The Cdroliae Affair BY

HOWARD JONES”

ATE in 1537, during the course of the Canadian rebellion against the British Crown, there occurred one of the most potentially explosive events in Anglo-American relations since the War of 1812. The Caroline, a privately owned

American steamboat whose owner was accused of giving illicit aid to the insurgents, was captured, burned, and sunk near Niagara Falls by Canadian volunteers under the command of two British officers at nearby Chippewa, Colonel Allan MacNab of the militia and Captain Andrew Drew of the Royal Navy. Immediately, A- mericans along the New York-Canada border demanded war with England. Indeed, the vessel had been destroyed on their side of the Niagara River, and one American had been killed. The event, Americans exclaimed, had violated national honor. The purpose of this essay is to determine how the leaders of the governments in London and Washington managed to prevent this inflammatory border incident from developing into a third Anglo-American war.

1 One of the main attractions to Americans of the rebellion in

1837-38 in Canada was that it encouraged residents along the bor- der to think again of ending British rule in North America. Hurt by the growing depression, wanting to carry the democratic banner into Canada, or simply coveting land there, these Americans as- sisted insurgents seemingly affected by the “spirit of ’76.” Interest in Canada was not new, of course. A considerable number of A- mericans deeply regretted that British dominion in North America had not been removed completely in 1783, and they always had seemed committed to an early form of manifest destiny - con- tinental union. Though expansionist aims in the United States eventually turned to the shores of the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico, Americans along the Canadian border continued to believe that their country should acquire areas in the north. Self-government in Canada would lead to separation, they hoped; infiltration, mean- while, would prepare Canadians for union. An ti-Jackson news- papers during the late 1820s urged the United States government

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*The author is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alabama.

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The Historian to buy Canadian lands to offset the contemplated purchase of Texas, and there was talk that the nation should exchange Oregon territory for Upper Canada and the area around Montreal. T h e North American Review declared that union of Canada and the United States would be advantageous because it would lessen the chance of hostilities. Admitting that union should result only from Canada’s request; it, nonetheless, urged private citizens to encourage the move.

When the Canadian rebellion broke out, many Americans openly sympathized with the insurgents’ objectives. The insur- rection in IJpper Canada, the present-day province of Ontario, was led by the colorful and dynamic William Lyon Mackenzie and attracted widespread American interest along the border, while the chief agitator in Lower Canada, now Quebec, was the equally irispiring Louis Joseph Papineau: both uprisings were put down easily by loyalist forces, however, because most of the provinces’ population was passive, Among the complex issues involved in the rebellion were demands for election of all officials, more popular participation in government, and a new banking system. Drawing on examples from the American Revolution, the rebels established vigilance committees, committees of public safety, committees of correspondence, and Sons of Liberty. The British Constitutional Act of 1791 had not granted popular government, and, by dividing the colony into Upper and Lower Canada, it did nothing to en- courage the British in the western province to mix with the French in the east. Though the government of Upper Canada had con- ceded a partly democratic franchise, it was plain that the legislative council and executive (neither chosen by the people) could defeat any measure proposed by the elected assembly.

Few people in the United States hesitated to blame British officials in London for all of Canada’s problems. It was under- standable that an apparent Canadian crusade for democracy should appeal to Americans involved in Jacksonian reform movements of their own. Plans to eliminate British influence in North America developed in meetings along both sides of the border from Lake Champlain to Lake Michigan. Rebel leaders promised a cash bounty and land to “the worthy men of all nations” who volun- teered for their armies. The first “Patriot” army in the United States was organized in Buffalo, New York, in mid-December 1837. Open recruiting followed, and the number of enlistments jumped to nearly one thousand in about a month. Supporting organiza- tions appeared, some of which, such as the Canadian Refugee

*North Americun Reuieu 30 (Jan. 1830): 234-36, cited in Albert B. Corey, The Crisis af 1830-1812 in Canadian-American Relations (New Haven, 1941), 15, 16.

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Caroline Relief Association and the Sons of Liberty, disappeared after the first unsuccessful attempts to invade Canada. But secret societies like the Hunters’ Lodges and Chasers, similar to the Masons, ciedi- cated themselves to the elimination oE British control in North America and eventually spread between Vermont and Michigan and into Canada and the Southern states.

Newspaper opinion gives the impression that most Americans opposed active government interference with the Canadian re- bellion but that they did not seem to mind a prorebel neutrality. The Albany Argus, for example, did not oppose individual par- ticipation. If Canadian independence resulted, it saw an oppor- tunity for the United States to settle the northeastern boundary and secure navigation of the St. Lawrence River. When Lord John Russell’s Parliamentary resolutions of March 1837 rejected Lower Canada’s demands for self-government and precipitated the rebellion, the National Intelligencer declared that the British government deserved to lose Canada. Yet, like the Argus, it advo- cated neutrality. The Intelligencer questioned the moral right to intervene.3 Freedom would result without aid of the United States, it predicted, and because of political similarities the pro- vince perhaps would gravitate to the United States.

