Читать книгу The American Consul: A History of the United States Consular Service 1776–1924. Revised Second Edition - Charles Stuart Kennedy - Страница 5

The Revolutionary War period (1775–83) was not the time for the creation of a well-structured consular service. It was a period of ad hoc diplomacy with the niceties of diplomatic and consular titles and their functions being left to agents of Congress. This new Congress itself was in constant danger of being snuffed out by the powerful British armies prowling through the rebelling thirteen colonies. American interests abroad were limited to securing foreign backing, financial and military, obtaining munitions and other essential supplies, and gaining support for the small American naval forces, including privateers, in European waters. During the war foreign affairs were the direct responsibility of Congress; questions of both major and minor importance had to be settled by a vote.

In March 1776, four months prior to the Declaration of Independence, Congress sent one of its members, Silas Deane, to France. He was initially given the designation of “commercial agent,” but he was also to sound out the French as to a possible alliance, thus mixing consular and diplomatic functions, an assignment that would happen often in the American consular service.1

The term “commercial agent” will be encountered again. The duties of commercial agents for the American colonies were almost indistinguishable in most matters from those of consuls, but during the hectic times of the American Revolution commercial agents, starting with Silas Deane, bore greater responsibilities than just seeing to American mercantile interests.

Deane eventually settled in Paris as one of three commissioners; the others were Arthur Lee and Benjamin Franklin, who acted as unofficial American ministers to the court of Louis XVI. As the first American commercial agent, Deane was instrumental in establishing the machinery that would funnel French aid to the Americans.2 Prior to the entry of France into the war with Great Britain in 1778, the French king’s ministers not only allowed American commercial agents to assist the fledgling Continental Navy but also permitted American privateers to fit out in French ports and use those same ports to sell off the proceeds from the prizes they had taken. Deane and the agents who followed him were a combination of military purchasing agents, naval storekeepers, and consuls. They acted as consular officers when dealing with local authorities and as sharp businessmen in purchasing supplies for the American cause taking a percentage of the procurement costs to put in their own pockets. The system was full of flaws, hastily organized by desperate men with little experience in obtaining and shipping government supplies. Both French and American suppliers and agents undoubtedly took full advantage of the makeshift channel, but the fact remains that Silas Deane and his successors were able to pump vital supplies to the revolutionary armies. Ninety percent of the powder used by the American revolutionaries in the first two and a half years of the war came from Europe, mainly from France.3

One of the first American commercial agents in France was Thomas Morris. His appointment was based on nepotism and arranged by Robert Morris, one of the wealthiest men in the American colonies, a member of Congress who was known as “the financier of the American Revolution” for his astute management of the meager financial resources of the former colonies. Thomas Morris was his illegitimate half-brother and had been reared by him. But young Thomas had acquired both bad companions and dissipated habits.4 A change of scene was felt to be the solution to Thomas’s problems; his brother sent him to the French port of Nantes as the American commercial agent and as agent for the Philadelphia firm of Willing and Morris. This firm had control over vessels taken as prizes and brought to Nantes by the small but effective Continental Navy and American privateers. The firm also purchased and shipped supplies and munitions to the rebellious colonies. Morris was in charge of what amounted to a gold mine since the family firm took a commission, quite legitimately, from transactions dealing with prizes, supplies, and munitions. The Atlantic crossing, however, had not changed Thomas; he kept his profligate habits and acquired a new set of bad companions in the French port.

By the spring of 1778 the two American commissioners then in Paris, Deane and Franklin, concerned about the situation in Nantes, asked Franklin’s nephew Jonathan Williams, who was visiting his uncle, to go to the port and put matters right. Williams was to take prize-vessel cases out of the hands of Thomas Morris and deal directly with the privateer and naval captains.5 The matter became more confused when William Lee, one of the Lees of Virginia and brother of Arthur Lee, the third commissioner in Paris, arrived in Nantes. Lee, who was to have been the commissioner of Congress to the courts of Vienna and Berlin but had not been accepted by them, stayed on in Nantes to lend a “helping hand.” Instead of assisting Jonathan Williams, William Lee sided with Thomas Morris against Williams.

