July 3d found the Philadelphia streets littered with a handbill urging an attack on a British vessel at Goldbury’s wharf. That night the streets leading to the wharf were packed with people, most of them from the section of the laborers, with a sprinkling of the curious. The Governor had ordered out some soldiers who prepared to meet the emergency with stern methods. Until eleven o’clock the crowd stood in sullen silence waiting for something to happen, for some one to lead the assault. Darkly outlined in the night loomed the British ship, in front the silent soldiers, behind them the angry crowd. Slowly this dwindled, and before midnight the danger was over, but the sight of the ship had not worked a conciliatory spirit in the people.[1027] It aroused the mob spirit for action on the Fourth.
Throughout that day—an ominous quiet. Out in the suburb of Kensington, the ship carpenters were planning a demonstration. This was postponed till night because the troops were out in honor of the Nation’s natal day. Eleven o’clock found five hundred men, mostly workmen, moving from the suburb on the city. By the lights they carried could be seen an effigy of Jay. This, according to rumors that flew over the town, was to be burned before Washington’s house on Market Street. Then a feverish summoning of the light-horse, little Paul Reveres hurrying from door to door summoning soldiers to the saddle. Long before the marching mob reached the heart of the city, the cavalry was drawn up on Market Street waiting. On moved the mob in uncanny silence. Most of the people were asleep, and only the bobbing lights of the marchers indicated that something was stirring. No attempt was made to reach Washington’s house. Through other streets tramped the mob in orderly procession, then back to Kensington where Jay was burned in effigy. Just for a moment a pause in the jubilation, when Captain Morrell and some of his men dashed into the glare of the lights to disperse the mob and to be pelted with stones and forced to precipitate flight. Only that, and an advertisement in the papers the next day announcing the finding of ‘an elegant horseman’s sword’ which could be recovered by ‘producing his muddy regimentals.’ Little damage had been done. Some one had hurled a stone through the window at Bingham’s house, but that was all, aside from the bruises of Captain Morrell, who had fought neither too wisely nor too well.
The next morning the curious strolled toward Kensington, where they found the ashes, and a board stuck in the ground bearing the words: ‘Morrell’s Defeat—Jay Burned July 4, 1795.’ There, unmolested, it stood for days. ‘I think an attempt to take it down without considerable force would be attended by serious consequences,’ wrote a Philadelphian to a friend in New York.[1028] The story of the burning spread rapidly over the country, carrying its inevitable suggestion.[1029] While the ship carpenters were nursing their plans at Kensington, the Philadelphia County Brigade was celebrating the Fourth with a dinner in the woods along Frankfort Creek, where the French Treaty was toasted, and those seeking to supersede it were denounced as traitors. The ten Senators who voted against ratification were praised for having ‘refused to sign the death warrant of American liberty,’ Mason was eulogized, and the woods reverberated with shouts and laughter over the toast: ‘A Perpetual Harvest to America—but clipped wings, lame legs, the pip and an empty crop to all Jays.’[1030] Three weeks later a throng assembled in the State House yard to take formal action, with men of the first distinction in the community on the platform. A memorial of denunciation was read, adopted without debate, and the treaty was thrown contemptuously to the crowd, which pounced upon it, stuck it on the end of a pole, and marched to the French Minister’s house where a ceremony was performed, albeit Adet denied himself to the mob; thence on to the British Minister’s house where the treaty was burned while the mob cheered lustily; then on to the British Consul’s and Bingham’s for a hostile demonstration.
The Federalist leaders observed these demonstrations with misgivings, whistling the while to keep up courage. Somewhere on the outskirts stood Oliver Wolcott, who instantly wrote Washington at Mount Vernon that the crowd was composed mostly of ‘the ignorant and violent part of the community.’ Nothing shocked him more than the introduction to the mob of Hamilton Rowan, the Irish patriot, and the swinging of hats in token of welcome. Judge M’Kean swung his, Wolcott supposed, ‘because he expected the honor soon of having the fellow to hang for some roguery in this country.’[1031] Even more shocking to Wolcott was the invitation of the colorful Blair McClenachan, as he threw the treaty to the crowd, to ‘kick it to hell.’[1032] Pickering assured Washington that there ‘were not probably two hundred whom Chief Justice M’Kean would deem qualified to sit on a jury.’[1033]
But it was not to be so easy to belittle the protest or to confine it to Philadelphia. It spread—like an epidemic. In New York City, the home of Jay, the feeling was virulent. The Fourth of July celebrations disclosed the sharp divisions between the commercial interests and the body of the people. With the merchants dining at the Tontine with Jay, the Democrats at Hunter’s with the French Consul were shouting approval of the toast: ‘May the cage constructed to coop up the American eagle prove a trap for none but Jays and King-birds.’[1034] The ‘Argus’ published a scathing open letter to ‘Sir John Jay.’[1035] With the advertisement of a town meeting, Hamilton and King sought to organize the opposition of the merchants at a meeting at the Tontine when it was decided to contest the issue at the mass meeting. An address, protesting against the method of the proposed meeting, written by Hamilton, was given to the papers, and circulated in handbills. The stroke of twelve found from five to seven thousand people assembled, and the plans of the Hamiltonians were instantly surmised. There, on the stoop on Broad Street stood Hamilton himself, with King and a few others grouped about him. At the stroke of the clock, Hamilton, without waiting for the organization of the meeting, began to speak impassionedly. ‘Let us have a chairman!’ cried the crowd. A chairman was chosen and took his station on the balcony of Federal Hall. Instantly Peter Livingston began to speak. Hamilton interrupted. Cries of ‘Order! Order!’ from the people. ‘Who shall speak first?’ asked the chairman. ‘Livingston,’ shouted the greater part of the crowd. But when he sought to comply, he could not raise his voice above the confusion, though he managed to reach the swaying mass with the suggestion that all favoring the treaty go to the left, and those opposed to the right. A goodly portion of the crowd passed to the right to Trinity Church, and Hamilton, assuming that only friends of the treaty remained, began to speak. Hissing—hooting—coughing—his voice was drowned. The orator paused, consulted his supporters, and a resolution prepared by King was passed to the chairman to read. A momentary lull, and then, finding it commendatory of the treaty, an angry roar—‘We’ll hear no more of that, tear it up.’
