e to be
opened to direct commerce with the United States; but no American vessel
might engage in the coasting trade of these East India dependencies. As
for the West India trade, only vessels of seventy tons burden might
participate, and even that concession was yielded on the express
understanding that molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton should not
be exported from the United States to any part of the world. After
hearing this obnoxious twelfth article, few Senators could preserve a
fair mind on the remaining provisions of the treaty.

The historian is in a better position to evaluate the treaty. To the
cause of international arbitration, Jay and Grenville made a distinct
contribution. They provided for three commissions which were to settle
the uncertain boundaries of the United States on the northeast and
northwest; to adjudicate the claims of British creditors; and to adjust
the claims of those citizens of the United States whose ships and
cargoes had been seized in the West India trade, and on the other hand,
the claims of those British subjects who had suffered losses through
French privateers in American waters. Moreover, an agreement was reached
on what should in future be regarded as contraband, and on the treatment
of vessels which should be captured on suspicion of carrying enemies'
property or contraband.

There were two cogent reasons for ratifying the treaty despite its
defects: it provided for indemnity in respect to recent seizures on the
high seas; and it averted war. But no arguments could justify the
surrender of American trade in the West Indies, to the minds of either
the New England shipper or the Southern planter, for while the latter
might be indifferent to other considerations, he would not willingly
part with his right to ship his cotton crop, now becoming every year
more valuable. The requisite two-thirds vote of the Senate was secured
only by dropping out altogether the objectionable twelfth article.

The publication of the treaty was followed by an outburst of popular
indignation which made even the President wince. Remonstrances and
protests poured in upon him from every part of the Union. The sailors
and shipowners of Portsmouth burned Jay and Grenville in effigy,
together with a miniature ship of seventy tons. In Charleston, the flags
were put at half-mast and the public hangman burned copies of the treaty
in the open street. While remonstrating with a disorderly crowd in Wall
S