Silas Deane had left Paris under a cloud and was replaced by John Adams. The three American commissioners, Franklin, Arthur Lee and Adams, backed away from a confrontation over who had authority over commercial agents and left William Lee in charge.6 Lee appointed two agents, Jean-Daniel Schweighauser in Nantes and John Bonfield in Bordeaux.7 Meanwhile Thomas Morris died, perhaps of dissipation. William Lee eventually settled in Paris, leaving his agents to work in the port cities.

The Nantes affair demonstrated major weaknesses that were to plague the American consular service for the next 130 years. These flaws were patronage and profit. Men with political influence, such as Lee, Morris, and Franklin, had no qualms about placing family members in positions of public service where they could make a commission off the government goods and services that had to pass through their hands.

Article XXXI of the 1778 Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the America and France stated: “The two contracting parties grant, mutually, the liberty of having each in the ports of the other, consuls, vice-consuls, agents and commissioners, whose functions shall be regulated by a particular agreement.” Franklin and his colleagues expected that Congress would soon appoint some consuls to put American affairs in order in the ports. Franklin, Lee, and Adams suggested in a letter to the president of Congress that in selecting consuls “the choice will fall most justly as well as naturally on Americans, who are, in our opinion, better qualified for this business than any others, and the reputation of such an office, together with a moderate commission on the business they must transact, and the advantages to be derived from trade, will be a sufficient inducement to undertake it, and a sufficient reward for discharging the duties of it.”

Enclosed with this joint letter was a short piece labeled “The Functions of Consuls.” Among the functions described was “to have inspection and jurisdiction, civil as well as criminal, over all the subjects of their states who happen to be in their department, and particularly over commerce and merchants.” A consul should be over thirty. When there were questions that affected “the general affairs of the commerce of his nation,” he should call general assemblies of all merchants and ships’ captains in the port, with penalties for nonattendance. The commissioners went on to describe the consul’s judicial authority. A consul was to be able to “oblige any of his nation to depart if they behave scandalously, and captains are obliged to take them, under a penalty.” There were other provisions for dealing with disputes between consuls and merchants. The piece ended on probably the one practical note, at least in the American context: “If war happens, the Consuls retire.”8

If Franklin and the other two commissioners had really wanted consuls soon, this description of the functions of consuls, obviously taken from the highly authoritarian French instructions, was a serious tactical error. The commissioners had been in France too long and apparently had forgotten that Congress was running a revolution against a distant ruler who had sent his appointed officials to lord it over American colonials. The men in Philadelphia would not tolerate little American Caesars strutting around major ports.

Franklin desperately needed someone to take the problems of the ports and the commercial agents off his hands. In 1779 he wrote the Marine Committee of Congress, asking that no more Continental Navy ships be sent to work out of France, as the prizes they seized only caused “Lawsuits and all the Embarrassment and Solicitation and Vexation attending Suits in this Country.” If, however, the navy was “still ordered to cruise in these seas, a Consul or Consuls may be appointed to the several Sea Ports, who will thereby be more at hand to transact maritime Business expeditiously, will understand it better, relieve your Minister at this court from a great deal of Trouble, and leave him at liberty to attend affairs of more general importance.”9 In other words, no consul, no navy. Franklin, however, did not get his consul until a year later, but John Paul Jones and other American naval commanders continued their activities in European waters.

While Congress procrastinated in naming consular officers to France, the court of Louis XVI lost no time in sending its men to its new ally. By early 1779 French consuls were established in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the Carolinas. New York was not on the list, but only because the occupying British army precluded French consular activity there. During the American Revolutionary War the French consuls had diverse duties. Their naval support activities included acting as purchasing agents for the French fleet, which put into American ports to be revictualed and to obtain naval stores. Moreover, these consuls were discreetly distributed about the thirteen ex-colonies to report on and influence political matters in the separate regions, since each ex-colony was an almost independent political entity with its own commercial interests. France hoped to take the lucrative American market away from Great Britain after the war and channel it into the French system. Their consuls were well placed to aid in this endeavor.

