Works_, Vol. 4,
p. 371.]

The treaty was undoubtedly a disappointment to the country, and not
greatly pleasing to Washington. Perhaps Jay said the best thing that
could be said in its favour: "One more favourable was not attainable."
The thing he was sent especially to do, he failed to accomplish,
except the evacuation of the posts, and a concession as to the West
Indian trade, which the Senate rejected. Nevertheless the country was
greatly and permanently benefited. The treaty acquired extradition
for criminals; it secured the collection of debts barred by the
Revolution, amounting to ten million dollars; it established the
principle that war should not again be a pretext for the confiscation
of debts or for the annulment of contracts between individuals; and it
avoided a war with England, for which the United States was never more
unprepared. "As the first treaty negotiated under the new government,"
says John W. Foster, "it marked a distinct advance in international
practice."[74] In a recent biography of Andrew Jackson, Professor
Sumner says: "Jay's treaty was a masterpiece of diplomacy, considering
the times and the circumstances of this country." Even the
much-criticised commercial clause, "the entering wedge," as Jay called
it, proved such a gain to America, that upon the breaking out of war
in 1812, Lord Sheffield declared that England had "now a complete
opportunity of getting rid of that most impolitic treaty of 1794, when
Lord Grenville was so perfectly duped by Jay."[75]

[Footnote 74: _A Century of American Diplomacy_, p. 165.]

[Footnote 75: To Mr. Abbott, November 6, 1812, _Correspondence of Lord
Colchester_, Vol. 2, p. 409.]

John Jay's first term as governor was characteristically cautious and
conservative. He began with observing the proprieties, gracefully
declining the French Consul's invitation to a republican
entertainment, and courageously remaining at his post during the
yellow fever epidemic of 1795. With equal ease he settled the growing
conflict between the severity of the past and the sympathy of the
present, by changing the punishment in cases of ordinary felony, from
death to imprisonment. Up to that time men might have been executed
for stealing a few loaves of high-priced bread to relieve the
sufferings of a hungry family. Under Jay's humane plea for mercy the
death penalty was limited to treason, murder, and stealing from a
church. A quarter of a century passed before Sir James Mack