As soon as it became known that Genet's privateers, manned by seamen enlisted in our ports, were preying on British commerce, and that the French man-of-war L'Ambuscade had taken an English vessel, The Grange, within the capes of the Delaware, Hammond filed a memorial in regard to these incidents. In so doing he was of course quite right, and the government responded immediately, and proceeded in good faith to make every effort to repair these breaches of neutrality, and to redress the wrongs suffered by Great Britain. Hammond, however, instead of doing all in his power, not merely to gain his own ends, but to make it easy for our government to satisfy him, assumed at once a disagreeable tone with a strong flavor of bullying, which was not calculated to conciliate the statesmen with whom he was dealing. It was a small matter enough, but unfortunately it was an indication of what was to come.
On November 6, 1793, a British order in council was passed, but not immediately published, directing the seizure of all vessels carrying the produce of the French islands, or loaded with provisions for the use of the French colonies. The object of the order was to destroy all neutral trade, and it was aimed particularly at the commerce of the United States. The moment selected for its adoption was when the troubles with Genet had culminated, when we were on the point of getting rid of that very objectionable person, and when we had proved that we meant to maintain an honest and a real neutrality. It was as well calculated as any move could have been to drive us back into the arms of France, yet the manner of executing the order was far worse than the order itself. Our merchantmen and traders had been quick to take advantage of the opening of the French ports, and they had gone in swarms to the French islands. Now, without a word of warning, their vessels were seized by the cruisers of a nation with which we were supposed to be at peace. Every petty governor of an English island sat as a judge in admiralty. Many of them were corrupt, all were unfit for the duty, and our vessels were condemned and pillaged. The crews were made prisoners, and in many cases thrown into loathsome and unhealthy places of confinement, while the ships were left to rot in the harbors. The tale of the outrages and miseries thus inflicted on citizens of the United States without any warning, and by a nation considered to be at peace with us, fills an American with shame and anger even to-day. If our people remonstrated, they were told that England meant to have no neutrals, and that six of their frigates could blockade our coast. A course of kind treatment would have made us the friends of Great Britain, but the experiment was not even tried. The truth was that we were weak, and this was not only a misfortune but apparently an unpardonable sin. England could not conquer us, but she could harry our coasts, and let loose her Indians on our borders; and we had no navy with which to retaliate. She meant that there should be no neutrals, and so adopted a policy which would make us the active ally of France. It was no answer to say, what was perfectly true, that French privateers preyed upon our commerce with that fine indifference to rights and treaties which characterized the governments of the Revolution. If both sides maltreated us, the natural course was to unite with the power to which we at least owed a debt of gratitude.
About the same time a speech was reported from Quebec, in which Lord Dorchester told the Indians that they should soon take the war-path for England against the United States. Lord Grenville denied in Parliament, and subsequently to Jay, that the ministry had ever taken any step to incite the Indians against the United States, and the authenticity of Lord Dorchester's utterances has been questioned in later days; but it was not disavowed at the time, even by Hammond in a sharp correspondence which he held on that and other topics with Randolph. The speech, as is now known and proved, was probably made, whether it was authorized or not, and it was universally accepted at the moment as both true and authoritative.