In 1780 John Adams was sent back to Europe to be on hand to negotiate a peace treaty with Great Britain whenever the time became propitious. In Paris Adams observed that “many of the disputes, delays and other inconveniences that have attended our affairs in this kingdom, have arisen from blending the offices of political Minister, Board of Admiralty, Chamber of Commerce, and Commercial Agent together.” He wrote that the business of the minister (Franklin) was to negotiate with the court, and that was enough to keep one man fully occupied. He urged Congress to put a consul in Nantes. “I think it should be an American, some merchant of known character, ability, and industry, who would consent to serve his country for moderate emoluments. Such persons are to be found in great number in America. There are many applications from French gentlemen. But I think that a want of knowledge of our language, our laws, customs, and even humors of our people, for even these must be considered, would prevent them from giving satisfaction, or doing justice.” Adams went on to extol the virtues of having consuls abroad who could report on political and commercial matters, which “in future times may be a rich treasure of the United States.”10

Later in 1780 the American minister in Madrid, John Jay, voiced his own complaint about the lack of American consuls abroad. Jay said that he was not able to write freely, as letters were routinely inspected at ports and post offices in Spain and France:

Is it not Time for America like other Nations to provide against these Inconveniences by proper Regulations and Establishments? They ought in my opinion have an American Consul or agent in some Port here [Spain] and in France. Their public Dispatches should be sent by Packet Boats to these Agents, and should on no account be delivered to any other Person. I have a very good Reason to suspect that the french Consuls in America are very watchful and attentive to these Matters, and good Care should be taken to keep american Letters out of their Way.11

Finally, on 4 November 1780 Congress appointed Lt. Col. William Palfrey a consul for France. Palfrey was the former paymaster general of the Continental army. But Palfrey never enjoyed his status as the first American consul, since his ship bound for France was lost in a storm. While awaiting confirmation that Palfrey had indeed drowned, Congress in June 1781 appointed Thomas Barclay of Pennsylvania as the vice consul to “perform the services required of William Palfrey, during his absence from the kingdom.”12 In October Barclay was named as consul to succeed Palfrey with a salary of $1,500 per year.

Congress refused to appoint other consuls but did appoint a commercial agent, Robert Smith, to reside in Havana “to manage the occasional concerns of Congress, to assist the American traders with his advice, and to solicit their affairs with the Spanish government, and to govern himself according to the orders he may from time to time, receive from the United States in Congress assembled, or the superintendent of Finance.”13

As the war subsided in the period between the battle of Yorktown in 1781 and the peace treaty of 1783, there was only one American consul, Thomas Barclay, and a handful of commercial agents helping American seamen stranded in foreign ports, purchasing and forwarding supplies to the relatively inactive and shrinking American military forces. Barclay’s activities were not confined to France; he was also in the Netherlands buying munitions for American forces. While making these purchases, Barclay and the commercial agents were taking their commissions and engaging in trade on their own behalf. Such activities were not forbidden by Congress: this was how the consuls supported themselves.

After Yorktown it was evident that the Revolution was a success and that the United States of America would enter the ranks of established nations as a minor power. Congress, however, still showed little enthusiasm for setting its diplomatic and consular affairs in order. Conrad Alexandre Géard, the French minister to the United States, prodded Congress to end the makeshift arrangement for accepting consuls without a consular treaty. At last Congress instructed Franklin in Paris to negotiate a consular convention, including a proposed draft written by a three-man congressional committee, using a model based on the French consular service as suggested by the French minister. Congress did not overwhelmingly support the proposed consular convention; four of the thirteen states had not approved the draft. But at least Franklin had permission to proceed with negotiations.

With the war over, Franklin was anxious for Congress to send him a consul to ease his work. He must have thought that with a consular convention signed in Paris, Congress would quickly appoint consuls to help commerce abroad. Elias Boudinot, a member of Congress, encouraged Franklin’s optimism when he wrote, “as far as I can judge of the peace establishment, it will be to employ two or three Ministers in Europe and those not higher in Character than Residents, or simply Minister – The business in other places to be done by Consuls. Our Finances are so very low as to require every economical measure.”14 Here was the nub of the matter governing consuls: they were cheaper than diplomats. All members of Congress recognized that since American ministers sent to foreign courts could not engage in private trade they had to be paid. But consuls could support themselves by trade and act as part-time consular officers, taking a small portion of the fees they charged.

