276

ADET'S COMPLAINTS OF ENGLISH TREATY.

[CHAP. V.

Monroe also had some misunderstandings with Mr. Jay before the latter left England. Mr. Jay refused to send him a copy of the English treaty, though Monroe requested it and sent a confidential agent to England to procure it-his object being to apprise the French Government of its contents, apparently in full confidence that these would be of a nature to allay all disquieting suspicions. Mr. Jay refused also to disclose its contents, except in confidence. He authorized his own secretary, who was about to pass through Paris on his way to Strasbourg, to make a confidential communication to Monroe. The latter

refused to receive it.

As soon as the treaty of London was communicated to M. Adet, the French Minister in the United States, he complained of it to our Government, as in various particulars unjust and unequal to his country, and an infraction of the existing treaty with France. He claimed that the hospitality stipulated for British ships of war, was at variance with the restrictions on enemies of France contained in the 17th article of that treaty. He claimed that the stipulation in the English treaty to make no new ones inconsistent with its provisions, would prevent the negotiation of a new treaty of commerce with France. But the great point of his complaint was the manifest advantage given to England by the stipulations in regard to the manner in which the two nations should be required to respect the maritime rights of the United States.

To our urgent claim, and making a vast concession to our interests, France, in the Treaty of 1778, admitted the principle that the friendly flag should protect enemies' property-or, more comprehensively stated, that free ships should make free goods. This treaty was made with a nation waging, at the time, a great national war in our behalf. It was the oldest treaty of the United States, and entitled, therefore, by well settled principles, to take preference over any later compact of the same nature, unless destroyed by war or terminated by mutual consent. Nothing looking towards war had relaxed its obligations. France had continued our benefactor from 1778 down to 1797, except in some spoliations on our commerce, made under circumstances already stated, and not comparing in extent with those made by England during the same period, and continued since our late treaty of amity and commerce with

CHAP. V.] CONDUCT OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

277

her. France had promised to discontinue and make reparation for these spoliations on her part.

When the treaty of 1778 was made, England was attempting our subjugation. It was years after the Peace before she condescended to send a minister to our shores. She held our northern territory. She impressed our seamen. She violated our commerce. She refused to even confer with us on the subject of a commercial treaty. Her press, and Government and people held us up to the scorn and derision of Europe as a nation of swindlers. She engaged in a deadly war with France. We took no part in it. She claimed an equality of treatment in our harbors and on our coasts, and admitted she received it. She impressed our seamen more than before, having need of them to fight our national ally. She devised new Orders in Council to sweep our commerce from the ocean. She interpolated a new and barbarous clause into the code of international law, making provisions contraband of war, and defiantly put it into force in regard to ourselves. At this point we sent a special minister to her to solicit a treaty, and selected the highest law officer of the Republic to give dignity to the appointment. She suspended. neither impressments nor her original Orders in Council during the progress of the negotiations. She refused to insert in the treaty any stipulation against the continuance of either of these kinds of aggression. While its ratification was pending in the United States, she grossly insulted us by an attempt to seize the person of the Ambassador of France within our jurisdiction. She renewed her Provision Order. She pushed her exactions and aggressions to such a limit, that Hamilton himself bitterly complained that "we were exposed to suffer inconveniences too nearly approaching a state of war!"

The practical effects of the Treaty of 1778 and of the Treaty of London, were comparatively these. France must accord us the respect due to an independent nation, for she had so agreed. She must respect our neutral flag though it covered the goods of her enemy England, because it was so nominated in the bond. England must not be required to treat us as an independent nation, because she would sooner fight than do so. She must not be required to cease robbing us of our citizens and property for the same reason. She must be allowed to take French goods from under the flag which protected English goods from France,

278

CONDUCT OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

[CHAP. V. because she would agree to nothing else. She must be allowed to prevent us from exporting provisions to famine-stricken France, because such was her will and her interest. As the price of these endurances, and of our stipulating to make no engagements inconsistent with ours to her, she conceded to us our own northern posts, and by a no means liberal commercial treaty a treaty not comparing in the liberality of its provisions with what France sent as a voluntary and purely free gift when she sent Genet to our shores.

Pickering and that class of politicians had a ready way of answering Adet's complaints to their consciences and to the country. What France had done, she had done. It was a "bargain," and one of her own making, and she must keep the bond! It was a shame and a disgrace-cowardly and servileto talk of national gratitude! It was but the pretence of affiliated Jacobinism! France had not fought for us: she had only used us to wreak her own ancient hate on England. Lafayette giving his patrimony to feed and clothe our perishing troops, and flying with them from covert to covert during the fiery pursuit-D'Estaing bleeding on the parapets of Savannah -Rochambeau and De Grasse leading the armies and navies of France to hem in Cornwallis at Yorktown-were but the instru ments of French despotism against "the best Government on earth." If solemn votes of Congress, if warmly-worded dispatches of Washington, if the tears and thanks of a nation, had expressed gratitude as if for a genuine and all-important obligation, they had been but the effusions of unsophisticated credulity, or the legitimate pretences necessary to carry through "a good bargain." If France had shown lenity on our debts after the war, and lent us more money-if she had constantly exhibited a preference for us over other nations in commerce-if she had finally given us almost the privileges of her own citizens—if she had stood as our only safeguard against another attack from England and very recently from an Anglo-Spanish alliance—if she had voluntarily released us from our West India guaranty in the existing war, to "leave" us "to pursue our happiness and prosperity in peace," while she plunged into the combat with banded Europe-if she had lately received our Minister with the most extravagant displays of affection-what were all these but cunning wiles to render us a dependent and subser

CHAP. V.]