Meanwhile, a stone struck Hamilton, without injuring him severely. With a derisive smile, he called on ‘all friends of order’ to follow him, and the Hamiltonians deserted the field. That afternoon at Bowling Green a cheering crowd could have been seen burning the treaty, while in the Fields another crowd was screaming its delight as Jay’s effigy went up in smoke.
The next day the meeting reconvened and unanimously adopted resolutions against the treaty, and the Hamiltonians called a meeting of the merchants to protest against the action. This meeting of the merchants is more impressive in books than it was in reality. The ‘Minerva’ announced that the treaty had been endorsed by a practically unanimous vote; while the ‘Argus,’ more specific, reported that among the seventy present, ten had opposed the treaty, and that these ten ‘own more tonnage than the other sixty put together.’[1036] The minority of ten publicly denounced the majority as ‘either inimical to this country in the late war, or have immigrated to this country since that period.’ Having made the charge, they entered into details. Of the sixty merchants favoring the treaty, only eighteen had been outside the British lines in the Revolution, eight had actually joined the British, six came to the country from England during the war and located in sections held by the British army, and ten entered the country after the war.[1037] At any rate, there were seven thousand people in the mass meeting and but seventy in the meeting of the merchants.
The ferocity of the protest had a depressing effect on Hamilton, who could imagine nothing less than ‘Jacobins meditating serious mischief’ to ‘certain individuals.’ Instinctively he thought of mobs, and meditated on soldiers to put them down. He was afraid the New York militia was sympathetic toward the mob. Time would be required for the Federalists to ‘organize a competent armed substitute.’ He had thought of the ‘military now in the forts,’ but understood they were ‘under marching orders.’ Would not Wolcott confer confidentially with the Secretary of War and ‘engage him to suspend the march?’[1038] The majority were against the treaty—time to summon the soldiers. Nor was Hamilton alone in this thought of force. Ames could see no other way and was ready to ‘join the issue tendered.’ The moment was favorable for the Government to show its strength. Then action—‘Washington at the head, Pittsburg at its feet, pockets full of money, prosperity shining like the sun on its path.’[1039] Within two weeks Hamilton, in the Assembly Room on William Street was denouncing the rabble, declaring the situation meant a foreign or civil war, and expressing his preference for the latter. Meanwhile he was proposing a house-to-house canvass through the wards for the treaty.[1040]
If Hamilton was alarmed in New York, and Pickering chagrined in Philadelphia, the Federalist leaders in Massachusetts were stunned by the intensity of the feeling of the mob. A protest meeting was held at Faneuil Hall, with the venerable Samuel Adams participating with spirit. Without a dissenting vote resolutions were passed denouncing the treaty and praising Senator Mason for ‘his patriotism in publishing.’[1041] The aristocratic leaders of the Federalists in Boston knew the futility of challenging the throng. Declining the issue, they busied themselves with the merchants and wrote explanatory letters to their friends. ‘Men of reputation would not attend the meeting,’ Stephen Higginson, the merchant-politician, wrote Pickering, ‘being opposed to the town’s taking up the subject. They were left wholly to themselves; no attempt was made to counteract them, though nine merchants out of ten reprobated the procedure.’ The people, to be sure, were excited, for had not Bache been to Boston ‘with a large collection of lies of riots in Philadelphia and New York to create a flame here.’[1042] Cabot, more truthful, was lamenting about the same time that ‘some of our most respectable men have on this occasion joined the Jacobins and very many of them acquiesced in their proceedings.’[1043] Ames could not restrain his disgust because many of the rich had participated. Even so, these clever, tireless Massachusetts leaders were not inactive. After all, what were the farmers, artisans, and lawyers compared with the merchants? One merchant was more influential with them than a thousand tillers of the soil. Thus, they summoned the Chambers of Commerce to action, and resolutions were passed endorsing the treaty. ‘The proceedings are to be transmitted to the President,’ wrote the complacent Cabot to Wolcott.[1044]
But that did not end the treaty fight in Boston, for throughout the summer the indignation of the people simmered and occasionally boiled over. The ‘rabble’ had to have its fling. On the walls enclosing the home of Robert Treat Paine were chalked the words: ‘Damn John Jay! Damn every one who won’t damn John Jay! Damn every one who won’t put lights in his windows and sit up all night damning John Jay!’[1045] Then, early in September, a great crowd marched through the crooked, narrow streets with a figure representing Jay; and the next day it reappeared with another effigy of Jay with a watermelon head, and marched noisily through the principal streets to the home of Samuel Adams who appeared and smiled approvingly upon the scene. A few days later, Jay was burned in effigy at Oliver’s Wharf, and the home of the editor of the ‘Federal Orrery’ was attacked with bricks and stones.[1046] The non-participants observed that the Federalist leaders were more outraged at the burning of the effigy than over the action of a British man-of-war that sailed into the harbor and helped itself to anything it wanted.[1047]