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Addressed to the People of the United States, on the Treaty, and on the Conduct of the President relative thereto, in answer to “the Letters of Franklin.”

Note by the Editors.—In our selections from the “Bone to Gnaw,” the reader has seen that its author’s object was, to deter the people of America from seeking an alliance with France. In this pamphlet it was his object to reconcile them to the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with England, which was conditionally ratified on the 24th June, 1795, by the President Washington. The Federalists were in favour of a treaty with England, and the Antifederalists wanted a treaty with France: Washington was of the former party; but his Secretary of State (Jefferson) was of the latter party. The French, through their Minister, Genet, had made a proposal that France and America should join against England, and that America should cease all commercial transactions with her. In accordance with this, Jefferson made a report on commerce to Congress in the fall of 1793, recommending the “burdening with duties, or excluding, such foreign manufactures as we take in the greatest quantity; for such duties, having the effect of indirect encouragement to domestic manufactures of the same kind, may induce the manufacturer to come himself into these States.” He was thus, as far as his office would allow him, thwarting the views of the President, but he was answered by a member of Congress, who showed the folly of such a system, and who showed, too, Jefferson’s inconsistency, by quoting his Notes on Virginia, which contain this passage: “While we have land to labour, then, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied, at a work-bench, or twirling the distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry: but, for the general operation of manufactures, let our workshops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials to workmen there, than bring them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners and principles.”—Notes on V. Query XIX. The report was evidently aimed at England; and, to make this clear, Madison, Jefferson’s bosom friend, in January 1794, moved a string of resolutions, proposing to follow it up, by imposing a higher scale of duties on leather, hard-ware, cottons, wool, and other articles, which were those then imported from England. The resolutions were negatived; but they were more than suspected to be Jefferson’s, and, in the intercepted dispatch from the French Minister, Fauchrt, alluded to in the preface to this work as bringing to light the treachery of Randolph, he says that they were Jefferson’s. The dispute between the English and French parties had now (1794) become, not warm, but hot; the depredations of English privateers and cruisers on the vessels of Americans, were made the stalking-horse of the friends of France; and, on the 27th March, 1794, Mr. Dayton moved a resolution, that “all debts due from citizens of the United States, to the subjects of the king of Great Britain should be sequestered.” It was carried by the Lower House, but rejected by the Senate; and now, Jefferson, finding himself in a cabinet to which he was so much opposed, and against which he was even working, retired to his estate in Virginia; but, before doing so, he recommended Randolph to Washington as his successor (see Jefferson’s Life, vol. 4, p. 506). Washington attempted to stem the tide, by desiring his new Secretary to lay before Congress a report of the depredations committed by England, France, Spain and Holland, on American commerce, and, though it appeared that France had committed the greatest, still the French party moved onward; the President was abused as a traitor to his country, and a Mr. Clarke moved a resolution in the Lower House for suspending all commerce with England. While the resolution was debating, Washington, by advice of the Senate, sent Jay (Chief Justice) off to England to negotiate this famous treaty. The Lower House passed Clarke’s resolution, but the Senate rejected it; the storm thickened—but enough of this has been seen in the “Bone to Gnaw.” When the treaty arrived in America, the friends of France fell upon it and its makers, and we now see that Jefferson, in retirement, launched his execrations on it in letters to his correspondents: in one he thus invokes Madison’s pen to put down the writers on the English side—“for God’s sake take up your pen, and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillus” (Life and Correspondence, vol. 3, p. 322); and, in a letter to Rutledge, he says, “I join you in thinking the Treaty an execrable thing. I trust the popular branch of our legislature will disapprove of it, and thus rid us of this infamous act, which is really nothing more than a treaty of alliance between England and the Anglomen of this country” (Life &c. vol. 3, p. 323). The following pamphlet, then, is an answer to one supposed to be written by Mr. Dallas, Secretary of the State of Pennsylvania, but published under the assumed name of Franklin. It is a defence of the treaty, of Mr. Jay, and of the President. It is one of the best in the works of “Porcupine,” and, therefore, as well as that it shows the objects that the writer had in view, we place it in these selections, observing, that it was an account of writings in this manner and at so critical a juncture, that Mr. Windham, some years after (Debate 5th Aug. 1803), said in the House of Commons, in answer to an attack on Mr. Cobbett by Mr. Sheridan: “Before I had the pleasure to know him personally, I admired the conduct which he pursued through a most trying crisis in America; where, by his own unaided exertions, he rendered his country services that entitle him to a statue of gold.”

A treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, with Great Britain, is a thing which has been so long and so ardently desired on your part, and so often solicited by your government, that one cannot help being astonished that even the democratic, or French, faction should have the temerity to raise a cry against it, now it is brought so near a conclusion. It is true this perverse faction is extremely contemptible, as to the property they possess, and the real weight they have in the community; and their dissatisfaction, which is sure to accompany every measure of the Federal Government, is a pretty certain sign of the general approbation of those who may be properly called the people: but it must be acknowledged at the same time, that they have for partisans almost the whole of that description of persons, who, among us royalists, are generally designated by the name of mob.

The letters of Franklin are a string of philippics against Great Britain and the executive of the United States. They do not form a regular series, in which the subject is treated in continuation: the first seems to be the overflowings of passion bordering on insanity, and each succeeding one the fruit of a relapse. To follow the author step by step through such a jumble, would be to produce the same kind of disgust in you as I myself have experienced; I shall therefore deviate from the order, or rather disorder, which Franklin has found it convenient to employ, and endeavour to bring the subject before you in a less complicated point of view.

The censure of Franklin has three principal objects; the treating with Great Britain at all, the terms of the treaty, and the conduct of the President relative to the negotiation.

I. He asserts, that to form a commercial treaty with Great Britain is a step, at once unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous and dishonourable.

II. That, if forming a treaty with Great Britain were consistent with sound policy, the terms of the present treaty are disadvantageous, humiliating and disgraceful to the United States.

III. That supposing the terms of the treaty to be what every good American ought to approve, yet the conduct of the President, relative to the negotiation and promulgation of it, has been highly improper, and even monarchical, and for which he deserves to be impeached.

If Franklin has made out any one of these assertions; if he has proved, that to treat with Great Britain is unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous and dishonourable, that the terms of the present treaty are disadvantageous, humiliating and disgraceful, or that the President has pursued a conduct in the negotiation for which he deserves to be impeached, you will all do well to join the remonstrating throng, that are now hunting the President to his retreat at Mount Vernon; but if he has proved none of these; if all that he has said on the subject be mere cavilling and abuse, scolding, reviling, and execrating; if he be every where detected of misrepresentation, inconsistency, and flat contradiction; if, in short, it appears, that his ultimate object is to stir up the unwary to an indecent and even violent opposition against the Federal Government, then, if you consult your own interests, you will be upon your guard, and weigh well the consequences, before you determine on such an opposition.

I. Franklin asserts, that to form a commercial treaty with Great Britain is a step, at once unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous and dishonourable.

1. It is unnecessary, because “commercial treaties are an artificial means to obtain a natural end. They are the swathing bands of commerce, that impede the free operations of nature.” This will not detain us long; it is one of those chimerical notions that so well characterize the Parisian school. Nobody but a set of philosophical politicians ever imagined the plan of opening all the ports in the world to all the vessels in the world, “of interweaving and confounding the interests of all nations, of forming the inhabitants of the earth into one vast republic, of rendering the whole family of mankind enlightened, free and happy.” When this plan shall be put in execution with success, I will allow that commercial treaties are unnecessary, but, till then, I must contend for the contrary.

“The two countries,” says Franklin, “if necessary in their products to each other, will seek an intercourse.” This is all I wanted him to admit, to prove that an exchange of commodities between our countries is necessary; for that they have sought an intercourse with each other, and that they do now seek that intercourse more than ever, is most certain; so much so with respect to this country, that about one-half of her exports are now made to Great Britain and her dominions. But, says he, “this exchange ought to be left to itself; for the commerce of nations ought to be like the trade between individuals, who deal with those who give them the best treatment, and the best bargains.” I subscribe to the justice of the latter part of this remark with all my heart; nothing could be more convenient for my purpose; for if nations, like individuals, trade with those who treat them best, and give them the best bargains, how much better treatment and better bargains must you receive from Great Britain than from other nations, when you purchase from her three times as much as from all the rest of the world put together? But, that this extensive exchange, however necessary to both parties, should be left to regulate itself, I cannot believe; for, keeping up the comparison, the commerce of nations being like the trade between individuals, it will ever be found, I believe, that treaties are as necessary to a continuance of good understanding in the former as written contracts are in the latter.

An observation presents itself here, which must not be omitted. Franklin objects to forming a treaty with Great Britain, because, says he, “She is famed for perfidy and double dealing, her polar star is interest, artifice with her is a substitute for nature, &c. &c.” God knows if all this, and much more that he has said, be true; but, if it be, I am sure it makes strongly for a treaty, in place of against one; for proceeding still upon his own comparison, “that commerce between nations is like trade between individuals,” certainly no individual would ever think of dealing to any amount with a person famed for perfidy and double dealing, without binding him down by written articles.

Out of this observation grows another of not less importance. Franklin has taken an infinite deal of pains to persuade you that the President should have formed a treaty with France instead of Great Britain! Your commerce with France, even in the fairest days of her prosperity, never amounted to more than a fifth part of your commerce with Great Britain; and, if what Franklin says be true, France is the most magnanimous, generous, just, honourable, (humane!) rich, and powerful nation upon the earth; and can you then want a written bargain with France, when a mere trifle is the object, and none with Great Britain, when half you have is at stake? Shall it be said that you distrust France, that honourable, that rich nation? that you bind her down with “hard biting laws,” while you admit Great Britain, “whose days,” Franklin assures you, “are numbered,” to a kind of family intercourse, where the bands of affection are supposed to supply the place of law?

Franklin incautiously acknowledges, “that you repeatedly solicited a commercial treaty with Great Britain,” and this is very true. The first question put to Mr. Hammond, ^{Ref 036} on his arrival here, was to know, if he was authorized to treat on that subject. This was also the ostensible object of Mr. Madison’s famous resolutions. “To force the nations of Europe, and particularly Great Britain, to enter into commercial treaties with you.” The words, nations of Europe, were afterwards changed for Great Britain. These resolutions were a long time and are still a favourite theme of panegyric among the French faction; all the democratic societies in the Union have passed resolves in approbation of them; they have been toasted at every patriotic dinner, every civic feast, and even our Franklin himself sings forth their praises. How comes it then, that all these people now deprecate the idea of making a treaty with Great Britain? This will be no longer a secret, when patriot Madison’s real object is known, and to know this you have only to compare his resolutions with a passage in citizen Genet’s instructions. The fact is, patriot Madison had no such thing as a treaty in view; nothing on earth was further from his wishes. War was his object; but this he could not propose in direct terms, and therefore, he proposed such restrictions on the British commerce, as he was sure, if adopted, would produce a war. He failed, and Great Britain, in consenting to what he pretended was the object of his resolutions, and the President and Senate in ratifying it, are now loaded with the execrations of all his partisans. But what must be the patriot’s remorse? What will he be able to say against treating with a nation, whom he wished to force to a treaty with you?

