"And I do moreover exhort all individuals, officers, and bodies of men, to contemplate with abhorrence the measures leading, directly or indirectly, to those crimes which produce this resort to military coercion; to check, in their respective spheres, the efforts of misguided or designing men to substitute their misrepresentation in the place of truth, and their discontents in the place of stable government; and to call to mind, that as the people of the United States have been permitted, under the Divine favor, in perfect freedom, after solemn deliberation, and in an enlightened age, to elect their own government, so will their gratitude for this inestimable blessing be best distinguished by firm exertion to maintain the constitution and the laws.

"And, lastly, I again warn all persons whomsoever and wheresoever, not to abet, aid or comfort the insurgents aforesaid, as they will answer the contrary at their peril; and I do also require all officers and other citizens, as far as may be in their power, to bring under the cognizance of the laws all offenders in the premises.

"In testimony whereof, I have caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand. Done at the city of Philadelphia, the twenty-fifth day of September, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-four, and of the independence of the United States of America the nineteenth. GEORGE WASHINGTON."

[70] When the use of military force was first suggested, Randolph, the secretary of state, expressed his fears that such a measure would bring on a general collision that might destroy the Union. Governor Mifflin partook of this fear. "The Pennsylvanians," says Hildreth, "at first, were rather backward, and a draft ordered by Mifflin seemed likely—by reason, it was said, of defects in the militia laws—to prove a failure. But the legislature, on coming together, having first denounced the insurgents in strong terms, to save the delays attendant on drafting, authorized the government to accept volunteers, to whom a bounty was offered. As if to make up for his former hesitation, and with a military sensibility to the disgrace of failing to meet the requisition, Mifflin, in a tour through the lower counties, as in several cases during the Revolutionary struggle, by the influence of his extraordinary popular eloquence, soon caused the ranks to be filled up. As a further stimulus, subscriptions were opened to support the wives and children of the volunteers during their absence,"—History of the United States, second series, i, 570.

[71] Among these was Herman Husbands, then a very old man, who had figured conspicuously in the revolutionary movement in North Carolina, previous to the War for Independence, known as the Regulator war. He was arrested on suspicion of being an active fomenter of the insurrection. This, however, seems not to have been the case, "I know that his sentiments were always in favor of the excise law," wrote a friend of Husbands to the president, "and that he did all that he could to prevent the people of the western counties from opposing the execution of the law; and I know he is a good friend of liberty and his country." Husbands was released, at about the first of January, 1795.

[72] Washington was so impressed with the sense of danger to be apprehended by the Democratic Societies, that he contemplated making them a topic in his forthcoming annual message to Congress. In a letter to the secretary of state, written at Fort Cumberland on the sixteenth of October, he said, "My mind is so perfectly convinced, that if these self-created societies can not be discontinued they will destroy the government of this country, that I have asked myself, while I have been revolving on the expense and inconvenience of drawing so many men from their families and occupations as I have seen on their march, where would be the impropriety of glancing at them in my speech, by some such idea as the following: 'That, however distressing this expedition will have proved to individuals, and expensive to the country, the pleasing spirit which it has drawn forth in support of law and government will immortalize the American character, and is a happy presage that future attempts, of a certain description of people, to disturb the public tranquillity will prove equally abortive.'"

Mr. Randolph, though a democrat, was favorable to some such expression of sentiment regarding these societies. In a letter, to which the president's was a response, he had intimated the propriety of taking advantage of the prevailing reprobation of the insurrection, to put down those societies. "They may now, I believe, be crushed," he said. "The prospect ought not to be lost." Washington did allude to them in his annual message, as we shall observe presently.



CHAPTER XXVII.

MEETING OF CONGRESS—WASHINGTON'S MESSAGE—HIS VIEWS OF THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION—DENUNCIATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES—DEBATES IN CONGRESS ON THE SUBJECT—WEAKNESS OF THE OPPOSITION—JEFFERSON'S ANGRY LETTER TO MADISON—DECLINE OF THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES—WAYNE'S SUCCESS—END OF THE INDIAN WAR—HAMILTON AND KNOX RETIRE FROM OFFICE—CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THEM AND WASHINGTON—THEIR SUCCESSORS—CLOSE OF THE THIRD CONGRESS—A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY PROPOSED—WASHINGTON'S VIEWS—HIS DISPOSITION OF NAVIGATION COMPANIES' SHARES.

The members of Congress came tardily to the federal capital in the autumn of 1794; and it was not until the nineteenth of November, sixteen days after the time appointed for the commencement of the session, that they were ready to listen to the president's sixth annual message. As he had intimated to Mr. Jay that he should, Washington, in that message, dwelt at considerable length on the subject of the late insurrection, taking a complete outline survey of all the facts and circumstances, and drawing conclusions therefrom.

"While there is cause to lament," he said, "that occurrences of this nature should have disgraced the name, or interrupted the tranquillity, of any part of our community, or should have diverted to a new application any portion of the public resources, there are not wanting real and substantial consolations for the misfortune. It has demonstrated that our prosperity rests on solid foundations, by furnishing an additional proof that my fellow-citizens understand the true principles of government and liberty; that they feel their inseparable union; that, notwithstanding all the devices which have been used to sway them from their interest and duty, they are now as ready to maintain the authority of the laws against licentious invasions, as they were to defend their rights against usurpation. It has been a spectacle displaying to the highest advantage the value of republican government, to behold the most and the least wealthy of our citizens standing in the same ranks as private soldiers, pre-eminently distinguished by being the army of the constitution—undeterred by a march of three hundred miles over rugged mountains, by the approach of an inclement season, or by any other discouragement. Nor ought I to omit to acknowledge the efficacious and patriotic co-operations which I have experienced from the chief magistrates of the states to which my requisitions have been addressed.

"To every description of citizens, indeed, let praise be given. But let them persevere in their affectionate vigilance over that precious depository of American happiness, the constitution of the United States. Let them cherish it, too, for the sake of those who, from every clime, are daily seeking a dwelling in our land. And when, in the calm moments of reflection, they shall have traced the origin and progress of the insurrection, let them determine whether it has not been fomented by combinations of men, who, careless of consequences, and disregarding the unerring truth that those who rouse can not always appease a civil convulsion, have disseminated, from an ignorance or perversion of facts, suspicions, jealousies, and accusations of the whole government."

The boldness of Washington was conspicuous in thus officially denouncing the Democratic Societies, because he well knew that his words of severe reprobation would arouse their hottest resentment. But, conscious of his own integrity, and well assured of the support of all good men, he hesitated not a moment. Some democratic members of the senate, the most prominent of whom were Burr and Jackson, showed great ill feeling; but the majority in that body gave it their approval. In the lower house it created a good deal of angry altercation, for the opposition were powerful there. They exhibited their disapprobation on the first draft of their answer to the president's message, by passing the matter over in silence. To this draft an amendment was offered, reprobating the "self-created societies," which, "by deceiving and inflaming the ignorant and weak, may naturally be supposed to have stimulated the insurrection." It then denounced them as "institutions not strictly unlawful, yet not less fatal to good order and true liberty, and reprehensible in the degree that our system of government approaches to perfect political freedom."

It was this amendment that caused the debate. Those who opposed it did so cautiously, and exhibited their sense of the waning popularity of these societies, by taking care to disclaim their own personal connection with them. It was contended that the term "self-created societies" involved all voluntary associations whatever; that the right of censure was sacred; and that the societies would retort. Others contended that the question was not, whether the societies were legal, but whether they were mischievous. If they were so, the representatives of the people, presumed to be the guardians of the republic, ought to declare it, and not, by silence, give an implied contradiction to the president's statements.

A motion to strike out the words "self-constituted societies" elicited a warm debate. "It has been argued," said one of the members (Sedgwick) who traced the origin of these societies to Genet, "that to censure them might be construed into an attack on the freedom of public discussion. He was sorry," he said, "to see a disposition to confound freedom and licentiousness. Was there not an obvious distinction between a cool, dispassionate, honest, and candid discussion, and a false, wicked, seditious misrepresentation of public men and public measures? The former was within the province of freemen; it was, indeed, their duty; the latter was inconsistent with moral rectitude, and tended to the destruction of freedom and to the production of every evil that could afflict a community." The speaker then described the Democratic Societies as "self-created, without delegation or control, not emanating from the people, or responsible to them; not open in their deliberations; not admitting any but those of their own political opinions; permanent in their constitution, and of unlimited duration." These, he said, "modestly assumed the character of popular instructors, guardians of the people, guardians of the government. Every man in the administration who had assented to its acts they had loaded with every species of calumny—slanders—which they knew to be such. They had not even spared that character supposed to have been clothed with inviolability—not the paltry inviolability of constitutional proscription, but an inviolability infinitely more respectable, founded on the public gratitude, and resulting from disinterested and invaluable services."