This menace of desolating savage war in the West, in addition to the unquestioned outrages to our seamen, the loss of our ships, and the destruction of our commerce, with consequent ruin to all our seaboard towns, led to a general outburst of indignation from men of all parties, and Congress began to prepare for war. Many of the methods suggested were feeble and inadequate, but there could be no doubt of either the spirit or intentions which dictated them. News that an order of January 8, 1794, modified that of November 6, and confined the seizure to vessels carrying French property, and reports that some of our vessels were being restored, moderated the movements of Congress, but it was nevertheless evident that a resolution cutting off commercial intercourse with Great Britain would soon pass. In the existing state of things such a step in all probability meant war, and Washington was thus brought face to face with the most serious problem of his administration. It did not take him unawares, nor find him unprepared, for he had anticipated the situation, and his mind was made up. He had no intention of letting the country drift into war without a great effort to prevent it, and the time for that effort had now come. As in the case of Spain, he was resolved to send a special envoy to make a treaty. His first choice for this important mission was Hamilton, which, like most of his selections, would have been the best choice that could have been made. Hamilton, however, was so conspicuous as the great leader of the party which supported both the foreign and domestic policy of the administration, and he was so hated by the opposition, that a loud outcry was at once raised against his appointment. At that particular juncture it was very important that the envoy should depart with as much general good-will and public confidence as possible, so Hamilton sacrificed himself to this necessity, and withdrew his name voluntarily. His withdrawal was a mistake, but it was a wholly natural one under the circumstances. Washington then made the next best choice, and appointed John Jay, who was a man of most spotless character, honorable, high-minded, and skilled in public affairs. He was chief justice of the United States, and that fact gave additional weight to the mission. The only point in which he fell behind Hamilton was in aggressiveness of character, and this negotiation demanded, not merely firmness and tact, which Jay had in abundance, but a boldness verging on audacity. The immediate purpose, however, was answered, and Jay set forth on his journey with much good feeling toward himself, and with a very solemn sense among the people of the gravity of his undertaking. Washington himself saw Jay depart with many misgivings, and the act of sending such a mission at all was very trying to him, for the conduct of England galled him to the quick. He had long suspected Great Britain, as well as Spain, of inciting the Indians secretly to assail our settlements, and knowing as he did the character of savage warfare, and feeling deeply the bloodshed and expense of our Indian wars, he cherished a profound dislike for those who could be capable of promoting such misery to the injury of a friendly and-civilized nation. As England became more and more hostile, he made up his mind that she was bent on attacking us, and in March, 1794, he wrote to Governor Clinton that he had no doubts as to the authenticity of Lord Dorchester's speech, and that he believed England intended war. He therefore urged the governor to inquire carefully into the state of feeling in Canada, and as to the military strength of the country, especially on the border. He put no trust in the disclaimers of the ministry when he saw the long familiar signs of hostile intrigue among the Indians, and he was quite determined that, if war should come, all the suffering should not be on one side.
This belief in the coming of war, however, only strengthened him in his well-matured plans to leave nothing undone to prevent it. It was in this spirit that he despatched the special mission, although his first letter to Jay shows that he had no very strong hopes of peace, and that his uppermost thoughts were of the wrongs which had been perpetrated, and of the perils which hung over the border. He did not wish the commissioner to mince matters at all. "There does not remain a doubt," he wrote, "in the mind of any well-informed person in this country, not shut against conviction, that all the difficulties we encounter with the Indians, their hostilities, the murder of helpless women and innocent children along our frontiers, result from the conduct of the agents of Great Britain in this country.... Can it be expected, I ask, so long as these things are known in the United States, or at least firmly believed, and suffered with impunity by Great Britain, that there ever will or can be any cordiality between the two countries? I answer, No. And I will undertake, without the gift of prophecy, to predict that it will be impossible to keep this country in a state of amity with Great Britain long, if the posts are not surrendered. A knowledge of these being my sentiments would have little weight, I am persuaded, with the British administration, and perhaps not with the nation, in effecting the measure; but both may rest satisfied that, if they want to be in peace with this country, and to enjoy the benefits of its trade, to give up the posts is the only road to it. Withholding them, and the consequences we feel at present continuing, war will be inevitable."
Jay meantime had been well received in England. Lord Grenville expressed the most friendly feelings, and every desire that the negotiation might succeed. Jay was also received at court, where he was said to have kissed the queen's hand, a crime, so the opposition declared, for which his lips ought to have been blistered to the bone, a difficult and by no means common form of punishment. Receptions, dinner parties, and a ready welcome everywhere, did not, however, make a treaty. When it came to business, the English did not differ materially from their neighbors whom Canning satirized.
"The fault of the Dutch
Is giving too little and asking too much."
