the other revenues will soon be called into their aid, and it will be a source of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State; and they will always get most who are meanest. We have thought, hitherto, that the roads of a State could not be so well administered even by the State Legislature as by the magistracy of the county, on the spot. How will they be when a member of New Hampshire is to mark out a road for Georgia? Does the power to establish post roads, given you by the Constitution, mean that you shall make the roads, or only select from those already made, those on which there shall be a post? If the term be equivocal (and I really do not think it so), which is the safest construction? That which permits a majority of Congress to go to cutting down mountains and bridging of rivers, or the other, which if too restricted may be referred to the States for amendment, securing still due measures and proportion among us, and providing some means of information to the members of Congress tantamount to that ocular inspection, which, even in our county determinations, the magistrate finds cannot be supplied by any other evidence? The fortification of harbors was liable to great objection. But national circumstances furnished some color. In this case there is none. The roads of America are the best in the world except those of France and England. But does the state of our population, the extent of our internal commerce, the want of sea and river navigation, call for such expense on roads here, or are our means adequate to it? Think of all this, and a great deal more which your good judgment will suggest, and pardon my freedom."

In a letter to Mr. Giles, March 19th, he alludes sarcastically to a bill, said to have been contemplated by one of the Federal great men," Theodore Sedgwick:

"We are in suspense here to see the fate and effect of Mr. Pitt's bill against democratic societies. I wish extremely to get at the true history of this effort to suppress freedom of meeting, speaking, writing, and printing. Your acquaintance with Sedgwick will enable you to do it. Pray get the outlines of the bill he intended to have brought in for this purpose. This will enable us to judge whether we have the merit of the invention; whether we were really beforehand with the British Minister on this subject; whether he took his hint from our proposition, or whether the concurrence in sentiment is merely the result of the general truth that great men will think alike and act alike, though without intercommunication. I am serious in desiring extremely the outlines of the bill intended for us."

Another passage in the same letter expresses a degree of moderation towards England on the vexed question of impressments, which now fills us with astonishment; but it was the extent to which President Washington's Cabinet had gone in their demands, when Jefferson was a member of it; and Mr. Pinckney had been instructed to "insist" upon it, and "to accept nothing short of it!" This furnishes another proof not only of the habitual exorbitant claims of that nation where we were concerned, but of the spirit of acquiescence, on some ques

CHAP. VI.]

IMPRESSMENTS, ETC.

291

tions, which even the bravest were disposed to exhibit, to avert another struggle with that dreaded power.

"From the debates on the subject of our seamen, I am afraid as much harm as good will be done by our endeavors to arm our seamen against impressments. It is proposed to register them and give them certificates. But these certificates will be lost in a thousand ways: a sailor will neglect to take his certificate: he is wet twenty times in a voyage: if he goes ashore without it, he is impressed: if with it, he gets drunk, it is lost, stolen from him, taken from him, and then the want of it gives authority to impress, which does not exist now. After ten years' attention to the subject, I have never been able to devise anything effectual, but that the circumstance of an American bottom be made ipso facto, a protection for a number of seamen proportioned to her tonnage; that American captains be obliged, when called on by foreign officers, to parade the men on deck, which would show whether they exceeded their own quota, and allow the foreign officer to send two or three persons aboard and hunt for any suspected to be concealed."

Mr. Jay's treaty had made concessions on other subjects which it has appeared did not quite satisfy himself, and which were condemned by Washington, Hamilton, and probably every man of spirit even among the defenders of the instrument; and it had not obtained a particle of modification, either in promise or practice, of the authority exercised by England to board our ships in every sea, and to seize such seamen as a petty British officer should decide, on any proof, or no proof, to be British subjects. That this authority had been exercised, and continued to be exercised, pending and after the treaty of London, with so contemptuous a disregard of right that the British officers appeared wholly indifferent whether they took Americans or Britons, was an undisputed point, among the most partial well informed apologists of England.'