The motion upon which this debate arose was finally carried in committee of the whole, but by a very small majority. The struggle was renewed when it was reported to the house. Finally, a compromise was effected by inserting in the address a declaration of great concern on the part of the house, "that any misrepresentations whatever of the government and its proceedings, either by individuals or combinations of men, should have been made, and so far have been credited as to foment the flagrant outrage which had been committed on the laws."

It was very evident, from the debates and the votes on this and other questions brought up by the president's message, that the government was growing stronger, and the opposition in Congress weaker. Jefferson, the father of the opposition, who had declared that his retiracy from the political world should be profound, was alarmed at these manifestations of the declining strength of his party, and he was moved to let his voice be heard once more. On the twenty-eighth of December he wrote to Madison, the republican leader in the lower house, an angry letter concerning the president's remarks about the "self-created societies," saying:—

"The denunciation of the Democratic Societies is one of the extraordinary acts of boldness of which we have seen so many from the faction of monocrats. It is wonderful indeed that the president should have permitted himself to be the organ of such an attack on the freedom of discussion, the freedom of writing, printing, and publishing." After making an ungenerous attack upon the Society of the Cincinnati, he proceeded: "I here put out of sight the persons whose misbehavior has been taken advantage of to slander the friends of popular rights; and I am happy to observe that, as far as the circle of my observation and information extends, everybody has lost sight of them, and views the abstract attempt on their natural and constitutional rights in all its nakedness. I have never heard, or heard of, a single expression or opinion which did not condemn it as an inexcusable aggression."

Then, in full sympathy with the whiskey insurrectionists, he said: "And with respect to the transactions against the excise law, it appears to me that you are all swept away in the torrent of governmental opinions, or that we do not know what these transactions have been. We know of none which, according to the definitions of the law, have been anything more than riotous. There was, indeed, a meeting to consult about a separation. But to consult on a question does not amount to a determination of that question in the affirmative, still less to the acting on such a determination; but we shall see, I suppose, what the court lawyers, and courtly judges, and would-be embassadors will make of it. The excise law is an infernal one. The first error was to admit it by the constitution; the second, to act on that admission; the third and last will be, to make it the instrument of dismembering the Union, and setting us all afloat to choose what part of it we will adhere to. The information of our militia returned from the westward is uniform, that though the people there let them pass quietly, they were objects of their laughter, not of their fear; that one thousand men could have cut off their whole force in a thousand places of the Alleghany; that their detestation of the excise law is universal, and has now associated to it a detestation of the government; and that separation, which perhaps was a very distant and problematical event, is now near, and certain, and determined in the mind of every man. I expected to have seen some justification of arming one part of society against another; of declaring a civil war the moment before the meeting of that body which has the sole right of declaring war; of being so patient of the kicks and scoffs of our enemies, and rising at a feather against our friends; of adding a million to the public debt, and deriding us with recommendations to pay it if we can."

But the medicines of most powerful friends could not cure the mortal malady that now afflicted the Democratic Societies. As it happened with Genet, their founder, so it now happened with these societies; the great mass of the people had learned to reprobate them. The denunciations of the president, co-operating with the downfall of the Jacobin clubs in France—kindred societies—soon produced their dissolution. Monroe, in an official despatch, had set in its true light the character of the Jacobin clubs, as interfering with the government; and in the United States, their confreres, the Democratic societies, soon sank into merited obscurity.

In his message, Washington announced that "the intelligence from the army under the command of General Wayne was a happy presage to military operations against the hostile Indians north of the Ohio." Wayne, as we have seen, had succeeded St. Clair after that veteran's unfortunate defeat in the autumn of 1791. He marched into the Indian country in 1793, and near the spot where St. Clair was surprised he built Fort Recovery. There he was attacked by the Indians at the close of June, 1794, but without receiving much damage. General Scott arrived there not long afterward from Kentucky, with eleven hundred volunteers, and then Wayne advanced to the confluence of the Maumee and Au Glaize rivers, "the grand emporium," as he called it, of the Indians. They fled precipitately; and there Wayne built a strong stockade, for the permanent occupation of that beautiful country, and called it Fort Defiance.

The main body of the Indians had retired down the Maumee about thirty miles, where they took a hostile attitude. With about three thousand men, Wayne marched against them, and near the present Maumee City he fought and defeated them, on the twentieth of August. He then laid waste their country, and the trading establishment of the British agent in their midst was burned. There seemed little doubt that he had stirred up the savages against the Americans.

Wayne fell back to Fort Defiance three days after the battle; and at the beginning of November, after a successful campaign of three months, during which time he had marched three hundred miles along a road cut by his own army, gained an important victory, driven the Indians from their principal settlement, and left a strong post in the heart of their country, he placed his army into winter-quarters at Greenville. The western tribes were humbled and disheartened; and early in August, the following year, their principal chiefs and United States' commissioners met at Greenville and made a treaty of peace. The Indians ceded to the United States a large tract of land in the present states of Michigan and Indiana, and for more than ten years afterward the government had very little trouble with the western savages.

In his message, Washington urged the adoption of some definite plan for the redemption of the public debt. "Nothing," he said, "can more promote the permanent welfare of the nation, and nothing would be more grateful to our constituents." At his request, Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury, prepared a plan, digested and arranged on the basis of the actual revenues for the further support of the public credit. It was one of the ablest state papers of the many that had proceeded from his pen during his official career. It was reported on the twentieth of January, 1795, and this was Hamilton's last official act. He had, on the first of December, immediately after his return from western Pennsylvania, addressed the following letter to the president:—

"I have the honor to inform you that I have fixed upon the last of January next, as the day for my resignation of my office of secretary of the treasury. I make this communication now, that there may be time to mature such an arrangement as shall appear to you proper to meet the vacancy when it occurs."

Mr. Hamilton resigned his office on the thirty-first of January. It was with deep regret, as in the case of Mr. Jefferson, that Washington found himself deprived of the services of so able an officer. "After so long an experience of your public services," he said in a note to Hamilton on the second of February, "I am naturally led, at this moment of your departure from office (which it has always been my wish to prevent), to review them. In every relation which you have borne to me, I have found that my confidence in your talents, exertions, and integrity, has been well placed. I the more freely render this testimony of my approbation, because I speak from opportunities of information which can not deceive me, and which furnish satisfactory proof of your title to public regard."

To this Hamilton replied on the following day, saying, "My particular acknowledgments are due for your very kind letter of yesterday. As often as I may recall the vexations I have endured, your approbation will be a great and precious consolation. It was not without a struggle that I yielded to the very urgent motives which compelled me to relinquish a station in which I could hope to be, in any degree, instrumental in promoting the success of an administration under your direction; a struggle which would have been far greater had I supposed that the prospect of future usefulness was proportioned to the sacrifices made."

Justice to a growing family was the chief cause of Hamilton's resignation. "The penurious provision made for those who filled the high executive departments in the American government," says Marshall, "excluded from a long continuance in office all those whose fortunes were moderate, and whose professional talents placed a decent independence within their reach. While slandered as the accumulator of thousands by illicit means, Colonel Hamilton had wasted in the public service great part of the property acquired by his previous labors, and had found himself compelled to decide on retiring from his political station."[73]

Oliver Wolcott, of Connecticut, who had been the federal comptroller under Hamilton for some time, was appointed to succeed that officer; and General Knox, who had offered his resignation as secretary of war at the close of the year, was succeeded by Timothy Pickering, who was at that time the postmaster-general. "After having served my country nearly twenty years," wrote Knox in his letter tendering his resignation on the twenty-eighth of December, "the greatest portion of which under your immediate auspices, it is with extreme reluctance that I find myself constrained to withdraw from so honorable a station. But the natural and powerful claims of a numerous family will no longer permit me to neglect their essential interests. In whatever situation I shall be, I shall recollect your confidence and kindness with all the fervor and purity of affection of which a grateful heart is susceptible."

