Book III — The Red Head Chief
I The Shadow of Napoleon
“Thank God for the safety of our country!” ejaculated Jefferson, in one of his long talks with Lewis regarding the upheaval across the sea.
In 1802 Napoleon had been declared Consul for life; May 18, 1804, four days after Lewis and Clark started, he had been saluted Emperor of France. Then came Jena. When Lewis and Clark reached the Mandan towns, Napoleon was entering Berlin with the Prussian monarchy at his feet.
While they camped at Clatsop in those December days of 1805, and while Baranof prayed for ships in his lonely Sitkan outpost, across seas “the sun of Austerlitz” had risen. Against Russian and Austrian, Napoleon had closed a war with a clap of thunder.
Every breeze bore news that overawed the world.
“Napoleon has taken Italy.”
“Napoleon has conquered Austria.”
“Napoleon has defeated Russia.”
“Napoleon has ruined Prussia.”
“Napoleon has taken Spain.”
While Lewis and Clark were at Washington came the battles of Eylau and Dantzic. In December Napoleon annexed Portugal, and the Court of Lisbon fled to Brazil, to escape his arms and to rear anew the House of Braganza.
How much more remained to conquer? How soon might the theatre of action come over the sea? Still there was England.
For a time the Napoleonic wars had thrown the carrying trade of the ocean into American hands. American farmers could not reach the coast fast enough with their fleets of grain, the food for armies. Cotton went up to a fabulous price. Enterprise fired the young republic. Ships were building two thousand miles inland to carry her products to the ocean. She grew, she throve, and an ever-increasing inland fleet carried to and fro the red life of a growing nation.
On the other hand, the torch of liberty, lit in America and burning there still with calm and splendid lustre, carried by French soldiers to France had kindled a continent, sweeping like a firebrand through a conflagration of abuses. All tradition was overturning. America alone was quiet, the refuge of the world. Every ship that touched our shores brought fugitives fleeing from battle-scarred fields where Europe groaned in sobs and blood.
Napoleon was now master of almost the entire coast of Europe. Did he cast regretful eyes this way? America feared it. Nothing but fear of England ever made Napoleon give us Louisiana.
In May, 1806, England blockaded the French coast. Napoleon retaliated by the Berlin Decrees, shutting up all England, interdicting the commerce of the world.
And so, when Lewis and Clark returned, the giants were locked in struggle, like Titans of old, tearing up kingdoms, palatinates, and whole empires to hurl at each other.
And we had Louisiana.
When Captain Lewis went to Washington he was the bearer of a mass of papers on land claims sent by Auguste Chouteau.
“I have had some disturbing news from Louisiana,” said Jefferson. “In the first place, Monsieur Auguste Chouteau writes requesting self-government, and that Louisiana remain for ever undivided. Now the day may come when we shall desire to cut Louisiana up into sovereign states,—not now, I grant, but in time, in time.
“Then the French people of New Orleans protest against American rule. Such is the dissatisfaction, it is said, that the people of Louisiana are only waiting for Bonaparte’s victory in his war with the allies to return to their allegiance with France.
“St. Louis asks for a Governor ‘who must reside in the territory,’ hence I propose to put you there.”
So it came about that Meriwether Lewis wrote back in February, “I shall probably come on to St. Louis for the purpose of residing among you.”
There was trouble with Spain. In July, 1806, everybody thought there would be a war with her. But Napoleon was Spain’s protector. It would never do to declare war against Napoleon. Napoleon!—the very word meant subjugation.
“Why are we safe from Bonaparte?” exclaimed Jefferson. “Only because he has not the British fleet at his command.”
Even while Congress was at its busiest, devising a government for New Orleans, not at all was Jefferson sure of the loyalty of the French of Louisiana.
“If they are not making overtures to Napoleon, they are implicated in the treason of Aaron Burr.”
All Washington was aflame over Aaron Burr. Only two years before Captain Lewis had left him in the seat of honour at Washington. The greatest lawyers in the country now were prosecuting his trial at Richmond, Randolph of Roanoke foreman of the jury and John Marshall presiding.
Borne with the throng, Lewis went over to Richmond. Washington Irving was there, Winfield Scott, and Andrew Jackson, “stamping up and down, damning Jefferson and extolling Burr.”
Burr’s friends, outcrying against Jefferson, caught sight of Meriwether Lewis; his popularity in a degree counteracted their vituperation. William Wirt of Maryland came down after making his great speech, to present a gold watch to his friend Meriwether Lewis.
With saddened heart Captain Lewis left Richmond. The beautiful Theodosia had come to stay with her father at the penitentiary. Lewis always liked Aaron Burr. What was he trying to do? The Mississippi was ours and Louisiana. But even the Ursuline nuns welcomed Burr to New Orleans, and the Creoles quite lost their heads over his winning address. All seemed to confirm the suspicions of Jefferson, who nightly tossed on his couch of worry.
It was necessary for Captain, now Governor, Lewis, to go to Philadelphia, to place his zoölogical and botanical collections in the hands of Dr. Barton. Scarce had the now famous explorer reached the city before he was beset by artists. Charles Willson Peale, who had painted the portraits of the most prominent officers of the Revolution, who had followed Washington and painted him as a Virginia colonel, as commander-in-chief, and as president, who had sat with him at Valley Forge and limned his features, cocked hat and all, on a piece of bed-ticking,—Peale now wanted to paint Lewis and Clark.
Of course such a flattering invitation was not to be resisted, and so, while Peale’s assistants were mounting Lewis’s antelopes, the first known to naturalists, and preparing for Jefferson the head and horns of a Rocky Mountain ram, Governor Lewis was sitting daily for his portrait.
This detained him in Philadelphia, when suddenly, on the 27th of June, the great upheaval of Europe cast breakers on our shores that made the country rock.
It seemed as if in spite of herself the United States would be drawn into the Napoleonic wars. England needed sailors, she must have sailors, she claimed and demanded them from American ships on the high seas.
“You shall not search my ship,” said the Captain of the American frigate Chesapeake off the Virginian capes. Instantly and unexpectedly, the British frigate Leopard rounded to and poured broadsides into the unprepared Chesapeake.
“Never,” said Jefferson, “has this country been in such a state of excitement since Lexington.”
“Fired on our ship!” The land was aflame. By such white heat are nations welded.
It was a bold thing for England to disavow. But no apologies could now conceal the fact, that not Napoleon, but England, was destined to be our foe, England, who claimed the commerce of the world.
Meriwether Lewis came home to hear Virginia ringing for war; not yet had she forgotten Yorktown.
The mountains of Albemarle were clothed in all the brilliancy of summer beauty when Lewis kissed his mother good-bye, and set out to assume the governorship of Louisiana.