'>. V .^^ .V '^ V^-^'\n^\^^. r .5.^^' / .^^ ''^- <^ ' " - >- \ '^- ■ ' ^ ^ A^^ ^-"^ '' . ^- .0^ , V . : ^ <' •_> ^' ^ "^^'^ f •^ 0"* ^ xO o^ '•v^ ^*,. , %. ,-' % / - ^ A^' ^/>. '>*", j<-^ -> c.\- -^^ "■ s .0^^ . , ^^ ■■ „ ■^/. ■-v..^^ c^. / DRAMATIC MOMENTS IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN THE FOUNDER OF AMERICAN DIPLOMACY DRAMATIC MOMENTS IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY BY RALPH W. PAGE FRONTISPIECE Garden City New York DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1918 Copyright, 1918, hy DOUBLEDAY, PaGE & CoMPANY All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian ,R 28 /i K c \ J i'j FOREWORD The public apathy In regard to our foreign policy and the cheerful indifference shown by the majority of our people towards the Diplomatic Service has had a baleful influence upon our country. Even since the disclosures of Germany's designs in the world war have turned attention violently towards the realm of world politics, and thrust the slumber- ing questions of our international rights and duties into the glare of newspaper headlines, the discussion thus aroused in our press and in our legislatures has revealed a comprehensive igngrance of the first prin- ciples of our foreign relations. It displays a total disregard for more than a century of painstaking upbuilding by that successful and farseeing body — the American Diplomatic Corps. It is not and could not be the object of this volume to give a chronological history of the diplomatic achievements of the United States. My purpose is rather to present in simple form a few of the most striking incidents in the service — to picture the out- standing figures and big dramatic actions in our dealings overseas which should be common knowl- edge to all Americans, but is not. I have no fear that the story will be old or stale. Part and parcel of our very life though they be, I venture that a large proportion of both the actions and the principles set forth will be not only new FOREWORD but amazing to most readers. Yet they are the A B C of American diplomatic history. I claim no historical erudition whatever. This book adds not a syllable to the literature of the subject, and it is not intended to. It is hoped that perhaps a narrative, told rather in the language of the man on the street than in the dignified diction of the historian, and setting forth the adventurous and dramatic episodes in the lives of our envoys, the plots they have discovered, the Em- pires they have defied, the kingdoms they have acquired, may help to create some interest in this most vital matter. It is hoped that it may, for in- stance, bring some appreciation of the mutual inter- dependence between Great Britain and America. If the casual reader was aware that under the guiding hand of our Revolutionary heroes we had three times before joined forces with the Navy of Great Britain to face the predatory forces of despotism, and had been defended by that Navy from that day to this, he would be better prepared to debate "the freedom of the seas." While this book does not pretend to give even a cursory review of American diplomacy, I hope that, having taken this much of a glimpse into our world situation as it has developed, the reader may acquire an appetite for the real facts in the case, for future reference at the primaries, and elsewhere. R. W. P. Pinehurst, N. C. Feb. 8, 1918. CONTENTS PAGE Foreword . . v CHAPTER I Benevolent Neutrality S King Louis's Private Messenger Makes a Discovery in Lon- don — Beaumarchais, America's First Friend, Writes a Letter — A Secret Conference of State in Philadelphia — Timothy- Jones, Alias Silas Deane, the First American Diplomat — The Continental Army Saved by "Roderique Hortalez" — Some Revolutionary Correspondences Showing that All is Not Neutral that Protests. Clandestine Diplomacy. CHAPTER II "Entangling Alliances" 2S Enter One of the Most Extraordinary Men that Ever Lived — Paris Taken by Storm — An Ambassador, Secretary of State, War, Navy, and Treasury All in One — A Courier Arrives in Paris with Startling Intelligence — Comedy of English and French Spies — Benjamin Franklin and Louis XVI Sign the Treaty of Alliance — lOur Obligation to France. CHAPTER III Fighting for Life. The Birth of a Nation 38 The European Cabal Against Democracy — The United States Sends out an Ail-American Team — Benjamin Frank- lin Plays Fair and Wins the Applause of His Opponents — John Jay Discovers a Plot and Throws His Instructions to the Winds — The Part Played by the Intercepted Dispatches of Marbois and the Secret Mission of Reyneval in Ameri- can Independence — The Foundations of the Anglo-Saxon Solidarity. vii viii CONTENTS CHAPTER IV "Traditions of the Service" ..... 56 Gouverneur Morris Takes a Hand in the French Revolution — His Memorandum to the King — The Man from Home Plans the Escape of Marie Antoinette — The Affair of the King's Money and Papers — Coaching a Despot to Play Re- publican — The Embassy a Haven for Condemned Aristos — Invaded by the Commune — The Minister Arrested — All the Ambassadors Leave — "Better My Friends Should Wonder Why I Stay Than My Enimies Inquire Why I Went Away" — Morris Stands by His Post of Danger — The King's Legacy Delivered in Vienna. CHAPTER V "Traditions of the Service" .... 66 P:^lihu Washburne, Ambassador for the World During the Siege of Paris — The Commune Again — History Repeated — The Empress Eugenie Rescued from the Revolution by an American — The Coming of the Prussians — All the Foreign Envoys Pick Up Their Hats in a Hurry— The Deluge of Victims — The Secret Messenger of the Royal Family — The Gold of Prince Murat — Counsellor to the Republic — Vive VAmerique — An Embassy Over a Mine and Under a Barri- cade. CHAPTER VI The Bearding of Bonaparte. A Lesson In Sea-Power 73 Napoleon Steals Louisiana from the "Prince of Peace" and Organizes an Invasion of America Out of His Victorious Armies Led by Marshal Victor of "The Terrible Regi- ment" — Thomas Jefferson, Pacifist, Turns a Political Somer- sault — Rufus King Holds a Momentous Conference in Lon- don — Robert Livingston Throws a Challenge in the Face of a Great Conqueror — Napoleon in His Bath-Tub Makes History — James Monroe Goes to Purchase a Town and Returns with a Kingdom — America Saved by the British Fleet. CONTENTS ix CHAPTER VII The Humiliation of Impotence. A Study In Piracy 96 The "Shadow of God" and "Emulator of Alexander" Writes a Dispatch to "The Amiable James Monroe, Emperor of America" — Courtly Frightfulness vs. Truculent Pacifism — John Adams has a Pleasant Chat with a Pirate in London — An Algerian Price List of American Sailors — Boston Ma- riners Left in Turkish Slavery — The Diplomatic Triumph of a Courteous Murderer — Blackmail the Alternative of a Navy — The Portrait of George Washington — Stephen Decatur Demonstrates the Persuasive Value of Gunpowder in Diplomatic Discourse. CHAPTER VIII The Battle for Democracy. An Anglo- Saxon Inheritance 117 George Canning Reveals a Plot for the Extermination of Democracy — Richard Rush Sends James Monroe a Literary Bomb-Shell — The Emperors of Europe Combine for Con- quest of America — The Duke of Wellington Proves a Tartar — England Makes a Proposition — Thomas Jefferson Proposes to Marry the British Fleet— The Solid Front of the Anglo- Saxon — James Monroe Throws Down a Challenge to Roy- alty — Ambitions Sunk in the Waters of Trafalgar. CHAPTER IX Publicity vs. Duplicity. The Intrigues of an Emperor 130 A Mysterious Stranger Appears at the Paris Consulate with Proof of an Imperial Plot — The Iron-Clad Rams of Na- poleon III— The Death Knell of the Fleet and the Threatened Bombardment of New York — The Intrigues of an Emperor —The Fallacy of Neutrality— The Diplomatic Methods of John Bigelow — A Cunning Ruse— The Planted Dispatch— The Collapse of the Conspiracy. X CONTENTS CHAPTER X The "Trent" Affair 150 Righting an Old Wrong — Introducing an Ultimatum, In- cluding the Story of a Hold-Up at Sea — Two Ambassadors Captured and Imprisoned in Fort Warren, Boston — A Les- son in International Law Proves an Example of Interna- tional Joke — A National Celebration — A National Indigna- tion — A National Retraction — Abraham Lincoln's Way — Anecdotes vs. the Rattling Sabre — A Conference of State — Salmon P. Chase States a Principle. CHAPTER XI Coaching China 167 The Everlasting Problem of "The Inferior Race." Conflict of "Manifest Destiny" and "The Square Deal" — A Crisis in the Orient — The "Powers" Rig an Action Against the Celes- tial Kingdom, Backing the Advance of the Caucasian Drum- mer — Anson Burlingame, Back Bay Politician, Takes the Case of China — The Fate of a Continent in His Hands — An Ambassador to All the World — His Treaty with Seward — A Convention with Lord Clarendon — ^The Triumphant Dip- lomatic Conquest of Two Emperors and the Iron Chancellor. CHAPTER XII "A Duty to Humanity." The End of an Empire 196 The Diplomacy of the War with Spain — The Crime of Na- tional Pride and Procrastination — The Verdict of History — The Plight of Cuba — Revolution Engineered in New York — Mutual Cruelties — American "Pirates" — Cleveland's Firm Hand — Woodford vs. Sagasta, a Triumph of Fair Play- Concessions Made by Spain — "Home Rule" — Removal of Weyler — "Autonomy"— Revocation of Reconcentration — Isa- bel's Despair — The Intervention of the Pope — Final Conces- sions and Armistice — "Remember the Maine" — An Inter- cepted Insult — The Recalled Minister and the Fateful Mes- sage to Congress — ^A Tribute to Spanish Courtesy. CONTENTS xi CHAPTER XIII The Coup d':1&tat. The Inside Story of Pan- ama 2^7 The Man Behind the Revolution— Room 1162, Waldorf-As- toria, The Liberty Hall of Panama — Bunau-Varilla Goes Scouting in Washington — The Three Horns of the Panama Dilemma — Reading the Future Actions of the Government — Playing with Destiny — A Kingdom for a Warship — Victory on the Isthmus — "Time is of the Essence" — Intrigue and Procrastination Squelched by Theodore Roosevelt — The Dra- matic Finish in John Hay's Residence. CHAPTER XIV Some Lessons in Civility . . . . . . 260 Premonitions — The King of Prussia's Precious Doctrines in 1823 — The Oppressed Revolutionists of Germany — Debut of the Prussian Bully in Samoa — The Emperor's Fatal Birth- day — The Advent of the Famous Formula: "Impossible Ul- timatum, Instant Defensive Invasion, and Annexation'^ — Leary of the Adams Takes a Hand— Schrechlichkeit Foiled by Hurricane — "The Organization of Failure in the Midst of Hate"— Why the Kaiser Did Not Take Uncle Sam "By the Scruff of the Neck"— "If You Want a Fight, You Can Have It Now"— Roosevelt Calls the Teuton Bluff— A Case of Arbi- tration—Designs on the Caribbean— An Opinion by John Hay. DRAMATIC MOMENTS IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY CHAPTER ONE BENEVOLENT NEUTRALITY King Louis's Private Messenger Makes a Discovery in London — Beaumarchais, America's First Friend, Writes a Letter — A Secret Conference of State in Philadelphia — Timothy Jones, Alias Silas Deane, the First American Diplomat — The Continental Army Saved by "Roderique Hortalez." — Some Revolution- ary Correspondence Showing that All is Not Neutral that Protests. Clandestine Diplomacy. SECRET diplomacy is almost a lost art. The Hohenzollerns still affect a fond- ness for this most thrilling and romantic pastime. But the Hohenzollern ministers have not been able to achieve the dizzy heights of deception and the infinite finesse and deli- cate touch which were the characteristics of the fine game of intrigue and counter-plot as con- cocted in the mystic chambers of subtle cardi- nals and imaginative ministers of the Talley- rand period a hundred years ago. Then a 4 DRAMATIC MOMENTS government envoy had as many disguises as Stillman Hunt, the detective, and might be dis- closed any time as his enemy's chief of staff, or his confidential secretary. In 1775 a temporary peace prevailed in the world. The French Ambassador in London, entirely surrounded by spies, went his innocu- ous and pompous way. But meantime a singu- lar individual was in London laying the train of the Bourbon revenge for the loss of Canada. In subtle and successful guise he was accom- pHshing precisely what the Prussian, Kiihl- mann, attempted in 1914. He spent his time singing duets with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and displaying an amazing talent in fri- volity, in droll stories, in desperate and amus- ing nocturnal intrigues. He was a play- wright of the first water by way of diversion; a plotter of inordinate devices and imagination, a master of dramatic language on all occasions, and absolutely without reputation. His history as an agent of the French kings is more replete with masquerades, adventure. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 5 ridiculous and dangerous situations, clandes- tine assignations, deadly secrets, and compli- cated intrigue than any novel ever written. Single handed he had recovered the notorious libel "Memoirs of Madame du Barry" from a colossal scoundrel in London, after a brigade of French secret police had failed in the most humiliating manner. Bearing the king's com- mission in a gold box hung around his neck he had set out from Nuremburg on the trail of a Jew who held for sale scandalous secrets of Marie Antoinette — the living counterpart of those' Gascon characters whose incredible ad- ventures fill the pages of French fiction. He fell upon his prey at the entrance of the forest of Neustadt. He was in turn attacked by three assassins. He tottered into the court of Vienna and was held there in prison a year as a dangerous liar. But he saved the papers. And now as our history opens he was once more in London, transacting the tortuous and lurid diplomacy of the Bourbon Court. He was there negotiating with another secret agent 6 DRAMATIC MOMENTS of the court for a box of letters of Louis XV, said to incriminate the French nation beyond recall. Recollect that this other agent was the Chevalier d'Eau, who had originally gone to the Russian Court disguised as a woman, and who at this time, to the scandal and astonish- ment of Christendom, was declaring that in fact he was a woman, and you will perceive what a funny, dreadful, and entertaining char- acter this fellow was. His name was Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. So much for one side of this actor — the ridiculous and entertaining side pre- sented to Lord Rochfort and the American Conmiittee on Secret Correspondence. The other side is painted thus by a great French historian : "A man of ardent and daring mind, of rest- less and stormy renown, of questionable char- acter and of prodigious activity. * * * The heir presumptive of Voltaire and the success- ful conqueror of the Maupeou Parliament." Unknown to his own ambassador, totally IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 7 without standing or presentable authority, lia- ble to be repudiated by his master and to have "his throat cut like a sheep" for any mistake or discovery, this capable vagabond manipulated the strings of the machine which developed into the most powerful influence for fair practice among nations ever yet seen in the world — American diplomacy. He not only believed the world to be a stage, but wrote the piece himself, and acted it; performing both func- tions in the most intensely dramatic and inter- esting style. So it inevitably happened that he crossed the trail of Arthur Lee, an agent of the Conti- nentals in England in the early days of our Revolution. King Louis was shortly in- formed what action a really wise king should take. The French were at peace with Eng- land, to be sure. And there were certain pre- vailing ideas upon the subject of neutrality, then as now. But to a mind as versatile as Caron's such impediments are negligible. See how it is done. 8 DRAMATIC MOMENTS (Translation of Undated Memorandum of Car on de Beaumarchais, Adven- turer at Large) To The King Only Sire: When considerations of State impel you to extend a helping hand to the Americans, pol- icy requires that Your Majesty proceed with such caution, that aid secretly conveyed to America may not become in Europe a brand to kindle strife between France and England. Above all, it is the part of prudence to be certain that the money cannot possibly pass into other hands than those of your choice. Moreover, since the present state of the finances does not at once permit of as great an expenditure as events seem to require, it is my duty. Sire, to submit to yom- judgment the fol- lowing plan, having for its principal object, under the semblance of a purely commercial affair, to remove all suspicion that Your Majesty or your Majesty's Council are at all interested in the matter. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 9 This plan, in execution, unites with many- other advantages the power of retarding or accelerating the course of these supplies as your prudence may dictate, and according as the situation of the Americans becomes more or less pressing, with the result that these aids, wisely administered, will serve not so much to terminate the war between America and Eng- land, as to sustain and keep it alive to the detri- ment of the English, our natural and pro- nounced enemies. Let us consider the details of the scheme. The unvarying impression of this affair to the majority of the Congress, should be the delu- sion that Your Majesty has nothing to do with it but that a company is about to entrust a cer- tain sum to the prudence of a trusted agent to furnish continuous aid to the Americans, by the promptest and surest methods * * * in exchange for returns in the shape of tobacco. Secrecy is the essence of all the rest. Your Majesty will begin by placing one 10 DRAMATIC MOMENTS million at the disposal of your agent, who will style himself Roderique Hortalez & Company, this being the signature and title of the firm under which I have agreed to conduct the en- tire business. One half of this sum, changed into moidores or Portuguese pieces, the only foreign money that passes in America, will be immediately forwarded thither. Roderique Hortalez intends to use the re- maining half million in procuring powder, and conveying it without delay to the Americans. Instead, however, of buying this powder in Holland, or even in France, at the current prices of 20 or 30 sols tournois a pound, the price at which the Dutch hold it, or even higher, when supplying the Americans, the real device of the operation consisting as Roderique Hor- talez hopes, in secretly procuring, with the sanction of Your Majesty, all necessary pow- der and saltpetre of your Registrars, on a basis of from five to six sols a pound. Before terminating this paper I wish to hazard an idea suggested during its compo- IlSr AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 11 sition, namely, that it would be a pretty thing to aid the Americans with English money. Neither is this difficult. It would suffice should Your Majesty, adopting an English usage that exacts a tax of 75 per cent, ad valorem on all French vehicles entering England at Dover, decree that in future all foreign vehicles and horses landed at our ports shall pay a tax equal to that levied on ours when entering England. By putting in practice this conceit. Your Majesty would have the pleasure of using for the relief of the Americans the very money squeezed out of the English, and this seems to me to be quite an agreeable consideration, and, so to speak, like planting a few flowers amid the dry w^aste of explanations of the output, return, and profits of the commercial capital of the firm of Hortalez, of which Your Majesty is about to become the sole proprietor. * * * Caron de Beaumarchais. 12 DRAMATIC MOMENTS From this document dates the dawn of American diplomacy and the tide of events leading to support, alliance, independence, and greatness. The next exhibit proves that the King and his counsel took the advice to heart — not forgetting the precautions of secrec3^ On May 2, 1776, the Minister for Foreign Affaii^s sent this illuminating letter to His Majesty: Sire : I have the honour of submitting to your majesty the writing authorizing me to furnish a million of lives for the service of the English Colonies, if you should deign to ratify it with your signature. I add to this. Sire, the draft of the reply which I mean to make to M. de Beaumarchais. If your majesty should ap- prove of it, I beg that it may be returned to me without delay. It shall not go forth in my handwriting, nor in that of any of my clerks or secretaries; I will employ that of my son, which cannot be known; and although he is only in his fifteenth year, I can answer posi- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 13 tively for his discretion. As it is of conse- quence that this operation should not be de- tected, or at least imputed to the government, I propose, if your majesty consents, to call hither the Sieur Montaudoin. And meantime it happened that a genial Frenchman of leisure quite casually turned up in Philadelphia calling upon his old friend Francis Daymon, librarian of the Philadelphia library. He came from England and was filled with curiosity and good will. What was more natural than that this visitor, M. Bon- vouloir, should be introduced to the famous philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, who was a member of the American Secret Committee on Correspondence with Foreign Powers? He showed such an interest in the struggling Con- gress that the members of the Committee met him in a secluded place after dark, each ar- riving by a different road. He told them that he could promise, offer, and answer for noth- ing, and that he was merely acting as a well- 14 DRAMATIC MOMENTS disposed individual; but that he believed France wished them well and that he would give them the advantage of his large acquaint- ance in Paris, to insure any requests they might have to present at court. Thereupon, our forefathers decided to send an agent into the nest of intrigue at Versailles to get what they could from the French. Our forefathers were the most straightforward men to be found in any capital in the world — at this or any other time. But they were re- bellious subjects of the King, just the same, and not entirely lacking in knowledge of the ways of the world. In consequence, Mr. Timothy Jones, a mer- chant from the Island of Bermuda, arrived in Bordeaux, France, on the 4th of May, 1776. He made no secret of the fact that he was bent upon purchasing certain gimcracks for the In- dian trade. What he neglected to mention was that when last seen across the water he had been known as Silas Deane, representative in Congress from the State of Connecticut, and IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 15 that hidden about his person were letters in- structing him to purchase supplies for a rebel- lious army from the benevolent and neutral government of France. His letters, although scrupulously opened by neighbouring English- men of an inquisitve disposition, would hardly reveal the fact, the pith of them being invisible except to the eyes of John Jay, of New York, who had a special acid to display the writing. Now he had been told to look up a Dr. Du- bourg in Paris, one of the innumerable high- minded and capable men that were followers of Franklin in all parts of Europe, and to con- fide in him and in one Mr. Edward Bancroft. He was delighted to find that Bancroft had arrived before he had, and to discover both gentlemen awaiting his coming. He would probably have been less delighted if he could have seen the full and exhaustive report of his right name, his antecedents, his lodgings, and even the minutest details of his private instruc- tions which the genial Mr. Bancroft placed at once in the hands of the infuriated ambassa- 16 DRAMATIC MOMENTS dor of Great Britain. That gentleman, Lord Stormont, lost no time in warning Vergennes, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, against the pernicious rebel. Now, in spite of the fact that Dubourg, who was a familiar of the court, told him that the ministers would not see him, and meant to keep secret any countenance they gave the United Colonies, Deane, like the intrepid Yankee he was, fared forth to the awesome palace of Ver- sailles and presented his commission to Ver- gennes himself. There would probably have been less discussion had he known that the genial M. Bonvouloir had gone straight from the King's antechamber for no other purpose in the world than to bring Deane before the King. Vergennes was a past master and post graduate of the game of diplomacy. He was familiar with the document — ^unique among state papers of the first order, in that it was both entertaining and witty as well as able and daring — already quoted as having been IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY IT submitted to King Louis a short while before by the inimitable librettist. Consonant with this policy, the secretary told Deane that he was charmed with the United Colonies, but was a stickler for his duties toward Great Brit- ain. However, he suggested casually that it was none of his business to interfere with pri- vate affairs, and that Roderique Hortalez & Company, a large Spanish mercantile house in Paris, might be of some service. So let us repair to Hortalez & Co. by all means. It was an imposing concern, from outward view. It occupied the Hotel de Hol- lande in the Faubourg du Temple, a sumptu- ous edifice built by the Dutch to house the Netherlands embassy. Who was M. Hortalez? Oh, he was a very great financier indeed. He was a Spanish nobleman of Castile, nothing less. He was a gentleman in private life, who in spite of his far-reaching feudal ties and princely relations had the most unaccountable benevolent tend- encies toward budding Democracies. He was, 18 DRAMATIC MOMENTS moreover, by happy chance, a dealer in mus- kets, bombs, powder, cutlasses, brass cannon, bayonets. He had on hand enough uniforms, shoes, hats and such to equip an army, if any such should happen into his store. Could he be seen? Why, not just at the moment. He was at home in his chateau studying his illus- trious family tree. But his confidential agent was right inside. Of course it was the writer of the plot, none other than the versatile M. de Beaumarchais himself. Boderique Hortalez, the great Span- ish godfather and providential angel of the rebellion must have fallen from a cliff into the sea. For nobody has ever seen him from that day to this. Possibly he was quite content to have his business entirely run by so able a lieutenant and upon such classic lines, worthy of the best traditions of the Comedie rran9aise. The success of this neat little arrangement and its enormous importance to our Revolution can best be demonstrated by those dispatches IN AMERICAlSr DIPLOMACY 19 of the day which managed to evade the British patrol, and come down into the records of the Department. Silas Deane to Committee on Secret Cor- respondence. "Paris, August, 2, 1776. * * * I hope that it will be considered that one hundred field pieces, and arms, clothing, and accoutrements, with military stores for twenty-five thousand men, is a large affair, and that, although I am promised any credit, yet as they must be paid for, the sooner the better, if to be done without too great a risk." Considering that the Continental Army at no one time mustered half this many men — and considering that they had no supplies at all — the importance of this transaction becomes apparent. The source of this windfall was re- vealed in a letter the following 18th of August. Probably no more welcome news was ever con- veyed in a letter from foreign parts. 20 DRAMATIC MOMENTS To THE Committee on Secret Correspond- ence, Philadelphia. "Paris, August 18, 1776. Gentlemen: The respectful esteem that I bear toward that brave people who so well defend their lib- erty under your conduct has induced me to form a plan concurring in this great work, by establishing an extensive commercial house, solely for the purpose of serving you in Eu- rope, there to supply you with necessaries of every sort, to furnish you expeditiously and certainly with all articles — clothes, linens, powder, ammunition, muskets, cannon, or even gold for the payment of your troops, and in general everything that can be useful for the honourable war in which you are engaged. Your deputies, gentlemen, will find in me a sure friend, an asylum in my house, money in my coffers, and every means of facilitating their operations, whether of a public or secret nature. I will, if possible, remove all obstacles IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 21 that may oppose your wishes from the politics of Europe." Undoubtedly neutrality of such benevolence has never been seen before or since. The Con- gress might view these literary protestations with the distrust the average man always has for fine phrases or signs of cleverness ; but they could not help appreciating the next para- graph. "At this very time, and without waiting for any answer from you, I have procured for you about two hundred pieces of brass cannon, four-pounders, which will be sent to you by the nearest way, two hundred thousand pounds of cannon powder, twenty thousand excellent fusils, some brass mortars, bombs, cannon balls, bayonets, platines, clothes, linens, etc., for the clothing of your troops, and lead for musket balls. An officer of the greatest merit for ar- tillery and genius, accompanied by lieutenants, officers, artillerists, cannoniers, etc., whom we 22 DRAMATIC MOMENTS think necessary for the service, will go to Phil- adelphia, even before j^ou have received my first dispatch. * * * R. Hortalez & Co." In order to repay this debt in kind to-day, we should have to send to France approxi- mately two hundred thousand six-inch guns and equipment for two million and a half troops. CHAPTER TWO "ENTANGLING ALLIANCES" Enter One of the Most Extraordinary Men that Ever Lived — Paris Taken by Storm — An Ambassador, Secretary of State, War, Navy, and Treasury All in One — A Courier Arrives in Paris with Startling In- telligence — Comedy of English and French Spies — Benjamin Franklin and Louis XVI Sign the Treaty of Alliance — Our Obligation to France. MEANTIME, Lord Stormont, the British Ambassador, had not been idle. He penetrated the elaborate subterfuges and disguises by which King Louis, Deane, and Hortalez & Co., made shift to outfit the Continental Army and still keep up an appearance of French neutrality, and was in a fair way to nip the scheme in the bud, when there swept into the arena one of the greatest diplomats of all time. He was not only above disguise and deceit, all tricks 23 24 DRAMATIC MOMENTS and factions, but above all party lines at home and national boundaries abroad. Being in the midst of war to-day, we can ap- preciate the more the amazing power wielded by this eccentric gentleman of seventy summers, who appeared in Paris in 1776, clad in a plain brown suit which the courtiers thought was the dress of an "American cultivator." He not only appeared at court — he took the court and the whole nation by storm. Listen to some contemporary accounts. "His straight, unpowdered hair, his round hat, his brown coat, formed a contrast with the laced and embroidered coats and the pow^dered and perfumed heads of the courtiers of Ver- sailles. This novelty turned the enthusiastic heads of the French women. Elegant enter- tainments were given him. * * * I was pres- ent at one of these entertainments, when the most beautiful woman of three hundred was selected to place a crown of laurels upon the head of the American philosopher and two kisses upon his cheeks." IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 25 "His reputation was more universal than that of Liebnitz or Newton, Frederick or Vol- taire, and his character more beloved and es- teemed than any or all of them. * * * His name was familiar to government and people, to foreign countries, nobility, clergy, and phi- losophers, as well as plebeians to such a de- gree that there was scarcely a peasant or a citizen, a valet de chambre, a coachman or footman, a lady's chambermaid or a scullion in a kitchen, who was not familiar with it, and who did not consider him a friend to human kind." The remarkable thing about this was, that the "scullion in the kitchen" was right — as every chancellor in Europe knew. There was no more need or use of secrecy. All England rang with the news. Lord Rock- ingham declared that this diplomat's arrival in France was a serious blow to Great Britain, more than counterbalancing the British victory on Long Island and the capture of New York. It was a common saying in London that he 26 DRAMATIC MOMENTS was of more value to the Americans than all the privateers they had sent out. All this, of course, was not because he was the idol of the Queen and the coachman, nor even because he was soon established in one of the most exclusive country places in the en- virons of Paris and treated by Vergennes more like the final authority than as a suppliant from a strugghng rebellion. It was because not only a large body of the English public, but by far the most powerful in brains and leader- ship, regarded him openly as one of the great leaders of the English race. He presented the amazing spectacle of the arch rebel and enemy of the country openly working for the inde- pendence of a province, and for the downfall of those in power, in intimate and daily cor- respondence with leaders of the opposition, the scientists, advanced thinkers, liberal politi- cians, and cultivated circles in all parts of the British Kingdom. There was no man so familiar with and observant of English politics as he. This was IN AMEPvICAN DIPLOMACY 27 Benjamin Franklin, whom Matthew Arnold called the incarnation of sanity and clear sense, and of whom Sir Sam.uel Romilly said: "Of all the celebrated persons whom in my life I have chanced to see, Dr. Franklin, both from his appearance and conversation, seemed to me the most remarkable, * * * he im- pressed me with an opinion of him as one of the most extraordinary men that ever ex- isted." Not only was he an extraordinary diplomat, but one of the most successful. Those who believe that written rules and precedents bound in calfskin constitute diplomacy — or that a great ambassador is a kind of sharp special pleader sent out to drive as shrewd a material bargain as possible with the "enemy" — would do well to read the procedure of this father and master of all American statecraft. His enormous strength, carped at by all petty partisans of his time, consisted in an attitude toward his opponents so obviously fair and sympathetic, so generously conciliatory and humanly honest, that he quickly became not 28 DRAMATIC MOMENTS so much a negotiator as a mediator. His con- duct, diametrically opposite to that popularly supposed to be correct for an ambassador — with his demands and his dignity and his coun- try's honour and paramount interests and the rest of it — was that of a just and tolerant neighbour rather than that of an attorney for the plaintiff. We shall see how this tremendous conception became eventually responsible for the heahng of the breach in the Anglo-Saxon family, and the foundation of America as a world-power knit to a rejuvenated and liberated England, instead of a seaboard province hemmed in by the colonies of the Bourbons. He arrived with instructions to make a com- mercial treaty with France — and to obtain such recognition as he could for the new Republic. Joined with him in this enterprise were Deane and Lee, supernumeraries in a hindering ca- pacit}^ The French were by no means ready to come out into the open with active assistance. So while diplomacy