So the Americans now found it with Lord Grenville. There were many subjects of dispute, some dangerous, and all requiring settlement for the benefit of both countries. Boundaries, negro claims, and British debts were easily disposed of by reference to boards of arbitration. Two others, awkward and threatening, but not immediately pressing, were the impressment of British seamen, real or pretended, from American ships, and the exclusion of American vessels from the trade of the British West Indies. The latter circumstance was no doubt disagreeable to us, and deprived us of profit; but it is difficult to see what right we had to complain of it, for the ports of the British West Indies belonged to Great Britain, and if she chose to close them to us, or anybody else, she was quite within her rights. At all events, Lord Grenville declined to let us in, except in a very limited way and under most onerous conditions. The right of search and the right of impressment were simply the rights of the powerful over the weak. England wanted to get seamen where she could for her navy; and so long as she could violate our flag and carry off as recruits any able-bodied seaman who spoke English, she meant to do it. It was worse than idle to negotiate about it. When we should be ready and willing to fight we could settle that question, but not before. In due time we were ready to fight. England defeated us in various battles, ravaged our coasts, and burned our capital; while we whipped her frigates and lake flotillas, and repulsed her Peninsula veterans with heavy slaughter at New Orleans. Impressment was not mentioned in the treaty which concluded that war, but it ended at that time. The English are a brave and combative people, but rather than get into wars with nations that will fight, and fight hard, they will desist from wanton and illegal aggressions, in which they do not differ greatly from the rest of mankind; and so the practical abandonment of impressment came with the war of 1812. The fact was officially stated by Webster, not many years later, when he announced that the flag covered and protected all those who lived or traded under it.
But in 1794 impressment was a negotiable question, because we were not ready to go to war about it then and there. So Jay, wisely enough, allowed this especial from of bullying to drift aside, along with the exclusion from the West India trade, and addressed himself to the two points which it was essential to have settled at that particular moment. These questions were: the retention of the western posts, and neutral rights at sea. In return for the agreement on our part to pay the British debts, as determined by arbitration, England agreed to surrender the posts on June 1, 1796. There was to be mutual reciprocity in inland trade on the North American continent; but coastwise, while we opened all our harbors and rivers to the British, they shut us out from theirs in the colonies and the territory of the Hudson's Bay Company. In the eighteen articles, limited in duration to two years after the conclusion of the existing war, a treaty of commerce was practically formed and neutral rights dealt with. We were to be admitted to British ports in Europe and the East Indies on terms of equality with British vessels, but we were refused admission to the East Indian coasting trade, and to that between East India and Europe. We gained the right to trade to the West Indies, but only on condition that we should give up the transportation from America to Europe of any of the principal products of the colonies. These were enumerated, and besides sugar, molasses, coffee, and cocoa, included cotton, which had just become an export from the southern States, and which already promised to assume the importance that it afterwards reached. The vexed questions of privateers, prizes, and contraband of war were also settled and determined.
The treaty as a whole was not a very brilliant one for the United States, but its treatment was far worse than its deserts, and it was received with such a universal outburst of indignation that even to this day it has never freed itself from the bad name it then acquired. Nobody, not even its supporters, liked it, and yet it may be doubted whether anything materially better was possible at the time. The admirers of Hamilton, from that day to this, have believed that if he had been sent, his boldness, ability, and force would have wrung better terms from England. This is not at all improbable; but that they would have been materially improved, even by Hamilton, does not seem very likely. The treaty, in reality, was by no means bad; on the contrary, it had many good points. It disposed satisfactorily and fairly of all the minor questions which were vexatious and threatening to the peaceful relation of the two countries. It settled the British debts, gave us the western posts, which was a matter of the utmost importance, and arranged the disputed and thorny question of neutral rights, for the time being at least. It left impressment totally unsettled, simply because we were still too weak to be ready to fight England profitably on that theme. It opened to us the West Indian ports, which was the matter most nearly affecting our interests and our pockets, but it did so under limitations and concessions which were excessive and even humiliating. We were obliged to pay a price far too high for this coveted privilege, and it was on this point that the controversy finally hinged.