Franklin had little difficulty with Charles Graves, Comte de Vergennes, the French minister of foreign affairs, in negotiating the consular convention. They signed the convention on 29 July 1784 in Paris. The pact was sent to Philadelphia for the expected swift approval by Congress.

Unfortunately, Franklin did not reckon on John Jay. At the time Franklin was completing the negotiations with Vergennes on the consular convention; Jay became the secretary of the Office for Foreign Affairs and played a major role in directing Congress on matters concerning treaties and conventions. Jay was no Francophile. His Huguenot forefathers had been forced out of France by the Bourbons, the family that still occupied the throne of France. While acting as minister to Spain, Jay had considered French consuls in the United States to be little more than spies and was not eager to legitimize their status.15

When Franklin’s signed consular convention came into the hands of Jay for his recommendation to Congress on ratification, Jay easily assumed the role of a lawyer attacking a contract detrimental to his client. There may have been some jealousy in the zeal with which Jay set upon Franklin’s work. He had had a miserable time in Spain as the American minister, with little to show for his efforts. Franklin, on the contrary, was the darling of the French and was considered the premier American diplomat. It may have given Jay some satisfaction to make it appear that Franklin had erred in not conforming exactly to the instructions of Congress in negotiating the consular convention.

On 4 July 1786 Jay sent a long report to Congress pointing out the flaws of the consular convention in great detail. Much of Jay’s attack amounted to quibbling, but he had a point. Congress’s instructions included too much of the original French draft proposal. For example, French consuls were granted great authority in the United States and might have prevented French subjects from becoming American citizens. The upshot of Jay’s report was that Congress rejected the Franco-American convention. 16

The French were unhappy. After giving the United States years to work on a consular convention, not an earthshaking proposition, and having made what they must have considered one-sided concessions to Franklin, they were to have all this overturned by a Congress guided by the Francophobe Jay. The French foreign minister showed remarkable restraint in dealing with his volatile ally and awaited a new round of negotiations while French consuls, still in a legal limbo, went about their business in the thirteen states.

Thomas Jefferson replaced Franklin as minister to France in 1785 and, among other matters, waited for instructions from Congress for renegotiating the consular convention.17 Congress moved in its usual deliberate manner. It was not until the summer of 1788, the last year of the Confederation and ten years after the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with France, that Jefferson was able to negotiate a new convention. In opening the negotiations Jefferson wrote the French foreign minister, by then the Count de Montmorin:

We carry on commerce with good success, in all parts of the world, yet we have not a Consul in a single port, nor a complaint for the want of one, except from the persons who want to be consuls themselves. Though these considerations may not be strong enough to establish the absolute inutility of Consuls, they may make us less anxious to extend their privileges and jurisdictions, so as to render them objects of jealousy, and irritation in the places of their residence. The English allow to foreign Consuls scarcely any functions within their ports. This proceeds, in great measure, from the character of their laws, which eye with peculiar jealousy, every exemption from their control. Ours are the same in their general character, and rendered still more unpliant by our having thirteen parliaments to relax, instead of one.18

Jefferson was an excellent negotiator; his studied indifference to the need for consuls made it easier to wring some major concessions from the French in the reworked consular convention. By November 1788 he reported that he had signed a convention with France that met the objections Jay had raised in 1784. Jefferson took away most of the coercive powers that the French consuls exercised over their subjects and vessels in the United States. He also took away the right of consuls to have their testimony unchallenged in courts. The consular convention was ratified under the brand-new Constitution by the brand-new Senate in 1789. The final pact had a more “American cast” in refusing to give too much power to government officials, a reflection of the recent colonial experience.

