I have always been fond of big-game shooting, and I have longed to include this mightiest of beasts in my huntsman’s bag; but I came away from the kraal with one clear idea in my mind, dominating all others: I never shall willingly kill an elephant.
EXTRACTS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO THE WAR OF 1812, NAPOLEON’S RETREAT FROM MOSCOW, AND CONVERSATIONS WITH MADAME DE STAËL
INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
A century ago at this time the Napoleonic wars, so-called, or the convulsions which succeeded the French Revolution of 1789, were rapidly drawing to a close. Beginning with the capture of the Bastille, July 14, 1789, the final catastrophe occurred at Waterloo, June 18, 1815. Meanwhile, during the last half of 1812 and the whole of 1813, it is no exaggeration to say that the whole world was at war. Up to June, 1812, the United States had kept out of the actual fray, maintaining, by hook or by crook, a species of so-called neutrality. The affair of the _Leopard_ and the _Chesapeake_, unspeakably disgraceful to the United States, had occurred off the capes of Virginia in June, 1807. In the following December Jefferson’s embargo had been proclaimed; but, having proved utterly futile as either a remedial or a protective measure, it was removed in March, 1809.
Needless to say, this was for the United States a period of tension and deep humiliation. Threats of disunion were freely made, and the first steps looking to a secession of the New England States from the Union had been taken. On March 4, 1809, James Madison was inaugurated as the fourth President, and war with Great Britain was declared in June, 1812. One of the earliest acts of Madison after taking the oath of office had been to nominate John Quincy Adams to represent the United States at the court of St. Petersburg. Alexander I, then thirty-five years old, was Czar of Russia. Two years before that he had, with Napoleon, effected the treaty of Tilsit, so-called, theatrically signed on a raft moored in the river Niemen. A temporary peace, therefore, existed between the Russian czar and Napoleon, then at the zenith of his career; a truce, rather than a peace, destined to be rudely broken in the summer of 1812. Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign, and the War of 1812-15 between the United States and Great Britain, then ensued; the latter was drawing to a close just at the end of 1814 (December 25), six months before the battle of Waterloo.