2nd. Treaties are impolitic, because they lead to war; and, consequently a treaty with Great Britain is exceptionable on that account. This is another idea borrowed from the legislators of your sister republic, and surely it is not, for that reason, less whimsical. “Treaties lead to war,” says Franklin, “and war is the bane of republican government.” Treaties of alliance offensive and defensive lead to war, it is their object; but how treaties of amity, commerce and navigation, can lead to war; how a treaty like that under consideration, made expressly to terminate all differences in an amicable manner, to produce satisfaction and good understanding, to establish universal peace and true friendship between the parties, how a treaty like this can lead to war, is to me inconceivable. With just as much reason might it be said, that treaties of peace lead to war, that independence leads to subjugation, that liberty leads to slavery, and that good leads to evil.

“Treaties,” says our demagogue, “are like partnerships, they establish intimacies, which sometimes end in profligacy, and sometimes in ruin and bankruptcy, distrust, strife and quarrel;” and then on he goes with an abusive apostrophe (which decency prevents me from copying here) inferring that you ought, on this account, to avoid a connection, as he terms it, with Great Britain. This comparison is not so good as the last we quoted; treaties of amity and commerce do not at all resemble partnerships. “The commerce of nations is like trade between individuals;” but commercial treaties resemble contracts between individuals of separate interests, and not co-partnerships. A co-partnership implies an union of interests, a participation in profits and losses, in debts and credits. Are any of these understood by a commercial treaty? Assuredly not. In a commercial treaty two nations say: On these terms we will buy and sell, of and to each other. Had you made a treaty with Great Britain to club your merchandise and revenues, and to carry on trade under the firm of Madam Britain and Miss America, such a treaty would, indeed, have resembled a partnership, and would very probably have been attended with all the inconveniences stated by Franklin; but commercial treaties are, I repeat it, among nations what written bargains are among individuals, and the former have exactly the same tendency as the latter, that is, to render mistakes, disputes, and quarrels, less frequent.

But, however, even if treaties do lead to war, it is rather surprising to hear Franklin object to them on that account, when one-third part of his book is taken up with invectives against the President for not forming a treaty with France, the direct object of which was your taking a part with her in the present war. “The treaty proposed by citizen Genet,” says he, “was a treaty on liberal and equitable principles.” What were these liberal principles now? Citizen Genet came forward with an offer to treat, which offer, it must be confessed, contained no express desire of involving you in a war; but what were the citizen’s private instructions concerning this treaty? For it is from these that you are to judge, and not from the contents of a mere complimentary letter. What were they then?

“Citizen Genet,” says the Executive Council, “shall open a negotiation, which may become a national agreement in which two great people shall suspend their commercial and political interest, to befriend the empire of liberty, wherever it can be embraced. Such a pact, which the people of France will support with all the energy that distinguishes them, will quickly contribute to the general emancipation of the New World. But should the American administration adopt a wavering conduct, the executive council charges him, in expectation that the American government will finally determine to make a common cause with us, to take such steps as will appear to him exigencies may require, to serve the cause of liberty and the freedom of the people. The guarantee of our West India islands shall form an essential clause in the new treaty which will be proposed: the executive council, in consequence, recommend to citizen Genet to sound early the disposition of the American government, and to make it a sine qua non of their free commerce to those islands, so essential to the United States.”

Here then are the “liberal principles,” so much boasted of by the partisans of France! A treaty on these principles is what Franklin would have approved of. For not forming a treaty on these principles he loads your President with abuse, while he declares, that his objection to treaties, is “they lead to war, and war is the bane of republican government!” A demagogue, like a liar, should have a good memory.

3rd. To form a treaty of commerce with Great Britain is dangerous, he says, because “it is forming a connection with a monarch, and the introduction of the fashions, forms, and precedents of monarchical governments, has ever accelerated the destruction of republics.” To suppose this man in earnest would be to believe him guided by something below even the imbecility of a frenchified republican. It would be to suppose him almost upon a level with a member from the southward, who gave his vote against a law, merely because it appeared to him to be of monarchical origin, while at the same moment he represented a state, ^{Ref 037} whose declaration of rights says: “The good people are entitled to the common law of England, and the trial by jury, according to the course of that law, and to the benefit of such of the English statutes as existed at the time of their emigration, and which, by experience, have been found applicable to their local and other circumstances, and of such others as have been since made in England, or Great Britain, and have been introduced here, &c.” Can the people who have been so careful in preventing their future rulers from depriving them of the benefit of the laws of England, who look upon the being governed by those laws as the most inestimable of their rights, be afraid of introducing among them the fashions, forms, and precedents of England? Can it be possible, that they are afraid of introducing among them what they already possess, and what they declare they will never part with?

It is not my object to intrude on you my opinion of the fashions, forms and precedents, as Franklin calls them, of the British Government; they may be better or they may be worse than other governments; but be they what they may, they are nearly the same as your own, and they are the only ones ever adopted by any nation on earth to which yours bear the most distant resemblance; therefore, admitting, for a moment, what Franklin says to be true, “that you should make treaties with no nation whose fashions and forms are different from your own,” it follows of course, that, if you ought not on this account to make treaties with Great Britain, you ought to do it with no nation in the world.

But this would not suit the purpose of Franklin, who, at the same time that he reprobates the idea of making a treaty with Great Britain, inculcates the propriety and even necessity of making one with France. “If foreign connections are to be formed,” says he, “they ought to be made with nations whose influence and example would not poison the fountain of liberty, and circulate the deleterious streams to the destruction of the rich harvest of our revolution—tell me your company, and I will tell you who you are.” And then he tells us, that “there is not a nation in Europe, with an established government, whose example should be our imitation, but that France is our natural ally; that she has a government congenial with our own, and that there can be no hazard of introducing from her, principles and practices repugnant to freedom.” Take care what you are about, Mr. Franklin! If there be none of the established governments in Europe congenial to your own, the inevitable conclusion is, that neither you nor your sister republic have an established government! Do you begin to perceive the fatal effects of your want of memory?

But, are you governed by an assembly of ignorant caballing legislators? An assembly of Neros, whose pastime is murder, who have defied the God of Heaven, and, in idea, have snatched the thunder from his hand to hurl it on a crouching people? And do you resemble the republican French? Have you cast off the very semblance of virtue and religion? Do you indeed resemble those men of blood, those profligate infidels, who, uniting the frivolity of the monkey to the ferocity of the tiger, can go dancing to the gallows, or butchering their relations to the air of ah! ca ira? If you do, you have not much to fear from the introduction of the fashions, forms, and precedents of other nations.

Another source of danger, that Franklin has had the sagacity to discover in treating with Great Britain, is, that she “meditates your subjugation, and a treaty will give her a footing amongst you which she had not before, and facilitate her plans.” The executive council of France ordered citizen Genet to tell you something of this sort, in order to induce you to embark in the war for the liberty and happiness of mankind. “In this situation of affairs,” says the executive council, “when the military preparations in Great Britain become every day more serious, we ought to excite, by all possible means, the zeal of the Americans, who are as much interested as ourselves in disconcerting the destructive projects of George III., in which they are probably an object.” I beseech you to pay attention to this passage of the instructions. When military preparations were making against France, she wanted your aid, and so the good citizen was ordered to tell you that you were the object of those preparations. The citizen was ordered to tell you a falsehood; for the war has now continued three years, and George III. has not made the least attempt against your independence.

You have the surest of all guarantees that Great Britain will never attempt any thing against your independence, her interest. I agree with Franklin, that “her interest is the main-spring of all her actions, and that, had not her interest been implicated, the commercial relation between you and her would long since have been destroyed.” Her interest will ever dictate to her to keep up that relation, and certainly making an attempt on your independence is not the way to do that; for, as to her succeeding in such an attempt, I think every American will look on that as impossible. The idea of your “again becoming colonies of Great Britain,” may be excused in Franklin and the other stipendiaries of the French republic; but an American, who holds the good of his country in higher estimation than a bundle of assignats, and who entertains such a disgraceful belief, must have the head of an idiot and the heart of a coward.

Besides, has not our demagogue himself given a very good reason for your having nothing to apprehend from Great Britain? “Happily for this country,” says he, “the days of that corrupt monarchy are numbered; for already has the impetuous valour of our insulted French brethren rushed like a torrent upon the Dutch Provinces, and swept away the dykes of aristocracy. Perhaps Heaven will direct their next steps to Great Britain itself, and by one decisive stroke, relieve the world from the miseries which that corrupt government has too long entailed upon mankind.” I shall not stop here to prove, that it was not an act of a corrupt government to frame such laws, as the people of these states have bound their rulers never to depart from; nor have I time to prove, that peopling the United States, changing an uncouth wilderness into an extensive and flourishing empire, in little more than a century, was not entailing miseries upon mankind. I hasten to my subject; and, I think, I need take no great deal of pains to prove to you, that, if Great Britain be in the situation in which Franklin has described her, you have very little to fear from her. A nation whose “days are numbered,” and particularly who is in continual expectation of a domiciliary visit from the French, is rather to be pitied than feared.

And yet this same Franklin, who tells you that the “days of Great Britain are numbered, that she is upon the point of annihilation, and that nothing can save her but repentance in sackcloth and ashes;” this same Franklin who says all this, and much more to the same purpose; this same Franklin winds up almost every one of his letters in declaring, that you have every thing to fear from her, and that nothing on earth can save you but France! “That gallant nation, whose proffers we have neglected, is the sheet-anchor who sustains our hopes, and should her glorious exertions be incompetent to the great object she has in view, we have little to flatter ourselves with from the faith, honour, or justice of Great Britain. The nation on whom our political existence depends we have treated with indifference bordering on contempt.—Citizens, your only security depends upon France, and by the conduct of your government, that security has become precarious.” Now before I go any further, I shall bring another sentence from Franklin, which will certainly give you a favourable idea of the veracity and consistency of that demagogue. “Insulated as we are, not an enemy near to excite apprehension, and our products such as are indispensable, we need neither the countenance of other countries, nor their support!” What, no enemy near to excite apprehension, no need of support, and yet “France is the sheet-anchor of your hopes!” and yet “your political existence depends upon her,” and yet, because your government has refused to make a common cause with her, “your security has become precarious:” To a hireling writer nothing is so necessary as memory.

If Great Britain had really been so foolish as to form a design upon your independence, and your political existence had depended upon France, it would, I believe, have been at an end long before this time. Citizen Genet was ordered to promise you, that his country would “send to the American ports a sufficient force to put them beyond insult;” but, if they had defended your possessions no better than they have their own, they would have brought you into a poor plight. If the fleet, they were so good as to offer you, had been no more successful than the others they have sent out, it might as well have remained at home, blocked up, as their fleets now are, and left you to the defence of your own privateers. They have given but a poor sample of their protecting talents, either at home or abroad. Letting two-thirds of their colonies be taken from them, and making war upon the rest themselves, is not the way to convince me that you would have been safe under their protection. Nobody but a madman would ever commit his house to the care of a notorious incendiary.

