VIII. CHAPTER rest of the opposition, persisted in assuming, notwithstanding repeated explanations, that the East India. 1796. coasting trade, and the direct voyage from India to Europe, not being expressly secured by the treaty, had, in fact, been relinquished by it. If England would not concede the point that neutral bottoms made free goods, we, at least, ought not, by an act of treachery to the other nations of Europe, expressly to admit the opposite doctrine. It was not merely to secure a lucrative commerce that the right of neutrals in this respect was to be maintained, but chiefly to avoid the infinite vexations growing out of the detention of neutral vessels on the pretense that they had enemy's goods on board-a pretense on which greedy privateers and unscrupulous admiralty courts would be always ready to seize. Taken in connection with our other treaties, which excluded naval stores and provisions from the list of contraband, the admitting them as such in the British treaty amounted, in his view, to a positive contract to secure to Great Britain an exclusive supply of those articles during the war. He contended with zeal for the justice and policy of the sequestration of private debts as a measure of coercion, and summed up this view of the case by maintaining that, while we had promised full indemnity to England for every possible claim against us, we had abandoned every claim of a doubtful nature, had consented to receive the Western posts under great restrictions as to our exclusive control over the Indian trade, and had made arrangements respecting trade and navigation by which we gained nothing, while we had parted with every pledge in our hands, every power of restriction, every weapon of self-defense. Should the treaty be set aside, there would, he admitted, be little prospect of obtaining another. In that case VIII. we should lose the indemnity for spoliations; but, look- CHAPTER ing at the matter in a pecuniary light only, we should probably be gainers by escaping the payment of the Brit- 1796. ish debts. The only other loss would be the Western posts; but the provisions of the treaty rendered those posts quite valueless, either as supports to trade or as security to the frontiers. Yet the obtaining the posts, valueless as they were, the saving the national honor by some appearance of indemnity for spoliations, and, con, sidering the present state of the country, the putting a stop to agitations by settling our disputes with Great Britain, would reconcile him to the treaty, injurious and unequal as he conceived it to be, and repugnant as it was to his feelings, but for the conduct of Great Britain, since it was signed, in pressing our seamen and stopping our provision-ships. Looking at the general conduct of Great Britain toward us, and the means by which she had procured the treaty, a final compliance on our part, while she persisted in that same course of conduct, and still held over us the chastising rod, would be, in his opinion, a dereliction of national interest, of honor, and of independence. He therefore preferred, even at the risk of the loss of the reparations offered, not a rejection of the treaty altogether, which nobody on his side, so he boldly asserted, had ever thought of, but a suspension, a postponement of it, while the present encroachments continued, in hopes to obtain reparation for them also, and assurances that they would cease. It would, indeed, be madness to plunge the United States into war, but he regarded that as a chimerical danger. On our side, war could only be declared by act of Congress; and, granting that a majority of the House wished it, which he totally denied, the declaration would surely be arrested by the president and Senate. As for England, engaged as VIII CHAPTER she was in military operations in the West Indies, all the supplies for which were derived from us, it was not 1796, her interest to commence hostilities; and if peace took place in Europe, of which there seemed some prospect, happy to escape from one of the most bloody, expensive, and dangerous wars in which she had ever been engaged, she would hardly desire to plunge afresh into a similar calamity. But to the cry of war the alarmists had added that of confusion. It had been urged even on this floor that, if the treaty failed, the government would be dissolved. Who would dissolve it? The triumphant majority would have no motive to do so; and surely the self-styled friends of order would not, at the first failure of their power, revenge themselves by overthrowing the government. Whatever might be the wishes or intentions of members of this House, the dissolution of the Union was a matter to be decided, not by them, but by the people. The people of the United States, from one end of the Union to the other, were strongly attached to the Constitution, and they would restrain and punish the excesses of any party and of any set of men guilty of any attempt against it. He rested in full security on the people against any endeavor to destroy our Union or our government. He had no fears of a dissolution of the Union, yet the desire to promote a greater harmony of sentiment had been with him one of the most urgent motives in favor of suspending the treaty, instead of rejecting it. It was, indeed, difficult to say which mode of proceeding would best accord with public opinion. Taking as a guide the petitions presented to the House, the number of signatures against the treaty somewhat exceeded, at the moment he was speaking, the number in its favor. A combination to produce alarm had, indeed, been lately got up VIII. among the merchants of Philadelphia and other sea-ports. CHAPTER To induce the people to join in the attempt to force the House to pass laws for carrying the treaty into execu- 1796. tion, they had combined together to cease insuring vessels, purchasing produce, or transacting any business. He considered the cry of war, the threats of a dissolution of the government, and the present alarm, as all designed for the same purpose, that of making an impression on the fears of the House. "It was in the fear of being involved in a war that the negotiation with Great Britain had originated; under the impression of fear the treaty had been negotiated and signed; fear had promoted its ratification; and now, every imaginary mischief was conjured up to frighten the House, to deprive it of that discretion which it had a right to exercise, to force it to carry this treaty into effect!" To listen calmly to this denunciation of Washington and Jay, as having pusillanimously surrendered the hon-, or of their country-Washington in setting on foot and in ratifying, and Jay in having negotiated the treaty— coming, as it did, from the mouth of one whose evident youth and foreign accent might alone serve to betray him as an adventurer, whose arrival in the country could hardly have been long anterior to the termination of the Revolutionary struggle was somewhat too much for human patience to bear. There was also something a little provoking in the denunciation of the merchants, as having conspired to terrify the House, coming from a man who had first obtained general notoriety, it was now hardly four years since, by the publication of his name at the bottom of a series of resolutions, of which the avowed object was to frighten public officers from the discharge of their duty by threats of a social interdict and non-intercourse-a method of proceeding which had ended. VIII. CHAPTER in violent resistance to the laws and armed insurrection. Nor is it very surprising, all things considered, that 1796. many of the Federalists were inclined to look on Gallatin as a foreign emissary, a tool of France, employed and paid to make mischief. Several of the chief points of Gallatin's speech were answered by Tracy. As to the discovery out of Vattel that slaves could not be carried off as booty, in the first place, Vattel said no such thing; and, in the second place, the British did not refuse to restore them as booty, but as men; men made free as a reward for having joined the British standard, and whom no law, human or divine, could or ought to compel to return to their former slavery. Nor was the so much condemned doctrine of the seizure of enemy's goods in neutral bottoms liable, in his opinion, to all the objections urged against it. It was the right of all nations to carry their own property to such places as they pleased, not thereby infringing the rights of others. But when two nations are at war, what right had a third nation to assist either by transporting its goods across the ocean free from the danger of being captured? If the appropriation to carry the treaty into effect was refused, he considered the peace of the country in imminent danger. "We are not disposed to go to war with Great Britain, say gentlemen. She will have no reason to go to war with us; and they ask, with an air of triumphant complacency, how, then, is there to be a war? But look at the probable state of things. Great Britain is to retain the Western posts, and with them the confi dence of the Indians. She makes no compensation for the millions spoliated from our commerce, but adds new mill. ions to our already heavy losses. Would Americans quietly see their government strut, look big, call hard |