To Shining Sea - Chapter 28
The Closing of the Port of New Orleans, October 16th 1802
The Unveiling of Canadian History, Volume 4.
To Shining Sea – Ireland, Haiti, and Louisiana, and the Idea of a Continental Republic, 1797 – 1804.
Part 3 – The Louisiana Frontier
Chapter 28 - The Closing of the Port of New Orleans, October 16th 1802
Two of President Jefferson’s biggest fears now came to fruition - Spain giving Louisiana and New Orleans to France, and the Americans losing the right to use the port of New Orleans!!!
Spanish Fort, at New Orleans (1798)
On October 9th 1802, Duke Ferdinand of Parma died. And by the 1801 treaty of Aranjuez between France and Spain, upon Ferdinand’s death, Parma would be ceded to France. France, which had militarily occupied Parma since 1796, now officially annexed Parma.
On October 15th 1802, the King of Spain, officially proclaimed the transfer of the colony of Louisiana, including the island of New Orleans, to the French Republic – as part of that same treaty of Aranjuez. And Spain would continue the administration of the colony until the French expedition arrived.
General Victor, the commander of the French army in the Batavian Republic, had been appointed by Bonaparte to lead the expedition, and the other 17 military officers and 14 administrators, along with their staff and servants, had been appointed on October 9th.
On November 26th, Victor was sent his official instructions to proceed to the Dutch port of Helvoet Sluys, to take command and to depart without delay, and he was also sent his secret instructions from Consul Bonaparte – to secure and garrison the port of New Orleans, to be defended from any possible attack by either the British or Americans; to regulate all immigration into Louisiana; and to assume alliances with the natives and construct a Franco-Indian front against American advances – while maintaining friendly relations with the United States!
However, because of the earlier demands for the Saint-Domingue expedition, a shortage of transports would delay the preparations, and then, because winter weather caused the port to be icebound, the expedition would be delayed again until spring. At the end of March, the British blockade of the Dutch coast stopped the departure. By May of 1803, all preparations for the expedition would be halted!
On November 10th, 1802, Livingston wrote to Madison to inform him that:
“France has cut the knot. The difficulties relative to Parma and Placentia that stopped the expedition to Louisiana have ended by their taking possession of the first. As you see by the enclosed paper, orders are given for the immediate embarkation of troops (two demi brigades) for Louisiana, they will sail in about twenty days from Holland. The government here will give no answer to my notes on the subject. They will say nothing on that of their limit or of our right under the Spanish treaty.”
But before this letter would reach Madison, far more ominous news would soon arrive at the nation’s capital – at Washington City.
Note: The city of Washington, in the county of Washington, in the District of Columbia, was incorporated on May 3rd 1802, and Robert Brent was appointed as its first mayor, by President Jefferson on June 1st 1802. Mayor Brent’s mother, Ann Carroll, was the sister of Bishop John Carroll, and she was the cousin of Charles Carroll, who had been a member of the Commission to Canada, with Dr. Benjamin Franklin.
A year earlier, on July 13th 1801, the Spanish Intendant at New Orleans, Juan Morales, had written to Miguel Soler, the Spanish Secretary of the Treasury, that the Americans were using the right of deposit as a means of smuggling and of avoiding the customary duties. And so, on April 26th 1802, Soler would forward this letter to Pedro Cevallos, the Spanish Secretary of State.
And on April 16th, Valentin de Forondo, the Spanish consul general to the United States at Philadelphia, also wrote to Cevallos complaining of the lack of consideration shown to Spanish sailors in American ports and suggesting reprisals in the form of sterner measures at New Orleans.
On May 2nd, Cevallos asked Soler to make known his response in regard to the abuses arising from the right of deposit and the losses resulting therefrom to the treasury. In response, on July 2nd, Soler informed Cevallos that he had approved the restrictions imposed by Morales at New Orleans – requiring the presentation by the American shippers of clearance papers obtained from the United States custom officials. Then, on July 11th, Cevallos announced to Soler, that it was the intention of the king to close New Orleans to American shipping.
On October 16th 1802, one day after the King of Spain officially ceded Louisiana to France, the Intendant at New Orleans, Juan Morales, issued a proclamation that ended the right of deposit for the United States at New Orleans!!!
On November 25th, Madison received this news of the loss of the American right to deposit, and of the closing of the port of New Orleans to Americans, along with an extract of the Spanish proclamation, in an (October 18th) letter from William Hulings, the American vice consul at New Orleans. Madison also received an (October 29th) letter from William Claiborne, the Governor of the Mississippi territory, that he had written to the Spanish Governor of Louisiana to request information on:
“whether or not another place on the banks of the Mississippi had been assigned by His Catholic Majesty, (in conformity to our treaty with Spain) for an equivalent establishment.”
In his letter to Salcedo, Claiborne noted that in article 22 of the Treaty of San Lorenzo, Spain agreed to assign ‘an equivalent establishment’ elsewhere on the banks of the Mississippi should permission to deposit American produce at New Orleans be withdrawn. Claiborne was asking if the king had indeed withdrawn this permission, and whether and where he had assigned a new location.
