That great river was controlled by the Spaniards seated at its mouth, who, in traditions, race, and aspirations, had no affinity with the people of the new republic. They sat there as a barrier between the settlers and the sea; and even before Washington left his home on the Potomac, conflicting rumors had reached him respecting the impatience of the western settlers because of that barrier. They had urged the Congress of the Confederation to open it by treaty, but that Congress was too feeble to comply. Now one tongue of rumor said that they would soon organize an expedition to capture New Orleans; another tongue asserted that the Spaniards, aided by British emissaries, were intriguing with leading men in the great valleys to effect a separation of the Union, and an attachment of the western portion to the crown of Spain. These things gave Washington and his co-workers great uneasiness.
Another cause for anxiety was the refusal of Great Britain to give up some of the frontier forts, in compliance with an article of the definitive treaty of peace of 1783, on the plea that the United States had violated another article of the same treaty in allowing the debts due to British subjects, which had been contracted before the war, to remain unpaid. This was regarded by the Americans as a mere pretext to cover a more important interest, namely, the monopoly of the fur-trade with the Indians. It was alleged, also, that the hostile attitude toward the United States then lately assumed by several of the western tribes was caused by the mischievous influence of the British officers who held those posts, and their emissaries among the savages.
At the same time, the finances of the country were in a most deplorable state. A heavy domestic and foreign debt presented importunate creditors at the door of government; the treasury was empty; public credit was utterly prostrated, and every effort of the late government to fund the public debt had failed.
The foreign commerce of the country, owing to the feebleness of the Confederation, was in a most unsatisfactory condition. The conduct of the British government in relation to trade with the United States had been, since the conclusion of the war, not only ungenerous, but insolent and oppressive; and at the same time, the corsairs of the Barbary powers on the southern shores of the Mediterranean sea, whose princes were fattening upon the spoils of piracy, were marauding upon American merchant-vessels with impunity, and carrying the crews into slavery.
The younger Pitt, in 1783, had proposed a scheme in the British parliament for the temporary regulation of commercial intercourse with the United States, the chief feature of which was the free admission into the West India ports of American vessels laden with the products of American industry; the West India people to be allowed, in turn, like free trade with the United States. But the ideas of the old and unwise navigation laws, out of which had grown the most serious dispute between the colonies and the mother-country twenty-five years before, yet prevailed in the British legislature. Pitts's proposition was rejected; and an order soon went forth from the privy council for the entire exclusion of American vessels from West India ports, and prohibiting the importation thither of the several products of the United States, even in British bottoms.
Notwithstanding this unwise and narrow policy was put in force, Mr. Adams, the American minister at the court of St. James, proposed, in 1785, to place the navigation and trade between all the dominions of the British crown and all the territories of the United States upon a basis of perfect reciprocity. This generous offer was not only declined, but the minister was haughtily assured that no other would be entertained. Mr. Adams immediately recommended his government to pass navigation acts for the benefit of its commerce; but the Confederation had not power or vitality sufficient to take action. Some of the states attempted to legislate upon commercial matters, and the subject of duties for revenue; but their efforts were fruitless, except in discovering the necessity of a strong central power, and putting in motion causes which led to the formation of the federal government.
The earliest efforts of the new government, as we shall perceive presently, were directed to the maturing of schemes for imposing discriminating duties; and the eyes of British legislators were soon opened to the fact that American commerce was no longer at the mercy of thirteen distinct legislative bodies, nor subject to foreign control. They perceived the importance of the American trade, and of a reciprocity in trade between the two countries. They perceived, also, that the interests of American commerce were guarded and its strength nurtured by a central power of great energy; and very soon a committee of parliament submitted a proposition, asking the United States to consent to a commercial arrangement precisely such as had been offered by Mr. Adams a few years before, and rejected with disdain.
Thus we perceive that, at the very outset, subjects of vast interest connected with domestic and foreign affairs—the preservation of the Union, the allaying of discontents, the liquidation of the public debt, the replenishment of the treasury, the integrity of treaties, the conciliation of hostile Indian tribes, the regulation and protection of commerce, the encouragement of trade, the creation of a revenue, the establishment of an independent national character, and the founding of a wise policy for the government—presented themselves in stern array to the mind of Washington, and almost overwhelmed him, by the magnitude of their proportions, with a sense of his impotence in giving general direction to the vast labors to be performed. He had few precedents as an executive officer to guide him, and no experience as the chief of civil affairs. “I walk, as it were, upon untrodden ground,” he said; but, like a wise man, he asked counsel of those upon whose judgment he could rely.
At that moment the president was without constitutional advisers. Executive departments had not yet been organized; but in John Jay as secretary for foreign affairs, in General Knox as secretary of war, in Samuel Osgood, Walter Livingston, and Arther Lee, as controllers of the treasury—all of whom had been appointed by the old Congress—he found men of large experience, enlightened views, sturdy integrity, and sound judgment. With these, and Madison and Hamilton, Sherman and Chancellor Livingston, and other personal friends, Washington commenced with courage the great task before him.