During the Confederation period the French had their consuls well placed in the various states to deal with the local governments and maintained a minister in the capital, New York. After the peace treaty of 1783 the British accepted John Adams as the American minister in 1785, but they did not reciprocate. Instead, BritishAmerican relations were left in the hands of a consul general and his subordinates, similar to what was done in the Barbary states. The British foreign minister, when asked about the lack of a British diplomat in the United States, remarked that if he sent one representative, he would have to send thirteen.19 Despite the lack of a treaty between Great Britain and the United States regarding consuls, Congress accepted Consul General Sir John Temple in 1785, as it would “be proper for the United States, on this and every other occasion, to observe as great a degree of liberality as may consist with a due regard to their national honor and welfare”.20 A year later Britain sent a consul to deal with the mid-Atlantic states, while Temple stayed in New York.

The two major European powers, France and Great Britain, were making effective use of consuls within the United States, but Congress was not tempted to emulate them. The only American consul, Thomas Barclay, was diverted from France to negotiate a treaty with the emperor of Morocco, leaving Thomas Jefferson once again without consular help. John Adams, in London as minister, hoped that the acceptance of a British consul general to the United States would open the way for an American consul general in England with vice consuls in Scotland and Ireland. In writing to Jay, Adams noted, “Consuls and Vice Consuls are very useful to Ambassadors and Ministers in many ways that I need not explain to you. Consuls would explore new channels of commerce and new markets for our produce.”21 Adams, alas, was not to get any such assistance.

Jay had been asked by Congress in 1785 to report what his department considered the number of consuls necessary to give the United States adequate representation. He replied that it would be expedient to have consuls in Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, the Canaries, Madeira, and certain ports in the Mediterranean.22 Congress asked the question, had its answer, then pigeonholed Jay’s ideas and went on to other business.

The only exception to congressional indifference to a consular service was with China. Prior to the Revolution, American colonial trade had been directed toward the mother country, European ports, and the West Indies. British trade with China was in the hands of British trading companies, and colonials had little opportunity to expand their trade in that direction. Now, with independence, American traders were looking forward to new and lucrative markets in the Far East, important markets since trade with Great Britain and her remaining colonies had become difficult with American ships no longer part of the British system. With no commercial treaty to grant reciprocal privileges, the British could play the thirteen separate states against each other regarding trading rights. At a time when it was becoming clear to Yankee merchants and traders that British markets were not going to be as open as before the Revolution there was good news from the Far East. An American ship, the Empress of China, returned to New York in May 1785, after a successful trading voyage to Canton. As soon as the ship returned to port, the business agent of the ship, Samuel Shaw, wrote to John Jay. Shaw addressed the letter “for the information of the fathers of the country, an account of the reception their subjects have met with, and the respect with which their flag has been treated in that distant region.”23

Shaw described his voyage and meeting with a French squadron that welcomed the ship and escorted it to Macao. There the French consul gave friendly assistance and congratulations to the Yankee crew on America’s entering the China trade. In Canton Shaw found that Chinese merchants were quite receptive to the newcomers, but had some difficulty comprehending the distinction between Englishmen and Americans. The Chinese finally distinguished the Americans as the “new people.”

Chinese authorities carefully controlled trading with outsiders. Canton was the only port open to foreign ships, and the Western merchants were confined to compounds, called factories, along the river. There was a brief trading season of several months, then all foreign merchants had to leave until the next year’s season. The Chinese, fearing the spread of Western influence, kept tight control over the port and enforced their stern code of justice, including the dictum that “blood must answer for blood.”24

While in Canton Shaw became a participant in a drama demonstrating this rule of Chinese law. An English ship in harbor had fired a salute to honor some guests, accidentally killing a Chinese bystander. The port authorities demanded the gunner for retribution. When the English resisted turning him over to certain death the Chinese seized a ship’s officer who was in the city on business. The Europeans in the port armed themselves and demanded the return of the captive. The Chinese refused and brought up warships and troops. At this point the Chinese head magistrate asked for a deputation of all the trading nations except the English. Shaw joined the deputation as the representative from America, an act inaugurating the entry of the United States into Far Eastern affairs. In negotiations with the delegation the magistrate agreed that if the English turned over the gunner he would have an impartial trial, and if the killing were proved to be accidental, he would be released. The English saw no alternative and agreed. The seaman was eventually released.