Washington always loved Knox. His frankness and good nature, his eminent integrity and unswerving faithfulness in every period of his public career, endeared him to the president; and it was with sincere sorrow that he experienced the official separation. "The considerations which you have often suggested to me," Washington wrote in reply to Knox, "and which are repeated in your letter as requiring your departure from your present office, are such as to preclude the possibility of my urging your continuance in it. This being the case, I can only wish it was otherwise. I can not suffer you, however, to close your public service without uniting with the satisfaction which must arise in your own mind from a conscious rectitude, my most perfect persuasion that you have deserved well of your country. My personal knowledge of your exertions, whilst it authorizes me to hold this language, justifies the sincere friendship which I have ever borne for you, and which will accompany you in every situation in life."

The last session of the third Congress closed on the third of March, 1795. For a little while, Washington's mind was relieved in a degree from the pressure of political duties, and a matter of different but interesting nature occupied it at times. It will be remembered that the legislature of Virginia presented to Washington, as a testimony of their gratitude for his public services, fifty shares in the Potomac company, and one hundred shares in the James River company—corporations created for promoting internal navigation in Virginia—and that he accepted them with the understanding that he should not use them for his own private benefit, but apply them to some public purpose.

An opportunity for such application, that commended itself to Washington's judgment, had not occurred until this time, when a plan for the establishment of a university at the federal capital, on the Potomac, was talked of. "It has always been a source of serious reflection and sincere regret with me," he said in a letter to the commissioners of the federal city on the twenty-eighth of January, "that the youth of the United States should be sent to foreign countries for the purpose of education. Although there are doubtless many, under these circumstances, who escape the danger of contracting principles unfavorable to republican government, yet we ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds from being too strongly and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own.

"For this reason, I have greatly wished to see a plan adopted, by which the arts, sciences, and belles-lettres, could be taught in their fullest extent, thereby embracing all the advantages of European tuition, with the means of acquiring the liberal knowledge which is necessary to qualify our citizens for the exigencies of public as well as private life; and (which with me is a consideration of great magnitude) by assembling the youths from the different parts of this republic, contributing, from their intercourse and interchange of information, to the removal of prejudices, which might, perhaps, sometimes arise from local circumstances."

Washington then suggested the federal city as the most eligible place for such an institution; at the same time offering, in the event of the university being established upon a scale as extensive as he described, and the execution of it being commenced under favorable auspices in a reasonable time, to "grant in perpetuity fifty shares in the navigation of the Potomac river towards the endowment of it."

About four weeks after this, Washington received a letter from Mr. Jefferson, on the subject that had a bearing upon the disposition of his shares, the former having on some occasion asked the advice of the latter concerning the appropriation of them. Mr. Jefferson now informed Washington that the college at Geneva, in Switzerland, had been destroyed, and that Mr. D'Ivernois, a Genevan scholar who had written a history of his country, had proposed the transplanting of that college to America. It was proposed to have the professors of the college come over in a body, it being asserted that most of them spoke the English language well.

Jefferson was favorable to the establishment of the proposed new college within the state of Virginia; but Washington, with practical sagacity, concluded that it would not be wise to have two similar institutions. He preferred having one excellent institution, and that at the federal capital, and gave his reasons at length for his opinion, at the same time adding—after stating to Mr. Jefferson the fact that he had offered the fifty shares of the Potomac company to the commissioners—"My judgment and my wishes point equally strong to the application of the James River shares [one hundred] to the same object at the same place; but, considering the source from whence they were derived, I have, in a letter I am writing to the executive of Virginia on this subject, left the application of them to a seminary within the state, to be located by the legislature."

In his letter to Governor Brooke, above referred to, Washington said: "The time is come when a plan of universal education ought to be adopted in the United States. Not only do the exigencies of public life demand it, but, if it should be apprehended that prejudice would be entertained in one part of the Union against another, an efficacious remedy will be to assemble the youth from every part, under such circumstances as will, by the freedom of intercourse and collision of sentiment, give to their minds the direction of truth, philanthropy, and mutual conciliation." He then expressed his preference of the proposed university at the federal capital, as the object of his appropriation, but left the matter at the disposal of the legislature. That body, in resolutions, approved of his appropriation of the fifty shares in the Potomac company to the proposed university, and requested him to appropriate the hundred shares in the James River company "to a seminary at such place in the upper country, as he may deem most convenient to a majority of the inhabitants thereof."[74]

FOOTNOTES:

[73] Life of Washington, ii, 356

[74] See page 48 of this volume.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

JAY'S MISSION TO ENGLAND—ITS SPECIFIC OBJECTS—HIS ARRIVAL IN LONDON—HIS JUDICIOUS CONDUCT THERE—DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF NEGOTIATION—JAY'S ENCOURAGING LETTER TO WASHINGTON—HIS LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE—THE PROVISIONS OF THE TREATY—ITS RECEPTION BY WASHINGTON—HE KEEPS ITS PROVISIONS SECRET—OPPOSITION TO THE TREATY—MEETING OF THE SENATE—THE TREATY DISCUSSED AND ITS RATIFICATION RECOMMENDED—A SYNOPSIS OF ITS CONTENTS MADE PUBLIC.

Mr. Jay's mission to England had been from its inception a cause of much anxiety to Washington. Its object was beneficent and patriotic in the highest degree, and yet it had been opposed with the bitterest party spirit, and regarded with distrust even by friends of the administration, who had watched the ungenerous and despotic course of the British government toward the United States ever since the peace of 1783.

Mr. Jay's instructions contemplated three important objects to be obtained by treaty. These were, compensation for the losses sustained by American merchants in consequence of the orders in council; a settlement of all existing disputes in relation to the treaty of peace; and a commercial treaty. Great discretion was to be given to the envoy. He was to consider his instructions as recommendatory, not as peremptory. Only two restrictions were imposed upon him. One was, not to enter into any stipulation inconsistent with the existing engagements of the United States with France; the other was, not to conclude any commercial treaty that did not secure to the United States a direct trade in their own vessels, of certain defined burdens, with the British West India islands, in whatever articles were at present allowed to be carried in British bottoms.

Mr. Jay was fully impressed with the importance of his mission and the necessity of prompt action. He arrived at Falmouth on the evening of the eighth of June, and the same night he forwarded a letter to Lord Grenville, the secretary for foreign affairs, announcing his arrival. He reached London a few days afterward, took lodgings at the Royal Hotel, Pall Mall, and on the fifteenth addressed the following note to Lord Grenville:—

"MY LORD: You have doubtless received a letter which I had the honor of writing to you from Falmouth. I arrived here this morning. The journey has given me some health and much pleasure, nothing having occurred on the road to induce me to make it shorter.

"Colonel Trumbull does me the favor to accompany me as secretary; and I have brought with me a son, whom I am anxious should form a right estimate of whatever may be interesting to our country. Will you be so obliging, my lord, as to permit me to present them to you, and to inform me of the time when it will be most agreeable to your lordship that I should wait upon you, and assure you of the respect with which I have the honor to be, &c."

Mr. Jay's appearance in London was at a time when all Europe was in a state of the most feverish excitement. Robespierre and his bloody companions were revelling in all the wantonness of irresponsible power. The Reign of Terror was at its height, and the resentment against France by all true friends of freedom in Europe, and especially the British nation, was hot and uncompromising. England, supported by Russia, Austria, and Spain, was waging war against the revolutionists; and at the moment of Jay's arrival, the nation was madly rejoicing because of a splendid victory obtained by Lord Howe over the French fleet. The fact that a large party in the United States warmly sympathized with France, the late proceedings of Congress manifesting a disposition hostile to Great Britain, and the remaining soreness of wounded pride experienced by England in the loss of her colonies, combined with the stirring events then occurring in Europe, made the moment apparently inauspicious for a mission like that of Mr. Jay. It required, on the part of the minister, the exercise of the most discreet courtesy.

The views entertained by the two nations as to their rights and interests were so opposed, on several points, that reconciliation appeared almost impossible. The Americans complained that, contrary to express provisions of the treaty of 1783, a large number of negroes had been carried away by the evacuating British armies at the South, and for the losses thereby sustained by the owners compensation was demanded. The British contended that the claim in the treaty referred to did not apply to negroes who had been set at liberty in the course of the war, under proclamations of the British commanders; and as those carried away were all of that kind, no compensation should be allowed.

