little difference to persons who 
 look for their principles of action beneath the letter 
 of the Constitution, — to the principles upon which all 
 government and all society must ultimately rest. The 
 law of legal tender was an attempt by artificial legis- 
 lation to make something true which was false. This 
 is the sum-total of the argument against legal tender ; 
 and this argument rests on the maxim that the foun- 
 dation of law is truth. If the rhetoric of Congres- 
 sional orators or the ingenuity of professional lawyers 
 can reduce the principle involved to simpler elements 
 than this, at all events neither the debates at the 
 Capitol nor the arguments at the bar, however bril- 
 liant or elaborate they may have been, have as yet 
 shown any probability of success. 
 
 It would be pleasant to extract from the speeches 
 delivered in favor of this bill such portions as show 
 depths of knowledge, elevation of morals, or breadth 
 of mind. Nothing of the sort exists. Almost all the 
 soundest minds in the House declared themselves 
 against legal tender and denied its necessity. Judge 
 Thomas of Massachusetts and Roscoe Conkling of 
 New York, Morrill of Vermont, from the Committee 
 of Ways and Means, Horton of Ohio, also of the Ways 
 and Means, all the Democratic members, and others 
 who contented themselves with a silent vote, opposed 
 the legal-tender clause. The speech of Owen Lovejoy 
 of Illinois was in its short space as clear, as vigorous, 
 and from a rhetorical point of view as perfect, as the 
 
310 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 oldest statesman or the most exacting critic or the 
 deepest student of finance could have hoped or wished 
 to make. The opponents of the measure were far su- 
 perior in intellect to its supporters ; their arguments 
 were essentially sound, and under ordinary circum- 
 stances would probably have proved successful ; but 
 they could not deal with the authority of the Execu- 
 tive, which Chase used with all his energy in favor of 
 the bill. On the 6th of February Spaulding pressed 
 his measure to a vote, and it passed the House by a 
 majority of ninety-three to fifty-nine. 
 
 One can scarcely resist the conclusion that had the 
 bill originated in the Senate, and been discussed with- 
 out the prejudice arising from the responsibility of 
 rejecting what was approved by the House and urged 
 by the Executive, and had it been acted upon before 
 so much valuable time was lost, the country would 
 probably for the time have been spared the great 
 misfortune of its adoption. This opinion is ren- 
 dered probable by the higher and more statesman- 
 like spirit in which the Senate discussed the proposed 
 measure. If a word of unqualified admiration could 
 please the ear or help to soothe the rest of a states- 
 man whose loss the nation has regretted but has 
 never fairly appreciated, one would take a personal 
 pleasure in repeating the language of William Pitt 
 Fessenden of Maine, who reported this bill to the 
 Senate : — 
 
 " The question after all returns, Is this measure abso- 
 lutely indispensable to procure means? If so, as I said 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 311 
 
 before, necessity knows no law. What are the objections 
 to it? I will state them as briefly as I can. The first is 
 a negative objection. A measure of this kind certainly 
 cannot increase confidence in the ability or integrity of 
 the con a try. . . . 
 
 " Next, in my judgment, it is a confession of bank- 
 ruptcy. . . . 
 
 "Again, say what you will, nobody can deny that it 
 is bad faith, . . . and encourages bad morality both in 
 public and private. . . . 
 
 "Again, it encourages bad morals, because if the cur- 
 rency falls (as it is supposed it must, else why defend it by 
 a legal enactment), what is the result? It is that every 
 man who desires to pay off his debts at a discount, no 
 matter what the circumstances are, is able to avail him- 
 self of it against the will of his neighbor who honestly 
 contracted to receive something better. 
 
 "Again, sir, necessarily as a result, in my judgment, 
 it must inflict a stain upon the national honor. . . . 
 
 " Again, sir, it necessarily changes the value of all 
 property. . . . 
 
 "Again, sir, a stronger objection than all that I have 
 to this proposition is that the loss must fall most heavily 
 upon the poor by reason of the inflation." 
 
 Fessenden concluded by declaring that in his opin- 
 ion the legal-tender clause was not necessary, and he 
 reported several amendments. One of these, the sec- 
 ond, he described in these terms : " The committee 
 . . . give to the secretary the power to sell the bonds 
 of the government at any time that it may be neces- 
 sary, at the market price, in order to raise coin. 
 That can always be done" This amendment was 
 
312 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ultimately adopted and became part of the bill ; but 
 the secretary preferred reaching the same result by 
 a different policy, and the old system was therefore 
 retained. 
 
 Collamer of Vermont took yet stronger and more 
 uncompromising ground. " Even if it was a neces- 
 sity" said he, " I would not vote for this measure." 
 Fidelity to a trust is not so universal but that one 
 might sympathize with a man who when placed be- 
 tween the alternative of destruction on the one hand 
 and what he thinks a breach of trust on the other, 
 in spite of necessity still maintains the standard of 
 honor ; but there was in reality no such bravado in 
 this declaration of Judge Collamer. No mere im- 
 practicability prompted his resistance, but a superior 
 discernment that the evidence of necessity which 
 imposes on a legislative body in times of panic is 
 not to be trusted. Even on a calculation of chances, 
 it is always more likely that other resources are avail- 
 able than that so desperate an expedient should offer 
 the only hope of salvation. Collamer's speech was 
 an energetic expression of his resolution, not that 
 he would refuse to obey necessity, but that he would 
 refuse to believe it. 
 
 The position taken by Charles Sumner wanted 
 only the same defiant confidence in the laws of 
 truth to make it more impressive than any of the 
 others. Unhappily, by the side of Fessenden and 
 Collamer, his conclusions seemed tinged with irreso- 
 lution : — 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 313 
 
 u And now, as I close, I will not cease to be frank. 
 Is it necessary to incur all the unquestionable evils of 
 inconvertible paper, forced into circulation by act of Con- 
 gress ; to suffer the stain upon our national faith ; to bear 
 the stigma of a seeming repudiation ; to lose for the 
 present that credit which in itself is a treasury ; and to 
 teach debtors everywhere that contracts may be varied at 
 the will of the stronger? Surely, there is much in these 
 inquiries which may make us pause. . . . It is hard, very 
 hard, to think that such a country, so powerful, so rich, 
 and so beloved, should be compelled to adopt a policy of 
 even questionable propriety. . . . Surely we must all be 
 against paper money, — we must all insist on maintain- 
 ing the integrity of the government ; and we must all 
 set our faces against any proposition like the present, ex- 
 cept as a temporary expedient rendered imperative by the 
 exigency of the hour. . . . Others may doubt if the exi- 
 gency is sufficiently imperative, hut the Secretary of the 
 Treasury does not doubt. . . . Reluctantly, painfully, I 
 consent that the process should issue." 
 
 The authority of the Secretary of the Treasury 
 overruled the scruples of the Senate, and the bill 
 passed by a majority of five votes on the legal-tender 
 clause. It is scarcely worth while to carry the scene 
 back to the House, in order to ascertain the fate of 
 the Senate amendments, or to cull from the second 
 debate new subjects for quotation. Spaulding at least 
 did strongly and invariably insist upon the difference 
 between legal-tender notes that were fundable and the 
 later issue of greenbacks which were not so. In point 
 of fact the difference was slight. There was nothing 
 
314 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 in the condition of fundability which made legal ten- 
 der anything but legal tender ; nor would the principle 
 of legal tender have been any sounder, even though 
 attached to the bonds themselves. As the later issues 
 of legal tender were made, and the depreciation be- 
 came excessive, Spaulding by similar steps became 
 virtuous, until at last his virtue grew intense. He 
 attributed the failure of his favorite financial scheme 
 to the mistakes of others, and he proposed as an 
 infallible cure a restoration of his funding proviso. 
 He never succeeded in gaining a higher stand-point 
 than this, or looking over a wider horizon where he 
 could measure the uncontrollable power of the ele- 
 ments which he, like the unlucky companions of 
 Ulysses, ignorantly set free. 
 
 Such was the history of the Legal-Tender Bill. So 
 far as any evidence of its necessity can be drawn 
 from the action of the Executive at the time, the late 
 decision of Chief-Justice Chase has left no doubt as 
 to the facts. That Chase should as Secretary of the 
 Treasury have adopted the course he did was doubly 
 unfortunate, — in the first place, because he created 
 legal tender ; and in the second place, because when 
 "the delusion was over, and his mind reverted to its 
 first sound principles, the action he had taken as 
 Secretary of the Treasury remained in the public 
 memory to reduce the authority of the opinions he 
 was bound to express as chief-justice. Into the legal 
 correctness or political propriety of these opinions it 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 315 
 
 is no purpose of this essay to enter. No one who 
 holds strong convictions against legal tender as a 
 measure of finance is likely to trouble his mind with 
 the question whether such a power has or has not 
 been conferred by the Constitution upon Congress. 
 Though it were conferred in the most explicit terms 
 language is capable of supplying, there could be no 
 excuse on that account for changing an opinion as to 
 its financial merits ; and its financial merits are not 
 a subject for lawyers, or even for judges, as such, 
 to decide. These happily rest on principles deeper 
 than statute or than Constitutional law. They ap- 
 peal to no written code ; and whenever the public 
 attempts to overrule them, the public does so at its 
 own peril. 
 
 One more point remains. The common impression 
 is that even though there were no actual necessity for 
 a law of legal tender so early as February, 1862, yet 
 at some subsequent time the enactment of such a law 
 would have proved inevitable. This opinion should 
 properly form the subject of a separate paper. If it 
 be acknowledged that the law of February, 1862, was 
 unnecessary and passed by a practical deception, the 
 condition of the argument is changed. Whenever 
 the public has reached this point, it can enter upon 
 the wider field of discussion into which so vague and 
 general a proposition must lead. Without venturing 
 at present on a denial of the theory, since this would 
 require much explanation and reasoning, it is fair to 
 say that although the subject is scarcely capable of 
 
316 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 positive demonstration, absolutely no evidence proves 
 that the government might not have carried the war 
 to a successful conclusion without the issue of legal- 
 tender paper. Such appears to be the opinion of the 
 chief-justice, as it is undoubtedly the inference from 
 economical principles. 
 
 After the first issues of the paper money, its origi- 
 nal purpose and importance as a resource against a 
 temporary exigency — that purpose which had been 
 used in forcing the bill through Congress — was lost 
 from sight, and the paper assumed new functions as 
 a financial instrument. 
 
 The government, adhering to the policy of selling 
 its bonds only at par, was obliged to consider its paper 
 as the par standard, and to issue enough paper to 
 " float " the successive loans. This was equivalent 
 to selling its credit at the market price, with the 
 addition of voluntarily degrading its own standard 
 of value. In order to protect the nation's credit 
 from degradation in the hands of bankers and bro- 
 kers, the government dishonored it of its own free 
 will. As a financial policy, this tortuous and disrepu- 
 table expedient will not bear examination ; but one 
 incidental function of the paper, closely connected 
 with this, claims more attention. The issue of paper 
 money in large quantities does produce a temporary 
 and feverish excitement, which during a certain 
 length of time may facilitate borrowing, though at 
 a frightful ultimate cost. If the object of legal ten- 
 der were to cause this temporary stimulus, and if this 
 
THE LEGAL-TENDER ACT. 317 
 
 stimulus can be proved to have been essential to finan- 
 cial success, the management of the nation's finan- 
 cial affairs during the war may admit of excuse if 
 not of praise. Neither of these conditions can be 
 established. 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 1 
 
 The Civil War in America, with its enormous issues 
 of depreciating currency and its reckless waste of 
 money and credit by the government, created a spec- 
 ulative mania such as the United States, with all its 
 experience in this respect, had never before known. 
 Not only in Broad Street, the centre of New York 
 speculation, but far and wide throughout the North- 
 ern States, almost every man who had money em- 
 ployed a part of his capital in the purchase of stocks 
 or of gold, of copper, of petroleum, or of domestic 
 produce, in the hope of a rise in prices, or staked 
 money on the expectation of a fall. To use the jar-* 
 gon of the street, every farmer and every shop-keeper 
 in the country seemed to be engaged in "carrying" 
 some favorite security " on a margin." Whoever 
 could obtain a hundred dollars sent it to a broker 
 with orders to buy whatever amount of stocks the 
 broker would consent to purchase. If the stock rose, 
 the speculator prospered ; if it fell until the deposit or 
 margin was lost, the broker demanded a new deposit, 
 or sold the stock to protect himself. By means of 
 
 1 From the Westminster Review, for October, 1870. 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 319 
 
 this simple and smooth machinery, which differs in 
 no essential respect from the processes of roulette or 
 rouge-et-noir, the nation flung itself into the Stock 
 Exchange, until the " outsiders," as they were called, 
 in opposition to the regular brokers of Broad Street, 
 represented the entire population of the American 
 Republic. Every one speculated, and for a time 
 successfully. 
 
 The inevitable reaction began when the govern- 
 ment, about a year after the close of the war, stopped 
 its issues and ceased borrowing. The greenback cur- 
 rency had for a moment sunk to a value of only 37 
 cents to the dollar. On the worst day of all, the 
 11th of July, 1864, one sale of $100,000 in gold was 
 actually made at 310, equivalent to about 33 cents in 
 the dollar. 1 At that point the depreciation stopped, 
 and the paper which had come so near falling into 
 entire discredit steadily rose in value, first to 50 
 cents, then to 60 and 70, until in the summer of 
 1869 it stood at about 73J cents. 
 
 So soon as the industrious part of the public felt 
 the touch of solid values, the fabric of fictitious 
 wealth began to melt away under their eyes. Before 
 long the so-called " outsiders," the men who specu- 
 lated on their own account, and could not act in 
 agreement or combination, began to suffer. One by 
 one, or in masses, they were made the prey of larger 
 operators ; their last margins were consumed, and 
 
 1 See Men and Mysteries of Wall Street, by James K. Med- V 
 bery, pp. 250, 251. 
 
320 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 they dropped to the solid level of slow, productive 
 industry. Some lost everything, many lost still 
 more than they had ; and few families of ordinary 
 connection and standing in the United States cannot 
 tell, if they choose, some story of embezzlement or 
 breach of trust committed in those days. Some men 
 who had courage and a sense of honor, found life too 
 heavy for them ; others went mad. The greater part 
 turned in silence to their regular pursuits, and ac- 
 cepted their losses as they could. Almost every rich 
 American could produce from some pigeon-hole a 
 bundle of worthless securities, and could show check- 
 books representing the only remaining trace of mar- 
 gin after margin consumed in attempts to satisfy the 
 insatiable broker. A year or two of incessant losses 
 swept the weaker gamblers from the street. 
 
 Even those who continued to speculate found it ne- 
 cessary to change their mode of operations. Chance no 
 longer ruled over the Stock Exchange and the gold 
 market. The fate of a battle, the capture of a city, 
 or the murder of a President had hitherto broken 
 the plans of the strongest combinations, and put all 
 speculators, whether great or small, on fairly even 
 ground ; but as the period of sudden and uncontrolla- 
 ble disturbing elements passed away, the market fell 
 more and more completely into the hands of cliques 
 which found a point of adhesion in some great mass 
 of incorporated capital. Three distinct railways, with 
 their enormous resources, became the property of Cor- 
 nelius Vanderbilt, who by means of their credit and 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 321 
 
 capital again and again swept millions of dollars into 
 his pocket by a process curiously similar to gambling 
 with loaded dice. Vanderbilt was one of the most 
 respectable of these great operators. The Erie Rail- 
 way was controlled by Daniel Drew, and while Vander- 
 bilt at least acted in the interests of his corporations, 
 Drew cheated equally his corporation and the public. 
 Between these two men and the immense incorpo- 
 rated power they swayed, smaller operators one after 
 another were crushed, until the survivors learned to 
 seek shelter within some clique sufficiently strong 
 to afford protection. Speculation in this manner 
 began to consume itself, and the largest combination 
 of capital was destined to swallow every weaker com- 
 bination which ventured to appear in the market. 
 
 Between the inevitable effect of a healthy currency 
 and the omnipotence of capital in the stock market, 
 a sounder state of society began. The public, which 
 had been robbed with cynical indifference by Drew 
 and Vanderbilt, could feel no sincere regret when 
 they saw these two cormorants reduced to tearing 
 each other. In the year 1867 Vanderbilt undertook 
 to gain possession of the Erie Road, as he had al- 
 ready obtained possession of the New York Central, 
 the second trunk-line between New York and the 
 West. Vanderbilt was supposed to own property 
 to the value of some 150,000,000, which might all 
 be made directly available for stock operations. He 
 bought the greater part of the Erie stock. Drew sold 
 him all he could take, and then issued as much more 
 
 21 
 
B22 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 as was required to defeat Vanderbilt's purpose. After 
 a violent struggle, which overthrew the guaranties of 
 social order, Drew triumphed, and Vanderbilt aban- 
 doned the contest. The Erie corporation paid him 
 a large sum to reimburse his alleged losses. At the 
 same time it agreed that Drew's accounts should be 
 passed, and he obtained a release in full, and retired 
 from the direction. The Erie Road, almost exhausted 
 by such systematic plundering, was left in the undis- 
 turbed, if not peaceful, control of Mr. Jay Gould and 
 Mr. James Fisk, Jr., whose reign began in the month 
 of July, 1868. 
 
 Jay Gould was a partner in the firm of Smith, 
 Gould, & Martin, brokers in Wall Street. He had 
 been before engaged in railway enterprises, and his 
 operations had not been of a nature likely to en- 
 courage public confidence in his ideas of fiduciary 
 relations. He was a broker, and a broker is almost 
 by nature a gambler, — perhaps the last profession 
 suitable for a railway manager. In character he was 
 marked by a disposition for silent intrigue. He pre- 
 ferred to operate on his own account, without admit- 
 ting other persons into his confidence. His nature 
 suggested survival from the family of spielers : he 
 spun webs, in corners and in the dark. His dispo- 
 sition to subtlety and elaboration of intrigue was 
 irresistible. He had not a conception of a moral 
 principle. The class of men to whom he belonged 
 understood no distinction between right and wrong 
 in matters of speculation, so long as the daily set- 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 323 
 
 tlements were punctually effected. In this respect 
 Gould was probably as honest as the mass of his fel- 
 lows, according to the moral standard of the street ; 
 but he was an uncommonly fine and unscrupulous 
 intriguer, skilled in the processes of stockgambling, 
 and passably indifferent to the praise or censure of 
 society. 
 
 James Fisk, Jr., was still more original in charac- 
 ter. He was not yet forty years of age, and had the 
 instincts of fourteen. He came originally from Ver- 
 mont, probably the most respectable and correct State 
 in the Union, and his father had been a pedler who 
 sold goods from town to town in his native valley 
 of the Connecticut. The son followed his father's 
 calling with boldness and success. He drove his 
 huge wagon, made resplendent with paint and var- 
 nish, with four or six horses, through the towns of 
 Vermont and Western Massachusetts ; and when his 
 father remonstrated at his reckless management, the 
 young man, with his usual bravado, took his father 
 into his service at a fixed salary, with the warning 
 that he was not to put on airs on the strength of his 
 new dignity. A large Boston firm which had sup- 
 plied young Fisk with goods on credit, attracted by 
 his energy, took him into the house. The war broke 
 out; his influence drew the firm into some bold specu- 
 lations which were successful. In a few years he 
 retired with some $100,000, which he subsequently 
 lost. He formed a connection with Daniel Drew in 
 New York, and a new sign, ominous of future trouble, 
 
324 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 was raised in Wall Street, bearing the names of Fisk 
 & Belden, brokers. 
 
 Personally Fisk was coarse, noisy, boastful, igno- 
 rant, the type of a young butcher in appearance and 
 mind. Nothing could be more striking than the con- 
 trast between him and his future associate Gould. 
 One was small and slight in person, dark, sallow, 
 reticent, and stealthy, with a trace of Jewish origin ; 
 the other was large, florid, gross, talkative, and ob- 
 streperous. Fisk's redeeming point was his humor, 
 which had a flavor of American nationality. His 
 mind was extraordinarily fertile in ideas and expe- 
 dients, while his conversation was filled with unusual 
 images and strange forms of speech, quickly caught 
 up and made popular by the New York press. In 
 respect to honesty as between Gould and Fisk, the 
 latter was perhaps, if possible, less deserving of trust 
 than the former. A story not without a stroke of 
 satirical wit was told by him to illustrate his estimate 
 of abstract truth. An old woman who had bought of 
 the elder Fisk a handkerchief which cost ninepence 
 in the New England currency, where six shillings are 
 reckoned to the dollar, complained to Mr. Fisk, Jr., 
 that his father had cheated her. Mr. Fisk consid- 
 ered the case maturely, and gave a decision based on 
 a priori principles. " No ! " said he, " the old man 
 would n't have told a lie for ninepence ; " and then, 
 as if this assertion needed some reasonable qualifica- 
 tion, he added, " though he would have told eight of 
 them for a dollar ! " The distinction as regarded the 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 325 
 
 father may have been just, since the father held old- 
 fashioned ideas as to wholesale and retail trade ; but 
 in regard to the son this relative degree of truth 
 cannot be predicated with confidence, since, if the in- 
 vestigating committee of Congress and its evidence 
 are to be believed, Mr. Fisk seldom or never speaks 
 truth at all. 1 
 
 An intrigue equally successful and disreputable 
 brought these two men into the Erie board of direct- 
 ors, whence they speedily drove their more timid 
 predecessor Drew. In July, 1868, Gould made him- 
 self president and treasurer of the corporation. Fisk 
 became comptroller. A young lawyer named Lane 
 became counsel. These three directors made a ma- 
 jority of the executive committee, and were masters 
 of Erie. The board of directors held no meetings. 
 The executive committee was never called together, 
 and the three men — Fisk, Gould, and Lane — be- 
 came from that time the absolute, irresponsible own- 
 ers of the Erie Railway, not less than if it had been 
 their personal property and plaything. 
 
 This property was in effect, like all the great rail- 
 way corporations, an empire within a republic. It 
 
 1 House of Representatives. Report, No. 31. Forty-first Con- 
 gress, Second Session. Report of the Committee on Banking 
 and Currency, in response to a Resolution of the House of Rep- 
 resentatives, passed Dec. 13, 1869, directing the Committee " to 
 investigate the causes that led to the unusual and extraordinary 
 fluctuations of Gold in the City of New York, from the 21st to 
 the 27th of September, 1869;" accompanied by the testimony 
 collected by the Committee. 
 
326 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 consisted of a trunk-line of road four hundred and 
 fifty-nine miles in length, with branches three hun- 
 dred and fourteen miles in extent, or seven hundred 
 and seventy-three miles of road in all. Its capital 
 stock amounted to about 135,000,000. Its gross re- 
 ceipts exceeded $15,000,000 per annum. It employed 
 not less than fifteen thousand men, and supported 
 their families. Over this wealth and influence, — 
 greater than that directly swayed by any private citi- 
 zen, greater than is absolutely and personally con- 
 trolled by most kings, and far too great for public 
 safety either in a democracy or in any other form of 
 society, — the vicissitudes of a troubled time placed 
 two men in irresponsible authority ; and both these 
 men belonged to a low moral and social type. Such 
 an elevation has been rarely seen in modern history. 
 The most dramatic of modern authors, Balzac him- 
 self, who loved to deal with similar violent alterna- 
 tions of fortune, or Alexandre Dumas, with all his 
 extravagance of imagination, never reached a con- 
 ception bolder or more melodramatic than this, or 
 conceived a plot so enormous, or a catastrophe so 
 original, as was to be developed. 
 
 One of the earliest acts of the new rulers was such 
 as Balzac or Dumas might have predicted and de- 
 lighted in. They established themselves in a palace. 
 The old offices of the Erie Railway were in the lower 
 part of the city, among the wharves and warehouses, 
 — a situation no doubt convenient for business, but 
 not agreeable as a residence ; and the new proprie- 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 327 
 
 tors naturally wished to reside on their property. Mr. 
 Fisk and Mr. Gould accordingly bought a building of 
 white marble, not unlike a European palace, situated 
 about two miles from the business quarter, and con- 
 taining a large theatre, or opera-house. They also 
 purchased several smaller houses adjoining it. The 
 opera-house cost about $700,000, and a large part of 
 the building was at once leased by the two purchas- 
 ers to themselves as the Erie corporation, to serve as 
 offices. This suite of apartments was then furnished 
 by themselves, as representing the corporation, at an 
 expense of some $300,000, and in a style which, 
 though called vulgar, was not more vulgar than that 
 of almost any palace in Europe. The adjoining 
 houses were connected with the main building; and 
 in one of these Mr. Fisk had his private apartments, 
 with a private passage to his opera-box. He also 
 assumed direction of the theatre, of which he became 
 manager-in-chief. To these royal arrangements he 
 brought tastes commonly charged as the worst re- 
 sults of royal license. The atmosphere of the Erie 
 offices was not disturbed with moral prejudices ; and 
 as the opera supplied Mr. Fisk's mind with amuse- 
 ment, so the opera troupe supplied him with a per- 
 manent harem. Whatever Mr. Fisk did was done 
 on an extraordinary scale. 
 
 These arrangements regarded only the pleasures of 
 the American Aladdin. In the conduct of their in- 
 terests, the new directors showed a capacity for large 
 conceptions and a vigor in the execution of their 
 
328 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 schemes that alarmed the entire community. At the 
 annual election in 1868, when Gould, Fisk, and Lane, 
 having borrowed or bought proxies for the greater 
 part of the stock, caused themselves to be elected 
 for the ensuing year, the respectable portion of the 
 public throughout the country was astonished, and 
 shocked to learn that the new board of directors 
 contained two names peculiarly notorious and obnox- 
 ious to honest men, — William M. Tweed and Peter 
 B. Sweeney. To every honest American they con- 
 veyed a peculiar sense of terror and disgust. The 
 State of New York in its politics was much influ- 
 enced, if not controlled, by the city of New York. 
 The city politics were so entirely in the hands of the 
 Democratic party as to preclude even the existence 
 of a strong minority. The party organization centred 
 in a political club, held together by its patronage and 
 by a system of jobbery unequalled elsewhere in the 
 world. The Tammany Club, thus swaying the power 
 of a small nation of several million souls, was itself 
 ruled by William M. Tweed and Peter B. Sweeney, 
 absolute masters of this system of theft and fraud, 
 and to American eyes the incarnation of political 
 immorality. 
 
 The effect of this alliance was felt in the ensuing 
 winter in the passage of a bill through the State 
 legislature, and its signature by the governor, abol- 
 ishing the former system of annual elections of the 
 entire "board of Erie directors, and authorizing the 
 board to classify itself in such a manner that only a 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 329 
 
 portion should be changed each year. The principle 
 of the bill was correct ; but its practical effect enabled 
 Gould and Fisk to make themselves directors for five 
 years in spite of any attempt on the part of the 
 stockholders to remove them. The formality of an- 
 nual re-election was spared them ; and so far as the 
 stockholders were concerned, there was no great in- 
 justice in the act. The Erie Road was in the pecu- 
 liar position of being without an owner. There was 
 no cestui que trust, unless the English stockholders 
 could be called such. In America the stock was 
 almost exclusively held for speculation, not for in- 
 vestment ; and in the morals of Wall Street, specula- 
 tion had almost come to mean disregard of intrinsic 
 value. In this case society at large was the injured 
 party, and society knew its risk. 
 
 This step was only a beginning. The Tammany 
 ring exercised a power beyond politics. Under the 
 existing Constitution of the State, the judges of the 
 State courts are elected by the people. Thirty-three 
 such judges formed the State judiciary, and each 
 of the thirty-three was clothed with equity powers 
 running through the whole State. Of these judges 
 Tammany Hall elected several, and the Erie Railway 
 controlled others in country districts. Each of these 
 judges might forbid proceedings before any and all 
 the other judges, or stay proceedings in suits already 
 commenced. Thus the lives and the property of the 
 public were in the power of the new combination ; 
 and two of the city judges, Barnard and Cardozo, 
 
330 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 had already acquired a peculiarly infamous reputation 
 as so-called " slaves to the ring," which left no ques- 
 tion as to the depths to which their prostitution of 
 justice would descend. 
 
 The alliance between Tammany and Erie was thus 
 equivalent to investing Gould and Fisk with the attri- 
 butes of sovereignty ; but in order to avail themselves 
 to the utmost of their judicial powers, they also re- 
 quired the ablest legal assistance. The degradation 
 of the bench had been rapidly followed by the degra- 
 dation of the bar. Prominent and learned lawyers 
 were already accustomed to avail themselves of social 
 or business relations with judges to forward private 
 purposes. One whose partner might be elevated to 
 the bench was certain to be generally retained in 
 cases brought before this special judge ; and litigants 
 were taught by experience that a retainer in such 
 cases was profitably bestowed. Others found a simi- 
 lar advantage resulting from known social relations 
 with the court. The debasement of tone was not 
 confined to the lower ranks of advocates ; and prob- 
 ably this steady demoralization of the bar made it 
 possible for the Erie ring to obtain the services of 
 Mr. David Dudley Field as its legal adviser. Mr. 
 Field, a gentleman of European reputation, in regard 
 to which he was understood to be peculiarly solici- 
 tous, was an eminent law reformer, author of the New 
 York Code, delegate of the American Social Science 
 Association to the European International Congress, 
 and asserted by his partner, Mr. Shearman, in evi- 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 331 
 
 dence before a committee of the New York legisla- 
 ture, to be a man of quixotic sense of honor. Mr. 
 Shearman himself, a gentleman of English parentage, 
 had earned public gratitude by arraigning and de- 
 ploring with unsurpassed courage and point the con- 
 dition of the New York judiciary, in an admirable 
 essay in the " North American Review " for July, 
 1867. The value of Mr. Field's services to Messrs. 
 Fisk and Gould was not to be measured even by 
 the enormous fees their generosity paid him. His 
 power over certain judges became so absolute as to 
 impress the popular imagination ; and the gossip of 
 Wall Street insisted that he had a silken halter 
 round the neck of Judge Barnard and a hempen one 
 round that of Cardozo. He who had a year before 
 threatened Barnard on his own bench with impeach- 
 ment next appeared in the character of Barnard's 
 master, and issued as a matter of course the edicts 
 of his court. 
 
 One other combination was made by the Erie man- 
 agers to extend their power. They bought a joint- 
 stock bank in New York city, with a capital of 
 $1,000,000. The assistance thus gained was pur- 
 chased at a moderate price, since it was by no means 
 represented by the capital. The great cliques and 
 so-called "operators" of Wall Street and Broad Street 
 carry on their transactions by a system of credits and 
 clearing-houses with little use of money. The banks 
 certify their checks, and the certified checks settle 
 balances. Nominally and by law the banks only 
 
332 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 certified to the extent of bona fide deposits, but in 
 reality the custom of disregarding the strict letter of 
 the law was not unknown ; and in case of the bank 
 in question, the Comptroller of the Currency, an offi- 
 cer of the national Treasury, testified that on an ex- 
 amination of its affairs in April, 1869, out of fifteen 
 checks deposited in its hands as security for certifi- 
 cations made by it, selected at hazard for inquiry, 
 and representing a nominal value of $ 1,500,000, three 
 only were good. The rest represented accommoda- 
 tion extended to brokers and speculators without 
 security. This bank on Thursday, Sept. 24, 1869, 
 certified checks to the amount of nearly 17,500,000 
 for Gould alone. What sound security Gould depos- 
 ited against this mass of credit may be left to the 
 imagination. His operations were not confined to 
 this bank alone, although this was the only one 
 owned by the ring. 
 
 Thus Gould and Fisk created a combination more 
 powerful than any that has been controlled by mere 
 private citizens in America or in Europe since so- 
 ciety for self-protection established the supreme 
 authority of the judicial name. They exercised the 
 legislative and the judicial powers of the State ; 
 they possessed almost unlimited credit, and society 
 was at their mercy. One authority alone stood 
 above them, beyond their control ; and this was 
 the distant but threatening figure of the national 
 government. 
 
 Powerful as they were, the Erie managers were 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 333 
 
 seldom in funds. The marble palace in which they 
 lived, the theatre they supported, the bribery and pro- 
 fusion of management by which they could alone 
 maintain their defiance of public opinion, the enor- 
 mous schemes for extending their operations into 
 which they rushed, all required greater resources 
 than could be furnished even by the wholesale plun- 
 der of the Erie Road. They were obliged from time 
 to time to issue from their castle, and harry the in- 
 dustrious public or their brother freebooters. The 
 process was different from that known to the dark 
 ages, but the objects and the results were the same. 
 At one time Fisk is said to have ordered heavy specu- 
 lative sales of stock in an express company which 
 held a contract with the Erie Railway. The sales 
 being effected, the contract was declared annulled. 
 The stock naturally fell, and Fisk realized the differ- 
 ence. He then ordered heavy purchases, and having 
 renewed the contract the stock rose again, and Fisk 
 a second time swept the street. 1 In the summer and 
 autumn of 1869 the two managers issued and sold 
 two hundred and thirty-five thousand new shares of 
 Erie stock, or nearly as much as its entire capital 
 when they assumed power in July, 1868. With the 
 aid of the money thus obtained, they succeeded in 
 withdrawing about $12,500,000 in currency from cir- 
 culation at the very moment of the year when cur- 
 rency was most in demand in order to harvest the 
 crops. For weeks the nation writhed and quivered 
 1 Men and Mysteries of Wall Street, p. 168. 
 
334 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 under the torture of this modern rack, until the na- 
 tional government itself was obliged to interfere and 
 threaten a sudden opening of the Treasury. Whether 
 the Erie speculators operated for a rise or for a fall, 
 whether they bought or sold, and whether they were 
 engaged in manipulating stocks or locking up cur- 
 rency or cornering gold, they were always a nuisance 
 and scandal. 
 
 In order to understand a so-called corner in gold, 
 readers must bear in mind that the supply of gold 
 immediately available for transfers was limited within 
 distinct bounds. New York and the country behind 
 it contained an amount usually estimated at about 
 120,000,000. The national government commonly 
 held from $75,000,000 to #100,000,000, which might 
 be thrown bodily on the market if the President 
 ordered it. To obtain gold from Europe or other 
 sources required time. 
 
 In the second place, gold was a commodity bought 
 and sold like stocks, in a special market or gold- 
 room situated next the Stock Exchange in Broad 
 Street and practically a part of it. In gold as in 
 stocks, the transactions were both real and specula- 
 tive. The real transactions were mostly purchases 
 or loans made by importers who required coin to 
 pay customs-duties on their imports. This legitimate 
 business was supposed to require from $5,000,000 
 to $7,500,000 per day. The speculative transac- 
 tions were wagers on the rise or fall of price, and 
 neither required any transfer of gold nor implied 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 335 
 
 its existence, although in times of excitement hun- 
 dreds of millions were nominally bought, sold, and 
 loaned. 
 
 Under the late Administration, Mr. McCulloch, then 
 Secretary of the Treasury, had thought it his duty to 
 guarantee a stable currency, although Congress for- 
 bade him to restore the gold standard. During four 
 years gold had fluctuated little, and principally from 
 natural causes, and the clanger of attempting to create 
 an artificial scarcity had prevented the operators from 
 trying an experiment sure to irritate the government. 
 The financial policy of the new Administration was 
 not so definitely fixed, and the success of a specula- 
 tion would depend on the action of Mr. Boutwell, 
 the new secretary, whose direction was understood 
 to have begun by a marked censure on the course 
 pursued by his predecessor. 
 
 Of all financial operations, cornering gold is the 
 most brilliant and the most dangerous, and possibly 
 the hazard and splendor of the attempt were the rea- 
 sons of its fascination to Jay Gould's fancy. He 
 dwelt upon it for months, and played with it like a 
 pet toy. His fertile mind discovered that it would 
 prove a blessing to the community ; and on this 
 theory, half honest and half fraudulent, he stretched 
 the widely extended fabric of the web in which man- 
 kind was to be caught. The theory was partially 
 sound. Starting from the principle that the price 
 of grain in New York was regulated by the price in 
 London, and was not affected by currency fluctuations, 
 
336 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Gould argued that if the premium on gold could be 
 raised from thirty to forty cents at harvest-time, the 
 farmers' grain would be worth $1.40 instead of $1.30 ; 
 and as a consequence the farmer would hasten to 
 send his crop to New York over the Erie Railway, 
 which was sorely in need of freights. With the 
 assistance of another gentleman, Gould calculated 
 the exact premium at which the Western farmer 
 would consent to dispose of his grain, and thus 
 distance the three hundred sail then hastening 
 from the Danube to supply the English market. 
 Gold, which was then heavy at 134, must be raised 
 to 145. 
 
 This clever idea, like the other ideas of the gen- 
 tlemen of Erie, had the single fault of requiring 
 that some one somewhere should be swindled. The 
 scheme was probably feasible ; but sooner or later the 
 reaction from such an artificial stimulant must have 
 come, and whenever it came some one must suffer. 
 Nevertheless, Gould probably argued that so long as 
 the farmer got his money, the Erie Railway its 
 freights, and he his small profits on the gold he 
 bought, he need not ask who else might be injured ; 
 and indeed by the time the reaction came and gold 
 was ready to fall as he expected, Gould would prob- 
 ably have been ready to assist the process by specu- 
 lative sales in order to enable the Western farmer 
 to buy his spring goods cheap as he had. sold his 
 autumn crops dear. Gould was equally ready to buy 
 gold cheap and sell it dear on his private account ; 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 337 
 
 and as he proposed to bleed New York merchants for 
 the benefit of the Western farmer, so he was willing 
 to bleed Broad Street for his own. The patriotic ob- 
 ject was the one which for obvious reasons Gould 
 preferred to put forward, and on which he hoped to 
 rest his ambitious structure. 
 
 The operation of raising the price of gold from 
 133 to 145 offered no great difficulty to men who 
 controlled the resources of the Erie Railway. Credit 
 alone was needed, and of credit Gould had an un- 
 limited supply. The only serious danger lay in the 
 possible action of the national government, which 
 had not taken the philanthropic view of the public 
 good peculiar to the managers of Erie. Secretary 
 Boutwell, who should have assisted Gould in " bull- 
 ing " gold, was gravely suspected of being a bear, 
 and of wishing to depress the premium to nothing. 
 If the Secretary of the Treasury were determined to 
 stand in Gould's path, even the combined forces of 
 Erie and Tammany dared not jostle against him ; 
 and therefore Gould must control the government, 
 whether by fair means or foul, by persuasion or by 
 purchase. He undertook the task ; and after his 
 proceedings in both directions have been thoroughly 
 drawn into light, the public can see how dramatic 
 and artistic a conspiracy in real life may be when 
 slowly elaborated from the subtle mind of a clever 
 intriguer, * and carried into execution by a band of 
 unshrinking scoundrels. 
 
 The first requisite for Gould's purpose was a chan- 
 22 
 
338 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 nel of direct communication with the President ; and 
 here he was peculiarly favored by chance. Mr. Abel 
 Rathbone Corbin, formerly lawyer, editor, speculator, 
 lobby-agent, familiar, as he claims, with everything, 
 had succeeded during his varied career in accumu- 
 lating from one or another of his hazardous pursuits 
 a comfortable fortune, and had crowned his success, 
 at the age of sixty-seven or thereabout, by contract- 
 ing a marriage with General Grant's sister at the 
 moment when General Grant was on the point of 
 reaching the highest eminence possible to an Ameri- 
 can citizen. To say that Corbin's moral dignity had 
 passed absolutely pure through the somewhat tainted 
 atmosphere in which his life had been spent would 
 be flattering him too highly ; but at least he was no 
 longer engaged in active occupation, and he lived 
 quietly in New York watching the course of pub- 
 lic affairs, and remarkable for respectability becom- 
 ing to a President's brother-in-law. Gould enjoyed 
 a slight acquaintance with Corbin, and proceeded to 
 improve it. He assumed and asserts that he felt a 
 respect for Corbin's shrewdness and sagacity. Cor- 
 bin claims to have first impressed the crop theory 
 on Gould's mind ; while Gould testifies that he in- 
 doctrinated Corbin with this idea, which became a 
 sort of monomania with the President's brother-in- 
 law, who soon began to preach it to the President 
 himself. On the 15th of June, 1869, the President 
 came to New York, and was there the guest of Cor- 
 bin, who urged Gould to call and pay his respects to 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 389 
 
 the Chief Magistrate. Gould had probably aimed at 
 this result. He called ; and the President of the 
 United States not only listened to the president of 
 Erie, but accepted an invitation to Fisk's theatre, sat 
 in Fisk's private box, and the next evening became 
 the guest of these two gentlemen on their Newport 
 steamer, — while Fisk, arrayed, as the newspapers 
 reported, " in a blue uniform, with a broad gilt cap- 
 band, three silver stars on his coat-sleeve, lavender 
 gloves, and a diamond breast-pin as large as a cherry, 
 stood at the gangway, surrounded by his aids, be- 
 starred and bestriped like himself," and welcomed 
 his distinguished friend. 
 
 The Erie managers had already arranged that the 
 President should on this occasion be sounded in re- 
 gard to his financial policy ; and when the selected 
 guests — among whom were Gould, Fisk, and others 
 — sat down at nine o'clock to supper, the conversa- 
 tion was directed to the subject of finance. " Some 
 one," says Gould, " asked the President what his view 
 was." The " some one " in question was of course 
 Fisk, who alone had the impudence to put such an 
 inquiry. The President bluntly replied that there 
 was a certain amount of fictitiousness about the pros- 
 perity of the country, and that the bubble might as 
 well be tapped in one way as another. The remark 
 was fatal to Gould's plans, and he felt it, in his own 
 words, as " a wet blanket." 
 
 Meanwhile the post of assistant-treasurer at New 
 York had become vacant, and it was a matter of in- 
 
340 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 terest to Gould that some person friendly to himself 
 should occupy this position, which in its relations to 
 the public is second in importance only to the Sec- 
 retaryship of the Treasury itself. Gould consulted 
 Corbin, and Corbin suggested the name of General 
 Butterfield, — a former officer in the volunteer army. 
 The appointment was not a wise one ; nor does it 
 appear in evidence by what means Corbin succeeded 
 in bringing it about. He was supposed to have used 
 A. T. Stewart, the wealthy importer, as his instru- 
 ment for the purpose ; but whatever the influence 
 may have been, Corbin appears to have set it in ac- 
 tion, and General Butterfield entered upon his duties 
 toward the 1st of July. 
 
 The preparations thus made show that some large 
 scheme was never absent from Gould's mind, although 
 between the months of May and August he made no 
 attempt to act upon the markets. Between August 
 20 and September 1, in company with Messrs. Wood- 
 ward and Bomber, two large speculators, he made 
 what is known as a pool or combination to raise the 
 premium on gold, and some ten or fifteen millions 
 were bought, but with very little effect on the price. 
 The tendency of the market was downward, and was 
 not easily counteracted. Perhaps under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances he might have abandoned his project ; 
 but an incident suddenly occurred which drew him 
 headlong into the operation. 
 
 Whether the appointment of General Butterfield 
 strengthened Gould's faith in Corbin's secret powers 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 341 
 
 does not appear in evidence, though it may readily be 
 assumed as probable ; but the next event seemed to 
 authorize an unlimited faith in Corbin, as well as 
 to justify the implicit belief of an Erie treasurer in 
 the corruptibility of all mankind. The unsuspicious 
 President again passed through New York, and came 
 to breakfast at Corbin's house on the 2d of Septem- 
 ber. He saw no one but Corbin while there, and the 
 same evening at ten o'clock departed for Saratoga. 
 Gould was immediately informed by Corbin that the 
 President, in discussing the financial situation, had 
 shown himself a convert to the Erie theory about 
 marketing the crops, and had "stopped in the middle 
 of a conversation in which he had expressed his views 
 and written a letter" to Secretary Boutwell. This 
 letter was not produced before the investigating com- 
 mittee ; but Secretary Boutwell testified as follows in 
 regard to it : — 
 
 " I think on the evening of the 4th of September I 
 received a letter from the President dated at New York, 
 as I recollect it ; I am not sure where it is dated. I 
 have not seen the letter since the night I received it. 
 I think it is now in my residence in Groton. In that 
 letter he expressed an opinion that it was undesirable to 
 force down the price of gold. He spoke of the impor- 
 tance to the West of being able to move their crops. 
 His idea was that if gold should fall, the West would 
 suffer and the movement of the crops would be retarded. 
 The impression made on my mind by the letter was that 
 he had rather a strong opinion to that effect. . . . Upon 
 the receipt of the President's letter on the evening of 
 
342 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the 4th of September, I telegraphed to Judge Richard- 
 son [Assistant Secretary at Washington] this despatch : 
 ' Send no order to Butterfield as to sales of gold until 
 you hear from me.' " 
 
 Gould had succeeded in reversing the policy of the 
 national government ; but this was not all. He knew 
 what the government would do before any officer of 
 the government knew it. Gould was at Corbin's 
 house on the 2d of September ; and although the evi- 
 dence of both these gentlemen was very confused 
 on the point, the inference is inevitable that Gould 
 saw Corbin privately within an hour or two after the 
 letter to Boutwell was written ; and that at this in- 
 terview, while the President was still in the house, 
 Corbin gave information to Gould about the Presi- 
 dent's letter, — perhaps showed him the letter it- 
 self. Then followed a transaction worthy of the 
 French stage. Corbin's evidence gives his own ac- 
 count of it : — 
 
 " On the 2d of September (referring to memoranda) 
 Mr. Gould offered to let me have some of the gold 
 he then possessed. . . . He spoke to me, as he had 
 repeatedly done before, about taking a certain amount 
 of gold owned by him. I finally told Mr. Gould 
 that for the sake of a lady, my wife, I would accept 
 $500,000 of gold for her benefit, as I shared his con- 
 fidence that gold would rise. . . . He afterward insisted 
 that I should take a million more, and I did so on the 
 same condition for my wife. He then sent me this 
 paper." 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 343 
 
 The paper in question was as follows : — 
 
 Smith, Gould, Martin, & Co., Bankers. 
 
 11 Broad Street, New York, Sept. 2, 1869. 
 Mr. 
 
 Dear Sir, — We have bought for your account and 
 risk, — 
 
 500,000, gold, 132, R. 
 1,000,000, gold, 133f, R. 
 which we will carry on demand with the right to use. 
 
 Smith, Gould, Martin, & Co. 
 
 The memorandum meant that for every rise of one 
 per cent in the price of gold Corbin was to receive 
 $ 15,000, and his name nowhere to appear. If Gould 
 saw Corbin in the morning and learned from him 
 what the President had written, he must have made 
 his bargain on the spot, and then going directly to the 
 city he must in one breath have ordered this memo- 
 randum to be made out and large quantities of gold 
 to be purchased before the President's letter left 
 Corbin's house. ,. 
 
 No time was lost. The same afternoon Gould's 
 brokers bought large amounts in gold. One testifies 
 to buying 11,315,000 at 134J. September 3 the pre- 
 mium was forced up to 36 ; September 4, when Bout- 
 well received his letter, it had risen to 37. There 
 Gould met a check, as he described his position in 
 nervous Americanisms : — 
 
 " I did not want to buy so much gold. In the spring 
 I put gold up from 32 to 38 and 40, with only about seven 
 millions. But all these fellows went in and sold short, 
 so that in order to keep it up I had to buy or else to 
 
344 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 back down and show the white feather. They would sell 
 it to yon all the time. I never intended to buy more 
 than four or five millions of gold, but these fellows kept 
 purchasing it on, and I made up my mind that I would 
 put it up to 40 at one time. . . . We went into it as a 
 commercial transaction, and did not intend to buy such 
 an amount of gold. I was forced into it by the bears 
 selling out. They were bound to put it down. I got 
 into the contest. All these other fellows deserted me 
 like rats from a ship. Kimber sold out and got short. 
 ... He sold out at 37. He got short of it, and went 
 up" (or, in English, he failed). 
 
 The bears would not consent to lie still and be 
 flayed. They had the great operators for once at a 
 disadvantage, and were bent on revenge. Gould's 
 position was hazardous. When Kimber sold out at 
 37, which was probably oh the 7th of September, the 
 market broke ; and on the 8th the price fell back 
 to 35. At the same moment, when the "pool" was 
 ended by Kimber's desertion, Coj'bin, with his emi- 
 nent shrewdness and respectability, told Gould " that 
 gold had gone up to 37," and that he " should like 
 to have this matter realized," — which was equivalent 
 to saying that he wished to be paid something on 
 account. This was said September 6 ; and Gould 
 was obliged the same day to bring him a check for 
 125,000, drawn to the order of Jay Gould, and in- 
 dorsed in blank by him with a proper regard for 
 Corbin's modest desire not to have his name appear. 
 The transaction did credit to Corbin's sagacity, and 
 showed at least that he was acquainted with the 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 345 
 
 men he dealt with. Undoubtedly it placed Gould in 
 a difficult position ; but as Gould already held some 
 fifteen millions of gold and needed Cochin's support, 
 he preferred to pay 125,000 outright rather than al- 
 low Corbin to throw his gold on the market. Yet the 
 fabric of Gould's web had been so seriously injured 
 that for a week — from the 8th to the loth of Sep- 
 tember — he was unable to advance and equally un- 
 able to retreat without severe losses. He sat at his 
 desk in the opera-house, silent as usual, tearing little 
 slips of paper which he threw on the floor in his 
 abstraction, while he revolved new combinations in 
 his mind. 
 
 Down to this moment James Fisk, Jr., had not 
 appeared in the affair. Gould had not taken him 
 into his confidence ; and not until after September 
 10 did Gould decide that nothing else could be done. 
 Fisk was not a safe ally in so delicate an affair ; 
 but apparently no other aid offered itself. Gould 
 approached him ; and as usual Gould's touch was 
 like magic. Fisk's. evidence begins here, and may 
 be believed when very strongly corroborated : — 
 
 " Gold having settled down to 35, and I not having 
 cared to touch it, he was a little sensitive on the sub- 
 ject, feeling as if he would rather take his losses without 
 saying anything about it. . . . One day he said to me, 
 ' Don't you think gold has got to the bottom ? ' I re- 
 plied that I did not see the profit in buying gold unless 
 you have got into a position where you can command 
 the market. He then said he had bought quite a large 
 
346 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 amount of gold, and I judged from his conversation 
 that he wanted me to go into the movement and help 
 strengthen the market. Upon that I went into the mar- 
 ket and bought. I should say that was about the 15th 
 or 16th of September. I bought at that time about seven 
 or eight millions, I think." 
 
 The market responded slowly to these enormous 
 purchases ; and on the 16th the clique was still 
 struggling to recover its lost ground. 
 
 Meanwhile Gould placed a million and a half of 
 gold to the account of General Butterfield, as he had 
 done to the account of Cor bin, and notified him of 
 the purchase ; so Gould swears, in spite of General 
 Butterfield's denial. The date of this purchase is 
 not fixed. Through Corbin a notice was also sent 
 by Gould about the middle of September to the Presi- 
 dent's private secretary, General Porter, informing 
 him that half a million was placed to his credit. 
 Porter repudiated the purchase, but Butterfield took 
 no apparent notice of Gould's transaction on his 
 account. On the 10th of September the President 
 again came to New York, where he remained his 
 brother-in-law's guest till the 13th ; and during this 
 visit Gould again saw him, although Corbin avers 
 that the President then intimated his wish to the 
 servant that this should be the last time Gould 
 obtained admission. " Gould was always trying to 
 get something out of him," he said ; and if he 
 had known how much Gould had succeeded in 
 getting out of him, he would have admired the 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 347 
 
 man's genius, even while shutting the door in his 
 face. 
 
 On the morning of September 13 the President set 
 out on a journey to the little town of Washington, 
 situated among the mountains of western Pennsyl- 
 vania, where he was to remain a few days. Gould, 
 who consulted Corbin regularly every morning and 
 evening, was still extremely nervous in regard to the 
 President's policy ; and as the crisis approached, his 
 nervousness led him into the blunder of doing too 
 much. Probably the bribe offered to Porter was a 
 mistake, but a greater mistake was made by pressing 
 Corbin's influence too far. Gould induced Corbin to 
 write an official article for the New York press on 
 the financial policy of the government, — an article 
 afterward inserted in the "New York Times" through 
 the kind offices of Mr. James McHcnry ; and he also 
 persuaded or encouraged Corbin to write a letter 
 directly to the President. This letter, written Sep- 
 tember 17 under the influence of Gould's anxiety, 
 was instantly sent by a special messenger of Fisk to 
 reach the President before he returned to the capi- 
 tal. The messenger carried also a letter of intro- 
 duction to General Porter, the private secretary, in 
 order to secure the personal delivery of this impor- 
 tant despatch. 
 
 On Monday, September 20, gold again rose. Through- 
 out Tuesday and Wednesday Fisk continued to pur- 
 chase without limit, and forced the price up to 40. 
 At that time Gould's firm of Smith, Gould, & Mar- 
 
348 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 tin, through which the operation was conducted, had 
 purchased some $50,000,000 ; yet the bears went on 
 selling, although they could continue the contest 
 only by borrowing Gould's own gold. Gould, on 
 the other hand, could no longer sell and clear 
 himself, for the reason that the sale of 150,000,000 
 would have broken the market. The struggle be- 
 came intense. The whole country watched with as- 
 tonishment the battle between the bulls and the 
 bears. Business was deranged, and values were un- 
 settled. There were indications of a panic in the 
 stock market ; and the bears in their emergency 
 vehemently pressed the government to intervene. 
 Gould wrote to Boutwell a letter so impudent as to 
 indicate desperation and loss of his ordinary coolness. 
 He began : — 
 
 Sir, — There is a panic in Wall Street, engineered by 
 a bear combination. They have withdrawn currency to 
 such an extent that it is impossible to do ordinary busi- 
 ness. The Erie Company requires eight hundred thousand 
 dollars to disburse, — ... much of it in Ohio, where 
 an exciting political contest is going on, and where we 
 have about ten thousand employed ; and the trouble is 
 charged on the Administration. . . . Cannot you, con- 
 sistently, increase your line of currency?" 
 
 From a friend such a letter would have been an 
 outrage ; but from a member of the Tammany ring, 
 the principal object of detestation to the government, 
 such a threat or bribe — whichever it may be called — 
 was incredible. Gould was, in fact, at his wits' end. 
 
THE NP:W YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 349 
 
 He dreaded a panic, and he felt that it could no longer 
 be avoided. 
 
 The scene next shifts for a moment to the dis- 
 tant town of Washington, among the hills of west- 
 ern Pennsylvania. On the morning of September 19, 
 President Grant and his private secretary General 
 Porter were playing croquet on the law n, when Fisk's 
 messenger, after twenty-four hours of travel by rail 
 and carriage, arrived at the house, and sent in to 
 ask for General Porter. When the President's game 
 was ended, Porter came, received his own letter from 
 Corbin, and called the President, who entered the 
 room and took his brother-in-law's despatch. He 
 then left the room, and after some ten or fifteen 
 minutes' absence returned. The messenger, tired of 
 waiting, then asked, " Is it all right ? " " All right," 
 replied the President ; and the messenger hastened 
 to the nearest telegraph station, and sent word to 
 Fisk, « Delivered ; all right." 
 
 The messenger was altogether mistaken. Not only 
 was all not right, but all was going hopelessly wrong. 
 The President had at the outset supposed the man to 
 be an ordinary post-office agent, and the letter an 
 ordinary letter which had arrived through the post- 
 office. Not until Porter asked some curious question 
 as to the man, did the President learn that he had 
 been sent by Corbin merely to carry this apparently 
 unimportant letter of advice. The President's sus- 
 picions were excited ; and the same evening, at his 
 request, Mrs. Grant wrote a hurried note to Mrs. Cor- 
 
350 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 bin, telling her how greatly the President was dis- 
 tressed at the rumor that Mr. Corbin was speculating 
 in Wall Street, and how much he hoped that Mr. 
 Corbin would " instantly disconnect himself with any- 
 thing of that sort." 
 
 This letter, subsequently destroyed — or said to have 
 been destroyed — by Mrs. Corbin, arrived in New York 
 on the morning of Wednesday, September 22, the 
 day when Gould and his enemies the bears were 
 making simultaneous appeals to Secretary Boutwell. 
 Mrs. Corbin was greatly excited and distressed by 
 her sister-in-law's language. She carried the letter to 
 her husband, and insisted that he should instantly 
 abandon his interest in the gold speculation. Corbin, 
 although considering the scruples of his wife and her 
 family highly absurd, assented to her wish ; and when 
 Gould came that evening as usual, with 150,000,000 
 of gold on his hands and extreme anxiety on his 
 mind, Corbin read to him two letters, — the first, writ- 
 ten by Mrs. Grant to Mrs. Corbin; the second, written 
 by Mr. Corbin to President Grant, assuring him that 
 he had not a dollar of interest in gold. The assur- 
 ance of this second letter was, at any sacrifice, to be 
 made good. 
 
 Corbin proposed that Gould should give him a 
 check for $100,000, and take his 11,500,000 off his 
 hands. A proposition more impudent than this could 
 scarcely be imagined. Gould had already paid Cor- 
 bin $25,000, and Corbin asked for $100,000 more at 
 the moment when it was clear that the $25,000 he had 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 351 
 
 received had been given him under a misunderstand- 
 ing of his services. He even represented himself as 
 doing Gould a favor by letting him have a million 
 and a half more gold at the highest market price, at 
 a time when Gould had fifty millions which he must 
 sell or be ruined. What Gould might under ordi- 
 nary circumstances have replied, may be imagined ; 
 but for the moment he could say nothing. Corbin 
 had but to show this note to a single broker in 
 Wall Street, and the fabric of Gould's speculation 
 would fall to pieces. Gould asked for time, and 
 went away. He consulted no one ; he gave Fisk 
 no hint of what had happened. The next morning 
 he returned to Corbin, and made him the following 
 offer : — 
 
 " 'Mr. Corbin, I cannot give you anything if you will 
 go out. If you will remain in, and take the chances of 
 the market, I will give you my check [for $100,000].' 
 ' And then,' says Corbin, ' I did what I think it would have 
 troubled almost any other business man to consent to 
 do, — refuse one hundred thousand dollars on a rising 
 market. If I had not been an old man married to a 
 middle-aged woman, I should have done it (of course 
 with her consent) just as sure as the offer was made. 
 I said, " Mr. Gould, my wife says no! Ulysses thiuks 
 it wrong, and that it ought to end." So I gave it 
 up. . . . He looked at me with an air of severe dis- 
 trust, as if he was afraid of treachery in the camp. He 
 remarked, " Mr. Corbin, I am undone if that letter gets 
 out." ... He stood there for a little while looking very 
 thoughtful, exceedingly thoughtful. He then left and 
 
852 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 went into Wall Street ; . . . and my impression is that 
 he it was, and not the government, that broke that 
 market.' " 
 
 Corbin was right ; throughout all these transac- 
 tions his insight into Gould's character was mar- 
 vellous. 
 
 It was the morning of Thursday, September 23. 
 Gould and Fisk went to Broad Street together ; but 
 as usual Gould was silent and secret, while Fisk was 
 noisy and communicative. Their movements were 
 completely separate. Gould acted through his own 
 firm of Smith, Gould, & Martin, while Fisk operated 
 principally through his old partner, Belden. One of 
 Smith's principal brokers testifies : — 
 
 " ' Fisk never could do business with Smith, Gould, 
 & Martin very comfortably. They would not do busi- 
 ness for him. It was a very uncertain thing of course 
 where Fisk might be. He is an erratic sort of genius. 
 I don't think anybody would want to follow him very 
 long. I am satisfied that Smith, Gould, & Martin con- 
 trolled their own gold, and were ready to do as they 
 pleased with it without consulting Fisk. I do not think 
 there was any general agreement. . . . None of us who 
 knew him cared to do business with him. I would not 
 have taken an order from him nor had anything to do 
 with him.' " Belden was considered a very low fellow. 
 " ' I never had anything to do with him or his party,' 
 said one broker employed by Gould. ' They were men 
 I had a perfect detestation of ; they were no company 
 for me. I should not have spoken to them at all under 
 any ordinary circumstances.'" Another says, " 'Belden 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 353 
 
 is a man in whom I never had any confidence in any 
 way. For months before that, I would not have taken 
 him for a gold transaction.' " 
 
 Yet Belden bought millions upon millions of gold. 
 He himself swore that he had bought twenty mil- 
 lions by Thursday evening, without capital or credit 
 except that of his brokers. Meanwhile Gould, on 
 reaching the city, had at once given secret orders to 
 sell. From the moment he left Cor bin he had but 
 one idea, which was to get rid of his gold as quietly 
 as possible. " I purchased merely enough to make 
 believe I was a bull," says Gould. This double pro- 
 cess continued all that afternoon. Fisk's wild pur- 
 chases carried the price to 144, and the panic in the 
 street became more and more serious as the bears 
 realized the extremity of their danger. No one can 
 tell how much gold which did not exist they had 
 contracted to deliver or pay the difference in price. 
 One of the clique brokers swears that by Thursday 
 evening the street had sold the clique one hundred 
 and eighteen millions of gold ; and every rise of one 
 per cent of this sum implied a loss of more than 
 11,000,000 to the bears. Naturally the terror was 
 extreme, for half Broad Street and thousands of 
 ^peculators would have been ruined if compelled to 
 settle gold at 150 which they had sold at 140. By 
 that time nothing more was heard in regard to 
 philanthropic theories of benefit to the Western 
 farmer. 
 
 Gould's feelings may easily be imagined. He knew 
 
 23 
 
354 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 that Fisk's reckless management would bring the gov- 
 ernment upon his shoulders, and he knew that unless 
 he could sell his gold before the order came from 
 Washington he would be a ruined man. He knew, 
 too, that Fisk's contracts must inevitably be repu- 
 diated. This Thursday evening he sat at his desk in 
 the Erie offices at the opera-house, while Fisk and 
 Fisk's brokers chattered about him. 
 
 "I was transacting rny railway business. I had my 
 own views about the market, and my own fish to fry. 
 I was all alone, so to speak, in what I did, and I did not 
 let any of those people know exactly how I stood. I got 
 no ideas from anything that was said there. I had been 
 selling gold from 35 up all the time, and I did not know 
 till the next morning that there would probably come an 
 order about twelve o'clock to sell gold." 
 
 Gould had not told Fisk of Corbin's retreat, or of 
 his own orders to sell. 
 
 Friday morning Gould and Fisk went together to 
 Broad Street and took possession of the private back- 
 office of a principal broker, " without asking the 
 privilege of doing so," as the broker observes in his 
 evidence. The first news brought to Gould was a 
 disaster. The government had sent three men from 
 Washington to examine the bank which Gould owned ; 
 and the bank sent word to Gould that it feared to 
 certify for him as usual^ and was itself in danger 
 of a panic, caused by the presence of officers, which 
 created distrust of the bank. It barely managed 
 to save itself. Gould took the information silently, 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 355 
 
 and his firm redoubled sales of gold. His partner, 
 Smith, gave the orders to one broker after another, 
 — " Sell ten millions ! " " The order was given as 
 quick as a flash, and away he went," says one of 
 these men. " I sold only eight millions." " Sell, sell, 
 sell ! do nothing but sell ! only don't sell to Fisk's 
 brokers," were the orders which Smith himself ac- 
 knowledges. In the gold-room Fisk's brokers were 
 shouting their rising bids, and the packed crowd grew 
 frantic with terror and rage as each successive rise 
 showed their increasing losses. The wide streets out- 
 side were thronged with excited people ; the telegraph 
 offices were overwhelmed with messages ordering 
 sales or purchases of gold or stocks ; and the whole 
 nation was watching eagerly to see what the result 
 of this convulsion was to be. Trade was stopped, and 
 even the President felt that it was time to raise his 
 hand. No one who has not seen the New York gold- 
 room can understand the spectacle it presented, — now 
 a pandemonium, now silent as the grave. Fisk, in 
 his dark back-office across the street, with his coat 
 off, swaggered up and down, " a big cane in his hand," 
 and called himself the Napoleon of Wall Street. He 
 believed that he directed the movement, and while 
 the street outside imagined that he and Gould were 
 one family, and that his purchases were made for the 
 clique, Gould was silently flinging away his gold at 
 any price he could get for it. 
 
 Whether Fisk expected to carry out his contract 
 and force the bears to settle, or not, is doubtful ; but 
 
356 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the evidence seems to show that he was in earnest, 
 and felt sure of success. His orders were unlim- 
 ited. " Put it up to 150 ! " was one which he sent 
 to the gold-room. Gold rose to 150. At length the 
 bid was made, " 160 for any part of five millions ! " 
 and no one any longer dared take it. " 161 for 
 five millions ! " " 162 for five millions ! " No answer 
 was made, and the offer was repeated, " 162 for any 
 part of five millions ! " A voice replied, " Sold one 
 million at 62 ! " The bubble suddenly burst ; and 
 within fifteen minutes, amid an excitement without 
 parallel even in the wildest excitements of the war, 
 the clique brokers were literally swept away and left 
 struggling by themselves, bidding still 160 for gold 
 in millions which no one would any longer take their 
 word for, while the premium sank rapidly to 135. 
 A moment later the telegraph brought from Wash- 
 ington the government order to sell, and the result 
 was no longer possible to dispute. Fisk had gone too 
 far, while Gould had secretly weakened the ground 
 under his feet. 
 
 Gould was saved. His fifty millions were sold ; 
 and although no one knows what his gains or losses 
 may have been, his firm was able to meet its contracts 
 and protect its brokers. Fisk was in a very different 
 situation. So soon as it became evident that his bro- 
 kers would be unable to carry out their contracts, 
 every one who had sold gold to them turned in wrath 
 to Fisk's office. Fortunately for him it was protected 
 by armed men whom he had brought with him from 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 357 
 
 his castle of Erie ; but the excitement was so great 
 that both Fisk and Gould thought best to retire as 
 rapidly as possible by a back entrance leading into 
 another street, and to seek the protection of the 
 opera-house. There nothing but an army could dis- 
 turb them ; no civil mandate was likely to be served 
 without their permission within those walls, and few 
 men cared to face Fisk's ruffians in order to force an 
 entrance. 
 
 The winding up of this famous conspiracy may be 
 told in few words ; but no account could be com- 
 plete which failed to reproduce in full the story of 
 Fisk's last interview with Corbin, as told by Fisk 
 himself : — 
 
 " I went down to the neighborhood of Wall Street Fri- 
 day morning, and the history of that morning you know. 
 When I got back to our office, you can imagine I was in 
 no enviable state of mind, and the moment I got up street 
 that afternoon I started right round to old Corbin's to 
 rake him out. I went into the room, and sent word that 
 Mr. Fisk wanted to see him in the dining-room. I was 
 too mad to say anything civil, and when he came into the 
 room, said I, ' You damned old scoundrel, do you know 
 what you have done here, you and your people?' He 
 began to wring his hands, and, l Oh,' he says, ' this is 
 a horrible position ! Are you ruined ? ' I said I did n't 
 know whether I was or not ; and I asked him again if he 
 knew what had happened. He had been crying, and said 
 he had just heard ; that he had been sure everything was 
 all right ; but that something had occurred entirely differ- 
 ent from what he had anticipated. Said I, ' That don't 
 
358 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 amount to anything ; we know that gold ought not to be 
 at 31, and that it would not be but for such performances 
 as you have had this last week ; you know damned well 
 it would not if you had not failed.' I knew that some- 
 body had run a saw right into us, and said I, ' This whole 
 damned thing has turned out just as I told you it would.' 
 I considered the whole party a pack of cowards, and I 
 expected that when we came to clear our hands they 
 would sock it right into us. I said to him, ' 1 don't know 
 whether you have lied or not, and I don't know what 
 ought to be done with you.' He was on the other side of 
 the table, weeping and wailing, and I was gnashing my 
 teeth. ' Now,' he says, ' you must quiet yourself.' I told 
 him I did n't want to be quiet. I had no desire to ever 
 be quiet again, and probably never should be quiet again. 
 He says, ' But, my dear sir, you will lose your reason.' 
 Says I, ' Speyers [a broker employed by him that day] 
 has already lost his reason ; reason has gone out of 
 everybody but me.' I continued, ' Now, what are you 
 going to do? You have got us into this thing, and what 
 are you going to do to get us out of it?' He says, ' I 
 don't know. I will go and get my wife.' I said, ' Get 
 her down here ! ' The soft talk was all over. He went 
 upstairs, and they returned tottling into the room, look- 
 ing older than Stephen Hopkins. His wife and he both 
 looked like death. He was tottling just like that. [Illus- 
 trated by a trembling movement of his body.] I have 
 never seen him from that day to this." 
 
 This is sworn evidence before a committee of Con- 
 gress ; and its humor is the more conspicuous, be- 
 cause the story probably contained from beginning 
 to end not a word of truth. No such interview ever 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 359 
 
 occurred, except ..in the imconfined apartments of 
 Fisk's imagination. His own previous statements 
 make it certain that he Avas not at Corbin's house 
 at all that day, and that Corbin did come to the 
 Erie offices that evening, and again the next morning. 
 Corbin denies the truth of the account without limita- 
 tion ; and adds that when he entered the Erie offices 
 the next morning, Fisk was there. " I asked him how 
 Mr. Gould felt after the great calamity of the day 
 before." He remarked, " Oh, he has no courage at all. 
 He has sunk right down. There is nothing left of 
 him but a heap of clothes and a pair of eyes." The 
 internal evidence of truth in this anecdote would sup- 
 port Mr. Corbin against the world. 1 
 
 1 Mr. Fisk to the Editor of the Sun: — 
 
 Erie Railway Company, Comptroller's Office, 
 
 New York, Oct. 4, 1869. 
 To the Editor of the Sun. 
 
 Dear Sir, — ... Mr. Corbin has constantly associated with me; 
 . . . he spent more than an hour with me in the Erie Railway Office 
 on the afternoon of Saturday, September 25, the day after the gold 
 panic. ... I enclose you a few affidavits which will give you further 
 information concerning this matter. 
 
 I remain your obedient servant, 
 
 James Fisk, Jr. 
 
 Affidavit of Charles W. Pollard. 
 State of New York, City and County of New York, ss. 
 C. W. Pollard being duly sworn, says : "1 have frequently been 
 the bearer of messages between Mr. James Fisk, Jr., and Mr. Abel R. 
 Corbin, brother-in-law of President Grant. . . . Mr. Corbin called on 
 me at the Erie building on Thursday, 23d September, 1869, telling me 
 he came to see how Messrs. Fisk and Gould were getting along. . . . 
 He called again on Friday, the following day, at about noon ; appeared 
 
360 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 In regard to Gould, Fisk's graphic description was 
 probably again inaccurate. Undoubtedly the noise 
 and scandal of the moment were extremely unpleas- 
 ant to this silent and impenetrable intriguer. The 
 city was in a ferment, and the whole country pointing 
 at him with wrath. The machinery of the gold ex- 
 change had broken down, and he alone could extri- 
 cate the business community from the pressing danger 
 of a general panic. He had saved himself, but in a 
 manner that could not have been to his taste. Yet 
 his course from this point must have been almost 
 self-evident to his mind, and there is no reason to 
 suppose that he hesitated. 
 
 Gould's contracts were all fulfilled. Fisk's con- 
 tracts, all except one, in respect to which the broker 
 was able to compel a settlement, were repudiated. 
 Gould probably suggested to Fisk that it was . better 
 to let Belden fail, and to settle a handsome for- 
 
 to be greatly excited, and said he feared we should lose a great deal of 
 money. The following morning, Saturday, September 25, Mr. Fisk 
 told me to take his carriage and call upon Mr. Corbin and say to him 
 that he and Mr. Gould would like to see him (Corbin) at their office. 
 I called and saw Mr. Corbin. He remarked upon greeting me: 'How 
 does Mr. Fisk bear his losses ? ' and added, ' It is terrible for us. ' 
 He then asked me to bring Mr. Fisk up to his house immediately, as 
 he was indisposed, and did not feel able to go down to his (Fisk's) 
 office. I went after Mr. Fisk, who returned immediately with me to 
 Mr. Corbin's residence, but shortly after came out with Mr. Corbin, 
 who accompanied him to Mr. Fisk's office, where he was closeted with 
 him and Mr. Gould for about two hours. ..." 
 
 There are obvious inconsistencies among these different ac- 
 counts, which it is useless to attempt to explain. The fact of 
 Saturday's interview appears to be beyond dispute. 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 361 
 
 tune on him, than to sacrifice something more than 
 $5,000,000 in sustaining him. Fisk therefore threw 
 Belden over, and swore that he had acted only under 
 Belden's order ; in support of which statement he 
 produced a paper to the following effect : — 
 
 September 24. 
 Dear Sir, — I hereby authorize you to order the pur- 
 chase and sale of gold on my account during this day to 
 the extent you may deem advisable, and to report the 
 same to me as early as possible. It is to be understood 
 that the profits of such order are to belong entirely to me, 
 and I will, of course, bear any losses resulting. 
 Yours, 
 
 William Belden. 
 James Fisk, Jr. 
 
 This document was not produced in the original, 
 and certainly never existed. Belden himself could 
 not be induced to acknowledge the order ; and no one 
 would have believed him had he done so. Meanwhile 
 the matter is before the national courts, and Fisk may 
 probably be held to his contracts ; but it will be diffi- 
 cult to execute judgment upon him, or to discover 
 his assets. 
 
 One of the first acts of the Erie gentlemen after 
 the crisis was to summon their lawyers and set in 
 action their judicial powers. The object was to pre- 
 vent the panic-stricken brokers from using legal 
 process to force settlements, and so render the entan- 
 glement inextricable. Messrs. Field and Shearman 
 came, and instantly prepared a considerable number 
 of injunctions, which were sent to their judges, signed 
 
362 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 at once, and immediately served. Gould then was 
 able to dictate the terms of settlement ; and after a 
 week of paralysis, Broad Street began to show signs 
 of returning life. As a legal curiosity, one of these 
 documents issued three months after the crisis may 
 be reproduced in order to show the powers wielded 
 by the Erie managers : — 
 
 Supreme Court. 
 
 H. N. Smith, Jay Gould, H. H. Martin, "| 
 
 and J. B. Bach, Plaintiffs, I _ . 
 
 . . Inmnction 
 
 aqamst > . . 
 
 _, , . T c by order. 
 
 John Bonner and Arthur L. Sewell, j 
 
 Defendants. J 
 
 It appearing satisfactorily to me by the complaint 
 duly verified by the plaintiffs that sufficient grounds for 
 an order of injunction exist, I do hereby order and en- 
 join . . . that the defendants, John Bonner and Arthur 
 L. Sewell, their agents, attorneys, and servants, refrain 
 from pressing their pretended claims against the plain- 
 tiffs, or either of them, before the Arbitration Committee 
 of the New York Stock Exchange, or from taking any 
 proceedings thereon, or in relation thereto, except in this 
 
 action. 
 
 George G. Barnard, J. S. C. 
 
 New York, Dec. 29, 1869. 
 
 Bonner had practically been robbed with violence 
 by Gould, and instead of his being able to bring the 
 robber into court as the criminal, the robber brought 
 him into court as criminal, and the judge forbade him 
 to appear in any other character. Of all Mr. Field's 
 distinguished legal reforms and philanthropic projects, 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 363 
 
 this injunction is beyond a doubt the most brilliant 
 and the most successful. 1 
 
 1 These remarks on Mr. Field's professional conduct as counsel 
 of the Erie Railway excited a somewhat intemperate controversy, 
 and Mr. Field's partisans in the press made against the authors 
 of the " Chapters of Erie " a charge that these writers " indeli- 
 cately interfered in a matter alien to them in every way," — the 
 administration of justice in New York being, in this point of view, 
 a matter in which Mr. Field and the Erie Railway were alone con- 
 cerned. Mr. Field himself published a letter in the "Westmin- 
 ster Review " for April, 1871, in which, after the general assertion 
 that the passages in the " New York Gold Conspiracy " which re- 
 lated to him " cover about as much untruth as could be crowded 
 into so many lines," he made the following corrections : 
 
 First, he denied, what was never suggested, that he was in 
 any way a party to the origin or progress of the Gold Conspi- 
 racy, until (secondly) he was consulted on the 28th of September, 
 when (thirdly) he gave an opinion as to the powers of the mem- 
 bers of the Gold and Stock Exchanges. Fourthly, he denied that 
 he had relations of any sort with any judge in New York, or 
 any power over these judges, other than such as English coun- 
 sel have in respect to English judges. Fifthly, he asserted that 
 among twenty-eight injunctions growing out of the gold trans- 
 actions his partners obtained only ten, and only one of these ten, 
 the one quoted above, from Justice Barnard. Sixthly, that this 
 injunction was proper to be sought and granted. Seventhly, that 
 Mr. Bonner was not himself the person who had been " robbed 
 with violence," but the assignee of the parties. 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. Field did not deny that the injunction 
 as quoted was genuine, or that he was responsible for it, or that 
 it did, as asserted, shut the defendants out of the courts as well 
 as out of the Gold Exchange Arbitration Committee, or that it 
 compelled them to appear only as defendants in a case where they 
 were the injured parties. 
 
 In regard to the power which Mr. Field, whether as a pri- 
 
364 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 The fate of. the conspirators was not severe. Cor- 
 bin went to Washington, where he was snubbed by 
 the President, and disappeared from public view, only 
 coming to light again before the Congressional com- 
 mittee. General Butterfield, whose share in the 
 transaction is least understood, was permitted to re- 
 sign his office without an investigation. Speculation 
 for the next six months was at an end. Every per- 
 son involved in the affair seemed to have lost money, 
 and dozens of brokers were swept from the street. 
 But Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr., continued to 
 reign over Erie, and no one can say that their power 
 or their credit was sensibly diminished by a shock 
 which for the time prostrated the interests of the 
 country. 
 
 Nevertheless, sooner or later the last traces of the 
 disturbing influence of war and paper money will 
 disappear in America, as they have sooner or later 
 disappeared in every other country which has passed 
 through the same evils. The result of this convulsion 
 itself has been in the main good. It indicates the 
 
 vate individual or as Erie counsel, exercised over the New York 
 bench, his correction affected the story but little. In regard to 
 Mr. Bonner, the fact of his being principal or representative 
 scarcely altered the character of Mr. Field's injunction. Finally, 
 so far as the text is concerned, after allowing full weight to all 
 Mr. Field's corrections, the public can decide for itself how many 
 untruths it contained. The subject ceased to be one of conse- 
 quence even to Mr. Field after the subsequent violent contro- 
 versy which arose in March, 1871, in regard to other points of 
 Mr. Field's professional conduct. 
 
THE NEW YORK GOLD CONSPIRACY. 365 
 
 approaching end of a troubled time. Messrs. Gould 
 and Fisk will at last be obliged to yield to the force 
 of moral and economical laws. The Erie Railway will 
 be rescued, and its history will perhaps rival that of 
 the great speculative manias of the last century. The 
 United States will restore a sound basis to its cur- 
 rency, and will learn to deal with the political re- 
 forms it requires. Yet though the regular process of 
 development may be depended upon, in its ordinary 
 and established course, to purge American society of 
 the worst agents of an exceptionally corrupt time, 
 the history of the Erie corporation offers one point 
 in regard to which modern society everywhere is di- 
 rectly interested. For the first time since the crea- 
 tion of these enormous corporate bodies, one of them 
 has shown its power for mischief, and has proved 
 itself able to override and trample on law, custom, 
 decency, and every restraint known to society, with- 
 out scruple, and as yet without check. The belief is 
 common in America that the day is at hand when 
 corporations far greater than the Erie — swaying 
 power such as has never in the world's history been 
 trusted in the hands of private citizens, controlled by 
 single men like Vanderbilt, or by combinations of 
 men like Fisk, Gould, and Lane, after having created 
 a system of quiet but irresistible corruption — will 
 ultimately succeed in directing government itself. 
 Under the American form of society no authority 
 exists capable of effective resistance. The national 
 government, in order to deal with the corporations, 
 
366 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 must assume powers refused to it by its fundamental 
 law, — and even then is exposed to the chance of 
 forming an absolute central government which sooner 
 or later is likely to fall into the hands it is strug- 
 gling to escape, and thus destroy the limits of its 
 power only in order to make corruption omnipotent. 
 Nor is this danger confined to America alone. The 
 corporation is in its nature a threat against the popu- 
 lar institutions spreading so rapidly over the whole 
 world. Wherever a popular and limited government 
 exists this difficulty will be found in its path ; and 
 unless some satisfactory solution of the problem can 
 be reached, popular institutions may yet find their 
 existence endangered. 
 
THE SESSION, 1869-1870. 1 
 
 That the government of the United States is pass- 
 ing through a period of transition is one of the com- 
 mon-places of politics. This transition, which few 
 persons deny, illustrates in a scientific point of view 
 the manner in which principles are established. The 
 generation that framed the American form of gov- 
 ernment meant it to be, not only in mechanism but 
 in theory, a contradiction to opinions commonly ac- 
 cepted in Europe. The men who made the Con- 
 stitution intended to make by its means an issue 
 with antiquity ; and they had a clear conception of 
 the issue itself, and of their own purposes in raising 
 it. These purposes were perhaps chimerical ; the 
 hopes then felt were almost certainly delusive. Yet 
 persons who grant the probable failure of the scheme, 
 and expect the recurrence of the great problems in 
 government which were then thought to be solved, 
 cannot but look with satisfaction at the history of 
 the Federal Constitution as the most convincing and 
 the most interesting experiment ever made in the 
 laboratory of political science, even if it demonstrates 
 the impossibility of success through its means. 
 1 From the North American Review for July, 1870. 
 
HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 The great object of terror and suspicion to the peo- 
 ple of the thirteen provinces was power ; not merely 
 power in the hands of a president or a prince, of one 
 assembly or of several, of many citizens or of few, but 
 power in the abstract, wherever it existed and under 
 whatever name it was known. " There is and must 
 be," said Blackstone, " in all forms of government, 
 however they began or by what right soever they 
 exist, a supreme, irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled 
 authority, in which the jura summi imperii, or the 
 rights of sovereignty, reside ; " and Parliament is 
 the place " where that absolute despotic power which 
 must in all governments reside somewhere is intrusted 
 by the Constitution of the British kingdoms." Su- 
 preme, irresistible authority must exist somewhere in 
 every government — was the European political belief; 
 and England solved her problem by intrusting it to a 
 representative assembly to be used according to the 
 best judgment of the nation. America, on the other 
 hand, asserted that the principle was not true ; that 
 no such supreme power need exist in a government ; 
 that in the American government none such should be 
 allowed to exist, because absolute power in any form 
 was inconsistent with freedom , and that the new 
 government should start from the idea that the public 
 liberties depended upon denying uncontrolled authority 
 to the political system in its parts or in its whole. 
 
 Every one knows with what logic this theory was 
 worked out in the mechanism of the new republic. 
 Not only were rights reserved to the people never to 
 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 369 
 
 be parted with, but rights of great extent were re- 
 served to the States as a sacred deposit to be jealously 
 guarded. Even in the central government, the three 
 great depositories of power were made independent 
 of each other, checks on each other's assumption of 
 authority, separately responsible to the people, that 
 each might be a protection and not a danger to the 
 public liberties. The framers of the Constitution did 
 not indeed presume to prescribe or limit the powers 
 a nation might exercise if its existence were at stake. 
 They knew that under such an emergency paper limi- 
 tations must yield; but they still hoped that the lesson 
 they had taught would sink so deep into the popular 
 mind as to cause a re-establishment of the system 
 after the emergency had passed. The hope was 
 scarcely supported by the experience of history, but, 
 like M. Necker in France, they were obliged to trust 
 somewhat to the " virtues of the human heart." 
 
 The two theories of government stood face to face 
 during three quarters of a century. Europe still 
 maintained that supreme power must be trusted to 
 every government, democratic or not; and America 
 still maintained that such a principle was inconsistent 
 with freedom. The civil war broke out in the United 
 States, and of course for the time obliterated the 
 Constitution. Peace came, and with it came the 
 moment for the settlement of this long scientific 
 dispute. If the Constitutional system restored itself, 
 America was right, and the oldest problem in political 
 science was successfully solved. / 
 
 24 ~ 
 
370 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Every one knows the concurrence of accidents, if 
 anything in social sequence can be called accident, 
 which seemed to prevent a fair working of the ten- 
 dency to restoration during the four years that fol- 
 lowed the close of actual war. With the year 1869 
 a new and peculiarly favorable change took place. 
 Many good and true Americans then believed that 
 the time had come, and that the old foundation on 
 which American liberties had been planted would be 
 fully and firmly restored. A brilliant opportunity 
 occurred for the new Administration, not perhaps to 
 change the ultimate result, but to delay some decades 
 yet the demonstration of failure. The new President 
 had unbounded popular confidence. He was tied to 
 no party. He was under no pledges. He had the 
 inestimable advantage of a military training, which, 
 unlike a political training, was calculated to encourage 
 the moral distinction between right and wrong. 
 
 No one could fail to see the mingled feelings of 
 alarm and defiance with which senators and poli- 
 ticians waited President Grant's first move. Not 
 they alone, but almost the entire public, expected to 
 see him at once grasp with a firm hand the helm of 
 government, and give the vessel of state a steady 
 and determined course. The example of President 
 Washington offered an obvious standard for the am- 
 bition of Grant. It was long before the conservative 
 class of citizens, who had no partisan prejudices, 
 could convince themselves that in this respect they 
 had not perhaps overrated so much as misconceived 
 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 371 
 
 the character of Grant, and that they mast learn to 
 look at him in a light unlike any they had been 
 hitherto accustomed to associate with him. This 
 misconception or misunderstanding* was not matter 
 for surprise, since even to the President's oldest and 
 most intimate associates his character is still in 
 some respects a riddle, and the secret of his uni- 
 form and extraordinary success a matter of dispute. 
 Indeed, if he ever fell into the mischievous habit 
 of analyzing his own mind, he could answer his 
 own questions in no manner that would satisfy 
 curiosity. Nothing could be more interesting to 
 any person who has been perplexed with the doubts 
 which President Grant's character never fails to 
 raise in every one who approaches him, than to 
 have these doubts met and explained by some com- 
 petent authority, — by some old associate like General 
 Sherman, with an active mind ever eager to grapple 
 with puzzles ; by some civil subordinate such as a civil 
 subordinate ought to be, quick at measuring influences 
 and at unravelling the tangled skein of ideas which 
 runs through the brains of an Administration. Yet 
 as a rule, the reply to every inquiry comes in the 
 form of confessed ignorance : " We do not know why 
 Grant is successful ; we only know that he succeeds." 
 Without attempting to explain so complicated an 
 enigma, one might still predict General Grant's prob- 
 able civil career from facts open to all the world. 
 Grant's mind rarely acts from any habit of wide 
 generalization. As a rule, the ideas executed with 
 
372 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 so much energy appear to come to him one by one, 
 without close logical sequence ; and as a person may 
 see and calculate the effect of a drop of acid on an 
 organic substance, so one may sometimes almost seem 
 to see the mechanical process by which a new idea 
 eats its way into Grant's unconscious mind, — where 
 its action begins, and where its force is exhausted. 
 Hence arise both advantages and misfortunes. This 
 faculty for assimilation of ideas, this nature which 
 the Germans would call objective, under ordinary 
 circumstances and when not used by selfish men 
 for corrupt purposes gives elasticity, freedom from 
 inveterate prejudices, and capacity for progress. It 
 would be likely to produce a course of action not 
 perhaps strictly logical, or perfectly steady, or capa- 
 ble of standing the sharper tests of hostile criti- 
 cism, but in the main practical, sensible, and in 
 intention honest. When used by Jay Gould and 
 Abel Rathbone Corbin with the skill of New York 
 stock-brokers for illegitimate objects, the result is 
 the more disastrous in proportion to the energy of 
 execution for which the President is remarkable. 
 
 Most persons, and especially those who had formed 
 their ideas of the President from his Vicksburg cam- 
 paign, entertained a different notion of his intellectual 
 qualities. The Vicksburg campaign puzzled equally 
 the enemies and the friends of General Grant. Gen- 
 eral Sherman's frank expression of surprise found its 
 way into print in the form of a sincere tribute of 
 admiration spoken by a man conscious of having 
 
THE SESSION". 1869-1870. 373 
 
 underrated his superior officer. The public, on the 
 strength of this brilliant campaign, assumed with 
 reason that a general capable of planning and execut- 
 ing a military scheme such as Napoleon might have 
 envied, must possess an aptitude for elaboration of 
 idea and careful adaptation of means to ends such 
 as would in civil administration produce a large 
 and vigorous political policy. Yet no such refine- 
 ment of conception was in Grant's nature ; no such 
 ambition entered his head, — he neither encouraged 
 it nor believed in its advantages. His own idea of 
 his duties as President was openly and consistently 
 expressed, and is best described as that of the com- 
 mander of an army in time of peace. He was to 
 watch over the faithful administration of the govern- 
 ment ; to see that the taxes were honestly collected, 
 that the disbursements were honestly made, that 
 economy was strictly enforced, that the laws were 
 everywhere obeyed, good and bad alike ; and as it 
 was the duty of every military commander to obey 
 the civil authority without question, so it was the 
 duty of the President to follow without hesitation the 
 wishes of the people as expressed by Congress. 
 
 This is not the range of duties prescribed to an 
 American President either by the Constitution or by 
 custom, although it may be that which Congress 
 desires and to which the system tends. The Presi- 
 dent may indeed in one respect resemble the com- 
 mander of an army in peace, but in another and 
 more essential sense he resembles the commander 
 
374 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a 
 course to steer, a port to seek ; he must sooner or 
 later be convinced that a perpetual calm is as little 
 to his purpose as a perpetual hurricane, and that 
 without headway the ship can arrive nowhere. Presi- 
 dent Grant assumed at the outset that it was not his 
 duty to steer ; that his were only duties of discipline. 
 
 Under these circumstances, with a President who 
 while disbelieving in the propriety of having a gene- 
 ral policy must yet inevitably assume responsibility, 
 — with one too whose mind, if not imaginative or 
 highly cultivated, was still sensitive to surrounding 
 influences, — the necessity was all the greater that 
 the gentlemen on whose advice and assistance he 
 would be compelled to lean should be calculated to 
 supplement his natural gifts. From him the public 
 had not required high civil education. Rulers have 
 always the right to command and appropriate the 
 education and the intelligence of their people. Know- 
 ledge somewhere, either in himself or in his servants, 
 is essential even to an American President, — perhaps 
 to him most of all rulers; and thus, though it was 
 a matter of comparatively little importance that the 
 President's personal notions of civil government were 
 crude, and his ideas of political economy those of a 
 feudal monarch a thousand years ago, it was of the 
 highest consequence that his advisers should supply 
 the knowledge that he could not have been expected 
 to possess, and should develop the ideas which his 
 growing experience would give him. Questions of 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 375 
 
 finance having assumed overruling importance, a re- 
 sponsibility of the most serious character would evi- 
 dently rest on the Secretary of the Treasury, 
 
 The official importance of the Secretary of the 
 Treasury can hardly be over-estimated. Not only is 
 his political power in the exercise of patronage 
 greater than that of any other Cabinet officer, but in 
 matters of policy almost every proposition of foreign 
 or domestic interest sooner or later involves finan- 
 cial considerations and requires an opinion from a 
 financial stand-point. Hence in the English system 
 the head of administration commonly occupies the 
 post of premier lord of the Treasury. In the Ameri- 
 can form of government the head of the Treasury 
 is also the post of real authority, rivalling that of 
 the President, and almost too powerful for harmony 
 or subordination. The secretary's voice ought to 
 have more weight with the President than that of 
 any other adviser. The secretary's financial policy 
 ought to be the point on which each member of the 
 Administration is united with every other. At a time 
 like the summer of 1869, when old issues were passing 
 away and a new condition of things was at hand, 
 when the public was waiting to be led or kneeling to 
 take up its master, it was more than ever important 
 that the President should have in the Treasury a man 
 who could command and compel respect. 
 
 Secretary Boutwell was not a person to make good 
 the needs of the President. General Grant wanted 
 civil education, but in return was open to new ideas, 
 
376 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 and had the capacity to learn from any one who had 
 the faculty to teach. Mr. Boutwell had no faculty 
 for teaching, and little respect for knowledge that 
 was not practical. He believed in knowledge so 
 far as was convenient to justify his theory that 
 knowledge was a % deception. He believed in com- 
 mon schools, and not in political science ; in ledgers 
 and cash-books, but not in Adam Smith or J. S. Mill, 
 — as one might believe in the multiplication-table, 
 but not in Laplace or Newton. By a natural logic 
 he made of his disbelief in the higher branches 
 of political science a basis for his political practice ; 
 and thus grounding action on ignorance, he carried 
 out his principle to its conclusions. He too, like the 
 President, announced that he had no policy ; and 
 even more persistently than the President he at- 
 tempted to govern on the theory that government 
 was no concern of his. Other persons in a similar 
 position would commonly have leaned either to the 
 theorists on one side, or to so-called practical men 
 on the other ; but Mr. Boutwell treated both with the 
 same indifference. He had all the theorists in Europe 
 and America to choose from, but he did not listen 
 to their teachings ; he had all the practical men in 
 the country at his service, but he did not follow their 
 advice ; he had all the best members of the Legis- 
 lature to depend upon, but he did not desire their 
 assistance ; he had a costly and elaborate machinery 
 maintained by the country to furnish him with any 
 information he might require, but Mr. Boutwell never 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 377 
 
 required information. Nay, sitting twice a week in 
 consultation with his colleagues in the Cabinet, Mr. 
 Boutwell cannot have controlled their measures or 
 even discussed his own. The President himself at 
 the time of his Message could hardly have been 
 consulted by the secretary. 
 
 To analyze a policy which does not exist, to trace 
 the adaptation of means to ends where no adapta- 
 tion was intended, is a waste of time and ingenui- 
 ty. Yet no man can succeed in obliterating all ideas 
 from his mind, or can prevent his acts from show- 
 ing traces of intelligence. This relation between 
 ideas and acts, commonly known as a policy, was 
 visible in Mr. BoutwelFs course, although it was 
 visible only within a narrow range. Of most po- 
 litical leaders it might have been foretold with 
 certainty that they would expend their energy on a 
 restoration of the currency, or on a reduction of the 
 taxes, confident that if these were once settled the 
 financial situation would be secure. Mr. BoutwelFs 
 passion was different. He had only one object of 
 great' ambition, but this was to redeem the national 
 debt. To do this from day to day ; to collect more 
 and more millions from the people ; to cut down the 
 expenses to their lowest point ; to accumulate the 
 surplus in the Treasury ; to buy with it, month by 
 month, more and more of the government's own 
 debts, and thus to see the huge mass of indebtedness 
 slowly dwindle and diminish in his hands, — this 
 was a tangible, self-evident proof of success, which 
 
378 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 appealed directly to the lowest order of intelligence, 
 and struck with the greatest possible force the mind 
 of the voting public. To this idea Mr. Boutwell sac- 
 rificed currency reform, revenue reform, and every 
 hope of relief from taxation ; and to this idea he sub- 
 ordinated even his own next ambition, that of low- 
 ering the rate of interest on the debt. Beyond this 
 he abnegated ideas. He did nothing, said nothing, 
 heard nothing, except when necessity compelled. 
 
 Although the policy thus embraced by Mr. Bout- 
 well was neither broad nor deep, and certainly not 
 that of a great statesman, yet in pursuing this easy 
 and simple course Mr. Boutwell may have taken the 
 most direct path to an apparently brilliant success, — 
 a success far better calculated for his purposes than 
 though he had strayed aside into the vast and com- 
 prehensive reforms which would have dazzled the im- 
 aginations of Turgot, of Pitt, or of Hamilton. But 
 the success which is gained by so meagre and sterile 
 a conception is of little permanent value, even when 
 compared with a bold and generous failure. If a 
 critic were called upon to name the most unfortunate 
 of all the financiers who have ever controlled the 
 resources of France, he might, from Mr. Boutwell's 
 point of view, find difficulty in discovering a more 
 conspicuous failure than the administration of Turgot. 
 If he applied the same process to British finance, he 
 might probably be compelled at last to fix upon no 
 less illustrious a career than that of William Pitt. 
 But if he were to test his theory by the opposite 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 379 
 
 experiment of selecting from English history the 
 nearest approach to Mr. Boutwell's ideal of financial 
 success, he would certainly be compelled to pass in 
 silence over the names of Montagu and of Walpole, 
 of Pitt, of Peel, and of Gladstone, in order to draw 
 from its almost forgotten resting-place the memory 
 of some third-rate Chancellor of the Exchequer, some 
 Nicholas Vansittart, whose very name is a blank 
 even to the students of biographical cyclopaedias. 
 Vansittart, indeed, would in most respects, except 
 for his curious financial knowledge and his reverence 
 for the financial teachings of his great master Pitt, 
 serve well as the ideal of Mr. Boutwell. A Chancel- 
 lor of the Exchequer who coining into office in 1812, 
 at almost the darkest moment of England's struggle 
 with the world, remained at the head of the finan- 
 ces through the war ; met and triumphantly stood the 
 shock of the return from Elba, and of Waterloo ; car- 
 ried England back to specie payments after twenty 
 years of paper money ; at a single operation reduced 
 the interest on a capital of nearly 1800,000,000, at 
 that time the largest sum ever dealt with in a mass ; 
 and who, to crown all, arrived at the height of his 
 ambition in 1823 by raising the surplus, applicable to 
 the reduction of debt, to the unprecedented point of 
 $25,000,000 in spite of the opposition of the whole 
 body of liberal and educated politicians, — a Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer with twelve years of such 
 triumphs as these could scarcely be denied the credit 
 of supreme and unrivalled success. Yet such is the 
 
380 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 perverseness of history, and so unreasonable is human 
 prejudice, that not only the contemporaries of Mr. 
 Vansittart, although attached to him by his genial 
 and good-natured manners, but also posterity, to which 
 his name is so little familiar, have combined in agree- 
 ing that as a financial minister he was a conspicuous 
 example of incompetence, who for years hung like a 
 clog on the progress of England. 
 
 So far as finance was concerned, Mr. Boutwell's 
 policy might have been poorer even than it was, and 
 yet the vigor of the country would have made it a 
 success. The greatest responsibilities of a Secretary 
 of the Treasury are not financial, and an administra- 
 tion framed upon the narrow basis of mere depart- 
 mental activity must be always, except under the 
 strongest of Presidents, an invitation to failure. The 
 stormiest of Cabinets, the most venturesome of ad- 
 visers, the boldest of political rivals for power, are 
 likely to produce in combination a better result than 
 that unorganized and disjointed harmony, that dead 
 unanimity, which springs from divided responsibility. 
 Mr. Boutwell had neither the wish nor the scope to 
 assume the functions or to wield the power of his 
 office ; and instead of stamping upon the President 
 and his administration the impress of a controlling 
 mind, he drew himself back into a corner of his 
 own, and encouraged and set the example of isola- 
 tion at a time when concentrated action was essential 
 to the Executive. 
 
 Even in the quietest of times and under the most 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 381 
 
 despotic chief such a departmental government is a 
 doubtful experiment, but in the summer and autumn 
 of 1869 it was peculiarly ill-timed. Every politician 
 felt that the first year of the new Administration 
 would probably fix the future character of the gov- 
 ernment. The steady process by which power was 
 tending to centralization in defiance of the theory of 
 the political system ; the equally steady tendency of 
 this power to accumulate in the hands of the Legis- 
 lature at the expense of the Executive and the Ju- 
 diciary ; the ever-increasing encroachments of the 
 Senate, the ever-diminishing efficiency of the House ; 
 all the different parts and processes of the general 
 movement which indicated a certain abandonment of 
 the original theory of the American system, and a no 
 less certain substitution of a method of government 
 that promised to be both corrupt and inefficient, — 
 all these were either to be fixed upon the country 
 beyond recall, or were to be met by a prompt and 
 energetic resistance. To evade the contest was to 
 accept the revolution. To resist with success, the 
 President must have built up his authority upon every 
 side until the vigor of his Administration overawed 
 the Senate, and carried away the House by the sheer 
 strength of popular applause. That such a result was 
 possible no one can doubt who had occasion to see 
 how much it was dreaded by the Washington poli- 
 ticians of the winter and spring of 1869, and how 
 rapidly they resumed confidence on discovering that 
 the President had no such schemes. 
 
 / 
 
382 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 By the time Congress came together, in December^ 
 1869, the warm hopes which illumined the elec- 
 tion of November, 1868, had faded from the public 
 mind. Clearly, the Administration was marked by no 
 distinctive character. No purpose of peculiar eleva- 
 tion, no broad policy, no commanding dignity indi- 
 cated the beginning of a new era. The old type 
 of politician was no less powerful than under other 
 Presidents. The old type of idea was not improved 
 by the personal changes between 1861 and 1870. 
 The Administration was not prepared for a contest 
 with Congress, and at the last moment it was still 
 without a purpose, without followers, and without a 
 head. 
 
 Under these circumstances the President's Message 
 was sent to the Capitol. It was studied with the 
 more curiosity because it was supposed to reflect the 
 internal condition of the government. Nothing could 
 have presented a less reassuring prospect. The want 
 of plan and unity of idea was so obvious that no one 
 needed to be assured of the harmony of the Ad- 
 ministration. An Administration that did not care 
 enough for its own opinions to quarrel about them 
 was naturally harmonious. The President and the 
 Secretary of the Treasury were discovered expressing 
 opinions and offering recommendations diametrically 
 opposed to each other, apparently unconscious that 
 under ordinary theories of government a head is re- 
 quired. Nor was this all. The absence of a strong 
 mind in the Treasury was as conspicuous in what 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 383 
 
 was omitted as in what was said. Not only was the 
 political economy, both of the Message and of Mr. 
 Bontwell's Report, a subject into which the ridicule 
 of the press cut with easy facility, to the mortifica- 
 tion of every friend of the Government, but even 
 where simpler declarations, not requiring previous 
 knowledge of principles, would have satisfied every 
 purpose, their absence was almost as marked as was 
 the presence of Mr. Boutwell's famous barrels of flour. 
 In regard to the currency alone was the President in 
 advance of public opinion, and in regard to the cur- 
 rency his secretary offered him no active support. 
 Other reforms shared a worse fate. The reduction 
 of taxes was discouraged, the civil service was not 
 noticed, and tariff reform was distinctly opposed. 
 Had it not been for the good sense of the remarks 
 on reconstruction and foreign affairs, the President's 
 first appearance before Congress would have hazarded 
 the reproach of absurdity. 
 
 The result, already a foregone conclusion, became 
 apparent when Congress took up its work. So far 
 as initiative was concerned, the President and his 
 Cabinet might equally well have departed separately 
 or together to distant lands. Their recommenda- 
 tions were uniformly disregarded. Mr. Sumner, at 
 the head of the Senate, rode rough-shod over their 
 reconstruction policy, and utterly overthrew it in 
 spite of the feeble resistance of the House. Senator 
 Conkling then ousted Sumner from his saddle, and 
 headed the Senate in an attack upon the Executive 
 
384 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 as represented by Judge Hoar, the avowed casus belli 
 being that the attorney-general's manners were un- 
 satisfactory to the Senate. Then Conkling attacked 
 the Census Bill, where he had a three-fold victory ; 
 and it would be hard to say which of the three af- 
 forded him the keenest gratification. Single-handed 
 he assailed Sumner, the House, and the Executive, 
 and routed them all in disastrous confusion. Never 
 was factiousness more alluring or more successful 
 than under Conkling's lead Then again Sumner 
 came to the front, and obtained a splendid triumph 
 over the President in the struggle over San Domingo. 
 Senator Sherman was less vigorous and less fortunate 
 in regard to the currency and funding measures, but 
 Boutwell asked so little it was difficult for Sherman 
 to do more than ignore him ; and even in the House, 
 Mr. Dawes, the official spokesman of the Govern- 
 ment, if the Government has an official spokesman, 
 startled the country by a sudden and dashing volun- 
 teer attack on the only point of General Grant's lines 
 on the security of which he had prided himself, — 
 his economy ; and to this day no man understands 
 how Dawes's foray was neutralized or evaded, or 
 whether he was right or wrong. 
 
 The principal subjects of the session within the 
 j scope of the present review have been Reconstruction, 
 Finance, and Foreign Affairs. 
 
 On the subject of Reconstruction little need be 
 said. The merits or demerits of the system adopted 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 385 
 
 are no longer a subject worth discussion. The re- 
 sistance to these measures rested primarily on their 
 violation of the letter and spirit of the Constitution 
 as regarded the rights of States, and the justification 
 rested not on a denial of the violation, but in over- 
 ruling necessity. The measures were adopted with 
 reluctance by a majority of Congressmen, they were 
 approved with equal reluctance by a majority of the 
 people ; but they have become law, and whatever 
 harm may ultimately come from them is beyond re- 
 call and must be left for the coming generation, to 
 which the subject henceforth belongs, to regulate ac- 
 cording to its circumstances and judgment. The 
 present generation must rest content with knowing 
 that so far as legal principles are involved, the pro- 
 cess of reconstruction has reached its limits in the 
 legislation of 1869. The powers originally reserved 
 by the Constitution to the States are in future to 
 be held by them only on good behavior and at the 
 sufferance of Congress ; they may be suspended or 
 assumed by Congress ; their original basis and sanc- 
 tion no longer exist; and if they ever offered any 
 real protection against the assumption of supreme 
 and uncontrolled power by the central government, 
 that protection is at an end. How far Congress will 
 at any future day care to press its authority, or how 
 far the States themselves may succeed in resisting 
 the power of Congress, are questions which must be 
 answered by a reference to the general course of 
 events. Something may be judged of the rate of 
 
 25 
 
386 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 progress from the theory so energetically pressed 
 during the past season by Senator Sumner, that the 
 New England system of common schools is a part of 
 the republican form of government as understood 
 by the framers of the Constitution, — an idea that 
 would have seemed to the last generation as strange 
 as though it had been announced that the electric 
 telegraph was an essential article of faith in the early 
 Christian Church. Something also may be judged 
 from the condition of New York city and the evi- 
 dent failure of the system of self-government in great 
 municipalities. Something more may be guessed from 
 the rapid progress of corruption in shaking public 
 confidence in State legislatures. Finally, something 
 may be inferred from the enormous development of 
 corporate power, requiring still greater political power 
 to control it. Under any circumstances the first de- 
 cisive, irrevocable step toward substituting a new form 
 of government in the place of that on which Ameri- 
 can liberties have heretofore rested has been taken, 
 and by it the American people must stand. 
 
 Finance, if not so important as Reconstruction, 
 had at least the advantage of novelty. Reduction 
 of taxation was the popular cry. Reform of taxa- 
 tion was equally essential. Secretary Boutwell, and 
 with him though less positively the President, re- 
 sisted at the outset either reduction or reform. The 
 process of bond-buying supplied in Boutwell's mind 
 the want of any more difficult conception, while in 
 regard to free-trade ideas the secretary, like all 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 387 
 
 political New England, sympathized with the Presi- 
 dent in cold indifference. The revenue reformers 
 had not expected such a result ; they were not pre- 
 pared for the hostility they met from the Adminis- 
 tration, and were thus placed in a position of great 
 difficulty. 
 
 Whatever was the reason that the President leaned 
 to high protectionist ideas, no one was more surprised 
 or less gratified than many of his warmest friends 
 when they found the fact announced in his Message. 
 Undoubtedly the reformers had hoped and expected 
 to have his sympathy in their efforts for revenue 
 reform, as they had hoped it in regard to civil- 
 service reform, and as they received it in the case 
 of the currency ; nor was there reason to suppose 
 that the President, even on this important subject, 
 acted from firm conviction, or considered the matter 
 in reference to any general class of political ideas. 
 The responsibility for the President's course could not 
 be thrown upon his Secretary of the Treasury, since 
 Secretary Boutwell on this subject as on all others, ex- 
 cept one, abnegated influence. The difficulty was that 
 the Administration without active hostility blocked 
 the path of the reformers. It would consent to no 
 absolute war upon them, but its practical influence 
 was more mischievous than the bitterest warfare. To 
 break down the monopolies which the central govern- 
 ment had created and was engaged in supporting, and 
 whose corrupt influence was felt at every step, seemed 
 the first and most pressing necessity to those who be- 
 
388 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 lieved that a purer political and moral atmosphere 
 was only to be found by freeing the country from 
 them ; but to do this by disjointed, unorganized ef- 
 fort, without support from the Administration and 
 in face of a large party majority, against the sneers 
 and contempt of every Republican Congressman from 
 New England, without a voice of open or secret en- 
 couragement and at the same time to meet and 
 overcome Pennsylvania and her organized body of 
 allies, — to do it all by means of the Republican party 
 when the Republican party in Congress dreaded noth- 
 ing so much as the necessity of meeting this issue, 
 seemed a project of hopeless temerity. 
 
 The small body of men in and out of Congress who 
 were determined to force the issue of reform began 
 the winter under every influence of discouragement. 
 Not only had the President abandoned them, but 
 Congress was in the hands of their opponents; and 
 the Committee of Ways and Means, controlled by 
 protectionist influence, prepared an ingenious bill, 
 calculated to reduce taxation and to check popular 
 complaint, but still more carefully constructed to 
 maintain and increase the protecting duties wherever 
 special interests asked it. The Forty-first Congress 
 was considered as more thoroughly devoted to pro- 
 tectionist ideas than any of its predecessors, and 
 about fifty Democratic votes were all that could be 
 classed as determined for free-trade, with the excep- 
 tion of three or four Western Republicans. Tariff 
 reform, as advocated by David A. Wells, commanded 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 389 
 
 a certain amount of sympathy ; but its friends in the 
 House were few and timid, while the charge of free- 
 trade sounded to their ears as terrible as that of 
 having worn a rebel uniform or having been out with 
 the Ku-klux Klan. To convert such a body of men 
 by such small means as the reformers could com- 
 mand was a desperate undertaking. The friends of 
 reform in 1869, quitting in despair the President and 
 his Cabinet with their inertia and cold neutrality, 
 and Congress with its bristling hostility, turned to 
 ask counsel of the popular masses. They worked 
 throughout the summer and autumn with all the 
 energy they possessed, and they continued to work 
 throughout the winter, not in the lobbies of the Capi- 
 tol or in the ante-chambers of the departments, but 
 directly and earnestly upon popular opinion. As 
 spring approached they began to resume confidence. 
 Their leaders in Washington, whose interest was 
 sharpened by the anxiety to maintain control of their 
 constituencies, received from every quarter beyond 
 the Alleghanies, with few exceptions, assurances of 
 popular support, so vigorous and so universal that 
 their tone began to change from depression to bold- 
 ness, and they felt themselves strong enough to do 
 without the Administration if the Administration 
 could do without them. From every great organ of 
 public opinion in the Western country they poured 
 out a volume of argument and appeal that no popu- 
 lar influence could resist. Party lines were broken 
 under their incessant attrition. Members of Congress 
 
390 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 began to hesitate, to consult, and to seek informa- 
 tion. The formal opening debate upon the new tariff 
 developed the existence of a feeling such as no one 
 had expected ; and when the bill went into committee 
 to be taken up in detail, it is hard to say who were 
 more astonished, protectionists or reformers, to learn 
 that in the first division the reformers carried the 
 reduction on sugar by a majority of two. 
 
 Then ensued a struggle which dumf ounded the friends 
 of the tariff, who at first refused to credit their de- 
 feat, and insisted on considering it an accident due 
 to the absence of their allies. When the same result 
 occurred again and again, while the resistance to the 
 bill became more and more general instead of dimin- 
 ishing, they began to comprehend their danger. Gen- 
 eral Schenck, who made every effort to force his 
 measures through the House, with more success than 
 any other member could have obtained, soon lost his 
 temper, having at best no very considerable supply 
 of temper to lose, and described his difficulties in 
 graphic language. 
 
 "There is nobody in this House," said he, "upon 
 either side, there is nobody anywhere that has watched 
 the progress of the Tariff Bill through the Committee 
 of the Whole, who does not know that peculiarly, and be- 
 yond perhaps the manifestation of hostility and attack 
 upon any other measure in this or almost any former 
 Congress, it has been fought inch by inch, step by step, 
 line by line, persistently, with heavy attacks and with 
 light attacks, — and most frequently light. I defy a de- 
 nial of that." 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 391 
 
 The fact was not one which the reformers proposed 
 to deny. Not only did they intend to resist all in- 
 crease of protective duties, but they meant to lower 
 the duties wherever they could. They urged their 
 amendments to every line and word with a persistency 
 which astonished themselves ; and, what was still 
 more surprising, the House in Committee of the 
 Whole supported their efforts, and drove the Com- 
 mittee of Ways and Means to amend its own bill. 
 Nor did their success end there. The whole subject 
 was forced before the public attention, and the politi- 
 cal issue for the coming elections was marked out 
 beyond evasion. 
 
 Meanwhile Secretary Boutwell yielded so far to 
 the popular outcry that he unwillingly accepted the 
 necessity of reducing, if not of reforming, taxation, 
 and the President showed signs of yielding to both 
 demands. Their acceptance of the principle of re- 
 form, though too late to give aid to reformers, might 
 perhaps have served to save a few Republican Con- 
 gressmen from defeat in the autumn elections ; but it 
 was a sign of weakness rather than of strength, and 
 indicated a want of stability which had scarcely been 
 expected. As for Secretary Boutwell's persistent ef- 
 forts to obtain authority to fund a portion of the debt, 
 the subject is somewhat too technical for ordinary 
 readers, and is fortunately subordinate in importance. 
 Wliatever respect Boutwell's policy deserved, it re- 
 ceived extremely little, and may be dismissed without 
 further comment. In regard to the currency, where 
 
V 
 
 392 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 reform ought properly to have begun, no approach to 
 agreement could be made. The subject was amply 
 discussed, both formally and informally. Every 
 method of contraction, both direct and indirect ; 
 every process of acting on the national greenback 
 circulation through the national banking currency, 
 or on the banking currency through the greenback 
 circulation, on either separately or on both at once ; 
 every theory, no matter how new or how old ; every 
 objection, no matter how frivolous, — all in turn were 
 argued and laid aside, because public opinion was 
 not yet ripe for action. As usual, nothing could 
 be done by the government, which invariably failed 
 to govern. 
 
 In the midst of this universal dead-lock on every 
 issue except reconstruction, the Supreme Court on 
 the 7th of February pronounced its decision that the 
 Legal-Tender Act, so far as it applied to debts con- 
 tracted before its passage, exceeded the authority of 
 Congress, and assumed powers forbidden by the 
 Constitution. 
 
 To any one on the stand-point assumed at the 
 outset of these remarks, the decision of the Supreme 
 Court must obviously have appeared not only sound 
 in itself, but the single step which had been taken by 
 any department of the government since the close of 
 the war toward the restoration either of a solid basis 
 to the currency or of a solid foundation to the repub- 
 lic. It was a moderate and cautious reassertion of 
 the fundamental principle on which the private liber- 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 393 
 
 ties of the American citizen had been originally based. 
 It was the only indication yet seen that Hamilton and 
 Madison might have been right in hoping that their 
 system of checks and balances would operate to re- 
 store an equilibrium once disturbed by the exigencies 
 of a troubled time. As such it received popular acqui- 
 escence. Hardly a murmur was raised against it by 
 the press. Only in Congress, where opposition might 
 naturally have been expected, was hostility shown to 
 a movement threatening the usurped power of Con- 
 gress alone; and only in the Senate, which has always 
 been, as it always must be, the furnace of intrigue 
 and aggression, was actual attack upon the Court 
 expected. 
 
 The public naturally assumed that the Administra- 
 tion would be glad to accept and support this deci- 
 sion, not only because the interests of the Executive 
 and the Supreme Court are identical, or because this 
 special decision tended to check the arrogant and 
 domineering Congressional power, which had been 
 felt in a manner humiliating to the Cabinet, but be- 
 cause the decision strengthened the declared policy 
 of the President in regard to the currency, and par- 
 tially withdrew the government from the false posi- 
 tion into which it had confessedly been forced by the 
 exigencies of war. Hence, although senators in- 
 stantly declared that the decision should be reversed, 
 and that no candidate favorable to the decision should 
 be confirmed to either of the seats on the Supreme 
 bench then vacated by the deaths of Justices Grier 
 
394 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 and Stanton, a strong feeling of surprise and as- 
 tonishment was perceptible when gentlemen sup- 
 posed to be thoroughly well informed asserted that 
 the President, the Secretary of the Treasury, and 
 Attorney-General E. R. Hoar were agreed in con- 
 sidering the decision as an attack upon the policy 
 of the war, a denial of necessary powers to Congress, 
 and a Democratic electioneering trick. The incre- 
 dulity was great when authority above ordinary doubt 
 further asserted, on direct information from the 
 White House, that neither Judge Bradley nor Judge 
 Strong would have been nominated to the bench, 
 had it been supposed that either of them favored the 
 legal-tender decision. These nominations, whether 
 influenced by such a consideration or not, removed 
 all doubt from senators' minds in regard to this par- 
 ticular difficulty ; while at the same time little doubt 
 could remain in the public mind that a reversal ob- 
 tained by introducing on the bench two gentlemen 
 occupying the position of Messrs. Strong and Bradley 
 would establish beyond dispute a precedent for pack- 
 | ing the Court whenever it suited Congress to do so, 
 and destroying the independence of the Judiciary as 
 a co-ordinate branch of the American government. 
 
 Judge Strong took his seat on the 14th of March. 
 Judge Bradley was confirmed by the Senate a week 
 later, and summoned by telegraph to Washington. 
 He took his seat on the 23d of March. Two days 
 later, at the earliest possible moment, the attorney- 
 general surprised the Court by moving to take up 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 395 
 
 and argue two cases formerly passed over, which 
 involved the principle of the legal-tender decision. 
 
 In the course of the attorney-general's remarks 
 he said : — 
 
 " This Court, at a time when by law it consisted of 
 nine judges, did by a majority of four to three enter its 
 judgment, with two vacancies upon the bench ; and it 
 stands therefore, reducing it to its essence, that upon 
 the judicial opinion of a single man, whose voice turned 
 the majority, that great question is adjudicated. And 
 if (which is a supposable case) it turned out that it was 
 an opinion about which even the deciding judge of the 
 Court had entertained a different opinion at some other 
 time, it would come down to the point that on the differ- 
 ing opinions at different times of his life of a single man, 
 the whole Constitutional power of Congress . . . was to 
 be subverted." 
 
 What answer this personal attack on the chief- 
 justice would have received had it been made by an 
 attorney-general of Massachusetts lief ore the Su- 
 preme Bench of that State, with Hoar, C. J., presid 
 ing, must be matter of opinion, only to be decided by 
 an appeal to that tribunal under these conditions. 
 He would have been a rash attorney-general who at- 
 tempted to browbeat a court so constituted. Whether 
 the opinions of the Secretary of the Treasury in 
 1861 were the same as those of the chief-justice in 
 1870, was a question not worth discussing unless the 
 attorney-general meant to impute dishonest and 
 culpable motives as the cause of change ; and if this 
 
396 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 was in fact the intention, the chief-justice might 
 probably have been satisfied with pointing out, not 
 to the attorney-general but to the Court, the pas- 
 sage in the secretary's official Report of 1862, the 
 next expression of opinion made by him to Congress 
 after the adoption of legal tender, where he took 
 occasion to avow his opinion that " gold and silver 
 are the only permanent basis, standard, and measure 
 of values recognized by the Constitution." 
 
 These points were rather matters of taste than of 
 reasoning ; but in some other respects the assertions 
 of Mr. Hoar went to the verge of fair dealing, es- 
 pecially from an attorney-general appealing to two 
 new judges selected by himself, and asking them to 
 overthrow existing law. Strictly speaking, he was 
 correct in saying that judgment was " entered " while 
 there were two vacancies on the bench, and by a 
 majority of four to three. Judgment was entered 
 on the 7th of February. Yet the attorney-general 
 must have been aware that the decision in the case 
 of Hepburn vs. Griswold was settled as long before 
 as November 27, 1869, and that the decision itself 
 was read and adopted by the Court on the 29th of 
 January, by a majority of five to three, at a time 
 when the Court by law consisted of eight judges, 
 and no vacancy existed on the bench. If the actual 
 entry was postponed another week, it was probably 
 only because the minority opinion of Justice Miller 
 was not yet fully prepared ; so that the attorney- 
 general, by using this argument, incurred danger on 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 397 
 
 the one hand of subjecting Justice Miller to the sus- 
 picion of having purposely delayed the entry in order 
 to lay the Court open to this attack, and on the 
 other hand of subjecting himself to the charge of 
 acting in collusion with Justice Miller. 
 
 What occurred when the Court retired for consul- 
 tation might be guessed from the subsequent scene 
 in open Court April 11 with clearness enough to 
 leave little doubt as to the suspicions the public, 
 with or without reason, would certainly entertain 
 if the attorney-general carried his purpose. Chief- 
 Justice Chase, and Justices Nelson, Grier, and Field 
 appear to have agreed in the statement that the two 
 cases referred to by the attorney-general had been 
 passed over by the Court with the understanding that 
 they should abide the result in the case of Hepburn 
 vs. Griswold, and that counsel had been so ordered. 
 No reasonable doubt of the fact existed ; and both 
 Mr. Carlisle, counsel for the appellants in these cases, 
 and Mr. Norton, the solicitor for the Court of Claims 
 from which the appeal had been taken, subsequently 
 informed the Court that they had so understood, 
 and had received the order as stated. The ground 
 taken by Justices Miller, Swayne, and Davis is not 
 clearly explained ; but these judges must have either 
 rested on the fact that the order was not recorded, 
 or they must have pleaded want of memory. The 
 new judges held power to decide the dispute, and 
 they did accordingly decide that the order had not 
 been given. As the public might probably put the 
 
398 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 issue, the two new judges decided that the under- 
 standing of the Court, made long before they came 
 upon the bench, was the reverse of what it had 
 undoubtedly been. 
 
 The Court therefore determined, by a majority of 
 five to four, that the cases should be argued ; and 
 already, on the motion for further delay, a scene was 
 presented to the public such as had rarely if ever 
 before been offered by this dignified tribunal. The 
 four dissenting judges, the late majority, felt that 
 they were to be tried by their own colleagues at 
 the order of the Executive and the Senate, and they 
 made up their minds to resist the attack with all 
 their energy. The most memorable example in 
 American history of partisan attack on the Judici- 
 ary was the impeachment of a judge whose name 
 and family suggested an ominous precedent for a 
 similar proceeding at the present day. 
 
 Whether the Administration as a whole would have 
 allowed itself to be drawn into such a struggle may 
 be doubted ; but the determined character of the 
 attorney-general leaves no doubt that he would have 
 begun nothing which he did not feel it his duty to 
 press to the extremest logical conclusions, and he 
 had for the moment the Senate behind him. The 
 Administration might have broken to pieces, but could 
 not have stopped a struggle once begun. Hence 
 many persons began to watch the course of events 
 with uneasiness ; and although little was known of 
 the personal feelings of the contending parties, yet 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 399 
 
 it was obvious that the Executive was pressing with 
 extreme severity on the Court, and the Court was 
 already split into two hostile parties. Even among 
 the people the struggle had begun to rouse deep 
 interest. Perhaps the only point on which all men 
 and all parties agreed was that the independence 
 of the Judiciary ought to be preserved, and the 
 dominant political party was on the point of giving 
 this cry to its antagonist. 
 
 Fortunately for the Court, for the Administration, 
 and for the country, the danger, which for a moment 
 seemed inevitable, was evaded. On the morning 
 of April 20, the day fixed for the hearing, the 
 judges and the counsel went to the Capitol ready 
 to face the issue. It was an occasion of extraor- 
 dinary interest, a struggle between the dignity of 
 the Court and the power of Congress, — an unequal 
 match, in which public sympathy could not but 
 cluster about the four arraigned judges. Ordinary 
 observers could think only with terror of the irre- 
 parable harm that would result if these four judges, 
 dragged into a political contest, should be held up by 
 popular enthusiasm as the noble objects of a miser- 
 able persecution, while the two new justices became 
 the mark of popular hatred, and the Court itself, torn 
 by party passions, became the centre of political 
 strife. At that moment such a result was almost 
 reached. There seemed to be no hesitation on any 
 side, either among the three dissenting judges, or the 
 two new judges, or the four judges of the old ma- 
 
400 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 jority, and least of all in the attorney-general, whose 
 mind appeared to be bent with the peculiar intensity 
 which is the historical or traditional ideal of New 
 England character, on converting, as he would say — 
 or as others might think, on crushing — the obnoxious 
 Court. 
 
 All these separate actors, their internal anxieties 
 or passions concealed as well as might be under the 
 calm exterior belonging to the presence of justice, 
 arrived at the Capitol only to be confronted by what 
 had the appearance of a practical joke. The ap- 
 pellants had that morning withdrawn their appeal, 
 and the cases were no longer before the Court. 
 Probably every man of the party breathed freer after 
 his first moment of surprise, yet the effect of the 
 sudden change was to cover the proceeding with 
 ridicule. The attorney-general struggled against de- 
 feat, and pressed another motion to reopen the case 
 of Hepburn vs. Griswold ; but the point seemed to 
 have been reached beyond which none of the judges 
 were willing to go in straining the rules of the Court, 
 and as neither of the four who made the decision 
 desired it to be reopened, the attorney-general's 
 motion was without dissent refused. 
 
 Thus this peril was by a mere trick happily es- 
 caped, and the Court was saved ; but its rescue was 
 due to no strength of its own, to no aid from the 
 Executive, to no mercy from either branch of Con- 
 gress. It was a momentary relief from a pressing 
 danger ; but nothing indicated that the danger had 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 401 
 
 passed away, and whenever the Court should be again 
 placed under the necessity of asserting the law as de- 
 clared in the Constitution, it was little likely to be 
 again preserved by such means. 
 
 If from the confused arena of internal politics the 
 reader turns to the region of Foreign Affairs, he can 
 find only a repetition of the same class of pheno- 
 mena, offering little evidence of political progress, 
 but pointing to some political change in a not dis- 
 tant future. 
 
 Foreign affairs, so far as they have had immediate 
 importance during the last year, may be divided 
 under two heads. In regard to each of these divi- 
 sions the single controlling interest has been found 
 in the extension of the national territory. No other 
 real point was at issue in the foreign relations of 
 the United States, and the two heads into which 
 the general subject of territorial enlargement divides 
 itself are distinct only so far as one embraces ex- 
 tension to the north ; the other, movement toward 
 the tropics. 
 
 Of the departments of the government, that of 
 foreign affairs has been, on the whole, most steady 
 since the earliest days of the republic. It has acted 
 upon a single general principle, which has slowly 
 developed with the national progress until now it 
 approaches its possible limits, — the absorption of 
 neighboring territory. The policy of Secretary Seward 
 was based upon this idea, which, under his direction, 
 assumed a development somewhat too rapid for the 
 
 2G 
 
402 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 public ; and in consequence, although President Grant 
 was in general sympathy with Seward, yet the new 
 Administration came into power under influences that 
 amounted to a reaction. 
 
 Little need be said of the questions in dispute 
 with England, except that the only essential obstacle 
 to a settlement is the English occupation of Canada. 
 The effort of SeAvard to settle the Alabama claims by 
 arbitration, and to leave the Canadian question to 
 seek a settlement in the natural course of events, was 
 rejected by the Senate mainly because the Senate 
 meant that the first issue should be retained as an 
 instrument to force the solution of the last. With- 
 out commenting upon the dignity or elevation of this 
 policy, or upon the manner and spirit in which it has 
 been carried into practice, it is enough to say that 
 the new Administration on assuming office found 
 the policy already determined by the Senate, and ac- 
 cepted it as a matter in regard to which the Executive 
 was not consulted and had no voice. The subject 
 may be here dismissed with the general remark, 
 which time may be trusted to verify, that every sepa- 
 rate item of American relations with England or her 
 colonies, large or small, — whether it was a question 
 of treaties, of claims, of boundaries, of neutrality, of 
 Fenians, or of coal and lumber; whether treated by 
 the Executive, by the Senate, by the House, or by 
 individual members of the government, — under every 
 form and and every disguise, has been primarily and 
 principally considered, subject to the rules of inter- 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 403 
 
 national custom, in its separate bearing on the subject 
 of annexation. 1 
 
 The Northern policy was therefore simple enough, 
 and Secretary Fish, not responsible for its creation, 
 carried out his share of it with a tact and good 
 temper which gained for him and for the Adminis- 
 tration general credit. But the issues involved on 
 the side of the tropics were more difficult, and the 
 variance of opinion was more strongly marked. 
 From the outset of the new Administration the 
 policy of interference in the Antilles was forced 
 upon its attention in a manner leaving no chance of 
 escape. The St. Thomas treaty, under which a popu- 
 lar vote had already been taken and the island for- 
 mally transferred to an authorized agent of the United 
 States government, had for some six months reposed 
 on the table of the Senate Committee of Foreign 
 Relations. If the government meant to pursue a 
 policy of annexation in the Antilles, it was pecu- 
 liarly bound, by every obligation of international de- 
 cency and of common self-respect, to begin with the 
 ratification of this treaty. Indeed, one may doubt 
 whether the obligation to ratify was not absolute and 
 irrespective of conditions ; but in any case the refusal 
 to ratify this treaty was only to be excused on the 
 understanding that it implied a reversal of the policy 
 of annexation. Whether this excuse was ever actu- 
 ally offered to the Danish government as a bar to its 
 
 1 See Bancroft Davis's Letter to the N. Y. Herald of Jan. 4, 
 1878. Sumner's Memorandum of Jan. 17, 1871. 
 
404 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 remonstrances could be ascertained only by reference 
 to the Danish government, nor is it a question of real 
 importance. The essential point was that govern- 
 ment should act with self-respect and honest inten- 
 tions. The refusal to ratify the St. Thomas treaty 
 was a strong measure which gravely compromised 
 the dignity of the government, and found its only 
 excuse in the conviction that annexation to the 
 southward of the continent was a danger and a 
 mistake. That on such a subject the Senate could 
 have one policy and the Executive another was equiv- 
 alent to rendering the government ridiculous. For 
 the policy that prevails the whole government must 
 be held responsible. 
 
 If a new tendency to check the national exten- 
 sion was brought to light by this treatment of the St. 
 Thomas treaty, it was made more conspicuous by the 
 voluntary action of the Executive in regard to Cuba. 
 The President personally leaned toward interference 
 in Cuban affairs, and his Secretary of War, General 
 Rawlins, was earnest in support of the Cuban insur- 
 gents. The influence of Secretary Fish succeeded in 
 checking this bent of the Executive. Further, it was 
 understood that in order to obviate the want of a 
 harbor in the West Indies, the St. Thomas treaty be- 
 ing practically rejected, the Bay of Samana would be 
 permanently leased and occupied as a naval station. 
 These movements indicated that a new policy had 
 been adopted by the government, and that after ma- 
 ture deliberation the present Administration would 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 405 
 
 assume as its rule of action in the Antilles the prin- 
 ciple which was soon to find utterance in the concise 
 formula : " No annexation within the tropics." 
 
 Suddenly the San Domingo treaty made its appear- 
 ance. Whence it came, why it was made, what influ- 
 ences supported it, were not explained. One point alone 
 was clear, — that the San Domingo treaty stood in flat 
 opposition to the entire policy pursued till then by 
 the Administration toward the West Indies, and that 
 neither Fish nor his colleagues as a body could have 
 sympathized in the proposed annexation, which was 
 contrary to their modes of thought and to their polit- 
 ical education. No one would have believed them 
 had they asserted their approval. No one did believe 
 in Fish's earnestness, though he loyally and energeti- 
 cally supported the treaty. The obvious inference 
 was one which the public had a right to draw, — that 
 as heretofore Fish and his colleagues had succeeded 
 in bringing the President to their point of view in re- 
 gard to Cuba and St. Thomas, so the President had 
 broken through the restraint and overruled Fish in 
 regard to San Domingo. 
 
 A foreign policy so unsteady could scarcely com- 
 mand respect, although respect was what the Cabinet 
 most needed to command. Whatever the Adminis- 
 tration might choose to do, the Senate was unlikely to 
 follow its changes of opinion, and for once the Senate 
 had the strength of argument as well as of power on 
 its side, while the Administration put itself in a posi- 
 tion where success or failure was almost equally disas- 
 
406 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 trous. Senator Sumner again stood forward to assume 
 the control and direction of foreign affairs. He again 
 wielded the power of the Senate and declared the pol- 
 icy of the government. The President and the Secre- 
 tary of State struggled in vain against this omnipotent 
 senatorial authority, although the President made the 
 issue personal, and condescended to do the work of a 
 lobbyist almost on the floor of the Senate chamber, 
 using his personal influence to an extent scarcely 
 known in American experience, and offering a curi- 
 ous commentary on his own theory of Executive 
 duties. Senator Sumner flung them both aside, and 
 issued his orders with almost the authority of a 
 Roman triumvir. 
 
 The ultimate result of this contest, so far as re- 
 gards foreign policy, is a subject which may be left 
 for future annual Reviews to discuss, as the situation 
 of affairs becomes more clearly determined. There 
 is room for more than a doubt whether the growth 
 of the country can be stopped by the adoption of any 
 arbitrary law for the tropics ; and the resistance now 
 made to annexation of countries little fitted to enter 
 into the duties of American States may ultimately 
 yield to the growing public indifference to the States 
 themselves. From another point of view the affair 
 has still deeper significance, as showing an un- 
 steadiness and a spasmodic irregularity of action 
 in the Executive, which, contrasted with the oppo- 
 site qualities displayed by the Senate, indicates that 
 the regular diminution of Executive authority first 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 407 
 
 clearly marked under Andrew Johnson has not been 
 checked, but on the contrary has been aggravated by 
 the appearance of some internal weakness never be- 
 fore known in the history of American administra- 
 tions. The success of any Executive measure must 
 now be bought by the use of public patronage in influ- 
 encing the action of legislators. The Executive has 
 yielded without a protest to this necessity, which it 
 has helped to establish. Senators already claim spe- 
 cial Executive offices as their private property, and 
 their claim is conceded. A senator from Michigan 
 claims a consulate in India ; a senator from Maine 
 claims a consulate in England ; a senator from 
 Kansas claims the mission to the Hague, and as proof 
 of his right of property nominates the clerk of his 
 committee to the post. A senator who desires the 
 removal of an excellent officer does not scruple to 
 accuse a member of the Cabinet of interference with 
 his patronage if his request is denied. Senators do 
 not hesitate to insult the President by rejecting one 
 nomination to the Supreme Court because the candi- 
 date as member of the Cabinet has failed to reach 
 their own standard of polished manners, nor to inti- 
 mate their intention of rejecting any required num- 
 ber of others unless the candidates are prepared to 
 reverse, as judges of the Supreme Court, the estab- 
 lished Constitutional law which limits the powers of 
 Congress. Notwithstanding the exceptional case of 
 San Domingo, the Executive has practically aban- 
 doned to the Senate the treaty-making power. The \ 
 
408 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Executive has joined with Congress in assuming the 
 powers reserved to the States, and in attacking the au- 
 thority of the Supreme Court, while the precedent of 
 the legal-tender action appears to warrant the belief 
 that Congress and the Executive have also established 
 the principle that they hold between them the power 
 to suspend private rights, not merely during war, but 
 during will. 
 
 Not only has the internal fabric of the government 
 been wrenched from its original balance until Con- 
 gress has assumed authority which it was never in- 
 tended to hold, but as the country grows and the 
 pressure of business increases, the efficiency of the 
 machine grows steadily less. New powers, new du- 
 ties, new responsibilities, new burdens of every sort 
 are incessantly crowding upon the government at the 
 moment when it has become unequal to managing 
 the limited powers it is accustomed to wield. Re- 
 sponsibility no longer exists at Washington. Every 
 department of the Executive says with truth that 
 it cannot deal with the questions before it because 
 Congress neglects legislation. If members of Con- 
 gress are charged with responsibility for the neglect, 
 they reply that the fault is not theirs ; that the ac- 
 tion of Congress is wholly in the hands of commit- 
 tees which constitute small, independent, executive 
 councils ; that some of these committees are arbi- 
 trary, some timid ; some overpoweringly strong, some 
 ridiculously weak ; some factious, some corrupt. The 
 House has little or no control over the course of 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 409 
 
 business. The rules have become so complicated as 
 to throw independent members entirely into the back- 
 ground. The amount of business has become so enor- 
 mous as to choke the channels provided for it. In 
 the Senate greater power, less confusion, and more 
 efficiency exist, but on the other hand more personal 
 jealousy and factiousness. In both Houses all trace 
 of responsibility is lost ; and while the Executive 
 fumes with impatience or resigns itself with the sig- 
 nificant consolation that it is not to blame, that this 
 is the people's government and the people may accept 
 the responsibility, the members of the lower House 
 are equally ready with the excuse that they arc not 
 responsible for the action of senators ; and senators, 
 being responsible to no power under heaven except 
 their party organizations, which they control, are able 
 to obtain what legislation answers their personal 
 objects or their individual conceptions of the public 
 good. 
 
 Under the conditions of fifty years ago, when the 
 United States was a child among nations, and before 
 railways and telegraphs had concentrated the social 
 and economical forces of the country into a power 
 never imagined by past generations, a loose and sep- 
 arately responsible division of government suited the 
 stage of national growth, and was sufficiently strong 
 to answer the requirements of the public. All in- 
 dications point to the conclusion that this system is 
 outgrown. The government does not govern. Con- 
 gress is inefficient, and becomes every year more and 
 
 
 \J 
 
410 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 more incompetent, as at present constituted, to wield 
 the enormous powers forced upon it ; while the Ex- 
 ecutive, in enjoyment of theoretical independence, is 
 practically deprived of its necessary strength by the 
 jealousy of the Legislature. Without responsibility, 
 direct, incessant, and continuous, no government is 
 practicable over forty millions of people and an entire 
 continent ; but no responsibility exists at Washing- 
 ton. Every one in the least acquainted with the pro- 
 cess of American government knows that the public 
 business is not performed. 
 
 Meanwhile reformers are straining every nerve to 
 carry such a reform in the tariff as may make the 
 system, not indeed good, — they cannot even hope 
 this, — but a shade less absurd, less mediaeval, less 
 dishonest than it now is. Perhaps, as the result of 
 unremitted labor extended over a period of years, 
 they may ultimately succeed in carrying their point. 
 The national government may at last be obliged to 
 drop the unhealthy children whose precocious birth 
 and growth it has stimulated by drugs and drams, 
 and their political influence may vanish from the 
 Capitol. Yet while the whole reforming strength is 
 laboriously concentrated on the people, with no fur- 
 ther object than to obtain force to contest the pos- 
 session of the national government with a single 
 creature of the government's own creation, the gov- 
 ernment all the while continues to call into being- 
 other creatures more fatal to its integrity than those 
 that already control it. While the reformers in 
 
THE SESSION. 1869-1870. 411 
 
 Congress rejoice at carrying a small reduction on 
 pig-iron, or regret the omnipotence of the steel lob- 
 byists, they turn about in their seats and create by 
 a single stroke of special legislation a new Pacific 
 railway, — an imperishable corporation with its own 
 territory, an empire within a republic, more powerful 
 than a sovereign State, and inconsistent with the 
 purity of Republican institutions or with the safety 
 of any government, whether democratic or autocratic. 
 While one monopoly is attacked, two are created ; 
 while old and true believers in republican purity and 
 simplicity are engaged in resisting a single corruption, 
 they are with their own hands stimulating the growth 
 of many more. The people require it, and even if the 
 people were opposed, yet with the prodigious develop- 
 ment of corporate and private wealth resistance must 
 be vain. 
 
 Two points, distinct to outward appearance, but 
 closely connected in reality, have received the whole 
 attention of this Review. The first has consisted in 
 general evidence that the original basis of reserved 
 powers on which the Constitution was framed has 
 yielded and is yielding to natural pressure, and the 
 gradual concession of power to the central govern- 
 ment has already gone so far as to leave little doubt 
 that the great political problem of all ages cannot, at 
 least in a community like that of the future America, 
 be solved by the theory of the American Constitution. 
 The second has depended on correlative evidence that 
 
412 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the system of separate responsibility realized in the 
 mechanism of the American government as a conse- 
 quence of its jealous restriction of substantial powers 
 will inevitably yield, as its foundation has yielded, to 
 the pressure of necessity. The result is not pleasant 
 to contemplate. It is not one which the country is 
 prepared to accept or will be soon in a temper to 
 discuss. It will not be announced by professional 
 politicians, who are not fond of telling unpleasant 
 truths. Nor is it here intended to suggest principles 
 of reform. The discussion of so large a subject is 
 matter for a lifetime, and will occupy generations. 
 The American statesman or philosopher who enters 
 upon this debate must make his appeal, not to the 
 public opinion of a day or of a nation, however large 
 or intelligent, but to the minds of those persons 
 who in every age and in all countries attach their 
 chief interest to working out the problems of human 
 society. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Adams, Chakles Francis, minis- 
 ter to England, arrives in London, 
 242, 267, 269; his first interview 
 with Lord John Russell, 244, 245, 
 247, 250,253, 273; his unfavorable 
 impressions, 249, 255; renews the 
 offer of accession to the Declara- 
 tion of Paris, 250, 253 ; his action 
 announced in advance by Lyons, 
 254 ; his concert of action with 
 Dayton, 262, 263; his final reply 
 to Russell, 264, 265; his position in 
 England, 270; his efforts to restrain 
 Russell, 270-272; his necessary in- 
 ferences, 273, 278. 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, his college 
 diary, 82-121. 
 
 Anne, Queen of England, receives 
 Pocahontas, 72, 75, 76. 
 
 Aryan stock, characteristics of, 15, 24. 
 
 Bancroft, George, on John Smith 
 and Pocahontas, 57. 
 
 Bank of England, its influence over 
 trade, 178-180 ; its rules of dis- 
 count, 181 ; its circulation, 181 ; 
 contracts its issues in 1795, 1796, 
 183 ; suspends payments in 1797, 
 185 ; proposes to resume in 1797, 
 189; steadiness of its policy, 191- 
 196, 200; its circulation, 1797-1808, 
 202 ; its increase of issues in 1809, 
 204; its paper not a legal tender, 
 
 212-215 ; its contraction of issues in 
 1812,217; its increase of issues in 
 
 1814, 218; its circulation, 1809- 
 
 1815, 219; its highest average cir- 
 culation, 1812-1825, 223; its partial 
 resumption in 1817, 226 ; its paper 
 at par in 1819, 227; its circulation, 
 1816-1822, 227; resumes payments 
 in gold, May 1, 1821, 233. 
 
 Banks, English country, 179 ; their 
 circulation, 181 ; their pressure on 
 the Bank of England causes sus- 
 pension of specie payments, 185; 
 their expansion of credit in 1808, 
 201; their collapse in 1809, 205; 
 their difficulties in 1814, 218; in- 
 fluence of their disasters on the 
 Bank of England paper, 221, 222; 
 never suspended redemption of 
 their notes, 224. 
 
 Baring, Alexander, 205. 
 
 Baring, Sir Francis, his pamphlet on 
 the Bank of England Restriction, 
 192. 
 
 Barnard, George G., judge, 329, 331; 
 injunction issued by, 362. 
 
 Belden, William, partner of James 
 Fisk, Jr., 324, 352; his gold pur- 
 chases, 353; repudiated, 360, 361. 
 
 Berlin Decree, 198. 
 
 Bingham, John A., member of Con- 
 gress, on legal tender, 295, 306. 
 
 Blackstone, Sir William, his aphor- 
 ism on sovereignty, 368. 
 
414 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Boutwell, George Sewall, Secretary 
 of the Treasury, supposed to disap- 
 prove interference with the gold 
 market, 335; his supposed views, 
 337; his testimony about President 
 Grant's letter, 341 ; stops sales of 
 gold, 342 ; Goulds letter to, 348 ; 
 orders sales of gold, 35G; his char- 
 acter and mind, 375-379 ; his 
 isolation, 380, 387 ; his recommen- 
 dations, 382, 383, 391; opposes re- 
 forms, 380. • 
 
 Boyd, Walter, his pamphlet on the 
 influence of the Bank of England 
 suspension, 192. 
 
 Brazil, British speculation in, 200. 
 
 Bright, John, 270. 
 
 Buchanan, James, President of the 
 United States, postpones action on 
 the Declaration of Paris, 239. 
 
 Burr, Jonathan, metaphysical tutor 
 in Harvard College in 1780-87, 
 707, 720. 
 
 Butterfield, Daniel, assistant treas- 
 urer of the United States at New 
 York, his appointment, 340 ; or- 
 dered not to sell gold, 342; Gould's 
 purchases for, 340; resigns, 304. 
 
 Canada, annexation of, the primary 
 issue with Great Britain, 402. 
 
 Canning, George, on Vansittart's 
 Resolutions, 211. 
 
 Capture, a primitive form of mar- 
 riage, 2, 0; law of, among Ameri- 
 can Indians, 8, 10. 
 
 Cardozo, Albert, 329. 
 
 Chase, Salmon Portland, Secretary 
 of the Treasury, 281, 282; his re- 
 port of Dec. 2, 1801, 287; rejects 
 legal tender, 288, 301 ; cause of his 
 changing opinion, 302 ; his author- 
 ity decisive on the passage of the 
 Legal-tender Act, 313 ; his decision 
 as Chief Justice, 314, 392, 395, 398. 
 
 Christophe more disaffected than 
 
 Toussaint, 130; abandons Tous- 
 saint, 145, 148 ; faithful to Leclerc, 
 100, 108; maltreats the blacks, 170; 
 inspires confidence in Leclerc, 172, 
 175. 
 
 Church, the, its influence on the 
 rights of married women, 3, 35-39. 
 
 Clairvaux, Haitian brigadier general, 
 171. 
 
 Cobden, Richard, 270. 
 
 Collamer, Jacob, Senator of the 
 United States, on the Legal-tender 
 Bill, 312. 
 
 Communism, theory of primitive, 3; 
 success of, 4, 5 ; early variations 
 from, G; among American Indians, 
 7; traces of, in Egypt, 13; traces 
 of, in Greece, 10 ; Roman reaction 
 against, 23, 24; traces of, in early 
 German law, 2G. 
 
 Congress, inefficiency of, 408-410. 
 
 Conkling, Roscoe, member of Con- 
 gress, 306, 309 ; Senator of the 
 United States, 384. 
 
 Constitution of the United States, its 
 bearing on legal tender, 289, 308, 
 309, 315, 392; its contradiction of 
 English legal axioms, 308; its test, 
 369; affected by measures of recon- 
 struction, 385, 386; probable fail- 
 ure of, 411, 412. 
 
 Corbin, Abel Rathbone, 338, 340 ; 
 speculates with Gould, 341-344 ; 
 his activity in aiding Gould, 340, 
 347, 349 ; abandons Gould, 350, 
 351 ; Fisk's tales of, 357-359. 
 
 Cowley, Earl, British ambassador at 
 Paris, 240 ; his interview with 
 Thouvenel, 241 ; reports the con- 
 currence of the French government 
 in joint action at Washington, 243. 
 
 Currency theories, 205, 208,210, 220, 
 233. 
 
 Dale, Sir Thomas, his administra- 
 tion in Virginia, 64, 71. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Dana, Francis, 94, 95. 
 
 Dawes, Henry Laurens, United States 
 Senator, 384. 
 
 Dayton, William Lewis, United 
 States minister to France, offers 
 to enter into a convention on 
 the points of the Declaration of 
 Paris, 24G ; Thouvenel's version 
 of his propositions, 247; goes to 
 London, 257; his objections to the 
 Declaration of Paris, 255, 258; 
 concerts action with Adams, 262- 
 264. 
 
 Deane, Charles, publishes Wing- 
 field's "Discourse of Virginia," 
 59 ; doubts the story of Pocahontas, 
 61 ; cites letter of Ratcliffe, 63; pub- 
 lishes Smith's will, 79. 
 
 Declaration of Paris, the four points 
 of, 237, 273, 274; conditions of ac- 
 cession to, 238, 240, 241 ; President 
 Lincoln decides to accede to, 239 ; 
 violation of conditions by England 
 and France, 241, 242, 271, 272, 276; 
 the United States encouraged to re- 
 cognize, 244, 246; Adams proposes 
 adhesion to, 214, 245, 250, 252, 253, 
 273; Dayton's proposition regard- 
 ing, 246-248 ; Lyons notifies Rus- 
 sell of the President's intention to 
 accede to, 248; President Lincoln's 
 second offer of accession to, 249 ; 
 Adams's second proposal of acces- 
 sion to, 253, 256, 262-268 ; Russell's 
 denial of knowledge of first pro- 
 posal, 253-255, 271, 273; common 
 view among Americans of the, 255, 
 256 ; Russell's conditions on ac- 
 cepting adhesion to, 256, 257, 272; 
 Seward's objects in adhering to, 
 258, 259 ; Lyons' opposition to ad- 
 hesion to, 261 ; unwillingness of 
 England and France to accept ad- 
 hesion to, 261, 262, 270; Russell's 
 preliminary declarations, 263, 264, 
 266, 268, 272, 273; the first bat- 
 tle-ground between Russell and 
 
 Adams, 270 ; England's hostility 
 to the second article of, 273-276. 
 
 Decres, Denis, Due, his letter on 
 Toussaint, 156; his letter to Riche- 
 panse ordering the restoration of 
 slavery at Guadeloupe, 160 ; his 
 letter to Leclerc on the restoration 
 of slavery in St. Domingo, 161; 
 his neglect of Leclerc, 150, 152,158, 
 164. 
 
 Delaware, Lord, his expedition to 
 Virginia, 64. 
 
 Dessalines, 13); faithful to Leclerc, 
 148, 166, 168; butcher of the blacks, 
 17U ; treacherous, 172; his arrest 
 ordered, 174. 
 
 Discount, Bank of England rules of, 
 181, 185, 194, 195, 206, 225; prac- 
 tice of English country banks, 201, 
 224. 
 
 Divorce, among American Indians, 
 11 ; among the Scandinavians, 
 32-34. 
 
 Drew, Daniel, 321, 322. 
 
 Duel, a form of Indian marriage, 11. 
 
 Egypt, position of women in, 12-14. 
 
 Elopement, a form of marriage among 
 American Indians, 9. 
 
 Erie Railroad, contested by Vander- 
 bilt and Drew, 321; falls into the 
 hands of Gould and Fisk, 322 ; its 
 wealth and influence, 325, 326, 328, 
 329, 332. 
 
 Family, the earliest, 4, 5; the Egyp- 
 tian, 13 ; the Aryan, 15; the Greek, 
 16; the Roman, 24; the German, 
 26; the feudal, 39; the strongest of 
 human fabrics, 40. 
 
 Fessenden, William Pitt, senator of 
 the United States, on the Legal- 
 tender Bill, 310. 
 
 Field, David Dudley, 330, 331; his 
 injunctions, 362, 363, n. 
 
416 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Fish, Hamilton, Secretary of State, 
 his course in foreign affairs, 403- 
 405. 
 
 Fisk, James, Jr., his early life and 
 character, 323, 324; becomes di- 
 rector and comptroller of the Erie 
 Railroad, 322; his theatre, 327; 
 his business methods, 333; enter- 
 tains President Grant, 339; joins 
 Gould in bulling gold, 3-10; sends 
 messenger to President Grant, 347; 
 his purchases of gold, 352, 353, 355; 
 his description of Corbin, 357, 358; 
 his description of Gould, 359; his 
 contracts repudiated, 360, 3G1. 
 
 Forster, William Edward, 270. 
 
 Fullarton, John, his views on cur- 
 rency, 221. 
 
 Fuller, Thomas, his mention of Cap- 
 tain John Smith, 70, 79. 
 
 Gallatin, James, advises the sale of 
 bonds at their market value, 293; 
 "an odd fish," 300. 
 
 Gold, premium on, in England, 193, 
 200; from 1797 to 1808, 202; in 
 1809, 203 ; in 1810, 204, 206 ; Par- 
 liamentary inquiry into, 208; not 
 illegal, 212 ; made illegal by Stan- 
 hope's Act, 214; in 1812, 217; in 
 1814, 218; from 1809 to 1815, 219; 
 causes of, 221; in 1817. 222; com- 
 pared with bank circulation, 223; 
 from 1816 to 1822, 226, 227; end 
 of, in 1820, 233; in the United 
 States, 319; corner in, 334, 344, 
 345, 348, 353. 
 
 Gould, Jay, his character. 322, 324; 
 president of the Erie Railroad, 325; 
 his certified checks on Sept. 24, 
 1869, 332; his passion for cornering 
 gold, 335, 336; impresses Corbin 
 with his ideas, 338; entertains 
 President Grant, 339 ; buys gold, 
 340; obtains information from Cor- 
 bin, 342; buys gold for Corbin, 
 
 343; pays Corbin, 344; invites 
 Fisk's aid, 345; buys gold for 
 Butterfield and Porter, 346; in- 
 duces Corbin to write for the press, 
 347; his letter to Secretary Bout- 
 well, 348; abandoned by Corbin, 
 351 ; sells gold, 353, 354, 355 ; 
 meets his contracts, 356; described 
 by Fisk, 359; his use of Grant, 
 372. 
 
 Grant, Ulysses S., President of the 
 United States, visits New York, 
 338; entertained by Gould and 
 Fisk, 339; his second visit to New 
 York, 341 ; his letter to Boutwell 
 on sales of gold, 341, 342, 343; his 
 third visit to New York, 346 ; goes 
 to Washington, in Pennsylvania, 
 347; receives letter from Corbin, 
 349 ; expresses displeasure at Cor- 
 bin's speculations, 350 ; his char- 
 acter and mind, 370, 373, 375; his 
 idea of executive duties, 373; his 
 first message, 382; his leaning to 
 protective ideas, 387; his ideas on 
 foreign relations, 401, 404; on the 
 St. Domingo Treaty, 405, 406, 407. 
 
 Greece, the family in, 16. 
 
 Grenville, Lord, on the British gov- 
 ernment's attitude towards Bank 
 of England notes, 213. 
 
 Guadeloupe, liberty the general law 
 in, 137: slavery restored in, 138, 
 158-161, 167, 170, 172, 173, 174. 
 
 Hale, John, metaphysical tutor in 
 Harvard College, in 1786, 83, 91, 
 105, 110. 116. 
 
 Hamor, Ralph, his " True Discourse." 
 69, 71. 
 
 Harvard College, entrance examina- 
 tion in 1786, 83, 84: its scope of 
 instruction in 1786, 84-90; its dis- 
 cipline, 90, 91, 107-118; its in- 
 structors, 102, 104-106; habits and 
 manners of the students, 108-121. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 417 
 
 Hepburn vs. Griswold, decision in, 
 392-400. 
 
 Hoar, Ebenezer Rockwood, Attorney- 
 General of the United States, his 
 manners, 384, 407; his attitude on 
 the legal-tender cases, 394 ; his re- 
 marks to the court on the legal- 
 tender decision, 395, 396 ; moves 
 again to reopen the legal-tender 
 case, 400. 
 
 Homeric poems, their treatment of 
 marriage, 10-23. 
 
 Hooper, Samuel, member of Con- 
 gress, on the necessity of legal 
 tender, 294, 308. 
 
 Horner, Francis, his Bullion Report, 
 208. 
 
 Indians, American, their customary 
 marriage laws, 7-12; in Virginia, 
 supply the first colonists, 45, 4(5, 
 64; described by Smith, 53; their 
 mode of executing criminals, 65; 
 their massacre of the Virginia 
 colonists, 78. 
 
 James, Eleazar, Latin tutor in Har- 
 vard College in 1786, 83, 84, 106, 
 120. 
 
 James I., King of England, receives 
 Pocahontas, 72. 
 
 Jamestown, founded, 43, 49, 50, 51, 
 53, 54, 59, 60, 63; abandoned, 64. 
 
 Jennison, Timothy Lindall, Greek 
 tutor in Harvard College in 1786, 
 83, 104, 105, 118. 
 
 Joux, fortress of, 154, 156. 
 
 Kendall, George, a member of the 
 Virginia Council, 43; tried, con- 
 victed, and executed, 45. 
 
 King, Lord, his refusal to receive 
 Bank of England notes as equiva- 
 lent to coin, 213. 
 
 Lacroix, Pamphile, his memoirs 
 on St. Domingo, 128. 
 
 Laplume, Haitian brigadier general, 
 171. 
 
 Leclerc, Victor Emmanuel, Napo- 
 leon's brother-in-law, appointed to 
 command expedition to St. Dom- 
 ingo, 126; sails, 127; his instruc- 
 tions, 134-137 ; Napoleon's com- 
 plaints of, 138, 139, 175 ; arrives 
 at St. Domingo, 139; his difficul- 
 ties, 139, 140, 142, 143 ; reconquers 
 the colony, 143, 144 ; amnesties 
 Toussaint, 145-147; arrests Tous- 
 saint, 148, 150, 151 ; advises Tous- 
 saint's imprisonment, 152; has no 
 proof of Toussaint's guilt, 153 ; 
 his desperate condition, 152, 158; 
 promises to complete his conquest 
 by Sept. 23, 1802, 163, 164 ; his 
 complaints of the restoration of 
 slavery, 167, 169, 170, 172-174; 
 failure of his second campaign, 
 166, 170, 171 ; his suspicions of the 
 black generals, 171, 172, 174 ; his 
 death, November 2, 1802, 175 ; his 
 plan of the next campaign, 176 ; 
 his wishes, 177. 
 
 Legal tender, Bank of England 
 notes under the restriction not 
 a, 212-216 ; constitutionality of, 
 308. 
 
 Legal-tender Act, 281 ; author of 
 the, 285 ; assumed necessity for, 
 286-288, 315-317; origin of", 288; 
 alternative to, 290-296; hostility 
 of Secretary Chase to, 301 ; causes 
 of Chase's conversion to, 302 ; 
 House debate on, 303-310 ; Senate 
 debate on, 310-313; passage of, 
 313; Supreme Court decision on 
 the, 392, 393; effort to reverse de- 
 cision on the, 395-398, 400. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, President of the 
 United States, decides on adhesion 
 to the Declaration of Paris, 239 ; 
 his attitude towards the recogni- 
 
 27 
 
418 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 tion of southern belligerency, 267, 
 268. 
 
 Loans, government, principles of, 
 297-299. 
 
 Louisiana, Napoleon's object in ac- 
 quiring, 122 ; his secret instruc- 
 tions regarding, 124, 125; demands 
 delivery of, from Spain, 126; agi- 
 tates the United States, 141. 
 
 Louverture, Paul, Haitian brigadier 
 general, 171. 
 
 Louverture, Toussaint, Governor of 
 St. Domingo, 125 ; his constitu- 
 tion, 129 ; Napoleon's views re- 
 garding, 128-131 ; Napoleon's let- 
 ter to, 132, 133; begins war, 139; 
 holds the mountains, 144; submits, 
 145, 146 ; to be arrested, 148, 149 ; 
 seized and sent to France, 150-152 ; 
 imprisoned in the Fortress of Joux, 
 153 ; no proofs of his guilt, 153 ; 
 rigor of his imprisonment, 154, 
 156; his death, 155; his opinion of 
 Napoleon and Leclerc, 157; his 
 arrest not enough to save Leclerc, 
 163, 168. 
 
 Lovejoy, Owen, member of Con- 
 gress, 309. 
 
 Lyons, Lord, British minister at 
 Washington, 243, 245, 250-252 ; 
 his report to Russell on the in- 
 tended adhesion of the United 
 States to the Declaration of Paris, 
 248, 254, 271; with Mercier com- 
 municates joint action to Seward, 
 248, 249 ; reports Seward's com- 
 plaint, 249; reports Seward's re- 
 marks on adhesion to the Declara- 
 tion of Paris. 259-262. 
 
 McCulloch, Hugh, Secretarj' of 
 the Treasury, his policy as to gold 
 fluctuations, 335. 
 
 McCulloch, J. R., his theory on the 
 fluctuation in gold, 221. 
 
 McHenry, James, 347. 
 
 Malmesbury, Lord, on the Declara- 
 tion of Paris, 277. 
 
 Mann, Ambrose Dudley, confederate 
 agent, 276. 
 
 Marcy, William Learned, Secretary 
 of State under President Pierce, 
 his amendment to the Declaration 
 of Paris, 240, 246, 247, 256, 262, 
 263. 
 
 Mariette Bey, on the position of 
 Egyptian women, 13. 
 
 Marriage, common view of, as a 
 primitive institution, 1, 2, 6; in 
 Roman law, 2, 24, 25; its origin in 
 love of property, 6 ; law of, among 
 American Indians, 7-12; in the 
 Aryan stock, 15; in primitive 
 Greek society, 17-23 ; in primitive 
 Scandinavian custom, 26-34; in- 
 fluenced by the church, 35-39. 
 
 Martinique, slavery maintained in, 
 137, 159. 
 
 Mercier, Henri, French minister in 
 the United States, 243, 248, 259. 
 
 Milan decree, 198. 
 
 Morpas, Haitian brigadier general, 
 166, 168, 170, 172, 174. 
 
 Napoleon I., his plans in Louisiana 
 and St. Domingo, 122-125 ; his ex- 
 planations to England, 127; his 
 notes on St. Domingo, 128-130, 
 134, 135, 137, 138; his letter to 
 Toussaint, 132, 133; his pledges of 
 freedom to the blacks, 133, 134; 
 his instructions to Leclerc, 135-137; 
 his complaints of Leclerc, 138, 139, 
 175; urges the seizure of the black 
 generals, 136, 137, 153, 175; orders 
 Toussaint to solitary confinement, 
 156 ; orders the restoration of slav- 
 ery in St. Domingo and Guade- 
 loupe, 158-162; his mistakes and 
 indifference, 177 ; effect of his Con- 
 tinental System on England, 198- 
 200, 203, 206, 207; effect of his 
 
INDEX. 
 
 419 
 
 return from Elba on the price of 
 
 gold, 219. 
 Neutrality, British Proclamation of, 
 
 242. 
 Newport, Captain of the Virginia 
 
 Company's vessels, 44; returns to 
 
 England, 45; arrives again at 
 
 Jamestown, 52, 53, 59, 61; returns 
 
 to England, 62. 
 Njalsaga, the, illustrating Icelandic 
 
 marriage laws, 27-34. 
 
 Orders in Council of January and 
 November, 1807, 199. 
 
 Palfrey, John Gorham, on Captain 
 John Smith, 43. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, on concessions to 
 neutrals, 275, 276, 277. 
 
 Patria potestas, 2, 24 ; overthrow 
 of, 25. 
 
 Pearson, Eliphalet, Professor of He- 
 brew at Harvard College in 1786, 
 96, 97, 120. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 208, 228 ; his Act 
 for the Resumption of Specie Pay- 
 ments, 230-233, 234. 
 
 Penelope, an illustration of the Greek 
 laws of marriage, 18-23. 
 
 Percy, George, one of the Virginia 
 adventurers, 45; succeeds Smith 
 as president, 64. 
 
 Phi Beta Kappa Society in 1787, 97. 
 
 Pichon, Louis Andre, French charge' 
 at Washington, writes to Leclerc, 
 141 ; denounced by Leclerc, 142. 
 
 Pitt, William, prime minister of 
 England, 183; his restriction on 
 specie payments by the Bank, 186, 
 188, 189 ; his expectations, 190. 
 
 Pocahontas saves Smith's life, 51; 
 first mentioned in Smith's "True 
 Relation," 55, 56; her adventure 
 described by Bancroft, 57; not 
 mentioned by Wingfield, 61 ; men- 
 
 tioned in Smith's " Map of 
 Virginia" in 1612, 65, 67, 68; 
 mentioned in Strachey's "True 
 Discourse," 1615, 69-71; her visit 
 to England in 1616, 71, 72; men- 
 tioned by Purchas, 73; her death, 
 74; mentioned in Smith's "New 
 England's Trials," 1622, 75; men- 
 tioned in Smith's "little booke " 
 to the Queen, 75; her influence, 77. 
 
 Porter, Horace, 346, 347, 349. 
 
 Powhatan, "the great emperor," 50; 
 receives Smith, 51, 54; sends Poca- 
 hontas to Jamestown, 55 ; men- 
 tioned by Wingfield, 60; visited 
 by Hamor, 70; mentioned by 
 Smith. 75; his death, 74. 
 
 Privateering, prohibited by the De- 
 claration of Paris, 237; not aban- 
 doned by the United States, 238; 
 ignored by Lord John Russell, 241, 
 243; United States to be encour- 
 aged to abandon, 244; to be treated 
 as piracy, 247, 248, 254, 265, 267 ; 
 effect of Declaration of Paris on, 
 258; unimportant to the United 
 States, 259; prohibition of, advan- 
 tageous to England, 274. 
 
 Purchas, Samuel, his " Pilgrimage," 
 72, 73, 74. 
 
 Purchase, a primitive form of mar- 
 riage, 2, 6; law of, among Ameri- 
 can Indians, 8 ; not a conveyance 
 of property in the wife, 31. 
 
 Ratcliffe, John, a member of the 
 Virginia Council, 43, 45 ; becomes 
 president, 45; alias Sicklemore, 62 ; 
 deposed, 62; deposes Smith and 
 sends him home to answer for 
 misdemeanors, 63. 
 
 Rawlins, John A., secretary of war, 
 404. 
 
 Read, Nathan, mathematical tutor in 
 Harvard College in 1786, 88, 101, 
 107, 120. 
 
420 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Restriction Act, Bank of England, 
 188, 189, 190, 212, 214. 
 
 Ricardo, David, his pamphlet on 
 the High Price of Bullion, 208 ; his 
 comments on Peel's Act, 233. 
 
 Richepanse, Antoine, commanding 
 expedition to Guadeloupe, 160; 
 restores slavery in Guadeloupe, 
 162, 166, 167, 173. 
 
 Rochambeau, Donatien Marie Joseph, 
 French general, 177. 
 
 Rolfe, John, the husband of Pocahon- 
 tas, 69, 70, 72. 
 
 Roman law of patria potestas, 2, 24 ; 
 reform of, 25. 
 
 Romillv, Sir Samuel, on Stanhope's 
 Act, 215. 
 
 Rost, Pierre Adolph, Confederate 
 agent, 276. 
 
 Russell, Lord John (Earl Russell, 
 Julj^ 30, 1861), foreign secretary of 
 Great Britain, invites France to 
 joint action in the United States, 
 240, 242, 243, 276, 277 ; his instruc- 
 tions to Lyons on the Declaration 
 of Paris, 243, 244, 278 ; his reports 
 of his first interview with Adams, 
 245, 250-253; had never known 
 until July 13 that the United States 
 were disposed to adhere to the 
 Declaration of Paris, 253, 254; 
 his first note on the proposed ac- 
 cession of the United States, 256; 
 his second note on the accession, 
 263; his third note on the accession, 
 264; his rejoinder to Adams, 265; 
 his ostensible motives, 266-268; 
 summary of his conduct, 271; in- 
 ferences from his conduct, 272, 273; 
 his interview with insurgent 
 agents, 276 ; his motives, 278. 
 
 St. Domingo, its value to France, 
 123; French schemes for recover- 
 ing, 123; its dependence on the 
 United States, 124 ; Napoleon pre- 
 
 pares expedition to recover, 126; 
 Napoleon's account of his plan 
 for reorganizing, 129; freedom to 
 be maintained in, 133, 134, 135; 
 necessity of restoring slavery in, 
 137; Leclerc's expedition lands in, 
 139; influence of United States in, 
 140, 141; Leclerc's campaign in, 
 143; submission of, 144; sickness 
 of army in, 147, 150, 151, 163, 164, 
 169, 173; slavery to be restored in, 
 158-162; outbreak of revolt in, 165, 
 167; success of revolt in, 170-174; 
 treaty with, 405. 
 
 St. Thomas, treaty of acquisition, 
 403, 404. 
 
 Schenck, Robert C, member of Con- 
 gress, 390. 
 
 Seward, William Hemy, Secretary 
 of State under President Lincoln, 
 his instructions on acceding to the 
 Declaration of Paris, 239; his in- 
 terview with Lyons and Mercier, 
 248 ; his complaints to L} 7 ons, 249 ; 
 his instructions to Dayton, 257, 
 258; his interview with Lyons, 
 259, 260, 262; his supposed tricks, 
 268; his foreign policy, 402. 
 
 Shearman, Thomas Gaskell, his ar- 
 ticle on the New York judiciary, 
 331; his injunctions, 361, 362. 
 
 Shellabarger, Samuel, member of 
 Congress, 307. 
 
 Sherman, John, member of Congress, 
 his remarks on the necessity of 
 legal tender, 295 ; senator, 384. 
 
 Sherman, William Tecumseh, his 
 opinion of Grant, 372. 
 
 Simons, William, his account of pro- 
 ceedings in Virginia, 65, 73. 
 
 Slave trade restored by Napoleon, 
 159, 161, 162. 
 
 Slavery, the supposed primitive con- 
 dition of married women, 1, 2; un- 
 known among American Indians, 
 10; not a part of the Egyptian 
 marriage, 12-14 ; not a part of the 
 

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