The rash conduct of Genet in 1793 brought relations with France into a critical state, and several causes, the chief of which was trade, brought us to the verge of war with England in 1794. There was the same necessity for neutrality in the latter as in the former year: the true policy was one of waiting, waiting for men to be born and to immigrate, for wealth to accumulate, for frontier problems to be solved, for national spirit to spring up, for national greatness to be recognized, and for a more balanced public opinion to be created.
Wise men of the day realized this; but able Republicans like Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin, in the stress of party opposition, used the unfair and arrogant conduct of England as a campaign weapon, and set in motion a great popular movement for war which could not be held back either by themselves or by the faint-hearted Federalists, who could find but scant approval for England. One man alone could dare the popular indignation, and fortunately, he had the will to do it. Washington's immovable spirit resisted the demand for war and accepted an unpopular treaty as a necessary act of humiliation, and his personal influence secured an approval of the deed. Out of the struggle, he came covered with the mud which flew from the hands of those whom he ignored, but time quickly whitened the garments of his reputation.
The war between England and France had no sooner begun than the latter country threw open to neutrals the trade with her West India colonies. Hitherto she had been as earnest as England in her contention that the trade of a colony should be directed for the benefit of the mother-country; but the supremacy of England at sea made it likely that communications between France and the islands would be much interrupted during the war, and the former proposed, by opening the trade of the latter, to prevent the complete isolation of those colonies. Of course, it was the United States which was expected to assume this trade. ^ It was not doubted by France that England would refuse to recognize such a trade, on the ground that it was a war measure, and if that should lead to a breach between England and America, so much the better would France be pleased with her policy of crafty generosity.
The spring of 1793 was not far advanced ere hundreds of American ships were unloading American products and loading French products in the French islands. It was a joyous opening for a trade which had long been restricted to narrow channels; but in June the British ministry issued orders to seize for adjudication the vessels and cargoes engaged in this trade. This was a wide infringement of the principle that neutral ships make neutral goods; but that principle, though announced in 1780 by the northern nations of Europe, had not been accepted by Great Britain. Protest as we might against her interpretation of international rights, we had no recourse but war, and she well knew how poorly prepared we were for that.
Now came from the West Indies the most dismal news. Hundreds of ships were seized under circumstances exceedingly irritating. Seamen and passengers on these craft were stripped of their clothing, locked up in prisons, insulted by the rabble, browbeaten by the corrupt and ignorant island officials, and to their protests contemptuous answers were made. Full accounts of all were sent to the American newspapers. Even the British ministers were shocked by the manner in which their licentious subordinates had executed the orders and filled their own pockets in the mean time. While the blood of Americans boiled at these indignities, news of a still greater insult arrived. November 6, 1793, England issued an order to seize for condemnation all ships carrying the property of French subjects the effect of which was almost to paralyze the American trade; owners dared not send out their ships, prices fell, and labor was out of employment. Throughout the nation the war feeling ran high.
The situation which has been described gave the Republicans an opportunity which they sought to improve; but they were destined to be disappointed by the very violence of the feeling which was aroused against England. In 1791, Jefferson was asked by Congress to prepare a statement of our commerce with foreign peoples. He felt so little interest in the request that he did not comply till 1792, and then he did not send the document to Congress. The situation in France now gave him an opportunity, and in December, 1793, he accordingly sent in the report. It embodied the theory of equal trade privileges based upon the economic doctrine of free-trade; but if, said the report, a nation should find it necessary to put restrictions on our trade with her, we should equalize the matter by imposing a similar restriction on her trade with us. This policy would enable us to deal with other nations in a firm manner, and the probable result would be that we should bring them one by one to make advantageous treaties with us.^ England, it is true, treated us substantially like other nations, but her colonial policy bore hardly on us, and Jefferson's report looked to its overthrow. It is doubtful, however, if we were then strong enough commercially for the task proposed.
January 3, 1794, Madison, in the House, offered seven resolutions, the purport of which was to put Jefferson's recommendations into effect. It was intended to be America's reply to the British navigation laws. If a nation restricted our trade by duties, tonnage, or positive prohibition of our ships, the president was to have authority to restrict her trade in the same way. France, who watched the developments of 1794 with extreme interest, would be drawn into a favorable commercial treaty, and England must either make concessions or lose the rich advantages of trade with us. In the long debate which followed, many able speeches were made. Smith, of South Carolina, opposed the resolutions in a speech the substance of which was furnished by Hamilton. It was a protest in behalf of the trade with England, which furnished nearly seven-eighths of our total imports. This trade had sprung up in a natural way; no other nation in the world had such manufactures as England, no other offered such advantages in making up assorted cargoes, and no other could furnish the capital essential for American commerce. To break off all these relations and force our merchants to establish new ones which must be more or less artificial could not fail to produce great inconvenience in our business life. More over, the merchants, with rare exceptions, were Federalists and in full Sympathy with England. They did not want war even for their own protection. Far better, they thought, was a treaty which would open West Indian ports. Before all these difficulties even our just resentment towards Britain hesitated, and the resolutions were postponed, till finally the situation became so warlike that they were forgotten in the presence of more serious matters. It was felt that the treatment we had received from England, the arbitrary mistress of the sea, demanded stronger action than trade retaliation.