The Americans also complained of the continued occupancy of the western posts by British garrisons, and attributed the protracted hostility of the Indian tribes, to the influence of the British commanders there. They also alleged numerous invasions of their neutral rights, not only under the orders in council, issued as instructions to the commanders of British cruisers, but in the seizure of many vessels without sufficient warrant, and their condemnation by the local admiralty courts. They also complained of the impressment into the British service of seamen from on board American vessels, and the exclusion of American shipping from the trade to the British West Indies.

The British were unwilling to relinquish their right of impressment, as a means of manning their fleets at that important crisis; and they regarded the claim of the Americans to an equal participation in the West India trade as unreasonable, because it would require England to renounce the long-settled principles of her commercial system. The most important questions to be settled, and those which involved matters most dangerous to the peace between the two countries, were those of neutral rights and the occupancy of the western posts. Such in brief were the chief points in the controversy to be settled by treaty.

"By a deportment respectful yet firm," says Marshall, "mingling a decent deference for the government to which he was deputed, with a proper regard for the dignity of his own, this minister avoided those little asperities which frequently embarrass measures of great concern, and smoothed the way to the adoption of those which were suggested by the real interests of both nations."[75]

Mr. Jay found Lord Grenville commissioned by the king to treat with him, and the sincerity and candor of each soon led to the highest degree of mutual confidence. "Instead of adopting the usual wary but tedious mode of reducing every proposition to writing," says Mr. Jay's biographer,[76] "they conducted the negotiation chiefly by conferences, in which the parties frankly stated their several views, and suggested the way in which the objections to these views might be obviated. It was understood that neither party was to be committed by what passed in these conversations, but that the propositions made in them might be recalled or modified at pleasure. In this manner the two ministers speedily discovered on what points they could agree, where their views were irreconcilable, and on what principles a compromise might be effected."

While at Fort Cumberland, in October, Washington received a most gratifying letter from Mr. Jay, accompanied by despatches from Mr. Randolph, the secretary of state. They came by the Packet William Penn. Mr. Jay's letter was dated the fifth of August. Concerning the business of his mission he wrote as follows:—

"I am this moment returned from a long conference with Lord Grenville. Our prospects become more and more promising as we advance in the business. The compensation cases (as described in the answer) and the amount of damages will, I have reason to hope, be referred to the decision of commissioners, mutually to be appointed by the two governments, and the money paid without delay on their certificates, and the business closed as speedily as may be possible. The question of admitting our vessels into the islands under certain limitations is under consideration, and will soon be decided. A treaty of commerce is on the carpet. All things being agreed, the posts will be included. They contend that the article about the negroes does not extend to those who came in on their proclamations, to whom (being vested with the property in them by the right of war) they gave freedom, but only to those who were, bona fide, the property of Americans when the war ceased. They will, I think, insist that British debts, so far as injured by lawful impediments, should be repaired by the United States by decision of mutual commissioners. These things have passed in conversation, but no commitments on either side, and not to have any official weight or use whatever.

"The king observed to me, the other day, 'Well, sir, I imagine you begin to see that your mission will probably be successful.'—'I am happy, may it please your majesty, to find that you entertain that idea.'—'Well, but don't you perceive that it is like to be so?'—'There are some recent circumstances (the answer to my representation, etc.) which induce me to flatter myself that it will be so.' He nodded with a smile, signifying that it was to those circumstances that he alluded. The conversation then turned to indifferent topics. This was at the drawing-room.

"I have never been more unceasingly employed than I have been for some time past and still am; I hope for good, but God only knows. The William Penn sails in the morning. I write these few lines in haste, to let you see that the business is going on as fast as can reasonably be expected, and that it is very important that peace and quiet should be preserved for the present. On hearing last night that one of our Indiamen had been carried into Halifax, I mentioned it to Lord Grenville. He will write immediately by the packet on the subject. Indeed, I believe they are endeavoring to restore a proper conduct toward us everywhere; but it will take some time before the effects will be visible. I write all this to you in confidence, and for your own private satisfaction. I have not time to explain my reasons, but they are cogent. I could fill some sheets with interesting communications if I had leisure, but other matters press, and must not be postponed; for 'there is a tide in the affairs of men,' of which every moment is precious. Whatever may be the issue, nothing in my power to insure success shall be neglected or delayed."[77]

To Mr. Randolph he wrote: "I shall persevere in my endeavors to acquire the confidence and esteem of this government—not by improper compliances, but by that sincerity, candor, truth, and prudence, which, in my opinion, will always prove to be more wise and more effectual than finesse and chicane. Formal discussions of disputed points should, in my judgment, be postponed until the case becomes desperate; my present object is to accommodate, rather than to convert or convince. Men who sign their names to arguments seldom retract. If, however, my present plan should fail, I shall then prepare and present such formal, and at the same time such temperate and firm, representations as may be necessary to place the claims and conduct of the two governments in their proper point of view."

A treaty was finally signed at London, on the nineteenth of November, 1794, by Mr. Jay and Lord Grenville, and submitted to their respective governments for ratification. It was defective in some parts and objectionable in others; but, as it was the best that could be obtained, Mr. Jay was induced to sign it.

In a private letter to Washington, written on the same day that he signed the treaty, Mr. Jay said, "To do more was impossible. I ought not to conceal from you," he added, "that the confidence reposed in your personal character was visible and useful throughout the negotiation." To the secretary of state he wrote:—

"The long-expected treaty accompanies this letter. The difficulties which retarded its accomplishment frequently had the appearance of being insurmountable. They have at last yielded to modifications of the articles in which they existed, and to that mutual disposition to agreement which reconciled Lord Grenville and myself to an unusual degree of trouble and application. They who have levelled uneven ground know how little of the work afterward appears.

"Since the building is finished, it can not be very important to describe the scaffolding, nor to go into all the details which respected the business. My opinion of the treaty is apparent from my having signed it. I have no reason to believe or conjecture that one more favorable to us is attainable."

This treaty provided for the establishment of three boards of commissioners; one to determine the eastern boundary of the United States, by deciding which was the river St. Croix named in the treaty of peace in 1783; another to ascertain the amount of losses which British subjects had experienced in consequence of legal impediments to the recovery of debts due them by citizens of the United States, contracted before the Revolution—such amount, on their report being made, to be paid by the government of the United States; and a third to estimate the losses sustained by American citizens in consequence of irregular and illegal captures by British cruisers, for which the sufferers had no adequate remedy in suits of law—such losses to be paid by the British government.

It was provided that the western posts should be given up to the United States on the first of June, 1796, in consideration of the adjustment of the ante-revolutionary debts, the then residents in their respective neighborhoods having the option of remaining, or of becoming American citizens. The important Indian traffic in the interior was left open to both nations, by a mutual reciprocity of inland trade and free intercourse between the North American territories of the two nations, including the navigation of the Mississippi. The British were to be allowed to enter all American harbors, with the right to ascend all rivers to the highest port of entry. This reciprocity did not extend to the possessions of the Hudson's Bay company, nor to the admission of American vessels into the harbors of the British North American colonies, nor to the navigation of the rivers of those colonies below the highest port of entry.

It was stipulated that the subjects or citizens of one government, holding lands in the dominions of the other government, should continue to hold them without alienage; nor, in the event of war or other national differences, should there be any confiscation by either party of debts, or of public or private stocks, due to or held by the citizens or subjects of the other. In a word, there should be no disturbance of existing conditions of property; and merchants and traders on each side should enjoy the most complete protection and security for their property.

The foregoing is the material substance of the first ten articles of the treaty, which it was declared should be perpetual; the remaining eighteen, having reference chiefly to the regulation of commerce and navigation between the two countries, were limited in their operations to two years after the termination of the war in which Great Britain was then engaged.

The commercial portion of the treaty provided for the admission of American vessels into British ports in Europe and the East Indies, on terms of equality with British vessels. But participation in the East Indian coasting trade, and the trade between European and British East Indian ports, was left to rest on the contingency of British permission. The right was also reserved to the British to meet the existing discrimination in the American tonnage and import duties by countervailing measures. American vessels, not exceeding seventy tons burden, were to be allowed to trade to the British West Indies, but only on condition of a renunciation, during the continuance of the treaty, of the right to transport from America to Europe any of the principal colonial products. British vessels were to be admitted into American ports without any further addition to the existing discriminating duties, and on terms equal to the most favored nations.