Frequent complaints on this subject break from Hamilton. Contemporaneous occurrences, we may presume, drew the following remark from him in a letter to Wolcott, April 20, 1796, while the House of Representatives was acting on the Treaty of London: Yet the Government must take care not to appear pusillanimous. I hope a very serious remonstrance has long since gone against the wanton impressment of our seamen. It will be an error to be too tame with this overbearing Cabinet." (See letter in Gibbs's Memoirs, etc., vol. i. p. 330.)

Chauncey Goodrich, a leading Federal member of Congress from Connecticut, wrote to Oliver Wolcott, sen., April 9, 1796:

**I have been more confident than my Congressional friends of our ultimate success [in carrying the appropriations, etc., for the British Treaty through the House] and still trust that will be the case. Our affairs are very critical, and become daily more darkened. No circumstance could have been more unfortunate than the British impressment of seamen. There is a mystery in the business we can't fathom. What can induce them to cripple the vessels carrying them provisions and horses under contract, is unknown. I hope, however, that the people will continue temperate till this evil can be remedied." (See letter in Gibbs's Administrations, etc., vol. i. p. 326.)

Goodrich wrote the same, May 13th:

Mr. Liston arrived here last evening. The resolution of the Court of Great Britain in respect to the posts, originated from the mad conduct of the Democrats in our

On the 13th of April, Sedgwick moved in the House of Representatives, "that provision ought to be made by law, for carrying into effect with good faith the treaties lately concluded with the Dey and Regency of Algiers, the King of Great Britain, the King of Spain and certain Indian tribes northwest of Ohio."

The different treaties were grouped together for the purpose of compelling the House to make appropriations for carrying out the whole or rejecting them in mass; or failing in this, to have that plan revived and carried out in the Senate where the friends of the British Treaty had the ascendency. And it was further proposed, that the latter body make the passage of an entirely different class of bills, some of great and peculiar local importance, and others absolutely necessary, dependent upon the action of the House, on the British treaty-in the event of its failure, that the Senate refuse to agree on any adjournment-in short, that the wheels of government be brought to a stand.'

Finally, however, after an acrid debate, the House determined to dispose of the other treaties before taking up that with Great Britain. The resolution was amended in relation to

country. In that we can't so highly blame them, but their impressments are to me unaccountable and provoking." (See letter in Gibbs's Memoirs, etc., vol. i. p. 339.)

1 Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury, wrote his father, March, 1796: "Matters are now in such a train, that all the treaties must be swallowed by the Virginians, or their factious designs be fully disclosed. It is uncertain whether they will not venture to precipitate the country into the confusions which would result from a non-compliance; "but if they do, the Government will be at an end." (See letter in Gibbs's Memoirs, etc., vol. i. p. 321.)

In a letter from same to same, April 18th, it is distinctly declared that "the Senate will, he presumes, combine all the treaties together, and insist they shall share one fate." (Ib. p. 327.)

Chauncey Goodrich wrote Wolcott, sen., April 20: "You may be assured of the determination of the Senate to join the appropriation for the British treaty, with some one or all the others, and inflexibly resist any appropriation for the rest, unless it be also made for that." (Ib. p. 330.)

On the subject of the Senate making the passage of an entirely different class of bills dependent on the execution of the British treaty, Chauncey Goodrich wrote Oliver Wolcott, sen., April 23d:

As yet, on the most favorable calculation, six votes are to be secured for an execution of the treaty. It is not probable that they can be gained on the resolution before the committee; in that case, Mr. McClay's resolution is likely to be brought forward, to which, I think, we ought to prolong our stand as long as possible; but 'tis well known that the Senate will, as soon as the vote shall be had on the resolution before us, if unfortunate, tack an amendment providing for the British treaty, to the Spanish treaty bill, and inflexibly adhere for all or none. I am not warranted to assert, but I trust they will also arrest the Federal city loan bill, land office, perhaps appropriations for the army. refuse to rise; in short, arrest the whole Government, and let the people decide." (Ib. p. 331.)

It will be remembered that these are mostly but the gleams of the secret history of the period breaking from the secret correspondences of one little Federal coterie-what may be called the Wolcott Connecticut coterie-transmitted by a family biographer. We would give a good deal to see the unemasculated secret correspondences of Sedgwick, Harper, and some other Federal leaders.