Franklin proceeds exactly in the manner of citizen Genet (of whom he is a pupil, as we shall see by-and-by): First, he tells you that “Great Britain has contemplated either your misery or subjugation, and that armaments were made to this end.” Then he tells you that “France alone has saved you; that she is now fighting your battles; that you owe her much; that she gave you independence, and that she alone is able to preserve it to you.” After this, fearing that these weighty considerations may not have the desired effect, he has recourse to the last trick in the budget of a political mountebank, menaces. He tells you dreadful tales about the resentment of France, and this he makes a third source of danger in treating with Great Britain.

“The conduct of the French republic,” says he, “towards us has been truly magnanimous, and, in all probability, she would have made many sacrifices to preserve us in a state of peace, if we had demeaned ourselves towards her with becoming propriety; but can we calculate upon her attachment, when we have not only slighted but insulted her? To enter into a treaty with Great Britain at this moment, when we have evaded a treaty with France; to treat with an enemy against whom France feels an implacable hatred, an enemy who has neglected no means to desolate that country, and crimson it with blood, is certainly insult.” Then on he goes to terrify you to death. “Citizens of America,” says he, “sovereigns of a free country, your hostility to the French republic (in making a treaty with Great Britain, he means) has lately been spoken of in the National Convention, and a motion for an inquiry into it has been only suspended from prudential motives.—The book of account may soon be opened against you—what then, alas! will be your prospects?—To have your friendship questioned by that nation, is, indeed, alarming!”—There spoke the Frenchman! there broke forth the vanity of that vaunting republic!

The above are certainly the most unfortunate expressions that ever poor demagogue launched forth. What he has here said, completely destroys the position he meant it to support. If you must be so cautious in your demeanour towards the French republic, if you dare treat with no nation against whom she feels an implacable hatred, if to treat with a nation that has endeavoured to desolate that country, is to expose your conduct to an inquiry in the National Convention; if to have your friendship questioned by that nation is an alarming circumstance; if to refuse treating with her, when and how she pleases, is to open the doomsday-book of account against you; if all this be so, I can see no reason for apprehensions on account of your independence, for you are no more than mere colonies of France. Your boasted revolution is no more than a change of masters.

The fact is, as you stand in no need of the protection of France, so you have no cause to fear her resentment. She may grumble curses against you, but speak out she will not. She dares not, she dares not make a second attempt to overturn your Federal Government, by appealing from “the President to the Sovereign People.” You are “the sheetanchor” of her hopes, and not she of yours. To you she clings in her shipwrecked condition, to you her famished legions look for food, and to you her little pop-gun fleets fly for shelter from the thundering foe. What have you then to expect, what to fear from a nation like this? Nothing, alas! but her insidious friendship.

4th. Franklin asserts that it is dishonourable to treat with Great Britain; “because,” says he, “her king is a tyrant that invaded our territory, and carried on war against us.” He seems to have made a small mistake here; for, at the time the king of Great Britain invaded your territory, it was his territory, and you his loving subjects; at least, you all declared so. However, without recalling circumstances, that can be of no use in the present discussion, admitting all that has been said on this subject to be true; that the fault was entirely on the side of Great Britain, that all her conduct was marked with duplicity and cruelty, and all yours with frankness and humanity; admitting all this, and that is admitting a great deal, yet, how long has it become a principle in politics, that a nation, who has once done an injury to another, is never after to be treated with upon a friendly footing? Is this a maxim with any other State in the world? How many times have you seen France and England, after the most bloody contests, enter into an amicable treaty of commerce, for their mutual advantage? Have they not done so since the American war? and will they not do so again as soon as the present war is over? Nay, has not France very lately, unmindful of her promises and oaths, entered into a treaty of amity, and almost alliance, with his Royal Majesty of Prussia, who had invaded her territory, without having the least shadow of excuse for so doing? Is it for you alone, then, to sacrifice your interest to your vengeance, or rather to the vengeance of France? Are you to make everlasting hatred an article of your political creed because she wills it?

To this old grudge, Franklin adds some injuries recently received from Great Britain. The first of these is her depredations on your commerce. To urge the depredations on your commerce as a reason against treating, is to find fault with a thing for being calculated to accomplish its object; by treating, you have guarded against such depredations for the future, and have obtained a compensation for the past. I shall enter more fully into this subject when I come to speak of the terms of the treaty; at present it is necessary to speak of the depredations, only as they render a treaty with Great Britain dishonourable.

In the first place, the injury does not appear to me to be of so outrageous a nature as Franklin would persuade you it is. It was possible, at least, that the orders of the British Court might be misunderstood of misconstrued. It is also possible that great part of the vessels seized were really employed in a commerce that would justify their seizure by the law of nations. Admitting, however, that the British cruisers and Courts of Admiralty have done no more than fulfil the intention of their king, and that none of your captured vessels were employed in a contraband trade, yet I cannot allow that the depredations committed on your trade is a sufficient reason, or, indeed, any reason at all, for your not treating with the nation who has committed them. To maintain the contrary, is to adopt that system of eternal irreconciliation which I shall ever deprecate, and which militates against every principle of justice and sound policy. The partisans of France, and Franklin among the rest, were for demanding satisfaction in such a manner, that Great Britain, consistent with her honour (for I must be excused for thinking she has some left), could not grant it; but must not a treaty have been the consequence at last? Suppose they had succeeded in plunging you into a war, that war itself must have ended in a treaty, and a treaty much more dishonourable, perhaps, than the one now negotiated; unless, indeed, their intention was to wage a bellum eternum, side by side with their French brethren, till there should be no government left to treat with. These people are always for violent measures; they wanted a commercial treaty with Great Britain, but then she was to be “forced” into it; and now again they wanted satisfaction, but it is not worth a farthing, because no violence has been used to obtain it. They are of the taste of Swift’s “true English dean that was hanged for a rape;” though they have all their hearts can wish for, their depraved appetites render it loathsome, because it has been yielded to them without a struggle.

But it is, or ought to be, the opinion of Franklin himself, that depredations on your commerce ought to be no bar to your treating with the nation who has committed them; for he has exhausted himself to persuade you that a treaty ought to have been made with France, and yet it is notorious that her depredations have very far outstripped those of the British. Within the last five or six months the French have seized upwards of two hundred of your vessels; some they have confiscated, others they have released, after having taken their cargoes, and others are yet in suspense. Many of these vessels have been seized in their own ports, where they went in full confidence, and with the most upright intentions. The mariners have been thrown into prison, where many of them now are; the masters have been robbed, stripped, and beaten, by some of the vilest wretches that ever existed. They have the insolence to call the American masters, the caned captains, “les capitaines à coup de bàton.” Let Franklin find you, if he can, an instance of an American ship being seized at sea by the English, and burnt without further ceremony. These things the French have done, and yet he would not think it dishonourable to enter into a treaty with them.

I know I shall be told that the depredations of the French here mentioned have taken place since the departure of Mr. Jay for Great Britain; we will then confine ourselves to the depredations committed by the two nations at that epoch. And here, luckily, we have not to depend upon rumour and newspaper report; we have a sure guide, the report of the Secretary of the State to the President, which was communicated to the Senate and House of Representatives on the 5th of March, 1795.

“Against the French it is urged: 1st, that their privateers harass our trade no less than those of the British, 2nd, that two of their ships of war have committed enormities on our vessels. 3rd, that their Courts of Admiralty are guilty of equal oppression. 4th, that these points of accusation, which are common to the French and British, the French have infringed the treaties between the United States and them, by subjecting to seizure and condemnation our vessels trading with their enemies in merchandise, which that treaty declares not to be contraband, and under circumstances not forbidden by the law of nations. 5th, that a very detrimental embargo has been laid on our vessels in French ports. 6th, that a contract with the French government for coin has been discharged in depreciated assignats.”

If, then, the French privateers had harassed your trade no less than those of the British, if their ships of war also had committed enormities on your vessels, if their Courts of Admiralty had been guilty of equal oppression, and if they had, besides, infringed the treaty already existing between you, had embargoed your vessels, and cheated your merchants by discharging a contract for cash in depreciated assignats, what could you see in their conduct to invite you to a treaty with them, whilst a treaty with Great Britain would, on account of the depredations committed by her, be dishonourable?

On this subject, Franklin takes occasion to introduce one of his conventional threats. “As long,” says he, “as we kept up the farce, that the negotiation was designed to produce an indemnity for the past and security for the future, so long did France not complain; but now we have abandoned it to the same uncertainty as before, and have favoured Great Britain at her expense, she cannot, she will not be passive;” and then he says, “If France should act as our conduct merits, she will not seize our vessels.” Without inquiring here what reason France can have to complain about your not having obtained an indemnity for your losses; without inquiring how your conduct merits her resentment, because you have abandoned your commerce to the same uncertainty as before; without inquiring what she ought to do, you have only to look at what she has done, and you have no reason to fear that the treaty will increase her depredations. In short, ever since the French found that your government was determined not to join them in the war, they have neglected no opportunity of doing you mischief whereever they could and dared to do it; and perhaps it is owing to the British Freebooter (as Franklin calls Admiral Murray), that you are now blockaded up in your ports. I know nothing of the British Admiral’s instructions; perhaps they were no more favourable to you than those of the French Minister; but I think you ought to feel a considerable obligation to him for having rid your coasts and towns of the swarthy red-capped citizens that infested them.

With respect to the charge against Great Britain and the Algerines, it is the most whimpering, babyish complaint that ever disgraced the lips of manhood, and when a member of the House of Representatives made mention of it, he deserved to have his backside whipped. Great Britain, for her convenience, has, it seems, employed her mediation, and prevailed on the Dey of Algiers to make an arrangement with the court of Lisbon, which arrangement gives the Algerines an opening into the Atlantic, where they take your vessels. This is unfortunate for you; but how is it hostile towards you, on the part of Great Britain? How is it letting the Algerines loose upon you? It is, indeed, letting them loose upon the great ocean, where they may do what they can; but to call it letting them loose on you, is mere childishness. One would think, to hear Franklin, that Great Britain held the Algerines in a string, ready to let loose on whomsoever she pleases. A clear proof that this is not the case is, she has not yet let the Algerines loose on the French; a thing that she most certainly would have done, if she could.

But, it seems, Great Britain is not only to refrain from every act and deed that may give the Algerines an opportunity of incommoding you; she is not only to sacrifice her interest, and that of her allies, to yours; but she ought to take an active part in your protection. A writer against the treaty expresses himself thus: “Our negotiator has omitted to make any stipulation for the protection and security of the commerce of the United States to Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean, against the depredations of the Algerine and Barbary corsairs, although he knew that this forms one of the most beneficial branches of our trade.” ^{Ref 038} This writer certainly forgot that you were independent. He talks about Mr. Jay’s making this stipulation, just as if it depended upon him alone. When he was about it, he might as well have stipulated for Great Britain to protect you against all the nations in the world, as she used to do formerly. And do you then stand in need of Great Britain to protect you? Do you stand in need of the protection of this “ruined nation?” This nation whom “nothing will save but repentance in sackcloth and ashes?” This “insular Bastile of slaves?” Do you stand in need of them to protect you, “the sovereigns of a free country?” Is it dishonourable to treat with Great Britain, and yet is it honourable to accept of her protection? Prevaricating demagogues! You accuse the envoy extraordinary of having made a humiliating treaty, while you blame him for not having made you drink off the cup of humility to the very dregs.

