The character which Mr. Washington has attempted to act in the world, is a sort of non-describable, camelion-colored thing, called prudence. It is, in many cases, a substitute for principle, and is so nearly allied to hypocrisy that it easily slides into it. His genius for prudence furnished him in this instance with an expedient that served, as is the natural and general character of all expedients, to diminish the embarrassments of the moment and multiply them afterwards; for he authorized it to be made known to the French government, as a confidential matter, (Mr. Washington should recollect that I was a member of the Convention, and had the means of knowing what I here state) he authorized it, I say, to be announced, and that for the purpose of preventing any uneasiness to France on the score of Mr. Jay's mission to England, that the object of that mission, and of Mr. Jay's authority, was restricted to that of demanding the surrender of the western posts, and indemnification for the cargoes captured in American vessels. Mr. Washington knows that this was untrue; and knowing this, he had good reason to himself for refusing to furnish the House of Representatives with copies of the instructions given to Jay, as he might suspect, among other things, that he should also be called upon for copies of instructions given to other Ministers, and that, in the contradiction of instructions, his want of integrity would be detected.(1) Mr. Washington may now, perhaps, learn, when it is too late to be of any use to him, that a man will pass better through the world with a thousand open errors upon his back, than in being detected in one sly falsehood. When one is detected, a thousand are suspected.
The first account that arrived in Paris of a treaty being negotiated by Mr. Jay, (for nobody suspected any,) came in an English newspaper, which announced that a treaty offensive and defensive had been concluded between the United States of America and England. This was immediately denied by every American in Paris, as an impossible thing; and though it was disbelieved by the French, it imprinted a suspicion that some underhand business was going forward.(*) At length the treaty itself arrived, and every well-affected American blushed with shame.
1 When the British treaty had been ratified by the Senate
(with one stipulation) and signed by the President, the
House of Representatives, required to supply the means for
carrying into effect, believed that its power over the
supplies authorized it to check what a large majority
considered an outrage on the country and on France. This was
the opinion of Edmund Randolph (the first Attorney General),
of Jefferson, Madison, and other eminent men. The House
having respectfully requested the President to send them
such papers on the treaty as would not affect any existing
negotiations, he refused in a message (March 30, 1796),
whose tenor Madison described as "improper and indelicate."
He said "the assent of the House of Representatives is not
necessary to the validity of a treaty." The House regarded
the message as menacing a serious conflict, and receded.—
Editor.
* It was the embarrassment into which the affairs and credit
of America were thrown at this instant by the report above
alluded to, that made it necessary to contradict it, and
that by every means arising from opinion or founded upon
authority. The Committee of Public Safety, existing at that
time, had agreed to the full execution, on their part, of
the treaty between America and France, notwithstanding some
equivocal conduct on the part of the American government,
not very consistent with the good faith of an ally; but they
were not in a disposition to be imposed upon by a counter-
treaty. That Jay had no instructions beyond the points above
stated, or none that could possibly be construed to extend
to the length the British treaty goes, was a matter believed
in America, in England, and in France; and without going to
any other source it followed naturally from the message of
the President to Congress, when he nominated Jay upon that
mission. The secretary of Mr. Jay came to Paris soon after
the treaty with England had been concluded, and brought with
him a copy of Mr. Jay's instructions, which he offered to
shew to me as justification of Jay. I advised him, as a
friend, not to shew them to anybody, and did not permit him
to shew them to me. "Who is it," said I to him, "that you
intend to implicate as censureable by shewing those
instructions? Perhaps that implication may fall upon your
own government." Though I did not see the instructions, I
could not be at a loss to understand that the American
administration had been playing a double game.—Author.