On November 25th, Madison wrote to Carlos Martinez de Yrujo, the Spanish minister to the United States, who was also married to the daughter of Thomas McKean, Governor of Pennsylvania, that:
“the port of New Orleans has been shut against the commerce of the United States from the ocean into the Mississippi; and that the right of American citizens to deposit their merchandizes and effects in that port has also been prohibited, without the substitution of any equivalent establishment on the banks of the Mississippi … It is impossible to see in either of these measures, any thing less than a direct and gross violation of the terms as well as spirit of the Treaty of 1795 between his Catholic Majesty and the United States …”
Martinez de Yrujo replied that he could ‘only attribute the intendant’s action to an ill-advised zeal or to a poor interpretation of some general ordinance’ and that he would dispatch a ship as soon as possible with messages for the governor and intendant to find out what happened and the reasons for their conduct.
On November 27th, Madison wrote to Charles Pinckney, American Minister to Spain, that:
“this proceeding is so direct and palpable a violation of the Treaty of 1795, that in candor it is to be imputed rather to the Intendant solely, than to instructions of his Government. The Spanish Minister (Martinez) takes pains to impress this belief, and it is favoured by private accounts from New Orleans, mentioning that the Governor did not concur with the Intendant. But from whatever source the measure may have proceeded the President expects that the Spanish Government will neither lose a moment in countermanding it, nor hesitate to repair every damage which may result from it …
whilst you presume therefore in your representations to the Spanish Government, that the conduct of its officer is no less contrary to its intentions, than it is to its good faith, you will take care to express the strongest confidence, that the breach of the Treaty will be repaired in every way which justice and a regard for a friendly neighbourhood may require.”
Note: As a reward for his work in South Carolina during the last presidential election, Pinckney was appointed to be the United States Minister to Spain by President Jefferson.
Unfortunately, Minister Pinckney was not in Spain – (with the President’s permission) he had left Spain on November 14th and arrived at Italy on the 28th, before returning to Spain on January 28th 1803.
News of the events at New Orleans would be published in the New York Evening Post on November 25th. And, the new session of Congress was due to open in 2 weeks – on December 6th - while at this time, President Jefferson was being ridiculed in the ‘federalist’ newspapers.
In September 1802, James Callender wrote an article in the Richmond, Virginia ‘Recorder’ on the ‘Sally Hemings affair’. Also in September, Henry Coswell wrote an article in the Hudson, N.Y. ‘Wasp’ that Jefferson had earlier paid Callender to attack General Washington, calling him ‘a traitor, robber, and perjurer’. Coswell was found guilty of libel and General Hamilton would be his attorney in appealing his case.
On December 15th, President Jefferson sent his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, with his second Message to Congress to be read, that:
“another year has come around, and finds us still blessed with peace and friendship abroad; law, order, and religion, at home; good affection and harmony with our Indian neighbors; our burthens lightened, yet our income sufficient for the public wants, and the produce of the year great beyond example … and we remark, with special satisfaction, those which, under the smiles of Providence, result from the skill, industry, and order, of our citizens, managing their own affairs in their own way, and for their own use, unembarrassed by too much regulation, unoppressed by fiscal exactions.”
However, concerning the crisis in the western states and territories, the President’s message only said that:
“the cession of the Spanish province of Louisiana to France, which took place in the course of the late war, will, if carried into effect, make a change in the aspect of our foreign relations, which will doubtless have just weight in any deliberations of the legislature connected with that subject.”
But nothing was said in the Message about the crisis at New Orleans!?! General Hamilton would describe this as Jefferson’s ‘lullaby message’.
On December 17th, the ‘National Intelligencer’ of Washington City, published a memorial and two resolutions that had been unanimously adopted by the Senate and House of Representatives of Kentucky on December 1st. The first resolution declared that removing the American right to deposit at New Orleans was ‘a direct violation of the treaty of friendship limits and navigation, concluded in October 1795, between the United States and the King of Spain’.
The second resolution asked Governor James Garrand to send them to their representatives in Congress, to be presented to the President and to Congress. The memorial ended that:
“we rely with confidence on your wisdom and justice, and pledge ourselves to support, at the expense of our lives and fortunes, such measures as the honor, and interest of the United States require.”
Also on December 17th, Madison wrote to Livingston (including with the letter, some newspapers containing the President’s message, but also the proceedings from Kentucky) that:
“the excitement however which it has produced ought to admonish the holders whoever they may be, of the mouth of the Mississippi, that justice, ample justice to the western citizens of the United States, is the only tenure of peace with this country. There are now or in two years will be, not less than 200,000 militia on the waters of the Mississippi, every man of whom would march at a minutes warning to remove obstructions from that outlet to the sea, every man of whom regards the free use of that river as a natural & indefeasible right, and is conscious of the physical force that can at any time give effect to it. This consideration ought not to be overlooked by France, and would be alone sufficient, if allowed its due weight, to cure the phrensy which covets Louisiana. Other considerations however seem likely to co-operate for the same purpose. According to the latest account from St Domingo & her other W. I. Islands, they must be lost to her without large & speedy reinforcements.”
[next week - chapter 29 - The Secret Mission of Meriwether Lewis, January 18th 1803]
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