In March, 1794, news was received of the British order of November 6, 1793. At the same time came accounts of Dorchester's remarkable speech to the Indians of the northwest, which men thought would produce war on the frontier. Other causes of irritation were the failure to execute the treaty, and the impressment of American sailors. To the calmest men the situation seemed alarming.
The first action of the government was to recommend an embargo, which was adopted for one month on March 26, and later extended for one month more. It was a temporary measure, and its abandonment was thought best, in view of the negotiations which Jay was about to begin. But its repeal was very unpopular with the non-mercantile classes, who disliked anything which seemed a yielding to England.
Other measures of defence were taken. Congress passed a bill to fortify the harbors, and all classes of people volunteered to aid in the labor of erecting forts and batteries. Military stores were voted, eight hundred additional artillerymen were authorized, and a bill was passed to secure the calling out of eighty thousand militia. Among the people there was much drilling of volunteer companies. It was at this time, also, that the frigates were ordered to be built as a check on Algiers.
In Congress the general indignation took a serious turn. Dayton, who had opposed Madison's resolutions, offered a measure of his own to sequestrate British debts as an offset to the seizure of American ships. Such a step could not fail to produce war. The approval which it received alarmed the advocates of peace. What new incident of wrong should we next hear of, to push us over the edge of the precipice of war?
Fortunately, the next news was conciliating. April 4, Washington sent to Congress a copy of an order of the British ministry of January 8, 1794, issued in response to the representations of Pinckney, our minister in England; it authorized the seizure and adjudication of those ships only which were carrying French property from the islands to Europe. Thus it released the trade between the islands and the United States, which was more than half of our claim.
Before this occurred, the Federalists had decided that an envoy extraordinary ought to be sent to England to see if war could not be avoided through a treaty. A number of them had agreed that Hamilton ought to be the envoy, but Washington refused to appoint him, on the ground that he was not popular with the country. He approved the plan of the mission, however, and seized the favorable relaxation after the notice of the British concession to place it before the Senate. He sent in the name of Jay for the proposed envoy, and by the middle of May that gentleman was commissioned and on his way to England. "If he succeeds, well; if he does not, why, knowing the worst, we must take measures accordingly," said Washington.
In the mean time Congress was considering a non-importation bill, and sentiment for it was strong. There was a time, said men, when we knew how to bring England to her senses by refusing to buy her products. If in 1774, when we were a weak and disunited people, we could tame the British merchants, what might we not do now when we were a united and a vastly more numerous people? They forgot how greatly English sympathy for America had declined since we were an independent people, and how earnestly England in 1794 was committed to the struggle against France, a struggle of which the restrictions on our trade were but an incident. Nevertheless, non-importation was popular in Congress: it passed the House by a good majority, and it was lost in the Senate only by the casting vote of the vice-president.
In England, Jay was well received by Grenville, minister of foreign affairs. The king also received him with favor, saying, "Well, sir, I imagine you begin to see that your mission will probably be successful." To which Jay was fain to reply that recent circumstances seemed to point in that direction. Then his majesty smiled and nodded significantly.
Jay's lengthy instructions embraced four large features: to secure the execution of the treaty; to get compensation for the seizure of American ships; to secure a treaty of commerce; and to procure, if England were not disposed to be accommodating, cooperation with the powers of north Europe in armed neutrality for the protection of neutral trade. His instructions as to the commercial treaty which he was to make were full and strict: he was to secure reciprocity of trade, particularly in regard to the West Indies, and to obtain the limitation of the right of search, recognition that free ships make free goods, assent to the American contention in regard to blockade, and, if possible, fishing privileges in the northeast. The life of the proposed treaty of commerce was not to exceed fifteen years. If England would not agree to such a commercial treaty, he was to communicate with his government and await further instructions; and he was strictly charged to do nothing which would infringe upon our treaty with France. Jay, Hamilton, King, and other Federalists consulted freely about Jay's instructions before they were written; and his departure from those instructions in his treaty of commerce may have been due to the support which he felt that these men would give him when the treaty came up for ratification.