It was also stipulated that privateers should give bonds, with security, to make equivalent restitution for any injury they might inflict upon neutrals, in the event of the condemnation of any prize. Other provisions, favorable to neutral property captured by privateers, were made; and it was determined that the list of contraband articles should include, besides ammunition and warlike implements, all articles serving directly for the equipment of vessels, except unwrought iron and fir-plank.

It was also provided that no vessel attempting to enter a blockaded port should be captured, unless previously notified of the blockade; that neither nation should allow enlistments within its territory by any third nation at war with the other; nor should the citizens or subjects of either be allowed to accept commissions from such third nation, or to enlist in its service—citizens or subjects acting contrary to this stipulation to be treated as pirates. Provision was also made for the exercise of hospitality and courtesy between ships-of-war and privateers of the two countries; also for prohibiting the arming of privateers of any nation at war with either of the contracting parties, or fitting them out in the ports of the other; and for excluding the privateers of a third nation from the ports of the contracting parties, which had made prizes of vessels belonging to citizens or subjects of either country. It was also agreed that neither nation should allow vessels or goods of the other to be captured in any of its bays or other waters, or within cannon-shot of its coast.

It was further stipulated, that in the event of war between the two nations, the citizens or subjects of each, residing within the limits of the other, should be allowed to continue peaceably in their respective employments, so long as they should behave themselves properly. It was also provided that fugitives from justice, charged with murder or forgery, should be mutually given up.

Such was the substance of the famous treaty, the ratification of which caused a tempest in the political atmosphere, whose fury shook the Union to its foundation, and proved to the utmost test the stability of the character and popularity of Washington.

Rumors of the conclusion of a treaty reached the Congress before its adjournment in March, 1795; but the treaty itself did not arrive until two days afterward. The president received it on the fifth of March, but its contents were kept a profound secret for several months. Washington studied it carefully, fully digested every article, and resolved to ratify it, should it be approved by the senate. Parts of it he approved, parts he disapproved; but he saw in it the basis for a satisfactory adjustment of the relations of the two governments, and a guaranty of peace.

The president issued a circular calling the senate together in June, for the purpose of considering the treaty. He resolved to keep its provisions a secret until that time, because there was a predisposition in the public mind to condemn it. Already, as we have seen, the appointment of a special envoy to negotiate with Great Britain had been denounced as a cowardly overture, and degrading to the United States; and it was declared that the mission of a special envoy, if one was to be sent, should be to make a formal and unequivocal demand of reparation for wrongs inflicted on our commerce, the payment of damages to owners of slaves carried away, and the immediate surrender of the western posts.

A large party in the United States had resolved that the treaty, whatever it might be, especially if it should remove all pretexts for a war with Great Britain, should be rejected; and, even before its arrival, preparations for opposition were made. In the course of a few days after Washington received it, and had submitted it, under the seal of strict privacy, to Mr. Randolph, the secretary of state, sufficient information concerning it leaked out to awaken public distrust, and yet not enough was known for the formation of any definite opinion concerning it. But instantly the opposition press commenced a crusade against it.

"Americans, awake!" cried a writer in one of these. "Remember what you suffered during a seven-years' war with the satellites of George the Third (and I hope the last). Recollect the services rendered by your allies, now contending for liberty. Blush to think that America should degrade herself so much as to enter into any kind of treaty with a power, now tottering on the brink of ruin, whose principles are directly contrary to the spirit of republicanism.

"The United States are a republic. Is it advantageous to a republic to have a connection with a monarch? Treaties lead to war, and war is the bane of a republican government. If the influence of a treaty is added to the influence which Great Britain has already in our government, we shall be colonized anew.

"Commercial treaties are an artificial means to obtain a natural end—they are the swathing bands of commerce that impede the free operations of nature. Treaties are like partnerships; they establish intimacies which sometimes end in profligacy, and sometimes in ruin and bankruptcy, distrust, strife, and quarrel.

"No treaty ought to have been made with Great Britain, for she is famed for perfidy and double dealing; her polar star is interest; artifice, with her, is a substitute for nature. To make a treaty with Great Britain is forming a connection with a monarch; and the introduction of the fashions, forms, and precedents of monarchical governments has ever accelerated the destruction of republics.

"If foreign connections are to be formed, they ought to be made with nations whose influence would not poison the fountain of liberty, and circulate the deleterious streams to the destruction of the rich harvest of our Revolution. France is our natural ally; she has a government congenial with our own. There can be no hazard of introducing from her, principles and practices repugnant to freedom. That gallant nation, whose proffers we have neglected, is the sheet-anchor that sustains our hopes; and should her glorious exertions be incompetent to the great object she has in view, we have little to flatter ourselves with from the faith, honor, or justice of Great Britain. The nation on whom our political existence depends, we have treated with indifference bordering on contempt. Citizens, your only security depends on France; and, by the conduct of your government, that security has become precarious.

"To enter into a treaty with Great Britain at the moment when we have evaded a treaty with France; to treat with an enemy against whom France feels an implacable hatred, an enemy who has neglected no means to desolate that country and crimson it with blood, is certainly insult. Citizens of America, sovereigns of a free country, your hostility to the French republic has been spoken of in the National Convention, and a motion for an inquiry into it has been only suspended from prudential motives—the book of account may soon be opened against you. What then, alas, will be your prospects! To have your friendship questioned by that nation is indeed alarming!"

Such was the logic—or rather the mad, seditious cry of faction—employed to forestall public opinion, and defeat the noble and humane intentions of the government. The Democratic Societies, though infirm and tottering, joined in the clamor. One of these in Virginia exclaimed, "Shall we Americans, who have kindled the spark of liberty, stand aloof and see it extinguished when burning a bright flame in France, which hath caught it from us? If all tyrants unite against a free people, should not all free people unite against tyrants? Yes, let us unite with France, and stand or fall together."

The Massachusetts Society, in an address to all sister societies of the Union, put forth similar sentiments, and declared that the political interests of the United States and France were "one and indivisible." The Pennsylvania Society exhorted that of New York to be ready and oppose the treaty if its provisions should be found dishonorable to the country; and newspapers and pamphleteers joined in the general cry of factious opposition.

The senate, pursuant to proclamation, assembled at Philadelphia on the eighth of June. Some changes had taken place in the material of that body, favorable to the government. Mr. Jay's treaty, with accompanying documents, was laid before it on the first day of the session. That gentleman had arrived from England a fortnight previously, and found himself elected governor of the state of New York by a large majority; and when he landed, he was greeted by thousands of his fellow-citizens, who gathered to welcome their new chief magistrate, and to testify their respect to the envoy who had so faithfully, as they believed, executed a mission of peace. A great crowd attended him to his dwelling, and the firing of cannon and ringing of bells attested the public joy. He immediately resigned his seat as chief justice of the United States, and three days after his arrival home he took the oath of office as governor of the state of New York.

The senate held secret sessions when considering the treaty, and for a fortnight it was discussed in that body with the greatest freedom and candor. Finally, on the twenty-fourth of June, the senate by a vote of twenty to ten—precisely a constitutional majority—advised the ratification of the treaty, that article excepted which related to the West India trade.

"An insuperable objection," says Marshall, "existed to an article regulating the intercourse with the British West Indies, founded on a fact which is understood to have been unknown to Mr. Jay. The intention of the contracting parties was to admit the direct intercourse between the United States and those islands, but not to permit the productions of the latter to be carried to Europe in the vessels of the former. To give effect to this intention, the exportation from the United States of those articles which were the principal productions of the islands was to be relinquished. Among these was cotton. This article, which a few years before was scarcely raised in sufficient quantity for domestic consumption, was becoming one of the richest staples of the southern states. The senate, being informed of this fact, advised and consented that the treaty should be ratified on condition that an article be added thereto, suspending that part of the twelfth article which related to the intercourse with the West Indies.

"Although, in the mind of the president, several objections to the treaty had occurred, they were overbalanced by its advantages; and, before transmitting it to the senate, he had resolved to ratify it, if approved by that body. The resolution of the senate presented difficulties which required consideration. Whether they could advise and consent to an article which had not been laid before them, and whether their resolution was to be considered as the final exercise of their power, were questions not entirely free from difficulty. Nor was it absolutely clear that the executive could ratify the treaty, under the advice of the senate, until the suspending article should be introduced into it. A few days were employed in the removal of these doubts; at the expiration of which, intelligence was received from Europe which suspended the resolution which the president had formed.

