the United States to any treaty made by them.55 This last request was said to have been rejected, but the executive was authorized to negotiate with Morris, the American minister, and to report. It was also stated that letters from Stockholm of May 11 represented that court as ready to ratify a treaty with the French republic.50 In short, the British ministry in the summer of 1794 stood confronted with all the dangers of the revival of the old Armed Neutrality at a time when-despite the Prussian treaty of April, 1794— the coalition against France was already weakening toward the final disintegration of 1795. One exception there was to the situation of 1781 Pitt could count on Catherine the Great to join Britain against the Baltic Powers;58 and Prussia, now a nominal ally of Great Britain and absorbed in the Polish partition, had no inclination again to become a member of the Baltic combination. But there can be no doubt that the Baltic situation as viewed by the British ministry in June and July, 1794, had an appreciable effect on the American negotiations: it would be folly to allow the United States, the greatest foreign customer of Great Britain,6° at a time when commerce and the entrepôt system were providing the revenue for the French war, to join in a war against England, or in any such system as the policy of the Northern Powers, greased by French diplomacy, seemed to invite. It would serve to divide the energies and diminish the supplies of the British navy, and to weaken the financial sinews of the government in its great struggle with France. Great Britain desired war no more than did the American Federalists. The time had come for some kind of immediate settlement with the United States. 61 Grenville took immediate steps to relieve the American tension. Concessions were made which postponed all immediate danger from America and looked toward a conciliatory negotiation. The old policy of procrastinating at the frontier posts until a "neutral" Indian barrier state had been created was abandoned and arrangements made to step across the line to Canadian soil, in the event of a treaty. 55 Bulletin no. 25, Despatches of Francis Drake. Dropmore Papers, II. 578. The writer has been unable to find any despatch of April 1 in the French archives, or anything resembling it. 56 Ibid. 57 Rose, William Pitt and the Great War, ch. VIII. 58 Prussia's treaty of alliance with Great Britain of 1793 provided for measures to induce neutral powers to adopt a harassing attitude toward French com merce. 59 Whitworth to Grenville, St. Petersburg, April 15, 22, 23, 1794. F. O., Russia, ser. 65, vol. 27. 69 See Chatham Papers, bdle. 286, R. O., cited above. 62 For his hostile speech to the Indians, a sharp reprimand to Dorchester followed, accompanied by concise instructions to use every means to cultivate a friendly disposition on the part of the United States. In case hostilities had already broken out between frontier units of American and British forces, Grenville and Jay agreed that everything should remain in statu quo pending the negotiations.63 The king issued an Order in Council admitting all the American captures made in the West Indies to appeal in English prize courts from the petty and arbitrary admiralty courts of the islands.64 By this all that Hamilton had stipulated to Hammond, on the eve of Jay's departure, as "absolutely indispensable for an amicable settlement of differences ",65 was granted, and the door opened to a settlement of all points in dispute between the two nations. Grenville even went a step further. The Order in Council of June 8, 1793 (that of November 6 had been altered already in January to the sense of June 8), was unostentatiously repealed in so far as it directed the capture and pre-emption of neutral grain-ships bound for France.66 From August till November the negotiations between Jay and Grenville went on in leisurely discussion. The main principles necessary for a treaty had been agreed on when the British concessions were made and when Jay had consented to a commission for the adjudication of debts due to British creditors, and for settling the question of French prizes sold in American waters after Washington's prohibition of their sale. Grenville's bargaining after this was very sharp. He attenuated his chaffering until he could hear from Hammond precisely the position of the American administration as to the Baltic Powers. In Jay's official instructions, made familiar by the publication for the Senate of part of the Jay negotiations, was the following paragraph: You will have no difficulty in gaining access to the ministers of Russia, Denmark, and Sweden, at the Court of London. The principles of the armed neutrality would abundantly cover our neutral rights. If, therefore, the situation of things with respect to Great Britain should 62 This led eventually to Dorchester's resignation. Dorchester to Dundas, Quebec, September 4, 1794. Can. Arch., Q 69–1, p. 176. 