Shaw noted in his letter that the English rather begrudgingly thanked the ex-colonial for his assistance in serving on the delegation. In contrast to the coolness of the British, there was harmony between the French and the Americans. This cordial relationship “was particularly noted by the English, who more than once observed, that it was a matter of astonishment to them that the descendants of Britons would so soon divest themselves of prejudices, which they had thought to be not only hereditary, but inherent in our nature.”25

Jay sent Shaw’s letter to Congress with the recommendation that a consul and vice consul be appointed to Canton, expressing his feeling that “such officers would have a degree of weight and respect which private adventurers cannot readily acquire, and which would enable them to render essential services to their countrymen.”26 Within ten days Samuel Shaw had a consular commission from Congress. Jay then asked that his friend Thomas Randall, another former artillery officer, be appointed vice consul for Canton, advising that his ship would be leaving shortly. The President and Congress responded with unaccustomed speed, and the new consul and vice consul sailed to Canton a week later. They were to serve “with neither salary nor perquisites but with the confidence and esteem of the United States.”

The only other significant appointment the Continental Congress made to help American trade abroad was that of Oliver Pollock to replace Robert Smith as the commercial agent in Havana, which was the center of Spanish colonial rule in the Caribbean. Smith, a resident in Havana and recommended to Congress by Robert Morris,27 had been appointed to the position during the Revolution in 1781. When Smith died two years later, Congress replaced him with Pollock, carefully stipulating that “no commercial agent of the United States in foreign ports shall be entitled to a salary, unless such salary is expressed in the resolution appointing the agent.”28 Congress did not so express.

Pollock had been a major figure in the Revolutionary War, purchasing ammunition from the Spanish for American troops. He had also been an advisor to Bernado De Gálvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana, who had attacked the British once Spain entered the war. Pollock, acting as a purchasing agent for Congress, had extended his own credit to get crucial supplies and owed some $140,000, an immense sum for the time. Pollock had depended on Congress to repay him, but Congress was not responsive to his expectations. The appointment as commercial agent to Havana was considered to be a form of unpaid recompense to help Pollock make some money. The scheme did not work out. The Spanish, never enthusiastic about the upstart Americans, clamped down on their trade in Cuba and Louisiana, even throwing some American merchants into the Havana dungeon to discourage compromise. Congress protested and retaliated by passing in 1784 a resolution terminating the commercial agent’s appointment to Havana. Pollock was shortly thereafter put in Spanish debtors’ prison in New Orleans for eighteen months. Eventually Congress helped him pay his debts, and he became a successful trader in the West Indies.

Congress operated on the principle of avoiding problems whenever possible. Dealing with the rulers of the Barbary states ranked high on the list of problems to be avoided. There were really only three approaches for a government trying to protect its citizens from these scoundrels: pay a hefty tribute, maintain a strong naval presence off the North African coast, or keep one’s citizens away from the area. In the first years of the Republic, Congress had little choice but to hope that American ships would not venture into the Mediterranean.

From the beginning of the Revolutionary War in 1776 the British took away the Mediterranean passes that had been issued to British and colonial ships to provide immunity from attack by Barbary corsairs. These passes were the result of a mix of British naval might and substantial “gifts” to the Barbary rulers by British consuls. Due to the Revolution American trade to the Mediterranean dwindled away. Because this trade recovered slowly after the war, there was a temporary easing of the pressure on Congress to deal with the Barbary problem. Nothing, however, inhibited the Yankee trader. American ships began to test out Mediterranean markets in Spain, France, and Italy. The British consul general in New York wrote John Jay in 1786 to warn him that many American ships were sailing with British passes counterfeited in Philadelphia, and that he could “but lament the misery that such of your mariners will probably meet with, should they, with such counterfeit passes, fall into the hands of the Barbary corsairs.”29

The British consul general’s insincere lament was a good example of the duplicity that permitted the Barbary pirates to ply their vocation for so long. The British were delighted to see their former colonial charges in difficulty because the protection of His Majesty King George III had been withdrawn. The harm dealt to the Americans was good for British trade. “What is bad for you is good for me.” The result of this policy was that a growing number of American seamen were falling into the hands of Algerian, Tripolitan, and Moroccan masters. The Yankees were held for ransom and worked as slaves until ransom arrived or they died.