President Martin Van Bmen faced numerous obstacles in at- tempting to restrain Americans from interfering with Canadian affairs. He dutifully had warned that anyone aiding the rebels would receive no assistance if captured. But the Neutrality Act of 1818 that he relied upon only provided punitive measures after the fact; it did not establish steps by which the President could prevent filibustering expeditions. And even if Americans were arrested for helping the rebels, there was no guarantee of punish- ment; juries were reluctant to convict alleged offenders. In addi- tion, Van Ruren could not rely on military force, for the army numbered only 7,130 men in December 1837,4.000 of whom were fighting the Seminoles in Florida. He could not count on civil officials; they were either inefficient or they sympathized with the rebel cause and refused to enforce the laws. The situation was

Edgar W. McInnis, The Unguarded Frontier: A History of American-Canadian Relations (N.Y., 1942), 150; Orrin E. Tiffany, The Relations of the United States to the Canadian Rebellion of 1837-3S, in Buffalo Historicd Society Publications 8 (Buffalo, 1905): 1-147; Chester W. New, “The Rebellion of 1837 in Its Larger Setting,” in Canadian Historical Association, Report, 1937 (Toronto, 1937), 5-17, D. G. Creighton, “The Economic Background of the Rebellions of Eighteen Thirty- Seven,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 3 (Aug. 1937): 322-34; Wilson P. Shortridge, “The Canadian-American Frontier during the Rebellion of 1837-38,” Canadian Historical Reuiew 7 (Mar. 1926): 15-26; Corey, Crisis, 34-35.

Albany Argus, Dec. 9, 1837; and National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), Apr. 11, Dec. 5, and 7, 1837.

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The Historian dangerous politically as well, for although Van Buren’s Demo- cratic party was actively expansionist, it desired no war with the British. His long association with the aggressive Andrew Jackson, normally an asset, now made Democrats wonder if Van Buren’s peaceful measures were only temporary. Thus, the President was in an unenviable position. If he adopted repressive measures his party could suffer politically, especially in his own New York; if he did not, the Whigs could charge him with wanting war with England. Confronted by both Whigs and dissatisfied Democrats, by an economic depression, and by the weakness of neutrality legislation, Van Buren tried to keep the peace.

After Mackenzie’s followers failed to take Toronto in early December 1837, the rebel chieftain and about twenty-five men established a provisional government on Navy Island on the Cana- dian side of the Niagara River and prepared to invade the main- land. The island, seemingly formidable because its banks were from ten to twenty feet high and almost everywhere perpendicular to the surrounding waters, was little more than a mile above the falls and directly across from Schlosser on the American side. Its sole occupants, a widow and her son, had converted its only build- ing into a tavern which had become a rendezvous for outlaws. Rebels received artillery and other weapons from New York ar- senals, while rumor spread along the border of an impending attack on British forces at Chippewa. Some observers estimated the number of men on Navy Island at five thousand, including several Americans, but there were actually about a tenth that many. Mackenzie issued a proclamation calling for jury trials, election of officials, free trade, universal education, free use of the St. Lawrence, and distribution of lands. His men raised a flag of twin stars and a new moon peering through the clouds. Colonel Rensselaer Van Rensselaer of Albany, an American chosen by Mackenzie to lead the rebel army, readied his little force for bat- tle. It was at this point that the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, Sir Francis Bond Head, urged ‘the British minister in

James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messnge.r and Pnpers of the Presidents, 11 vols. (N.Y., 1910). 3. 485-87, James C. Curtis, Fox at Bay; Martin Van Buren and the Presidency, 1937-1841 (Lexington, 1970), 171; C. P. Stacey, ed., “A Private Report of General Winfield Scott on the Border Situation in 1839,” Canadian Historical Review 21 (Dec. 1940): 407-14; and John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1812 (Gainesville, 1967), 225-26. Democrats in the House who opposed war over the Caroline incident included Benjamin Howard of Maryland, Thomas Hamer of Ohio, Isaac Fletcher of Vermont, and Isaac Bronson of New York, US., Congress, Congressional Globe, 25 Cong., 2d sess.. 1838, 77, 78, 83,248-49.

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Caroline Washington to appeal to the Van Buren adminisn-ation to stop these activities before war resulted.5

Before the government could decide what to do about the crisis developing on Navy Island (soon called the “Island of Lib- erty”), the Caroline arrived in the Niaqara area. The forty-five- ton American steamer, owned by William Wells of Buffalo, left that city’s harbor early on December 28 with a license to carry passengers and cargo between Buffalo and Schlosser. Though Head concurred with the British militia commander at Chippewa, Colonel Allan MacNab, who said he had information that some- one on Navy Island had hired the Caroline to transport men and war materials, Wells later argued that he had not made a contract but had made his boat available, at admittedly exorbitant rates, to anyone wanting to cross the river. During the twenty-mile trip from Buffalo to the Niagara region, the Caroline’s crew raised the American ensign. Someone on the Canadian shore near Black Rock Dam opened fire on the boat, but no injuries resulted. When it arrived the next day at Navy Island several passengers disem- barked and the crew unloaded cargo. The CaroZine then !eft for Schlosser on the American side of the river and arrived around three o’clock in the afternoon. It made two more trips to Navy Island that day, bringing men each time. Though Wells claimed that his boat had transported no war materials to the island, he admitted that on one passage it carried a six-pound cannon. He curiously dismissed this as unimportant, however, because the gun belonged to a passenger. Early in the evening, due to mechanical

5Sir Francis Bond Head to Henry Fox, Dec. 23, 1837, Gieat Britain, Colonial Office [hereafter cited as CO], 537/139, Public Archives of Canada [hereafter cited as PAC], Ottawa; Head to Fox, Jan. 8, 1838, Great Britain, Foreign Office [hereafter cited as F01 88119, Public Record Office [hereafter cited as PRO], confidential print. “Correspondence Relative to the Seizure and Destruction of the Steam Boat Caroline. Printed Solely for the Use of the Cabinet.” Another confidential print, FO 881/8, PRO, entitled “Arrest of Mr. McLeod in New York on a charge of murder in con- nection with the destruction of the American steam-boat Caroline,” could not be located in the Public Record Office in London. Deposition of John Elmsley, Nov. 27, 1841, Great Britain, Department of State [hereafter cited as DS], Diplomatic Dispatches, National Archives [hereafter cited as NA], London; Head to MacNab, Dec. 21, 1837, MacNab Papers, Albemarle MSS, PAC; Niles’ National Register 53 (Jan. 27, 1838): 337; and Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, Mass.), Jan. 10, 1838.