The truth is, these depredations on your commerce by all the belligerent nations, and by the Algerines, is what ought to surprise nobody; it is one of those little rubs to which your situation naturally exposes you: independence, for some years at least, is not a rose without a thorn. All that ought to surprise you in contemplating this subject is, that France, to whom alone you give shelter, for whose cause your good citizens have ever felt the most unbounded enthusiasm, and for whose successes they have toasted themselves drunk and sung themselves hoarse a thousand times, should stand foremost on the list of the spoilers; and that notwithstanding this your patriots should insist upon a close alliance with her, while they reprobate the treating with Great Britain as an act at once unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous, and dishonourable.

Having now gone through Franklin’s reasons for not treating with Great Britain, I proceed to examine his objections to the terms of the treaty itself.

II. Franklin asserts, that if forming a treaty with Great Britain were consistent with sound policy, the terms of the present treaty are disadvantageous, humiliating, and disgraceful to the United States.

This is the place to observe, that the letters of Franklin were written before the contents of the treaty were known. He introduces his subject in the following words: “The treaty is said to be arrived, and as it will be of serious consequence to us and to our posterity, we should analyze it before it becomes the supreme law of the land.” That is to say, before it be known. “It will be said,” continues he, “to be a hasty opinion which shall be advanced before the treaty itself shall be before us; but when it shall be promulgated for our consideration, it will have all the force of law about it, and it will then be too late to detect its baneful effects.” Certainly no mortal ever heard reasoning like this before; what a lame apology for an inflammatory publication, intended to prepossess the rabble against the treaty!

It is not my design to dwell upon every objection that has been started, either by Franklin or the town-meeting; I shall content myself with answering those only in which they discover an extraordinary degree of patriotic presumption or dishonesty.

Art. I. Says that there shall be peace and friendship between the two countries.

As nobody but the French can have anything to say against this article, and as I have already answered all that their emissary Franklin has said on the subject, I look upon it as unexceptionable.

Art. II. Stipulates, that the western posts shall be evacuated in June next; that in the mean time the United States may extend their settlements to any part within the boundary line as fixed at the peace, except within the precincts and jurisdiction of the posts; that the settlers now within those precincts shall continue to enjoy their property, and that they shall be at full liberty to remain there, or remove; that such of them as shall continue to reside within said boundary lines, shall not be compelled to become citizens of the United States, but that they may do so if they think proper, and that they shall declare their choice in one year after the evacuation of the forts, and that all those who do not declare their choice during that time, are to be looked upon as citizens of the United States.

The citizens of the Boston-town meeting object to “this article, because it makes no provision to indemnify the United States for the commercial and other losses they have sustained, and the heavy expenses to which they have been subjected in consequence of being kept out of possession for twelve years, in direct violation of a treaty of peace.”

The good citizens, before they talked about indemnity, should have been certain that Great Britain was not justifiable in her detention of the western posts; because, if it should appear that she was, to make a claim for indemnity would be ridiculous.

By a treaty of peace, Great Britain was to give up these posts, and by the same treaty, the United States were to remove certain legal impediments to the payment of British debts, that is to say, debts due to British merchants before the war. These debts were to a heavy amount, and Great Britain had no other guarantee for their payment than the posts. Your credit, at that time, was not in the most flourishing state; and that the precaution of having a security was prudent, on the part of Great Britain, the event has fully proved. Nobody pretends that the impediments, above mentioned, are removed; nay, some of the States, and even their members in Congress, aver that they ought not to be removed; what right have you, then, to complain of the British for not giving up the posts? Was the treaty to be binding on them only? If this be the case, your language to Great Britain resembles that of Rousseau’s tyrant: “I make a covenant with you, entirely at your expense and to my profit, which you shall observe as long as it pleases me, and which I will observe as long as it pleases myself.” This is not the way treaties are made now-a-days.

It is said that the federal government has done all in its power to effect the removal of the impediments, according to stipulation; but to this I answer, that all in its power is not enough, if the impediments are not removed. Are they removed, or are they not? is the only question Great Britain has to ask. The States from which the debts are due, having enacted laws that counteract those made by the general government, may be pleaded in justification of the latter, in a domestic point of view; but every one must perceive, that it would be childish in the extreme to urge it as an excuse for a failure towards foreign nations. The very nature of a treaty implies a power in the contracting parties to fulfil the stipulations therein contained, and, therefore, to fail from inability is the same thing as to fail from inclination, and renders retaliation, at least, just and necessary. Upon this principle, founded on reason and the law of nations, Great Britain was certainly justifiable in her detention of the western posts.

Another objection, though not to be found in the resolutions of the Boston citizens, deserves notice, “That the leaving British subjects in possession of their lands &c. in the precincts of the forts, will be to establish a British colony in the territory of the United States, &c.” ^{Ref 039} This is an objection that I never should have expected from the true republicans. The treaty says that the settlers in those precincts shall have full liberty to choose between being subjects of the King of Great Britain and citizens of the United States: and can these republicans doubt which they will choose? Can they possibly suppose that the inhabitants near the forts will not rejoice to exchange the humiliating title of subject for the glorious one of citizen? Can they, indeed, imagine that these degraded satellites of the tyrant George will not be ready to expire with joy at the thought of becoming “sovereigns of a free country?” Each individual of them will become a “prince and legislator” by taking the oath of allegiance to the United States; is it not, then, sacrilege, is it not to be a liberticide to imagine that they can hesitate in their choice? How came these enlightened citizens to commit such a blunder? How came they to suppose, that the people in the precincts of the forts were more capable of distinguishing between sound and sense, between the shadow and the substance, than they themselves are. Thousands of times have you been told that the poor Canadians were terribly oppressed, that they were ripe for revolt, that the militia had refused to do their duty, and, in short, that the United States had nothing to do but to receive them. And now, when a handful of them are likely to be left amongst you, you are afraid they will choose to remain subjects to the king of Great Britain?

Art. III. Stipulates for a free intercourse and commerce between the two parties, as far as regards their territories in America. This commerce is to be carried on upon principles perfectly reciprocal; but it is not to extend to commerce carried on by water, below the highest ports of entry. The only reservation in this article, is, the King of Great Britain does not admit the United States to trade to the possessions belonging to the Hudson’s Bay Company.

To this the citizens of Boston object: “because it admits British subjects to an equal participation with our own citizens of the interior traffic of the United States with the neighbouring Indians, through our whole territorial dominion; while the advantages ostensibly reciprocated to our citizens, are limited both in their nature and extent.”

The word ostensibly is the only one of any weight in this objection. They could not say that the advantages were not reciprocal, as stipulated for; they therefore found out the word ostensible to supply the place of contradiction. The article provides for advantages perfectly reciprocal, and to say that they are only ostensibly so, is to say; the treaty says so, to be sure, but it does not mean so. The fault then naturally falls upon the words, which say one thing and mean another.

Art. IV. Relates to a survey of a part of the Mississipi.

Art. V. Relates to a survey of the River St. Croix.

It would have been extremely hard, indeed, if these articles had not escaped censure. I cannot, indeed, say that they have escaped it altogether; for, I have been informed that the democratic society of Pennsylvania have declared that the United States should be bounded by nothing but the sea. This, we may presume, is in consequence of the intimation of the Executive Council of France, who ordered citizen Genet to assure the Americans, that with their help, nothing was easier than to finish the emancipation of the New World.

Art. VI. Relates to debts due by citizens of the United States to British subjects, and provides, “that by the operation of various lawful impediments since the peace, not only the full recovery of the said debts has been delayed, but also the value and security thereof have been, in several instances, impaired and lessened, so that by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, the British creditors cannot now obtain, and actually have and receive full and adequate compensation for the losses and damages which they have thereby sustained: It is agreed, that in all such cases where full compensation for such losses and damages cannot, for whatever reason, be actually obtained, had and received, by the said creditors in the ordinary course of justice, the United States will make full and complete compensation for the same to the said creditors.” Then the article provides for the appointment of commissioners, who are to be invested with full power to determine finally on the several claims. Two commissioners are to be appointed by each party, and these four are to appoint a fifth.—“Eighteen months from the day on which the commissioners shall form a board, shall be assigned for receiving complaints and applications. And the United States undertake to cause the sums so awarded to be paid in specie, &c.”

Art. VII. Relates to the spoliations on your commerce by British subjects, and provides, “that during the course of the war, in which his Majesty is now engaged, certain citizens of the United States have sustained considerable loss and damage by reason of irregular, or illegal captures, or condemnation of their vessels and other property, under colour of authority or commissions from his Majesty; and that from various circumstances belonging to the said cases, adequate compensation for the losses so sustained cannot now be actually obtained, had and received by the ordinary course of judiciary proceedings; it is agreed that in all cases where adequate compensation cannot, for whatever reason, be now actually obtained, had and received by the said merchants and others in the ordinary course of justice, full and complete compensation for the same will be made by the British Government to the said complainants”——and for the purpose of “ascertaining the amount of such losses and damages five commissioners shall be appointed, and authorized to act in London, exactly in the manner directed with respect to those mentioned in the preceding article.”—“The same term of eighteen months is also assigned for the reception of claims, and they are in like manner authorized to extend the same.”—“And his Britannic Majesty undertakes to cause the same to be paid to such claimant in specie, &c.”

I have placed these two articles opposite to each other to give the reader an opportunity of comparing them; because the citizens of Boston town-meeting seem to found their objection to both on the dissimilarity between them. “The capture,” say they, “of vessels and property of the citizens of the United States, made under the authority of the government of Great Britain, is a national concern, and claims arising from such captures ought not to have been submitted to the decision of their Admiralty Courts, as the United States are thereby precluded from having a voice in the final determination in such cases. Besides, the indemnification proposed to be made, is to be sought by a process tedious and expensive, in which justice may be delayed to an unreasonable time, and eventually lost to many of the sufferers from their inability to pursue it; and this mode of indemnification bears no proportion to the summary method adopted for the satisfaction of British claims.”

You will not be able to account for this, till you are told, that the town-meeting citizens never read the treaty, before they had sanctioned these resolutions. You see by the 6th and 7th articles, that the mode of indemnification to the British subjects and American citizens is one and the same, that both are to be finally determined by commissioners, and both paid punctually in specie; and yet the citizens of the Boston town-meeting see a difference in every part of it. They complain that the decision of American claims is left to the English Courts of Admiralty, when the treaty says it shall be left, in cases where satisfaction cannot be obtained in the ordinary course of justice, to commissioners, with full power to determine finally. They oppose things to each other which are not only the same in substance, but almost word for word. What must the President think of the town-meeting, when he received from them a senseless memorial, or rather ordinance, like this?

What do they mean by the mode of indemnification bearing no proportion to the summary method, adopted for the satisfaction of British claims? Can any method be too summary in the payment of debts, that have been due for twenty years? I think not. However, as I have already observed, summary or not summary, the method is exactly the same as that adopted for the satisfaction of American claims, and, therefore, if you have reason to complain, so have the British, and this would be singular, indeed.

Art. VIII. Provides for the payment &c. of the above-mentioned commissioners.

