de
still fiercer the conflict of the respective partisans on this side of
the Atlantic; American seamen were impressed; crowds surrounded the
President's house, clamorous for war; and he was only sustained in the
Senate by an extremely small majority, while the Democratic party were
eager for immediate action against England. At this crisis, Washington
resolved to try another experiment for conciliation, and to this end
proposed Jay as especial envoy to Great Britain. His nomination was
opposed in the Senate, but prevailed by a vote of eighteen against
eight. The mission was not desired by him. Uncongenial as were absence
from home and diplomatic cares, this exile and duty were, in all private
respects, opposed to his tastes and wishes; he foresaw the difficulties,
anticipated the result, but, once convinced that he owed the sacrifice
of personal to public considerations, he now, as before and
subsequently, brought all his conscientiousness and intelligence to the
service of his country. His reception at the court of St. James was kind
and considerate, and his intercourse with Grenville, then Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, carried on with the greatest mutual respect. A treaty
was negotiated--Jay obtaining the best terms in his power: no state
paper ever gave rise to more virulent controversy; it became a new line
of demarcation, a new test of party feeling: Hamilton was its eloquent
advocate, Jefferson its violent antagonist: Washington doubted the
expediency of accepting it; and it passed the Senate by a bare majority.
While in a calm retrospect we acknowledge many serious objections to
such a treaty, they do not account for the intense excitement it caused;
and the circumstances under which it was executed sufficiently explain,
while they do not reconcile us to, the signal advantages it secured to
Great Britain. She agreed to give up the forts;--but this concession had
already been made; to compensate for illegal captures; there was a
provision for collecting British debts in America; and in a commercial
point of view American interests were sacrificed; it was declared a
treaty wherein a weak power evidently succumbed to a strong: but on the
other hand, public expectation had been extravagant: no reasonable
American citizen, cognizant of the state of the facts and of party
feeling, could have believed it possible to secure, at the time and
under the circumstances, a satisfactory understanding; and no candid
mind could d