After four months of negotiation, a treaty was signed on November 19, 1794. It contained ten permanent articles, which provided for the surrender of the posts by June, 1796, and for the creation of joint commissions to settle the claims arising from the legal obstruction of British debts and the seizure of American ships, as well as for settling the disputed boundary between Maine and Canada. Nothing was said about payment for the negroes which had been carried away.
The rest of the document contained a treaty of commerce widely at variance from that which had been outlined in the instructions. Article xii. dealt with the West Indian trade, by providing that American ships of not more than seventy tons could carry American products to the islands and bring back island products without discrimination; that all British ships should trade with the United States without discrimination; that we should forbid our own ships to carry any molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton from the said islands or from our own ports to any part of the world except to the United States, and that this article xii. should be in force till two years after the end of the present war, when, if it could not be renewed on terms agreeable to both parties, all of the treaty but the first ten articles was to be suspended. Article xii. also contained a provision that the British trade in America was to be on the footing of the most favored nation, which precluded our passing in the future any resolutions like those proposed by Madison in January, 1794.
Other provisions were that England should have the free navigation of the Mississippi, that no enemy of England should fit out privateers in our waters (this with especial reference to the position taken by Genet), and that Americans should not accept commissions to serve against England on penalty of being treated as pirates. About the right of search and the impressment of American seamen the treaty was silent.
These were hard terms from an unforgiving mother. In return for complete freedom of trade we got the right to send our ships to the East Indies and our insignificant vessels to the West Indies; we might not carry the island products to Europe, and we bound ourselves not to carry cotton across the Atlantic. The invention of the cotton-gin in the same year in which this treaty was negotiated was probably not known to Jay. Had this feature of the agreement gone into force, it would have wrought a great injury to the southern states.
Jay's treaty was a home-thrust at our French alliance; for although it provided that nothing in it should violate any treaty we had with another nation, it was, nevertheless, true that certain of its provisions contradicted the interpretation which many Americans put on our treaty with France, an interpretation which the government had not always discountenanced. If left, as was probable, in Federalist hands for execution it would be a serious blow to French influence in the United States. The making of it, hard as its terms were, could not but be held as a triumph of English influence, and if ratified it was safe to say that the hopes of Jefferson and others for an advantageous commercial arrangement with France would be dissipated.
Two copies of the precious document were sent to America at once, while Jay delayed his departure for a spring voyage. One of them was thrown overboard to escape French capture, and the other came after many delays into the hands of Washington early in March, 1795. He immediately called the Senate in extra session for June 8. In the mean time the public knew that a treaty had been signed, but the nature of its contents was not revealed, though a few men got an inkling of what they might be.
When at last it came before the Senate there was a strong protest, and to get the necessary two-thirds majority seemed impossible. The twelfth article was especially objectionable. The best that the Federalists could do was to have the treaty accepted without this feature; and for that they had barely the necessary majority. Thus amended, it was recommended to the president for ratification on June 24.
Washington was as little pleased with it as the Senate. Before he could make up his mind, he learned that England had renewed her order to seize provisions bound for France in a neutral ship. This unwarranted extension of the definition of contraband had been ignored in making the treaty, and it was feared that ratification under these circumstances would be taken as a tacit admission of the propriety of the order. Besides, it had brought up a storm of popular indignation. Washington, his mind already half made up, asked for advice from Hamilton as to what he should do. The reply was that he ought to ratify if England would repeal the provision order and accept the Senate amendment. There was good reason, it was said by friends of England, to believe that England would do both. In fact, there were those who thought that the provision order was issued at this time merely to hasten our action on the treaty.
When the Senate ratified the treaty, they resolved that it should not be revealed till the president saw fit; but Mason, of Virginia, felt that he was not bound by this vote, and he gave a copy to Bache, the Republican editor, just as Washington was about to publish it himself. The popular protest was now startling. Jay became in a day the most unpopular man of America. Party fury and national pride were united to cry down all that supported the treaty. The English minister was insulted. Jay was burned a hundred times in efiigy, and Hamilton was stoned when trying to speak for Jay's handiwork.
Washington was no more moved by the popular storm now than in the days of Genet. He knew how much of it was due to ignorance and how much to party. "While I feel," he said, "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 Randolph, the secretary of state, he announced that he would approve the treaty on the conditions just named.
Randolph was opposed to the treaty, and his actions indicate that he wanted to delay ratification while public opinion was stimulated against it, in the hope that Washington would at length change his mind. He was the only man in the cabinet who was not a Federalist. In the belief that he was a neutral he had toyed with each side till he lost the confidence of both. His colleagues would be glad to get rid of him; and an opportunity now came to defeat his plans with regard to the treaty, and perhaps to secure his complete overthrow.