That there was a "double game" in this business, from first
to last, is now a fact of history. Jay was confirmed by the
Senate on a declaration of the President in which no
faintest hint of a treaty was given, but only the
"adjustment of our complaints," "vindication of our rights,"
and cultivation of "peace." Only after the Envoy's
confirmation did the Cabinet add the main thing, his
authority to negotiate a commercial treaty. This was done
against the protest of the only lawyer among them, Edmund
Randolph, Secretary of State, who said the exercise of such
a power by Jay would be an abridgment of the rights of the
Senate and of the nation. See my "Life of Randolph," p. 220.
For Jay's Instructions, etc., see I. Am. State Papers,
Foreign Relations.—Editor.
It is curious to observe, how the appearance of characters will change, whilst the root that produces them remains the same. The Washington faction having waded through the slough of negociation, and whilst it amused France with professions of friendship contrived to injure her, immediately throws off the hypocrite, and assumes the swaggering air of a bravado. The party papers of that imbecile administration were on this occasion filled with paragraphs about Sovereignty. A paltroon may boast of his sovereign right to let another kick him, and this is the only kind of sovereignty shewn in the treaty with England. But those daring paragraphs, as Timothy Pickering(1) well knows, were intended for France; without whose assistance, in men, money, and ships, Mr. Washington would have cut but a poor figure in the American war. But of his military talents I shall speak hereafter.
I mean not to enter into any discussion of any article of Jay's treaty; I shall speak only upon the whole of it. It is attempted to be justified on the ground of its not being a violation of any article or articles of the treaty pre-existing with France. But the sovereign right of explanation does not lie with George Washington and his man Timothy; France, on her part, has, at least, an equal right: and when nations dispute, it is not so much about words as about things.
A man, such as the world calls a sharper, and versed as Jay must be supposed to be in the quibbles of the law, may find a way to enter into engagements, and make bargains, in such a manner as to cheat some other party, without that party being able, as the phrase is, to take the law of him. This often happens in the cabalistical circle of what is called law. But when this is attempted to be acted on the national scale of treaties, it is too despicable to be defended, or to be permitted to exist. Yet this is the trick upon which Jay's treaty is founded, so far as it has relation to the treaty pre-existing with France. It is a counter-treaty to that treaty, and perverts all the great articles of that treaty to the injury of France, and makes them operate as a bounty to England, with whom France is at war.
1 Secretary of State.—Editor..
The Washington administration shews great desire that the treaty between France and the United States be preserved. Nobody can doubt their sincerity upon this matter. There is not a British Minister, a British merchant, or a British agent or sailor in America, that does not anxiously wish the same thing. The treaty with France serves now as a passport to supply England with naval stores and other articles of American produce, whilst the same articles, when coming to France, are made contraband or seizable by Jay's treaty with England. The treaty with France says, that neutral ships make neutral property, and thereby gives protection to English property on board American ships; and Jay's treaty delivers up French property on board American ships to be seized by the English. It is too paltry to talk of faith, of national honour, and of the preservation of treaties, whilst such a bare-faced treachery as this stares the world in the face.
The Washington administration may save itself the trouble of proving to the French government its most faithful intentions of preserving the treaty with France; for France has now no desire that it should be preserved. She had nominated an Envoy extraordinary to America, to make Mr. Washington and his government a present of the treaty, and to have no more to do with that, or with him. It was at the same time officially declared to the American Minister at Paris, that the French Republic had rather have the American government for an open enemy than a treacherous friend. This, sir, together with the internal distractions caused in America, and the loss of character in the world, is the eventful crisis, alluded to in the beginning of this letter, to which your double politics have brought the affairs of your country. It is time that the eyes of America be opened upon you.
How France would have conducted herself towards America and American commerce, after all treaty stipulations had ceased, and under the sense of services rendered and injuries received, I know not. It is, however, an unpleasant reflection, that in all national quarrels, the innocent, and even the friendly part of the community, become involved with the culpable and the unfriendly; and as the accounts that arrived from America continued to manifest an invariable attachment in the general mass of the people to their original ally, in opposition to the new-fangled Washington faction,—the resolutions that had been taken in France were suspended. It happened also, fortunately enough, that Gouverneur Morris was not Minister at this time.