reign nations; that, in the
discussion on this subject, the favourers of commercial hostility had
uniformly supported the policy of giving value to treaties with the
United States; these opinions were instantly relinquished by the party
which had strenuously asserted them while urged by their leaders in
congress; and it was imputed as a crime to the government, and to its
negotiator, that he had proceeded further than to demand immediate and
unconditional reparation of the wrongs sustained by the United States.

The most strenuous and unremitting exertions to give increased energy
to the love which was openly avowed for France, and to the detestation
which was not less openly avowed for England,[33] were connected with
this course of passionate declamation.

[Footnote 33: See note No. XI. at the end of the volume.]

Such was the state of parties when the senate advised the ratification
of the treaty. Although common usage, and a decent respect for the
executive, and for a foreign nation, not less than a positive
resolution, required that the seal of secrecy should not be broken by
the senate, an abstract of this instrument, not very faithfully taken,
was given to the public; and on the 29th of June, a senator of the
United States transmitted a copy of it to the most distinguished
editor of the opposition party in Philadelphia, to be communicated to
the public through the medium of the press.

If the negotiation itself had been acrimoniously censured; if amicable
arrangements, whatever might be their character, had been passionately
condemned; it was not to be expected that the treaty would assuage
these pre-existing irritations.

In fact, public opinion did receive a considerable shock, and men
uninfested by the spirit of faction felt some disappointment on its
first appearance. In national contests, unless there be an undue
attachment to the adversary country, few men, even among the
intelligent, are sensible of the weakness which may exist in their own
pretensions, or can allow their full force to the claims of the other
party. If the people at large enter keenly into the points of
controversy with a foreign power, they can never be satisfied with any
equal adjustment of those points, unless other considerations,
stronger than abstract reason, afford that satisfaction; nor will it
ever be difficult to prove to them, in a case unassisted by the
passions, that in any practicable commercial contract, they give