FRENCH COLORS PRESENTED.

279

vient nation? Was it not shameful to pretend that these things gave her any pretence for questioning our right to make any arrangements we saw fit with England? Had we not, as a free and independent nation, an undoubted moral and political right to make any "bargain" for our own benefit, notwithstanding it should be, by treaty stipulations or omissions, to give actual and important advantages to England while at war with France?' Should not France be compelled to make prompt reparations for her spoliations, and was it anything to her whether we permitted England to continue such spoliations for the purpose of deepening the horrors of famine in France? Was there not a "French party" in the United States, headed by Jefferson, and Madison, and Samuel Adams, and George Clinton, who were for humiliating us at the footstool of a foreign power?

We hurry on to the next conspicuous act in the international drama. The flag sent by the French Committee of Safety to the United States was delivered to the President on the 1st day of January, 1796, by M. Adet, in a speech, in which he declared that his country "assimilated to, or rather identified with free people by the form of her Government, saw in them only friends and brothers. Long accustomed to regard the American people as her most faithful allies, she sought to draw closer the ties already formed in the fields of America, under the auspices of victory, over the ruins of tyranny."

The following was the President's glowing reply:

'Born, sir, in a land of liberty; having early learned its value; having engaged in a perilous conflict to defend it; having, in a word, devoted the best years of my life to secure its permanent establishment in my own country; my anxious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes, are irresistibly excited, whensoever, in any country, I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banner of freedom. But above all, the events of the French Revolution have produced the deepest solicitude, as well as the highest admiration. To call your nation brave, were to pronounce but common praise. Wonderful people! Ages to come will read with astonishment the history of your brilliant exploits! I rejoice that

! We have forgotten to mention that the Pickering school of politicians contended that we had made a full indemnification to France, for allowing England to violate our neutral flag, by leaving to France the right of seizing American goods in enemy's vessels ! Judge Marshall, in defending our Government from Adet's complaint on this subject, omits, we believe, all mention of this counterbalancing advantage. He does not descend to the particulars of justification, but disposes of the case by concisely saying: "No demonstration could be more complete than the fallacy of this complaint. But the American Government discovered a willingness voluntarily to release France from the pressure of a situation in which she had elected to place herself." (Marshall's Washington, vol. ii. p. 393.) It is clearly unnecessary, and we believe lawyers consider it inexpedient, to enter upon specifications, where fallacy is as apparent as demonstration

can make it!

280

WASHINGTON'S REPLY TO ADET.

[CHAP. V.

the period of your toils and of your immense sacrifices is approaching. I rejoice that the interesting revolutionary movements of so many years have issued in the forma tion of a constitution designed to give permanency to the great object for which you have contended. I rejoice that liberty, which you have so long embraced with enthusiasm; liberty of which you have been the invincible defenders, now finds an asylum in the bosom of a regularly organized government; a government which, being formed to secure the happiness of the French people, corresponds with the ardent wishes of my heart, while it gratifies the pride of every citizen of the United States by its resemblance to their own. On these glorious events, accept, sir, my sincere congratulations.

"In delivering to you these sentiments, I express not my own feelings only, but those of my fellow citizens in relation to the commencement, the progress, and the issue of the French Revolution; and they will cordially join with me in purest wishes to the Supreme Being, that the citizens of our sister Republic, our magnanimous allies, may soon enjoy in peace, that liberty which they have purchased at so great a price, and all the happiness which liberty can bestow.

"I receive, sir, with lively sensibility, the symbol of the triumphs, and of the enfranchisement of your nation, the colors of France, which you have now presented to the United States. The transaction will be announced to Congress, and the colors will be deposited with those archives of the United States, which are at once the evidences and the memorials of their freedom and independence. May these be perpetual, and may the friendship of the two Republics be commensurate with their existence."

Nor did this official demonstration of national sympathy stop here. In the House of Representatives a resolution was unanimously passed in these words:

"Resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to make known to the representatives of the French people, that this House has received, with the most lively sensibility, the communication of the Committee of Public Safety, of the 21st of October, 1794, accompanied with the colors of the French Republic, and to assure them that the presentation of the colors of France to the Congress of the United States is deemed a most honorable testimony of the existing sympathy and affections of the two republics, founded upon their solid and reciprocal interests; that the House rejoices in the opportunity of congratulating the French Republic on the brilliant and glorious achievements accomplished under it during the present afflictive war, and that they hope those achievements will be attended with a perfect attainment of their object, the permanent establishment of the liberty and happiness of that great and magnanimous people."

In the Senate, a resolution of corresponding tenor was presented, also requesting the President to communicate it to the French Government. An amendment was offered to strike out the last clause. This was made a party question, and after a sharp debate, the amendment was carried by the Federalists.

It is easy to conjecture on what grounds the Federal minority