This article has had the good fortune to escape censure.

Art. IX. Stipulates, that the subjects of Great Britain holding lands in the United States, and the citizens of the United States now holding lands in the dominions of his Britannic Majesty, shall continue to hold them, and, in what respects those lands shall not be regarded as aliens.

Art. X. stipulates, that neither the debts due from individuals of the other, nor shares, nor money which they may have in the public funds, or in the public or private banks, shall ever, in any event of war, or national differences, be sequestered or confiscated.

That people who disapprove of paying debts that have been due twenty years, should also disapprove of this article is not at all surprising; accordingly the citizens of the Boston town-meeting highly disapprove of it; “because,” say they, “the exercise of this right may contribute to preserve the peace of the country, and protect the right and property of the citizens.”

It is well known that, before Mr. Jay’s departure for England, a resolution was entered into by the House of Representatives, on the motion of Mr. Dayton, to sequestar all debts and funds, the property of British subjects: The article before us guards against this, and as there was not an honest man in the Union (a majority of the House of Representatives excepted), who did not execrate Mr. Dayton’s plundering motion, as it was called; so, I believe there is not one of that description, who does not most cordially approve of the article which will, for the future, render such motions abortive.

Credit is with nations as with individuals; while unimpaired it is almost unbounded, it can perform any thing; but one single retrograde step, and it is blasted, it is nothing. Your credit has suffered much from the motion of Mr. Dayton, and had the sequestration become a law, or had the mercantile world been left in doubt concerning what might happen in future, one half of the great capitals that now give wings to your commerce, would have found their way to other countries. Riches seek security, as rivers seek the sea.

“The capture” (say the town-meeting in another of their resolutions), “the capture of the vessels and property was a national concern.”

Here, then, there is a good reason for deprecating Mr. Dayton’s motion, in place of approving of it. But, Franklin has something so very striking on this subject, that it must not be passed over in silence. In one place he blames the President for preventing the adoption of Mr. Dayton’s resolution, which he calls a dignified measure; and in another place, speaking of the indemnity obtained by the treaty, he says,

“The aggression was an offence against the nation, and therefore no private compensation ought to be deemed competent. As the depredations on our commerce, and the indignities offered to our flag, were a national outrage, nothing short of national satisfaction ought to be admitted. The piracies of Great Britain were committed under the authority of the Government, the Government therefore ought to be answerable for them.”

And yet, the same man that has made this plain, unequivocal declaration, has also declared, that it was a dignified measure, to seize the property of innocent individuals lodged in the banks, and the funds of this country, or in the hands of their friends! He has declared it to be a dignified measure, to rifle the bureau of the merchant, pry into the secrets of the friend, sanction the proceedings of the villain, and forbid the honest man to pay his debts.

One thing, above all, ought to be considered on this subject; that an act of sequestration or confiscation must ever fail in its operation, or establish the most consummate tyranny. Do these humane citizens think, that I, for example, would give up what had been intrusted to me by a friend, or what I owed to a correspondent? No; I should look upon the oaths they might impose on me, as taken with a dagger at my breast. In short, their plundering law could never be put in execution, except under the government of a French Convention.

Art. XI. Is only an introduction to the following ones.

Art. XII. Is to be the subject of a future negotiation, and therefore, is not a part of the treaty as approved of by the Senate.

Art. XIII. Consents, that the citizens of the United States may carry on a free trade to and from the British territories in India, but they must carry the merchandise shipped in the said territories, to some part of the United States, and that the citizens of the United States cannot settle in the said territories, or go into the interior of the country, without express permission from the government there.

To this the town-meeting object;

“Because the commerce we have hitherto enjoyed in India, in common with other nations, is so restricted by this article, that, in future, it will be of little or no benefit to our citizens.”

This objection seems to have been founded on a mistake (perhaps a wilful one), which has been propagated with a good deal of industry: “that this article prevents you from re-exporting the merchandise brought from the British territories in India.” It was excusable in the citizens to follow up this error, because they either did not, or could not, read the treaty; but I hope, they will now take my word, and assure themselves, that if ever any of them should acquire property enough to be concerned in mercantile affairs, and should receive a cargo from India, they may ship it off again as soon as they please.

Art. XIV. and XV. Stipulate for a free intercourse between the British dominions in Europe and the United States. The advantages are perfectly reciprocal, as far as they can be rendered so by treaty. The two parties agree that no higher duties shall be paid by the ships or merchandise of the one party in the ports of the other, than such as are paid by the like vessels and merchandise of all other nations. This is the principal object of these articles; but there are some particular stipulations respecting the equalization of duties &c. in which Great Britain appears to have reserved to itself a trifling advantage.

To these articles the town-meeting have some particular objections; but as these are founded upon an opinion, expressed afterwards in a general objection, it will be sufficient to answer the general objection only.

“Because the nature and extent of the exports of the United States are such, that in all their stipulations with foreign nations they have it in their power to secure a perfect reciprocity of intercourse, not only with the home dominions of such nations, but with all their colonial possessions.”

It is first necessary to observe, that, what these citizens mean by reciprocity, goes a little beyond the common acceptation of that term. They do not mean, an advantage for an advantage, they mean all the advantage on their side, and none on the other; they mean, that all the ports of all the nations with whom they trade ought to be as free for them as for the subjects of those nations; they mean, that other nations should maintain fleets and armies to keep up colonial possessions, and that they should reap the profit of them; in short, they mean, that all the poor subjects in the world are made for the citizens of the United States to domineer over.

Before I go any further, I must notice what Franklin says on the subject.

“The articles of commerce in the United States are generally the necessaries of life; few of its luxuries are borne or cultivated among us; does it appear, then, that a commercial treaty is necessary to afford an outlet to things of the first requisition? It is a fact well ascertained, that the West India Islands are in a state of dependence among us, and by means of this dependence we are enabled to make such regulations with respect to our commerce with Great Britain wholly superfluous. It is equally ascertained, that in our commerce with Great Britain herself the balance of trade is considerably in her favour; and from this circumstance, likewise, she would be induced to reciprocate interests, without a commercial treaty, were those means pursued which are in our power.”

Now to know the real value of the term reciprocity, take the following sentences.

“If we cede an advantage for an advantage ceded to us, whence the boast of a treaty? She (Great Britain) can grant us no commercial privileges that our situation does not enable us to exact; why, then, waive the most important demands to obtain a grant of commercial advantages which we could compel?”

This is the language of all the patriots of the present day.

If what the patriots say be true, then you have it in your power to exact from Great Britain what conditions you please; 1st, because your articles of exportation are, in great part, necessaries of life; 2nd, because the British West Indies are in a state of dependence on you; 3rd, because the balance of trade with Great Britain is greatly in her favour.

1. Because your articles of exportation are, in great part, necessaries of life. This idea is originally of the populace, who look upon every barrel of provision shipped off to the West Indies, or elsewhere, as so much loss to themselves, and as a kind of alms to keep the poor foreign devils from starving: and, in return for this generosity on their part, they imagine they have the power to compel the beggars to do just what they please. From the populace it found its way into Congress, under the auspices of a member of that body, who made it the ground-work of his famous resolutions, intended to force Great Britain to yield you commercial advantages. No wonder, then, that it should now be taken up by Franklin, and all the opposers of the treaty. They cannot conceive how a nation, to whom you throw a morsel of bread when you please, should dare refuse you any thing.

That your exports being, in great part, necessaries of life (that is eatables), ought to give you a preference in commercial relations, is an error, and not the less so for being a popular one. Commodities being estables may give the seller a preference in a town during the time of a siege, but not in the great world of commerce. It is as necessary for you to sell your produce as for a toy-man to sell his toys. If they rot in your stores, their being necessaries of life will not diminish the loss. If the land is obliged to lie fallow, the mill stand still, and the vessels rot at the wharfs, little satisfaction will it be to the farmer, the miller and the merchant, that they all used to be employed in cultivating and distributing the necessaries of life. When a man is reduced to beggary for want of a vent of his goods, it signifies not a farthing to him, whether these goods were necessaries of life, or luxuries. No; it is the pecuniary gains, arising from trading with a nation, which ought to give, or which can give, that nation a right, or a power, to exact commercial advantages; and not the nature of the merchandise she has to export.

2. Because the British West Indies are in a state of dependence upon you. For my part, I cannot conceive how they make out this state of dependence. The exportation of your articles being as necessary to you, as the importation of them is to the islands, you depend upon them as much as they depend upon you. You receive sugar, molasses, coffee and rum, from the islands; these, too, are necessaries of life; and such as you could not possibly do without. I cannot pretend to say what proportion your imports from the islands bear to your exports to them; but there must be a balance of trade either for or against you. If you receive more of the necessaries of life from the islands than you carry to them, they cannot be in a state of dependence, on that account: if the balance be in your favour, then the trade is an advantageous one for you, and, if it makes a dependence on either side, it makes you dependent on the islands. Observe here, that the patriots suppose you have the power of compelling Great Britain to do what you please, because, in her trade with you, the balance is greatly in her favour, and because, in your trade with the West Indies, the balance is in your favour. Thus the West India Islands are in a state of dependence on you, because you gain by them; and Great Britain is in the same state, because she gains by you! No wonder the citizens of the United States should think themselves sovereigns.

3. Because the balance of trade with Great Britain is greatly in her favour. This balance of trade, assert the patriots, is to give you what terms you please to exact, “if you pursue the means that are in your power.” These means are prohibiting the importation of British merchandise; and this, they assert, would do her much more harm than it would you. A better reason of action than this might perhaps be found; but as it seems to be a favourite one with them, and indeed the only one by which they are actuated, I shall take them up upon it, and endeavour to convince you that they are mistaken.

I will suppose, with the patriots, that the manufactures you receive from Great Britain are not necessary to you. I will suppose that you have the capitals and raw materials for establishing manufactories of your own; I will suppose one-third of your peasants and sailors changed by a presto into weavers, combers, fullers, whitesmiths, &c. &c.; I will suppose the manufactories going on, and all of you inspired with patriotism enough to be happy, dressed in the work of their hands; I will suppose, in short, that you no longer stand in need of British manufactures. This is allowing my adversaries every thing they can ask, and all I ask of them in return, is to allow me, that Great Britain stands in no need of your manufactures. If they do not refuse me this, as I think they cannot, I have not the least doubt but I shall prove, that cutting off all communication between the countries, would injure you more than Great Britain.

The imports being prohibited on each side, and both being able to do without them, the injury must arise from the stoppage being put to the exports; and as Great Britain sells you much more than you sell her, the patriots maintain that this stoppage would do her more harm than it would you. This was the shield and buckler of Mr. Madison. He compared the United States to a country gentleman, and Great Britain to a pedlar; and declared that you might do without her, but that she could not do without you.

How illusive this is we shall see in a minute. It is a maxim of commerce, that the exports of a nation are the source of her riches, and that, in proportion as you take from that source, she is injured and enfeebled; hence it follows, that cutting off the communication between Great Britain and you, would injure her more than you, in proportion to the balance now in her favour; that is to say, if the total of her exports and the total of your exports were to the same amount. But this is far from being the case: your exports amount to no more than twenty millions of dollars, or thereabouts, nine millions of which go to Great Britain and her dominions, while the exports of Great Britain amount to one hundred millions of dollars, no more than fifteen millions of which come to the United States. Suppose, then, all communication cut off at once; you would lose nine-twentieths of your exports, while Great Britain would lose only fifteen-hundredths of hers: so that, if there be any truth in arithmetic, you would injure yourselves three times as much as you would her.