"The English papers contained an account, which, though not official, was deemed worthy of credit, that the order of the eighth of June, 1793, for the seizure of provisions going to French ports, was renewed. In the apprehension that this order might be construed and intended as a practical construction of that article in the treaty which seemed to favor the idea that provisions, though not generally contraband, might occasionally become so, a construction in which he had determined not to acquiesce, the president thought it wise to reconsider his decision. Of the result of this reconsideration there is no conclusive testimony. A strong memorial against this objectionable order was directed; and the propositions to withhold the ratification of the treaty until the order should be repealed; to make the exchange of ratifications dependent upon that event; and to adhere to his original purpose of pursuing the advice of the senate, connecting with that measure the memorial which had been mentioned, as an act explanatory of the sense in which his ratification was made, were severally reviewed by him. In conformity with his practice of withholding his opinion on controverted points until it should become necessary to decide them, he suspended his determination on these propositions until the memorial should be prepared and laid before him."[78]

The senate, on voting to recommend the ratification of the treaty, removed the seal of secrecy, but forbade any publication of the treaty itself. Regardless alike of the rules of the senate, and of official decorum, Senator Mason, of Virginia, sent to Bache, the editor of the Aurora (the democratic newspaper) a full abstract of the treaty, which was published on the second of July. In this, Mason had only anticipated Washington, who, to counteract statements concerning the contents of the treaty, and malignant comments which began to appear, had resolved to have the whole document published.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] Life of Washington, ii, 360.

[76] His son, William Jay.

[77] Life and Writings of John Jay, by his Son, William Jay, i, 323.

[78] Life of Washington, ii, 361.



CHAPTER XXIX.

TERMINATION OF JAY'S TREATY—WASHINGTON WITHHOLDS HIS SIGNATURE TO THE RATIFICATION—EFFORTS TO INTIMIDATE HIM—VIOLENT PROCEEDINGS IN PHILADELPHIA AND NEW YORK—PROCEEDINGS OF THE SELECTMEN OF BOSTON—RIOTOUS PROCEEDINGS IN NEW YORK—HAMILTON AND OTHERS STONED—OPPOSITION TO THE TREATY—CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IN FAVOR OF THE TREATY—MOVEMENTS IN PHILADELPHIA—DENUNCIATIONS OF JAY AND THE TREATY IN THE SOUTHERN STATES—DISUNION THREATENED—WASHINGTON'S LETTER TO THE SELECTMEN OF BOSTON—WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON—HIS HASTY RETURN TO THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT—FAUCHET'S LETTER INTERCEPTED—CONFIDENCE WITHDRAWN FROM RANDOLPH—THE RATIFICATION OF THE TREATY SIGNED—RANDOLPH AND FAUCHET—RANDOLPH'S VINDICATION OF HIS CONDUCT—HIS REPENTANCE.

The publication of the contents of the treaty produced a blaze of excitement throughout the country. The author of the treaty, the senators who approved of its ratification, and the president, were all vehemently denounced. Great indignation had already been expressed because the entire negotiation had been involved in mysterious secrecy; because the document had not been immediately made public on its reception by the president; and because the senate deliberated upon it with closed doors. The partisans of France had used every effort, during the spring and summer, to excite the people against Great Britain; and it was evident, from the tone of opposition writers and declaimers, that no possible adjustment of difficulties with that country, which might promise a future friendly intercourse between the two nations, would be satisfactory.[79]

It was asserted that any treaty of amity and commerce with Great Britain under the circumstances, whatever might be its principles, was a degrading insult to the American people, a pusillanimous surrender of their honor, and a covert injury to France. They affected to regard the compact as an alliance; an abandonment of an ancient ally of the United States, whose friendship had given them independence, and whose current victories, at that moment challenging the admiration of the world, still protected them, for an alliance with the natural enemy of that friend, and with an enemy of human liberty. They spoke of the court of Great Britain as the most faithless and corrupt in the world, and denounced the result of Jay's mission as a surrender of every just claim upon a rapacious enemy for restitution on account of great wrongs.

These denunciations had great immediate effect. All acknowledged that the treaty was not as favorable to the United States as the latter had a right to expect; and "public opinion did receive a considerable shock," says Marshall. Men unaffected by the spirit of faction felt some disappointment on its first appearance; therefore, when exposed to the public view, continues Marshall, "it found one party prepared for a bold and intrepid attack, but the other not ready in its defence. An appeal to the passions, prejudices, and feelings of the nation might confidently be made by those whose only object was its condemnation; while reflection, information, and consequently time, were required by men whose first impressions were not in its favor, but who were not inclined to yield absolutely to those impressions."

As we have observed, Washington, for a specific purpose, withheld his signature in ratification of the treaty. The vote of the senate recommending its ratification, with the stipulation that one article should be added, suspending so much of another as seemed requisite, and requesting the president to open without delay further negotiation on that head, presented serious questions to his mind. He had no precedent for his guide. Could the senate be considered to have ratified the treaty before the insertion of the new article? Was the act complete and final, so as to make it unnecessary to refer it back to that body? Could the president affix his official seal to an act before it should be complete? These were important questions, and demanded serious reflection.

The opponents of the treaty, aware of the cause of the delay in its ratification, resolved to endeavor to intimidate the president and prevent his signing it. The most violent demonstrations, by word and deed, were made against it. On the fourth of July, a great mob assembled in Philadelphia, and paraded the streets with effigies of Jay and the ratifying senators. That of Jay bore a pair of scales: one was labelled "American Liberty and Independence;" and the other, which greatly preponderated, "British Gold." From the mouth of the figure proceeded the words, "Come up to my price, and I will sell you my country." The effigies were committed to the flames amid the most frightful yells and groans.

Public meetings were assembled all over the country to make formal protests against the treaty. They were called ostensibly to "deliberate upon it," but they were frequently tumultuous, and always declamatory. A large meeting was held in Boston on the tenth of July. The chief actors there denounced the treaty as not containing one single article honorable or beneficial to the United States. It was disapproved of by unanimous vote, and a committee of fifteen, appointed to state objections, in an address to the president, reported no less than twenty. They were adopted by the meeting without debate, and were sent to the president accompanied by a letter from the selectmen of Boston. Only a few of the stable inhabitants of Boston appear to have been concerned in this matter, and the wealthy merchants and some other rich men who attended the meeting, and whose fears were excited by the leaders of the opposition, were made mere tools of on the occasion.

A meeting for a similar purpose was held in front of the city-hall, in Wall street, New York, on the eighteenth of July, pursuant to a call of an anonymous handbill. There the opposition gathered in great numbers, and there also was a large number of the friends of the treaty, who succeeded at first in electing a chairman. They were then about to adjourn to some more convenient place, when Brockholst Livingston, Mr. Jay's brother-in-law, and a leader of the opposition, urged the meeting to proceed instantly, as the president might ratify the treaty at any moment. Indeed, the whole Livingston family, with the eminent chancellor at their head, were now in the ranks of the opposition, and exerted a powerful influence. "With more than thoughtless effrontery," says Doctor Francis, "they fanned the embers of discontent."

Hamilton, Rufus King, and other speakers, occupied the balcony of the city-hall. The former, with sweet and persuasive tones, had uttered conciliatory words, and spoken in favor of adjournment, when the meeting became a good deal disturbed by conflicting sentiments and stormy passions. Just then an excited party of the opposition, who had held a meeting at the Bowling Green, with William L. Smith, a son-in-law of Vice-President Adams, as chairman, and who had burned a copy of the treaty in front of the government house, marched up Broadway, with the American and French flags unfurled, and joined the meeting. The turbulence of the assembly was greatly increased by this addition; and while Hamilton and King "were addressing the people in accents of friendship, peace, and reconciliation, they were treated in return with a shower of stones, levelled at their persons, by the exasperated mob gathered in front of the city-hall."[80]

"These are hard arguments," said Hamilton, who was hit a glancing blow upon the forehead by one of the stones. A question was finally taken on a motion to leave the decision on the treaty to the president and senate, when both sides claimed a majority. Then some person, utterly ignoring the presence of a chairman, moved the appointment of a committee of fifteen, to report to another meeting (to be held two days afterward) objections to the treaty. He read a list of names of gentlemen that should form that committee, and, at the close of clamorous shouts, he declared them duly appointed by the vote. The meeting finally broke up in great confusion. The adjourned meeting was attended by only the opponents of the treaty; and Brockholst Livingston, chairman of the committee of fifteen, reported twenty-eight condemnatory resolutions, which were adopted by unanimous vote.

