was laid before it, with its accompanying documents.
The session was with closed doors, discussions were long and arduous,
and the treaty underwent a scrutinizing examination. The twelfth
article met with especial objections.

This article provided for a direct trade between the United States and
the British West India Islands, in American vessels not exceeding
seventy tons burden, conveying the produce of the States or of the
Islands; but it prohibited the exportation of molasses, sugar, coffee,
cocoa, or cotton, in American vessels, either from the United States
or the Islands, to any part of the world. Under this article it was a
restricted intercourse, but Mr. Jay considered the admission even of
small vessels, to the trade of these islands, an important advantage
to the commerce of the United States. He had not sufficiently adverted
to the fact that, among the prohibited articles, cotton was also a
product of the Southern States. Its cultivation had been but recently
introduced there; so that when he sailed for Europe hardly sufficient
had been raised for domestic consumption, and at the time of signing
the treaty very little, if any, had been exported. Still it was now
becoming an important staple of the South, and hence the objection of
the Senate to this article of the treaty. On the 24th of June
two-thirds of the Senate, the constitutional majority, voted for the
ratification of the treaty, stipulating, however, that an article be
added suspending so much of the twelfth article as respected the West
India trade, and that the President be requested to open, without
delay, further negotiation on this head.

In the meantime the popular discontent which had been excited
concerning the treaty was daily increasing. The secrecy which had been
maintained with regard to its provisions was wrested into a cause of
offence. Such was the irritable condition of the public mind when, on
the 29th of June, a Senator of the United States (Mr. Mason of
Virginia) sent an abstract of the treaty to be published in a leading
opposition paper in Philadelphia. The whole country was immediately in
a blaze. Beside the opposition party, a portion of the Cabinet was
against the ratification. Of course it received but a faltering
support, while the attack upon it was vehement and sustained. The
assailants seemed determined to carry their point by storm. Meetings
to oppose the ratification were held in Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, Balt