Jefferson and his Colleagues [41]
Berkeley's order and expressing the hope that "every circumstance . . . may be adjusted in a manner that the harmony subsisting between the two countries may remain undisturbed." Commodore Barron replied that he knew of no British deserters on his vessel and declined in courteous terms to permit his crew to be mustered by any other officers but their own. The messenger departed, and then, for the first time entertaining serious misgivings, Commodore Barron ordered his decks cleared for action. But before the crew could bestir themselves, the Leopard drew near, her men at quarters. The British commander shouted a warning, but Barron, now thoroughly alarmed, replied, "I don't hear what you say." The warning was repeated, but again Barron to gain time shouted that he could not hear. The Leopard then fired two shots across the bow of the Chesapeake, and almost immediately without parleying further--she was now within two hundred feet of her victim--poured a broadside into the American vessel. Confusion reigned on the Chesapeake. The crew for the most part showed courage, but they were helpless, for they could not fire a gun for want of slow matches or loggerheads. They crowded about the magazine clamoring in vain for a chance to defend the vessel; they yelled with rage at their predicament. Only one gun was discharged and that was by means of a live coal brought up from the galley after the Chesapeake had received a third broadside and Commodore Barron had ordered the flag to be hauled down to spare further slaughter. Three of his crew had already been killed and eighteen wounded, himself among the number. The whole action lasted only fifteen minutes. Boarding crews now approached and several British officers climbed to the deck of the Chesapeake and mustered her crew. Among the ship's company they found the alleged deserters and, hiding in the coal-hole, the notorious Jenkin Ratford. These four men they took with them, and the Leopard, having fulfilled her instructions, now suffered the Chesapeake to limp back to Hampton Roads. "For the first time in their history," writes Henry Adams,* "the people of the United States learned, in June, 1807, the feeling of a true national emotion. Hitherto every public passion had been more or less partial and one-sided; . . . but the outrage committed on the Chesapeake stung through hidebound prejudices, and made democrat and aristocrat writhe alike." * History of the United States, vol. IV, p. 27.
Had President Jefferson chosen to go to war at this moment, he would have had a united people behind him, and he was well aware that he possessed the power of choice. "The affair of the Chesapeake put war into my hand," he wrote some years later. "I had only to open it and let havoc loose." But Thomas Jefferson was not a martial character. The State Governors, to be sure, were requested to have their militia in readiness, and the Governor of Virginia was desired to call such companies into service as were needed for the defense of Norfolk. The President referred in indignant terms to the abuse of the laws of hospitalitv and the "outrage" committed by the British commander; but his proclamation only ordered all British armed vessels out of American waters and forbade all intercourse with them if they remained. The tone of the proclamation was so moderate as to seem pusillanimous. John Randolph called it an apology. Thomas Jefferson did not mean to have war. With that extraordinary confidence in his own powers, which in smaller men would be called smug conceit, he believed that he could secure disavowal and honorable reparation for the wrong committed; but he chose a frail intermediary when he committed this delicate mission to James Monroe.
CHAPTER VIII. THE PACIFISTS OF 1807 It is one of the strange paradoxes of our time that the author of the Declaration of Independence, to whose principle of self-determination the world seems again to be turning, should now be regarded as a self-confessed pacifist, with all the derogatory implications that lurk in that epithet. The circumstances which made
Had President Jefferson chosen to go to war at this moment, he would have had a united people behind him, and he was well aware that he possessed the power of choice. "The affair of the Chesapeake put war into my hand," he wrote some years later. "I had only to open it and let havoc loose." But Thomas Jefferson was not a martial character. The State Governors, to be sure, were requested to have their militia in readiness, and the Governor of Virginia was desired to call such companies into service as were needed for the defense of Norfolk. The President referred in indignant terms to the abuse of the laws of hospitalitv and the "outrage" committed by the British commander; but his proclamation only ordered all British armed vessels out of American waters and forbade all intercourse with them if they remained. The tone of the proclamation was so moderate as to seem pusillanimous. John Randolph called it an apology. Thomas Jefferson did not mean to have war. With that extraordinary confidence in his own powers, which in smaller men would be called smug conceit, he believed that he could secure disavowal and honorable reparation for the wrong committed; but he chose a frail intermediary when he committed this delicate mission to James Monroe.
CHAPTER VIII. THE PACIFISTS OF 1807 It is one of the strange paradoxes of our time that the author of the Declaration of Independence, to whose principle of self-determination the world seems again to be turning, should now be regarded as a self-confessed pacifist, with all the derogatory implications that lurk in that epithet. The circumstances which made