ad been only
eleven years in the country, two of which he had served the people of
his adoption in a military capacity. After the Revolution he established
himself on the Monongahela, in western Pennsylvania, where his talents
soon caused him to be called into public life. He was engaged, as we
have seen, in the Whiskey Insurrection, but with patriotic intentions,
as he alleged; and by a large popular vote he was elected to a seat in
the house of representatives. Although a foreign accent was plainly
visible when he spoke, he was so fluent in language, so earnest in
manner, and so logical in argument, that his youth and foreign birth
were forgotten for the moment, and he was listened to with the greatest
pleasure.

Gallatin had heard the speeches on both sides with marked attention, and
was prepared to take new ground in his own. Quoting from Vattel on the
law of nations, he went on to show that slaves, being real estate, were
not a subject of booty, but, on the restoration of peace, fell back to
their former owners, like the soil to which they were attached. He
attempted to excite, evidently for party purposes, sectional hatred by
declaring that while the rights of the South and West had been
sacrificed by the treaty, in respect to negroes, the Indian trade, and
the navigation of the Mississippi, means had been found to protect the
commercial interests of the North. With the same breath, however, he
denounced the commercial articles of the treaty as utterly worthless,
and adroitly charged the senate, by insinuation, with ignorance
respecting the East Indian trade, falsely assuming that because the
treaty did not, by express provisions, secure the East Indian coasting
trade, and the direct voyage from India to Europe by American vessels,
that these privileges had been relinquished.

Like Madison, he regarded the provision respecting neutrals as yielding
everything to the semi-piratical policy of Great Britain. He contended
strenuously for the dishonest measure of sequestration of private debts
due to British subjects, as a means of coercion, and condemned that most
just provision of the treaty, bearing upon that subject, without stint.
While we have promised full indemnity to England, he said, for every
possible claim against us, we had abandoned every claim of a doubtful
nature, and agreed to receive the western posts under the most degrading
restrictions concerning the trade with the Indians. We had gained
nothing,