6McCormack LO MacNab, n.d., 1838, MacNab, MSS, PAC; John Forsyth to Andrew Stevenson, Mar. 12, 1838, in William R. Manning, ed., Diplornotic Cor- respondence of the United States. Canadian Relations, 1784.1860, 4 vols. (Wash., 1940-45), 3: 48; Head to Fox, Jan. 8, 1838, FO 881/9, PRO; Head to Fox, Jan. 10, 1838, FO 5/328A, PRO, American Domestic Various, I; MacNab to H. W. Rogers, Dec. 29, 1837, ibid.; Deposition of William Merritt, Apr. 19, 1538, enclosed in Lord Palmerston to Stevenson, Aug. 27, 1R41, Great Britain, DS, Diplomatic Dispatches, NA; and Deposition of Wells, Dec. 30, 1837, US., Congress, House Executive Docu- ments, H.R. 302, 25th Cong., 2d sess., 1835, 9:46.

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The Historian difficulties, the captain postponed further trips, and the crew chained the Caroline to the dock at Schlosser.

Several other incidents made MacNab determine to destroy the steamer. An officer of the British navy had set out in a small boat to round Navy Island in order to investigate the strength of the fortifications, but as he gazed through his spyglass, a cannon opened fire on him. That same day muskets were fired from Grand Island (American soil) at Chippewa. Perhaps not knowing that the Caroline was moored in American waters at Schlosser, MacNab assured a New York attorney that he had no intention of invading American territory. He then ordered Captain Andrew Drew of the navy to destroy the ship.’

According to Drew’s later report to MacNab, five boats with forty-five volunteers left at about eleven o’clock that night and expected to find the Caroline at Navy Island. Pushing across the Niagara with the falls thundering to their left, the men rowed into the breakwater of ihe island. Not finding the Caroline at the wharf, they moved on, locating the steamboat about midnight - within American waters. Drew, nevertheless, ordered his men to move their boats slowly toward the unsuspecting vessel. Before ordering the attack, however, he urged the men not to harm anyone unnecessarily. Within a hundred yards, the Caroline’s sentry spot- ted them in the moonlight and called, “Who comes there?” - mce, twice, three times - and demanded the countersign. “Friend,” finally answered Drew, now less than twenty yards away. “I’ll give the countersign when I get on board!” The sentinel opened fire, but the men already were boarding, armed with cut- lasses, pikes, and pistols. The British party forced the thirty-three sleepy passengers and crew to the shore and had control of the vessel in less than ten minutes.*

While British and American witnesses testified that no one on board the Caroline was armed and that Drew’s men took the boat quietly, their story is unlikely. For one reason, New Yorkers had expected a British attack on Navy Island earlier that day - De- cember 29 -and had gathered at Schlosser to watch. I t seems, under these circumstances, that at least the Caroline’s crew would have been armed. And, since the boat had been chained to the dock, not moored by hemp in the usual manner, it appears that the officers on board expected trouble. In addition, three men in

‘ Elmsley to MacNab, Dec. 29, 1837, Manning, ed., Diplomatic Correspondence, 3: 421: MacNab to Drew, Dec. 29, 1837, ibid.; and MacNab to Rogers, Dec. 29, 1837, FO 881/9, PRO.

*Drew’s Report to MacNab, Dec. 30, 1837, FO 881/9, PRO. There was only one hotel in the area, and twenty-three New Yorkers had secured permission to sleep on board the Caroline with its officer and nine crew mcmbers.

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Caroline the boarding party, two of them officers, received gunshot and knife wounds during the attack, and a stage driver from Buffalo, Amos Durfee, died from a shot through the forehead while standing on the dock nearby. Though the question of whether anyone on the Caroline was armed may not seem worth argument, it was im- portant to British participants, who later sought to defend their actions against the charge of massacre leveled by American news- papers and other sympathizers with the rebellion. In the excite- ment of ‘the attack the British volunteer force perhaps mistook its own men for the enemy, although some witnesses said that the moonlight must have illuminated the red arm patches worn by Drew’s men. A member of the boarding party, Lieutenant Shep- ard McCormack of the British navy, said almost a year after the event that he had met resistance from three men on the Caroline and had seen many others carrying swords and pisto1s.O He re- ceived six wounds - three shots through the wrist, one through an arm, and another in the chest, as well as a saber cut on the loins.

The swift current of the Niagara and the proximity of the falls caused Drew to decide not to tow the Caroline to the British side. after searching to make sure that no one, dead or alive, remained on board, he decided to set it afire. Considerable time passed be- fore the crew managed to break the chain holding the C a r o h e to the dock, pull the boat to the middle of the river, and start the fire. Flames quickly enveloped the wooden hull, and the three- foot-long flag fell from the stern. Several persons, including Drew himself, later insisted that they saw the Caroline drift over the falls, and, even though some writers have doubted that the boat could have remained intact for the mile-and-a-quarter distance down the river, the force of the current so near the falls probably pulled the steamer over them before it could be consumed by fire. I t is arguable that the engine fell through the bottom and that some pieces of wood floated over the falls; but, whether the Caro- line sank above or below Niagara Falls, Wells’s risky investment cost him forty-six hundred dollars.

9Deposition of McCormack, Dec. 11 , 1838, in Paimerston to Stevenson, Aug. 27, 1841, Great Britain, DS, Diplomatic Dispatchcs, NA.

