1812: The Navy's War by George Daughan Read Free Book Online Page A

not about to change her ways, and Americans, with vivid memories of how hard they had fought for independence, were not about to accept them.

CHAPTER THREE
     
    Jefferson’s Embargo and the Slide Toward War
     
    A T THE END of 1807 Jefferson decided to counter Britain’s Orders in Council and its practice of impressment, as well as Napoleon’s decrees, by instituting a wide-ranging embargo. Jefferson believed that Britain and her West Indian colonies were so dependent on American trade, particularly in raw materials, that London would be forced to withdraw her Orders in Council and to put a stop to impressment in a matter of weeks. He hoped that, faced with an Anglo-American entente, Napoleon would follow suit. Jefferson liked to think of the embargo as a form of “peaceful coercion,” an alternative to either war or submission, and he had the enthusiastic support of Madison, who also believed that the embargo was the only way to avoid having to choose between a costly war or abject surrender to colonial status.
    In December 1807, Congress passed the Embargo Act by a wide margin. The legislation prohibited all exports to any foreign port and required a bond for coastal traders. Foreign ships could still bring goods to American ports, but they had to return in ballast. Albert Gallatin, the Treasury secretary whose job it would be to enforce the act, did not like it, but he dutifully took on the nearly impossible task of implementing it.
    Jefferson’s hope was that by sacrificing America’s trade for a short period the embargo would save the nation’s ships and men from British and French depredations. Meanwhile, to defend the coasts, he dramatically increased the navy’s fleet of gunboats—small craft ranging in size from forty-five to seventy feet and carrying one to two heavy guns. By the end of 1807 the Republican Congress had authorized construction of 278 of these boats, though by the time the War of 1812 broke out, just 165 were available.
    Jefferson viewed this fleet of gunboats as defensive in nature and far less expensive than building frigates or ships of the line. He thought the navy’s larger ships contributed almost nothing to the nation’s defense. In a war with Britain, he assumed the Royal Navy would quickly seize them. Gunboats, on the other hand, could “withdraw from the reach of the enemy,” he argued, and be “formidable . . . in shoally waters.” Not a single officer in the navy agreed with him, however. None thought the gunboats could protect the coasts. They viewed Jefferson’s mosquito fleet with scorn, and when war came, the gunboats proved nearly useless.

    F OR NEW ENGLAND Federalists, the embargo was the last straw. Shutting off the region’s seagoing commerce would wreak havoc on its economy. And so the Federalist Party, moribund since Jefferson’s stunning reelection in 1804, came back to life, invigorated by opposition to the embargo. Flouting of the law was widespread. Jefferson, surprised by this level of resistance, grew more tenacious in his attempts at enforcement. He should not have been shocked that so many Americans despised the embargo, however. Despite widespread evasion, exports plunged from over one hundred million in 1807 to just twenty two million the following year.
    Even more maddening, while the law proved exceptionally hard on the United States, it appeared to have little effect on Britain or France. Foreign Secretary Canning ridiculed it. But this was just a pretense. The British were indeed hampered by their inability to import American raw materials, and the embargo played a role in causing Britain’s depression in 1809–10. Nevertheless, London and Paris ignored the embargo and steadfastly refused to change their maritime policies, forcing Jefferson to keep the increasingly unpopular law in force far longer than he anticipated. Week after week the economy declined, and increasingly strident calls for relief came from across the country, particularly