63 Jay to Randolph, London, July 12, 1794, Am. State Pap., For. Rel., I. 479; Grenville to Hammond, July 15, 1794, F. O., ser. 115, vol. 3. 64 Orders in Council, West Indies and America (1786-1797), R. O. 65 Hammond to Grenville (no. 15), Philadelphia, April 17, 1794. F. O., 5, 4. 66 Instructions to Naval Commanders, approved by the Privy Council, August 6, 1794, R. O., Colonial Office 5: 33; Orders in Council, West Indies to America, 1786-1797, Privy Council Register, vol. 141, p. 11. dictate the necessity of taking the precaution of foreign co-operation upon this head; if no prospect of accommodation should be thwarted by the danger of such a measure being known to the British court; and if an entire view of all our political relations shall, in your judgment, permit the step, you will sound those ministers upon the probability of an alliance with their nations to support those principles.67 Randolph wrote this paragraph. But Jay assumed a slightly patronizing tone toward an official superior who was really of inferior political stature, and paid attention to the formal instructions of the Secretary of State only when convenient. That Jay might of necessity waive the principle of the armed neutrality, even to the extent of acquiescing in the Order of June 8, was admitted in Hamilton's private letter to him." Hamilton later states his disapproval of any diplomatic union with the Baltic Powers. At first Jay was intimate with the Danish and Swedish ministers at London. But it soon became their policy to "let him take his way" without making any definite assurances.70 Denmark was threatened by the Russian fleet patrolling the Baltic. Sweden had to guard its Finnish and Pomeranian frontiers. There was also the English fleet which five years later worked such havoc at Copenhagen. The Armed Neutrality of 1794 was a threat rather than an immediate direct force. Only if political circumstances were opportune did it allow actual reprisals and the closure of the Baltic. Engeström's correspondence with Stockholm shows that while Swedish diplomats considered more initiative advisable as to the United States, the Danish chancellor hesitated. He thought that, if no agreement were reached by Jay with the British court, the Americans would fall naturally into the arms of the Scandinavians and an enlarged armed neutrality, and then would come the best time for real negotiations with them. If a treaty were concluded and concessions were made to the United States not allowed to other neutrals, it would be almost equivalent to a declaration of war by England on Denmark and Sweden.71 Whatever may have been the conferences with the Scandinavians, of which not a word was ever made known in the official correspondence turned over to the Amer 67 Instructions to Jay, May 6, 1794. Am. State Pap., For. Rel., I. 473. This was before any news of the Engeström overture to Pinckney could have reached America, and was a mere conjecture of a possible diplomatic lever. Randolph's ignorance of the real state of European politics is shown by his allusion to Russia, then the maritime ally of England. 68 Jay to Randolph, July 30, 1794. Am. State Pap., For. Rel., I. 480. 69 Hamilton to Jay, May 6, 1794. Hamilton, Works, IV. 551. 70 Engeström to the Royal Chancellor (Sparre), August 12, 1794. Swedish Royal Archives, Anglica (1794). 71 Erenheim to Engeström, Copenhagen, July 8, 1794. Ibid. ican Senate, Jay by August had turned aside from such cordiality.72 This was after the first conciliatory concessions had been made to him by the British negotiator. One wonders whether the Federalists could have later put the Jay Treaty through the Senate if all the correspondence had been published! Before Grenville learned from Hammond the real attitude of the American government toward armed neutrality, he was on the point of making much greater concessions in the proposed American treaty than were eventually considered. On September 30, 1794, Jay submitted a draft which, he believed, incorporated most of the principles on which previous conferences had led him to expect agreement. No copy of this draft was conveyed to the Senate with the other drafts and projects of the negotiations turned over to it at the time when the treaty came up for ratification. One can guess the reason. This draft-more important than all the preliminary projects—was not included in the Jay correspondence, and probably was never even read by anyone on this