With regard to maritime regulations an intimation was given by the Lords of the Council that Great Britain might consent to insert in a commercial treaty with the United States all the articles of maritime law which had of late years been inserted in her commercial treaties with other foreign powers; expressly excepting, however, any article allowing the ships of the United States to protect the property of the enemies of Great Britain in time of war, which should on no account be admitted. On the other hand, the more violent partisans in America for unrestricted trade with the West Indies threatened to break off all commercial intercourse with Great Britain unless their demands were complied with. In this controversy it is amusing to observe that grave members of the English Council actually gave an authoritative opinion: “That the articles which the people of the United States now send to European markets are but few, and can be obtained in equal perfection from other countries; and,” they added, “IT IS MORE LIKELY that the demand for them from thence should in future DIMINISH RATHER THAN INCREASE.” If these short-sighted mortals could but have opened the book of the future, and could have contemplated the prodigious supply of cotton, and corn, and other raw produce which have been derived from the United States since the resources of its fertile and varied soil have been developed, they would have paused before they hazarded such crude and altogether erroneous vaticinations. They, moreover, decried the trade in grain as precarious, and asserted that no system of foreign commerce permanently profitable could be founded upon it.
Treaty between Great Britain and the United States.
Happily, however, a treaty of amity and commerce and navigation was at last concluded between the two nations; but we need only here refer to those portions of it which more especially affected their navigation. By this treaty it was arranged that during the continuance of the French war, and for two years after its termination, the citizens of the United States might carry in vessels of their own, not exceeding the burthen of seventy tons, to the British West Indies, all such produce or manufactures of the United States as could be lawfully carried from the States to the islands by British vessels; and also that American vessels might carry back from the islands to the States all such West Indian produce as British vessels might carry to the same quarter; the same duties being levied by each government on the ships of the one country as on those of the other engaged in this trade. The United States were, however, expressly debarred from carrying molasses, sugar, coffee, cotton, etc., the produce of the West Indies, to any other part of the world.
The right to impose a countervailing tonnage duty reserved.
The liberty of continuing to trade to the ports of the territories of Great Britain in the East Indies was confirmed to American vessels; the government of the United States engaging that such vessels should carry the goods brought away by them from India to no part of the world except their own ports in America. By the 15th article it was agreed that no higher duties should be charged in the ports of either country upon vessels belonging to the other than were paid by the like vessels on merchandise of all other nations; nor should any prohibition be imposed upon the exportation or importation of any articles to and from the territories of the two contracting parties respectively, which should not equally extend to all other nations.[308] But the British government reserved to itself the right of imposing on American vessels entering into the British ports in Europe a tonnage duty equal to that which was payable by British vessels in the ports of America; and also such duty as might be adequate to countervail the difference of duty payable on the importation of European and Asiatic goods, when imported into the United States in British or in American vessels. Both parties further agreed to treat with regard to a more exact equalisation of duties. If a vessel should be taken or detained on suspicion of having enemy’s property on board, or of carrying contraband articles, it was stipulated that only the illegal portion of the cargo should be condemned and made prize.
By the 21st article the two governments bound themselves not to permit their subjects or citizens to accept commissions from the enemies of the other, nor to permit such enemies to enlist any of their subjects or citizens into the military service; any subject or citizen acting contrary to this article being made punishable as a pirate. By subsequent articles the contracting parties agreed that neither would permit privateers, commissioned by the enemies of the other, to arm or to trade in their ports, still less allow a vessel belonging to the other to be taken within any of its bays, or within cannon-shot of its coasts. In case of a rupture between the two countries, the subjects or citizens of the one residing in the dominions of the other were secured the privilege of remaining and continuing their trade, so long as they committed no offence against the laws; and even if their conduct should induce the government to order them to depart from the country, they were allowed twelve months to remove their families and effects.
Difficulty of the negotiation.
These were the chief articles of this treaty. The disaffected on both sides the water found, however, as has almost invariably been the case in commercial treaties, great fault with it. The shipowners of the United States complained of the restrictions put upon their shipping intercourse with the West Indies; while the cavillers in Great Britain looked upon the permission to use vessels of seventy tons in the trade between the United States and these islands as equivalent to the creating a nursery of seamen for the use of America. But the treaty, in spite of these cavillings, was signed by Lord Grenville and Mr. Jay on the 19th of November, 1794. It was not, however, until the 25th of October, 1795, that the ratifications between the two governments were exchanged. The House of Representatives in the United States did not sanction this treaty till the 30th of April, 1796, nor was the Act for carrying its provisions into effect passed in the British Parliament till the 4th of July, 1797.[309] Throughout the whole negotiation Mr. Jay admits that he was apprehensive of giving umbrage to France; but while he is eloquent about the British spoliations on American commerce, he was forced to admit that British vessels had been captured by French privateers, illegally armed in American ports, and that some of them had actually been taken in the waters of the United States. The obligation of the United States to make compensation for these captures was also admitted by Washington. But the great difficulty of bringing the negotiation to a satisfactory issue cannot be better described than in the words of Mr. Wm. Jay.[310]
“On his arrival in England, the revolutionary frenzy in France was at its height. Robespierre was revelling in all the wantonness of unbridled power, and the French people, the unconscious vassals of a bloody tyrant, were perpetrating acts of cruelty and impiety which excited the astonishment and abhorrence of all who duly estimated the claims of humanity and the obligations of religion. With this people the British monarch was waging a war, in which he was supported by the enthusiastic co-operation of his own subjects,[311] and by the alliance of Russia, Austria, Spain, and Sardinia. Although in this war the United States were professedly neutral, yet it was well known that the sympathies of a large portion of their citizens were enlisted on the side of France, and that they were with difficulty restrained by their government from violating the duties of neutrality. The late proceedings of Congress, also, had tended but little to conciliate the goodwill of England. The American war, and the consequent independence of her colonies, had moreover wounded the pride of Britain, and engendered feelings towards the United States unpropitious to the negotiation. The extent of her resources, the number of her allies, the nature of the war in which she was engaged, and her resentments towards the United States, all combined to indispose Great Britain either to acknowledge the wrongs she had committed or to make reparation for them.”
It was in this treaty that Mr. Jay proposed to insert a clause “that if it should unfortunately happen that Great Britain and the United States should be at war, there shall be no privateers commissioned by them against each other.” Unhappily the clause was considered inadmissible by Lord Grenville, and in fact, although the proposition is embraced in Mr. Jay’s original instructions, the American government have receded from the views they then propounded unless other nations exempt private property from capture at sea.[312]