languished this humorous IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 29 old gentleman of seventy took upon himself tasks beside which even the immense volmne of business thrown upon our embassies at the out- break of the World War was a bagatelle. He became the principal financier of the bankrupt Colonies. On leaving home he had subscribed every cent of his own cash to the first Liberty Loan. And upon reaching his exalted post, instead of remittances for salary, he received innumerable drafts drawn on him by Congress. This was the only way Congress had of getting any money. It drew on Frank- lin to pay for its powder and its cannon, its ships and its seamen, its uniforms and its sup- plies. Who on earth was to take this melan- choly paper of a desperate adventure, they did not know. But Franklin responded, first to last, with 52,000,000 francs. Wharton, the great authority on International Law, says that he exercised the function of Secretary of State and of the Treasury in assuming these duties; of Secretary of War in purchasing and forwarding supplies, and in recruiting officers 30 DRAMATIC MOMENTS and men; of Secretary of the Navy in fitting out and manning and commissioning priva- teers; and of Supreme Admiralty Judge in determining prize questions and adjusting the almost innumerable controversies in which those concerned with these privateers were en- gaged. It was he who engaged the services of the immortal Lafayette, whose spirit leads the American host to-day, and equipped that dar- ing and enterprising seaman, John Paul Jones, with the guns of the Bonhomme Richard, And then things began to happen. Rumour, always by mysterious process faster than mor- tal means of travel, reported that a special messenger from the United States had eluded the English frigates and was tearing toward Paris with all signs of some portentous news. The old American Nestor gathered his coun- cil about him in his retreat at Passy, and waited with great impatience. There were Arthur Lee and Silas Deane and the doubt- ful Bancroft — WiUiam Lee, of Virginia, and IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 31 the star of the original cast, Caron de Beaumar- chais. About dinner time there clattered into the courtyard John Loring Austin, of Boston. Before he even had time to alight, Franklin addressed him. "Sir, is Philadelphia taken?" "Yes, sir." The old gentleman, so says an old diary, clasped his hands and returned to the hotel. "But, sir," cried the messenger, "I have greater news than that. General Burgoyne and his whole army are prisoners of war!" The effect was dynamic. Everyone fell to making use of this epochal and tremendous news after his own fashion. The star actor bounced into a chaise with William Lee and tore off to Versailles, the hero of his own melo- drama, to tell the King, and tore in such ex- cellent histrionic style that he turned over the chaise and broke his ribs. The rest of the staff began copying the dispatches for diplomatic action, while Franklin's valet and Major ^'hornton, Arthur Lee's private secretary, be- 32 DRAMATIC MOMENTS gan making a full report of the whole for my Lord Stormont, Ambassador of Great Brit- ain. Whatever else failed His Majesty King George III, it was not his secret service. Franklin had been warned that there were spies in his house but had made the typical re- ply that he didn't mind, for he had nothing to conceal, not even from his enemies. Perhaps this explains why in the end he had no enemies. At all events, the spies were of considerable service to him at this juncture. They led Lord North to begin frantic negotiations for peace on the spot. Of course, Franklin wanted peace — as we want peace to-day, but not a Han- overian peace. However, it was a matter of life and death to get the French Navy behind him. And here the spies did us another good turn. It is said that Vergennes also had his agents in the Passy household. And, by dint of listen- ing at the kej^holes and picking from waste baskets and catching snatches of dinner taUi, IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 33 they became aware of these advances by the English. This alarming information, added to the great influence of Franklin's personality, per- suaded the Bourbon King to act at once. His whole soul was set upon the dismemberment of the British Empire. He did not care about the Colonies rising up into a great power — both on account of his own prestige and a natural aversion for republics, and because his cousin, the Spaniard, rightly opined that an American republic would be a menace to the American possessions of Spain. But a reconciliation — that was not to be considered. The philosopher played his hand like the great genius that he was. Frank and genuine in every move, he still concealed a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more subtle mind under a disingenuous aspect, than any man alive. From the unrecognized suppliant he assumed at once the role of the master of the situation. All the parties came to him. Con- 34 DRAMATIC MOMENTS rad Alexander Gerard, Royal Syndic of the City of Strassburg and Secretary of His Maj- esty's Council of State, arrived on the 17th of December, 1777, to announce that "His Maj- esty is fixed in his determination not only to acknowledge, but to support your indepen- dence by every means in his power." This was the first great diplomatic triumph in our history. It was put into formal shape by treaty duly made the 6th of February fol- lowing our only formal alliance. Its princi- pal provisions were "to maintain effectually the liberty, sovereignty, and independence ab- solute and unlimited of the said United States" and that "neither of the two parties shall con- clude either truce or peace with Great Brit- ain without the formal consent of the other first obtained." It is sufficient evidence of the impotency of old dogmas that the legend of "no entangling alliances" should have been disregarded to the saving of our very existence in the first treaty ever made — and now 140 years later again dis- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 35 regarded for the safety of our first friend. For although it is not down on paper, no hon- est American can doubt that the old compact holds reciprocally to-day, and that we are bound to "maintain effectually the liberty, sovereignty, and independence" of France, and conclude no separate truce or peace with the Teuton, CHAPTER THREE FIGHTING FOR LIFE. THE BIRTH OF A NATION The European Cabal Against Democracy — The United States Sends Out an Ail-American Team — Benjamin Franklin Plays Fair and Wins the Ap- plause of His Opponents — John Jay Discovers a Plot and Throws His Instructions to the Winds — The Part Played by the Intercepted Dispatches of Marbois and the Secret Mission of Reyneval in American Independence — The Foundations of the Anglo-Saxon Solidarity. IN SPITE of the doctrine of blood and iron and the playful maxims of an all-conquer- ing destiny so artfully and universally spread through the German Empire by its princes, evidence is not lacking to-day that the people of that empire may be distinguished from its rulers in their aims and purposes and ideas of the war now raging. In recognizing 36 DRAMATIC MOMENTS 37 this distinction and in directing the fierce pub- hcity of his open diplomacy toward the people over the heads of the Kaiser's star chamber, Woodrow Wilson is putting in practice a diplo- matic precedent which is perhaps the greatest single step yet taken toward the liberation of the world from the scourge of national feuds and dynastic wars. But in making this distinction between rulers and the human beings ruled, in the frank directness of his negotiations, and in the mo- mentous decision by which he took the action which for the first time in history caused the raising of the Stars and Stripes in St. Paul's, London — in these actions for which he will be famous for all time, he was still only following the principles and the train of events laid by Benjamin Franklin in Paris, a long time ago. Nurtured by the aggressive spirit of our public men from the Civil War to the Spanish War and by politicians anxious about the Irish and the German vote — as well as by a false sense that patriotism demanded an hereditary 38 DRAMATIC MOMENTS and always-vanquished enemy — an uninformed public has held the belief that the victory of Yorktown ended the horrid British rule in America and set this country free fully equipped to sail a new and better sea. The exact facts of the matter are not quite so flat- tering to our pride, although they do in fact augur much better for our future and our civihzation than does the popular version. Yorktown fell before a combined American and French army in October, 1781. For the moment the military effort of the Hanoverian King in the thirteen Colonies had completely broken down. But even the most cursory view of the European situation at that date will show how far this event came short of settling the future of this country as a great independent liberal force in the world. We were recognized at the time by two coun- tries — France and Holland. The rest of the world under the rule of what we now consider despots, had not only no sympathy with us, but viewed this upstart republican government IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 39 with the gravest possible distrust and concern. As far as they were concerned, they wished us ill, except in so far as a revolt in her colonies embarrassed Great Britain, of whose power they were jealous. And they left us strictly alone, turning our ambassadors from their doors with the utmost incivility and contempt. In establishing peace and commerce, our standing in the world community, and our na- tional boundaries — upon the last of which our entire future power depended— -we were at the mercy of five foreign forces : 1. The infinitesimal part of the French public that had any knowledge of or influence in Foreign affairs. 2. King Louis XVI and his circle of ad- visors. 3. The Spanish Court. 4. The English throne. 5. The voice of the English people. To begin with, it is abundantly clear that in so far as the French people were concerned the 40 DRAMATIC MOMENTS United States had the most cordial, aknost ve- hement support, based upon a sympathy with the strugghng ideals of personal liberty and human emancipation which has been dear to the hearts of both peoples ever since and has become an international tradition of the most binding kind. The advertising of this attitude and its presentation to the citizens of France were largely due to the extraordinary percep- tion and abilities of Franklin. But as a plain matter of fact the French pubhc had about as much to say concerning their foreign policy as had an Irishman with England's under Edward III. Not only had the public no say, but not even the vaguest idea of what it was. As an active force in the tre- mendous decision to be reached, they had no more influence than the rest of the populace of Continental Europe, whose prevailing convic- tion was that the inhabitants of North America were bright red and wore feathers. Vergennes was at the helm for Louis XVI. His policy is now clear enough. He had en- IN AMERICAISr DIPLOMACY 41 tered the war and made an alliance with the United States solely to injure Great Britain. Since making his agreement with us he had made another with Spain — his true ally — which, as we shall see, was more dangerous to us than the Hessian forces of King George ever thought of being. The Spanish Court was our deadly enemy, although at the moment fighting England un- der a secret treaty with France. And of course King George was beside himself with fury, resolved to crush the Colonies and with them English liberty. Add to these circumstances the fact that in April, 1782, the English Admiral Rodney smashed the French naval power at Mar- tinique, and that shortly after Lord Howe raised the siege of Gibraltar and ended the hopes of the Spaniards, and the difficulties of our peace commissioners become apparent. These commissioners constituted a powerful team — probably the most powerful diplomatic trio ever sent forth into the world. They were 42 DRAMATIC MOMENTS Franklin, old, wise, and tolerant; John Jay, young, impatient, and daring, already a great master of English law and keen analytical thinking; and John Adams — well, an Adams, that is to say a genius, whose uncompromising, provincial, stubborn, and cantankerous meth- ods still succeeded because of his monumental earnestness and patent honesty. Primarily their instructions were to insist upon absolute independence, and to consult and take the advice of the French Court in all negotiations. They met Mr. Richard Oswald, sent by the British, to Paris. To begin with, it all looked bright. It was almost a family party. Os- wald was a gentleman — friendly, courteous, even sympathetic, reasonable to a degree, and a charming companion. But before they had gone very far it developed that he was author- ized to treat with the "United Colonies." To be sure, he was to grant them independence. But John Jay would not listen to a word of it. He intended to be treated with as represent- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 43 ing the United States, already independent. So according to instructions he proceeded to Versailles to see the Secretary for Foreign Affairs to consult on this point. And his ex- perience there showed him the exceedingly pre- carious position these infant United States were in: "I observed to the Count that it would be descending from the ground of independence to treat under the description of colonies. He replied that a name signified little; that the King of Great Britain's styling himself the King of France was no obstacle to the King of France treating with him ; that an acknowl- edgment of our independence, instead of pre- ceding, must in the natural course of events be the effect of the treaty, and that it would not be reasonable to expect the effect before the cause." Since, meantime, Oswald, the Englishman, as Jay says, "upon this, as upon every other occasion, behaved in a candid and proper man- ner," which is to say, seemed inclined to agree M DRAMATIC MOMENTS with the Americans, this position of the French whose help they counted upon, and whose ad- vice they were ordered to follow, caused the greatest alarm. And this was increased a hun- dred fold by further developments. For the Conde d'Aranda, a splendid noble- man from Arragon, ambassador of Spain, to whom France was primarily bound, conde- scended to allow John Jay to wait upon him. Jay's account is interesting, to show how the props were falling from beneath the Ameri- can cause : "He began the conference by various re- marks on the general principles in which con- tracting parties should form treaties, on the magnanimity of his sovereign, and on his own disposition to disregard trifling considerations in great matters. Then opening Mitchell's large map of North America, he asked me what were our boundaries. I told him that the boundary between us and the Spanish Domin- ions was a line drawn through from the head IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 45 of the Mississippi down the middle thereof. * * * He entered into a long discussion of our right to such an extent * * * and proposed to run a longitudinal line on the east side of the river * * * A few days afterward he sent over the same map with his proposed line marked on in red ink. It ran from near the confines of Georgia, but east of the Flint River to the confluence of the Kanawa with the Ohio and thence round the western shores of Lakes Erie and Huron, and thence around Lake Michigan to Lake Superior." Added to this contention of the Spaniards was the amazing proposition coming from an ally, that the country above the Ohio, if not Spanish, should remain British. Jay went over and left this map with Ver- gennes and told him that it would not do at all. The consequence was that Jay was invited to dinner at the palace, to talk it over with Rey- neval, Vergennes's secretary. And he came out boiling with indignation, and teeming with 46 DRAMATIC MOMENTS suspicions. Reyneval had handed him a memorandum, of which this is the sahent pas- sage: "If by the future treaty of peace, Spain preserves West Florida, she alone will be the sole proprietor of the com^se of the Missis- sippi from the thirty -first degree of latitude to the mouth of this river. Whatever may be the case with that part which is beyond this point to the north, the United States of America can have no pretentions to it, not being masters of either border to this river." This meant that the United States was to be confined for ever to the Atlantic coast, and not only not become a power, but was never even to open the Mississippi basin. And that our allies were insisting on these terms, while sup- posed to be aiding our cause. And this was the more accentuated by the receipt of a docu- ment put into his hands on Sept. 10th by an agent of the British government. This was a dispatch from Barbe Marbois, French charge d'affaires at Philadelphia, to the IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 47i Comte de Vergennes. Like most dispatches traversing the sea those days it had fallen prey to an English frigate, fished out of the sea where it had been thrown when in danger of capture. It revealed that the French were planning to prevent our purpose of sharing in the Newfoundland fisheries, "the cradle of sea- men." What all this meant, is put quite plainly by Jay himself; "They are interested in separating us from Great Britain, and on that point we may, I be- lieve, depend on them; but it is not their in- terest that we should become a great and for- midable people, and therefore they will not help us become so. It is not their interest that such a treaty should be formed between us and Britain as would produce cordiality and mu- tual confidence." Apparently the American diplomats were checkmated, and the United States destined to be a Costa Bica. For not even a Fourth of July orator will contend that, single handed 48 DRAMATIC MOMENTS we could establish an empire in the face of France, Spain, and England. What the American commissioners did, how- ever, was simple enough. They went to Rich- ard Oswald, and laid the matter frankly before him. And he agreed to send at once for new instructions to negotiate with a free and inde- pendent United States. And then the plot thtekened. These were hectic days for the Americans, two months from any instructions, with the destiny of not only America but the Anglo-Saxon and, as it now appears, perhaps of all the world in their hands, marooned in a babel of cabals and in- trigues. On the 9th of September they re- ceived certain word that Reyneval was setting out for England in the greatest secrecy, and that the Conde d'Aranda had galloped out to Versailles in the greatest haste to confer with him before he left. No wonder it looked to John Jay as if the goose was to be cooked in London and carved by the three kings, with America left to freeze outside the door. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 49 He never had much patience with instruc- tions. Like Napoleon, who tore up his let- ters from the National Council, and Dewey who cut his cables, John Jay when on the war- path decided things for himself. From that date he neglected entirely to consult with Ver- gennes about anything. On the contrary he called on Benjamin Vaughan, private secre- tary to Lord Shelburne, Prime Minister of England, and laid the plot before him, sending him post haste like a second D'Artagnan to London, to circumvent Reyneval, and prevent the coup. The question naturally is : Why did he sup- pose that he could save his country by con- fiding in the enemy? This was because of a fact which is at the very foundation of our government, the one fundamental basis of our entire history, and the keynote of the present aligmnent of the nations in the fight for liberty. The fact was that the English people were a power not only apart from but in opposition 50 DRAMATIC MOMENTS to the King, and that this power was at that very moment arising in one of its periodic struggles for the destruction of royal preroga- tive and arbitrary rule. And that the Eng- lishmen leading this battle realized that our War of Independence was the very backbone of their movement — that the American cause was their cause and the cause of freedom of peoples of the whole world. Franklin's correspondence shows that he was in intimate and friendly relations with John Charles Fox, Lord Shelburne, Hartley, Oswald, Lord Chatham, Lord Rockingham, Conway, Adam Smith, the inheritors and champions of the Anglo-Saxon traditions and independence. And that so strong were these men that they openly said in the very halls of King George that "we heartily wish success to the Americans." Richmond and Fox proclaimed their satis- faction over every British defeat in America. Walpole wrote: "I rejoice that there is still a great continent IlSr AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 51 of Englishmen who still remain free and inde- pendent, and who laugh at the impotent major- ities of a prostitute parliament." Burke and Chatham openly proclaimed their correspondence with Franklin and held every "British and Hessian" victory over America to be a victory over British freedom. The American historian WilHs Fletcher Johnson points out that "Many British officers refused to serve against America, preferring to resign their commissions. Among these were : the eldest son of Lord Chatham, who had be- gun a most promising military career; Admiral Keppel, Lieutenant-General Sir Jeffrey Am- herst ; General Conway, afterward a field mar- shal; Lord Frederick Cavendish; and the Earl of Effingham, who was commended for his act by the city corporations of London and Dublin in public addresses." Wharton says : "When the question is asked, why did not the British ministry arrest men of this class when cor- responding with the American legation — a question 52 DRAMATIC MOMENTS often put by Hutchinson and other refugees in Eng- land — the answer, as elsewhere noticed, is, that they could not be arrested without arresting almost the whole Whig opposition." The personal part played by the perfect con- fidence these men had in Franklin, and the reward our great ambassador reaped for his candid, open, and friendly attitude is best em- phasized by the event. On February 22, 1782, Conway's famous address to the King resulted in a resolution in Parliament against further continuance of the war, and the fall of Lord North and the King's party. Lord Rocking- ham became Prime Minister; Charles James Fox, Foreign Minister, and Lord Shelburne, at whose house Franldin's messengers were ac- customed to spend their time in England, Sec- retary for the Colonies, and master of the situ- ation. Now Shelburne regarded Franklin not only with the greatest confidence and esteem, but considered him the one great authority upon the whole movement. As a consequence, in IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 53 order to open peace negotiations, he discarded the entire crooked set of current diplomatic rules and methods, and cast about to find an ambassador who would be personally satisfac- tory to the philosopher. He chose one of Frankhn's personal friends, Richard Oswald. He might as well have chosen an American. Oswald's sympathy for our revolution can be judged by his furnishing the enormous bail of $250,000 for Henry Laurens, an American envoy who had been thrown into the Tower of London. The spirit of this negotiation, a magnificent precedent of fair dealing between peoples, can be shown by Shelburne's letter to Franklin. It not only shows the purpose of this new party in power to emancipate the Americans, but the unparalleled confidence they had in Franklin. "Your letter discovering the same disposi- tion, has made me send to you Mr. Oswald. I have had a longer acquaintance with him than I even had the pleasure to have with you. I believe him an honest man and^ after consult- 54 DRAMATIC MOMENTS ing some of our common friends, I have thought him the fittest for the purpose. He is a pacifical man and conversant in these negoti- ations, which are most interesting to mankind. * * * He is fully appraised of my mind, and you may give full credit to everything he as- sures you of. At the same time, if any other channel occurs to you, I am ready to embrace it. I wish to retain the same simplicity and good faith which existed between us in trans- actions of less importance." Of course, the truth of the matter was that King George in his battle for autocratic power had been even worse beaten in England than in America, and that Franklin and Jay were not dealing with enemies at all. Shel- burne's inclination, as well as far-sighted pol- icy, was to create as powerful an independent country as possible, founded upon the same liberal ideals of government and conscience as his own, and knit as firmly to the old English stock as inheritance and language, tradition, reUgion, literature and commerce, laws, man- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 55 ners and similar conceptions of truth, justice, and liberty could knit them. This was his own statement, and this was the outcome. Independence was acknowledged, the treaty was signed without knowledge of the French Court, and we were given all we demanded. The wisdom of this decision was demonstrated not long ago when the first flo- tilla of American destroyers cleared for action and joined the British patrol in the Irish Sea. i^' CHAPTER FOUK "TRADITIONS OF THE SERVICE" Gouverneur Morris Takes a Hand in the French Revolution — His Memorandum to the King — The Man from Home Plans the Escape of Marie An- toinette — The Affair of the King's Money and Papers — Coaching a Despot to Play Republican — The Embassy a Haven for Condemned Aristos — In- vaded by the Commune — The Minister Arrested — All the Ambassadors Leave — "Better My Friends Should Wonder Why I Stay Than My Enemies In- quire Why I Went Away" — Morris Stands by His Post of Danger — The King's Legacy Delivered in Vienna. w^ i iiw -^r "^ENT to court this morning, reads the ancient diary of an American gentleman. "Noth- ing remarkable, only they were up all night, expecting to be murdered." Not an unreasonable expectation either, that fatal summer of 1792, when bloody revolution ran riot through the streets of Paris, and the 56 DRAMATIC MOMENTS 57 guillotine worked overtime to prove the equal- ity of men. Some Americans still harbour the belief that the berth of the American diplomat is a sinecure. The opinion is prevalent among the smart dilettanti at home, that he lacks polish and power to deal with the corps of trained statesmen at the seats of the mighty. It is a safe guess that they never knew the part played by Gouverneur Morris at the most mag- nificent court in the world — ^that they never heard of the confidence and dependence placed upon the shoulders of the diplomat from Harlem when hell broke loose in Versailles and the mighty house of Bourbon, the seat of all splendour, glory, and power began to fall. Under the savage attacks of the rising terror, ministers and cabinets fell in a day, and craven flight or the knife severed the hosts of false friends or staunch adherents from the side of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, dar- ling of the romancers. And so it came that the last of the great feudal kings was sorely in need of an honest man, a keen counsellor, and 58 DRAMATIC MOMENTS a fearless friend. What did he know of in- surgents — but to shoot them down? Or of the hearts and desires and wills of men — he who had fondly believed himself to be the state? (A delusion still prevalent in certain quarters.) An assembly of lunatics, in national con- clave, demanded a constitution. The Secre- tary for Foreign Aff aii's, the Comte de Mont- morin de Saint-Herem, repaired in haste to No. 488 Rue de la Planche, Faubourg, St. Ger- main. **Your Excellency, the American Min- ister, what is this demand for a constitution? Pray what is His Majesty to do about this?" Wise Majesty to ask. The humorous and sturdy American, veteran of revolutions, dic- tated a memorandum. He also dictated a speech to be made by the King. It is not at all impossible that Carlyle would never have had occasion to write his immortal record, or the Scarlet Pimpernel to rescue the fair daughters of the ancient nobility from the fury of Robes- pierre, if the King had made use of Morris's document. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 59 But the Minister did not deliver it until too late. His regret is a matter of record. The party of assassination began mobilizing its brigands by the walls of Paris. On the 17th day of July there was a bril- liant dinner party at the embassy. The for- eign ambassadors were there, and the Comte de Montmorin. The old diary says : "In the evening M. de Montmorin takes me into the garden to communicate the situation of things and ask my opinion. I tell him that I think the King should quit Paris. He thinks otherwise, and fosters a thousand empty hopes and vain expecta- tions." And at this point the American took a hand in the game. The King's situation was more desperate than any situation in melodrama. In this dilemma he turned to Gouverneur Morris. Among the obscure characters drawn into the councils of state by the mad political whirl- wind was a M. Terrier de Monciel, whose as- sociations were largely revolutionary. But 60 DRAMATIC MOMENTS Morris knew his man — and in this dire extrem- ity recommended the proud Bourbon to put his fate in de Monciel's hands. And then these two, Morris and de Monciel, called into coun- cil the hot-headed and rampant fitienne Bre- mond, docteur de la Sorbonne, and began, Richard Harding Davis fashion, to meddle with destiny, and to try to rewrite the tragedy. The crazy mob broke into the palace of the Tuileries and hazed the distracted King. He donned the red cap of insurrection, waved his wooden sword, and cheered his tormentors. There was no time to be lost, so Gouverneur Morris devised a plan. The King and the Queen were to make an escape. The Swiss Guard — that faithful and formidable compan}^ — left Courbevoie to cover the retreat. The route was planned to the last detail through the forest of Ardennes and the principality of Beaumont. In camp there lay the Marquis de Lafayette, known to the Minister of old, reliable as Ajax. The vacillation and inherited perversity of IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 61 the doomed King led hini to hesitate until the right moment had passed, and the plot was re- vealed. So the ministers turned back to the arts of statecraft in an endeavour to turn the tide. And it is interesting to observe that in tliis most critical time of all French history, it was to the American Minister they turned for advice. On the 22d of July the King asked whether Morris would take charge of the royal papers and the royal money, and on the 24th, de Monciel appeared at the embassy with 547,000 livres. Years afterward in Vienna the am- bassador handed a portion of this sum to the Duchesse d'Angouleme — all that was left of the princely inheritance of the Bourbon dy- nasty to the daughter of Louis XVI. By this time the King had become hardly more than a figurehead, a prisoner in his own palace. The Revolutionists had their minions in the cabinet, their brigands in the street, and their spies at every keyhole. At the risk of his life, Morris, at this juncture, undertook the 62 DRAMATIC MOMENTS impossible task of coaching the hereditary des- pot to play the republican — the mind moulded in the form of arbitrary will to adopt the wiles of the politician and the forms of democratic cajolery and practice so familiar to the authors of the American Revolution. He sat up nights with the King's counsellors — de Mont- morin, Bertrand de Moleville, de Monciel, and Bremond — framing speeches and measures with which to feed the Assembly and the Mar- seillais ; letters to be written by the hidebound monarch to his captains and the Provinces — state documents which in other hands perhaps might have saved a kingdom. It was of no avail. The expected explosion came on the 10th of August — and the consti- tutional and inevitable hesitation of the royal pigmy resulted in his deserting his own staunch defenders to be sacked with his castle, and him- self to be seized and condemned to death. This left Paris and France at the mercy of a mob-rule whose frightfulness has become a byword for all time. No man's life was worth IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 63 a song. Where kings are killed and beautiful young queens murdered, what chance for an alien and hostile ambassador? It was at this juncture that Morris estab- lished the precedent and tradition of staying by his diplomatic post in time of danger, which has since been the infallible custom of the serv- ice — and particularly in Paris. His house be- came a centre of suspicion — and not without warrant, from the Jacobin point of view. He gave refuge there to aristos in distress, hiding for their lives. Armed men of the Commune invaded his house; he was arrested in the city on the most paltry excuses, and held up on any journey beyond the walls. It was a des- perate and dangerous situation. In the end every European ambassador and minister left the accursed city, and the Stars and Stripes alone floated beside the tricolour in Paris. Morris's papers give some idea of his state of mind. He tells of his good-bye visit to the British Ambassador : *'The Venetian Ambassador has been 64 DRAMATIC MOMENTS brought back and very ignominiously treated; even his papers examined, as it is said, hy Mm, They (he and the British Ambassador) can't get passports. He is in a tearing passion. He has burned his papers, which I will not do." To Thomas Jefferson he writes : *'The different ambassadors are all taking flight, and if I stay I shall be alone. I mean, however, to stay. * * * It is true that the po- sition is not without danger, but I presume that when the President did me the honour of nam- ing me to this embassy it was not for my per- sonal pleasure or safety, but to promote the interests of my country." A letter to his brother, General Morris, in London, says: "The date of this letter will show you that I did not, as you hoped, abandon my post, which is not always a very proper conduct. * * * You are right in the idea that Paris is a dan- gerous residence. But it is better that my friends should wonder why I sta}^ than my enemies inquire why I went away." IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 65 This sturdy example of Morris was followed by Elihu B. Washburne, Minister to France, at the time of the siege of Paris by the Prus- sians, and again by Myron T. Herrick when the official exodus from the French capital be- gan to the tune of Von Kluck's guns in Au- gust, 1914. These last two faithful perform- ances have become a part of that peculiar tradition of good will and affection between the French and the Americans which has al- ways held the imaginations of the populace, even at times when the diplomats were pulling at the greatest odds. CHAPTER FIVE "TRADITIONS OF THE SERVICE" {Continued) Elihu Washbume, Ambassador for the World During the Siege of Paris — The Commune Again — History Repeated — The Empress Eugenie Rescued from the Revolution by an American — The Coming of the Prussians — All the Foreign Envoys Pick Up Their Hats in a Hurry — The Deluge of Victims — The Secret Messenger of the Royal Family — The Gold of Prince Murat — Counsellor to the Republic — Vive VAmerique — An Embassy Over a Mine and Under a Barricade. ISTORIES of American diplomacy have little to say about Elihu Wash- burne. The reason is that he had small part in controversy and barter and popu- lar assertion of American rights and demands. For this very reason his influence was all the greater. He devoted himself to the service of other people — a method of establishing pres- 66 DRAMATIC MOMENTS 67 tige which the world is beginning to recognize to be a thousand fold more potent than the selfish, grasping policy of the old chancel- lories, or the incessant rattling of the scabbard. In milder form the dramas of the hectic days of Morris were played again in 1870. Wash- burne had a foretaste of the great task of pro- tecting alien people in a war-ridden country which has since reflected such great credit upon our ambassadors abroad. At the outbreak of war he undertook the protection of the subjects of the North German Confederation, of Sax- ony, Darmstadt, and Hesse. His devotion and success not only won him the unstinted gratitude of Bismarck, and the German peo- ple — but in their behalf established a humane practice of handling enemy aliens on the part of the French Government that must bring a blush of shame to even the most callous Prus- sian contemplating the population of northern France which they have enslaved. The French readily agreed to send home all the Germans in Paris, except those capable of military duty. 68 DRAMATIC MOMENTS But even this did not suit Washburne. He de- manded, and finally obtained permission to send them all home, excepting only actual spies and soldiers. Lulled by false reports, and riding on the buoyant crest of their native enthusiasm, the Parisians were thunderstruck by the sudden news that MacMahon had been completely crushed at Sedan, 40,000 men lost; that their army had been defeated before Metz and the Emperor captured. They reacted after their ancient pattern. Overnight the royal govern- ment was overthrown, and the inevitable mob made its roaring expedition to the ancient Tuil- eries in quest of the Queen, even as it had done years before in the time of Marie Antoinette. The Empress Eugenie was quicker than her tragic predecessor to realize the resources of the benevolent neutral from Indiana. It was Prince Metternich of 'Austria, and the Cava- lieri Nigra, the Italian Ambassador, that dashed her out of the palace. But the D'Artagnan that saved the Queen and turned IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 69^ the tragedy into an American comedy was the man from home. Down the street a bit from the Embassy lived an American dentist, Dr. Evans. Plots and communes and revolutions, wars and sudden death are nothing to a dentist— at least to a Yankee dentist. In Evans's hands the Prince and the Ambassador deposited the precious and dangerous charge. Suffice it to say that a few days later, after his own method, he saw her safely aboard an Eng- lish yacht bound for Dover, and returned casually to his business, unknown and unsung. Washburne's diary records that under these circumstances, and with a state of siege im- minent, all the ambassadors representing the European powers picked up their hats in a hurry and left Paris for Tours. The South American consuls followed suit, iM left him in charge of the diplomatic business of the world at the capital of France. His services to these many masters, unique at the time, were conducted with such ability as to endear him and the United States to a 70 DRAMATIC MOMENTS major portion of the globe, and conducted in such patiently straightforward manner as to give him the confidence of all parties in France. About midnight, on the 4th of September, 1870, when the streets were still full of the raging populace, a man appeared at the door of the Minister's residence on the Avenue Mon- taigne. It was the butler of Prince Murat, of the royal house of Napoleon. He presented the compliments of the Prince, and produced a bag of gold, for all the world as in an Arabian Nights' tale. He requested that the American take care of it for him through the whirlwind, as Morris had done for King Louis before him. And at the same time, Jules Favre, Secre- tary for Foreign Affairs of the National Council, wf$ consulting him daily upon the game to be played, and exhorting him in his own private capacity to fix up some kind of peace with the school of blood and iron. Three days after the Revolution he officially recognized the Republic on behalf of the IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 71 United States. This brought the people to his door by the thousands, in a delirium of joy. Twelve deputations with drums and banners arrived in one day, and the Stars and Stripes blossomed forth all over the city, as from time to time they are accustomed to do, showing the emotional heart of those extraordinary people. Of course, Washburne was in a most dan- gerous position. But apparently he enjoyed it. A sense of humour is not the least of the equipment of an American diplomat. He said, whimsically: "To-day I found they were mining the streets. Pleasant little neighbourhood this. As I came home this evening I found them erecting a barricade. * * * So in a day or two we shall be between the upper and the nether millstones, besides being in a capital position to have a bomb fall upon us." All honour to Elihu B. Washburne. He upheld the traditions of Gouverneur Morris, who established the precedents of disinterested effort, and was a worthy representative of the 72 DRAMATIC MOMENTS principles of duty and service without designs of reward or advantage which has come to be the crowning precept of American diplomacy. CHAPTER SIX THE BEARDING OF BONAPARTE. A LESSON IN SEA-POWER Napoleon Steals Louisiana from the "Prince of Peace" and Organizes an Invasion of America Out of His Victorious Armies Led by Marshal Victor of the "Terrible Regiment" — Thomas Jefferson, Pacifist, Turns a Political Somersault — Rufus King Holds a Momentous Conference in London — Robert Living- ston Throws a Challenge in the Face of a Great Con- queror — Napoleon in His Bath-Tub Makes History — James Monroe Goes to Purchase a Town and Re- turns with a Kingdom — America Saved by the Brit- ish Fleet. THROUGH the streets of Paris passed the splendid detachment of a victorious army to the roll of exultant drums. From balconies and towers bright banners were flung to the breeze. Along the quais and boulevards the excited populace cheered and sang and danced. They were drunk with the 7a 74 DRAMATIC MOMENTS delight of a world composed entirely of fabu- lous deeds and the wildest dreams of conquest and adventure. At every tavern could be found some veteran of forty battles, some hum- ble Hannibal, equal to the mightiest of myth- ical heroes, telling his Odyssy. He fascinated the company with stories of the loot of cities and the flight of armies; the pageantry and treasures of the ancient kingdoms and the mys- terious deserts laid at his feet in his incredible journeys. Fired to a frenzy by visions of des- tiny and glory more magnificent than ever conceived by Alexander, every child in France was parading his yard with a wooden sword and a white cockade, while his father packed his haversack and burnished his blade in pure dehght of the coming argosy. An empire was to be added to the diadem. And old grenadiers shook with anguish for fear they might be left behind in the expedi- tion. For it was to be led by a tiger of a man, the fury of whose onsets left even Massena petrified with astonishment and admiration. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 75 A bloody and furious man in combat, but one cool and calculating in council. A master of artillery, taught by the one great master. To wit, a commander of Toulon, Laon, Dego, La Favorita; a hero of Rivoli, the conqueror at Mantua, leader of the "Terrible Regiment," veteran of Lodi and Areola; in short, a cap- tain of men, Victor Perrin, a Marshal of France. The ships were at the shore. And it may interest the pacifists of Milwaukee to know that their beautiful neighbourhood was the objective of this crusade. New Orleans, the broad basin of the Mississippi, the fair fields of Kansas, the margins of the Great Lakes, and then eventually Canada and the Citadel of Quebec — these constituted no idle dream in the minds of the scalers of the Alps and the conquerors of Venice. The danger that threatened the United States at this moment was the greatest it has ever faced. Napoleon Bonaparte's restless ambition, stirred by the recollection of the 76 DRAMATIC MOMENTS former power of France in America had con- ceived the idea of reclaiming the ancient dis- coveries of La Salle and striking at England through the valleys of the great river. He was setting forth upon the operation, which Theodore Lyman says justly and emphatically belonged to the first class of profound com- prehensive plans. He had at his command the finest army in the world. To dream even that our hasty lines of volunteers could meet this super-soldier and his veterans of twenty vic- torious pitched battles would be ridiculous. For a few months of his extraordinary reign he was at peace with the world, and had under his orders the combined fleets of France and Spain to transport his stores and his army. He was to make his landing at New Or- leans. This in itself would have been simple enough, much as it might infuriate this coun- try. For New Orleans belonged ostensibly to Spain, but really to him. He was coming under colour of title. But more to the point, from a military point of view, he would be IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 77 landing where he already had possession, and could meet with no opposition. The United States was in an uproar. The more so that they did not know what to expect. For while the soldier prepared to strike, he em- ployed a professional liar, an inscrutable and double-faced poker player named Talleyrand, to temporize and conceal his intentions. This gentleman, who held the position of Minister for Foreign Affairs, acted accordingly. At the time this scheme was concocted, New Orleans, including both banks of the Missis- sippi for some miles, as well as the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to Florida, and the entire country west of the river, belonged to Spain. This was in the year 1800. Although it be- longed to Spain without a question, the hardy frontiersmen west of the Blue Ridge had de- termined to seize it, willy-nilly, and the govern- ment at Washington, albeit an ultra-demo- cratic and pacific administration, was obliged to take the same view. They were straining every nerve to buy New Orleans, or make some 78 DRAMATIC MOMENTS sort of Bryanite compromise that would keep the Westerners from invading the town. They were not in such a fearful hurry, because any one could see that Spain was on the de- cline, and would lose the territory sooner or later from pure senility and impotence. At the court of Spain was a crafty and clever rascal named Godoy, who boasted the title of "The Prince of Peace." He was the favourite of the Queen, and had control of the tiller of state, the King being little better than a nincompooj), and as helpless as a ward in chancery. Wlien Napoleon made one of his dynamic decisions to secure Louisiana, it was to this bounder that he made his proposition. It was an offer to buy. Very much the same sort of proposition the Standard Oil is cred- ited with having made in its palmy days: "You'll take what I give you, for your health." What he offered was the Kingdom of Etru- ria for the Royal Spanish Duke of Parma and one of Talleyrand's celebrated promises that France would not sell Louisiana to any one IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 79 else. That the Kingdom of Etruria belonged to the Duke of Tuscany, and that Talleyrand's promises were an international joke made no difference to Napoleon. The Prince of Peace squirmed and stalled. John Adams, who knew everything, and wrote it in his diary, says he was as cool and adroit as a picador ma- noeuvring before a maddened bull. He bribed Lucien Bonaparte, the First Consul's brother, who had been sent to close the deal. He put off the signing of the deed by every subterfuge known to diplomacy. Napoleon knew how to handle this. Whatever he was, he was not a bluffer. His next dispatch was in his most masterful style: "It is at the moment when the First Con- sul gives such strong proofs of his considera- tion for the King of Spain and places a prince of his house upon the throne which is fruit of the victories of French arms, that a tone is taken toward the French Republic such as might be taken with impunity toward the Re- public of San Marino." 80 DRAMATIC MOMENTS This, from a man whose cannon balls in- variably followed his dispatches, was too much for the Prince of Peace. He had the deed made without delay, and delivered, as agreed, in the greatest secrecy. Needless to add that the Duke of Parma never got his kingdom, and that the other promise was never even noticed thereafter. Napoleon then notified Decres, his Minis- ter of Marine, that his intention was to take possession of Louisiana in the shortest possible time, and gave orders as follows : "Let me know the number of men you think necessary, both infantry and artillery. Pre- sent me a plan for organizing the colony, both military and civil, for works, fortifications, etc. Make a map of the coast from St. Augustine to Mexico, and a geographical description of the different counties of Louisiana, with resources of each." He then sent 10,000 men and a famous gen- eral to subdue the Island of Santo Domingo for a base and, as we have seen, began mobil- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 81 izing a splendid corps under Marshal Victor for the main event. Meanwhile, we had as minister in Paris one of the ablest of the galaxy of Revolutionary stars. Robert R. Livingston, of the famous New York family, was of ambassadorial cali- bre second to none. He began to suspect this transfer. He knew at all events that some dangerous intrigue was in the air. He wrote to James Madison, Secretary of State, on January 13, 1802: "By the secrecy and duplicity practised rel- ative to this object, it is clear to me that they apprehend some opposition on the part of America to their plans. "There never was a government where less could be done by negotiations than here. There are no people, no legislature, no coun- sellors. One man is everything. * * * He seldom asks advice and never hears it unasked. His ministers are mere clerks, and his legisla- ture and counsellors parade officers." There it is. Historically it is small wonder 82 DRAMATIC MOMENTS we are throwing our weight against the Hohen- zollerns. Since the beginning of the Repub- hc the one-man despotism has been incessantly planning om* destruction in secret. It is now our final determination to be rid of predatory powers that consult neither parliaments nor peoples, and apart from the principles in- volved, hard historical experience has shown us that it is only from such as these that our demo- cratic government and our peaceful country is endangered. N'apoleon was the first. The Kaiser is the last. But there were many in be- tween, of whom, more hereafter. Thomas Jefferson was President. Pas- sionately followed by many, and hated with fury by others from that day to this, he was the founder of the great school of government of which Woodrow Wilson is the latest ex- ponent. The careers of the two men in the presidential chair bear a striking resemblance. In domestic affairs Jefferson was the de- voted champion of "the plain people," whose ambition to translate the simple philosophy of IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 83 Christian justice and fair dealing into legisla- tive enactment was the more startling to en- trenched "special privilege" because with all his democratic convictions he rode a pusillani- mous Congress with an iron bit and cruel spurs. In foreign affau's he believed with the paci- fists that armies and navies were useless. He also held the opinion, derived from his dislike of their manners, that the English were a peo- ple to be rude to. Otherwise his idea of di- plomacy consisted of sympathy for the French Revolution and an uneasy conscience with re- gard to his impossible Spanish-American neighbours. He was unable to reconcile their haughty unreasonableness, his constituent's warlike in- tentions, and his own earnest desires for the "rule of reason." When he received the intelligence from Liv- ingston that Napoleon had secretly purchased the Middle West and the mouth of the Missis- sippi he turned a political and philosophical somersault. Those who supposed, because 84 DRAMATIC MOMENTS he was patient and tolerant that he was weak, or because he was mistaken that he had to be consistent, were given a shock. He called for 80,000 volunteers. He began to build his navy. He saw and acted upon the one obvious and constant proposition in our whole diplo- matic history. Which was — and is — that the only force on earth that prevented our humilia- tion at will was the navy of Great Britain. And he forgot all about his "no alliance" shib- boleth, and his antipathy to the snug little island. The historian says that he attempted to gain Louisiana by intimidation and guile. And adds that "when Bonaparte was the one to be frightened and Talleyrand the one to be hood- winked, the naivete of the proceedings becomes rather ludicrous." The only reason this view was ever adopted has been that our chroniclers have been loath to grant the inestimable obligation we were un- der to the English. It was not a bluff that Jefferson made even though birds were still IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 85 roosting in the pines that were to make his navy, and 80,000 soldiers were still on paper. He made a threat — and a threat so powerful that even Napoleon might think twice before he defied it. But first he had recourse to London. From Rufus King, at that capital, he obtained the artillery for his defence. King informed him that Mr. Addington, then Secretary for For- eign Affairs, had frankly stated that in case a war should happen, it would be one of Eng- land's first steps to take New Orleans. He made it very plain that they would not keep it, but that they would give it to the L^nited States. He concluded that America could rest assured that nothing should be done injurious to her interests. So Mr. Jefferson, armed with the control of the Atlantic, and the guns of his brother, be- gan a diplomatic duel with the Young Con- queror. He sent James Monroe to Paris on March 8, 1803, with instructions to buy New 86 DRAMATIC MOMENTS Orleans. So much for the rule of reason. His intimidation was conveyed in another doc- ument, by no means either naive or ludicrous. It said: "If the French Government, instead of friendly arrangements or views, should be found to meditate hostilities, or to have formed projects, which will constrain the United States to resort to hostilities, such communications are then to be held with the British Government, as will sound its dispositions and invite its con- currence in the war. * *' *" A later dispatch of Jefferson's shows that the eternal struggle against despotism is not new, and that it is no novelty to find the Anglo- Saxon shoulder to shoulder with America in the cause : "From the moment that France takes pos- session of New Orleans * * we must marry ourselves to the British Fleet and Nation. We must turn all our attention to a maritime force, * * and having formed and connected to- gether with a power which may render rein- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 87 forcements of her settlement here impossible to France, make the first cannon which shall be fired in Europe the signal for the tearing up of any settlement she may have made, and for holding the two continents of America in sequestration for the common purposes of the United British and American Nations." But at this point the analogy between the Kaiser and Napoleon ends. The Little Cor- poral made his decisions like lightning. But if they were wrong, like lightning he reversed them. And it didn't take him three years to find out his mistakes. Let us now return to Paris, where the expe- ditionary legion was expected hourly to start, and where a popular assembly was pointing with pride to a great new dominion. For a moment, that bright morning of April 7th, all was quiet on the Place de la Con- corde. Ministers had an hour's breathing spell. Pages might yawn behind the statuary. The brilhant-coated guards might stand at ease, and couriers, booted and spurred, snatch 88 DRAMATIC MOMENTS a drink and a kiss at the Sign of the Dead Rat. An unwonted cakn pervaded the ancient palace of the wicked Catherine de Medicis. For the Great Napoleon was taking his bath. If I am obliged to introduce this incompar- able soldier, this astute diplomat, this "Prince of Adventurers," clad in no greater majesty than water pearly and aromatic with salts and perfumes, it is not my fault. It is there that history discovers him, disclosing for the first time high reasons of state why the Conqueror of the World will not face T. Jefferson and his four frigates drawn up in dry-dock in the inter- ests of Universal Peace. There was a scratch on the door. It was his valet Rustan's signal. The door opened, and in went two brothers of the bathing Consul. They were Lucien and Joseph. They had heard some rumour that Louisiana was to be deserted. They rushed up in the name of the Chamber of Deputies to forbid the alienation of the people's territory. Ensued a scene not only illuminating the diplomatic contest under IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 89 review, but instructive of the arbitrary meth- ods which were at once Napoleon's grandeur and his curse : "After some prehminary discussion Joseph at last broke in quite brusquely : " 'Well, you say nothing about your famous plan.' " 'Yes,' said the First Consul, * * * 'only take note, Lucien, I have made up my mind to sell Louisiana to the Americans. * * * ' " ' * * * But it is too unconstitutional.' "These precise words were then thundered forth, according to Lucien Bonaparte's ac- count : • "'Constitution! Unconstitutional! Repub- lic! National Sovereignty! Great words — fine phrases! Do you think you are still at the Club of St. Maximin? We are past that, you had better believe. Parbleu! You phrase it nobly. Unconstitutional! It becomes you well. Sir Knight of the Constitution, to talk that way to me. * * * Go on — go on. That's quite too fine a thing to be cut short, Sir Ora- 90 DRAMATIC MOMENTS tor of the Clubs. But at the same time take note of this, you and Monsieur Joseph, that I shall do just as I please; that I detest with- out fearing them — your friends the Jacobins, not one of whom shall remain in France if, as I hope, things continue to rest in my hands — and that, in fine, I snap my fingers at you and your national representation.' " If this is illuminating in showing the gentle democratic nature of the gentleman we had to deal with, another passage of the same conver- sation settles definitely why he proposed to re- linquish this kingdom: " 'It was certainly worth while,' urged Na- poleon, 'first, to sell when you could what you were certain to lose. For the English, who have seen the Colony given back to us with great displeasure, are aching for a chance to capture it, and it will be their first coup de main in case of war. * * * You see our land forces have fought and will fight victoriously against all Europe. But as to the sea, my dear fellow, you must know that there we have IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 91 to lower the flag — we and all the powers on the continent. America perhaps some day ; but I'll not talk of that. The English navy is and long will be too dominant; we shall not equal it.' " So it appears that the First Consul was en- tirely of Jefferson's opinion. And that Jeffer- son was quite right in his violent determination not to have him as a neighbour, that is, if bland contempt for parliaments and constitutions was one sign of a citizen undesirable in Mon- tana, then as now. Napoleon had one kind of intelligence sel- dom granted to those of intrenched authority — whether political or financial. He could see the storm coming, and could yield in time with grace and enthusiasm. Talk had no interest for him. So he called in the Marquis de Barbe-Mar- bois, one-time Minister to the United States and jerked out some of his pithy phrases at him: "I know the worth of Louisiana. * * * I 92 DRAMATIC MOMENTS have recovered it on paper through some lines in a treaty; but I have hardly done so when I am about to lose it again. The English * * * have already twenty vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. They swagger over those seas as sovereigns. * * * The conquest of Louisiana will be easy if they will only take the trouble to descend upon it, * * * even a short delay will leave me nothing but a vain title to trans- mit to those Republicans, whose friendship I seek. Irresolution and deliberation are no longer in season. It is not only New Orleans I will cede ; it is the whole colony without reser- vation. * * * I direct you to negotiate this affair with the envoys of the United States * * * have an interview this very day with Mr. Livingston. * * * I want 50,000,000 francs, and for less than that sum I will not treat." It now developed upon Livingston and James Monroe, who had been sent to collabo- rate with him, to conduct this momentous proj- ect with Barbe-Marbois. They had instmc- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 93 tions to buy New Orleans. They had the Brit- ish Fleet up their sleeves. But those who presume that our ambassadors have been an ornamental and negligible quantity in the fate of this country would do well to observe that these men, weeks away from home, took upon themselves the purchase of this great territory without a scrap of orders. The details of these ambassadorial contests always have a great interest. Livingston describes the opening thus: "While he (Monroe) and several other gentle- men were at dinner with me, I observed the Minister of the Treasury walking in my gar- den. * * * While we were taking coffee he came in, and after being some time in the room, we strolled into the next room, when he told me * * * that he thought I might have some- thing particular to say to him, and had taken the first opportunity to call on me." We have the advantage of Livingston as the great international bargain began. The be- ginning was ingenious enough, considering 94 DKAMATIC MOMENTS that Barbe-Marbois had Napoleon's order to sell without delay. But Livingston and Mon- roe didn't know that. And they proceeded to the point and "stated the consequence of any delay on this subject, as it would enable Britain to take possession, who would readily relin- quish it to us." Barbe-Marbois countered with his version of Napoleon's conversation. He reported the First Consul to have said: "Well, you have charge of the treasury, let them give you one hundred million, and pay their own claims and take the whole country." Right then and there, to all intents and pur- poses, this tremendous matter determining the destiny of our country was as good as settled. The commissioners knew that they had won. The negotiations now descended from the plane of battle and wars and dynasties into a first-rate bargain-counter dispute as to price. Monroe determined to go as far as 50,000,000 francs on his own responsibility. He offered forty. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 95 On April 30th, 1803, the convention was signed. James Monroe and Robert R. Liv- ingston had been sent to buy a town. They brought back a kingdom richer than Babylon and broader than France. The price was 60,000,000 francs, and the assumption by the United States of the then existing claims of Americans against France for depredations on the high seas. From the great champion of Continental tyranny in the Nineteenth Century had been wrung the training ground whence in the Twentieth were to come armies to help deal the final blow to that same kind of tyranny. CHAPTER SEVEN THE HUMILIATION OF IMPO- TENCE. A STUDY IN PIRACY The "Shadow of God" and "Emulator of Alexander" Writes a Dispatch to "The Amiable James Monroe, Emperor of America" — Courtly Frightfulness, vs. Truculent Pacifism — John Adams has a Pleasant Chat with a Pirate in London — An Algerian Price List of American Sailors — Boston Mariners Left in Turkish Slavery — The Diplomatic Triumph of a Courteous Murderer — Blackmail the Alternative of a Navy — The Portrait of George Washington — Stephen Decatur Demonstrates the Persuasive Value of Gunpowder in Diplomatic Discourse. DURING the year 1816 the President of the United States received an amiable and condescending message from a subaltern of the greatest person that ever lived. That is, if we can believe his own modest description of himself, constituting the 96 DRAMATIC MOMENTS 97 leading paragraph of the wonderful letter: "With the aid and assistance of Divinity, and in the reign of our sovereign, the asylum of the world, powerful and great monarch, transactor of all good actions, the best of men, the shadow of God, director of the good order. King of Kings, supreme ruler of the world. Emperor of the Earth, emulator of Alexander the Great, possessor of great forces, sovereign of the two worlds and of the seas. King of Arabia and Persia, Emperor, son of an Em- peror and Conqueror, Mohammed Khan (may God end his life with prosperity, and his reign be everlasting and glorious), his humble and obedient servant, actual sovereign governor and Chief of Algiers, submitted for ever to the orders of his Imperial Majesty's noble throne, Omar Pasha (may his government be happy and prosperous) . "To his Majesty, the Emperor of America, its adjacent dependent provinces and coasts, and wherever his government may extend, our noble friend, the support of the Kings of the 98 DRAMATIC MOMENTS Nation of Jesus, the pillar of all Christian sov- ereigns, the most glorious among the princes, elected amongst many lords and nobles, the happy, the great, the amiable James Madison, Emperor of America (may his reign be happy and glorious, and his life long and prosper- ous), wishing him long possession of the seal of his blessed throne, and long life and health. Amen. Hoping that your health is in good state, I inform you that mine is excellent, thanks to the Supreme Being, constantly ad- dressing my humble prayers to the Almighty for your felicity." Could anything be more polite and ingra- tiating than this ? He continued in the same pleasant and genial vein to say that he had been delighted to receive the American Ambassador ( Stephen Decatur, who had arrived with the guns of three warships trained on the palace) and to make a treaty such as he suggested. But he regretted to say that for a slight objection this IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 99 treaty was not entirely "practical" and, in con- sequence : "I inform you, therefore, that a treaty of peace having been signed between America and us, during the reign of Hassan Pasha, twenty years past, I propose to renew said treaty on the same basis stipulated in it, and if you agree to it, our friendship will be solid and lasting. "I intended to be on higher terms of amity with our friends the Americans than ever be- fore, being the first nation with whom I made peace; * * * we hope that with the assistance of God you will answer this our letter, imme- diately after you shall have a perfect knowl- edge of its contents. * * * "Requesting only that you will have the goodness to remove your consul as soon as pos- sible, assuring you that it will be very agree- able to us. These are our last words to you, and we pray God to keep you in his holy guard. "Written in the year of the Hegira 1231, 100 DRAMATIC MOMENTS the 20th day of the moon Dge Mazirl Covel, corresponding to 1815, April 24ith. Signed in our well-beloved city of Algiers. "Omar, Son of Mohammed, Conquerer and Great." We recommend this dispatch to our friend Francisco Villa, and other kindred spirits of the chaparral, as an improvement on their own method of communication. They need not be too proud to receive lessons in procedure from Omar, Son of Mohammed. As a practi- tioner of the Trade of Frightf ulness and a suc- cessful follower of the business of freebooting, he still remains without a peer. Beside him the Mexican is a kindergarten teacher. It is true that Omar was a seafaring man. But all the more must have been his natural tempta- tion to use dreadful and furious language. Being a master in the pastime of robbing and enslaving trustful and helpless Americans, he must have had some weighty diplomatic reason for the poetical and gentle nature of his dispatches. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 101 It is a strange thing that every generation has to learn its lessons by experience. Even a slight study of the career of the Dey of Al- giers would have saved two classes of modern theorists a great deal of brain fag and needless expensive experiments. To the believer in the doctrines of the divine right of plunder and the joys of running amuck, the learned Moslem would have taught that the most efficient vocal accompaniment is by no means nasty language, bluff, bluster, and threats. On the contrary, these have a way of arousing and multiplying enemies beyond endurance. The proper way is to be polite- — and to speak in tones so exces- sively soft and reasonable, not to say flatter- ing, that only the basest sceptic can doubt their beneficence. The other class of theorists would have ceased to exist upon such a study. These are the ever-increasing lovers of humanity who carry the principles of fair play and justice to the conclusion that, if let alone, "all men" will respond in kind, and who believe in conse- 102 DRAMATIC MOMENTS quence that any resort to force for the protec- tion of the lives and property of citizens is foolish in policy, if not wicked in morals. Before being disillusioned by the apparition of Napoleon and the assumption of responsi- bility, which is a great dispeller of illusions, Thomas Jefferson might fairly be catalogued among the latter class. His chief abomination was a navy, and the foundation of his faith that ultimate good-will was to be found in all men who were fairly treated. Those who believe the same to-day will be sorry to learn how this worked in Algiers. The entertaining dispatch above quoted came along toward the end of the chapter, and is given more as an example of a diplomatic curiosity than as part of the story. But in this connection it is worth observing that this cheer- ful document was in exact fact an ultimatum from this jovial despot to the effect that he would immediately waylay and capture all American merchantmen venturing beyond Gibraltar and enslave the crews in lieu of a big IN AMEHICAN DIPLOMACY 103 ransom, unless the United States agreed to pay him a small matter of $21,000 a year tribute, as we had paid the late lamented Hassan Pasha (may the grace of God rest his beautiful soul) . That an Algerian pirate on the sands of Africa should have had the nerve to address such a demand, even in poetic prose, to the President of the United States, involves a disgraceful story, which we certainly would not print, ex- cept for the benefit of the theorists and pacifists aforementioned. And to prove for our own satisfaction the impotence of language as the only national ordnance. At the same time the delicate attention paid our envoys and the courtly language of the pirate's communica- tions make a picture so charming as almost to spoil the moral. The Dey of Algiers, the Emperor of Mo- rocco, the Bey of Tripoli, and Hamouda Pasha, a ruler of Tunis, under the firm name of the Barbary States, constituted in themselves the foremost and most celebrated institute of piracy ever seen on the globe. Operating from 104 DRAMATIC MOMENTS scenes famous since the dim ages of the Argo- nauts, from among the ruins of the most splen- did kingdoms of antiquity, along those dreamy shores of the Mediterranean "where may be traced the track of the hero of more than one epic," the fleet corsairs of these mediaeval sul- tans made a romantic picture and added variety and interest to those fond of wild adventure and desperate escapes. To all others that passed through the Pillars of Hercules they were a curse and terror. The sight of their sails and the Turk's Head on the horizon was signal for utter despair. The barest record of their atrocities would not bear repetition. In the year 1783 the jolly old Dey was as- tonished to observe a new flag serenely sailing down the coast. No armoured convoy was in sight. His treasurer recorded no goodty tri- bute giving license to Stars and Stripes to sail the seas. The impudence of the performance was astounding. Hardly conceiving that good fortune of such easy prey could continue, the IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 105 Dey held communion with his partners. The immediate result was a conversation in Lon- don between John Adams and a suave and tawny gentleman from Tripoli "who addressed him with much condescension and patronage." Johnson goes on to say that "the Tripolitan conceded that America might be a great coun- try, but he pointed out that its ships could not navigate the Mediterranean Sea without the permission of the Barbary States. He was willing to negotiate a treaty between the United States and Tripoli for $150,000, or with all four of the Barbary States for $600,000." When Adams tried to reduce the price, the Corsair in the most urbane manner suggested that he had actually forgotten the most im- portant item of all, a small matter of 10% for himself. The feelings of sturdy old John Adams must have been apoplectic in being compelled to conduct such a negotiation — and all the more at its failure. For while Congress would 106 DRAMATIC MOMENTS not fight, it could not pay any such sum as this. But if this blackmail was bad, worse was to come. In the following July the long-suffering Dey sent forth eight sails through the Strait of Gibraltar on a merry hunt. These fell in with the schooner Maria, of Boston. Scim- itar in hand the buccaneers swarmed over the rail and had Isaac Stephens, captain, Alex Forsythe, mate, and six Gloucester sea- men tied hand and foot without time to strug- gle. The good ship Dauphin, of Philadelphia, fell foul of the outfit on the way home. The delighted Corsair captain confiscated the Yan- kee boats and the cargoes and packed the twenty-one sailors as slaves into the interior — and waited. It is disgusting to relate that instead of a broadside of round shot, after so long a time there turned up among the minarets two "am- bassadors" sent by Adams from London, Messrs. Lamb and Randall. The old pirate received them with great ceremony and marked IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 107 hospitality. He was very attentive and agree- able. He opened the conversation by saying that he had followed with interest the exploits of their illustrious countryman, General Wash- ington, and felt a great admiration of his con- duct. That since he never expected to see him, if Congress would do him the favour to send him a full-length portrait of that celebrated person, he would hang it in a good light in his palace at Algiers. In regard to the captives, the Dey was as cordial as any good merchant to a valuable customer. He allowed that captives were be- coming more and more expensive to get, but that he would make a special discount for the sake of new trade, and concluded with a magnanimous schedule of prices, as fol- lows: 8 Captains, $6,000 each , $18,000 2 Mates, $4,000 each ,. . 8,000 2 Passengers, $4,000 each ., 8,000 14 Seamen, $1,400 each (a bargain). 19,600 $53,600 108 DRAMATIC MOMENTS Expense of Catching and Keeping Aforesaid 5,896 Total BiU $59,496 The Americans had been authorized to pay $200 apiece. Failing to purchase back their countrymen, they tried to beg them back. The American sailors were left in slavery. Whether this inconceivable action was the result of a "peace policy" or of the theory then prevailing against the building of a fleet, it is equally disgraceful. The diplomats of the pe- riod had their fill of endeavours to treat with brigands without any recourse to force. Their next move was more humiliating still. Failing themselves, they turned to a European "So- ciety for the Redemption of Captives," a holy order that made a business of alleviating as far as possible the horrors of this bondage in Tur- key. This order informed the Continental Congress that it would be of no use to try to get the prisoners for a reasonable sum if money and letters were continually sent to better their IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 109 lot, because this gave the pirates an idea that they were "valuable." So the next step taken by this peace party was actually to refuse the modest drafts of a Spanish gentleman helping to keep life endurable for the slaves, and the issuance of strict instructions that the poor creatures should be made to suppose they had been left to their fate, the more to make the Dey anxious for his bargain. This didn't work either. Finally, on the 4th of March, 1789, George Washington was elected President of the United States. His inchnation on the subject was definite enough. But he is not the only conmiander-in-chief of the forces of the United States who has had to face a bad situation without any forces. Congress had recently taken the precaution to sell the only warship they owned, and had again commissioned the holy order to go and reason with the Moslems. Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, now felt that these poor sailors had suffered enough. He commissioned John Paul Jones, of all peo- 110 DRAMATIC MOMENTS pie, to go on a mule to try once again to buy them back. How this suited the Captain of the Bonhomme Richard is not recorded — except that he died immediately, before he started. Meantime, half the wretched victims also had died, and the rest sent a plea to their coun- try that would have melted a stone Moloch. In 1793, the Dey had a banner year. He gath- ered in a hundred and five more American citi- zens. The utter futility of diplomatic action with these gentry had one obvious and beneficial re- sult. Public opinion in the country would no longer stand such a pitiful attitude. And when the patriarch of these enslaved mariners from Boston wrote, "Your Excellency will perceive, that the United States has at pres- ent no alternative, than to fit out with the greatest expedition thirty frigates and corsairs in order to stop those sea robbers in capturing American vessels," the navy of the United States was born. In 1794 Congress author- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 111 ized the President to build six frigates. Three of them were actually completed before that vahant body retracted — three that were des- tined to put the fear of God into more different kinds of scalawags than all the resolutions of Congress put together from that day to this — the Constitution, the United States and the Constellation, They were not done in time, however, to keep us from paying the cordial old Dey $642,500 cash, commissions, presents, etc., for the release of American citizens, and for sign- ing what he called a treaty. By this document he agreed to let American ships sail in peace — and we agreed to give him a matter of $21,000 worth of naval stores and other friendly little gratuities every year. The amazing attitude of "forbearance" and supine pacifism taken by our government was not ended even then. The following incident, related by Lyman, seems almost incredible — in- credible that the government would tolerate it. "In October, 1800, the Dey signified to the 112 DRAMATIC MOMENTS (American) Consul his intention of sending an ambassador to the Porte, with the custom- ary presents, in the Washington, a small American frigate, at that time lying in the har- bour of Algiers. It may well be imagined that the proposal was an awkward and offensive one. The United States had neither consul nor minister at Constantinople, nor any sort of treaty with any of the Itahan states, with some of whom Algiers was then at war. * * * To the representations, both judicious and rea- sonable, made on this occasion, the Dey threat- ened war, plunder, and captivity, and declared he had selected the Washington to transport the embassy as a special compliment. * * * The proclamation of his Highness's pleasure was further accompanied with another pro- posal, also of an embarrassing nature, to hoist the piratical flag of the Algerines at the main top gallant mast head of the frigate. It was in vain the barbarian was informed that the act would throw the frigate out of commission ; neither the Dey nor his Minister of Marine . IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 113 would curtail a tithe of the demand, and this Corsair flag, bearing the turbanned head of Hali, was run up to the main with a salute of seven guns — a compliment that cost the United States 40,000 dollars." There is one way, and only one, to treat with a certain class of persons. And they are met with periodically by all nations — as well as all men. Our old friend, Omar, Son of Moham- med, was one of these. And the proof of it is that when he finally got his treatment he ceased to be a leading figure in either buccaneer or diplomatic circles. It came about this way. Concluding that the $378,363 received by him and his illustrious predecessor Pasha was after all a paltry pit- tance to get out of such a healthy coward as the U. S. A., he concluded he would like to have $27,000 more. His annual gift also caused him some slight disappointment. So in the most polished manner he invited Mr. Lear, our consul, to depart at once, and sent forth his trusty admiral, Ruis Hammida, Son 114. DRAMATIC MOMENTS of the Desert, with the whole Algerine Squad- ron to kidnap some more Yankees. But he selected an unfortunate moment. This was in 1812, and American merchantmen were not venturing abroad. He got a bag of only eleven prisoners. But as soon as the war was over he learned his lesson, as mentioned above. While his pirate fleet was all at sea, one fine afternoon there appeared at the very gates of his palace the American Squadron, veterans of battles famous in history, com- manded by Commodore Bainbridge. And on board was a novel and unwelcome kind of dip- lomat, named Stephen Decatur. He was very brusque and rude to the "Asylum of the World." He said he had come to make a treaty, the principal article of which was that "no stipulation for paying any tribute to Al- giers under any form whatever will be agreed to." The outraged Son of Mohammed wanted time to consider it. "Not a minute," said De- catur. It being manifest that this rude am- bassador was looking forward with ill-con- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 115 cealed pleasure to operating his guns, by lunch time the outraged monarch signed the treaty. After the squadron left, the shrewd old sin- ner of course concluded that he had made a grave mistake in ever leaving his former graft. So he cooked up an excuse, drew his flotilla around him, and forthwith dispatched the dip- lomatic paper given at the beginning of this chapter. Further diplomatic discourse was inter- rupted by the arrival of Lord Exmouth with a British fleet of twenty sail. The Dey had come to believe his own description of his pow- ers, and had put the British Consul in jail. And without any preliminaries the Admiral opened twenty broadsides on the towers of Alg- iers, and knocked the place into a rubbish heap. After the receipt of fifty-one thousand round shot the Dey came out and swept the ground with his beard, opened up his jails, and turned cynic. One immediate conse- quence was his signature to a paper tendered him by Commodore Chaunccy, U. S. N., read- ing as follows : 116 DRAMATIC MOMENTS "The President of the United States and the Dey of Algiers, being desirous to restore and maintain, upon a stable and permanent footing, the relations of peace and good un- derstanding between the two powers, and for this purpose to renew the treatj^ of peace and amity which was concluded between the two states by William Shaler and Commodore Stephen Decatur * * * and his Highness Omar Pasha, Dey of Algiers * * * etc." It is hardly possible that this sort of game could be played on us again by so small a band of freebooters. But there is abundant evidence available that the process of evolution has not yet advanced the human race to the point where the same tactics are impossible in the hands of more powerful, if less courteous, marauders. And it is just as well to remem- ber that there is only one kind of diplomacy effective with such gentry. And one kind of diplomat, best exemplified in the person of Stephen Decatur. CHAPTER EIGHT THE BATTLE FOR DEMOCRACY. AN ANGLO-SAXON INHERITANCE George Canning Reveals a Plot for the Extermina- tion of Democracy — Richard Rush Sends James Monroe a Literary Bomb-Shell — The Emperors of Europe Combine for Conquest of America — The Duke of Wellington Proves a Tartar — England Makes a Proposition — Thomas Jefferson Proposes to Marry the British Fleet— The Solid Front of the Anglo-Saxon — James Monroe Throws Down a Chal- lenge to Royalty — Ambitions Sunk in the Waters of Trafalgar. EARLY in August, 1823, George Can- ning, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Great Britain, sent for Richard Rush, a representative of the United States, and in- formed him that the Holy AUiance, in the greatest secrecy, had determined to subjugate the Central and South American conmiunities that had recently revolted from Spain. 117 118 DRAMATIC MOMENTS This was a startling revelation. To the American mind it would carry ter- rible consequences in its train. It meant the political control of America in the hands of the kings of Europe. It meant the forcible and final introduction of the monarchical system of government on this continent. It represented a death blow throughout the world to the ex- pansion of the right of revolution and the prin- ciples of the "will of the governed." And not least, the ultimate prospect that "we should have to fight upon our own shores for our own institutions." In order to realize the nature of the catas- trophe thus suddenly presented to our minis- ter, it is necessary to examine the nature, pur- pose, and power of this sanctimonious league. It consisted primarily of their majesties the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the Czar of Russia, all three dominated by the "biggest rascal and liar" in Christendom, the celebrated Prince Metternich, Minister of Aus- tria. Every little while this "voting trust" of IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 119 kings would meet under conditions of the most rigid secrecy and lay down the law to the world, make compacts, and establish principles, of which the following had been their latest and most definite: "Article I. The high contracting powers, being convinced that the system of representa- tive government is equally as incompatible with the monarchical principles as the maxim of the sovereignty of the people with the divine right, engage mutually, in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the sys- tem of representative governments, in what- ever country it may exist in Europe, and to prevent its being introduced in those countries where it is not yet known." Every first-class power in Europe, except Turkey, was a party to this formidable combi- nation. It was a close corporation for the running of Christendom. Several slight impediments had developed in the proceedings. One was that the Duke of Wellington, the foremost soldier in the world. 120 DRAMATIC MOMENTS had got up and left the meeting in Verona. The other was that George Canning had writ- ten a most unsjnnpathetie note to this effect: "We disclaim for ourselves and deny for other powers the right of requiring any changes in the internal institutions of independent states, with the menace of hostile attack in case of refusal." Aside from these slight annoyances the Holy Alliance had so far been a grand success. It had stamped out a revolution and the strug- gling liberal government in Spain with the utmost rigour and dispatch. It had broken with vigour and cruelty the spirit of Italians rising against intolerable tyranny. Its deeds and its overwhelming power spoke to America in tones even more menacing than its treaties. And now the American Minister was informed that it proposed to take domin- ion over South America, on behalf of the King of Spain. This called for immediate and drastic de- fence of some sort. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 121 As a nation we have long since forgotten the part played in this crisis by Great Britain. Canning disclosed the danger. And Rush reported that he went on to say: "Events are hourly assuming new importance and urgency, under aspects to which neither of our governments can be insensible." * * * 'He had the strongest reasons for believing that the co-operation of the United States with Eng- land, through my (Rush's) instrumentality, afforded with promptitude, would ward off al- together the meditated jurisdiction of the Eu- ropean powers over the new world.' Rush, with the independence and self-assur- ance that have been characteristic of American diplomats, undertook to put forth the joint challenge to the world on the spot. If he had, it would have joined the forces of these two great countries in the fight for liberal govern- ment in a formal as well as merely inevitable manner. But he refused to do so on his own responsibility, because Canning at the same time would not agree immediately to recognize 122 DRAMATIC MOMENTS the independence of all the revolted Spanish provinces. So the information was dispatched with all speed to the Department of State. And with it Canning's formal proposal that England and the United States jointly announce in the "face of the world" that : "We conceive the recoveries of the Colonies by Spain to be hopeless. * * * We aim not at the possession of any portion of them our- selves. We could not see any portion of them transferred to any other power with indiffer- ence." This meant, of course, that such an action would be the signal for bloody war. When James Monroe, President of the United States, received these dispatches he ceased to be interested in anything else. Ob- viously the action to be taken would have a paramount influence upon the future of the world. So he wrote to consult Thomas Jeffer- son, Nestor of America, in his retreat at Mon- ticello, saying: IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 123 *'I transmit to you two dispatches which were received from Mr. Rush which involve interests of the highest importance. They con- tain two letters from Mr. Canning suggesting designs of the Holy Alliance against the in- dependence of South America, and proposing a co-operation between Great Britain and the United States in support of it against the members of that alHance. * * * Has not the epoch arrived when Great Britain must take her stand either on the side of the monarchs of Europe or of the United States, and in conse- quence either in favour of despotism or of lib- erty? * * * My own impression is that we ought to meet the proposal of the British Gov- ernment." Jefferson's reply is peculiarly interesting in the light of recent events : "The question presented by the letters you have sent me is the most momentous which has ever been offered to my contemplation since that of independence. That made us a nation ; this sets our compass and points the course 124 DRAMATIC MOMENTS which we are to steer through the ocean of time opening on us. * * * America, North and South, has a set of interests distinct from those of Europe. She should therefore have a sys- tem of her own, separate and apart from that of Europe. While the last is labouring to be- come the domicile of despotism, our endeavour should surely be to make our hemisphere that of freedom. "One nation, most of all, could disturb us in this pursuit; she now offers to lead, aid, and accompany us in it. By acceding to her prop- osition, we detach her from the bands, bring her mighty weight into the scale of free gov- ernment, and emancipate a continent at one stroke, which might otherwise linger long in doubt and difficulty. Great Britain is the one nation which can do us the most harm of any one, on all the earth ; and with her on our side we need not fear the whole world. With her, then, we should most sedulously cherish a cor- dial friendship and nothing would tend more IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 125 to knit our affections than to be fighting once more, side by side, in the same cause." As I write this, nearly a hundred years later, the daily paper before me announces in great headlines the wild enthusiasm greeting the ar- rival of the first American troops in London. They are there to fight once more, side by side, in the same cause. The same old cause, against despotism. They are now keeping faith with George Canning, who "emancipated a conti- nent at one stroke." Curiously enough, the old Revolutionary patriot seems even to have foreseen the scream of the doubter who in sim- ilar circumstances cries out against fighting for England. He goes on to say, recently quoted by the Independent, and as true to-day as when it was written : "The war in which the present proposition might engage us, should that be its conse- quence, is not her war, but ours. Its object is to introduce and establish the American sys- tem of keeping out of our land all foreign pow- 126 DRAMATIC MOMENTS ers — of never permitting those of Europe to intermeddle with the affairs of our nations. It is to maintain our own principles, not to de- part from it. * * * With Great Britain with- drawn from their scale and shifted into that of our two continents, all Europe combined would not undertake such a war, for how would they propose to get at either enemy without su- perior fleet?" The result of this statement, enforced by practically identical advice from Madison, and co-operation of that far-sighted and rugged American, John Quincy Adams, was the state paper most vital in the life of our country. This was the message sent by the President to Congress, Dec. 2, 1823. It embraces the set of principles known as the Monroe Doctrine. They constitute the basis of a major part of our national policy and diplomacy. This mes- sage says : "The occasion has been judged proper for asserting as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 127 that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have as- sumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subject for future colonization by any European power. * * * We owe it, therefore, to candour, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. * * * " This was a world challenge of supreme im- pertinence and great daring. Not only can't you have any land, but we won't stand a min- ute for the holy system cultivated with so much care by the Alliance. In other words, one half of the world is free. I am aware that nothing could seem more trite and banal than reading a moral on as an- cient a matter as the Monroe Doctrine. Still nothing is more certain than that its true sig- nificance, as well as its origin and its mainte- nance, is unknown to the American public to- 128 DRAMATIC MOMENTS day. And to a great body of our chosen rep- resentatives in Congress assembled these things are as strange as the Koran. If the foregoing plain statement of the dip- lomatic correspondence, the opinion of the pro- mulgators, and the immediate historical causes of Monroe's famous message have any mean- ing whatever, it is this: That practically the whole world intended to attack this continent ; that for lack of a navy we could not possibly have prevented it; that a common ideal and sense of justice led the English to bring their peerless fleet to our defence. And subsequent history shows that they have ever since kept that fleet at our disposal for this same purpose. And it is now quite plain to even the sceptical Solon that, although they have lacked naval force for major hostilities in America, the forces of despotism, thwarted by Canning and Monroe, have ever since been gaining instead of losing the will and power to strike. The final and arch enemy of these forces is the United States. We are the cradle and cas- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 129 tie of all those liberal ideas which eat into their pretensions, and which this country and Eng- land alone championed in 1823. "It was impossible for the continental Eu- ropean powers to think of oversea military action in the face of the British and American fleets. Such hopes were sunk in the waters of Trafalgar beyond the possibility of resurrec- tion." CHAPTER NINE PUBLICITY vs. DUPLICITY. THE INTRIGUES OF AN EMPEROR A Mysterious Stranger Appears at the Paris Con- sulate with Proof of an Imperial Plot — The Iron- clad Rams of Napoleon III — The Death Knell of the Fleet and the Threatened Bombardment of New York — The Intrigues of an Emperor — The Fallacy of Neutrality — The Diplomatic IVIethods of John Bigelow — ^A Cunning Ruse — The Planted Dispatch — The Collapse of the Conspiracy. IT was during the Civil War. John Bigelow, consul-general of the United States, was transacting business in the consulate in Paris, France. It was Sept. 10, 1863. Entered David Fuller, messenger. He presented the card of a stranger. The stranger demanded an immediate audience, and that it be personal and private. Years afterward the distinguished journalist and 130 DRAMATIC MOMENTS 131 diplomat described this interesting interview as follows : "Permission granted, a man of middle age presently entered, and after closing the door carefully behind him proceeded to say that he had a communication to make of considerable importance to my government. He was a Frenchman of the Gascon type, small of sta- ture, with glittering black eyes, and thick, coarse, jet-black hair, which had appropriated to itself most of his forehead ; he was sober and deliberate of speech, as if he had been trained to measure his words and was accustomed to be held responsible for what he said. I was not prepossessed by his appearance, perhaps be- cause of my rather extensive experience of people continually presenting themselves at the consulate in quest of a market for their suspicions, rumours, and imaginings, and who usually introduced themselves, like the person before me, as bearers of information of vital importance. "I asked him to be seated, and waited for 132 DRAMATIC MOMENTS him to proceed. He asked if I was aware that the Confederates were building war vessels in France. * * * He proceeded to state as facts within his own knowledge that there were then building in the ports of Bordeaux and Nantes, for account of the Confederate States of America, several vessels, some of which were armour plated and with rams, which altogether were to cost from twelve to fifteen millions of francs; that the engines for some of them were built and ready to put in, and that for the armament of these vessels artillery and shells had also been ordered. I here remarked that no vessel of war could be built in France with- out the authorization of the French Govern- ment. He replied that the official authoriza- tion for the construction, equipment, and arm- ing of these vessels had already been issued from the Department of the Marine. I asked him if he meant seriously to affirm that the ves- sels he spoke of were building under an official authorization of the Government. He reaf- firmed his statement, and added further that he IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 133 was prepared to prove it to my entire satisfac- tion. "I tried not to betray my sense of the su- preme importance of this communication, which was too circumstantial and precise to be wholly imaginary, if possibly exaggerated. * * * ''I said to my visitor: 'Of course what you state is of grave importance to my govern- ment if it can be substantiated, but of none at all without proofs which cannot be disputed or explained away.' " *0f course not,' he replied. " 'What kind of proofs can you furnish?' I asked. " 'Original documents,' he said, 'and what is more, I will engage that with my proofs in hand, you can effectually secure the arrest of the ships. * * *' "He thereupon produced a certified copy of the government authorization and some half dozen original letters and papers, showing, be- yond a doubt, the substantial truth of his state- ments. * * * He said that of course the papers 184 DRAMATIC MOMENTS were not obtainable without some expense and much trouble, and that when the documents he proposed to furnish me had actually defeated the naval operations of the Confederates in France, he would expect 20,000 francs. * * * *'At the hours agreed upon on Saturday, the 12th, Mr. X reappeared with his supplemen- tary proofs. These, with those already in my possession, were conclusive ; nothing could have been more conclusive." The documents were letters from Arman, a great shipbuilder at Bordeaux, a member of the Legislature and a powerful partizan of the throne and imperialistic party in France. One was to M. Voruz, an ironfounder of Nantes, acknowledging receipt of moneys on account of "two ships which I am building for account of the Confederates." Another was to the Compte P. de Chasseloup-Laubat, Minister of the Marine in the Imperial Cabinet asking authority to arm four ships of war building in Bordeaux and Nantes. This let- ter naively stated that "Their special arma- IN AMEMCAlSr DIPLOMACY 135 ment contemplates their eventual sale to the governments of China and Japan." The most alarming of the lot was the official authoriza- tion signed by the Minister of Marine himself. This information was staggering. In our security of to-day it is impossible to conceive of the import of the situation, and the respon- sibility thus thrown in a few words upon the shoulders of the consul. It seemed possible that the fate of a nation was in his hands. It would have been scarcely more urgent if he had discovered a practical and imminent plot to blow up half of Grant's army in the moment of attack. A revolution had just taken place in the art of building ships of war. The discovery of the ironclad ram had rendered the navy of the United States as obsolete as the triremes of Greece. These two monsters nearing com- pletion in the ways at Bordeaux were more than a match for all the squadrons of Far- ragut. They were expected with justifiable confidence to blast the Stars and Stripes from 186 DRAMATIC MOMENTS the sea, to lift the blockade of the Southern ports, and to bombard the Bowery into sub- mission and tribute. In them lay new heart and life for the starv- ing Confederacy. They meant guns and ammunition for Longstreet's deadly riflemen. They meant murderous food for Pendle- ton's batteries, shoes and blankets for a desti- tute soldiery, and three-course dinners for a gaunt population. Far worse than this: for they carried with them the panic of dangers strange and unfamiliar. Their successful op- eration would give the eager Emperor of France the encouragement and opportunity he was panting for — to recognize, if not join, the Confederacy. Verily, circumstances alter cases. In 1776 a rebellious army in the United States had sought and obtained comfort and support from a Bourbon prince, in defiance of all rules of neutrality. And John Paul Jones in French ports had acquired the swift hulls and salt- petre which struck such a blow at the pride of IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 137 the Mistress of the Seas. This is extolled in story and song. But all authority is unani- mous in horror and indignation at the depreda- tions of that pirate ship, the Alabama, which swept our own flag from the ocean ; it execrates the memory of the Napoleonic despot who harboured the *'spy" Sliddel, and plotted the independence of Richmond under a neutral cloak. Although there remains no sane American who does not devoutly thank heaven for the success of the Union and the end of the with- ering system of slavery, there are many to whom it is not at all self evident that a sym- pathy and agreement with the cause of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in 1862 is con- clusive proof of total depravity. So in writ- ing this chronicle of the masterful manoeuvre by which a champion of the Federal cause con- tributed so much to the saving of the Union and discouraging its secret enemies abroad, there will be no pretence of thereby attempting to brand or catalogue the friends and enemies 138 DRAMATIC MOMENTS of America. At that time there were two Americas. And it was not so very obvious to the uninformed spectator in London and Paris which was the oppressed and which the op- pressor. No such doubt exists concerning the Em- peror of France. Napoleon III exhibited all the traits that had made the very name of em- peror a just cause of suspicion in the Republic, and has now finally goaded a patient world into a war of final riddance. At the outset it is only fair to say that the people of France had no voice in, part or sympathy with, the im- perialistic schemes of conquest and diplomatic duplicity that characterized the actions of their ruler. The moment the struggle broke out on the Potomac he saw his chance to put in practice the one infallible principle of princes — to conquer somebody. Under the familiar guise of collecting just debts he invited a number of powers to make a IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 139 joint expedition to Mexico. When he got firmly established there, he threw off the mask and proposed to stay. He put a satellite po- tentate of Austrian persuasion on the new throne. His partners in the enterprise, being honest in their purposes, withdrew. But there he remained. The army of Northern Virginia and Jubal Early's cavalry rendered impossible the defence of the Monroe Doctrine by Wash- ington. In their dire extremity the Confederates promised Mexico to Napoleon if they were suc- cessful. This, together with the natural de- sire of a would-be absolute monarch to destroy the power of the foremost democracy in the world, readily persuaded him to champion the Southern cause in Europe. Together with the rest of the world he had issued his declaration of neutrality in the beginning of the struggle. One of two things was necessary before he dared to commit himself to open war with the United States. One was the assistance of 140 DRAMATIC MOMENTS Great Britain. The other was a Confederate ^ victory giving him at least a favourable pre- diction of a final victory. His urgent and repeated attempts to per- suade the English to interfere, or at least recognize the Government of Richmond, had failed. They had failed in spite of the nobility, Mr. Gladstone, and the Prime IMinister, whose natural sympathies were with the Southern half of the country and the courtly genius which had hitherto predominated in American affairs; and also in