t
plan should fail, I shall then prepare and present such formal, and at
the same time such temperate and _firm_, representations as may be
necessary to place the claims and conduct of the two governments in
their proper point of view."

A treaty was finally signed at London, on the nineteenth of November,
1794, by Mr. Jay and Lord Grenville, and submitted to their respective
governments for ratification. It was defective in some parts and
objectionable in others; but, as it was the best that could be obtained,
Mr. Jay was induced to sign it.

In a private letter to Washington, written on the same day that he
signed the treaty, Mr. Jay said, "To do more was impossible. I ought not
to conceal from you," he added, "that the confidence reposed in your
personal character was visible and useful throughout the negotiation."
To the secretary of state he wrote:--

"The long-expected treaty accompanies this letter. The difficulties
which retarded its accomplishment frequently had the appearance of
being insurmountable. They have at last yielded to modifications of
the articles in which they existed, and to that mutual disposition
to agreement which reconciled Lord Grenville and myself to an
unusual degree of trouble and application. They who have levelled
uneven ground know how little of the work afterward appears.

"Since the building is finished, it can not be very important to
describe the scaffolding, nor to go into all the details which
respected the business. My opinion of the treaty is apparent from
my having signed it. I have no reason to believe or conjecture that
one more favorable to us is attainable."

This treaty provided for the establishment of three boards of
commissioners; one to determine the eastern boundary of the United
States, by deciding which was the river St. Croix named in the treaty of
peace in 1783; another to ascertain the amount of losses which British
subjects had experienced in consequence of legal impediments to the
recovery of debts due them by citizens of the United States, contracted
before the Revolution--such amount, on their report being made, to be
paid by the government of the United States; and a third to estimate the
losses sustained by American citizens in consequence of irregular and
illegal captures by British cruisers, for which the sufferers had no
adequate remedy in suits of law--such losses to be paid by the British