Smuggler Nation (64 page)

72
.
The Writings of Albert Gallatin
, 1:397. Gallatin is specifically referring to courts in the Lake Ontario region.

73
. Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 81.

74
. Herring,
From Colony to Superpower
, 120.

75
. Spencer C. Tucker,
The Jeffersonian Gunboat Navy
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993), 86–90.

76
. Quoted in Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 318. This statute is reprinted in Frederick T. Wilson,
Federal Aid in Domestic Disturbances, 1787–1903
(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1903), 52.

77
. Quoted in Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 347–48. For more on Rhode Island smuggling during this period, see Harvey Strum, “Rhode Island and the Embargo of 1807,”
Rhode Island History
52, no. 2 (May 1994): 59–67.

78
. Quoted in Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 77.

79
. Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 76.

80
. Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 371, 403.

81
. King notes that “Baltimore, which a few years before had encountered difficulty getting authorization to employ one cutter, was told to hire three.” See Irving H. King,
The Coast Guard Under Sail: The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, 1789–1865
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989), 49.

82
. Smith,
Borderland Smuggling
, 68–69.

83
. According to Smith, “In 1807, the federal presence in Eastport [Maine] consisted of an unarmed customs collector, and perhaps a half a dozen part-time assistants. By 1812, the federal government bolstered that presence with a new and more effective collector, a permanent U.S. deputy marshal, a fortification garrisoned by a half company of artillerists, and a revenue cutter.” See Smith,
Borderland Smuggling
, 11.

84
. In his third annual message on 5 November 1811, President Madison not only complained about smuggling but declared that it was worse “when it blends with a pursuit of ignominious gain a treacherous subserviency, in the transgressors, to a foreign policy adverse to that of their own country.”
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1902
, ed. James D. Richardson (Washington, DC: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1907), 1:495.

Chapter 5

1
. Quoted in Gordon S. Wood,
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 670.

2
. Thomas Jefferson, for example, boldly proclaimed in August 1812 that “the acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching.” See
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson
, ed. Albert Ellery Bergh (Washington, DC: issued under the auspices of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States, 1907), 13:180.

3
. In Baltimore, for example, “a class of merchants—for instance, the McKim, Hollingworth and Hollins families, George Stiles, and Senator Samuel Smith—who had been central to the illegal, armed St. Domingue trade, and systematic undermining of the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809, and the Non-Importation Act of 1811, operated a fleet of privateers.” Gautham Rao,
The Creation of the American State: Customhouses, Law, and Commerce in the Age of Revolution
(Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 2008), 428. See also Jerome R. Garitree,
The Republic’s Private Navy: The American Privateering Business as Practiced by Baltimore in the War of 1812
(Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, and Mystic Seaport, 1977).

4
. This is emphasized by Donald Hickey, “American Trade Restrictions During the War of 1812,”
Journal of American History
68, no. 3 (December 1981): 517–38.

5
. Donald R. Hickey,
The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 225. Until 1814 the war with the United States was largely a sideshow for Britain as it continued to focus on continental Europe. But with Napoleon’s defeat the British moved more of their forces to the American war.

6
. Quoted in Hickey,
The War of 1812
, 168.

7
. Quoted in Hickey,
The War of 1812
, 216.

8
. Alan Taylor,
The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies
(New York: Vintage, 2011), 290–92.

9
. George C. Herring,
From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 128.

10
. Quoted in Hickey,
The War of 1812
, 226.

11
. H. N. Muller III, “A ‘Traitorous and Diabolical Traffic’: The Commerce of the Champlain-Richelieu Corridor During the War of 1812,”
Vermont History
44, no. 2 (Spring 1976): 90–91.

12
. This is the main argument of Donald G. Alcock, “The Best Defense Is … Smuggling? Vermonters During the War of 1812,”
Canadian Review of American Studies
, 25, no. 1 (Winter 1995): 73–91.

13
. Quoted in Muller, “A ‘Traitorous and Diabolical Traffic,’” 91.

14
. J. I. Little,
Loyalties in Conflict: A Canadian Borderland in War and Rebellion, 1812–1840
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 43.

15
. Quoted in Hickey,
The War of 1812
, 227.

16
. Hickey, “American Trade Restrictions During the War of 1812,” 535.

17
. Hickey,
The War of 1812
, 226.

18
. Muller, “A ‘Traitorous and Diabolical Traffic,’” 83.

19
. Quoted in Little,
Loyalties in Conflict
, 46.

20
. Stuart D. Brandes,
Warhogs: A History of War Profits in America
(Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1997), 56.

21
. Muller, “A ‘Traitorous and Diabolical Traffic,’” 90.

22
. See
Official Correspondence with the Department of War: Relative to the Military Operations of the American Army under the Command of Major General Izard, on the Northern Frontier of the United States in the Years 1814 and 1815
(Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson, 1816), 57.

23
. Quoted in Don Whitehead,
Border Guard: The Story of the United States Customs Service
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), 44.