”See Richard Arnold’s narrative of the event in John C. Dent, T h e Story of the UFper Canadian Rebellion; Largely Derived from Original Sources and Docu- rnents, 2 vols. (Toronto, 1885), 2: 214: Drew to Sir John Barrow, Jan. 1, 1838, FO 5/328A, PRO; Statement of Claims for losses of Caroline, Dec. 30, 1837, US., Con- gress, House Exec. Docs., H.R. 302, 25th Cong., 2d sess., 1838, 9: 61; Milledge L. Bon- ham, Jr., “Alexander McLeod: Bone of Contention,” New York History 18 (Apr. 1937): 189-217; and Edwin C. Guillet, The Liae.c and Times of the Patriots (Toronto, 1938), 71-87. Almost four years after the Crrroline affair, a participant recalled that he was the last person to leave the boat before it was burned and that no one had been left on board. W. Wright [I] to MacNab, Nov. 17, 1841, MacNab, MSS, PAC.

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The Historian Eyewitness accounts claimed that many victims died in the

struggle over the Caroline, biit only Durfee is known to have died. Misinformed, Drew told MacNab that his men had killed five or six, while one witness swore that a black man lay dead on the wharf. A Canadian testified that, while in a bar in Queenstown on December 30, he overheard two British lieutenants, partici- pants in the attack, boast that, after killing the sentry, they had slaughtered everyone aboard. In a more plausible story, the com- mander of the boat, Gilman Appleby, told the New York grand jury that he had encountered a British soldier named Angus McLeod on the deck who screamed, “Down you damned Yankeel” and thrust his sword toward Appleby’s chest. Fortunately for Ap- pleby, the point pierced his clothing but not his skin, and he fell to the deck, pretending to be dead. A passenger, only nineteen, swore that, when he emerged from the cabin during the attack, some soldiers threw him onto a wounded man lying on the deck. Several persons on the Caroline testified that the boarding party cried out, “G - d damn them! Give them no quarter! Kill every man! Fire, fire!” l1

I t was indeed an awful massacre - according to the newspapers. Dubbing MacNab the “Robespierre of the age,” the Livingston Register, of Geneseo, New York, urged the “Eagle of the North” to avenge national honor on the principle of “Blood for Blood.” Niles’ Register reported that British soldiers had killed all but two or three of the thirty persons aboard and sent the boat over the falls. The National Infelligencer declared that the destruction of the Caroline had seriously endangered peace. Nearly one hundred and fifty men had boarded the boat, it said, and, after giving three cheers for Queen Victoria, they killed twenty-two of the passengers. The Buffalo Star, the Rochester Republican, and the Albany Argus claimed British soldiers had butchered the persons aboard the Caroline and allowed the bodies to go over the falls. Weeks after the event, William Lyon Mackenzie tried to rekindle American hatred by publishing a paper called T h e Caroline Almanac. It showed the boat in flames and its terror-stricken passengers on the rail as the Caroline went over the falls. The New York Heruld’s correspondent in Buffalo described many other piquant details.

l1 Deposition of Samuel Longley, Dec. 50, 1837, U.S., Congress, House Exec. Docs., H.R. 302, 25th Cong., 2d sess., 1838, 9: 19; Appleby to N.Y. grand jury, ;bid., 34; Deposition of Luke Walker, ibid., 28; Deposition of Appleby, Dec. 30, 1637, ibid., 17-18; Deposition of Elmsley, Nov. 27, 1838; all foregoing depositions enclosed in Palmerston to Stevenson, Aug. 27, 1841, Great Britain, DS, Diplomatic Dispatches, NA; and Forsyth to Stevenson, Mar. 12, 1838, in Manning, ed., Diplomatic Corre- spondence, 3: 49. There is some basis for the belief that Durfee was black, which would substantiate one witness’s account that he had seen a black man lying on the wharf after the attack. Bonham, “McLeod,” 190, n.6.

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Caroline One boy was shot during the attack, said the reporter, and the son of the ship’s captain “was cut down while on his knees, asking for mercy.” The attackers, aided by beacon lights from Chippewa and cheered by a crowd on shore, rowed back triumphantly to British territory, according to the Herald, and dodged the fire opened upon them from Navy Island. “Surely war with England was unavoidable.” l2

Settlers in western New York began arming, their newspapers carried military orders, and the frontier was inflamed. By early February 1838, the Niagara County court had issued a murder indictment against MacNab, Angus McLeod, and others. Accord- ing to a poem published at the time:

As over the shelving rocks she broke, And plunged in her turbulent grave, The slumbering genius of freedom woke, Baptized in Niagara’s wave, And sounded her warning Tocsin far, From Atlantic‘s shore to the polar star.

In a brief article entitled “Quick on the TriEger,” the Herald an- nounced that New York theaters were preparing a play based upon destruction of the Caroline; the incident offered an opportunity for “splendid scenery, noble sentiments, and fine situations.” Ameri- can feelings were further incensed by government actions in Cana- da. The legislature of Upper Canada celebrated the Caroline victory by presenting swords to MacNab and Drew, and Lieuten- ant Governor Head and the Canadian press publicly approved the attack. l3

Many in New York demanded war with Great Britain. In Rochester, politicians delivered inflammatory speeches to huge crowds of irate citizens, while in Albany, according to the New York Herald, there was a “silent, sullen, settled determination of

*Niles’ National Register, 53 (Jan. 20, 1838): 323; National Intelligencer (Wash- ington, D.C.), Jan. 5, 1838; Rochester Republican, Jan. 2, 1838; Albany Argus, Jan. 3, 1838; Buffalo Star, quoted in New York Herald, Jan. 4, 1838; and New York Herald, Jan. 4, 5, and 6, 1838. The Herald was the only newspaper with reporters at the Niagara scene during the first week of January 1836. William liilhourn, The Firebrand: William Lyon Mackenrie and the Rebellion in Upper Canada (Toronto, 1956), 202. The Bocton Times reminded its readers of the fable of the farmer and the lawyer: it mattered “whose bull it was that gored the ox.” Quoted in Shortridge, “Canadian-American Frontier,” 18.