The treaty reached Philadelphia on March 7. Nothing was said of its arrival, which does not seem to have been known to any one but the President and Randolph, who had meantime succeeded Jefferson as Secretary of State. Three months later, on June 8, the Senate was called together in special session, and the treaty was laid before them. Washington did not like it and never changed his feeling in that respect, but he had made up his mind upon full reflection to accept it; and the Senate, after most careful consideration, voted by exactly the necessary two thirds to ratify it, provided that the objectionable West Indian article could be modified. On no terms could we consent to forego the exportation of cotton, and it is difficult to see how the Senate could have taken any other ground upon this point. Their action, however, opened some delicate questions. Washington wrote to Randolph: "First, is or is not that resolution intended to be the final act of the Senate; or do they expect that the new article which is proposed shall be submitted to them before the treaty takes effect? Secondly, does or does not the Constitution permit the President to ratify the treaty, without submitting the new article, after it shall be agreed to by the British King, to the Senate for their further advice and consent?"
These questions were carefully considered, and Washington had made up his mind to ratify conditionally on the modification of the West Indian article, when news arrived which caused him to suspend action. England, having made the treaty, and before any news could have been received of our attitude in regard to it, took steps to render its ratification both difficult and offensive, if not impossible. The mode adopted was to renew the "provision order," as it was called, which directed the seizure of all vessels carrying food products to France, and thus give to the Jay treaty the interpretation it was designed to avoid, that provisions could be declared contraband at the pleasure of one of the belligerents. It was a stupid thing to do, for if England desired to have peace with us, as her making the treaty indicated, she should not have renewed the most irritating of all her past performances before we had had opportunity even to sign and ratify. Washington, on hearing of this move, withheld his signature, bade Randolph prepare a strong memorial against the provision order, and then betook himself to Mount Vernon on some urgent private business.
Before he started, however, the storm of popular rage had begun to break. Bache had the substance of the treaty in the "Aurora" on June 29, and Mr. Stevens Thomson Mason, senator from Virginia, was so pained by some slight inaccuracies in this version that he wrote Mr. Bache a note, and sent him a copy of the treaty despite the injunction of secrecy by which he as a senator was bound. Mr. Mason gained great present glory by this frank breach of promise, and curiously enough this single discreditable act is the only thing that keeps his name and memory alive in history. All that he achieved at the moment was to hurry the inevitable disclosure of the contents of a treaty which no one desired to conceal, except in deference to official form. Mason's note and copy of the treaty, made up into a pamphlet, were issued from Bache's press on July 2, and hundreds of copies were soon being carried by eager riders north and south throughout the Union.
Everywhere, as the treaty traveled, the popular wrath was kindled. The first explosion came in Boston, Federalist Boston, devoted beyond any other town in the country to Washington and his administration. There was a town meeting in Faneuil Hall, violent speeches were made, and a committee was appointed to draw up a memorial to the President against ratification. This remonstrance was despatched at once by special messenger, who seemed to carry the torch of Malise instead of a set of dry resolutions. Everywhere the anger and indignation flamed forth. The ground had been carefully prepared, for, ever since Jay sailed, the partisans of the French had been denouncing him and his mission, predicting failure, and, in one case at least, burning him in effigy before it was known whether he had done anything at all. As soon as the news spread that the treaty had actually arrived, the attacks were multiplied in number and grew ever more bitter as the Senate consulted. The popular mind was so worked up that in Boston a British vessel had been burned on suspicion that she was a privateer, while in New York there had been street fights and rioting because of an insult to a French flag. In such a state of feeling, artificially stimulated and ingeniously misled, the most brilliant diplomatic triumph would have had but slight chance of approval. Jay's moderate achievement was better than his enemies expected, but it was sufficient for their purpose, and the popular fury blazed up and ran through the country, like a whirlwind of fire over the parched prairie. Everywhere the example of Boston was followed, meetings were held, committees appointed, and memorials against the treaty sent to the President. In New York Hamilton was stoned when he attempted to speak in favor of ratification; and less illustrious persons, who ventured to differ from the crowd, were ducked and otherwise maltreated. Jay was hanged and burned in effigy in every way that imagination could devise, and copies of his treaty suffered the same fate at the hands of the hangman. Feeling ran highest in the larger towns where there was a mob, but even some of the smaller places and those most Federal in their politics were carried away. The excitement seems also to have been confined for the most part to the seaboard, but after all that was where the bulk of the population lived. The crowd, moreover, was not led by obscure agitators or by violent and irresponsible partisans. The Livingstons in New York, Rodney in Delaware, Gadsden and the Rutledges in South Carolina, were some of the men who guided the meetings and denounced the treaty. On the other hand, the friends and supporters of the administration appeared stunned, and for weeks no opposition to the popular movement except that attempted by Hamilton was apparent. Even the administration was divided, for Randolph was as hostile to the treaty as it was possible for a man of his temperament to be.
