cil of November 6, 1793, intended to destroy
all neutral commerce with the French colonies, and Congress's
counter-stroke of an embargo the following March, war was positively
imminent. The President resolved to send Jay to England as envoy
extraordinary, to make one more effort for an understanding.

The treaty negotiated by this gentleman, and ratified June 24, 1795
(excepting Article XII., on the French West India trade), was doubtless
the most favorable that could have been secured under the circumstances;
yet it satisfied no one and was humiliating in the extreme. The western
posts were indeed to be vacated by June 1, 1796, though without
indemnity for the past, but a British right of search and impressment
was implicitly recognized, the French West Indian trade not rendered
secure, and arbitrary liberty accorded to Great Britain in defining
contraband. Opposition to ratification was bitter and nearly universal.
The friends of France were jubilant. Jay was burned in effigy,
Washington himself attacked. The utmost that Hamilton in his powerful
"Letters of Camillus" could show was that the treaty seemed preferable
to war. Plainly we had then little to hope and much to fear from war
with Great Britain, yet even vast numbers of Federalists denounced the
pact as a base surrender to the nation's ancient tyrant, and wished an
appeal to arms.

Fisher Ames's eloquence decided the House for the treaty. An invalid,
with but a span of life before him, he spoke as from the tomb. "There
is, I believe," so ran his peroration, "no member who will not think his
chance to be a witness of the consequences (should the treaty fail of
ratification) greater than mine. If, however, the vote should pass to
reject, and a spirit should rise, as it will, with the public disorders,
to make confusion worse confounded, even I, slender and almost broken as
my hold on life is, may outlive the Government and Constitution of my
country!"

It was the most delicate crisis of Washington's presidency, and no
other American then alive, being in his place, could have passed through
it successfully. After the fury gradually subsided, men for a long time
acquiesced rather than believed in the step which had been taken. In the
end the treaty proved solidly advantageous, rather through
circumstances, however, than by its intrinsic excellence.

CHAPTER V.

RELATIONS WITH THE FRENCH REPUBLIC

[1793]

At its beginning all Americans hailed the Rev