spite of the high protective tariff just passed by the Union, causing great loss to British industry. He had failed because England was ruled by its people. These people had an inherent re- pugnance to the institution of slavery which no cabinet dared face; and strange to relate, the Queen of England would not hear of it. Queen Victoria probably had as broad a vision and as- deep an understanding of the future of the Anglo-Saxon strain as any person then IN AMERICAlSr DIPLOMACY 141 living. At all events, she is reported to have flatly stated to her minister : "My Lord, you must understand that I shall sign no paper which means war with the United States." Consequently our anxious diplomats in their outposts of the drama at Paris believed that the crisis had been averted, when the sudden entry of this Gascon informer from the offices of the ship -builder Arman disclosed a plot of the first magnitude hatching under their noses. One thing was certain. The American con- sul had to stop these ships from sailing, no mat- ter who was behind them, and no matter how he did it. Little things like this, hardly known by the public and ignored by those who see in a diplomat only a favoured plum-gatherer with a tinsel hat and a fancy tea room, are fre- quently put up to our representatives abroad. If this revelation exposed merely a Con- federate plot, and a shipyard working under cover of the false pretences that its vessels were 142 DRAMATIC MOMENTS for the Pacific trade, the problem was easy. With proofs now in his hands Bigelow could convince the authorities of the real designs of the enterprise, and they would be stopped at once. For this sort of thing was the gravest breach not only of the accepted laws governing neutrality, but of the repeated assurances and promises of the Emperor himself. A glance at his exhibits convinced the consul that Napoleon "was hovering over us — like the buzzards — in Gerome's famous picture, over the exhausted camel in the desert — only deferring his descent until we should be too feeble to defend our- selves." In other words Napoleon III was himself a party to the construction of these leviathans destined to destroy a friendly country. The first move was conventional. Com- plete copies of the papers were placed in the hands of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs. These were ac- companied by remonstrances, and insistent de- mands that the vessels be seized. The worthv IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 143 minister, who was not in his master's confi- dence, was shocked and astonished. He prom- ised to take up the matter at once with the Minister of Marine. And after so long a time the Minister of Marine, w^ho seemed to con- sider it altogether incredible that these ships should have anything to do with the Confed- eracy, promised to take it up with His ]\Iaj- esty. His Majesty was away on a fishing trip. Furious notes and thinly disguised threats heated the mails from Washington. The accepted channels of diplomacy were clogged with the debris of negotiations. But meanwhile day and night the work on the ironclads proceeded furiously. It became evident that the crafty Emperor was going to win in the slow race and manage to be con- vinced just about fifteen minutes after the rams had safely cleared the harbour. No hero was on hand so desperate and cap- able as to blow them up single-handed. And there were no boats afloat in America that could keep these di^agons of the deep in har- 144. DRAMATIC MOMENTS bour once they were ready to sail. There re- mained but one power to restrain them. The sense of justice. Not the Emperor's, for he had none. Not that of his ministers, for he controlled them. But the sense of justice of the people of France. When a consul starts to go behind the gov- ernment to which he is accredited and appeals in the name of a foreign power to the citizens of a country, he takes his reputation in his hands, and starts upon the forbidden paths that usually lead to disgrace and recall. As a matter of fact, it can only be done under two circumstances. One is under cover, where the envoy supplies the ammunition and a native does the talking — as when Bunau-Varilla en- gineered the defeat of the Nicaraguan route in the canal debate in Congress — or when the people are to be told something they wish to hear, and agree with in advance. Otherwise the fate of Dumba and citizen Genet lies in wait. Bigelow used both methods. If there exists IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 145 one characteristic distinctly and pre-eminently French it is the honour of country, what might be called a national chivalry. The glory and the good name of their native land is an exalted mania with all Frenchmen. Let them know the facts, and not even the Emperor would dare further to countenance actions that would re- flect upon the good name of France. This was Bigelow's opinion. And as a last chance it was to this end that he turned all his en- ergy. He went to the leader of the French bar — a man grown old in the service of his country, the soul of integrity, whose probity as well as consummate legal acumen had placed him in the foremost rank of his times. He was also a member of the Corps Legislatif, a powerful factor in the opposition. The case was put frankly before him. Whatever his opinions with regard to the American struggle, the Frenchman was in- dignant and astonished that France should be made to play this underhand role. He agreed 146 DRAMATIC MOMENTS to write a powerful denunciation of it to be signed by himself. This was placed in Bige- low's hands to be given to the press. But here a second obstacle was presented. An editor of liberal notions and national enthusiasm was readily found who gladly promised to print it. But in monarchies all grist that goes to the mill is not ground. The Minister of Interior got wind of the affair, and dispatched a per- emptory order that the article be suppressed. Publicity, not its form of presentation, was the gist of this silent battle. And it is well known that some things can be made more startling by concealment than by display. Bigelow did not hesitate to start the report which soon spread over Paris that an opinion of international moment, written by the great au- thority Antoine Pierre Berryer, had been sup- pressed. The eager and pressing curiosity and grow- ing comment carried the first rampart. Ar- man was ordered to cover his tracks by a sale of the vessels to Sweden, for account of Den- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 147 mark — with the assurance that only one would be delivered to the Danes. The other, once out of harbour, and the Americans lulled, would be transferred to the original destination. So great was the popular support gathering behind this rumour that, some weeks before the ships were ready, M. Guerault, Editor of the Opinion Nationale determined to throw down the gage to the royal power and pub- lished a ringing article, *'Les Corsair es du Sud" in which the government was openly charged with a conspiracy with Arman "against the very existence of a friendly power." These, the weapons of information and truth, are not so dramatic or so entertaining as the intricate intrigues of Metternich and the bold and bloody paths of daggers and lies by which Hichelieu gained his ends. But to-day the world is beginning to realize that they are by far the most powerful of all diplomatic weapons. In this case they insured the hasty retreat of the regal master from his equivocal position. They lined up the forces of public 148 DRAMATIC MOMENTS opinion across the mouth of the harbour of Bordeaux. But they could not change the heart or real purpose of the Emperor any more than they now change those of the Hohenzollern. These men must be fought as one fights fire, with their own weapons. If blood and iron be the weapons they choose, very well, let it be blood and iron. If it be deception, very well, cheat the cheat. So concluding, Bigelow put on the finishing touch. He brought the Emperor to his own way of thinking by methods undoubt- edly to the Emperor's fancy — had he recog- nized them. He sat down and wrote a fairy story to the American consul at Marseilles. He told him in confidence how speculators in the United States were building some dreadful warships, very like the Alabama — indeed, nicely calcu- lated to ruin the commerce of any nation in manner even worse than this scourge of the sea. And that they were to sail into the gulf of Mexico as privateers imder letters of IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 149 marque from Benito Juarez, the Mexican president, whom Napoleon had recently hounded into the mountains. And that un- doubtedly they would be ruinous to French commerce and schemes in those latitudes. This, all in a letter, in the nature of confiden- tial information, he dispatched by courier. He took very good care that it never reached its destination. The consul at Marseilles was not the person he wished to delude. Providen- tially it was stolen on the road and found its way at once into a newspaper. The happy conclusion is soon told. John- son, the historian says : "In all this there was no truth whatever, but the Emperor supposed it all to be true, and he made haste to stop the saihng of the Confed- erate ships, and to assure Bigelow of his friend- ship for the United States." CHAPTER TEN THE "TRENT" AFFAIR Righting An Old Wrong — Introducing an Ultima- tum, Including the Story of a Hold-Up at Sea — Two Ambassadors Captured and Imprisoned in Fort War- ren, Boston — A Lesson in International Law Proves an Example of International Joke — A National Celebration — A National Indignation — A National Retraction. Abraham Lincoln's Way — Anecdotes vs. the Rattling Sabre — A Conference of State — Salmon P. Chase States a Principle. I AM now about to exhibit an example of that interesting document, an ultimatum. It is the only thoroughly business-like ulti- matum we ever received. I have to confess that to the uninitiated it will prove a great dis- appointment. That is, if they expect as I did, to find an ultimatum bristling with threats and fascinating thunder-bolts of defiance, in Hec- tor's vein. It was presented with great polite- ness, as if it had been a bunch of jonquils, by 150 DRAMATIC MOMENTS 151 Lord Lyon, British Ambassador in Washing- ton, to William H. Seward, Secretary of State, in the cabinet of Abraham Lincoln. It read more or less like a story book, and was embodied in instructions the ambassador re- ceived from home, which he was to give the Secretary. This is the way it went: I Foreign Office, Nov. 30, 1861. My Lord: "Intelligence of a very grave nature has reached Her Majesty's Government. *'This intelligence was conveyed officially to the knowledge of the admiralty by Commander Williams, agent for mails on board the con- tract steamer Trent, "It appeared from the letter of Commander Williams, dated 'Royal Mail Contract Packet Trent, at sea, November, 9,' that the Trent left Havana on the 7th instant, with Her Majesty's mails for England, having on board numerous passengers. Commander Williams states that shortly after noon, on the 8th, a steamer having the appearance of a man of war, but not show- 152 DRAMATIC MOMENTS ing colours, was observed ahead. On nearing her, at 1:15 P. M., she fired a round shot from her pivot-gun across the bows of the Trent and showed American colours. While the Trent was approaching her slowly, the American ves- sel discharged a shell across the bows of the Trent exploding half a cable's length ahead of her. The Trent then stopped, and an officer with a large armed guard of marines boarded her. The officer demanded a list of pas- sengers, and, compliance with this demand be- ing refused, the officer said he had orders to arrest Messrs. Mason, Slidell, McFarland, and Eustis, and that he had sure information of their being passengers in the Trent, While some parley was going on upon this matter, Mr. Slidell stepped forward and told the American officer that the four persons he had named were then standing before him. The commander of the Trent and Commander Wil- liams protested against the act of taking by force out of the Trent these four passengers, then imder the protection of the British flag. IN AMERICAlSr DIPLOMACY 153 Eut the San Jacinto was at that time only two hundred yards from the Trent, her ship's com- pany at quarters, her ports open and tompions out. Resistance was therefore out of the ques- tion and the four gentlemen before named were forcibly taken out of the ship. A further demand was made that the commander of the Trent should proceed on board the San Jacinto, but he said he would not go unless forcibly com- pelled likewise, and this demand was not in- sisted upon. "It thus appears that certain individuals have been forcibly taken from on board a Brit- ish vessel, the ship of a neutral power, while such vessel was pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage — an act of violence which was an af- front to the British flag and a violation of in- ternational law. "Her Majesty's Government, bearing in mind the friendly relations which have long existed between Great Britain and the United States, are willing to believe that the United States naval officer who committed the aggres- 154 DRAMATIC MOMENTS sion was not acting in compliance with any au- thority from his government, or that if he con- ceived himself to be so authorized he greatly misunderstood the instructions he had received. For the government of the United States must be fully aware that the British Government could not allow such an affront to the national honour to pass without full reparation, and Her Majesty's government is unwilling to be- heve that it could be the deliberate intention of the government of the United States unneces- sarily to force into discussion between the two governments a question of so grave a character, and with regard to which the whole British nation would be sure to entertain such unanim- ity of feeling. *'Her Majesty's Government, therefore, trusts that when this matter shall have been brought under the consideration of the govern- ment of the United States, that government will, of its own accord, offer to the British Gov- ernment such redress as alone could satisfy the British nation, namely, the liberation of the IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 155 four gentlemen and their delivery to your Lordship, in order that they may again be placed under British protection, and a suitable apology for the aggression which has been com- mitted. ''Should these terms not be offered by Mr. Seward, you will propose them to him. "You are at liberty to read this dispatch to the Secretary of State, and, if he shall desire it, you will give him a copy of it. "I am, etc., "Russell." With this went the fuse to set the charge. "Should Mr. Seward ask for delay in order that this grave and painful matter should be deliberately considered, you will consent to a delay not exceeding seven days. If at the end of that time, no answer is given, or if any other answer is given except that of a compliance with the demands of Her Majesty's Govern- ment, your Lordship is instructed to leave Washington with all the members of your lega- tion and repair immediately to London." 156 DRAMATIC MOMENTS This document was a poser, and gave the Secretary of State about as hvely and as ex- acting a seven days as he ever had. Diplom- acy became an active and important function in the City of Washington. In so far as this country or any other is gov- erned in its quarrels and conflicts by interna- tional law the problem was a very easy one. The joke was on Great Britain. It was simply splendid. For here was Lord Palmerston in the most concise and unequivocal manner stak- ing everythmg he had and the seven seas upon the proposition that to stop a neutral boat and take off a passenger was an outrage and a scandal. Now that was just exactly what this country had contended for a century more or less, and it was this very kind of action that had called forth the resentment of the Frigate Constitution in the days of 1812. Provided my Lord's facts, so clearly put, were true, and provided we wished to follow the law in all its holy inviolability, all we had to do was politely acquiesce, and congratulate the Queen upon IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 157 having finally arrived at a proper conception of the rules of the sea. The facts were true — ^to a letter. And the law as I stated. It was as clear as noonday, as contended for in America, that nobody but soldiers of a belligerent power could be re- moved from under a neutral flag. Maybe, then, you will conclude that was all there was about it. That was not even the beginning. For my Lord overlooked a few trifling facts. He was quite right in doing so. They were what the lawyers call irrelevant to the interna- tional issue, and he was not writing a romance. But in human afl*airs, American as well as others, the law has less to do with conduct than the lawyers or the professors would have us believe. And irrelevant testimony is quite often that which controls not only the jury, but the judge. Mr. Seward's problem was intensified by the identity of these same four passengers. Mr. James Murray Mason was a gentleman of credit and renown. He had shortly before 158 DRAMATIC MOMENTS been chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the United States Senate, and was the descendant of a long line of famous states- men in Virginia since before the Revolution. Mr. Slidell had also recently been a senator, and was known to be a gentleman of great polish and address, forensic skill and diploma- tic acumen. These two masters of the arts of the politician, if not of the statesmen, were versed to the minute in the affairs of the world and the accepted methods of procedure, and would make a very telling team sent out from some country on a deep diplomatic errand. So Jefferson Davis, President of the Confed- erate States believed, and William H. Seward agreed with him. When the news reached New York and Bos- ton that these two depraved and dangerous "traitors" representing a wicked rebellion had actually left Charleston on the Nashville as "ambassadors" bent upon making alliance for their government with Great Britain and France, and to get warships and cannon and IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 159 heaven knows what instruments of the devil, the people were furious. When they learned that the Nashville was only a blind, and that the perfidious wretches had sneaked by the blockade in the Theodora, while the fleet chased the other boat, they were drunk with indigna- tion. It seemed as if they could part with their inlieritance if only they could get hold of these arch rebels. Meanwhile, another style of man came into the game. Captain Charles Wilkes, in com- mand of the first-class screw sloop San Jacinto, of fifteen guns, was animated by no motives whatever. Through a long career he had up- held the highest traditions of the United States Navy. Action was his long suit. The case was still to be recorded where the American Navy has not struck on the spot if it had half an excuse. Well, he came cruising into Ha- vana from the west coast of Africa about this time, on his way home from hunting slave trad- ers. At Havana, his second officer ran into his old acquaintance. Mason, in the Hotel 160 DRAMATIC MOMENTS Cubana. And every bell boy was full of the entertaining story of how the Confederates had fooled the Yankees, and were now about to sail under the certain protection of the Eng- lish flag. No secret was made of it. Every- body was to see them off on the Trent bound for Bermuda. Captain Wilkes made up his mind. Lieu- tenant Fairfax suggested some doubts. Doubts constituted no argument against a life- time of decision. When the British packet sailed into the Bahama Channel she found Cap- tain Wilkes waiting for her, and her distin- guished guests were provided with other quar- ters in short order, flag or no flag. When this news reached Broadway, Back Bay and points north and west, there was the greatest demonstration ever seen. The hated prisoners were led to a secure resting place, while bells rang, and orators spoke, and the Captain was wined and dined and thanked by Congress and forty Chambers of Commerce. The Revere House in Boston was the scene IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 161 of a tremendous welcome, and the papers burst forth into pseans of thanksgiving. The mirac- ulous had happened. The arch rebels were caught. The right had been vindicated and everybody was happy. Not only that, but the national legislature in all-but-unanimous vote declared the capture a splendid achievement. In the heat of a civil war the great legal lights of the country, men like William Evarts and Senator Hale, main- tained with vehemence that it was not only justifiable but that any other course would have been degrading. And every editorial writer with hardly an exception swore that he would die in abject poverty fighting all Europe before he would give up the scoundrels. To this solid body of popular opinion and enthusiasm were added the cold, calculating and deliberately treasonable propaganda and efforts of Vallandigham in the House of Rep- resentatives, who worked on the public passion with all his might, in the hope of bringing on war, and so helping the Confederates. Very 162 DRAMATIC MOMENTS much as certain of his kind are now working to damage the United States in war from that same body. The demand of Lord Lyon and the ancient American doctrine on the one hand, and the people flushed with triumph, a new hero and the human booty on the other — this was the problem of seven days for Seward. The records of the time, including the public press, the thunder of Congress, the innumera- ble speeches before assemblies, and the diaries and biographies of the many historic figures on the stage reveal only one man quite calm and placid through it all. He sat in the White House, and outraged decency by relating an- ecdotes which he considered apropos of the situation. When told in tragic tones that there would surely be war between England and the United States his reply was a parable: "My father had a neighbour from whom he was separated by a fence. On each side of that fence there were two savage dogs, who kept running backward and forward along the IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 163 barrier all day, barking and snapping at each other. One day they came to a large opening recently made in the fence. Perhaps you think they took advantage of this to devour each other. Not at all; scarcely had they seen the gap, when they both ran back, each with his tail between his legs." The cabinet met to discuss the affair on Christmas day, five days after Lord Lyon had made his demand. This left two days to go, with the British guns before and the warlike mob behind. And, not an unusual occurrence, the President was the only man present who had expressed no violent sentiments, and so had none to withdraw. As a matter of fact, in spite of the hot blood and the natural resentment, there was never really any doubt of the outcome of this meet- ing. It has been assumed by rampant parti- sans of the Union disguised as historians that Seward finally yielded in this matter with creditable bad grace in the face of a dire nec- essity, chargeable to the tyrannical government 164. DRAMATIC MOMENTS of perfidious Albion. This explanation is not borne out either by the known character of the Americans, who have never been known to re- fuse a fight because the odds were against them, nor by the accounts of the cabinet meeting which are extaiit. Stripped of the high feel- ings of the moment, the temper of the people and the political dangers at home attendant upon a yielding decision, the case was plain enough. And it appears that from the first Abraham Lincoln had perceived this. And it is not the least of the many great decisions to his credit. He decided to yield because the English were right. Not because they were strong. And because the United States was wrong, and not because she was weak. The prevailing view in the cabinet after the discussion was expressed by Secretary Salmon P. Chase. He sacrificed his feelings to his sense of justice. Here is the way he expressed it: "It is gall and wormwood to me. Rather IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 165 than consent to the liberation of these men I would sacrifice everything I possess. But I am consoled by the reflection that, while nothing but severest retribution is due to them, the surrender, under existing circumstances, is but simply doing right — simply proving faith- ful to our own ideas and traditions under strong temptation to violate them — simply giv- ing to England and the world the most signal proof that the American nation will not, under any circumstances, for the sake of inflicting jiist punishment on rebels, commit even a technical wrong against neutrals." This position was courageous and manly. And if Seward had seen the point he could probably have turned the occasion into the in- ternational joke of the century. Perhaps he did see it, but feared the political effect at home of a simple, straightforward admission of error. At all events, his answer was a book full of bad English precedents instead of good Amer- ican law, and long-winded arguments of a na- 166 DRAMATIC MOMENTS ture to assuage the feelings of his constituents. It contained just one sentence of any conse- quence : *'The four persons in question are now held in military custody, at Fort Warren, in the State of Massachusetts. They will he cheer- fully liberated. Your Lordship will please to indicate a time and place for receiving them." The incident was closed. The only perma- nent effect upon international relations was the inevitable end of the doctrine of "visit and search." The only flaw in the proceedings from the American point of view was our fail- ure to point this out with vigour and good hu- mour. CHAPTER ELEVEN COACHING CHINA The Everlasting Problem of the "Inferior Race." Conflict of "Manifest Destiny" and the "Square Deal." A Crisis in the Orient. The "Powers" Rig an Action Against the Celestial Kingdom, Backing the Advance of the Caucasian Drummer. Anson Burlingame, Back Bay Politician, Takes the Case of China. The Fate of a Continent in His Hands — An Ambassador to All the World. His Treaty with Seward. A Convention with Lord Clarendon. The Triumphant Diplomatic Conquest of Two Emperors and the Iron Chancellor. FROM Berlin to Bagdad, from Cairo to Cape Town, from Samarkand to Bom- bay, the whole planet has witnessed the assimilation, benevolent and otherwise, of every inferior, that is to say weaker people, under the sun, excepting only the monumental Chinese. Searching back among the intricate and de- 167 168 DRAMATIC MOMENTS vious national jealousies and heroic figures of a century of diplomacy in the Orient for the cause of this phenomenon, we come upon a strange spectacle ; two Americans, one in com- mand of the Chinese Army, and the other, am- bassador from China to the entire world. One holding the long-haired rebels at bay in the mysterious recesses of the kingdom; the other keeping the Christian kings from "taking China by the throat." The understanding of the indignation mentioned above involves the record of the second of these old adventurers, the ambassador. But I cannot forbear to give a little contemporaneous picture of his com- panion piece, the barest recital of the incidents of whose career are sufficient to give him fore- most rank among the soldiers of fortune that have heralded the coming of the diplomat in every frontier known to the Anglo-Saxon. This was General Frederick T. Ward, or- ganizer of the first Chinese troops trained and disciplined under modern methods — known to IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 169 history as the "Ever- victorious Army," after- ward in command of "Chinese" Gordon. The old account says: "He is instructing the Chi- nese in the use of European weapons, and has about two thousand of them trained, whom he has led in a most desperate manner, success- fully, in several recent battles. * * * He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, went to sea when a boy, became mate of a ship, and then was a Texas ranger, California gold miner, in- structor in the Mexican service, was with Walker — for which he was outlawed by his government — at the Crimea, and then joined the Chinese, among whom he has gradually risen to influence and j)ower. He is now their best officer. * * * " But what saved China was not an officer. Hannibal himself would have thrown up the job of defending this world of Chinese ac- customed to go to war with an armour-bearer before and a parasol valet behind. The most potent single factor in a long and complex 170 DRAMATIC MOMENTS drama, was their first and greatest diplomat — Anson Burlingame, late orator of Faneuil Hall, Boston, State of Massachusetts. A narrative of this unique envoy, sent from the Past to negotiate with the Future, is not out of place in the chronicle of American dip- lomatic exploits, for he was also minister from the United States to China, and the founder of the American policy of "Hands Off" and a square deal. He was one of the few men in history trusted to the extent of representing both sides of an international discussion at one and the same time — a particularly trying posi- tion, considering that neither side had the slightest idea what the other was talking about, and from their cradles were fundamentally in- capable of finding out. This Back Bay politician possessed precisely no diplomatic training whatever. His original appointment was in large measure due to the answer he gave to Preston Brooks, after the South Carolinian had beaten the Senator from Massachusetts with a cane in full view of the IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 171 nation. This answer delighted the world. It suggested rifles at short range on Deer Island by Niagara Falls. His equipment was of a kind that a lifetime spent in the libraries of the world and all the courts in creation would never supply. It consisted mainly of three things, given him by his fathers: a sense of chivalry, that is, the sympathy and simple courage which champions the weak; hard practical common sense that neither the mysticism of the East nor the pompous and regal ceremony and ar- rogance of the West could befuddle or betray ; a personal charm of character and manners of whose failure in courtesy there is no record. He received his appointment as Minister to China in 1861, and set out across the world in much the same frame of mind as one might now start for Saturn. He was not trammeled with "arbitrary instructions" for the very good rea- son that Secretary Seward, man of imagination though he was, could not imagine what to in- struct him. At that time the prevailing diplo- matic procedure in the East was conducted by 172 DRAMATIC MOMENTS gunboats and the war then just started at Fort Sumter rendered it inadvisable for Seward to spare any such at the moment. So this Yankee landed in the ancient king- dom of the inscrutable Manchus from aboard a packet, as innocent of the feuds and imponder- abilities of Chinese politics as he was of the con- flicting and sordid ambitions of the Caucasian drummers already arrived to exploit them. He found what Gilbert calls a pretty howdy- do — a government as old and immovable as the desert, with not even the faintest germ of a desire for "progress." Locomotives, me- chanical toys, telegrams, thrashing machines, bath-tubs, and all modern improvements were to them eyesores and abominations. The worst of it was that as a plain matter of fact this government suited them exactly. It filled every want and withstood revolution and dis- order in a manner to create the wildest envy in every cabinet in Christendom. To becloud the picture one of these revolu- tions was then at high tide. This was being IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 173 conducted by the Taipings, whose professions of Christianity did not prevent a consistent practice of massacre, loot, and pillage. In an- other quarter the country was being sacked in the name of Mohammed, while the professed bandits in a third tried in vain to keep up their reputation. A punitive expedition had shortly before es- tablished the European embassies in Pekin, intrenching another menace to the celestial kingdom ten times more formidable than all the Moslems and bandits in existence. These were the peaceful heralds of coming light — ^the merchants and traders of England and France. They camped in the "Treaty Ports" and were the self-appointed interpreters of China to a curious world, and the advisors to their most Christian majesties. Any man at all versed in the affairs of the East will bear testimony that the great mass of these traders, speculators and financial adven- turers — both those with simply selfish motives and reputable and honourable business men — 174 DRAMATIC MOMENTS have no more real knowledge or appreciation of the Chinese than has the total stranger. They know their trade and resources, but not one Chinese intimately, and the history, philosophy, deep convictions, and proud dig- nity of the Chinese, are matters of indiffer- ence to them. At that time those were con- sidered hardly more than an insult, interfer- ing as they did with the divine right of busi- ness, and the advance of profits. This ele- ment made the loudest claims upon diplomacy and created the world problem, not yet solved, which Anson Burlingame was called upon to meet. This European advance guard was undoubt- edly composed of men of a strong strain and daring dispositions, risking much in a new field to gain much. There was nothing wicked about them. They held a philosophy still prevalent in commercial circles — a philosophy which has goaded every foreign office for a hundred years, and only reached its logical con- clusion in the efficiency and f rightfulness on the IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 175 fields of Flanders. The civilized world has the problem presented by it still to face. Roughly the point of view was this : A superior nation has the right, if not the duty, of compelling an inferior nation to adopt such ideas of government, justice, and customs as it may decree, and to open its territories to the use, and its resources to the benefit of the superior nation. Particularly the latter. The creed is that "manifest destiny" makes such physical and political domination inevi- table in the interests of civilization, and "prog- ress." Without exception, the demand is that this shall be accomplished in short order by force of arms, so that a heaven-sent "culture" may uplift the benighted area. In other words, the trader from a "civilized" state may proceed to a "heathen" state and sell his goods or conduct his enterprise in any way he sees fit, and has the right to demand military and diplomatic support for his decision. Perhaps such action is inevitable, like the tides, and beyond the control of men's minds. 