If what I have advanced on the subject be correct, “the nature and extent of your exports” do not give you a power “to demand, to exact, to compel,” what conditions you please in your commercial relations with Great Britain; and it follows, of course, that Franklin and the citizens of the Boston town-meeting are mistaken.

Art. XVI. Relates to consuls.

This article has not been meddled with as yet.

Art. XVII. Permits, or rather expressly stipulates, for what is allowed by the law of nations, the seizing of an enemy’s property on board the vessels of either party.

Art. XVIII. Specifies what are contraband articles, and settles an honourable and equitable system of seizure.

As these two articles have been objected to by nobody but the agents of France, as they seem to affect the French more than anybody else, and as that august diet, the Convention, may be at this time debating on the subject, it would be presumption in the extreme for me to hazard an opinion on it.

Art. XIX. Provides for the protection of the vessels and property of the subjects and citizens of the contracting parties.

I have heard nothing urged against this article.

Art. XX. Stipulates that the two contracting parties will not only refuse to receive pirates into their ports &c., but that they will do the utmost in their power to bring them to punishment.

Without objection, for any thing I have heard.

Art. XXI. Stipulates that the subjects and citizens of each of the contracting parties shall not commit violence on those of the other party, nor serve in the fleets or armies, or accept of commissions from its enemies.

Some of the friends of neutrality object to this, as it prevents them from assisting the French, and from making war upon Great Britain for the future, under the cloak of neutrality.

Art. XXII. Stipulates that no act of reprisal shall take place between the parties, unless justice has first been demanded and refused, or unreasonably delayed.

This is opposed by the friends of sequestration and confiscation, as it would give people time to shelter their property from the claws of the patriots.

Art. XXIII, XXIV, and XXV, Provide certain regulations concerning ships of war, privateers, and prizes taken from the enemies of the contracting parties.

Much was said about these articles, till it was proved that they were copied from the treaty of commerce made between France and England since the American war, since your treaty with France. This was a circumstance that the patriots, who are none of the best read in such things, were not aware of.

Art. XXVI. Provides for the security and tranquillity of the subjects and citizens of the two parties living in the territory of each other at the breaking out of a war.

This article has escaped censure.

Art. XXVII. Stipulates for the giving up of murderers and forgers.

From the description of the persons who have hitherto opposed the treaty, and from the futility of the reasons they have given for their opposition, there is every reason to imagine that great part of them object (in the bottom of their hearts) to this article only. If this be the case, it is pity the article was introduced. Forgers and murderers, if left to themselves for a time after their flight, would not fail to meet the fate which the article was made to ensure to them, and it is little matter in what country they suffer.

Art. XXVIII. Relates to the duration of the foregoing ones, and the ratification of the treaty.

This article, which ends the treaty, is of such a nature as to admit of no objection.

Now, you will observe that it is not my intention to render this treaty palatable to you; I shall not insist, therefore, that the terms of it are as advantageous as you might wish or expect them to be; but I insist that they are as advantageous as you ought to have expected. Great Britain grants you favours she has never granted to any other nation; and that no other nation, not even your sister republic, has granted you. Nor can it be said that in return, you grant her favours which you have not granted to other nations; several favours granted to France you have still withheld from Great Britain, even if the present treaty goes into effect. Great Britain does not, then, receive favours, as it has been absurdly asserted, but she grants them.

I cannot dismiss this part of my subject without observing, that Charles Fox made in the British Parliament exactly the same objections to the treaty as the patriots in this country have made. It was humiliating to Great Britain, he said. Unfortunate, indeed, must be the negotiators who have made a treaty humiliating to both the contracting parties! Mr. Fox’s censure is the best comment in the world on that of the American patriots, and theirs on his.

I now come to the third object of the censure of Franklin: the conduct of the President relative to the treaty.

III. That, supposing the terms of the treaty to be what every good American ought to approve, yet the conduct of the President, relative to the negotiation and promulgation of it, has been highly improper and even monarchical, and for which he deserves to be impeached.

Franklin has not obliged the world with articles of impeachment regularly drawn up; but, as far as can be gathered from his letters, he would have the chief magistrate of the union impeached: 1st, for having appointed Mr. Jay as Envoy Extraordinary; 2nd, for having appointed an Envoy Extraordinary on this occasion contrary to the opinion of the House of Representatives and of the democratic society; 3rd, for his reserve towards the Senate, previous to Mr. Jay’s departure; 4th, for his reserve towards the people; and 5th, for having evaded a new treaty with France, while he courted one with Great Britain.

The first of these, the appointing of Mr. Jay as Envoy Extraordinary, is declared to be unconstitutional.

“The man of the people,” says Franklin, “it was believed, would not have consented to, much less have originated a mission, hostile to the constitution, unfriendly to the functions of the legislature, and insulting to a great people struggling against tyrants. The appointment of the Chief Justice of the United States as Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of Great Britain put to defiance the compact under which we have associated, and made the will of the executive paramount to the general will of the people. The principle laid down by this appointment, strikes at the root of our civil security; nay, it aims a deadly blow at liberty itself.”

The word unconstitutional is with the opposers of the government a word of vast import: it means any thing they please to have it mean. In their acceptation of the word, therefore, I cannot pretend to say that the conduct of the President, in appointing Mr. Jay, was not unconstitutional; but if unconstitutional be allowed to mean something contrary to the constitution, I think it would be very difficult to prove that the appointment was unconstitutional; for certain it is there is no article in the Constitution that forbids, either literally or by implication, the employing of a Chief Justice of the United States on an extraordinary embassy.

“The constitution,” says Franklin, “has provided that the different departments of government should be kept distinct, and, consequently, to unite them is a violation of it, and an encroachment on the liberties of the people, guaranteed by that instrument.—The appointment of John Jay, Chief Justice of the United States, as Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of Great Britain, is contrary to the spirit and meaning of the constitution; as it unites in the same person judicial and legislative functions.”

If, as it is here asserted, the President had united the judicial with the legislative functions, it must be confessed that he would have departed from the spirit and meaning of the constitution; but has the mere negotiation of a treaty anything to do with the legislative functions? It appears to me not. Treaties are the supreme law of the land, and therefore the sanctioning of them, the making of them laws, is a legislative act; but the mere drawing of them up, the preparing of them for the discussion of the legislature, is no legislative act at all.

If negotiating be a legislative act, it naturally follows that nobody but the legislature, or some member or members of it, could be employed in a negotiation; and the constitution expressly provides that

“No member of Congress shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office, under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created during such time.”

Thus, then, if the spirit of the constitution makes negotiating a legislative act, and consequently requires a legislator to negotiate a treaty, and the letter positively forbids it, the whole clause respecting treaties is superfluous, for there ought never to be any such thing as treaties.

When the secretary of either department brings forward a plan for the consideration of Congress, does he act in a legislative capacity? And what more is an unratified treaty? In short, if a negotiator acts in a legislative capacity, so does every petitioner; nay, every clerk and printer employed by Congress.

The Chief Justice is further objected to as an Envoy Extraordinary on this occasion, because

“Treaties being the supreme law of the land, it becomes the duty of the judiciary to expound and apply them; and therefore, to permit an officer in that department to share in their formation, is to unite distinct functions, tends to level the barriers of our freedom, and to establish precedents pregnant with danger.”

If the mere formation of laws by gentlemen of the bar tends to level the barriers of your freedom, I am afraid the barriers of your freedom are already levelled; for I believe there are very few laws that do not pass through their hands, or concerning which their advice is not asked, before they are sanctioned, Franklin (perhaps through ignorance) confounds the formation with the making of a law; how essentially they differ I leave you to determine.

If it be unsafe to trust the expounding and applying of a law to him who has assisted in framing it, must it not be much more unsafe to trust the expounding and application of it to those who have assisted in making it? And, is it not, then, unsafe to admit gentlemen of the law into Congress, without incapacitating them from pleading at the bar, or, at least, from becoming judges for ever after? Suppose, for instance, that one of the present senators were to be appointed Chief Justice in the room of Mr. Jay, would he not have to expound and apply the treaty which he has just assisted in making? And should some of the gentlemen of the other House be, at a future period, appointed judges of the supreme court, would they not have to apply the laws, which, as legislators, they have assisted in making?

But, at any rate, had this objection been well founded; had there been cause to fear the consequences of leaving the treaty to be expounded and applied by him who had assisted in framing it, the danger is now over: Mr. Jay is no more Chief Justice; ^{Ref 040} the freemen of the State of New York knew how to estimate his merit rather better than Franklin. Fortune seems to have lent a hand in depriving the enemies of the government of all grounds of complaint, and yet they make a shift to keep the union in an uproar.

Another objection to sending the Chief Justice on this mission, is, that a President might thereby escape from the hands of justice, or, at least, elude a trial.

“From the nature,” says Franklin, “and terms of an impeachment against a President of the United States, it is not only necessary that the Chief Justice of the United States should preside in the Senate, but that he should be above the bias which the honour and emolument in the gift of the Executive might create.”

Tis true, the Constitution says, that,

“When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.”

But, waiving the insolence and most patriotic ingratitude of this insinuation; admitting your President to be what Franklin would make you believe he is, and that the necessity of impeaching him was a thing to be expected, I cannot perceive any great inconvenience that could arise from the absence of the Chief Justice. The President could not be impeached before the opening of Congress, and by that time it was reasonable to suppose, that the object of the extraordinary mission would be accomplished, and the Envoy ready to return. An impeachment against the President could hardly be hurried on in such a manner as not to leave an interval of four months between his accusation and trial, a space quite sufficient for recalling the Chief Justice.

Franklin, conscious that Mr. Jay’s character for wisdom and integrity was unimpeachable, has conjured up against him an opinion, which he gave some time ago, concerning the Western Posts. He says:—

“After the declaration made by John Jay, that Great Britain was justifiable in her detention of the Western Posts, it was a sacrifice of the interest and peace of the United States to commit a negotiation to him in which the evacuation of those posts ought to form an essential part.”

This unqualified declaration,

“That Great Britain was justifiable in her detention of the Western Posts,”

Is a most shameful misrepresentation of Mr. Jay’s opinion on the subject. By this declaration Franklin insinuates, that Mr. Jay had given it as his opinion that Great Britain would be justifiable in her detention of the Western Posts for ever; whereas his opinion was, that she was justifiable in detaining those Posts, only till the stipulation of the treaty of peace with respect to debts, due to British subjects from some of the States, should be fulfilled.

Must not those people, who so boldly assured you, that John Jay would betray your interests, that he would sell the Western Posts, &c., have blushed when they saw that a surrender of these Posts was the first thing he had stipulated for? No; a patriot’s skin is like the shield of a Grecian hero; blood cannot penetrate through “ten bull hides.”

The following anecdote will at once prove the injustice of charging Mr. Jay with a wish to abandon the Western Posts to the British, and confirm the prudence of the President’s choice.