The crisis was indeed a serious one. There have been worse in our history, but this was one of the gravest; and never did a President stand, so far as any one could see, so utterly alone. With his own party silenced and even divided, with the opposition rampant, and with popular excitement at fever heat, Washington was left to take his course alone and unsupported. It was the severest trial of his political life, but he met it, as he met the reverses of 1776, calmly and without flinching. He was always glad to have advice and suggestions. No man ever sought them or benefited from them more than he; yet no man ever lived so little dependent on others and so perfectly capable of standing alone as Washington. After the Senate had acted, he made up his mind to conditional ratification. He withheld his signature on hearing of the provision order, and was ready to sign as soon as that order was withdrawn. Whether he would make its withdrawal another condition of his signature he had not determined when he left Philadelphia for Mount Vernon, and on his arrival he wrote to Randolph: "The conditional ratification (if the late order, which we have heard of, respecting provision vessels is not in operation) may, on all fit occasions, be spoken of as my determination. Unless, from anything you have heard or met with since I left you, it should be thought more advisable to communicate further with me on the subject, my opinion respecting the treaty is the same now that it was, namely, not favorable to it; but that it is better to ratify it in the manner the Senate have advised, and with the reservation already mentioned, than to suffer matters to remain as they are, unsettled." He had already received the Boston resolutions, and had sent them to his cabinet for their consideration. He did not for a moment underrate their importance, and he saw that they were the harbingers of others of like character, although he could not yet estimate the full violence of the storm of popular disapprobation. On July 28 he sent his answer to the selectmen of Boston, and it is such an important paper that it must be given in full. It was as follows:—
UNITED STATES, 28th of July, 1795.
GENTLEMEN: 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 confide that sudden impressions, and erroneous, would yield to candid reflections; 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 13th inst.
Without 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 convictions 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 fully 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. With due respect, I am, etc.
It will be noticed that this letter is dated "The United States, 28th of July," which is, I think, the only instance of the sort to be found in his letters. In all his vast correspondence there possibly may be other cases in which he used this method of dating, but one cannot help feeling that on this occasion at least it had a particular significance. It was not George Washington writing from Mount Vernon, but the President, who represented the whole country, pointing out to the people of Boston that the day of small things and of local considerations had gone by. This letter served also as a model for many others. The Boston address had a multitude of successors, and they were all answered in the same strain. Washington was not a man to underrate popular feeling, for he knew that the strongest bulwark of the government was in sound public opinion. On the other hand, he was one of the rare men who could distinguish between a temporary excitement, no matter how universal, and an abiding sentiment. In this case he quietly resisted the noisy popular demand, believing that the sober second thought of the people would surely be with him; but at the same time the outcry against the treaty, while it could not make him waver in his determination to do what he believed to be right, caused him deep anxiety. The day after he sent his answer to Boston he wrote to Randolph:—
"I view the opposition 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.... 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."
He already felt that it might be necessary for him to return to Philadelphia at any moment; and, writing to Randolph to this effect two days later, he 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. Nor 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 mean while, 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, 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 there 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.
"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 promise 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 a 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.
"The form of the ratification requires more diplomatic experience and legal knowledge than I possess, or have the means of acquiring at this place, and therefore I shall say nothing about it."
Three days later, on August 3, he wrote again to Randolph to say that the mails had been delayed, and that he had not received the Baltimore resolutions. He then continued:—