176 DRAMATIC MOMENTS however enlightened. My purpose is to show that when confronted with this problem Anson Burlingame undertook to decide it; and, as far as the United States and China were con- cerned, he succeeded in the manner I shall now relate. From the day of his arrival he took the unique and bizarre attitude that the Chinese were real people, to be treated with courtesy and consideration. In spite of the fact that he was the representative of a foreign nation with "interests" to conserve or acquire he held the idea that the country belonged absolutely and entirely to the Chinese, and that it was their business as well as their privilege to conduct it. It took him about a week to discover the trav- esty in the Taiping's Christianity, and he en- couraged the training and dispatch of Ward's forces to put them down. Upon reaching Pekin he sought out the other ministers, and became shortly the leading spirit in a diplomat quartette called by Frederick Wells Williams the "Four B's"— Count Balluzech, the Rus- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 177 sian; M. Berthemy, the French Minister; Sir Frederick Bruce, and Anson Burlingame. Thrown together constantly in informal and intimate association, together they formulated that which was the forerunner of the famous "Open Door" policy of John Hay. As stated in his dispatch to Washington it was as follows : "The policy upon which we agreed is briefly this : that while we claim our treaty right to buy and sell and live in the treaty ports, subject in respect to rights of property and persons to the jurisdiction of our own governments, we will not ask for, nor take concessions of, terri- tory in the treaty ports or in any way interfere with the jurisdiction of the Chinese Govern- ment over its own people, or ever menace the territorial integrity of the Chinese Empire. That we will not take part in the internal strug- gles in China beyond what is necessary to main- tain our treaty rights. * * * "By the favoured-nation clause in the treat- ies, no nation can gain, by any sharp act of diplomacy, any privilege not secured to all. 178 DRAMATIC MOMENTS The circumstances conspire to make this a for- tunate moment in which to inaugurate the co- operative policy. * * * Our only hope is in forbearance and perfect union among our- selves ; if these are maintained, and our govern- ments sustain us in the policy we have adopted, I cannot but be hopeful of the future, and feel that a great step has been taken in the right direction in China." He pursued this understanding with his col- leagues with such good faith that the Chinese came to regard him as a real friend. The in- fluence of this representative who had not one bluejacket or doughboy behind him became a prime influence in the country. Shortly after his arrival the French consul at Ning-po began the nagging and the grabbing again. He wanted another concession. Concessions giv- ing European jurisdiction was the panacea uni- versally recommended by the traders and, of course, universally resisted by the Mandarins. Burlingame urged the Chinese to put up a stiff front and had a heart-to-heart talk with IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 179 the French consul upon which the effort was abandoned. He successfully mediated in a dispute be- tween the Pekin Government and a British concern that arrived in China with a squadron of warships which it proposed the Chinese should take, English crews and all. The re- sult, again a triumph of fair play, was that the Lay-Osborne Flotilla sailed back to England. A more important consequence to the United States was the subsequent action obtained from the grateful Chinese forbidding the Con- federate raider Alabama even to approach the ports of the Empire. This was more of a concession than any of our famous am- bassadors could get from any country in Eu- rope. Not the least of his services to China was his influence in leading the Prince to solicit the services of the eminent American engineer, Raphael Pumpelly, to make the first examina- tion of their mineral resources. It was all very well for the ministers in Pekin to agree upon this mild procedure, but 180 DRAMATIC MOMENTS the tide of commerce and the demands of busi- ness were driving from the other direction. Firm in the belief that a "strong and vigorous policy," continual "pressure," and a coercion based upon the unanswerable arguments of naval batteries were the only methods to handle a "foreign, corrupt, semi-barbarous and usurp- ing government," they were rapidly driving that government to its wits' end. The expira- tion of some of their trade conventions threat- ened the distracted ministers with unknown disasters. For even if they were willing to ac- cept uplift and progress, the people were not. They would resist with all the fury begotten of an inherent reverence for and devotion to their ancient traditions, customs, and "supersti- tions." If the Dowager Empress decided to resist, she knew very well she would be over- whelmed. If she did not, her throne would not be worth a yen. The people would not stand by her. The prospect was that demands would be made for the exemption of foreign goods from IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 181 inland and local taxes, the introduction of rail- roads and telegraph hnes, the privileges of opening mines, and the establishment of inter- national courts for collecting from debtor Chi- nese. This was a fearful prospect to the re- gents. What might come by time was one thing, but these demands at the mouth of a cannon amounted to ruination. Here we get some conception both of the Chinese character and of Burlingame. Only one way out occurred to them. It was almost as revolutionary and undignified as the tele- graph. That was to send an embassy to these heathen countries in Europe to see w^hat it was all about, if any one could find out, and to per- suade them to be reasonable, if perchance such a miracle was possible. They had made a kind of tentative experi- mental effort of this sort once before. They had not established embassies to be sure, but still had taken a very radical and doubtful step. They had actually sent Mr. Pin Chun on a scouting expedition to see what those 182 DRAMATIC MOMENTS countries were like. What Mr. Pin Chun re- ported is not obtainable, but it hardly covered the exigencies of the occasion as an English account of his visit may explain. It says : **He was received like the Queen of Sheba bj King Solomon and shown — at least in Great Britain — everything that was admirable from the West- em point of view. He was as far, however, from appreciating the triumphs of science as was Cetewajo the Zulu, whose admiration of England focussed itself on the elephant Jumbo at the Zoolog- ical Gardens." It is not my purpose to affect to patronize these people. A greater mistake could not be made. Keener, more capable, statesman than some of those consulted on this occasion could not be found from the time of Solomon to that of Jumbo. Li Hung Chang's report on the subject is on record, and, if they had seen it, would probably have caused the utmost aston- ishment to the self-satisfied critics of the "semi- barbarians." The consequence of the decision reached by Prince Kung and his advisors was radical and IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 183 it was conclusive evidence of a penetrating judgment both of character and of events. They appointed Anson Burhngame ambassa- dor to all the Treaty Powers without excep- tion and returned him to Seward with even more extensive powers than those with which he came. The confidence placed in this Yankee's good will, ability, and understanding apparently had no limit. '*Go forth," they said; "we place the fate of China in your hands." Burlingame received this proposition in amazement, of course, but he accepted it at its face value. He wrote Seward : "I may be permitted to add that when the oldest nation in the world, containing one-third of the human race, seeks, for the first time, to come into relations with the West and requests the youngest nation, through its representa- tive, to act as the medium of such change, the mission is not one to be slighted or rejected." Having concluded that Burlingame under- stood their situation and could be trusted to 184 DRAMATIC MOMENTS present their case, the Chinese wasted no words on ceremony. There is an appealing dignity and brevity about their announcement of the mission. "The envoy Anson Burlingame manages af- fairs in a friendly and peaceful manner, and is fully acquainted with the general relations between this and other countries ; let him, there- fore, now be sent to all the Treaty Powers as the high minister, empowered to attend to every question arising between China and those countries. This from the Emperor." Resigning as minister from the United States and assuming the extraordinary role as Chinese ambassador to all creation, the Yankee set out to Tientsin in a cart. He was accom- panied on the expedition by a suite of thirty persons. Two of those were secretaries — J. McLeavy Brown, Chinese secretary of the British Legation, and M. Deschamps, a Frenchman in high esteem in Pekin. Two others were members of the Chinese 400, sent as official "learners" for to see and to admire. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 185 It soon became evident that the Empress had played a strong hand. Not only had she turned against the West one of its own most powerful orators, and one whose ringing de- mands for fair play in the King's English could not be avoided, but she had staged a blazing ad- vertisement of her kingdom and its proposi- tion. As a publicity campaign it eclipsed everything known to date, and made Barnum look like an amateur. To give the proper dramatic and Homeric touch to the picture the party was set upon by highwaymen on the way to the coast. The ubiquitous British gunboat having saved the situation, all hands and an exhibit of curiosities embarked for California and the great adven- ture. At sight of the Golden Gate and the familiar shores of home it is said that Burlingame's heart failed him. He reflected upon the shift- ing sands and the masquerade fury of Ameri- can politics, known of old, and began to dread the possible indignation and brick-bats of a con- 186 DRAMATIC MOMENTS stituency lashed from the stump to hector the "American Chinaman" and the "Pigtail here- tic." True enough, a howling mob jammed the docks, but not in anger. With pure delight they crowded to herald the big show. An ova- tion equal to the triumphant return of a victo- rious Csesar accompanied him across the con- tinent. His Oriental embassy was received in great state by President Johnson, and Burlin- game opened the big guns of the campaign. He drew a picture of a peaceful, ancient and honourable kingdom, of a civilization already grown old while the Vandals were still scouring Europe; to which were due the courtesy and consideration observed by all gentle people to the venerable, and in a thousand different keys reiterated the one great principle he had de- termined to establish — that the world should cease to bully and coerce the Ancient King- dom. The immediate political effect he was work- ing for was not new treaties. It was a moder- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 187 ate and reasonable interpretation of the old ones. The existing treaties had been gained by force and threats. It was obvious that they would be executed by the same methods, over the dead bodies of a milhon Chinese. True to his trust he was representing China but his statesmanlilve conception went much further than that. Even from the selfish point of view of "National Interest," the one maxim of di- plomacy of the era, the practice of encroaching upon China held a deadly peril. It insured ultimate friction and war between the bood- lers. The **Harpie Nations" would shortly and surely come to blows over the booty — end- ing in none could guess what wide conflagra- tion. Of course this argument and policy produced a storm of protest, ridicule, and fight from those depending upon guns to expand their business, and also from the "Imperialists" of all nations. Dreams of great "spheres of in- fluence" in the East filled the minds of con- tinental statesmen. 188 DRAMATIC MOMENTS The battle raged about Burlingame's pres- entation of the case at a banquet given him in New York, presided over by the Governor. "You have given a broad and generous wel- come," he said, "to a movement made in the interests of all mankind. * * * That East, which men have sought since the days of Alexander, now seeks the West. China, emerging from the mists of time, but yesterday suddenly entered your Western gates, and con- fronts you by its representatives here to-night. * * * She comes with the great doctrine of Confucius, uttered two thousand three hun- dred years ago : *Do not unto others what you would not have others do unto you.' Will you not respond, with the more positive doctrine of Christianity : 'We will do unto others what we would have others do unto us' ? * * * "She asks you to forget your ancient preju- dices, to abandon your assumption of superior- ity, and to submit your questions to her, as she proposes to submit hers to you — to the arbitra- ment of reason. She wishes no war : she asks IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 189 you not to interfere in her internal af- fairs. * * * "She asks you that you will respect the neutrality of her waters and the integrity of her territory. She asks in a word, to be left perfectly free to unfold herself precisely in that form of civilization of which she is most capa- ble. "She asks you to give to those treaties which were made under the pressure of war a gener- ous and Christian construction. Because you have done this, because the Western nations have reversed their old doctrine of force, she responds, and, in proportion as you have ex- pressed your good will, she has come forth to meet you; and I aver that there is no spot on earth where there has been greater progress made in the past few years than in the Empire of China. * * * "Yet notwithstanding this manifest prog- ress, there are people who will tell you * * * that it is the duty of the Western Treaty Powers to combine for the purpose of coercing 190 DRAMATIC MOMENTS China into reforms which they may desire but >vhich she may not desire — ^who undertake to say that this people have no rights which you are bound to respect. In their coarse language they say: *Take her by the throat.' Using the tyrant's plea, they say they know better what China wants than China does her- self. * * * "Now it is against the malign spirit of this tyi'annical element that this Mission was sent forth to the Christian world. * * * "Missions and men may pass away, but the principles of eternal justice will stand. I de- sire that the autonomy of China may be pre- served. I desire that her independence may be secured. I desire that she may have equality, that she may dispense equal privileges to all nations. If the opposite school is to prevail, if you are to use coercion against that great people, then who are to exercise the coercion, whose forces are you to use, whose views are you to establish? You see the very attempt to carry out any such tyrannical policy would in- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 191 volve not only China, but would involve you in bloody wars with each other. * * * " I have given this speech at such length be- cause the argument is not done yet. It would take a bold man to make its counterpart in Tokio to-morrow, and changing the name China to divers other places it would meet with a howl in most countries of the world to-day, or would if every one were not busy with the grand and final tyranny of all. The result in the United States was imme- diate and lasting success. A new treaty was signed on the spot. It recognized China's right to "unmolested dominion over her own territories" including the "concessions" except as already modified by treaties. It gave the Emperor unlimited right to make such changes or improvements or decrees as he chose regard- ing the internal affairs of his kingdom without any foreign dictation. In those respects the principles of American policy have not changed from that day to this and as a result have placed us in the honour- 192 DRAMATIC MOMENTS able position of being the only nation which has never despoiled the poor old hermit, and perhaps of being her sole disinterested cham- pion in a world of wolves. For the rest the treaty went too far. It permitted unlimited immigration which later fell foul of our west- ern coast and the Labour Unions. Facing the screams of the Shanghai press this strange embassy proceeded in state to Lon- don. An Oriental more or less, or one or two brigades of ambassadors were no novelty in England and the populace seemed to proceed on their accustomed way in spite of the em- bassy. But the results obtained from the Gov- ernment were as far-reaching in their way as the American Treaty. The Queen gave an audience at Windsor, the stately castle later to give name and title to the ruling House of England. And Lord Clarendon, a liberal peer who had recently been given the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, took Burlingame into counsel. The consequence was a total reversal IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 193 of the Palmerston policy, the "Firm Hand," and the acceptance of the ambassador's princi- ples of "Hands Off." Or, as the Imperialists put it, "the relapse of Great Britain into an effeminate, invertebrate, inconsequent policy, swayed by every wind from without and within, and opposed to the judgment of her own experienced representative." This policy was put in motion by a letter written by the minister to Burlingame, a copy of which was sent to the English officers in China with orders to act accordingly. The pith of the communication was this : "Her Majesty's Government, I informed you in reply, fully admitted that the Chinese Government was entitled to count upon the forbearance of foreign nations; and I assured you that, as far as this country was concerned, there was neither desire nor intention to ap- ply unfriendly pressure to China to induce her government to advance more rapidly in her in- tercourse with foreign nations than was con- 194 DRAMATIC MOMENTS sistent with safety and due and reasonable re- gard for the feelings of her subjects." One other thing about this note is worth equal notice. No matter how benign and charitable an English secretary may become, none has ever been known to desert an English- man. Let us hope none ever will. In another passage he made this plain: "But her Majesty's Government is, more- over, entitled to expect from China as an indis- pensable condition of her good will, the fullest amount of protection to British subjects re- sorting to her dominions." A howl whose echoes still sound in the China Sea went up when this order arrived. All the old traditions were thrown overboard. Everybody would be bankrupt. Business was ruined for ever. The world was delivered to the heathen, and was no longer habitable. But the seal of authority had been put upon the mission. Napoleon III hastened to give it a royal reception. Bismarck, planning a raid in other quarters, was as soft as silk. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 195 and the Czar was as polite as a bridegroom. What the ultimate consequence would have been if Burlingame, that forceful apostle of justice, had lived to conduct affairs is prob- lematical. Whether he could have steered the Chinese boat through the subsequent storm due to the reactionaries within the kingdom and the radicals without, is a question. He died in St. Petersburg. But his philosophy and the questions he raised are not dead. CHAPTER TWELVE "A DUTY TO HUMANITY," THE END OF AN EMPIRE The Diplomacy of the War with Spain — The Crime of National Pride and Procrastination — The Verdict of History — The Plight of Cuba — Revolution Engi- neered in New York — Mutual Cruelties — ^American "Pirates" — Cleveland's Firm Hand — Woodford vs. Sagasta, a Triumph of Fair Play — Concessions Made by Spain — "Home Rule" — Removal of Weyler — "Autonomy" — Revocation of Reconcentration — Isabel's Despair — The Intervention of the Pope — Final Concessions and Armistice — "Remember the Maine'' — An Intercepted Insult — The Recalled Min- ister and the Fateful Message to Congress — A Trib- ute to Spanish Courtesy. IMAGINE that the average American would be astonished upon an impartial examination of the diplomatic corre- spondence leading up to the battle of Manila Bay and the capture of San Juan Hill. As far as the United States was concerned it re- 196 DRAMATIC MOMENTS 197 veals no injury done us by the Spaniards. The war sprang out of increasing demands made by President JMcKinley. The record shows that these were met by the Castilians in a really remarkably yielding spirit, considering their traditionally sensitive "National Hon- our" and unbounded pride. And as far as the war was the result of a failure of negotiation, or in the power of the Spaniard to avoid by any possible action, it turned upon a punctilio, a really absurd quibble which had little to do with the merits of the affair, and upon a few days' procrastination upon the part of the Spaniards. And even this, which we deemed a delay, amounted to violent precipitation of ac- tion to the mind of Madrid. Before recording the details of the Ameri- can Minister's hectic weeks in Madrid, it must be clearly said that there is no longer any question but that the war was a blessing to all parties concerned ; and that it was in all proba- bility the only possible solution of an interna- tional scandal. It should be classed as a great 198 DRAMATIC MOMENTS surgical operation, whereby an incurable sore was cut out of the Spanish body politic, against its will, but to its salvation. The patient, both before, during and after the operation, con- ducted himself toward the doctor in a manner highly to his credit. These facts stand forth, indisputable: That for sixty years or more the island of Cuba had been as badly misgoverned, from the Anglo-Saxon point of view, as it was possible to misgovern it. It was saddled with an atro- cious economic system, a mediaeval military dictatorship operated by an autocratic and ir- responsible governor, bled by excessive public taxes and private graft, and in an uproar all the time. Even with the most honourable intentions in the world it was quite impossible for the Span- iards ever to restore what we understand by law and order. These two facts constitute the case of the United States — and the whole case. Follow- ing the immediate discussions and causes of IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 199 hostilities, the sympathies of the impartial reader will lean toward the anxious and cor- nered inheritors of the splendours of Isabella. The fact that public opinion in the United States was in a fever heat cannot be given as a legitimate casus belli by a statesman, and the fulminations of senators and representatives have never in our history been a safe guide to foreign policy. If these last had been any criterion we should have invaded and annexed Cuba long ago without any other reason than that it was manifestly placed there by the Lord to be owned by us. Before picturing the negotiations between Washington and Madrid, so abruptly finished by the famous message of the 11th of April, 1898, it is necessary to point out that it was universally recognized that any message leav- ing a decision to Congress amounted to a decla- ration of war. The views of Congress were that the insurgents were the angelic and saintly victims of an inhuman warfare — that the con- centration camps were not only an outrage 200 DRAMATIC MOMENTS upon humanity, but a hideous breach of inter- national law; that the Maine had been blown up by the Spanish Government; and that, any- way, Cuba was to be freed regardless of cir- cumstances, and by war, no matter what any- body said. This fact must be kept in mind. It was thoroughly understood by all hands, the efforts for a peaceful solution hinged upon preventing McKinley's giving Congress its head. And so all discussion finally centred upon whether he was or was not to send a message of this sort. Granting that the war was of great benefit to Spain, Cuba, and the United States, as well as an indispensable step both in the develop- ment of this country as a World Power, and in the establishment of a new sense of interna- tional comitj^ based upon justice and "the de- cent respect for the opinion" of mankind, as well as "National Interest," it must be ad- mitted that, in his diplomatic action, McKinley showed none of the executive strength and con- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 201 trol that characterized both Grant and Cleve- land in handling this same problem. In fact he didn't handle it at all. He turned it over to the mob to handle — a proceeding that in many other instances in our history would have led to war. When Cleveland left the tiller and William McKinley took charge of affairs, the situation was about as follows : In February, 1895, revolution broke out in Cuba. It was brought on mainly by the mani- fest incapacity of even the most radical Span- ish mind to conceive of a liberal colonial policy. To this was added a high protective American tariff on sugar, which tended to ruin the prin- cipal industry, and cause great poverty and suffering on the island. While we are posing as apostles of a new era of good will toward men and of policies of world-wide justice which will reduce wars to a minimum, it is worth while taking a little thought to the manifest hard- ships and ill feeling continually engendered by artificial tampering with economic laws upon 202 DRAMATIC MOMENTS arbitrary boundary lines — in which we are the worst offenders on earth. The Revolution was financed and recruited in large measure from the United States, with headquarters at New York. Maximo Gomez was called from San Domingo to take com- mand. The war started in at once with the utmost ferocity on both sides. It is impossible at this date to choose between the methods of the com- batants. The Cubans were the ones to begin the deliberate work of devastation. Gomez's first act was to issue an order that all planta- tions should stop their labours, and that who- ever should attempt to grind the sugar crop would have his cane burned and his buildings demoHshed, and would be considered as an en- emy, treated as a traitor, and be tried as such in case of his capture. Since he carried out this policy and threat to the letter, it is impos- sible for any one aware of the facts to weep with the insurgents over the ruin of industry and the destruction of the island. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 203 General Weyler went to work in true Span- ish fashion to clean the rebels up. This he could not do because he could not catch them. So he ordered the whole populace into con- centration camps. In spite of the violent statements common at the time, the fact is that such an order is not forbidden by the recognized laws of war, nor is it an uncommon occurrence. It was practised both in the Civil War and in South Africa too. The horror of it was that it was impossible properly to feed these people — particularly since the rebels made all business a crime and the introduction of food to "towns occupied by the enemy" a cause for summary execution. Filibustering on a grand scale started in the United States. Although most of our availa- ble coast patrol earnestly and vigorously en- deavoured to stop it, the Spaniards claimed continuously and bitterly that our winking at these forays prolonged the trouble. On the other hand the Spaniards persisted in considering as "pirates" all filibusters they 204 DRAMATIC MOMENTS caught and could not even conceive of any reason why they should not be shot on the spot. When these were American citizens, "fighting for freedom," this attitude caused the greatest fury in the United States. As a mat- ter of fact no Americans were executed at this time, but the State Department had to make vigorous appeals several times to prevent it. Incidents like this, and a press screaming with accounts of atrocities of "Weyler, the Butcher," together with the unquestioned an- archy and misery in the island, inflamed a Congress abeady in sympathy with the revolu- tion to introduce resolutions as regularly as clockwork. In one form or another these all denounced Spain and demanded the independ- ence of Cuba. The most violent of these Congressional broadsides was delivered by John Sherman, afterward made Secretary of State by McKinley, and was based upon a newspaper story later found to be without any foundation whatever. Meanwhile President Cleveland had kindly IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 205 and firmly kept the affair in his own hands, and reiterated the American position: First : that there seemed to be no prospect of the revolt ever coming to a conclusion under existing conditions until the country was ruined completely. Secondly: that the United States could not very well keep hands off this situation indefi- nitely. The reasons given were very frank and concise: That our pecuniary loss was enormous; that the sympathy of the people with the revolution was very great; that the governments were always at odds about Cu- bans naturalized in America carrying on propaganda in New York and filibustering to Cuba; that the insurrection involved the polic- ing of an immense seacoast; that there was a growing and vehement demand for recogni- tion and violent intervention. Thirdly: that he offered mediation as a way out of the impasse. "It would seem that if Spain would offer Cuba a genuine autonomy — a measure of 206 DRAMATIC MOMENTS home-rule which, while preserving the sover- eignty of Spain, would satisfy all national re- quirements of her Spanish subjects — ^there should be no just reason why the pacification of the island might not be effected on that basis." Cleveland saw what apparently McKinley could not — that the major difficulty would be with the peculiar pride of the Spaniard. He adds: "It would keep intact the possessions of Spain without touching her honour, which will be consulted rather than impugned by the adequate redress of admitted grievances." Then just as the Cleveland administration came to a close the Queen issued a decree granting "home rule" to Cuba. It was a kind of emasculated, experimental home rule, in- vented by a people to whom such an idea was almost inconceivable. But it more than cov- ered the ground of the original Cuban com- plaint, and was a genuine and honest eflfort toward emancipation. Such was the state of affairs when an en- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 207 tirely new cast of characters took up the drama for the fifth act. William McKinley succeeded Grover Cleve- land, John Sherman, the veteran Olney, as Secretary of State, and General Stewart Lyn- don Woodford went as minister to Spain. Very shortly afterward the Spanish Ministry underwent an even more radical transforma- tion. The new team constituted the most lib- eral as well as the ablest men in the Empire — Senor Praxides Mateo Sagasta, champion of "peace at any price save loss of dignity," be- came president of the council, with Senor GuUon, Minister of State, and Senor Moret, Minister for Foreign Affairs. The new game opened in an interview be- tween Woodford and the outgoing minister, the Duque de Tetuan. "Friendly in manner," it was reported, "but positive in meaning." Sherman's proposition was laid on the table. Its kernel was that the United States had a "duty" as well as a "right" to intervene, un- less Spain could settle this little affair in a 208 DRAMATIC MOMENTS "reasonable time." And in very definite lan- guage it stated that this time might be draw- ing to a close, and the duty become imminent. It ended with the suggestion that Spain make use of the offices of the United States in some manner or other to reach a final conclusion. These instructions had "put it up to" the minister to get the Spainards to agree to con- cessions in Cuba, to prevent an American war. The record of the subsequent six months is not only of the greatest credit to Woodford, but reveals an advance in Spanish policy that is lit- tle short of miraculous, considering antecedents of a thousand years of despotic sway. The Spaniards' answer to this preliminary broadside consisted in a volume of polite lan- guage, a futile repetition of the contention that if the United States would stop filibuster- ing expeditions all would be well. But won- derful to relate, they took action — for them, drastic action. They recalled General Wey- ler, replacing him with Blanco, under instruc- tions to alleviate the concentration curse. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 209 And the Queen, by imperial decree, extended to Cuba all the rights enjoyed by peninsular Spaniards, establishing in the island all the electoral laws of Spain, and granting auton- omy. Any fair-minded person will readily admit that this was not an unworthy attempt to meet the American position. It must be admitted at the same time that these measures, concilia- tory as they were intended to be, and in fact were, failed to quell the riot. The reconcen- trados could not be fed because the revolu- tionists would allow no work to be done or pro- duce to be grown. And they would not hear of autonomy. Nobody seemed to want auton- omy at this stage. Gomez foamed at the idea; and the loyal Spaniards in Cuba, banded together to enforce the mediaeval regime, screamed loudly against it. Still, the Spaniards had made an effort to meet the American demand. McKinley gave them full credit for it in his message, sent to Congress in December, 1897. Said he : 210 DRAMATIC MOMENTS "That the Government of Sagasta has en- tered upon a course from which recession with honour is impossible can hardly be questioned ; that in the few weeks it has existed it has made earnest of its professions is undeniable. * * * It is honestly due to Spain and to our friendly relations with Spain that she should be given a reasonable chance to realize her expectations and to approve the asserted efficacy of the new order of things to which she stands irrevocably committed. She has recalled the commander whose brutal orders inflamed the American mind and shocked the civilized world. She has modified the horrible order of reconcentration and has undertaken to care for the helpless and permit those who desire to to resume the culti- vation of their fields, * * * " and so on. He finished with the statement that : "If it shall hereafter appear to be a duty im- posed by our obligations to ourselves, to civili- zation and humanity, to intervene with force, it shall be without fault on our part and only be- cause the necessity for such action will be so IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 211 clear as to command the support and approval of the civilized world." This is the appearance of a new and a dar- ing doctrine. That regardless of anything that Spain, with all honesty and even unheard- of humility, might do, this country was pre- pared to assume the role of the benevolent grandfather with the slipper, and take away the dangerous toys. It gave warning that diplomacy, in the sense of a negotiation be- tween nations, might avail nothing, and that peace might not in the least depend upon our relations with Spain or their efforts to pre- serve it. That this was the actual case we shall see. Sincerely in hopes that the reforms in- augurated by Sagasta might bring some measure of tranquillity, the President on the 24th of January, 1898, told the Spanish Min- ister, Senor Dupuy de Lome, that he had de- termined to send the battleship Maine to Ha- vana as a mark of friendship — a well-recog- nized form of international compliment. Old General Fitzhugh Lee, Consul at Havana, 212 DRAMATIC MOMENTS wired to delay it, because of high feeling among residents, but she had sailed, and pretty soon dropped anchor in the harbour without a com- ment. Then the fates began putting some action into the piece. Senor Dupuy de Lome, a faithful servant, and a courteous diplomat, wrote a letter to a friend. Probably it was the mildest personal letter he had written for a year. It was his private opinion of the Presi- dent's message. "The message has been a disillusionment to the insurgents, who expected something dif- ferent; but I regard it as bad. Besides the ingrained and inevitable ill-breeding with which is repeated all that the press and public opinion in Spain have said about Weyler, it once more shows that McKinley is weak and a bidder for the admiration of the crowd, besides being a would-be politician who tries to leave a door open behind himself while keeping on good terms with the jingoes of the party." An enterprising journalist, whose zeal cer- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 213 tainly exceeded his propriety, intercepted and opened the letter, and it was printed broad- cast over the United States on the 9th of Feb- ruary. Of course, nobody stopped to reflect that even an ambassador as ultra-polite and court- eous as a Spaniard probably had an opinion of his own, and that it was not extraordinary that he should have considered the President impo- lite as well as outrageous in dictating to Spain as if he had been its nurse and vilifying Span- ish soldiers with no reference to Cuban black- guards. The whole country flamed in fury from Hatteras to the Golden Gate. The minister telegraphed Madrid at once, saying that his position would probably be un- tenable and notifying the Queen to decide upon her course without reference to him in any way. Promptljr, on the next day, he received his re- call from the Minister of State. This was a link in the chain. And yet it is impossible to charge Spain with the incident in any degree. The recall is the fastest on 214 DRAMATIC MOMENTS record, and reveals an anxious desire to pro- pitiate the United States incompatible with any theory except one of ultra-pacifism. Nevertheless, it was a link. Or rather it was another faggot to feed the flame of popular opinion upon which the President was riding. The flame shortly developed into a conflagra- tion. At 9:40 P. M., February 15th, without any prologue, the battleship Blaine blew up and sank. A court of inquiry established that the vessel was blown up from without — probably by a mine. Who blew it up, there was and still is no evidence. It is practically settled beyond the realms of possibility of error that it was not the Spanish Government. The subsequent war-cry, ^'Remember the Maine'' was a popular slogan that could hardly take into account the fact that the utmost sym- pathy and regret was expressed by the Queen and the Premier of Spain, and that Senor Gullon immediately promised every reparation IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 215 possible if it should prove to be the fault of Spanish authorities. These incidentals were the popular courses of war. But to the statesman they were not even hard diplomatic problems. They were merely the bellows behind the wind blowing for war, to be used for popular support in case war should be declared for other reasons. Un- less, indeed, it was the pressure of this opinion that caused them to begin it. The most tangible immediate effect was an appropriation of $50,000,000 by Congress *'for the National defence and each and every purpose connected therewith." I think I have made it clear that we had so far no grievance against Spain except her fail- ure to bring about peace in Cuba ; and that she had taken our orders as far as she was capable. At this moment she was put really into an un- tenable position. For as fast as she advanced with liberal propositions and the olive branch, so much the more confident did the rebels be- come, and so much the greater their demands. 216 DRAMATIC MOMENTS Our pressure for peace was all directed toward the Spaniards. Gomez met their messengers, undertaking to make terms, with instant death by a firing squad. After this appropriation Sagasta recognized that he would have to take some drastic action. Under the impression that the object of his negotiations was to keep the peace if pos- sible; Woodford, our minister, worked over- time in Madrid. From March 17th to April 11th he drew proposal after proposal out of the Spanish Council and he never sent a dis- patch but that reiterated his conviction that the Spaniard would do anything, no matter what, to prevent a rupture, short of what they con- sidered National dishonour. On the 17th he wrote : "Senor Sagasta, an experienced statesman, a loyal Spaniard, and a faithful friend of the Queen * * * would do anything for peace that Spain would approve and accept." On the 18th: "Sagasta has finally and positively declared IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 217 for peace at any terms at all consistent with Spanish honour." On the 19th he cabled: "If you will acquaint me fully with general settlement desired, I believe Spanish Govern- ment will offer without compulsion, and upon its own motion, such terms of settlement as may be satisfactory to both nations. Large liberty as to details should be offered to Spain, but your friendship is recognized and appreciated, and I now believe it will be a pleasure to Span- ish Government to propose what will probably be satisfactory to both." Invaluable, kindly man. He was one of the many diplomats this nation has had whose native straightforward courtesy and patent honesty had given him the confidence as much of his adversaries as of his own people. And it is clear, moreover, that he could do what he said. The spirit of charity is invincible — ex- cept against cannibals, Barbary pirates, and Huns. WilHam Rufus Day, acting Secretary of 218 DRAMATIC MOMENTS State, replied to this optimistic cable in almost savage style. Said he: "There remain general conditions in Cuba which cannot be endured, and which will de- mand action on our part unless Spain restores honourable peace. * * * April 15 is none too early date for accomplishment of these pur- poses. * * * It is proper that you should know that, unless events otherwise indicate, the President, having exhausted diplomatic agen- cies to secure peace in Cuba, will lay the whole question before Congress." On the 24th the Spanish Cabinet submitted a plan. They agreed to an immediate armis- tice, provided the Cubans would do the same; and agreed to submit terms of peace to the Cuban Congress, in the meantime having granted that Congress authority to negotiate peace. Certain it is that they were "coming across," as the phrase goes. But Secretary Day was not to be satisfied IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 219 with this. His next word on March 27th was: "See if following can be done: "First. Armistice until October 1. Nego- tiations meantime looking for peace between Spain and insurgents through friendly offices of President, United States. "Second. Immediate revocation of recon- centrado order. * * * "Add if possible: "Third, If terms of peace not satisfactorily settled by October 1, President of United States to be final arbitrator between Spain and insurgents. "If Spain agrees, President will use friendly offices to get insurgents to accept plan." Driven by repeated cables from Washington saying that no delay could be brooked, Wood- ford wired home : "Have had conference this afternoon with the President of the Council, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Colonies. Conference adjourned until Thursday after- 220 DRAMATIC MOMENTS noon, March 31. I have sincere belief that ar- rangement will then be reached, honourable to Spain and satisfactory to the United States and Cuba. I beg you to withhold all action until you receive my report * * * Thursday night, March 31." On the next day the reconcentration orders were revoked. That afternoon at 4 :30 the Spanish Cabinet agreed to the American terms, with one fatal exception. They insisted that the offer of the armistice should originate with the insurgents. Here was a pretty thing for grown-up na- tions to go to war about. Woodford might well call it a punctilio. Punctilio it was. But to the Spanish mind it was everything. To make the offer, these officers believed, would be to raise a whirlwind in Spain. Rather all go down together. But this was not all. The Pope, at this juncture, offered his services. The Spanish jumped at the chance to get out of this hole their national pride had placed them in. They IlSr AMEMCAlSr DIPLOMACY 221 agreed readily to accept any plan for the cessation of hostilities proposed by his Holi- ness. He might even propose that they initi- ate them. It was a way out. Senor Gallon tore over to Woodford with the proposition. Woodford thought he had saved the day. He wired his government that Spain would accept Pope's suggestion for an armistice, asking only that the United States remove their fleet from Cuban waters." Here we have the trouble again, if it be trouble. The Spaniard wished to have some faint sign of independence — some condition exacted for the satisfaction of an old, proud and noble race. Day was inexorable. His answer to this proposal said: "The disposition of our fleet must be left to us. An armistice to be effective must be immediately proffered and accepted by insurgents. * * * The President cannot hold his message longer than Tuesday." Woodford, bent upon his own problem of reaching a satisfactory conclusion with Spain, 222 DRAMATIC MOMENTS finally reached it. The Queen yielded com- pletely, with great emotion. The paper she was prepared to sign was a passionate renun- ciation. The Minister's dispatch to President McKinley read : ^'^Should the Queen proclaim the following before 12 o'clock noon on Wednesday, April 6th, will you sustain the Queen, and can you prevent hostile action by Congress? '' 'At the request of the Holy Father, in this passion week, and in the name of Christ, I pro- claim immediate and unconditional suspen- sion of hostilities in the Island of Cuba, '''This suspension to become immediately effective so soon as accepted by the insurgents in that island, and to continue for the space of six months, to the 5th of October, 1898, " 'I do this to give time for passion to cease, and in the sincere hope and belief that during this suspension permanent and honourable peace may be obtained between the insular government of Cuba and those of my subjects IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 223 in that island who are now in rebellion against the authority of Spain, " 'I pray the blessing of Heaven upon this truce of God, which I now declare in His name and with the sanction of the Holy Father of all Christendom' " Woodford continued his plea in these words : "Please read this in the light of my previous telegrams and letters. I believe this means peace, which the sober judgment of our people will approve long before next November, and which must be approved at the bar of final history. * * * I will show your reply to the Queen in person, and I believe that you will approve this last conscientious offer for peace." And on the 9th of August, even in the face of a discouraging reply, the Spaniards ordered General Blanco to proclaim the armistice. Going over this record it has come home to me with great force that the American people have never given Spain the credit for this su- preme effort ; and that the charity, forbearance 224 DRAMATIC MOMENTS and tolerant good will which have sometimes been manifest with us almost to a fault, were totally lacking, and that Woodford was jus- tified in the conclusions of his final telegram: " * * * I believe that you will get final set- tlement before August 1 on one of the follow- ing bases: Either such autonomy as the in- surgents may agree to accept, or recognition by Spain of the independence of the island, or cession of the island to the United States. I hope that nothing will be done to humiliate Spain." He said that he was satisfied that the gov- ernment at Madrid was going, and was loyally ready to go, as fast and as far as it could. And this the whole record abundantly con- firms. Step by step in this one-sided diplo- matic encounter the Spaniards had yielded every demand, until now they had given all. Nevertheless, on the 11th of April, McKin- ley sent the message to Congress. The only mention in this war document of the final yielding of the Queen was a terse statement. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 225 without comment, that he had heard General Blanco had been ordered to suspend hostilities. But, as everyone knew, the message was the casting of the die for war. The purpose of this review is not to belittle the effects of the Spanish War — its benefits are manifest — nor even to conclude that McKinley was wrong in determining once and for all to end the Cuban cancer by a clean sweep, but, in justice to the Spaniards, to point out that the war was the result of this determination, and was launched with this purpose quite regardless of diplomacy so ably conducted by Woodford, and in the face of the most extraordinary ef- forts and concessions on the part of the Queen. Diplomacy had nothing to do with the matter. The Spaniard did not want to fight, had no in- tention of fighting, and met our negotiations much more than half way, and a great deal further than any impartial and sympathetic observer would have supposed possible. The only grievance we had against them at all was inherent, and not subject to change — a mind 226 DRAMATIC MOMENTS given to procrastination and delay, a belief in their own institutions, and a sensitive code of national honour. To say that we considered this a cause for war is of course ridiculous. The answer is that sixty years of riot in Cuba was all we could stand, and that we purposed to end it. And nothing the Spaniard or our minister could do or say had any effect upon the resolution. So it was. And this was probably correct. Eut with it let us give the Spaniard all credit. Tv/o years of diplomatic negotiations were all on his side. CHAPTER THIRTEElSr THE COUP D'ETAT THE INSIDE STORY OF PANAMA The Man Behind the Revolution — Room 1162, Waldorf Astoria — The Liberty Hall of Panama — Bunau-Varilla Goes Scouting in Washington — The Three Horns of the Panama Dilemma — Reading the Future Actions of the Government — Playing with Destiny — A Kingdom for a Warship — Victory on the Isthmus — "Time is of the Essence" — Intrigue and Procrastination Squelched by Theodore Roose- velt. The Dramatic Finish in John Hay's Resi- dence. ON September 23, 1902, in room 1162 of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the cradle of revolution, two men were in eager conference. One was Doctor Manuel Amador, conspirator plenipotentiary from Panama, prototype of those zealous but impo- tent soldiers of fortune that have engineered uproar in Central America as a chronic pas- 227 228 DRAMATIC MOMENTS time for the last century. He was fiery, but inconstant, patriotic but bombastic, zealous but visionary, mighty to plot but utterly incapable of action. Vanity, pride, and despair were written on his features. The other man, Bunau-Varilla, was his antithesis in every respect. He was clear cut, with lines of prompt, decisive action written all over his features. He was a Frenchman, gifted with all the imagination and daring of his race. Courage, endurance, brilliant intel- ligence, limitless resources, a flashing wit, and a contempt for obstacles, had already made his name famous throughout the civilized world, and yet he was in a sense an adventurer. Like a knight of old on the road to Palestine, he represented nobody. In the tremendous and dangerous game of world politics and national destinies he played a lone hand, relying only upon his own unbounded spirit and consum- mate audacity. He had just arrived in New York from j Paris. Upon learning of the amazing action IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 229 of Colombia, this indomitable champion of the Isthmian canal had gone into action. Within half an hour he was in the office of M. Lindo. M. Lindo was the head of the largest banking house of New York and Panama. We have M. Bunau-Varilla's own record of events. " 'Well, M. Lindo,' said I, after the first ex- change of compliments, *is the rumour true that the people of Panama are going to make a revolution?' "He shrugged his shoulders in a dishearten- ing way and said : 'Fait an recursos/ ( 'They have no financial means.') " 'What !' said I, disappointed at this answer. 'These people who are ever ready to make a revolution for insignificant causes, are going to keep quiet when Colombia decrees that they must die of hunger.' "'It can't be helped,' he said. 'Without money a revolution cannot be brought about any more than a war. But if you care to know what the situation really is I will ask Amador to come and see you.' 230 DRAMATIC MOMENTS "'What!' said I, surprised, *Aiiiador is here?' " *Yes/ answered Lindo, lowering his voice, 'he has come precisely to obtain the means of bringing about a revolution, but he has failed and is sailing for Panama in a few days. He will tell you all. He is in despair.' " It was the following morning that Amador and Bunau-Varilla sat face to face in room 1162 of the Waldorf Astoria, and there lies the key to the Revolution of Panama, as is revealed by the working of this master Diplomat-at- Large. Amador was sjieaking, agitated with sup- pressed emotion and indignation. "During the past year" said he, "a group of citizens of the Isthmus, of whom I was one, have met together to consider the measures to be taken if Colombia rejected the Hay- Herran Treaty. "We one and all agreed that such a decision would ruin the inhabitants and transform the Isthmus into a virgin forest IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 231 "Confronted by a decision so despotic, we decided to prepare for an armed combat, rather than submit passively to the tyrant's sentence of death. "But Colombia was capable of crushing all resistance. * * * Consequently we turned our eyes toward the great American Republic. * * * "Why should not this great Republic, so rich, so powerful, give the necessary co-opera- tion in money and military force ? "This idea seemed to us so reasonable that we decided to entrust with a mission to the United States a certain Beers, more generally known by the name of Captain Beers. "He was an employee of the Panama Rail- road. His mission consisted in visiting the right persons in order to learn whether this double support could be obtained. "The persons whom Beers saw assured him that nothing was easier and they promised to obtain all that we asked for. * * * "Our friends then decided to delegate two of their number in order to reach a final under- 232 DRAMATIC MOMENTS standing. I was one of the two delegates but I was forced to go alone. As soon as I arrived I was received with open arms by the persons whom Captain Beers had seen. I was to go to Washington to see Mr. Hay, Secretary of State, in order to conclude the final transaction. "But suddenly the attitude of the person who was to take me to Washington entirely changed. "Whenever I went to see him, strict orders had been given to the effect that he was not in. I had to install myself in the hall, to camp there, and, so to speak, besiege his office. Nothing resulted from it. And there I am. All is lost. At any moment the conspiracy may be discovered and my friends judged, sen- tenced to death, and their property confis- cated. * * * " And the older man stopped speaking, nearly choked by his intense emotion. "Dr. Amador," said the Frenchman, "you are telling me a very sad story, but why did you withhold the name of the man who thus IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 233 promised the gold of the American Treasury, the Ai^my and Navy of the United States? This childish proposition bears the stamp of the man who formulated it. * * * What, you believed in such empty talk? It is an unpar- donable folly. With your imprudence yOu have indeed brought yourself to a pretty pass." "Alas!" said Amador, "if we had been only dropped, but the case is much worse." And he went on to tell how this man had been warned that their messages were being inter- cejited but had failed to tell Amador. Con- cluded the unhappy filibuster, "I have been thus exposed unwittingly to the danger of giv- ing up my friends to death. * * * " In saying this, the old doctor could scarcely master his intense exasperation. "Calm yourself, my poor Doctor, you are the victim of your own heedlessness. * * * Tell me what are your hopes and on what are based your chances of success. Tell me calmly, methodically, precisely." These words soothed the exasperation of 234 DRAMATIC MOMENTS Amador. He remained some minutes before recovering his sang-froid. Then he continued in the following terms : "There is to-day only a weak Colombian gar- rison at Panama. * * * A revolution would to-day meet with no obstacles. But the Co- lombians have the command of the sea; their ships' crews are loyal. We must first, there- fore, acquire a fleet to prevent Colombia from overwhelming with her troops the province of Panama. "Besides that we want arms. It was to ob- tain ships and arms that I have come here. Our first envoy. Captain Beers, had been as- sured, and the same pledge was repeated to me when I came, that the United States would give us all the money we needed to buy arms and ships and to pay the troops." "How big a sum do you consider neces- sary?" "We need $6,000,000." "My dear Doctor," answered Bunau-Varilla, IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 235 "you have exposed the situation to me and you come to ask for advice. I answer: Let me think it over. At first glance I see no way out of the labyrinth which imprisons you. To- morrow perhaps I shall find one. At any rate you ask for advice. I give it to you; remain here, and wait patiently until I see how the land lies. * * * I have not only to think my- self, but to find out as well what others think in order to get you out of the difficulty. * * * In the meanwhile, remain, and see nobody. If you want to speak to me over the 'phone take the name of Smith. I shall take that of Jones." And with these words, Bunau-Varilla de- parted. He went to solve a problem perplex- ing others greater than Amador. The fate of the great ship canal, and the future perhaps of more than one country, hung upon the solution of this problem. It was at that moment the subject of grave concern to Theodore Roose- velt, President of the United States, to the 236 DRAMATIC MOMENTS Foreign Office in France, to the merchants of the world, to the court of Tokio, as well as the blackmail senate in Bogota and the Demo- cratic opposition in the coming election. This delicate diplomatic situation was the result of an unusual series of events. In 1876 the great French engineer, Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, had formed a company which had purchased from Colombia the con- cession to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. Facing the jeers of a sceptical world, unparalleled physical difficulties, and the scourge of a fever more dreadful than war, an army of intrepid and loyal Frenchmen had struggled at the task for eight years. They laboured in the face of insuperable obstacles and almost certain death, encouraged by the ardour of adding this gigantic project to the glory and fame of their native land. This magnificent attribute, devotion to country, the secret of the splendour and power of France, was in this case unequal to the task of combat- ting the national weakness — a love of intrigue IN AMEMCAN DIPLOMACY 237 and scandal. Politics got hold of the propo- sition, and there ensued a carnival of calumnies and canards, epithets and recriminations the like of which has hardly a parallel. The company went into bankruptcy ; slander and defamation tied the hands of the great engineer, and the hundreds of thousands of citizens who had invested in the great patriotic enterprise were left without a friend in the gov- ernment or banking interests of France. Of the great army of engineers and financiers, dreamers and adventurers that began the great enterprise, one only remained, still firm in his intention to build this canal and vindicate his chief and his comrades, and give lustre to the genius of France. His name was Philippe Bunau-Varilla, at one time chief engineer of the canal, and in the end the sole remaining champion of its feasibil- ity. He had no official capacity in France, and not even any further connection with the bankrupt company. He was obsessed with a mania that the world needed the canal and that 238 DRAMATIC MOMENTS France should have the credit. Armed with an indomitable will, the most exact mathe- matical knowledge of every detail of the work and the engineering problems, and his own private fortune, he set out to put it through. Public opinion, revolutions, state secrets, the sanctity of courts and cabinets, the power of armies, and the destinies of peoples were thenceforth his tools and his media. That the Senator from Missouri — old Gum-shoe Bill Stone — should have failed to recognize such a personality and such a conception is no won- der. Bill's reasoning was not so very bad. He saw a revolution engineered in Panama with a promptness, decision, and unerring exe- cution never before known. He concluded that it was the work of a genius. He decided that his great enemy, Roosevelt, was the most probable and convenient, if not the only genius on the boards. As we shall see, Roosevelt had no mofe to do with it than I had. Well, when the company went into bank- ruptcy, Bunau-Varilla went to Germany and IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 239 England and Russia. He commanded the at- tention of czars and emperors. He hypno- tized international bankers. He drew pictures of national glory for the chancelleries of Eu- rope. But he could not raise the Canal from the dead. And then, when human effort failed, fate gave him an opening. It all came about from three things. 1. The trip of the Oregon from San Fran- cisco to Santiago around Cape Horn. 2. The eruption of Mont Pelee and the destruction of Saint-Pierre in Martinique. 3. A Nicaraguan one-centavo postage stamp. The race of the Oregon convinced the United States that national safety demanded an Isthmian canal. The unanimous opinion and prejudice of Congress and the people in favour of Nica- ragua were shattered by the imminent danger of earthquakes brought home by th^ Mar- tinique disaster. The final argument that Nicaragua was not a volcanic country was met 240 DRAMATIC MOMENTS by Bunau-Varilla himself by mailing every Senator a Nicaraguan one-centavo stamp, showing a picture of Momotombo in spectacu- lar eruption above the very lake through which the canal was to pass. This turned the scales in favour of Panama. On the 19th of June, 1902, the Spooner bill passed both houses. It provided that a canal should be built across the Isthmus of Panama on condition that the French company would sell its interests and could give a clear title, and that the Department of State could make a satisfactory treaty with Colombia. The French company agreed to sell for $40,000,000. After the usual vacillation and subterfuges M. Herran, on behalf of Colombia, and John Hay, Secretary of State, signed a treaty which was satisfactory. It gave the United States control of the Canal zone, and Colombia $10,000,000 and $250,000 a year. All that remained was for the Colombian Senate to ratify the treaty. IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 241 This they were under every moral obKga- tion to do. Colombia was ruled by a dictator. Under apprehension that the United States might build in Nicaragua he had made every effort and representation to obtain the treaty. He had ordered his minister to grant every privilege to the French company, so that there might be no question of their right to transfer their interest, and he had begun and pushed the negotiations. The whole civilized world was awaiting a canal with impatience, and the high- est reasons of state, including the military pro- tection of the nation, demanded that a decision be reached between these two routes and the work begun. The Colombian knew this and obtained his treaty and ousted Nicaragua — with the aid of fortune and the unremitting campaign of Bunau-Varilla. But as the treaty was signed, and all eyes turned to Panama, the ring at Bogota decided not to ratify. Their dispatches and resolu- tions show why, and constitute the most monu- mentally bare-faced and audacious blackmail 242 DRAMATIC MOMENTS and hold-up ever attempted in daylight by any civilized country. They proposed that the price be doubled and that the treaty should wait until the French concession should lapse and then take the French $40,000,000 for themselves. In other words, purely and sim- ply, that they should hold up one party to the agreement, and entirely steal the interest of the other. That is the whole case, completely substantiated by the documents, which I would give if there were space. No one who has not read them is qualified or has a right to discuss this Panama affair. What should be done under these circum- stances? Panama said Revolution. Old Doc- tor Amador had been sent to get the guns. He had found bad counsel, and was inoculated with the impossible dream of help from Wash- ington. His legal friends in New York had failed even to approach the White House with the proposal. But Bunau-Varilla was out to find a plan. Cognizant of every detail of the history of the IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 243 regime, he knew that diplomatically there were just three possibilities: One was the adoption by the United States of the Nicaragua route, and the crashing of his life's work. A second was the Revolution whose dying hopes he now controlled. The third was independent action of the United States under an old treaty made with New Granada, the predecessor of Colombia, in 1848. The essential points of this treaty were: "1. The Government of New Granada guar- antees to the United States that the right of way or transit across the Isthmus of Panama upon any modes of communication that now exist or that may be hereafter constructed, shall be open and free to the government and citi- zens of the United States." The question was whether this guarantee of right of way upon any mode of transit that might be hereafter constructed, did not of it- self justly and necessarily imply and include the right of construction. 244 DRAMATIC MOMENTS Before he could act he felt obliged to dis- cover which of these plans the State Depart- ment had in mind. If they had given up Pan- ama, all was lost indeed. Unless they would instantly support a revolution, such a pro- ceeding would be suicidal. If the United States proposed to take the zone anyway, the Revolution would be superfluous. Being astute as well as honourable he was aware that under no circumstances could he acquire his in- formation directly, or get the slightest assur- ance or encouragement from the government. He had a higher opinion of Theodore Roose- velt and John Hay than many of their coun- trymen — ^who say that they instigated the re- volt — ^have since evinced. On this impossible errand he went to Wash- ington. He paid a social call upon the Hon- ourable Francis B. Loomis, Assistant Secre- tary of State. He told him that he had re- cently taken an important proprietary interest in the great French newspaper, he Matin, "Then you ought to present to the President IN AMEEICAN DIPLOMACY 245 the compliments of Le Matin. Do you know Mr. Roosevelt personally?" "I have not that honour." "The President will be glad to receive you. I will go and inquire." In a few minutes he was in the presence of Theodore Roosevelt. Bunau-Varilla says: *'We conversed about Le Matin, I was await- ing an opportunity to bring up the Panama subject, Mr. Loomis having cited the publica- tion of the famous bordereau in the Dreyfus affair as being am.ong the great achievements of Le Matin, I jumped at the opportunity. The bridge was found, I crossed it. 'Mr. President,' I said, 'Captain Dreyfus has not been the only victim of detestable political pas- sions. Panama is another.' " *Oh, yes,' exclaimed the President, sud- denly interested. *That is true. You have devoted much time and effort to Panama, Mr. Bunau-Varilla. Well, what do you think is going to be the outcome of the present situa- tion?' 246 DRAMATIC MOMENTS "It was then or never. I could by his an- swer know exactly what the President had in mind. I remained silent for a moment, and then pronounced the following four words in a slow, decided manner: " * Mr. President, a revolution.' "The features of the President manifested profound surprise. *A revolution,' he re- peated, mechanically. Then he turned in- stinctively toward Mr. Loomis, who remained standing, impassive, and he said in a low tone, as if speaking to himself : " *A revolution! * * * Would it be pos- sible? * * * But if it became a reality, what would become of the plan we had thought ^ of?' * * * He quickly recovered himself, and asked, 'What makes you think so?' " The champion of the canal returned to the game by stating that he had certain special in- dications which led infallibly to that conclu- sion, and withdrew. This was all. Every word. And yet from IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 247 this the subtle Frenchman concluded that a revolution would be welcome and that the chief magistrate stood by the Panama route. It remained now for a foreigner in New York without boats or guns or treasury, with- out influence or authority, to execute the coup d'etat. Not the least of his difficulties was the inane, suspicious, proud, vain, and vacillating character of his revolutionists. One thing was certain. Without the con- viction that the power of the United States was behind them, these timid patriots would do nothing. In his dilemma he recalled a scene enacted under his eyes years before, when he was at work on the Culebra Cut. A religious civil war had broken out in Colombia, and the gov- ernment had sent troops, to subdue revolters on the Isthmus, and a United States cruiser in the harbour had landed marines, preventing the landing of the government troops, and all fighting. They had done this under the old 248 DRAMATIC MOMENTS treaty, by which the United States under- took to keep order and open transit across the Isthmus. If they would do it then, why not now? Anyway, he decided to stake everything upon this probabihty. But to reassure himself he went again to the State Department. Mr. Loomis introduced him to the Secretary, John Hay. It was well known that this great statesman regarded the completion of the canal of transcendant im- portance to the world. In discussing the matter Bunau-Varilla said; "When aU the counsels of prudence and friendship have been made in vain, there comes a moment when one has to stand still and await events." "These events," he asked the Secretary, "what do you think they will be?" "The whole thing will end in a revolution," answered this master of revolution. "You must take your measures if you do not want yourself to be taken by surprise." IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 249 *'Yes," said Mr. Hay, "that is unfortunately the most probable hypothesis. But we shall not be caught napping. Orders have been given to naval forces on the Pacific to sail to- ward Panama." Prompt, decisive, daring action followed. Within a day this extraordinary man consti- tuted himself the Jefferson, the Washington, and the Benjamin Franklin of the new Re- public of Panama. He wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, a method- ical plan of the military operations to be con- ducted, complete details of the three days' de- fence of the Isthmus which he considered necessary, and a cipher code for dispatches, and most important of all, he prepared in ad- vance the exact cables to be sent appointing a minister plenipotentiary to the United States capable of the direct, reliable, and prompt ac- tion necessary to satisfy this exasperated coun- tiy. None other in fact than Philippe Bunau- Varilla. It was magnificent. 