The Year Without Summer (15 page)

Twenty-two years earlier, Jefferson had persuaded Madison to keep a record of the
weather at his home, so Jefferson could compare atmospheric temperatures between Monticello
and Montpelier. Madison and members of his family had dutifully compiled detailed
weather statistics from 1784–1802, but apparently they discontinued the practice shortly
after Madison joined Jefferson’s first administration as secretary of state. Jefferson,
however, continued his own observations on meteorological events while he was president,
including notes on the depth and duration of every snowfall in the nation’s capital.

Scarcely had the dishes been cleared from Madison’s Independence Day repast when a
company of four French diplomats, including the recently appointed ambassador, Jean-Guillaume
Hyde de Neuville, arrived at Montpelier for a visit. Although de Neuville—who had
spent the last few years of Napoléon’s reign in exile on an estate in Brunswick, New
Jersey—appreciated Madison’s diplomatic tact in not mentioning Napoléon during their
conversations (pretending that “Louis XVIII had just succeeded Louis XVI”), the French
minister was outraged to learn that a member of Madison’s cabinet had described the
reigning king of France as “an imbecile tyrant” during a July 4 toast in Baltimore.
De Neuville insisted the offending official be sacked; Madison demurred. In a private
note to Secretary of State Monroe (who was the only Cabinet member spending the summer
in Washington), the president wondered if de Neuville “hoped to hide the degradation
of the Bourbons under a blustering deportment in a distant country.” Small chance,
since the antimonarchical brouhaha in Baltimore was not an isolated incident.

Across the United States, the fortieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration
of Independence followed a familiar pattern of parades, public readings of the Declaration
(often by elderly Continental Army veterans), and patriotic speeches. Along with Thanksgiving,
it was one of only two holidays observed in all eighteen states. (Some New England
communities refused to celebrate December 25 as a holiday on the grounds that no one
knew for sure precisely when Jesus was born.) Fireworks were readily available in
most states, although their unfortunate tendency—in the wrong hands—to set afire the
roofs of houses led New York City officials to ban all but government-sanctioned public
displays.

In the aftermath of the recent war against Britain (the “Second War of Independence”),
the day’s themes leaned heavily toward military valor and national unity. Toasts praised
President Madison (“A ruler more respected for his merit, than his power, and greater
in the simple dignity of his virtues than the proudest monarch on his throne”), and
Jefferson (“He gave to this day its celebrity—On this day Freemen will ever remember
him as first among the first”). They lauded the Union itself (“With it, there is strength,
safety and happiness—dissolve it, discord and civil commotion would soon make us the
fit subjects of a despot”), while comparing the United States favorably with the ancient
republics of Greece and Rome. Speakers denounced the reactionary monarchs of Europe
(“They have warred against liberty, and ‘hunted virtue and valor to the tomb’”) and
sympathized with the unfortunate citizens of France (“degraded and abject … May the
voice of liberty incite her to action, and lead her to glory”) and Spain (“sinking
back into the night of ignorance and the gloom of superstition—ruled by an idiot and
a tyrant”) and even England (“grinding her subjects to the earth to bribe other powers”).

Temperatures in New England had rebounded nicely, for the most part, since the snowstorms
of June 6 and 9. Waltham and Williamstown in Massachusetts reported highs above 90
degrees in the third week of June, and Salem reached 101 degrees on Sunday, June 23.
The cold returned briefly on June 28 and 29, when Professor Dewey reported a light
frost. It had been the coldest month of June ever recorded in New Haven, Connecticut,
but the
Vermont Register and Almanac
cheerfully predicted “sultry hot weather” for the start of July.

It missed the mark completely. July 4 was cool across much of New England. In Plymouth,
Connecticut, clockmaker Chauncey Jerome noticed a group of men pitching quoits at
midday in bright sunshine, wearing thick overcoats; “a body could not feel very patriotic
in such weather,” Jerome recalled. Two days later, another cold front swept through
from the northwest. Montreal reported snow west of the city—where the growing season
already was three weeks behind schedule—and ice about the thickness of a half-dollar
on ponds.

