The neutral nations of Europe had grown tired of the arrogant sea policy of the English, and steps were taken for the unification of neutrals in defense of neutral rights. Sweden and Denmark had ratified an Armed Neutrality Convention on March 27, 1794, agreeing to join their fleets for the protection of their peoples. Pinckney had been approached by the Swedish Minister in London with an invitation to the American Government to join. He had received the invitation with frank enthusiasm, and thought his country would agree.[1008] This was all known to Grenville, who was painfully impressed with the possibilities. He had put his spies to the task of opening diplomatic mail and keeping him informed of developments. Instructions had been sent to Hammond, the Minister at Philadelphia, to exert all his ingenuity to prevent the United States from joining the Scandinavian combination.[1009] The day that Grenville sat down with Jay, the former had been informed by Count Finckenstein, the Prussian Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the position of America was doubtful, and that Jefferson had left the Cabinet to go to Denmark to assist in the organization and consolidation of the neutrals.[1010] It was Grenville’s cue to procrastinate on the treaty until he could ascertain to a certainty just what the United States contemplated in reference to the Armed Neutrality. Impatient over the delay, Jay submitted a complete draft of a treaty on September 20, 1794, which was, in many respects, an admirable document. When the treaty which was finally signed was submitted with the other papers to the American Government, the draft of September 20th was conspicuously absent—for the actual treaty was an almost complete surrender of the claims of the first draft, and its publication would have had a disastrous effect on Jay’s reputation and on his party.
Ten days before Jay submitted his draft, Grenville was in possession of a curious report from Hammond. The latter had been informed by Hamilton, ‘with every demonstration of sincerity,’ that under no circumstances would America join the Armed Neutrality. This, Hammond understood, was secret information on Cabinet action.[1011] Thus, through the amazing indiscretion of Hamilton, Jay was deprived of his high card at the critical moment of the negotiations. Hamilton was standing behind Jay, to be sure, but he was holding a mirror, however unconsciously, which reflected the American negotiator’s cards to the enlightenment of the suave and smiling Grenville. From that moment Grenville stiffened his opposition to Jay’s demands, and thenceforth the latter was in a continuous retreat.[1012]
The result was a sweeping victory for England and the most humiliating treaty to which an American has ever put his signature.[1013] It provided for the abandonment of the western posts after June 1, 1796, but there was to be no remuneration for stolen negro slaves and no provision for ending the impressment of American seamen. The principle that ‘free ships make free goods’ was surrendered and the contraband list was extended. British claimants could appeal to the Mixed Debts Commission without first exhausting their resources in American courts, while the American claimants had to exhaust the resources of the British courts before appealing to the Commission. The Mississippi was to be opened to British trade; and the West Indian trade, which Jay was specifically instructed to secure, was granted to American ships of seventy tons burden only, and then on condition that the West Indian trade should be wholly free to British vessels and that American vessels should not carry molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton to any ports in the world except their own. The East Indian trade was opened to Americans provided no further restrictions should be laid on British commerce. And Jay agreed to provisions—despite specific instructions to enter into no obligations incompatible with our treaty obligations to France—which amounted to an alliance with England against America’s ally in the Revolution.[1014]
All in all, it was a rather disreputable performance which even Hamilton admitted to Talleyrand, in a social moment, to be an ‘execrable one’ on the part of ‘an old woman.’[1015] By a queer coincidence, Jefferson described the treaty with the same adjective, as ‘an execrable thing,’ in a letter to Edward Rutledge.[1016]
However, Hamilton, familiar with the treaty long before it reached the Senate, was willing to accept the ‘execrable thing’ provided the twelfth article, forbidding American vessels from carrying cotton, among other articles, to the ports of Europe, should be suspended. He wrote William Bradford, the Attorney-General, in May, of his distress over this article,[1017] and Rufus King about the middle of June.[1018] But he was sternly set on ratification, against a renewal of negotiations, and that was enough to determine the course of the Senate. There was no other way. It was a Federalist negotiation. The negotiator had been chosen in a Federalist caucus. The instructions had been determined upon in a Federalist conclave. They were practically written by the great Federalist leader, and the purpose served was in line with Federalist economics.[1019]
Thus, when the Senate met in extraordinary session, its work was cut out for it. For eighteen days the Senators debated in secret. The American people knew that the treaty was under consideration, but they did not have the most remote idea what it was all about. For eight days the discussion was general; then the Federalists, acting under Hamilton’s inspiration, submitted a form of ratification conditioned on the suspension of that portion of Article XII which enumerated the articles American ships could not carry to Europe. Meanwhile, the commercial interests in New York were becoming apprehensive over the delay. Hamilton was bombarded with anxious inquiries on the report that the treaty had been rejected, and was able to deny it, writing at the same time to Rufus King of the ‘disquietude.’[1020] Two days after Hamilton wrote King, Senator Aaron Burr moved to postpone ratification and to institute new negotiations, but this, with other hostile motions, was voted down. At length the Federalist programme was pushed through, Senator Gunn of Georgia voting to ratify. Ten Senators remained in opposition. And then the Senate, with a keen appreciation of the humiliating nature of the treaty, solemnly voted to ‘not countenance the publication’ of the document.[1021] Such a high-handed proceeding, predicated upon the theory that the people had no right to know to what they had been bound, made an unpleasant impression even on Hamilton, who wrote Wolcott that it was ‘giving much scope to misrepresentation and misapprehension.’[1022]
But there was one Senator who refused to be bound in a conspiracy to conceal from the people the people’s business. Stevens Thomson Mason of Virginia had crowded into his thirty-five years as much patriotic service as any of his colleagues. Although but sixteen when the Declaration of Independence was signed, he had served as a volunteer aide on the staff of Washington at Yorktown, and had been made a brigadier-general in the militia of Virginia. In the few years that remained to him, he was to earn an appreciation that partisan historians have denied him by his militant challenge to the Sedition Law. Ardent and courageous, he felt that the people had a right to know the contents of the treaty, and, while the Federalist Senators were congratulating themselves on having bound the Senate to secrecy, Bache’s paper came out with the full text of the treaty. Mason had deliberately, openly, defiantly taken a copy to the office of the ‘Aurora.’
Then something like a cyclone swept the land.
III
The injunction of secrecy and Bache’s sharp comments upon it had prepared the public for something startling. ‘A secrecy in relation to a law which shall rival the darkness of a conclave of a seraglio.’[1023] ‘Secrecy is the order of the day in our government—charming expedient to keep the people in ignorance.’[1024] ‘What are we to infer from this secrecy’ but that ‘the treaty will be unacceptable to the people?’[1025] ‘This imp of darkness,’ he had written, referring to the treaty.[1026] When Mason’s copy reached Bache’s paper, it was eagerly seized upon by the people, and copied in all the papers of the country. The people all but rose en masse.