250 DRAMATIC MOMENTS With these exhibits complete, and a flag de- vised for the occasion by Madame, he repaired again to the Liberty Hall of the Isthmus of Panama — to wit, room 1162 Waldorf Astoria Hotel. There like a Napoleon he issued orders to the astonished conspirator. "Dr. Amador, the moment has come to clear the deck for action. Be satisfied with my assertions. There is no more time for discussing their genesis. "I can give you assurance that you will be protected by the American forces forty-eight hours after you have proclaimed the new Re- public in the whole Isthmus. "Then will begin a delicate period, that of the complete recognition of the new Republic. The fight will be in Washington. I take the responsibility of it. I take also the responsi- bility of obtaining for you, from a bank, or of furnishing you myself, the one hundred thou- sand dollars which are necessary to you." So Amador sailed with injunction to have IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 251 the Declaration of Independence issued and a government in being by the 3rd of November — five days after his landing. And not only with everything prepared to the last detail, but with the text of the telegram he was to send announcing the new government and appoint- ing Bunau-Varilla minister plenipotentiary to the United States with unlimited authority to negotiate a concession for the canal. And most important of all, with the firm conviction that this masterful Frenchman had at his com- mand the navy of the United States, and the unbounded power and authority of Richelieu of old. This last delusion proved the crux of the whole affair. For no sooner had the excited doctor arrived than the conspirators demanded proof. "If Bunau-Varilla is so powerful, let him prove it. He says we shall be protected forty-eight hours after estabhshing the new Republic. Well? We will believe him if he is capable of sending an American man of war 252 DRAMATIC MOMENTS to Colon at our request." So they wired that the Colombian troops were arriving in five days and asked for the warship. So it was up to this ingenious man to send a warship or to make them think he sent it. He boarded the train for Washington. He went to see every secretary, senator, and gossip he knew or could get access to, including Loomis. To all he said the same thing. "Remember the date of November 3, 1903. That day will behold a repetition of what hap- pened there on the 1st of April, 1885. The armed conflict which will be the cause of it is expected everywhere. It is spoken of publicly in the press. The only difference between 1885 and 1903 is that the blame will not be at- tributed to the captain of a man of war in the waters of Colon. It will rest on the Govern- ment of the United States itself." If the papers were not full of it before, they certainly were after this announcement. So both ends were played against the middle. There could be no revolution without a war- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 253 ship. Also, there could be no warship without a revolution. Very well, the United States had been sufficiently informed that there was going to be a riot on Nevember 3rd. That being the case, undoubtedly they would send the ships. It remained to use this fact to its limit to encourage the juntas and convince them that they were in the hands of a great power. Bunau-Varilla planned to leave them in their delusion. He looked up the position of the navy. The Nashville was at Kingston. He felt sure it would be ordered to Colon. It would take two days and a half to get there. It was now the 29th of October. He cabled Amador in his code. "All right. Will reach two days and a half." They understood this to mean that he had ordered a warship to their assistance that would arrive in two days and a half. This was one of the greatest impudences and most splendid bluffs ever made by a private in- 254. DRAMATIC MOMENTS •■ dividual in international affairs. It was worthy of Athos at his best. The news was spread over the whole town of Colon that at Bunau-Varilla's request the Americans were coming to protect Panama. On the morning of Nov. 2nd the entire popula- tion was scanning the sea in doubt and curi- osity. As the hours passed, disappointment and chagrin clouded their hearts. By night, they were in despair. When lo ! Smoke was descried on the horizon. Miracle of miracles, — amid a burst of "delirious enthusiasm" the Nashville sailed into the harbour with the Star- Spangled Banner floating in the breeze. And sitting in the Waldorf Astoria the manipulator of events, this maker of diplomacy by induction and mathematics, received the fateful telegram: "Independence of the Isthmus proclaimed without bloodshed. "Amadok." The Colombian troops arrived all right and IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 255 fell into the popular delusion upon sight of the American flag. They threatened to shoot every American in the vicinity. The com- mander of the Nashville, neither knowing nor caring about these plots and delusions, landed his marines as he was accustomed to do when riot seemed impending and before what ap- peared the armed intervention of the United States, the Colombians withdrew. Panama was a free and independent Republic. In the entire history of our diplomacy there is' no finer example of the power and success of quick and drastic measures than that now taken by Theodore Roosevelt. Nicaraguans, peace cranks, sentimental adherents of Colombia, old line political opponents, were lining up for ten years more of harangue and argument, and the Colombian cable began frantically to offer any- thing on earth to get back into the running. Roosevelt says he took the Canal. It must have been with peculiar pleasure that within a week after the events recounted he received M. Bunau-Varilla in state at the White House 256 DRAMATIC MOMENTS as the accredited minister plenipotentiary from the now fully recognized Republic of Panama. No two men ever worked with greater har- mony and dispatch than this astonishing am- bassador and John Hay. Another grave dan- ger was impending. Panama was sending two of its bombastic citizens to haggle and de- bate and parade their importance at Wash- ington. After their arrival all accomplish- ment would have been at the mercy of endless conversation and formal triviahties. Success in the consummation of the treaty depended upon rapidity of movement. On Sunday, Nov. 15th, John Hay wrote to Bunau-Varilla : ''Dear Mr. Minister: I enclose a project of a Treaty. Please return it to me with your suggestions at your earliest convenience." The sequel might be a lesson to all the for- eign offices and ambassadors in the world. It is a demonstration of the fact that two capable and fair-minded men can come to an interna- tional agreement without interminable formal- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 257 ity and conventions, proposals and counter proposals. That where both parties honestly and earnestly desire justice for the other, as well as themselves, and are not burdened with the dead wood of precedent and the desire for some concealed advantage, they can reach a satisfactory conclusion in an incredibly short time. Bunau-Varilla, a Frenchman, whose life Had been dedicated to this international canal, sat down that very day with the Hay-Pauncefote treaty between England and America, the old treaty with Colombia, his instructions from Panama, and his sense of fair play, and wrote a document which was not only satisfactory to John Hay, but to the suspicious Panamanians and to the hostile senate and posterity. He sent it to the Secretary of State saying it was his suggestion. On the 18th he received this short summons: "Will you kindly call at my house at six o'clock to-day ? "John Hay." 258 DEAMATIC MOMENTS The newspaper reporters were at the door. They had seen the head of the Treaties Bureau go in, and were expecting an historical event. The Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaty was signed within a few minutes, just fifteen days after the birth of the new nation. It is recorded that the minister sealed the bond with John Hay's signet ring. It gave the United States the use, occupa- tion, and control of the canal zone in perpetuity for $10,000,000. . Next morning the committee arrived from Panama to palaver. It was too late. On the following day General Reyes arrived from Colombia to intrigue. It was too late. Prompt decisive action had at last given the United States an essential military control over its own waters, and the world the prospect of an inestimable boon. Moreover it had saved the country from a most embarrassing position it would have been in toward the French Repubhc. No one knew better than Roosevelt that France could not IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 259 stand by idle and allow Colombia to plunder her citizens out of a life's work and sacrifice, and $40,000,000 in cold cash ; and yet, any ac- tion that France could have taken to prevent such a solution would have constituted a most unwelcome challenge to the American Doc- trine of Monroe. Without reserve it is our pleasure to give first prize for the conception and initiative in this great enterprise to France. For the exe- cution of the most successful revolution on rec- ord, we recommend Bunau-Varilla, who has since received the decoration of the Legion of Honour for conspicuous bravery on the firing line at Verdun where he lost a leg. The ulti- mate responsible action stands to the everlast- ing credit of Theodore Roosevelt. CHAPTER FOURTEEN SOME LESSONS IN CIVILITY Premonitions — The King of Prussia's Precious Doc- trines in 1823 — The Oppressed Revolutionists of Germany — Debut of the Prussian Bully in Samoa — The Emperor's Fatal Birthday — The Advent of the Famous Formula: "Impossible Ultimatum, Instant Defensive Invasion and Annexation" — Leary of the Adams Takes a Hand — SchrecMichkeit Foiled by a Hui'ricane — "The Organization of Failure in the Midst of Hate"— Why the Kaiser Did Not Take Uncle Sam by "The Scruff of the Neck"— "If You Want a Fight, You Can Have It Now" — Roosevelt Calls the Teuton Bluff — A Case of Arbitration — Designs on the Caribbean — An Opinion by John Hay. A SURVEY of the actions of the Im- perial German Government which are the basis of the deep-seated con- viction of our Department of State that the Hohenzollern dynasty has far-reaching de- signs upon the integrity of American soil and the inviolability of the "American System" re- 260 DRAMATIC MOMENTS 261 veals that they date from the decision of the Kaiser to drop Bismarck, the great pilot. The Iron Chancellor developed to its deadly con- clusion the brutal policy of the Greaf Fred- erick, and deserves the lion's share of the dis- credit for the fatal ambition for conquest and dominion that has undermined the Teutonic character. But since his designs were defi- nitely confined to other spheres they gave the United States no cause for alarm. In fact, up to that time our experience with the Ger- man people had been the reverse of suspicious. The country had welcomed great numbers of them, whom, even in the passions of to-day, no one can accuse of being advocates of blood and iron militarism run a-muck, or aspirants for the first tier of boxes in the sun. They were revolters against regal prerogative, and came in the name of Liberty and joined the ranks of the Union forces in the Civil War for emancipation. The consequence was that our assumption was heavily in favour of the Ger- man a decade ago. 262 DRAMATIC MOMENTS The first sign we had that a "superman" was being evolved contained little portent of dan- ger to the continent we guard so jealously. But it aroused in America a sudden realization of an important event — the arrival of a new and particularly disgusting character on the inter- national stage. It was the debut in Washing- ton of the Prussian bully. He was discovered swaggering insolently down the shores of the Pacific, twirling his mustachios and kicking the pedestrians in the selfsame manner so familiar on the sidewalks of Potsdam. It happened in Samoa. The Samoans were a picturesque, comely and gentle people, whose sole faults were a childish irresponsibility in regard to their neighbours' cocoanuts and an inherent inability to determine who should be king. A short time previously the consuls of England, the United States and Germany had settled a difference of opinion by making one rival claimant, Malietoa Laupepa, king, and another, Tamasese, vice- king. Thus as Stevenson says : "in addition to IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 263 the old conundrum, 'Who is the King?' they had supphed a new one, 'What is a vice-king?' " Malietoa Laupepa was a very kindly, trust- ing, high-minded old fellow, whose mild and gentle disposition made him an easy mark for the preliminary canters of frightfulness. His rule at most was only nominal as far as Euro- pean interests were concerned. The three con- suls presided over a neutral territory about the port of Apia, and acted as an advisory board for the monarch. There had been some trouble due to petty thefts from the plantation of a German firm. This firm was presided over at the time by Captain Brandeis, an artillery officer whose warlike intentions and predilections were so sedulously concealed that he pretended to be a mere clerk in the office. The Germans had in- sisted upon putting the thieves in a private jail of their own, and exacting from the help- less old king satisfaction of a nature so drastic as to bring forth violent protests from the English and American consuls. The matter 264 DRAMATIC MOMENTS had been made the subject of an international conference in Washington, which adjourned on July 26, 1885. It was understood that this adjournment was for the consuls to get fur- ther instructions from home and in the mean- time that no action should be taken by any government. Nevertheless pretty soon the port of Apia began to resemble a royal review at Wilhelms- haven. The King was in the interior, the petty thieves were in jail, and the island was as quiet and dreamy as a picture of Heaven. By the end of August, 1887, there were five German ships of war in the obscure little bay. Robert Louis Stevenson thus describes the subsequent amazing proceedings : *'They waited inactive, as a burglar waits till the patrol goes by, and on the 23d, when the mail had left for Sydney, when the eyes of the world were withdrawn, and Samoa plunged again for a period of weeks into her original island obscurity, Becker opened his guns. [Becker was the German Consul.] The pol- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 265 icy was too cunning to seem dignified. * * * and helped shake men's reliance on the word of Germany. On the day named, an ulti- matum reached Malietoa at Afenga, whither he had retired months before to avoid friction. A fine of one thousand dollars and an ifo, or public humiliation, were demanded for the af- fair of the Emperor's birthday. Twelve thou- sand dollars were to be 'paid quickly' for thefts from German plantations in the course of the last four years." Becker concluded by saying he would be at Afenga next morning at 11 o'clock. This was the same old game, then new to us, cropping up in the South Seas — an outrageous demand, coupled with an explosive ultimatum attached to a short-timed fuse. The thefts were negligible and had been set- tled already. The only new matter was this terrible "affair of the Emperor's birthday." Let us look into it. On March 22d, which was undoubtedly the birthday of the Emperor, some Germans assembled in a pubhc bar in the 266 DRAMATIC MOMENTS neutral territory of Apia. Much drinking and ''hochmg' finally resulted in a "squabble" with some other convivialists, ending in what Becker called a riot. *For this, four natives were ar- rested, and haled before a German magistrate. He acquitted one of these. The others he convicted of assault. The case was appealed to the full court — that is, the three consuls to- gether. The American and British consuls considered the charges petty and unproved and reversed the decision. And that was the whole business called by the German Commander "The trampling upon, by Malietoa, of the Ger- man Emperor." It was not even mentioned three months later in the conference between the three nations at Washington. At 11 A. M. Becker was at the place named. The King asked for a day's delay to consider. Becker declared war on the spot, appointed the bewildered Tamasese King under the super- vision and protection of the redoubtable Bran- deis and the five warships, ran the German flag over his headquarters, and declared his juris- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 267 diction over the whole works, including the neutral territory. He seized the harmless old King of Samoa and shipped him off a prisoner to Germany. The poor feltew appealed in vain to the justice of heaven and the protec- tion of the consuls. But in Washington the affair was not so lightly regarded. It constituted a breach of faith almost inconceivable to them and the pre- text was as stupid as it was brazen. To begin with, that the Kaiser was such a holy idol that any disturbance upon his birthday in any part of the earth was sacrilege and lese majeste was a novel and startling discovery. That the King of Samoa lying under the palms fifty miles away could be responsible for a tavern brawl in a neutral seaport, distinctly outside his jurisdiction, and distinctly inside of that of the three consuls — a neutrality which the Sa- moans scrupulously observed even in the midst of war — was too much for the world to swallow. The American and British consuls refused to recognize the new king, or the German juris- 268 DRAMATIC MOMENTS diction. The islanders rose under another leader, a romantic and Herculean youth named Mataaf a, and war broke loose. The Germans, beheving the situation in hand, let some of their ships go. The Americans believing other- wise dispatched Captain Leary, a belligerent and humorous Irishman, to the scene with the Adams, The Germans now considered that they owned the islands, and they set out to quell "the rebels" — that is, the Samoans. They sailed down the coast to bombard the villages. Leary stuck by his guns. He refused to recog- nize either the Germans or Tamasese. He got between the Germans and their targets. He was certainly guilty of Use majeste himself. The affair got worse. The Germans tried to storm the Samoan camp and were repulsed with great loss. In a fury, they then declared martial law, with edicts prophetic of later days. "The crime of inciting German troops by any means, as, for instance, informing them of proclamations by the enemy, was punishable IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 269 with death; that of publishing or secretly dis- tributing anything, whether printed or writ- ten, bearing on the war, and that of calling or attending a public meeting, unless permitted, with prison or deportation." These rules they declared applied to Americans and English as well as natives, including the consuls. The British consul flung back a flat defiance and three American warships arrived very quickly under Captain Hand to discuss the affair. What the end might have been, no- body knows. For a while the brokers on 'change were watching the tickers in New York and London for news of the first shot meaning war, when a hurricane came out of the West and threw practically the whole flo- tilla in splinters on the beach, and Bismarck was put to the necessity of disavowing the whole game. Still there is no record of iron crosses being distributed to the warriors of the chivalrous Mataafa, who, when they saw their enemies drowning before their eyes, plunged in and saved them by the hundred. 270 DKAMATIC MOMENTS But he could not withdraw object lesson number one, of which Stevenson said "the German breach of faith was public and ex- press ; it must have been deliberately premedi- tated: and it was resented in the States as a deliberate insult." And caused him to make further remarks which, if taken to heart in Berlin, would have saved a world of trouble. One was with regard to the German consul: "If the object of diplomacy be the organiza- tion of failure in the midst of hate, he was a great diplomatist." The other was equally penetrating: "The German flag might wave over her puppet unquestioned, but there is a law of human nature which diplomatists should be taught at school, and it seems they are not: that men can tolerate base injustice, but not the combination of injustice and subterfuge. Hence the chequered career of the thimble-rigger." The second warning the United States re- ceived of German ambitions was more direct and more dangerous. It recalled the archaic but more frank declaration of the regal combi- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 271 nation of 1823, when the King of Prussia had joined with the Emperors of Europe for the avowed purpose of suppressing all republics in general, and those in South America in par- ticular. That "convention" we never held up against the Kaiser, because it was an insanity prevalent at the time in all Europe, and the natural hang-over from the era of absolute monarchs from which that continent was just emerging. But the year 1898 was an entirely different matter. William McKinley had determined to recog- nize and establish the independence of the island of Cuba. For a century the Royal Spanish Government had failed to produce anything there except riot, anarchy, misery, and confusion. War was impending. This appeared to the councils of Potsdam to be an opportune moment to assert themselves, and to acquaint the world with three or four self- evident but neglected facts. One was that the pretention of the United States that affairs in America were her sole concern was an imperti- 272 DRAMATIC MOMENTS nence and a dead letter, not to be recognized by an omnipotent sovereign holding dominion under high heaven; another was that a "de- bating society," that ridiculous form of gov- ermnent, a democracy, which by its very exist- ence was an insult to Majesty, should be taught the respect due a legitimate queen- regent. And the third was the familiar axiom that no affair of importance should be under- taken anywhere in the world without consult- ing the German Army and the German Kaiser. So it is reliably reported that Von Holle- ben, the German Ambassador, and Von Hen- gelmiiller, his Austrian understudy, convened the Diplomatic Corps in Washington under instructions from Berlin to have the Yankees presented with an order beginning and ending with the single word ''Verhoten'' This pro- gram would have been carried through, and the rough-riders have found themselves con- fronted with an entirely different proposition, except for one obstacle — a constant and obsti- nate obstacle, beginning even then to be re- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 273 garded by the Kaiser as the one fountain of all evil and sacrilege in the world — to-wit, the navy of England. Sir Julian Pauncefote in- sisted that England could make no such ar- rangement — must be left free to act as circum- stances might dictate. Feeling pretty sure that these circumstances would dictate an un- expected visit to Heligoland in case the Ger- man fleet happened to be out chastising the shade of the immortal ISIonroe, the meeting concluded to confine their offices to a pohte re- monstrance, which was reported in an article in the World's Work in this wise : "Said the six ambassadors: 'We hope for humanity's sake that you will not go to war.' Said JSIr. McKinley, in reply : *We hope if we do go to war that you will understand that it is for humanity's sake.' The best evidence of how this conclusion satisfied the Kaiser is con- tained in his own words : *If I had only had a fleet, I would have taken Uncle Sam by the scruff of the neck.' " But the Kaiser's last card had not yet been 274 DRAMATIC MOMENTS played. He did have a formidable squadron in Asiatic waters, with instructions which can only be guessed at, but from subsequent pro- ceedings pretty well imagined. Admiral Von Diederich headed this squadron to Manila, and began his pleasantries shortly after the defeat of the Spanish Navy there. Admiral Dewey, the soul of naval etiquette, but no Polish peas- ant, was at first unable to understand manoeuv- res originating in the conception that the Kais- er's orders were sufficient reason for any action on earth. Dewey was blockading the harbour and, by the rules of the sea, as well as by the established code of International Law, no ves- sels of any kind could enter except by his permission. Von Diederich sailed the Irene in without as much as "with your leave." Dewey knew he was discourteous, but supposed he was ignorant. However, when the Cormoran fol- lowed suit, the Admiral brought her to with solid shot across the bow, and then pretty soon the premeditation behind this affair began to develop. Dewey casually mentioned that it IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 275 was hardly customary for a friendly squadron visiting a blockaded port on the eve of hostili- ties to come in force greater than the blockader commanded. Von Diederich haughtily replied that such were the Kaiser's orders. Doubtless it was also the Kaiser's orders which induced the German sailor to threaten the Philippine auxiliaries of the United States, and openly to send supplies to the besieged garrison. This last act brought affairs to a head. Dewey was a diplomat. As such he knew the proper way to deal with this particu- lar manifestation. His message was : "Say to Admiral Von Diederich that if he wants a fight, he can have it now !" Von Diederich wanted the fight. But he did not want any unknown quantities about it. So he sent over to the English commander, Captain Chichester, riding at anchor in the vicinity, and asked what he would do if Von Diederich interfered with Dewey. Chiches- ter's answer was discouraging, a naval corol- lary to Sir Julian's diplomacy. It was to the 276 DRAMATIC MOMENTS effect that he knew, and that Dewey knew, what he would do. To test this remark the German lined up in menacing array when Dewey steamed in to open the attacks on the forts. Chichester, smiling, pulled up anchor, and casually sailed in between. Diplomacy is no less diplomacy because it is conducted on shipboard and not in a cabinet in the Wilhelmstrasse. The first warning signal was in Samoa. The second at Manila. On the third occasion the Kaiser had the rank misfortune to have Theodore Roosevelt to deal with. In such af- fairs Roosevelt has nothing in common with "the reign of chatter." Congress never found this out until years later when the facts were published in the "Life of John Hay." To the Prussian mind a particularly favour- able occasion had arisen for a test of the Monroe Doctrine. Their invariable formula for acquiring any desirable property, followed to the letter in all of their little defensive en- IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 277 terprises including the bombardment of Bel- grade, is very clever. It ought to hoodwink and satisfy everybody. It is an astonishing thing that it does not. No German can under- stand it. Take any demand, provided it is absolutely unreasonable, frame it in the most arrogant and lordly manner possible, and throw it into the territory. If it is not acquiesced in by sunset, march a "defensive" army into the place, or start a "defensive" bombardment. What could be more reasonable, or more con- vincing? Particularly since objection on the part of any one is conclusive proof that he be- longs to an inferior race. Venezuelans owed the Germans some money. The Germans had "claims" against them. Claims constitute the principal commodity as well as supply the principal topic of all talk — social, pohtical, or merely casual — in this inter- esting country. But even a Venezuela claim has this in common with the ordinary variety. It has two sides. It is capable of producing a difference of opinion concerning its validity 278 DRAMATIC MOMENTS and volume. Of course, any one will have to agree, however, that a claim held by the Kaiser is another matter. For, obviously, there exists no living hrnnan, not to mention Venezuelan being, capable of doubting the Kaiser's de- cision upon any subject, much less a claim. Since Venezuela had the audacity to delay and dispute payment a great opportunity had ar- rived. Out went the demand, and hard upon it came the invincible Armada. John Hay, Secretary of State, taking note of this affair, pointed out that the United States had an ancient rule, by which they set great store, to the effect that no excuse would do for invading American soil. The Kaiser politely replied that if he found it necessary to take Venezuelan territory it would only be i for "temporary" occupation. In an appendix to Mr. William Roscoe Thayer's Life of John Hay, Mr. Roosevelt describes what happened then as follows : "I also became convinced that Germany in- tended to seize some Venezuelan harbour and IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 2T9 turn it into a strongly fortified place of arms, on the model of Kiauchau, with a view to ex- ercising some degree of control over the future Isthmian Canal, and over South American af- fairs generally. *Tor some time the usual methods of diplo- matic intercourse were tried. Germany de- clined to agree to arbitrate the question at is- sue between her and Venezuela, and declined to say that she would not take possession of Venezuelan territory, merely saying that such possession would be ''temporary" — which might mean anything. I finally decided that no useful purpose would be served by further delay, and I took action accordingly. I as- sembled our battle fleet (there were more than fifty ships including every battleship and de- stroyer we had), under Admiral Dewey, near Porto Rico, for "manoeuvres," with instruc- tions that the fleet should be kept in hand and in fighting trim, and should be ready to sail at an hour's notice. The fact that the fleet was in West Indian waters was of course generally 280 DRAMATIC MOMENTS known ; but I believe that the Secretary of the Navy, and Admiral Dewey, and perhaps his Chief of Staff, and the Secretary of State, John Hay, were the only persons who knew about the order for the fleet to be ready to sail at an hour's notice. I told John Hay that I would now see the German Ambassador, Herr von Holleben, myself, and that I intended to bring matters to an early conclusion. Our navy was in very efficient condition, being su- perior to the German navy. "I saw the Ambassador, and explained that in view of the presence of the German squad- ron on the Venezuelan coast I could not per- mit longer delay in answering my request for an arbitration, and that I could not acquiesce in any seizure of Venezuelan territory. The Ambassador responded that his Government could not agree to arbitrate, and that there was no intention to take "permanent" possession of Venezuelan territory. I answered that Kiau- chau was not a "permanent" possession of Ger- many's — that I understood that it was merely ^ IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 281 held by a ninety-nine years' lease; and that I did not intend to have another Kiauchau, held by similar tenure, on the approach to the Isthmian Canal. The Ambassador repeated that his government would not agree to arbi- trate. I then asked him to inform his govern- ment that if no notification for arbitration came within a certain specified number of days I should be obliged to order Dewey to take his fleet to the Venezuelan coast and see that the German forces did not take possession of any territory. He expressed very grave concern, and asked me if I realized the serious conse- quences that would follow such action; conse- quences so serious to both countries that he dreaded to give them a name. I answered that I had thoroughly counted the cost before I de- cided on the step, and asked him to look at the map, as a glance would show him that there was no spot in the world where Germany in the event of a conflict with the United States would be at a greater disadvantage than in the Caribbean Sea. 282 DRAMATIC MOMENTS "'A few days later the Ambassador came to see me, talked pleasantly on several subjects, and rose to go. I asked him if he had any an- swer to make from his government to my re- quest, and when he said no, I informed him that in such event it was useless to wait as long as I had intended, and that Dewey would be or- dered to sail twenty-four hours in advance of the time I had set. He expressed deep appre- hension, and said that his government would not arbitrate. However, less than twenty-four hours before the time I had appointed for cabling the order to Dewey, the Embassy noti- fied me that His Imperial Majesty the Ger- man Emperor had directed him to request me to undertake the arbitration myself. I felt, and publicly expressed, great gratification at this outcome, and great appreciation of the course the German Government had finally agreed to take. Later I received the consent of the German Government to have the arbi- tration undertaken by the Hague Tribunal, and not by me." IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY 283 Von HoUeben was recalled in disgrace by the Kaiser and dismissed from the Diplomatic Service. There is one other interesting side light on this whole affair. In the American navy there were then as there are now many officers with German names and lineage. They were then as now patriotic Americans and Mr. Roosevelt took particular pains that in so far as their naval fitness allowed these men were in service on the battle fleet under Dewey so that the Kaiser might get the most unmistakable evi- dence that any dependence he placed on hy- phenism here would cost him dear. These matters, and many more — such as the thwarted effort of the Kaiser to establish a naval base at the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico, and his abortive attempt to purchase two ''private" harbours on the Pacific Ocean — these matters and many more constitute the working basis upon which American distrust of the protagonists of "Kultur" was built, long before the Lusitania. Those interested in 284 DRAMATIC MOMENTS John Hay's keen perception of the danger should read the chapter of William Roscoe Thayer's life of the great statesman, who "would rather be the dupe of China than the chum of the Kaiser." It shows that he put his finger on each and every certain sign of Teuton duplicity and propaganda, not forget- ting the German- American traitors enrolled under Prince Henry's banner. Of these he said: "The prime motive of every German- Ameri- can is hostility to every country in the world, including America, which is not friendly to Germany. * * * " It is small wonder, that knowing what he knew, Roosevelt wanted no time wasted wait- ing for "proofs." Proofs a-plenty had been written large before ever a gun was fired. THE END .-^ ^:^;. ^-^,_. ^^ 0_ ^0, V-* ^\^ 'O, -' , V ^ .^ '^^ ^.<^ ^s'^ % "^.s"^ c^'' ^-^ •^. ^ , X ^ J ,,-}■ v^^-. '