=“Minutes of the Niagara Sessions relative to the murder on board the Caroline,” Jan. 25, 1838, FO 881/9, PRO: Rogers to Van Buren, Dec. 30, 1837, Man- ning, ed., Diplomatic Correspondence, 3: 456; poem in Robert H. Ferrell. American Diplomacy: A History, rev. ed. (N.Y., 1969), 226: New York Hertild, Jan. 9 and 16, 1838; National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), Jan. 19, 1838; and Head to MacNab, Jan. 1, 1838, MacNab, MSS, PAC.

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The Historian vengeance” among “young, active, hardy, and daring men,” who bragged in the streets that they would dine in Toronto in a couple of weeks. At a large public gathering attended by fifteen hundred people in the city’s park, great disorder followed cheers of “Hur- rah for the patriots!”; “Three groans for MacNab!”; and “Down with Sir Francis Head! Off wid his head!” The mayor concluded the meeting by calling for the country to avenge the incident at Schlosser. 14 Men in Buffalo beat drums while soldiers marched, “convulsively” grasping their muskets. Citizens readied cannon to defend the city, and “Women - beautiful women,” lifted hand- kerchieis to “their swollen eyes.” A West Point cadet, “a splendid fellow,” led a company of volunteers down to Grand Island, planted the flag, and swore to protect the United States. Highlighting events was the public funeral of Amos Durfee. In the evenin8 of December 30, the ATew York Herald recorded, the rebels exhibited his draped body in front of the Eagle Hotel, its “pale forehead, mangled by the pistol ball, and his locks matted with his bloodl” After placing his remains on the veranda of city hall, they adver- tised the funeral by coffin-shaped posters. Nearly three thousand persons attended the obsequies the following day. With the coffin resting on the steps of the courthouse before the jammed public square, an Episcopal clergyman offered a prayer for Durfce, and a young attorney gave a “speech more exciting, thrilling, and much more indignant than Mark Antony’s.” lR

2 President Van Buren learned of the Caroline affair just before

an Executive Mansion dinner on January 4. General Winfield Scott, Henry Clay, nineteen Whig friends, and three or four Demo- crats had arrived, but, long after the time for dinner had passed, the President had not appeared. After a while the guests learned he was in a Cabinet meeting, and the Whigs jokingly asked the Democrats if Van Buren planned to resign. Evcntually the chubby little President, drawn and pale, entered the room and went directly to Clay and Scott. Informing them blood had been shed, he ordered Scott to the Niagara border. The secretary of war was writing instructions that moment.

Van Buren then took the incident to the -4merican people. He invoked the neutrality proclamation again, informed Congress he had ordered out the militia, and warned that anyone interfering

*‘Jacob Gould to Van Buren, Jan. 8, 1838, Van Buren Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; New York Herald, Jan. 5 and 8, 1838.

New York Herald, Jan. 4, 5, 16, 1838. l0 Winfield Scott, Memoirs of Lieut.-General Scott, L.L.D., Written by Himserf,

2 vols. (N. Y., 1864), 1: 307.

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Caroline was subject to arrest. The President then asked Congress for mili- tary appropriations and announced that he would seek reparation for the Caroline. Though occupied with such important matters as the subtreasury issue, John C. Calhoun’s proslavery resolutions, and the Mexican claims dispute, Congress immediately set them aside and began an extensive, bitter debate on the new crisis.

Most Congressmen did not want war with the British, but many from all sections of the country expected the Van Buren administration to secure reparation fur the Caroline. The indig- nant Representative Millard Fillmore, of New York, told the House that MacNab’s orders for Drew to destroy the Caroline had been especially infuriating because the colonel had assured New York‘s district attorney, just before the attack, that the United States need not fear invasion. Drew disobeyed orders, Fillmore sarcastically pointed out, yet MacNab had praised him. From Massachusetts, Representative John Quincy Adams expressed fear that the United States was in danger of war. Several Congressmen railed in anger at the alleged massacre, a “foul, wilful. deliberate, unmitigated murder,” exclaimed Waddy Thompson of South Carolina. Richard Menefee, of Kentucky, met criticism from all sides when he declared that since there were no great principles involved in the Caroline incident, such as the right of search or impressment of American seamen, he could not favor war. “No principle involved! Great God!”, exclaimed Thompson. “No principle involved in the invasion of our territory by a hostile band of another nation, and the murder, with fiendish atrocity, of our sleeping and unoffending citizens?” In the Senate, John C. Cal- houn, of South Carolina, urged calm, while Henry Clay, of Ken- tucky, considered the event atrocious and wholly unjustifiable but wanted peace and called on the British to make reparation. Thom- as Hart Benton, of Missouri, angrily declared that British soldiers had violated the law of nations by invading American territory, attacking a boat in a neutral port, and harming-persons in neutral territory; they also had committed a crime against the municipal laws of New York. He seemed to express the sentiment of both IIouses when he concluded that full redress was imperative. l7 Congress appropriated $625,000 for defense of the Northern fron- tier.

The diplomats then took over. The Department of ’kite and the Foreign Office exchanged many notes through March 1838 and helped to alleviate the crisis by moving the focus of attention

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“Thomas Hart Benton, Thirty Years’ Bzew: or, A Hislory of the American Government for Thirty Years f rom 1520 to 1850, 2 vols. (N.Y., IS%), 2: 280-81, 293; MacNab to Col. J . M. Strachnn, Jan. 1, 1838, FO 881/9, PRO: and US., Congress, Congressional Globe, 25th Cong., 2d sess., 1838, 76-78, 82-63, 87, 248-49.