Congress asked its diplomatic agents abroad to see whether friendly countries could help the United States in dealing with the Barbary states. France and Spain initiated some contacts between American representatives and Barbary agents, but for the most part it was up to each country to make its own arrangements with each Barbary ruler, always to the ruler’s advantage.30

The United States was fortunate in securing a favorable treaty with Morocco at a reasonable cost. For some reason the emperor of Morocco had shown particular friendship toward the new country across the Atlantic and as early as 1778 had forbidden his corsairs to attack American ships.31 After the Revolution, in 1783, the emperor attempted to open negotiations for a treaty with the United States, but Congress was so slow in responding that Morocco seized an American ship, the Betsey, and held it to encourage Congress to get on with the treaty process.

At last, in 1785 Congress authorized its representatives in Europe, Adams and Jefferson, to negotiate treaties with all the Barbary states, appropriating $80,000 for this purpose. Adams and Jefferson sent Thomas Barclay, the American consul in France, to deal with the emperor of Morocco. Barclay’s treaty of 1786 with the ruler of Morocco reflected the goodwill of that potentate toward the United States. While these negotiations used up $25,000 of the money allocated for all the Barbary states, Barclay’s success was evidently worth the cost: no annual tribute was demanded, American ships were given safe passage by Moroccan corsairs, and American consuls had certain extraterritorial powers in Morocco.32

Congress commended Barclay for having done an excellent job as a negotiator. Since no American consul was sent to Morocco during the remaining years of the Confederation, Barclay appointed two members of the Chiappi family, Italians settled in Morocco, to serve as deputy consular agents in Mogador and Tangiers. Each of the Chiappis was already a consul in his respective district, one for Genoa and one for Venice. As an ad hoc arrangement the United States at least had experienced men to represent its interests.

Despite the high favor shown Barclay by Congress, soon after he returned to France from Morocco, he was arrested for debt. While acting as a consul and diplomatic agent, Barclay had continued his personal activities as a businessman. Creditors from his business endeavors had instigated the arrest. He was shortly released and returned to America. John Jay, writing from his Office of Foreign Affairs, confirmed that no American “Consuls should be exempt from Suits and Arrests for their own proper Debts,” but he acknowledged that such arrest and imprisonment “must hurt the Feelings of the United States and in some degree would injure their Dignity.”33 Jay urged Barclay to settle his affairs so that he could return to France. Apparently the debts were discharged, since Barclay was later active again in Europe.

With the Moroccan treaty made, Congress hoped that similar treaties with Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis would be forthcoming, but American diplomatic agents had no success. The cruel reality was that none of the other Barbary states had any interest in helping the United States; they only wanted as much tribute as they could extract. Congress under the Confederation simply could not raise the money necessary for tribute and ransom, nor was there money to try the “iron fist” approach, for there was no American navy to speak of. Because of this helpless situation Americans were falling into the rapacious hands of the Barbary rulers. Mediterranean trade under the Stars and Stripes was badly stunted, and there were no consuls in the respective quasi-hostile states to help their countrymen.

In looking back on the six years of the peacetime Confederation (1783–89) with regard to consular developments, one finds that they were sparse years indeed: one consul assigned to France (but he was either negotiating elsewhere or trying to stay out of debtors’ jail), a consul and vice consul in Canton, a few commercial agents, one consular convention that was not even finally ratified until after the Confederation ended, and some foreign consuls operating on an interim arrangement in the United States.

Although there were but few concrete steps during this time toward developing an American consular service, the Confederation period was one of intense debate by Congress and its diplomatic agents abroad over the structure and role of consuls. Four of the major founding fathers, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Jay, were especially concerned with laying the groundwork for the consular service, a foundation that was to last almost unchanged for over a century. Unfortunately, despite the talent concentrated upon the role and structure of the future consular service, the consular corps that emerged was defective by being nonprofessional and wide open to patronage and corruption. That despite its flaws it would work relatively well was due to the individual talents, dedication, and courage of most of the men selected to serve as American consuls abroad.