ent to commence negotiations without previously having good reasons to expect a satisfactory termination of them.

It may also be well for you to take a proper occasion of remarking, that their omitting to send a minister here, when the United States sent one to London, did not make an agreeable impression on this country; and request to know what would be their future conduct on similar occasions.

It is in my opinion very important, that we avoid errors in our system of policy respecting Great Britain; and this can only be done by forming a right judgment of their disposition and views. Hence you will perceive how interesting it is, that you obtain the information in question, and that the business be so managed, as that it may receive every advantage, which abilities, address, and delicacy can promise and afford. I am, Sir, yours,

&c.

MY DEAR SIR,

TO JOHN JAY

PHILADELPHIA, 30 August, 1794.

Your letter of the 23d of June from London, and the duplicate, have both been received; and your safe arrival after so short a passage gave sincere pleasure, as well on private as on public account, to all your friends in this country; and to none in a greater degree, I can venture to assure you, than it did to myself.1

1 The conclusion of the treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain did not leave the two countries on

As you will receive letters from the Secretary of State's office, giving an official account of the public occurrences as they have arisen and progressed, it is unnecessary for me to retouch any of them; and yet I cannot restrain myself from making some observations on the most recent of them, the communication of which was received this morning cordial terms. The treaty itself was notoriously violated by both parties to it, and Great Britain refused to negotiate a treaty of commerce with her late enemy. The United States had despatched John Adams to London as its minister in 1785, but Great Britain did not accredit a minister to the United States until 1791, and even when he arrived it was found that he had no authority to negotiate a treaty. In 1793 war broke out between Great Britain and France, and American commerce suffered at the hands of both countries. In June, 1793, British war vessels were directed to stop all vessels bound for France with grain and compel them to proceed to a British port. In the following November, this order was supplemented by another directing that all such vessels should be seized and sent to a British prize court. These orders were especially injurious to American commerce, and with other grievances threatened to precipitate a second war between the two countries. In this situation, Washington determined to make another effort to obtain redress. "But," he said in a message to the Senate, as peace ought to be pursued with unremitting zeal, before the last resource, which has so often been the scourge of nations, and cannot fail to check the advanced prosperity of the United States, I have thought proper to nominate, and do hereby nominate, John Jay as Envoy Extraordinary of the United States to His Britannic Majesty. My confidence in our minister plenipotentiary in London [Thomas Pinckney] continues undiminished. But a mission like this, while it corresponds with the solemnity of the occasion, will announce to the world a solicitude for the friendly adjustment of our complaints, and a reluctance to hostility. Going immediately from the United States, such an envoy will carry with him a full knowledge of the existing temper and sensibility of our country; and will thus be taught to vindicate our rights with firmness, and to cultivate peace with sincerity." -Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, i., 153.

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only. I mean the protest of the governor of Upper Canada, delivered by Lieutenant Sheaffe, against our occupying lands far from any of the posts, which long ago they ought to have surrendered, and far within the known and until now the acknowledged limits of the United States.

On this irregular and high-handed proceeding of Mr. Simcoe, which is no longer masked, I would rather hear what the ministry of Great Britain will say, than pronounce my own sentiments thereon. But can that government or will it attempt, after this official act of one of their governors, to hold out ideas of friendly intentions towards the United States, and suffer such conduct to pass with impunity?

This may be considered as the most open and daring act of the British agents in America, though it is not the most hostile or cruel; for there does not remain a doubt in the mind of any wellinformed person in this country, not shut against conviction, that all the difficulties we encounter with the Indians, their hostilities, the murders of helpless women and innocent children along our frontiers, result from the conduct of the agents of Great Britain in this country. In vain is it then for its administration in Britain to disavow having given orders, which will warrant such conduct, whilst their agents go unpunished; whilst we have a thousand corroborating circumstances, and indeed almost as many evidences, some of which cannot be brought forward, to prove, that they are seducing from our alliance, and endeavoring to

remove over the line, tribes that have hitherto been kept in peace and friendship with us at a heavy expense, and who have no causes of complaint, except pretended ones of their creating; whilst they keep in a state of irritation the tribes, who are hostile to us, and are instigating those, who know little of us or we of them, to unite in the war against us; and whilst it is an undeniable fact, that they are furnishing the whole with arms, ammunition, clothing, and even provisions, to carry on the war; I might go further, and, if they are not much belied, add men also in disguise.

And

Can it be expected, I ask, so long as these things are known in the United States, or at least firmly believed, and suffered with impunity by Great Britain, that there ever will or can be any cordiality between the two countries? I answer, No. I will undertake, without the gift of prophecy, to predict, that it will be impossible to keep this country in a state of amity with Great Britain long, if the posts are not surrendered. A knowledge of these being my sentiments would have little weight, I am persuaded, with the British administration, nor perhaps with the nation, in effecting the measure; but both may rest satisfied, that, if they want to be in peace with this country, and to enjoy the benefits of its trade, to give up the posts is the only road to it. Withholding them, and the consequences we feel at present continuing, war will be inevitable.

This letter is written to you in extreme haste, whilst the papers respecting this subject I am writ

ing on are copying at the Secretary of State's office, to go by express to New York, for a vessel which we have just heard sails to-morrow. You will readily perceive, therefore, I had no time for digesting, and as little for correcting it. I shall only add, that you may be assured always of the sincere friendship and affection of yours, &c.

TO ALEXANDER HAMILTON

[PRIVATE AND PERFECTLY CONFIDENTIAL]

MY DEAR SIR,

PHILADELPHIA, 3 July, 1795.

The treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation, which has lately been before the Senate, has, as you will perceive, made its public entry into the Gazettes of this City. Of course the merits, and demerits of it will (especially in its unfinished state), be freely discussed.1

1 The treaty which Jay negotiated and which is known by his name arrived in Philadelphia March 7, 1795. Its contents seem to have been made known only to Washington and his Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph. On June 8, the Senate met in special session and the treaty was submitted for its approval. Soon afterward a senator from Virginia, in violation of the injunction of secrecy by which all the senators were bound, made the treaty public. Everywhere it excited the most bitter opposition. It failed in so many respects to satisfy the popular expectations that its merits were quite overlooked. Public meetings were held in which it was denounced as a wanton sacrifice of American rights and interests, and the President was urged to refuse to ratify it. Boston, a Federalist stronghold, led the outbreak with a meeting in Faneuil Hall at which a protest was adopted to which Washington returned a dignified but decisive reply. (See page 375.) Jay was burned in effigy and every form of vicarious insult was heaped upon him. Hamilton, when he attempted to defend the treaty at a public meeting in New