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CHAPTER

XVIII.

Upon this report a very warm debate arose, still with closed doors. Bidwell offered a substitute for the reso1806. lutions of the committee, placing in the hands of the executive, for extraordinary expenses of foreign intercourse, two millions of dollars; and, as a means of reimbursing this money, which the president was to be authorized to borrow, continuing the two and a half per cent. additional duty imposed under the name of the Mediterranean Fund, but which, on account of the peace with Tripoli, was about to expire. To Randolph's objection that the president's message did not ask for money, Varnum rather indiscreetly rejoined that he knew such to be the "secret wishes" of the president. Those secret wishes, thus announced to the House, at once prevailed, and the resolution of the committee was voted down seventy-two to fifty-eight, mainly by the Northern Democrats, the Federalists voting with Randolph and his adherents.

But the matter did not end here. The debate in secret session was kept up for near a fortnight. Randolph desired to prefix a preamble and to make certain amendments to Bidwell's resolution, restricting the "extraordinary expenses" therein spoken of to the purchase of the Spanish territory east of the Mississippi; and this was at first agreed to. Attempts were also made to limit the sum to be thus expended; but these failed. Finally, indeed, the House retraced its steps, struck out Randolph's amendment, and passed a bill in the vague terms of Bidwell's original proposal, appropriating the two millions generally for "extraordinary expenses of foreign interJan. 16. course;" which bill was presently sent to the Senate with a message communicating as the object for which it was passed the enabling the president to commence with more effect a negotiation for the purchase of the Spanish territories east of the Mississippi."

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Randolph succeeded in defeating Bidwell's proposal CHAPTER for the continuance of the Mediterranean duties, on the ground that it was an unwarrantable proceeding to vote 1806. supplies in secret session. Means, however, as we shall see, were found, before the end of the session, to carry that measure also.

From this moment it was open war between Randolph and the administration, against whose leading members that eccentric orator henceforth poured out all his virulence. Varnum, Bidwell, and some five or six others, through whom the executive wishes were now conveyed to a supple and obedient majority, were stigmatized by him now as the president's "back-stairs favorites," and now as "pages of the presidential water-closet." At first Randolph's adherents were quite numerous, but they diminished from day to day, and before the end of the session had dwindled to a very few.

During the pendency of these discussions, all of which were carried on with closed doors, the government received a very pointed insult from Yrujo, the Spanish minister. Having made his appearance at Washington, Madison wrote to remind him that the Spanish govern- Jan. 15. ment, in reply to the solicitation for his recall, had desired, as leave to return had already been asked for by him, that his departure should take place on that footing. This arrangement had been acceded to, and under these circumstances, Yrujo's presence at Washington was "dissatisfactory to the president," who, though he did not insist on his leaving the United States at this inclement season, yet expected his departure as soon as that obstacle was removed.

To this letter Yrujo made two replies. In the one he insisted on his perfect right, both as an individual and a public minister, not engaged in any plots against the

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CHAPTER United States, to continue his residence at the City of Washington, which he intended to do so long as suited 1806. his personal convenience and the interests of the king his master. In the other letter he informed Madison "that the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of his Catholic majesty near the United States receives no orders except from his sovereign;" and to this announcement he added a solemn protest against Madison's invasion of his diplomatic rights; intimating, also, his intention to communicate to all the other ministers accredited to the United States a copy of the correspondence. To all these insults Jefferson and his cabinet very quietly submitted; and, indeed, they were destined to still greater humiliations from this same quarter. It was in relation to this affair that John Q. Adams presently introduced into the Senate a bill to prevent the abuse of the privileges enjoyed by foreign ministers, giving to the president authority to order their departure in certain cases. Nothing, however, came of this bill; and, in fact, its passage would have been an implied declaration that in the case of Yrujo the president had attempted to exercise an authority which did not belong to him.

These difficulties with Spain, however embarrassing, were of far less importance than the relations with Great Britain, which had begun to assume a very dubious character. During the previous summer, in an earnest correspondence with Merry, successor to Liston as minister from the British court, Madison had undertaken to maintain the doctrine, better sustained by a competent naval force than by any paper arguments, that a neutral flag ought to protect from seizure or impressment all those sailing under it, of whatever nation they might be; and Monroe had been instructed to urge the same thing at London. To these old difficulties about impressment

were now added the new doctrines of the British admi- CHAPTER ralty courts as to the carrying trade.

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The subject of the invasion of neutral rights by the 1806. belligerents had been referred, on the third day of the session, to the Committee of Ways and Means, against the efforts of Bidwell, who wanted a special committee; but, though this committee early applied to the State Department for facts, they received no answer for several weeks. Meanwhile a new communication was made to Congress by the president, under an injunction of secrecy, of parts of Monroe's diplomatic correspondence from London, and also of various memorials from the maritime towns remonstrating against the new British doctrines. The Committee of Ways and Means also communicated Jan. 29 to the House an elaborate report on neutral rights, which the Secretary of State had drawn up to be presented to the president, and which he had sent to the committee by way of answer to their inquiries. All these documents were referred to a Committee of the Whole, along with a resolution offered by Gregg, of Pennsylvania, proposing to retaliate upon Great Britain for her impressments and invasions of neutral rights by prohibiting all importations of goods the produce of Great Britain or any of her colonies.

This was but a revival of Madison's old schemes for bringing Great Britain to reason by commercial restrictions. That it proceeded directly from the cabinet, or rather from Jefferson and Madison-for the other members seem not to have been consulted-may well be conjectured from the republication not long previously in the National Intelligencer of the non-importation, nonconsumption, and non-exportation agreement of 1774, accompanied by some very grandiloquent observations in the usual style of that journal, which foreshadowed

CHAPTER United States, to continue his residence at the City of XVIII. Washington, which he intended to do so long as suited 1806. his personal convenience and the interests of the king his master. In the other letter he informed Madison "that the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of his Catholic majesty near the United States receives no orders except from his sovereign;" and to this announcement he added a solemn protest against Madison's invasion of his diplomatic rights; intimating, also, his intention to communicate to all the other ministers accredited to the United States a copy of the correspondence. To all these insults Jefferson and his cabinet very quietly submitted; and, indeed, they were destined to still greater humiliations from this same quarter. It was in relation to this affair that John Q. Adams presently introduced into the Senate a bill to prevent the abuse of the privileges enjoyed by foreign ministers, giving to the president authority to order their departure in certain cases. Nothing, however, came of this bill; and, in fact, its passage would have been an implied declaration that in the case of Yrujo the president had attempted to exercise an authority which did not belong to him.

These difficulties with Spain, however embarrassing, were of far less importance than the relations with Great Britain, which had begun to assume a very dubious character. During the previous summer, in an earnest correspondence with Merry, successor to Liston as minister from the British court, Madison had undertaken to maintain the doctrine, better sustained by a competent naval force than by any paper arguments, that a neutral flag ought to protect from seizure or impressment all those sailing under it, of whatever nation they might be; and Monroe had been instructed to urge the same thing at London. To these old difficulties about impressment

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