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The Historian to the moderates who favored peace. Secretary of State John For- syth, an influential Jacksonian Democrat and an ex-Senator from Georgia, urged reparation for the destruction of American prop- erty and murder of American citizens. lP Lord Melbourne’s govern- ment, however, through its minister in Washington, Henry Fox, delayed replying to the American demand for compensation. As- sumption of responsibility for the act, it was clear, would have made Great Britain the aggressor, disputing reports that there had been no intention to invade American territory. What no one seemed to realize, however, was that until British officials called the attack a “public act” (one committed under government or- ders), participants were subject to prosecution by New York courts.

Over a month after the incident, Fox explained to Forsyth that the “piratical character” of the Caroline and the inability of New York to enforce American neutrality laws had justified destruction of the boat wherever found. Labeling the boat a “pirate,” Fox knew, enabled all states concerned to capture and destroy it. He might have added that the American declaration of neutrality, though not formal recognition of the Canadian insurgents, was akin to regarding Navy Island as a state at war - hence liable for breaches of law. Although piracy usually is associated with offenses on the high seas, the Crown’s law officers, in late February 1838. supported Fox’s reasoning by saying that destruction was justifiable by the law of nations under the dire circumstances and that the place of the boat’s mooring could not be construed as neutral ter- ritory. Forsyth countered that the Caroline had not been engaged in piracy, for the owner had registered it in Buffalo as a freight and passenger boat and it had been flying the American flag. He added that British soldiers had no right to harm American citizens on American soil. A resident of Canada, however, later claimed con- vincingly that Wells had chartered the Caroline to the Patriots in Buffalo for six thousand dollars a month.19

An informal discussion with the British foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston, convinced the American minister to London, Andrew Stevenson, that the British government would acknowledge that

Forsyth to Fox, Jan. 5, 1838, Great Britain, DS, Notes to Foreign Legations in the U.S. from the Department of State, 1834-1906, NA.

18 Fox Lo Forsyth, Feb. 6, 1838, Great Britain, DS, Notes from the British Legation in the US. to the Department of State, 1791-1906, NA: Law Officers’ opinion of Feb. 21, 1838, in FO 881/9, PRO: Fox to Palmerston, Feb. 25, 1838, FO 5/322, PRO; Forsyth to Fox, Feb. 13, 18-38, Great Britain, DS, Notes t o Foreign Legations in US., NA; Forsyth to Stevenson, Mar. 12, 1838, Manning, ed., D;p lO?r lUtk Correspondence, 3: 50-51; Palmerston to Stevcnson, June 6, 1838, ibid., 460; Fox to Palmerston, Jan. 26, 1841, Embassy: Correspondcrice With US, FO 115/69, PRO: Aberdeen to Fox, Apr. 18, 1842, ibid., vol. 79; and C. A. Nayerman [?] to MacNab, Dec. 31, 1837, MacNab, MSS, PAC.

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Caroline the attack was a public act, justified by the law of nations. As Canadian officials admitted, Drew had dealt with the Caroline according to the “Usages of War.” The truth was that there was no way Great Britain could evade responsibility - Canadian volun- teers had attacked the boat in an effort to suppress the rebellion against the Crown; the lieutenant governor of IJpper Canada had approved the act publicly: and the provincial assembly had award- ed swords to MacNab and Drew. One even could interpret Palmer- ston’s silence as approval of the act. He at first had tried to dismiss it by claiming that American newspapers had exaggerated the inci- dent. Yet when he discovered that much of the story was true, he might have cleared matters by defining his government’s posi- tion. It is possible that Palmerston hoped to gain from a delay; after all, the Caroline had been destroyed without the London government having to accept responsibility. Whatever his strategy, it was not until nearly six months after Stevenson’s request for reparation that the Foreign Secretary instructed Fox, on November 6, 1838, to admit that destruction of the Caroline was a public act. For some unexplained reason, however - Fox later said it was be- cause there was never a question that the Cnroline’s destruction was a public act- the British Minister did not inform the United States of his government’s decision for two years. He perhaps assumed that his labeling of the steamboat’s activities as piracy implied that its destruction was justified by self-defense and that such an act was “public,” but his failure to make this point clear allowed a bad situation to change for the worse.2o

General Scott, meanwhile, had proceeded to the frontier. Sec- retary of War Joel Poinsett had instructed the fifty-two-year-old soldier to assume command of American forces along the Cana- dian border and to request the governors of New York and Ver- mont to call out whatever militia he considered necessary to pre- serve peace. Poinsett did not authorize him to use the army’s regulars, however, and this drew Scott’s comment that he was to

aLord Glenelg to Palm., Wune ?] 1838, CO 537/139, PAC; Sir George Arthur to Glenelg, Dec. 17, 1838, FO 5/339, PRO: Palmerston to Fox, Nov. 6, 1838, FO 5/321, PRO; and Head to MacNab. ,Jan. 1, 1838, MacNab, MSS, PAC. Palmerston had instructed Fox to say that “The attack upon the Caroline was the publick Act of persons in Her Majesty’s Service, and, according to the usages of nations, that proceeding can only be the subject of negotiations between the two governments, and cannot be made the ground of proceedings against individuals.” See also Fox to Forsyth, Feb. 6, 1838, Great Britain, DS, Notes from British Legation in US., NA: Fox LO Forsyth, Dec. 13, 1840, ihid., Fox to Palmerston, Jan. 10, 1841, FO 115/69, PRO: Fox to Aberdeen, Nov. 20, 1841, FO 115/76, dispatch 124, PRO; Palmerston to Stevenson, Feb. 25, 1841, John Rutherfoord Papers, Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, N.C.; J. Dames ?] Hamilton to Stevenson, Mar. 3, 1841, ibid.; Stevenson to Rutherfoord, Mar. 3, 1841, ibid.; and Stevenson to Palmerston, Aug. 31, 1841, ibid.