CHAP. VI.]

DISCUSSION ON JAY'S TREATY.

293

the first, by striking out the words "provision ought to be made by law," and also the words "with good faith "--and inserting others implying nothing contrary to the proposition that the House, in this as in other matters, acted from considerations of expediency, and with liberty to pass or reject the appropriations. In this form, the appropriations for carrying out the other treaties were made.

The British Treaty coming up for discussion, April 15th, Madison led off in opposition, demonstrating the want of any just principle of reciprocity in it, in various particulars, and indeed in almost every particular. He pronounced fears of a war with England, should it be rejected, chimerical—that pressed as England now was by France, it would be madness in her to take a new war on her hands. Nicholas, Giles, Heath, Swanwick, Findley, Rutherford, Moore, Holland, Gallatin, Preston, Page, and others spoke on the same side. Mr. Gallatin established his reputation on this occasion, as one of the ablest debaters and men of his times.

Swift, Goodhue, Williams, Hillhouse, Cooper, Kittera, Coit, Henderson, Harper, Foster, Gilbert, Tracy, Ames, and others spoke in favor of the Treaty.

The great speech on his side, was made by Fisher Ames. If we may credit an account of it written by John Adams, a listener in the gallery, it was surpassingly eloquent: and the contempt that Mr. Adams often afterwards expressed for Ames's capacity as a statesman, would seem to show that he had no special partialities to prejudice him in his favor.

The debate lasted a fortnight. Pending it, imposing demonstrations were made in many places in favor of the execution of the treaty. The reactionary feeling we have already described, had proceeded to no small extent. Peace seemed desirable to the large property holders and the commercial classes in the cities, at almost any cost. The timid were alarmed with the idea that England, already in possession of our northern frontier posts, and well prepared on the ocean, was ready suddenly to fall on us with every advantage, and inflict crippling blows before we could take any efficient steps for our defence. Some imagined that George III. and his ministry even desired the rejection of the treaty, and that "secret orders [had been] given to irritate the Americans to induce a violation," so they

could retain the posts, "plunder our commerce at once," and otherwise take advantage of "the impotence and distraction of our Government." Menaces said to have been uttered by a British diplomatic agent, at Philadelphia, swelled the terrors of this class of alarmists. A serious collision of jurisdiction between the different branches of the Government, at such a feverish epoch in our foreign relations, seemed to the cautious and conservative a thing to be avoided by any sacrifice. Threats of the Senate's refusing to pass bills, or make appropriations, or agree on an adjournment-virtually to dissolve the Government -had been indulged in other places besides in private letters; and there can be no doubt that it was extensively credited.

Finally there was a strong feeling among thousands and thousands who entirely disapproved of the treaty, against any measure which could be construed as inflicting a humiliation on the President. As the debate and measures of the House took a turn which seemed to involve this alternative, these feelings rose to the fury of a tempest. Goodrich, exultingly and truly wrote the elder Wolcott; "the energy of the President's popularity has not yet been estimated at one half its value." It produced that reaction among the people, which other causes had produced among the wealthy and timid. All these considerations had their weight in as well as out of Congress; and some decided Republican members were influenced by them.

2

On the 29th of April, the question was taken in the Committee of the Whole on the resolution declaring the expediency of making the laws requisite for the execution of the treaty, and it was carried by the casting vote of the chairman, Muhlenburg, the former Speaker, a decided Republican. He said "he did not feel satisfied with the resolution as it now stood; he should, however, vote for it, that it might go to the House and there be modified." *

On the 20th, Dearborn, of Massachusetts, said that as it appeared a majority of the House had determined to sustain the treaty, though several of those who intended to vote for it thought it a bad one, "he wished to see the opinion the House entertained of the treaty entered upon their journals." He therefore proposed the following amendment as a preamble :

1 Gibbs's Memoirs, etc., vol. i. p. 332. Annals of Congress, 1795-6, p. 1796.

2 Ib. p. 335.