“At the time of laying the foundation of the peace of 1783, ^{Ref 041} M. de Vergennes, actuated by secret motives, wished to engage the ambassadors of Congress to confine their demands to the fisheries, and to renounce the Western Territory. The minister required particularly, that the independence of America should not be considered as the basis of the peace, but, simply, that it should be conditional. To succeed in this project, it was necessary to gain over Jay and Adams. Mr. Jay declared to M. de Vergennes, that he would sooner lose his life than sign such a treaty; that the Americans fought for independence; that they would never lay down their arms till it should be fully consecrated; that the Court of France had recognised it; and that there would be a contradiction in her conduct, if she deviated from that point. It was not difficult for Mr. Jay to bring Mr. Adams to his determination; and M. de Vergennes could never shake his firmness.”

This is the man whom the patriots accuse of intentions of rendering the United States dependent on Great Britain, and of abandoning the Western Posts! This is the man, who, after twenty years spent in the service of his country, after having a second time ensured its happiness and prosperity, is called “a slave, a coward, a traitor,” and is burnt in effigy for having “bartered its liberty for British gold!”

2. Franklin would have the President impeached, for having appointed an Envoy Extraordinary to Great Britain contrary to the opinion of the majority of the House of Representatives.

“A majority of that House,” says Franklin, “were in favour of dignified and energetic measures; they spurned the idea of a patient and ignominious submission to robbery and outrage. The different propositions of Messrs. Madison, Clarke, and Dayton, substantiate this assertion. And yet the Executive nominated an Envoy Extraordinary in coincidence with the minority, apparently to defeat the intentions of the representatives of the people. This fact is serious and alarming.”

That the President did nominate, and, by and with the advice of the Senate, appoint, the Envoy Extraordinary, contrary to the opinion of the majority of the House of Representatives, is, at least, doubtful, because no such question could be agitated in that House; but that he would have been justifiable in so doing is not doubtful at all. Your Constitution, which this demagogue affects to call the palladium of your liberty, says, that the President, with the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors &c., and not a word about the House of Representatives.

Besides, as to the fact, how did the appointment of the Envoy interfere with the dignified and energetic measures? They were adopted by the House of Representatives, and presented to the Senate, who rejected them, and who would have rejected them, whether the Envoy had been previously appointed or not. This is evident, because had they intended to sanction the dignified and energetic measures, they would not have appointed the Envoy; and therefore, by delaying the appointment, till these measures were rejected by the Senate, nothing could have been gained but a loss of time.

Franklin seems to triumph in proving, that the President acted contrary to the opinion of the House of Representatives. I have already observed that that House had nothing to do in the appointment in question; but, even suppose they had, is the Senate nothing? What is the use of three branches in the Constitution, if two of them must ever yield to the will of a third, or the whim of a faction? To what end has a power been given to the Senate to reject bills sent to them by the other House, if they are never to exercise it, unless it should happen to be agreeable to the democratic clubs? In short, why is there a Senate and President at all?

If the immediate representatives of the people, as Franklin is pleased to call them, were permitted to decide upon treaties, there is no one act of authority that they would not soon exercise exclusively. Very soon would the whole power of the state be consecrated into one heterogeneous assembly split up into committees of confiscation, war, and murder. Very soon would your legislature resemble that of your sister republic, where every crude idea that comes athwart the brain of a harlequin legislator, becomes a law in the space of five minutes, and issues forth amidst the acclamations of the sovereign people, bearing terror and devastation through the land. You may thank God that your Constitution has provided against a legislative scourge like this. It is this prudent provision alone that has saved you from the dreadful consequences, which the dignified and energetic measures of the triumvirate, Madison, Clarke, and Dayton would most inevitably have produced.

After having censured the President for not acting in coincidence with the sentiment of the majority of the House of Representatives, Franklin returns to the charge by censuring him for acting in coincidence with the sentiment of the minority of the same House; this he calls “a serious and an alarming fact,” just as if it was not an unavoidable consequence of the other. But, is it not a little extraordinary to hear him censure the President for acting in coincidence with the minority of the House of Representatives, when a few pages before, he censures him for not acting in coincidence with the sentiment of the respectable minority of the Senate? Perhaps the epithet respectable, which Franklin has bestowed on his minority of the Senate, renders them superior to the majority, and if so, their opinion certainly ought to have been followed. But, the truth is, I believe, this respectable minority of the Senate were in favour of those dignified and energetic or dragooning, plundering, measures, which the President did not approve of, and so were the majority of the House of Representatives; and this is the reason why Franklin, who is a sort of war trumpet, would have had him guided by the minority of one house and the majority of the other.

The President’s having acted in coincidence with the minority of the House of Representatives ought to be looked upon as a mere matter of accident; for, on the appointment of an Envoy, it was not necessary for him to take cognizance of what was passing amongst them; but as to his acting in coincidence with the majority of the Senate, it was a duty that the Constitution imposed on him. According to the wish of Franklin, the President should have rejected the advice of that branch of the legislature which the Constitution has associated with him in the appointment of an Envoy, to adhere to the advice of another branch, to which the Constitution has allotted no participation in such appointments. This is what the patriots would have called acting constitutionally.

There was no person of the least discernment who was not well assured that the object of your patriotic members of Congress, was to reduce you to the necessity of making a common cause with the French. I know they pretended, that they wished to preserve peace. With this desirable object in view, one proposed laying such duties on British merchandise and ships, as would go nearly to a prohibition; another proposed an entire prohibition; and a third, in order to preserve peace with Great Britain, proposed seizing all debts and funds, the property of British subjects!

I am totally at a loss to account for these gentlemen’s motives in endeavouring to plunge this country into a war with Great Britain. I will not affect to believe, that they were under the influence of foreign gold, though I believe them to be as corruptible, at least, as Mr. Jay. Interested considerations could have no weight with them; for, they appear to have lost all idea of private as well as public interest. But whatever might be their motives, the measures they proposed were fraught with beggary, ruin, and dishonour, and if the President, by his nomination of the Envoy to Great Britain, contributed to their being rejected, though supported by the majority of the House of Representatives, he is entitled to the blessing of every lover of this country.

3. Franklin would have the President impeached, for his reserve towards the Senate previous to Mr. Jay’s departure. Franklin says,

“The advice of the Senate was not taken in the treaty with Great Britain.”

By this, he ought to mean, that the Senate was not informed of the particular objects to be obtained by Mr. Jay’s mission; for, if he means (which is possible) that their advice was not taken on the subject of the mission itself, and of the person to be employed on it, he wishes to impose on the unwary what he knows to be untrue. On these subjects their advice was taken, and any further it was not necessary, either in a constitutional or prudential point of view.

“By the Constitution,” says Franklin, “all treaties are to be made by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The term advice has a natural and obvious reference to the negotiation; that no negotiation shall be entered into but with the advice of the Senate.”

Before I take the liberty of contradicting here, give me leave to make Franklin contradict himself.

“The President,” says he, in another place, “has power by and with the advice and consent of the Senate to conclude treaties; that is, the Senate has the power to accept or reject any treaty negotiated by the President; but this power has not gone to prevent him from opening a negotiation with any nation he thought proper.”

This patriot was determined no one should triumph in confuting him. A disputant that thus contradicts himself point blank without any kind of ceremony or apology, sets his adversary at defiance.

Reserving myself till by-and-by to account for these contradictory expositions of the same text, I am ready to allow, that the latter of them exactly meets my sentiments: that is, that the share of power, in making treaties, allotted to the Senate, does not go to prevent the President from opening a negotiation with any nation he may think proper. This is so clearly pointed out by the Constitution, that one is astonished to hear it controverted by persons capable of reading.

“He shall,” says that instrument, “have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators present concur: and he shall nominate, and, by and with the advice of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors,” &c.

And yet Franklin, in one place, insists that the term advice has a natural and obvious reference to the negotiation only;

“For,” says he, “it would be the extremity of absurdity to say, that advice was necessary after the thing was done.”

The natural and obvious sense, and, indeed, the only sense of the clause of the Constitution just quoted, is, in my opinion, that the Senate is to be consulted in making treaties, but not in opening negotiations.

Franklin has had the ingenuity to give to the words advice and consent an application, that most certainly never entered into the thoughts of those who framed the Constitution. Can he be serious in confining advice to what precedes the negotiation, and consent to what follows it? If this were correct, the Senate ought never to give their consent to a negotiation, nor their advice concerning a ratification.

To me the sense of the Constitution is extremely clear, as to this point. The words advice and consent have both a reference to what follows the negotiation; and this will fully appear, if their import in the latter part of the above clause be well weighed. “The President shall nominate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint ambassadors,” &c. Now, if advice in the making of treaties, has a natural and obvious reference to negotiation, so, in the appointment of ambassadors, it must have reference to nomination. I leave any one to judge how nonsensical it would have been to authorize the Senate to consent to the appointment of a person, whose nomination they had before advised; and yet it would not be more so than to give them the power of consenting to the terms of a treaty formed by their advice.

Indeed, it would be slandering the Constitution, to suppose that it contained any thing approaching so near to the anarchical, as to subject the particular objects of a negotiation to an assembly, not obliged to secrecy, before the negotiation is opened. Were this ever to be the case, it is easy to foresee that it would be impossible to conclude any treaty of moment, or, at least, to conclude it with advantage. Suppose, for instance, that the threatened rupture with Great Britain had rendered it necessary for you to form a close alliance with some power in Europe, and that the President had been obliged to make known every stipulation to be made on your part, before the departure of the Envoy; can you believe that the affair would have been kept secret till concluded? or even till it was begun? No; I’ll be hanged if it would. It would have been known in London long before the Envoy’s arrival in Europe, and you would have had an English fleet upon your coast, before he could possibly have fulfilled his mission.

4. The President ought to be impeached, according to Franklin, for his reserve towards the people.

When ignorance or factiousness, or both together, have led a man beyond the bounds of truth and candour, they never let him go, till they have plunged him into an abyss of absurdity. Thus has it happened to Franklin. After having persuaded himself that the President ought to withhold nothing from the knowledge of the other branches of the legislature, it was natural for him to pursue the error, till he found, that,

“To withhold the contents of a treaty from the people, till it was ratified, indicated a contempt for public opinion, and a monarchical supremacy.”

“In the compact,” says Franklin, “entered into by the citizens of the United States, certain concessions were made by them, and these concessions are specified in the Constitution; but have they conceded a right to an acquaintance with their own affairs?”

Yes, if his question applies, as it evidently does, to the terms of an unratified treaty, the people have conceded a right to an acquaintance with their own affairs; for, in the right of making treaties is necessarily included the right of observing a prudent secrecy concerning them, and, as the former is expressly conceded to the President and the Senate, so is the latter. The people have conceded the right of making treaties, and the concession is unconditional; they have made it without reserving to themselves the right of demanding their promulgation, before they become the law of the land; without reserving to themselves the right of advising, disputing, and caballing about their contents, before they are known, or of tormenting and reviling the Executive, and burning the negotiators in effigy, when their contents are known.

5. Franklin would advise the impeachment of the President, for having evaded a new treaty with France, while he courted one with Great Britain.