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The Historian maintain peace only through “rhetoric and diplomacy.” Still, a resident of Buffalo noted the secure feeling “this yellow-plumed, gold-laced hero” gave to everyone. Great Britain owed the United States reparation and an apology, Scott told crowds of listeners, but only the President and Congress should deal with the matter. Unarmed, except for his sword, he thanked God for America and challenged his listeners: “I tell you, then, except it be over my body, you shall not pass this line - you shall not embark.”21

Scott apparently convinced Colonel Rensselaer to abandon the war effort. At a meeting with the rebel leader near Niagara Falls on the night of January 13, 1838, he told the young man that the rebels’ cause was hopeless. Though there are no records of the conversation, Scott’s lecture might have brought Rensselaer to a decision-or bolstered one already made. In any case, the insurgents left Navy Island the following day and retreated to Fort Malden near Buffalo. Governor William Marcy of New York had Rensselaer arrested on January 15, but he soon was free on bail and planning another invasion. After jumping bail and going into Canada, authorities there arrested him; this time he stayed in jail.

Without strong leadership the rebellion proceeded disastrous- ly, and by late 1838 it was over. The British government already had sent a special mission led by Lord Durham to Canada to per- suade the insurgents to consider peaceful means of solving their problems. When he published his Report in February 1839, re- formers welcomed his recommendations for union of the two Canadas and establishment of popular government. 22 But the Act of 1840 only unified the Canadas; it was not until 1848 that Lord Elgin’s ministry recognized the principle of responsible govern- ment. Most important to Anglo-American relations, however, the ideas contained in the Durham Report helped eliminate the causes of the rebellion and lessened the possibility of collision between Great Britain and the United States.

3 There is an aftermath to the Caroline affair. In late 1840, New

York officials arrested a Canadian citizen named Alexander Mc- Leod for murder and arson which allegedly occirrred during de- struction of the steamboat. Partially because the British govern-

21Scott, Memoirs, 1: 308-17; Stacey, ed., “Private Report of Scott,” 408; Curtis, Fox at Bay, 174-75; Charles W. Elliott, Winfield Scott, the Soldier and the Man (N. Y., 1937), 338-57; Buffalo resident quoted in zbid., 340.

”Chester W. New, Lord Duthnni: A Biogrnphy of John George r.uml:ion, First Earl of Durham (Oxford, 1929), 378-80.

-19s

Caroline ment had failed to make clear that the act had been “public,” but also because New York never had recognized the existence of a state of war in 1837, the state regarded the Caroline affair as ex- clusively its own concern. State officials already had arrested or merely harassed numerous alleged participants in the attack, and they now prepared to try Mcl,eod, a hitherto unknown Canadian sheriff. When Melbourne’s government protested the arrest as a violation of international law, the American government, which by the spring of 1841 was under the presidency of John Tyler, agreed and tried to remove the case from the state courts to the Supreme Court, where the President hoped for a ruling of nolle prosequi. But New York officials appealed to the states’ rights doctrine in support of their claim to try a man who had committed a crime within the state. Hampered by bitter party divisions, the Tyler administration, through Secretary of State Daniel Webster, could do nothing to halt the trial and possible execution of a British subject, the final act constituting an act of war, according to Palmerston. After about eleven months of tension, a jury was convinced by McLeods alibi that he was innocent and released him. 23

As late as 1842, the Caroline matter remained a sore spot in Anglo-American relations. T h e British government, despite the serious nature of the McLeod affair, still had not offered an apology or made reparation for the invasion of American territory and de- struction of the steamboat. New Yorkers bitterly recalled that the government in Washington had not supported their demands for retaliation five years earlier. Respect for America’s honor required Great Britain to admit that the acts were wrong, but the new conciliatory ministry of Sir Robert Peel saw political danger in apologizing, especially since New York had tried a British subject who had obeyed government orders. Though the Caroline inci- dent was no longer inflammatory, some American politicians hoped to capitalize on its emotional appeal, while others considered an apology essential to national honor.

Fortunately, both governments wanted to resolve their prob- lems, and in April a special emissary, the elderly former head of the Baring Brothers banking house in London, Lord Ashburton, arrived in Washington to talk with Wehster. The British Foreign

P3For a memorial signed by several Canadians afraid LO enter the United States because of the possibility of imprisonment, qee 4rthur to Gknelg, Sept. 18, 1838, CO 42/450, PAC. The memorialists urged negotiatlon of the problem with the United States. On the McLeod affair, see Bonham, “McLeod,” 189-217: Alastaii Watt, “The Case of Alexander McLeod,” Canadzan Histo*ical Review, 12 (Jtuiie 1931): 145-67; and Albert B. Corey, “Public Opinion and the hfcLeod Case,” Canadian Historicai Association, 1936 (Toronto, 1936), 53-64.

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The Historian Secretary, now Lord Aberdeen, believed that the Melbourne government, in 1837-38, should have flatly refused the American demand for reparation after destruction of the Caroline. The British act, Aberdeen said, was justified by self-defense, “however much to be lamented,” and the trial of McLeod proved the true character of the boat’s mission and made untenable, on any just grounds, its owner’s claim to compensation. In his instructions to Ashburton, the Foreign Secretary repeated the arguments presented ir, 1838 but directed him to assure the United States that the act had not set a damaging precedent in their relations. Ashburton agreed and thought an exchange of notes with Webster was ad- visable. 24

As had been the case in previous Anglo-American disputes, questions much deeper than surface issues threatened their rela- tions. Vital interests - matters of national honor - prevented Webster and Ashburton from considering a settlement of the Caroline matter by treaty provision. The Secretary emphasized that destruction of the steamboat had compromised the sovereignty and dignity of the United States. The issues at stake, he said, were America’s “self-respect, the consciousness of independence and national equality.” To avert a heated argument over the princi- ples involved in the incident, Ashburton proposed interweaving a “degree of apology” with a “decided justification” of the act.26

The United States received something close to an apology from the British government for the Caroline incident. Though Ash- burton admitted that Palmerston should have issued some ex- planation and apology immediately, it took Webster two days to persuade the Minister to me the word “apology” in the note. Ashburton realized how important it was to American honor that there should be a settlement. Still, he could not ignore the danger of political reaction at home. Close perusal of the note reveals no actual apology by the government in power - only an expression of regret that its predecessor had not resolved the matter. Presi- dent Tyler dropped the subject after the British government said it had intended no disrespect to the United States when its forces entered American territory and admitted that an apology - for the invasion - had been due at the time of occurrence. There could be no reparation for the Caroline, however; it had been engaged in

%‘Aberdeen to Ashburton, Feb. 8, 1842, Lord Ashhurton Papers, FO 5/378, pt. 1, PRO. The Duke of Wellington agreed with Aberdeen. See his Memorandum, Feb. P, 1842, Lord Aberdeen Papers, British Museum, Additioual Manuscripts, 43123; and Aberdeen to Ashburton, July 18, 1842, ibid.

%Webster to Ashburton, July 27, 1842, Great Britain, DS, Notes to Foreign Legtions in U S , pt. 1, dispatch 14, NA; and Ashburton to Aberdeen, July 28, 1842, Ashburton Papers, FO 5/380, PRO.

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Caroline

illegal activities. The amenities concluded with Webster’s ex- pression of regret for the delayed release of McLeod. When Con- gress, in late August, passed a law establishing federal jurisdiction over cases similar to that of McLeod, the honor of both nations had been vindicated and the Caroline matter at last was closed.26

4

If the governments in London and Washington had not insisted on peace in early 1838, it seems possible that the Caroline affair could have combined with the northeastern boundary problem and other Anglo-American differences to embroil Great Britain and the United States in war. Basic issues regarding national honor were present, just as they had been prior to the War of 1812. What more explosive events could have happened than for British soldiers to have invaded American territory, destroyed American property, and killed an American citizen? When one considers that these acts were committed by Great Britain, a country which many Americans believed still hesitated to recognize the United States as a sovereign nation, British and American diplomats ac- complished a great deal in preserving the peace.

Though Great Britain and the United States seemed danger- ously close to war in early 1838, war fever noticeably declined as one moved farther from the Canadian frontier. In fact, close ex- amination of outspoken Congressional members shows that most of them leveled their criticisms mainly at the Van Buren govern- ment for not acting immediately and forcefully in securing redress from the British. Few wanted war. Even British Minister Fox, no admirer of the United States, discerned that it was primarily the party press, New York State authorities, and small pockets of pri- vate citizens who demanded war. The Richmond Enquirer, as early as mid-January, happily remarked that excitement had di- minished. While the Washington Globe urged peace throughout the crisis, the National Intelligencer gratefully announced that the “tragico-comico Navy Island affair” was about to end. General Scott’s energetic course was a factor. More than once British lead- ers expressed faith in his “high character” and “known discretion.” Surely, a steadying influence was Van Buren’s belief that Palmer-

s~ Ashburton to Webster, July 28, 1842, in James M. McTntyre, ed.. The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, 18 vols. (Boston, 1903), 11: 295-301; Webster to Ashburton, July 27, 1842, in ibid., 292.93; Webster to Ashburton, Aug. 6, 1842, in ibid., 302-3; Ashburton to Aberdeen, July 28, 1842, Ashburton Papers, FO 5/380, pt. 1, dispatch 14, PRO: Tyler to Webster, July 26, 1842, Charles M. Wiltse, ed., Daniel Webster Papers (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1971), 17/23009: George T. Curtis, Life of Daniel Webster, 2 vols. (N.Y., 1870), 2: 121, n. 1; and U.S. Statutes at Large, V, 539.

50 1

The Historian ston truly sought conciliation. The Foreign Secretary’s confidence in the President’s “Friendly Spirit” and “perfect good faith” also was important. Another factor was the involvement of both nations in other matters. In addition to domestic issues, Great Britain had problems in Afghanistan, Egypt, and China. Even the emerg- ing Texas question made British leaders hesitant about protesting Canadian affairs. 27 The United States also had problems - besides the depression, it had to deal with Mexico and with the slavery question. But more important than any factor, diplomats and government leaders from both countries realized that neither side could afford a war.

p7 US., Congress, Congressional Globe, 25th Gong.. 2d sess., 1838, 77, 78, 83, 248- 4% Fox to Palmerston, Jan. 21, 1S3&, FO 5/322, PRO: Fox to Palmerston, Feb. 26, 1838, ibid.; Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 13, 1838; Washington Globe, Jan. 6, 1838; National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), Jan. 19, 1838: Fox to Palmerston, Jan. 13, 1858, FO 5/322, PRO: Palmerston to FGX, Jan 13, 1838, Palmerston‘s Letter Books, British Museum, Add. MSS, ser. B., 48195, vol. 79, To North .4nierica, 1855-41: Palmerston to Fox, Mar. 10, 1838, ibid.; Palmerston to Fox, Jan. 13, 1838, FO 5/321, PRO: John C. Fitzpatrick, etl., The Autobiography of Martin Ban Buren, in Annual Report of American Historical Association, 1918, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1920), 2: 466; and Kenneth Bourne, Britain and the Balance of Power in North America, 1815-1908 (Berkeley, 1967), 76-79.

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