These marching mobs, mass meetings, resolutions and petitions, and burning effigies give no conception of the popular ferment. Never had the people been more agitated or outraged. Whenever two men met, whether bankers or bakers, the treaty was the topic of their talk. In taverns, where travelers were promiscuously packed like sardines in a box, the quarreling made night hideous and sleep impossible. In the bar-rooms, men, in their cups, disputed and fought. The stage-coaches were a forum, the crossroads store a battle-ground. An English tourist, finding himself in a wayside tavern, was driven to distraction by the noise of combat. The farmers were against the treaty, the lawyers for it, and they debated with passion, with more heat than light. Assigned to a room with five or six beds, the forlorn foreigner was forced to listen to the continuance of the struggle until at length ‘sleep closed their eyes and happily their mouths at the same time.’[1076] The Duc de la Liancourt, journeying through upper New York, was swept into the maelstrom of controversy and had to record his own opinions in his ‘Travels.’[1077] When the messenger from the Boston mass meeting reached New York, hurrying to Philadelphia, Greenleaf stopped his press to print the story of the incident.[1078] Soon the anti-treaty press was publishing statistics on public sentiment—the mass meetings against the select gatherings of the merchants. Fifteen thousand people had met and denounced the treaty, and seven hundred had approved it, according to the ‘Independent Chronicle.’[1079]
Meanwhile, Washington was causing the Federalists some uneasiness. As late as July 31st, he had written Pickering evincing a desire to know public sentiment. Had the Jacobins captured Washington? Wolcott was painfully depressed lest America lose the respect of England. What would she think with their ‘Minister’s house insulted by a mob, their flag dragged through the streets as in Charleston ... a driveler and a fool appointed Chief Justice’ by Washington?[1080] Only the day before, Washington was writing of his alarm lest France resent a treaty she had some right to resent.[1081] Clearly Washington required some attention.
V
The President held the treaty seven weeks before signing, and this put the Federalist leaders to the torture. Among themselves they made no concealment of their chagrin and indignation. Cabot, writing to King, confessed that the President’s hesitation ‘renews my anxiety for the welfare of the country.’ He would suggest to the Boston merchants that they make ‘a manly declaration of their sentiments’ to Washington. He had ‘too much respect for the character of the President to believe that he can be deterred from his duty by the clamor or menaces of these city mobs,’ but he realized that something should be done to counteract their influence.[1082] If Cabot kept a rein on his patience, it was not true of all. In a great house known as ‘Elmwood’ at Windsor, Connecticut, surrounded by elm trees and filled with books and religion, a stern and forceful master was literally walking the floor, and tossing restlessly on a sleepless bed, for Oliver Ellsworth was doubting Washington’s firmness and courage. In bitterness he was writing that ‘if the President decides right or wrong or does not decide soon his good fortune will forsake him.’[1083] In commercial circles in New York many were already turning upon the man they made a virtue of pretending to worship. About the middle of July, Washington and his family left Philadelphia for Mount Vernon, he in a two-horse phaëton for one, his family in a coach with four horses and two servants, another servant leading a saddle horse—and without giving the slightest intimation of his intention.[1084]
Then came the scandal involving Randolph and the French Minister Faucet. There was infinite joy in the Federalist camp. Pickering and Randolph hastened a summons to Washington to return. There was a dramatic scene, in which Washington is described as winking at Pickering, and setting a trap for his Secretary of State, who was the sole member of his original Cabinet chosen by the President to please himself. Randolph was dismissed—and Washington signed the treaty. The merits of the treaty were in no wise affected by anything Randolph may have done, and it is fair to assume that there was no connection between the disgracing of the Secretary and the signing.[1085] The strategy of the Federalist now outlined itself, and Washington became the treaty and the treaty became Washington, and to oppose the treaty was to insult Washington. The popular President was literally pushed to the front line in the fight. Pickering was writing Jay suggesting that Washington be persuaded to issue ‘a solemn public declaration ... of the principles of his Administration,’ appealing to the record of his life ‘for the purity and patriotism of his conduct’;[1086] and Jay was replying that while ‘in many respects useful,’ he doubted the wisdom.[1087] Christopher Gore was writing King inquiring if it were not ‘possible for Col. Hamilton and yourself to induce the President to adopt some measures that would decidedly express his sentiments in favor of the treaty.’ He was positive that ‘in New England the word of the President would save the Government.’[1088]
This plan of using the prestige of Washington for a party measure was not made for this particular occasion. Pickering and Gore wrote on the same day,[1089] one from Philadelphia, and the other from Boston. It had long been a favorite feature in the party strategy. Ellsworth regained his composure and wrote Wolcott that ‘the current I believe is turning in Massachusetts, though you may perhaps hear of some obscure town meetings.’[1090] Senator James Ross, writing to Pickering from Pittsburgh, thought that after all it was well that Washington had taken his time. ‘His sanction after hearing all the objections will quiet the minds of the thoughtful.’[1091]
All that was required to make Washington the issue in the treaty fight was a stupid attack upon him from the Democratic press, and that was instantly forthcoming. When Fenno’s paper announced that the treaty had been signed, Bache wrote that since ‘no information has been filed for a libel on the Executive ... it may be fairly presumed, the character of the President for patriotism and republicanism notwithstanding, that the assertion is well founded.’[1092] And when a great crowd attended the next presidential levee, Bache capped the climax of asininity with the comment that ‘it was certainly necessary to let the public know that the just resentment of an injured and insulted people had not reached the purview of Saint Washington.’[1093] These bitter expressions convinced the Federalists that the fight was not yet over. The public had too bitterly and generally resented the treaty to be so quickly won. Instinctively the friends of the treaty thought of Hamilton and the prowess of his pen. ‘Mr. Hamilton might do great good,’ wrote Murray of Maryland to Wolcott, ‘by giving the public his luminous pen.’[1094] Even as Murray wrote, Hamilton sat in his office writing ‘Camillus’ for Noah Webster’s paper. His health was failing at the time, but King and Jay had promised to assist. For weeks and months the papers appeared, thirty-eight in all, in the most effective argumentative style, covering every possible phase. ‘It is to pass for Hamilton’s,’ wrote John Adams to his wife, ‘but all three consulted together upon most.’[1095] Two months after the series began, the enemies of the treaty were circulating the story that Hamilton and Webster had quarreled because of the latter’s decision to limit the number of papers. ‘More than a hundred columns have already been run, to the exclusion of news, and the people are tired, no doubt,’ suggested an editor.[1096]
Unhappily, while Hamilton wrote, England was up to her old tricks upon the sea again. Scarcely had the treaty been ratified, when Pickering was officially protesting against an outrage on the United States by the British ship of the line Africa, and by the British Vice-Consul in Rhode Island,[1097] and was writing complainingly to John Quincy Adams in London that ‘if Britain studied to keep up the irritation in the minds of Americans ... some of her naval commanders appear perfectly qualified for the object.’[1098]
The enemies of the treaty made the most of these affronts. ‘A Loyalist of ‘75’ was urging Hamilton to ‘discontinue his laborious work of defending the treaty’ to give some attention to the justification of Captain Home of the Africa, and to the defense of the other sea captain who stole a peep ‘at Mr. Monroe’s despatches.’ ‘Camillus’ could resume on the treaty after quieting ‘the minds of the swinish multitude’ on these later outrages.[1099] Thus Hamilton’s efforts were being constantly neutralized in effect by the conduct of the English, and the ‘swinish multitude’ chortled not a little over the doggerel: