CHAP. VIII. ment of the present session, and had been further 1795. enforced by a message accompanying a report

Resignation of general Knox.

made upon it by the secretary of war. The following humane sentiments, extracted from that report, are characteristic of the general views of the administration.

"It seems that our own experience would demonstrate the propriety of endeavouring to preserve a pacific conduct in preference to a hostile one with the Indian tribes. The United States can get nothing by an Indian war; but they risk men, money, and reputation. As we are more powerful and more enlightened than they are, there is a responsibility of national character that we should treat them with kindness, and even with liberality."

The plan suggested in this report was, to add to those necessary arrangements respecting trade, which were indispensable to the preservation of peace, a chain of garrisoned posts within the territory of the Indians, provided their assent to the measure should be obtained; and to subject all those who should trespass on the Indian lands to martial law. The bill which was founded on this report passed the senate, but was lost in the house of representatives by a small majority.

This report preceded but a few days, the resignation of the secretary of war. This valuable officer too was driven from the service of the public, by the scantiness of the compensation allowed him.

On the 28th of December 1794, he addressed a letter to the president giving him official notice that, with the year, his services as secretary for

the department of war would cease.

This reso- CHAP. VIII, lution had long before been verbally communi- 1795.

cated.

"After having served my country," concluded the letter," near twenty years, the greater portion of the time under your immediate auspices, it is with extreme reluctance I find myself constrained to withdraw from so honourable a situation. But the natural and powerful claims of a numerous family will no longer permit me to neglect their essential interests.

"In whatever situation I shall be, I shall recollect your confidence and kindness with all the fervor and purity of affection, of which a grateful heart is susceptible."

In the letter notifying the acceptance of his resignation, to his expressions of the regret it occasioned, the president added....

"I cannot suffer you, however, to close your public service, without uniting to the satisfaction which must arise in your own mind from conscious rectitude, assurances of my most perfect persuasion that you have deserved well of your country.

My personal knowledge of your exertions, while it authorizes me to hold this language, justifies the sincere friendship which I have borne you, and which will accompany you in every situation of life."

by colonel

Colonel Pickering, a gentleman who had filled is succeeded many important offices through the war of the Pickering. revolution; who had discharged several trusts of considerable confidence under the present government; and who at the time was postmaster gen

CHAP. VIII. eral, was appointed to succeed general Knox as 1795. secretary of war.

On the seventh of March, the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, between the United States and Great Britain, which had been signed by lord Grenville and Mr. Jay on the 19th of the preceding November, was received at the office of state.

From his arrival in London on the 15th of June, Mr. Jay had been assiduously and unremittingly employed on the arduous duties of his mission. By a deportment respectful, yet firm, mingling a decent deference for the government to which he was deputed, with a proper regard for the dignity of his own, this minister avoided those little asperities which frequently embarrass measures of great concern, and smoothed the way to the adop tion of those which were suggested by the real interests of both nations. Many and intricate were the points to be discussed. On some of them an agreement was found to be impracticable; but at United States length, a treaty was concluded, which Mr. Jay

Treaty

between the

and Great

Britain.

declared to be the best that was attainable, and which he believed it for the interests of the United States to accept.* Indeed it was scarcely possible to

* In a private letter to the president, of the same date with the signature of the treaty, Mr. Jay said "to do more was impossible. I ought not to conceal from you, that the confidence reposed in your personal character was visible and useful throughout the negotiation.

"If there is not a good disposition in the far greater part of the cabinet and nation towards us, I am exceedingly mistaken. I do not mean an ostensible and temporising, but a real good disposition....I wish it may have a fair trial."

contemplate the evidences of extreme exasperation CHAP. VIII which were given in America, and the nature of 1795. the differences which subsisted between the two countries, without feeling a conviction that war was inevitable, should this attempt to adjust those differences prove unsuccessful.

On Monday the eighth of June, the day on which the vice president and members of the senate had been summoned to attend, a quorum of that body convened in the senate chamber, and the treaty, with the documents connected with it, were submitted to their consideration, that they might, "in their wisdom, decide whether they would advise and consent that it should be made.”

On the 24th of June, after bestowing on the treaty that minute and laborious investigation, to which the magnitude and intricacy of the subject gave it such just pretensions, the senate, by pre. cisely a constitutional majority, advised and consented to its conditional ratification.

To an article which regulated the intercourse with the British West Indies, there existed an insuperable objection, founded on a fact which is understood to have been unknown to Mr. Jay. The intention of the contracting parties was to admit the direct intercourse between the United States and those islands, but not to permit the productions of the latter to be carried to Europe in the vessels of the former.

To prevent the possibility of thus using what was deemed a valuable privilege, the exportation from the United States of those articles which were the principal productions of the islands was

CHAP. VIII. to be relinquished. Among these was cotton. 1795. This article, which a few years before was scarcely raised in sufficient quantity for domestic consumption, was recently growing into importance, and was becoming one of the richest staples of the southern states. Informed of this fact, the senate advised and consented that the treaty should be ratified on condition that an article be added thereto, suspending that part of the 12th article which related to the intercourse with the West Indies.

Although, in the mind of the president, several objections to the treaty had occurred, they were overbalanced by its advantages; and before transmitting it to the senate, he had resolved to ratify it, if approved by that body. The resolution of the senate presented difficulties which required consideration. Whether they could advise and consent to an article which had not been laid before them; and whether their resolution was to be considered as the final exercise of their power, were questions not entirely free from difficulty. Nor was it absolutely clear that the executive could ratify the treaty, under the advice of the senate, until the suspending article should be introduced into it. In the removal of all doubt on these points a few days were employed, at the expiration of which, intelligence was received from Europe which suspended for a time the resolution which the president had formed.

In the English papers, an account was given, which, though not official, was deemed worthy of credit, that the order of the eighth of June 1793, for the seizure of provisions going to French ports,