"These resolutions," says Hildreth, "while expressing great confidence in the president's wisdom, patriotism, and independence, were equally confident that his 'own good sense' must induce him to reject the treaty, as 'invading the constitution and legislative authority of the country; as abandoning important and well-founded claims against the British government; as imposing unjust and impolitic restraints on commerce; as injurious to agriculture; as conceding, without an equivalent, important advantages to Great Britain; as hostile and ungrateful to France; as committing our peace with that great republic; as unequal toward America in every respect; as hazarding her internal peace and prosperity; and as derogatory from her sovereignty and independence."[81]

On the very next day (July 22), the New York Chamber of Commerce, representing the commercial interests of that city, adopted resolutions diametrically opposed to those offered by Livingston. These set forth that the treaty contained as many features of reciprocity as, under the circumstances, might be expected; that the arrangements respecting British debts were honest and expedient; and that the agreement concerning the surrender of the western posts and for compensation for spoliations, and their prevention in future, were wise and beneficial. If the treaty had been rejected, they said, war with all its attendant calamities would have ensued, and they were satisfied with what had been done.

On the twenty-fourth of July a similar meeting was held in Philadelphia. Among the leaders who denounced the treaty by speech and acts were Chief-Justice M'Kean, Alexander J. Dallas (the secretary of the commonwealth), General Muhlenburg (late speaker of the house of representatives), and John Swanwick (representative elect in Congress). A committee of fifteen was appointed by the meeting to convey the sentiments of the assemblage to the president, who was then at Mount Vernon, in the form of a memorial. That instrument was read twice and agreed to without debate. The treaty was then thrown to the populace—consisting chiefly, as Wolcott said in a letter to the president, of "the ignorant and violent classes"—who placed it upon a pole, and, proceeding to the house of the British minister, burned it in the street in front of it. They performed a like ceremony in front of the dwelling of the British consul, and also of Mr. Bingham, an influential federalist, with loud huzzas, yells, and groans.

At the South, equally hostile feelings toward the treaty and its friends were manifested. John Rutledge, then chief justice of South Carolina, denounced the treaty in violent language at a public meeting. He said it was destitute of a single article that could be approved, and reproached Jay with being either a knave or a fool—with corruption or stupidity—in having signed it. The stanch old patriot, Christopher Gadsden, denounced it in terms equally decisive; and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, at the close of a violent harangue, moved to request the president to take steps to have Jay impeached. "If he had not made this public exposure of his conduct and principles," said Pinckney, "he might one day have been brought forward, among others, as a candidate for our highest office: but the general and deserved contempt which his negotiations have brought both his talents and principles into, would for ever, he trusted, secure his fellow-citizens from the dangerous and unwise use which such a man would have made of the powers vested in a president."

The meeting appointed a committee of fifteen to report their sentiments at another gathering. It was done on the twenty-second of July. The report contained severe criticisms upon the several articles of the treaty, and recommended a memorial to the president, asking him not to ratify it. Meanwhile the populace trailed a British flag through the streets, and then burned it at the door of the British consul.

While these meetings were occurring in the principal cities, the opposition press all over the country was alive with the subject, and its denunciations were sometimes so violent that it was difficult to find words strong enough to express them. The Democratic Societies, vivified by the excitement, were also active with a sort of galvanic life. One of these in South Carolina resolved, "That we pledge ourselves to our brethren of the republican societies throughout the Union, as far as the ability and individual influence of a numerous society can be made to extend, that we will promote every constitutional mode to bring John Jay to trial and to justice. He shall not escape, if guilty, that punishment which will at once wipe off the temporary stain laid upon us, and be a warning to traitors hereafter how they sport with the interests and feelings of their fellow-citizens. He was instructed, or he was not: if he was, we will drop the curtain; if not, and he acted of and from himself, we shall lament the want of a GUILLOTINE."

The Pendleton Society of the same state declared their "abhorrence and detestation of a treaty which gives the English government more power over us as states than it claimed over us as colonists—a treaty, involving in it pusillanimity, stupidity, ingratitude, and treachery."

In Virginia, the grand panacea for all political evils of the federal government, DISUNION, was again presented. The following specimen of the prescription, taken from a Virginia newspaper, will suffice as an example:—

"Notice is hereby given, that in case the treaty entered into by that damned arch-traitor, John Jay, with the British tyrant should be ratified, a petition will be presented to the next general assembly of Virginia at their next session, praying that the said state may recede from the Union, and be under the government of one hundred thousand free and independent Virginians.

"P. S. As it is the wish of the people of the said state to enter into a treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, with any other state or states of the present Union who are averse to returning again under the galling yoke of Great Britain, the printers of the (at present) United States are requested to publish the above notification.—Richmond, July 31, 1795."

Even at that early period of the republic, neither newspaper editors, nor political combinations, nor gatherings of clamorous assemblies, could make any sensible impression on the real strength of the Union.

Nor did these individual or public demonstrations move Washington from his steady march in the line of duty, or in his allegiance to what he discerned to be truth and justice. On his way to his home on the Potomac, he was overtaken at Baltimore, on the eighteenth of July, by the committee from Boston, bearing to him the proceedings of the great public meeting there on the subject of the treaty. He immediately sent the papers back to Mr. Randolph, the secretary of state, with a request that he would confer upon the subject with the other two secretaries and the attorney-general, and transmit the opinion of the cabinet to him as early as possible. The whole affair, he had no doubt, was intended to place him "in an embarrassed situation." The cabinet members, after consultation, wrote out replies to the Boston authorities in accordance with their views, and sent them to the president. He weighed them carefully, and on the twenty-eighth of July he addressed the following letter to the selectmen of Boston:—[82]

"In every act of my administration I have sought the happiness of my fellow-citizens. My system for the attainment of this object has uniformly been to overlook all personal, local, and partial considerations; to contemplate the United States as one great whole; to consider that sudden impressions, when erroneous, would yield to candid reflection; and to consult only the substantial and permanent interests of our country.

"Nor have I departed from this line of conduct, on the occasion which has produced the resolutions contained in your letter of the thirteenth instant.

"With a predilection for my own judgment, I have weighed with attention every argument which has at any time been brought into view. But the constitution is the guide, which I never can abandon. It has assigned to the president the power of making treaties, with the advice and consent of the senate. It was doubtless supposed that these two branches of government would combine, without passion, and with the best means of information, those facts and principles upon which the success of our foreign relations will always depend; that they ought not to substitute for their own conviction the opinions of others, or to seek truth through any channel but that of a temperate and well-informed investigation.

"Under this persuasion, I have resolved on the manner of executing the duty before me. To the high responsibility attached to it I freely submit; and you, gentlemen, are at liberty to make these sentiments known as the grounds of my procedure. While I feel the most lively gratitude for the many instances of approbation from my country, I can no otherwise deserve it than by obeying the dictates of my conscience."

To these noble sentiments Washington firmly adhered, and they were the basis of his replies to all similar communications. Before this letter was sent, Washington received many private and public letters on the subject, as well as newspaper accounts of meetings all over the country. He perceived that a crisis had arrived, when he must act promptly and energetically, in accordance with his convictions of right. He saw that the excitement throughout the Union was becoming formidable, and he resolved to return to Philadelphia immediately, summon his cabinet, and propose to ratify the treaty without delay—notwithstanding such return would be to him a great personal sacrifice. "Whilst I am in office," he said to Randolph in his letter announcing his determination to return, "I shall never suffer private convenience to interfere with what I conceive to be my official duty." This was one of the great maxims of his life.

"I view the opposition," he said, "which the treaty is receiving from the meetings in different parts of the Union, in a very serious light; not because there is more weight in any of the objections which are made to it than was foreseen at first, for there is none in some of them, and gross misrepresentations in others; nor as it respects myself personally, for this shall have no influence on my conduct, plainly perceiving, and I am accordingly preparing my mind for it, the obloquy which disappointment and malice are collecting to heap upon me. But I am alarmed at the effect it may have on, and the advantage the French government may be disposed to make of, the spirit which is at work to cherish a belief in them that the treaty is calculated to favor Great Britain at their expense. Whether they believe or disbelieve these tales, the effect it will have upon the nation will be nearly the same; for, whilst they are at war with that power, or so long as the animosity between the two nations exists, it will, no matter at whose expense, be their policy, and it is to be feared will be their conduct, to prevent us from being on good terms with Great Britain, or her from deriving any advantages from our trade, which they can hinder, however much we may be benefitted thereby ourselves. To what length this policy and interest may carry them is problematical; but when they see the people of this country divided, and such a violent opposition given to the measures of their own government pretendedly in their favor, it may be extremely embarrassing, to say no more of it.

"To sum the whole up in a few words, I have never, since I have been in the administration of the government, seen a crisis, which in my judgment has been so pregnant with interesting events, nor one from which more is to be apprehended, whether viewed on one side or the other. From New York there is, and I am told will further be, a counter current; but how formidable it may appear I know not. If the same does not take place at Boston and other towns, it will afford but too strong evidence that the opposition is in a manner universal, and would make the ratification a very serious business indeed. But, as it respects the French, even counter resolutions would, for the reasons I have already mentioned, do little more than weaken in a small degree the effect the other side would have."

Two days afterward (the thirty-first of July) he wrote to Mr. Randolph, informing him that he should not set out for Philadelphia until he should receive answers to some letters, and then said:—

"To be wise and temperate, as well as firm, the present crisis most eminently calls for. There is too much reason to believe, from the pains which have been taken, before, at, and since the advice of the senate respecting the treaty, that the prejudices against it are more extensive than is generally imagined. This I have lately understood to be the case in this quarter, from men who are of no party, but well disposed to the present administration. How should it be otherwise, when no stone has been left unturned that could impress on the minds of the people the most arrant misrepresentation of facts; that their rights have not only been neglected, but absolutely sold; that there are no reciprocal advantages in the treaty; that the benefits are all on the side of Great Britain; and, what seems to have had more weight with them than all the rest and to have been most pressed, that the treaty is made with the design to oppress the French, in open violation of our treaty with that nation, and contrary, too, to every principle of gratitude and sound policy? In time, when passion shall have yielded to sober reason, the current may possibly turn; but, in the meanwhile, this government, in relation to France and England, may be compared to a ship between the rocks of Scylla and Charybdis. If the treaty is ratified, the partisans of the French, or rather of war and confusion, will excite them to hostile measures, or at least to unfriendly sentiments; if it is not, there is no foreseeing all the consequences which may follow as it respects Great Britain.

"It is not to be inferred from hence that I am disposed to quit the ground I have taken, unless circumstances more imperious than have yet come to my knowledge should compel it; for there is but one straight course, and that is, to seek truth and pursue it steadily.

"But these things are mentioned to show that a close investigation of the subject is more than ever necessary, and that they are strong evidences of the necessity of the most circumspect conduct in carrying the determination of government into effect, with prudence as it respects our own people, and with every exertion to produce a change for the better from Great Britain."

Randolph, at Washington's request, had made a rough draft of a memorial, intended to meet all objections to the treaty. This had been sent to Mount Vernon, and in reference to it the president said:—

"The memorial seems well designed to answer the end proposed; and by the time it is revised and new-dressed, you will probably (either in the resolutions, which are or will be handed to me, or in the newspaper publications, which you promised to be attentive to) have seen all the objections against the treaty which have any real force in them, and which may be fit subjects for representation in the memorial, or in the instructions, or both.

"But how much longer the presentation of the memorial can be delayed without exciting unpleasant sensations here, or involving serious evils elsewhere, you, who are at the scene of information and action, can decide better than I. In a matter, however, so interesting and pregnant with consequences as this treaty, there ought to be no precipitation; but, on the contrary, every step should be explored before it is taken, and every word weighed before it is uttered or delivered in writing."

Washington arrived at Philadelphia on the eleventh of August. His return was hastened by a mysterious letter from Colonel Pickering, the secretary of war, dated the thirty-first of July. "On the subject of the treaty," he said, "I confess I feel extreme solicitude, and for a special reason, which can be communicated to you only in person. I entreat, therefore, that you will return with all convenient speed to the seat of government. In the meantime, for the reason above referred to, I pray you to decide on no important political measure, in whatever form it may be presented to you. Mr. Wolcott and I (Mr. Bradford concurring) waited on Mr. Randolph, and urged his writing to request your return. He wrote in our presence, but we concluded a letter from one of us also expedient."

On the day after his arrival, the president called a cabinet meeting. Mr. Pickering had already explained the mysterious hints in his letter, by handing to Washington some papers which had excited suspicions concerning Secretary Randolph's conduct. When the cabinet had convened, the president submitted the question, "What shall be done with the treaty?" Randolph not only insisted upon the repeal of the provision order already alluded to, as a preliminary to ratification, but took the ground that the treaty ought not to be ratified at all, pending the war with Great Britain and France. The other members of the cabinet were in favor of immediate ratification, with a strong memorial against the provision order. In this opinion Washington coincided, and on the eighteenth the ratification was signed by the president. Randolph was directed to complete the memorial which he had commenced, and also instructions for further negotiations.

Washington's feelings had been deeply moved by the papers which Pickering placed in his hands. The chief of these was a despatch of M. Fauchet, the French minister, to his government, late in the autumn of 1794, and which had been intercepted. In that despatch, Fauchet gave a sketch of the rise of parties in the United States, in substantial accordance with Jefferson's views, and then he commented freely upon the Whiskey Insurrection in western Pennsylvania, then drawing to a close. Echoing the sentiments of the democratic leaders, Fauchet, professing to have his information from Randolph, declared that the insurrection grew out of political hostility to Hamilton. It was Hamilton's intention, he said, in enforcing the excise, "to mislead the president into unpopular courses, and to introduce absolute power under pretext of giving energy to the government."

In his further comments, the minister, in deprecation of the conduct of professed republicans, and the general co-operation with the president in putting down the insurrection, said: "Of the governors whose duty it was to appear at the head of the requisitions, the governor of Pennsylvania alone [Mifflin] enjoyed the name of republican. His opinions of the secretary of the treasury, and of his systems, were known to be unfavorable. The secretary of this state [Dallas] possessed great influence in the popular society of Philadelphia, which in its turn influenced those of other states; of course he merited attention. It appears that these men, with others unknown to me, were balancing to decide on their party. Two or three days before the proclamation was published, and of course before the cabinet had resolved on its measures, Mr. Randolph came to me with an air of great eagerness, and made to me the overtures of which I have given an account in my No. 6.[83]

"Thus, with some thousands of dollars, the republic could have decided on civil war or on peace! Thus the consciences of the pretended patriots of America already have their prices! What will be the old age of this government, if it is thus already decrepit?"

After speaking of Hamilton's financial schemes as the instrument of making "of a whole nation a stock-jobbing, speculating, and selfish people," and asserting that "riches alone here fix consideration, and, as no one likes to be despised, they are universally sought after," he makes some exceptions among the leading republicans by name, and continues:—

"As soon as it was decided that the French republic purchased no men to do their duty, there were to be seen individuals, about whose conduct the government could at least form uneasy conjectures, giving themselves up with scandalous ostentation to its views, and ever seconding its declarations. The popular societies [democratic] soon emitted resolutions stamped with the same spirit, which, although they may not have been prompted by love of order, might nevertheless have been omitted, or uttered with less solemnity. Then were seen, coming from the very men whom we have been accustomed to regard as having little friendship for the treasurer, harangues without end, in order to give a new direction to the public mind."

This despatch had been intercepted at sea, found its way to the British cabinet, and was forwarded to Mr. Hammond, the British minister at Philadelphia. He placed it in the hands of Mr. Wolcott, the secretary of the treasury, for he ascribed the delay in the ratification of the treaty to Randolph's influence. It was translated by Mr. Pickering, and he, as we have seen, submitted it to the president on his arrival at the seat of government. Washington revolved it in his mind with great concern; but other matters of greater moment demanding his immediate attention after his arrival, he postponed all action upon it until the question of ratifying the treaty should be settled. On the day after the signing of that instrument, the president, in the presence of all the cabinet officers, handed the intercepted despatch to Mr. Randolph, with a request that he should read it and make such explanations as he might think fit.