On Monday, July 8, frost struck crops from Maine to Virginia. In Franconia, New Hampshire,
the cold snap destroyed the bean crop. Along the eastern shore of Lake Erie, where
crops had been suffering from a lengthy drought, “the wind was N. West with some snow,”
and the day “so cold as to render fires necessary for comfort within, and great coats
over woolen clothing” outdoors. In Richmond, frost was clearly visible on the ground.
“Our climate is far from having ripened to the Summer heat,” noted the
Richmond Enquirer
, “the nights and mornings are yet surprisingly cool.” The morning of July 9 brought
even colder temperatures and hard frosts across New Hampshire, much of Vermont, and
western Massachusetts. One Connecticut farmer who had recently burned off part of
his land showed a visitor a log that was “frozen down, about 4 feet in length, and
8 or ten inches in breadth; I saw the ice cut up with an axe, and it appeared solid
as in winter.”

Although this cold wave did not have the devastating impact of its predecessor, it
did sufficient damage to raise warning flags of impending scarcity up and down the
East Coast. Even though most crops survived, the growth of young plants was sufficiently
retarded to make them vulnerable to early autumn frosts. Accordingly, the governor
of Lower Canada (including Quebec and Montreal) issued a proclamation “in consequence
of the backwardness of the season” prohibiting the export of wheat, flour, beans,
and barley until September; simultaneously, he opened Canadian ports to the importation
of grain from the United States, free of tariff duties.

Most of Maine’s early crop of hay—used as fodder for livestock—perished, and the July
freeze killed beans, squash, and cucumbers. In much of Vermont and New Hampshire,
the first crop of hay was only half its usual size. As far as wheat and rye were concerned,
one observer confirmed that “the most gloomy apprehensions are entertained for the
latter harvest. Indeed, if the present cold and dry weather continues a very little
longer, the Indian corn, potatoes, beans, &c. cannot escape the autumnal frosts.”
The
New-Hampshire Sentinel
agreed. “Season very unpromising,” it noted. “We begin to despair of corn, hay will
come extremely light.” The
New-Hampshire
Patriot
claimed to have heard “fears of a general famine.”

Similar reports came from Worcester, Massachusetts, where the weather had cut the
crop of hay in half. Without hay, farmers would either have to slaughter their livestock
in the fall or keep them alive through the winter with other crops such as oats and
Indian corn, which would require another two months of warm weather to ripen. In eastern
Ohio, the crop of hay also had failed, but there was still time for a second cutting
if warm weather returned. Farther south, “the effects of an atmosphere thus cool and
dry, are visible in our corn-fields,” reported the
Richmond Enquirer
. “The plant wears generally a stinted look. From present appearances, the crop threatens
to be a very short one.” On the bright side, the cool weather had destroyed several
summer pests that usually plagued the wheat in Virginia.

Speculation on the cause of the July frost centered on the sunspot theory, whose advocates
claimed that diminished solar heat also explained the prolonged drought. On July 4,
noted a letter to the
Stockbridge Star
, one large spot was surrounded by sixteen others, “and there was a considerable space
around them which appeared less light than other parts of the sun.” As the New Hampshire
Farmer’s Cabinet
pointed out, however, “we have had several days of uncommon heat, and it is remarkable
that these hot days have happened at the precise time when the sun has exhibited the
largest spots; and the days which throughout the country have been the coldest, have
been at the time when no spots were visible.”

Warm weather returned to the East Coast by July 11, but the drought continued. Keene,
New Hampshire, went twelve weeks without rain. Northern Vermont was halfway through
a four-month summer drought with no precipitation except snow. “Think I never saw
our street so dry,” muttered a minister in East Windsor, Connecticut.

*   *   *

T
HOMAS
Stamford Raffles returned to England on July 11, 1816. At the request of the directors
of the East India Company, the British government had returned Java to the Dutch,
now that the Netherlands had regained its independence from France. “The possession
of Java, so far from yielding the advantages expected to arise from it, has proved
a heavy burden on the finances of the parent State,” explained a member of the East
India Company’s council to Raffles. Four years of administering Java and the surrounding
islands had cost the company more than 7 million rupees, according to its own estimate.