side of the Atlantic,73 because it compared too unfavorably with the terms of the final treaty itself. A copy, however, is in the British Record Office.74 There is no space here to enumerate the favorable terms of the draft of September 30. They were never agreed to because, ten days previously, Grenville had heard from Hammond that Alexander Hamilton said the United States would never accede to the Scandinavian convention. Hammond reported that Hamilton said with great seriousness and with every demonstration of sincerity . . . that it was the settled policy of this government in every contingency, even in that of an open contest with Great Britain, to avoid entangling itself with European connections, which would only tend to involve this country where it might have no possible interest, and connect it to a common cause with allies, from whom, in the moment of danger, it could derive no succor. . . . In support of this policy Mr. Hamilton urged many of the arguments advanced in your lordship's despatch, the dissimilitude between the political views as well as between general interests of the United States and those of the Baltic Powers, and the inefficiency of the latter, from their enfeebled condition, either to protect the navigation of the former in Europe or to afford it any active assistance if necessary in its own territory. Hammond could not find out whether the supposed Swedish propositions had arrived from Pinckney, but from Hamilton's decided man 72 Engeström to the Royal Chancellor (Sparre), August 12, 1794. Swedish Royal Archives, Anglica (1794). 73 It is not included among the duplicates of Jay's correspondence in the Jay manuscripts in the New York Historical Society's collections, nor, of course, in the published Works of Jay. 74 F. O., misc. ser. 95, vol. 512. ner he believed that the matter had received his attention before, and that what he had stated represented the deliberations of himself and of the American administration.75 That the Swedish proposal was received with no enthusiasm is indicated by Hamilton's letter of July 8, to Randolph, quoted in his works.76 The result of this information in the hands of Grenville was to reduce all his fear of American co-operation with the Baltic Powers. With the latest news from Philadelphia in mind, no reason any longer existed why Grenville should submit to Jay's propositions of maritime law, and, so that the Americans were mollified sufficiently to prevent hostilities or injurious commercial legislation, there was not longer any particular occasion for hurry. Jay, on the other hand, feared that some unforeseen contingency in the maelstrom of European policy might derange the attitude of the British ministry toward the United States. The only concession Grenville would now make was to agree to a joint survey and settlement by commission of the unknown northwestern boundary. The other new points of Jay's draft he deemed "insurmountable obstacles ". Convinced that he could get no better terms and that on the whole those he had were satisfactory, the American envoy signed the treaty which has since been connected with his name. The articles, long familiar in American history, were a triumph of British diplomacy. The only concessions made were the evacuation of the posts, which Grenville had before decided on in order to prevent a disruption of the valuable British-American trade; the admission of American vessels, during the war only, to a direct West Indian trade, which the conditions of war had rendered it impracticable for British ships adequately to maintain;78 and compensation for captures "made under cover" of the arbitrary Orders in Council, without 75 Hammond to Grenville, no. 28, New York, August 3, 1794, rec'd September 20. F. O., ser. 5, vol. 5. That the matter had received discussion, probably in the Cabinet, is indicated by Hamilton's letter of July 8, 1794 (at about the time the Engeström proposal would have been received in America): "The United States have peculiar advantages from situation, which would thereby be thrown into common stock without an equivalent. The United States had better stand in its own ground." 76" If a war, on the question of Neutral Rights, should take place, common interest would secure all the co-operation which is practical and occasional arrangements may be made; what has already been done in this respect appears to be sufficient." Hamilton to Randolph, Philadelphia, July 8, 1794. Hamilton, Works, IV. 571. 77 Consideration on suggestions proposed for the Government of Upper and Lower Canada. R. O., C. O., ser. 42, vol. 88, pp. 575-579. 78 Mahan, Sea Power and French Revolution, II. 258. This article was not ratified by the Senate. |