Washington and the American Republic Part 25

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 publis.h.i.+ng." 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 const.i.tutional 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 emba.s.sadors will make of it. The excise law is an infernal one. The first error was to admit it by the const.i.tution; 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sociated 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 ma.s.s 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, Was.h.i.+ngton 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 att.i.tude. 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 princ.i.p.al 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 princ.i.p.al 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, Was.h.i.+ngton 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 const.i.tuents." 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 t.i.tle 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 acc.u.mulator 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."

Was.h.i.+ngton 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," Was.h.i.+ngton 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 rect.i.tude, 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 friends.h.i.+p 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, Was.h.i.+ngton'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 Was.h.i.+ngton, as a testimony of their grat.i.tude 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 Was.h.i.+ngton'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 circ.u.mstances, 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 a.s.sembling 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 circ.u.mstances."

Was.h.i.+ngton then suggested the federal city as the most eligible place for such an inst.i.tution; 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, Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 a.s.serted 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, with practical sagacity, concluded that it would not be wise to have two similar inst.i.tutions. He preferred having one excellent inst.i.tution, 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, Was.h.i.+ngton 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 a.s.semble the youth from every part, under such circ.u.mstances 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 WAs.h.i.+NGTON--HIS LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE--THE PROVISIONS OF THE TREATY--ITS RECEPTION BY WAs.h.i.+NGTON--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 Was.h.i.+ngton. 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 lords.h.i.+p that I should wait upon you, and a.s.sure 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 s.h.i.+pping 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 embarra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 c.u.mberland, in October, Was.h.i.+ngton 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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances (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 circ.u.mstances 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 G.o.d 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.