Raffles protested the decision, which he considered remarkably shortsighted in its
neglect of Britain’s long-term strategic and commercial interests in South Asia. Java
“cannot longer be kicked about from one place and authority to another like a shuttlecock,”
he argued. “All our interests in this part of the world are sacrificed.” To no avail.
Lord Castlereagh and the East India Company had their hands quite full governing the
territories they had acquired in India, and had no intention of adding any responsibilities
in that region, especially considering Parliament’s insistence upon slashing government
expenditures.

Raffles spent his last months in Java touring the island, examining the ruins of ancient
Hindu temples and statues, and continuing his study of Java’s geography and wildlife.
Although his health deteriorated toward the end of his tenure (“Anxiety soon pulls
a man down in a hot climate,” Raffles acknowledged), he undertook a series of initiatives
to restrict the importation and sale of opium in Java, and to encourage exports of
the island’s sugar and coffee to Europe. And he gathered the information forwarded
by the residents at the company’s stations throughout the islands in response to his
inquiries about the effects of Tambora’s eruption. Once he had assembled their replies,
he asked a colleague to prepare them for publication.

Tambora was still rumbling desultorily when Raffles departed Java on March 25, 1816.
As the island faded into the distance, tangible evidence of the eruption still floated
in the seas around Raffles’ ship. Immense pumice rafts, some as large as three miles
across, littered the Java Sea, moving steadily to the west on the South Equatorial
Current.

While passing through the South Atlantic, Raffles stopped at Saint Helena for a brief
conversation with Napoléon Bonaparte. The former emperor greeted Raffles and a friend,
Captain Travers, rather brusquely and then—after he asked Raffles to repeat his name
more distinctly—began peppering Raffles with rapid-fire questions that barely gave
him time to answer. Where had he been born? Had he spent much time in India? Had Raffles
served in the British military force that captured Java five years earlier? How fared
the local spice plantations on the islands? How did the king of Java (there was no
king of Java) spend his time? Was Britain also returning the Spice Islands to the
Netherlands? And which coffee was best—Java or Bourbon?

Raffles answered as best he could, until Napoléon (who remained hatless throughout
the interview) finally grew bored and gave a slight nod of his head to let his guests
know their time was up. Uncertain how to salute their host—should they call him “General”?
“Emperor”?—Raffles and Travers merely bowed and made their way back to their ship.

Upon landing at Falmouth on July 11, Raffles spent a few days resting in Cornwall
before setting off for London. “Although I am considerably recovered,” he informed
a friend, “I yet remain wretchedly thin and sallow, with a jaundiced eye and a shapeless
leg.” The countryside through which Raffles traveled was beginning to show evidence
of the deepening economic downturn. Ironworkers and the colliers who worked in the
iron trade were especially hard-hit. Before the recession, ironworkers’ wages were
high enough that the men could rent small cottages and provide their families with
a modest degree of material comforts, sometimes even saving a small percentage of
their earnings. But as the furnaces shut down and coal pits closed in the postwar
years, the workers were forced to sell their furniture and leave their homes, often
wandering about the country searching for relief from private charities.

Parliament remained in a contentious mood, still unwilling to raise taxes and doggedly
unsympathetic to the growing ranks of the unemployed. On July 2, the speaker of the
House of Commons informed the Prince Regent that while the government had provided
some relief to distressed rural workers, it would do little more. After all, hard
times were to be expected after a lengthy war, “and for the remedy for which they
trusted much to the healing influence of time.” In reply, the Prince Regent lamented
“the distresses of some classes of the people, [and] trusted that they would bear
them with fortitude and energy.”

Following the tumultuous “Bread or Blood” riots in East Anglia in May, protests during
June and July remained remarkably well-mannered, despite the steadily rising price
of grain and what William Cobbett called “the miserable state of things in England.”
The most famous incident involved a delegation of colliers and laborers from Bilston,
about 125 miles northwest of London, who embarked on a march to the city to present
a petition to the Prince Regent detailing their difficulties. Carrying placards that
read “Willing to work, but none of us to beg,” the marchers dragged several carts
full of coal behind them as a gift to the prince. They covered about twelve miles
a day, subsisting on gifts of food and money from the residents of towns along the
way. Since the colliers did not beg, they were not subject to the restrictions of
the Vagrancy Act; moreover, they were exempt from turnpike tolls, since the turnpikes
imposed tolls only on vehicles drawn by horses or other beasts.