24
. Hickey,
War of 1812
, 227. This illicit trade sometimes also included use of counterfeit American bank notes forged in Lower Canada. The problem of counterfeit American bank notes coming in from Canada predated the war, but the Canadian government cracked down on the forgers only in December 1813, when a substantial amount of bogus Lower Canadian army bills manufactured in Boston were about to be introduced via northern Vermont. See Little,
Loyalties in Conflict
, 48–49. For a more detailed discussion of counterfeiting in early America, see Stephen Mihm,
A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 2007.

25
. Harvey Strum, “Smuggling in Maine During the Embargo and the War of 1812,”
Colby Library Quarterly
19, no. 2 (June 1983): 90–97.

26
. Joshua Smith, “Patterns of Northern New England Smuggling, 1782–1820,” in William S. Dudley and Michael J. Crawford, eds.,
The Early Republic and the Sea: Essays on the Naval and Maritime History of the Early United States
(Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2001).

27
. Joshua Smith, quoted in Margaret Nagle, “The Golden Era of Smuggling,”
Today Magazine
(University of Maine), December 2001/January 2002.

28
. For a more detailed account, see Alan S. Taylor, “The Smuggling Career of William King,”
Maine Historical Society Quarterly
17 (Summer 1977): 19–38.

29
. Quoted in Michael J. Crawford, “The Navy’s Campaign Against the Licensed Trade in the War of 1812,”
American Neptune
46, no. 3 (1986): 167.

30
. When Madison was informed of this British favoritism toward New England in the license trade, he told Congress in February 1813 that this was an “insulting attempt on the virtue, the honor, the patriotism, and the fidelity of our brethren of the Eastern States.” Quoted in Hickey, “American Trade Restrictions During the War of 1812,” 528.

31
. Hickey, “American Trade Restrictions During the War of 1812,” 533.

32
. Brandes,
Warhogs
, 56.

33
. Quoted in Hickey, “American Trade Restrictions During the War of 1812,” 537.

34
. Quoted in Hickey,
The War of 1812
, 171.

35
.
The Documentary History of the Campaign upon the Niagara Frontier in the Year 1813
, ed. E. Cruikshank (Welland, Ontario: Tribune Office, 1905), 3:194.

36
. Quoted in the
Vermont Republican
18 April 1814, available in
Records of the Governor and Council of the State of Vermont
, ed. E. P. Walton (Montpelier: J. & J. M. Poland, 1878), 6:497–98.

37
. Wood,
Empire of Liberty
, 689.

38
. Brandes,
Warhogs
, 57.

39
. Brandes,
Warhogs
, 58.

40
. Harvey Strum, “Smuggling in the War of 1812,”
History Today
29, no. 8 (August 1979): 537.

41
. Strum, “Smuggling in the War of 1812,” 537.

42
. William C. Davis,
Pirates Laffite: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf
(Orlando: Harcourt, 2005), 48.

43
. Davis,
Pirates Laffite
, 48–49.

44
. Quoted in Whitehead,
Border Guard
, 46.

45
. Davis,
Pirates Laffite
, 80.

46
. Arsène Lacarrière Latour,
Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana in 1814–15
(1816, reprint Bedford, MA: Applewood, 2009), 15.

47
. Whitehead,
Border Guard
, 50.

48
. Davis,
Pirates Laffite
, 89.

49
. Davis,
Pirates Laffite
, 97, 107.

50
. Quoted in Davis,
Pirates Laffite
, 111.

51
. Davis,
Pirates Laffite
, 111.

52
. Quoted in Charles Gayarré,
History of Louisiana: The American Domination
(1882, reprinted Gretna, LA: Pelican, 1965), 4:370. Italics in original.

53
. Quoted in Jack C. Ramsay Jr.,
Jean Laffite: Prince of Pirates
(Austin: Eakin Press, 1996), 40.

54
. Davis,
Pirates Laffite
, 132.

55
. Davis,
Pirates Laffite
, 164.

56
. For more details, see John Sugden, “Jean Laffite and the British Offer of 1814,”
Louisiana History
20, no. 2 (Spring 1979): 159–67.

57
. Davis,
Pirates Laffite
, 174–75.

58
. Quoted in Whitehead,
Border Guard
, 52.

59
. Davis,
Pirates Laffite
, 188.

60
. Quoted in Ramsay,
Jean Laffite
, 60.

61
. Quoted in Ramsay,
Jean Laffite
, 60.

62
. Hickey,
War of 1812
, 207.

63
. Robert C. Vogel, “Jean Laffite, the Baratarians, and the Battle of New Orleans: A Reappraisal,”
Louisiana History
41, no. 3 (Summer 2000): 265.

64
. Quoted in Whitehead,
Border Guard
, 54.

65
. See Robert V. Remini,
The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and America’s First Military Victory
(New York: Penguin, 1999).

66
. Quoted in
Official Letters of the Military and Naval Officers of the United States, During the War with Great Britain in the Years 1812, 13, 14, and 15
, ed. John Brannan (Washington City: Way & Gideon, 1823), 478.