In the preceding March a British ship had captured one of Fauchet's despatches to his government in which he referred to certain "precious confessions" which Randolph had made to him at the time of the Whiskey Rebellion. The purport of the information was that an intrigue had existed between the Frenchman and the secretary, and that it was possibly a corrupt one. Grenville got possession of the captured despatch and sent it at once to Hammond, in Philadelphia. This action recalls a letter of his to Hammond the day after Jay's treaty was signed. Hammond was instructed "either to convince Mr. Randolph of the necessity of his adopting a different language and conduct, or at least to replace him in that situation where his personal sentiments may not endanger the peace of two countries." Randolph's course had not been changed and the alternate part of the instructions was now carried out. As to this British intermeddling, we could censure it very severely if we did not know that Randolph himself was engaged in as deep an intrigue for political effect with Fauchet.
Hammond gave the captured despatch to Wolcott, who soon submitted it to his Federalist colleagues. They decided to summon Washington at once from his rest at Mount Vernon. When he saw the document he called a cabinet meeting on August 12. Here there was a long debate over the treaty, Randolph alone opposing ratification and the others urging that the necessary modifications would be made by England and that the interests of the country demanded immediate action. The arguments of a man charged with so great a crime as Randolph's did not weigh very heavily in the mind of the president, and the decision was to complete the treaty. August 14, Randolph submitted the ratified treaty to Hammond, observing that he had been overruled in the cabinet.
On August 19, Randolph was brought before his hostile colleagues and confronted with Fauchet's compromising despatch. He was asked to read it, and his opponents had been directed by Washington to watch his face as he read. He asked for time, and promised to explain all. In the evening he changed his mind, and sent his resignation to the president. He resented, he says, being called up for trial before those who were at best but his equals. In truth, Washington's manner of dealing with him had been humiliating, and it is explained only on the ground that he was already convinced of Randolph's guilt.
Then followed a long delay in which the secretary's explanation was daily expected. Rumors flew thick and fast. Fauchet, who was about to sail from Newport for France, was chased down and induced to give at the last moment a lame explanation of his words. From the perusal of all his despatches, and from Randolph's own statements, we are able to acquit the latter of any corrupt dealings. But there can be no doubt that he had been indiscreet in his conversations with the French minister, and that he had been too free in lending himself to the French side of our national politics; and this was enough to show that he had violated his trust as head of the foreign office. His "Vindication" was delayed till it was thought that he was trying to identify his cause with the opposition to the treaty. It did not appear till December, 1795, and it was too shrewdly drawn to convince the impartial.
England modified the provision order, as was expected, and accepted the Senate amendment to the treaty; and on February 29, 1796, Washington promulgated the treaty as a part of the law of the land. The trading classes had come to accept it. Bad as it was, it was better than war. We were still a weak and defenceless people, and it was well that we should recognize the fact. But with the great mass of the people the treaty was extremely unpopular. "It thrust a sword into the body politic." The controversy which raged did not spare Washington; for the Republicans ceased to regard him as a non-partisan.
They had one more chance at the treaty; for an appropriation by Congress was necessary to put it into execution. As soon as they saw Washington's proclamation of February 29, they opened their campaign. Edward Livingston, a brilliant young theoretical Republican, offered resolutions calling for the papers used in Jay's negotiations. After a long debate these were adopted by the House. Washington took the advice of his cabinet, and of Hamilton as well, and replied that he could not furnish these papers, since it was solely the function of the executive to negotiate, and of the Senate to approve, a treaty. Hamilton agreed with this idea and added that the instructions to Jay were crudely prepared and contained things which ought not to come to the public. To the president the House replied by a resolution which asserted its right to consent to a treaty which involved the expenditure of money, and which declared that otherwise the executive and Senate might make any kind of money appropriation under the guise of a treaty.
A bill was next taken up to put the treaty into execution, and the debate on this ran through the latter half of April. It was marked by great earnestness and ability. The previous action of the House had shown a temper very hostile to the treaty, and the Republicans, who conducted their debate with as great ability as their opponents, believed that they could hold their own on the final vote. Throughout the country a changing of sentiment was going on, and petitions came from various sections in favor of adoption. To the surprise of all, some of these came from Virginia. To this was added the influence of one great speech which came from Fisher Ames just before the vote was taken. An invalid, he had remained silent by the advice of his physician; and when he at last arose he appeared as but a shadow. He did not try to conceal the faults of the treaty, but showed that it was the only means of avoiding war. His poetic imagination and surpassing eloquence were given the widest play, and he carried the House with him as he spoke. The members hung breathless on his words, and when he ceased, the emotions of his hearers were wrought up to the highest pitch. John Adams and Judge Iredell sat sobbing together in the gallery. "My God, how great he is!" said Adams. "Noble!" ejaculated the other. The next day, April 29, the bill was carried in the committee of the whole by the casting vote of the speaker.