warmly his
services and his success: he did not altogether agree with Franklin, and
was pertinacious in claiming all respect due to the Government he
represented, assuring the British envoy that he would take no part in
the business unless the United States 'were treated as an independent
nation:' he drew up such a commission as would meet his views. While
Hamilton gave Jay full credit for sagacity and honesty, he thought him
suspicious, because he so far evaded his instructions as not to show
'the preliminary articles to our ally before he signed them:' this
caution, however, arose from Jay's patriotic circumspection; he excused
himself on the ground that his instructions 'had been given for the
benefit of America, and not of France,' and argued justly that there was
discretionary power to consult the public good rather than any literal
directions, the spirit, aim, and scope thereof being steadily adhered
to. Subsequent revelations abundantly proved that sagacity rather than
suspicion, and knowledge more than conjecture justified Jay's course.
There is a letter of Pickering, when Secretary of State, to Pinckney,
when about to visit France as envoy from the United States Government,
in regard to which Washington manifests in his correspondence particular
solicitude for the absolute correctness of its statements; wherein the
treachery of the French Government is demonstrated from official
documents. Jay, during his residence in Spain, had ample opportunity to
realize the selfish intrigues of the Bourbon dynasty, and he had a
better insight as to the real objects of the French Government, from
examining its policy at a distance and in connection with an ally, than
Franklin, who had been exposed to its immediate blandishments, and had
so many personal reasons for confidence and hope. Vergennes, then prime
minister, looked to the relinquishment of the fisheries, and while
France, from animosity to Great Britain, cheerfully aided us in the war
of the Revolution, it was no part of her secret purpose to foster into
independent greatness the power which she befriended from motives of
policy during her own struggle with England. Jay, therefore, insisted
upon a recognition of our independence on the part of Great Britain, not
as the first article of the treaty, but as _un fait accompli_; and
wisely declined to allow the French minister, whose plans and views he
so well understood, to see the advantageous terms we made with the
for