Unfortunate Movements

THE disasters on the northwestern frontier at the very beginning of the war and the evident intention of the British to make the savages of the forest their allies in the prosecution of it, caused widespread alarm and indignation; while the opponents of the administration unpatriotically took advantage of the confusion in the public mind to cast obstacles in the way of the government in carrying on the war. The governor of Massachusetts (Caleb Strong), of New Hampshire (William Plumer), and of Connecticut (Roger Griswold), refused to allow the militia of their respective States to march to the northern frontier on the requisition of the President of the United States. They justified their course with the plea that such a requisition was unconstitutional and that the war was unnecessary. The British, meanwhile, had declared the whole American coast in a state of blockade, excepting that of the New England States.

These events justified a suspicion that prevailed for awhile that the New England States were ready and willing to leave the Union, and become a part of the British empire--a suspicion that had been created by revelations made to the President several months before, by an Irishman named John Henry, who had lived in Canada for several years. Late on a stormy night in February, 1812, Henry went to the mansion of President Madison, bearing a letter of introduction from Elbridge Gerry, then Democratic governor of Massachusetts. He said he had some secrets to divulge that were of very great importance to the people of the United States. An interview was arranged for the next evening, when Henry declared that for full two years efforts had been in progress on the part of the British authorities in Canada, sanctioned by the home government, to effect a separation of the Eastern States from the Union, and to attach them to Great Britain. He said that he had been employed by Sir James Craig, governor-general of Canada, in 1809, as a British spy, to visit Boston and ascertain the temper of the people of New England, who, at that time, seemed to be in a state of incipient rebellion because of the passage of the embargo act. He said that at first he was satisfied the New Englanders were ripe for revolt and separation.

Henry's performances in the matter so pleased Sir James, that he promised to give the spy lucrative employment in the Colonial government; but after waiting some time for the fulfillment of that promise, Sir James died, and Henry went to England in 1811 to seek remuneration for his services from the home government. He was petted by the cabinet for a while, and introduced into the highest circles of society. He demanded pound 30,000 for his great services, but offered to accept of a lucrative office in Canada. At length, wearied with his importunities, and satisfied that the disaffection in New England toward the government of the United States was not more serious than a local partisan feeling, the ministry dismissed Henry politely by referring him to Sir George Prevost, Sir James Craig's successor. The exasperated spy sailed for Boston instead of Quebec, with a determination to divulge the whole secret of British perfidy to the government of the United States, for a money consideration. He laid before the President the strong documentary evidence which clearly proved that Great Britain, while indulging in the most friendly expressions toward the United States, and negotiating treaties, was secretly engaged in efforts to destroy the young republic of the West, by fomenting disaffection toward it among a portion of the people, and intriguing with disaffected politicians with an expectation, with the aid of British arms, to be able to separate New England from the Union and reannex that territory to the British dominions. Madison was so well satisfied of the importance of Henry's disclosures, at the time when he was about to declare war against Great Britain, that he gave the spy $50,000 out of the secret service fund at his disposal, for his documents, which consisted chiefly of the correspondence of the parties to the affair in this country and in England.

These disclosures, when made public, intensified the indignation of the Americans against Great Britain. The inhabitants of New England were annoyed by the implied disparagement of the patriotism of their section of the Union. Both parties tried to make political capital out of the affair. The Democrats vehemently reiterated the charge that the Federalists were a "British party" and "disunionists," while the Opposition declared that it was only a political trick of the administration to damage their party, insure the re-election of Madison in the autumn of 1812, and to offer an excuse for the war. The acrimony caused by these partisan feelings was at its height when the New England governors refused to send their militia to the frontier; and the British government, in declaring the blockade of the American coast, discriminated in favor of that section. That the British, mistaking partisan feeling for unpatriotic disaffection, hoped to carry out their plan for disunion, there is no doubt; but the suspicion that the New England people contemplated disunion and annexation to the British crown, had no foundation in fact.

While New England was halting in its support of the war, the people of the other portions of the Union, especially in the region beyond the Alleghany mountains, were alive with enthusiasm in favor of prosecuting it with sharp and decisive vigor. They had suffered much from the Indians under British control, and the massacre at Chicago had kindled a flame of indignation not easily to be controlled by prudence.