This is the great offence; to bring this home to the President seems to have been the chief object of Franklin, who is affected by nothing that does not concern the French Republic.

“We have,” says Franklin, “treated the overtures of France for a treaty with neglect. The nation that has barbarously insulted us, and plundered us, we have courted, meanly courted, and the nation on whom our political existence depends, and who has treated us with affection, we have treated with indifference bordering on contempt. Citizen Genet was empowered to propose a treaty with us on liberal principles, sch as might strengthen the bonds of goodwill which unite the two nations.”

How your government has courted Great Britain, how your political existence depends on France, and how she has treated you with affection, we have already seen; it only remains for us to see what were the “liberal principles” which citizen Genet was authorized to treat upon, and whether it was prudent on your part to refuse to treat upon those “liberal principles,” or not.

But previously it is necessary to observe, that let these “liberal principles” be what they might, the President’s conduct in refusing or evading to treat on them could amount to no more than imprudence. The President, I agree, has power to open negotiations with any nation he thinks proper, and then, says Franklin, “Why did he not treat with citizen Genet?” To which I answer, that the Constitution, in authorizing the President to open negotiations with any nation whom he thinks proper to treat with, has not obliged him to open negotiations with every nation that thinks proper to treat with him. It has not obliged him to open negotiations with a nation so circumstanced as not to be depended on for the value of a cargo of flour, with a nation in jeopardy, with an assembly who had declared themselves a committee of insurrection against every government on earth not founded on their principles, with an Executive Council composed of half a dozen unhappy wretches, who were all either publicly executed or outlawed before the treaty with them could have been ratified: no; the Constitution has obliged him to nothing of this sort—if it had, I am sure he never would have accepted the post of President. The Constitution has left it entirely to his own prudence to make or to avoid treaties; whether he has on the present occasion made a good use of the trust reposed in him, or not, we shall now see.

Soon after the citizen’s arrival at Philadelphia, he announced to the President, through the Secretary of State, that he was authorized to open a negotiation with the government of the United States. I have not room to give you his letter at length here:—

“Sir,—Single against innumerable hordes of tyrants and slaves, who menace her rising liberty, the French nation would have a right to reclaim the obligations imposed on the United States by the treaties she has contracted with them, and which she has cemented with her blood; but, strong in the greatness of her means, and of the power of her principles, not less redoubtable to her enemies, than the victorious arm which she opposes to their rage, she comes, in the very time when the emissaries of our common enemies are making useless efforts to neutralize the gratitude, to damp the zeal, to weaken or cloud the view of your fellow citizens; she comes, I say, that generous nation, that faithful friend, to labour still to increase the prosperity and add to the happiness which she is pleased to see them enjoy.”

“The obstacles raised, with intentions hostile to liberty, by the perfidious ministers of despotism; the obstacles whose object was to stop the rapid progress of the commerce of the Americans, and the extension of their principles, exist no more. The French Republic, seeing in them brothers, has opened to them by the decrees now enclosed, all her ports in the two worlds; has granted them all the favours her own citizens enjoy in her vast possessions; has invited them to participate in the benefits of her navigation, in granting to their vessels the same rights as to her own; and has charged me to propose to your government to establish a true family compact, that is, in a national compact, the liberal and fraternal basis on which she wishes to see raised the commercial and political system of two people, all whose interests are confounded.

I am invested, Sir, with the power necessary to undertake this important negotiation, of which the sad annals of humanity offered no example before the brilliant era at length opening on it.”

This letter admits of half-a-dozen interpretations. One would imagine by its outset that the French convention was graciously pleased to suffer you to remain in peace,

“Notwithstanding she had a right to reclaim the obligations imposed on the United States, and which she had cemented with her blood.”

But what follows seems to overturn this supposition, for the Citizen declares that

“The emissaries of your common enemies were making useless efforts to neutralize the gratitude and to damp the zeal of your fellow citizens,” &c.

Citizen Genet arrived soon after the proclamation of neutrality ^{Ref 042} was issued, and he took the earliest opportunity of declaring that useless efforts had been made to neutralize the gratitude of the citizens of America; and yet Franklin and all the other stipendiaries of France assert, that

“France, with a magnanimity which she alone seems susceptible of, has not urged the fulfilment of her treaty with you; but that she has expressed her wish, and her conduct has proved it, that you should remain in peace.”

At the same time that the Citizen came forward with his republican fanfaronnade to propose negotiations, he carried in his pocket certain instructions according to which the proposed treaty was to be formed, and from which he could not depart. By the extracts that I am going to make from those instructions, it will appear to every one of you who is not so prepossessed in favour of the French as to be incapable of conviction, that the new treaty was to accord you no advantages of which your participation in the war was not to be the price, and that citizen Genet was to plunge you into a war, with or without the consent of your government, to make a diversion in favour of France at the expense of your prosperity, and even your very existence as a nation.

Citizen Genet, though abundantly assuming and insolent, though uniting the levity of a Frenchman to the boorishness of a Calmuc, though deserving of much censure from your government, has, however, been loaded with a great deal of unmerited odium by the people of the United States. The man acted in full conformity to his instructions in all his attacks on your independence, and therefore his conduct is to be attributed to the Government of France, or the sovereign people of that happy Republic, and not to the poor Citizen himself. He was a mere machine in the business, and his not being ordered home to answer for his conduct is a strong presumptive proof that the sovereigns of France approved of it, without daring to avow it openly. I say without daring to avow it; because, though you could not have directly chastised them, yet they wanted your flour, and it is well known that empty cupboards are no less formidable than great guns.

Now for the Citizen’s instructions:—

“Struck with the grandeur and importance of this negotiation, the Executive Council prescribed to citizen Genet, to exert himself to strengthen the Americans in the principles which led them to unite themselves to France: The Executive Council are disposed to set on foot a negotiation upon those foundations, and they do not know but that such a treaty admits a latitude still more extensive in becoming a national agreement, in which two great people shall suspend their commercial and political interests, to befriend the empire of liberty, wherever it can be embraced, and punish those powers who still keep up an exclusive colonial and commercial system, by declaring that their vessels shall not be received in the ports of the contracting parties. ^{Ref 043} Such a pact, which the people of France will support with all the energy which distinguishes them, will quickly contribute to the general emancipation of the New World. It is to convince the Americans of the practicability of this that citizen Genet must direct all his attention: for, besides the advantages which humanity (humanity!!) will draw from the success of such a negotiation, we have at this moment a particular interest in taking steps to act efficaciously against England and Spain, if, as every thing announces, these powers attack us. And in this situation of affairs we ought to excite, by all possible means, the zeal of the Americans. ^{Ref 044} The Executive Council has room to believe that the consideration of their own independence depending on our success, added to the great commercial advantages which we are disposed to concede to the United States, will determine their government to adhere to all that citizen Genet shall propose to them on our part. As it is possible, however, that they may adopt a timid and wavering conduct, the Executive Council charges him, in expectation that the American government will finally determine to make a common cause with us, to take such steps as will appear to him exigencies may require, to serve the cause of liberty and the freedom of the people. Citizen Genet is to prevent all equipments in the American ports, unless upon account of the French nation. He will take care to explain himself upon this object with the dignity and energy of the representative of a great people, who in faithfully fulfilling their engagements know how to make (ah! make!) their rights respected. The guarantee of the West India islands is to form an essential clause in the new treaty. Citizen Genet will sound early the disposition of the American government, and make this a condition, sine qua non, of their free commerce to the West Indies, so essential to the United States. The minister of the marine department will transmit to him a certain number of blank letters of marque, which he will deliver to such French and American owners as shall apply for the same. The minister at war shall likewise deliver to citizen Genet officers’ commissions in blank for several grades (ranks) in the army.”

Now, was your taking part in the war that your sister is carrying on for the good of the human race to be the price of a treaty with her, or was it not?—The President, then, has not only acted consistently with his duty in avoiding it, but consistently also with your sentiments, already decidedly expressed by your approbation of his proclamation of neutrality.

But, say the patriots, we could forgive him for not treating with France, if he had not treated with Great Britain. He treated with her while he refused to treat with our French brethren. But, for this accusation to have any weight with even the friends of France, it ought to be proved that the treaty negotiated with Great Britain bears some resemblance at least to the one proposed by Citizen Genet. Can this be done? Has the President stipulated with Great Britain to suspend your “commercial and political interests in order to befriend the empire of liberty, wherever it can be embraced?” Has he promised that you shall “contribute to the general emancipation of the New World?” Has Great Britain asked you to assist her in the war? Are you to make a “common cause with her?” Has she made your “guarantee of her islands an essential clause in the treaty, and a sine qua non of your free commerce with them?” Where, then, is the likeness between the two treaties? And if there be none, by what sort of patriotic reasoning do they prove that the President, because he had refused to treat with France, ought not to have treated with Great Britain? This, however, appears to be the heaviest charge against him.

“So bold an attack,” says your demagogue Franklin, “upon the palladium of our rights deserves a serious inquiry. However meritorious a motion for such an inquiry might be, if suggested in the Senate, yet it could not be considered in place; for inquiries of this sort belong to the House of Representatives, as the Senate are the constitutional judges to try impeachments. If the grand inquest of the nation, the House of Representatives, will suffer so flagrant a breach of the Constitution to pass unnoticed, we may conclude that virtue and patriotism have abandoned our country.”

Hence you are to conclude, then, that General Washington must be impeached, or virtue and patriotism have abandoned your country.

It is not for an Englishman to determine whether this be true or not; but, if it be true, you will excuse him for saying, The Lord have mercy upon your country!

The only fair way for you to judge of the President’s conduct relative to the treaty negotiated with Great Britain, and the one proposed by France, is, to draw a comparison between your present situation, and the situation in which you would have now been, had he followed a different conduct. As the tree is known by its fruit, so are the measures of the statesman by their effects. Look round you, and observe well the spectacle that the United States present at this moment. Imagine its reverse, and you have an idea of what would have been your situation, had the President yielded to the proposals of citizen Genet, or those of the war party in Congress. The produce of the country would have been at about one-third of its present price, while every imported article would have risen in a like proportion. The farmer must have sold his wheat at four shillings a bushel in place of fourteen, and in place of giving four dollars a yard for cloth, he must have given ten or twelve. Houses and lands, instead of being risen to triple their former value, as they now are, would have fallen to one-third of that value, and must, at the same time, have been taxed to nearly half their rent. In short, you would have been in the same situation as you were in 1777, and without the same means of extricating yourself from it. However, such a situation might, perhaps, be a desirable one to you. Habit does great things. People who were revolution mad, might look back with regret to the epoch just mentioned, and might even view with envy the effects of the French Revolution. If so, it is by no means too late yet; the President has only to refuse his ratification of the treaty with Great Britain, and adopt the measures proposed by the honest and incorruptible friends of the French Republic, and you may soon have your fill of what you desire. If you have wished to enjoy once more the charms of change, and taste the sweets of war and anarchy (for I look upon them as inseparable in this country), then the President may merit an impeachment at your hands; but, if you have desired to live in peace and plenty, while the rest of the world has been ravaged and desolated, to accuse the President now, is to resemble the crew of ungrateful buccaniers, who, having safely arrived in port, cut the throat of their pilot.