Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

until the pleasure of Congress should be known. These papers had been committed to Mr. RUTLEDGE, Mr. MONTGOMERY and Mr. MADISON, who reported in favor of the ratification of the measure, against the opinion, however, of Mr. RUTLEDGE, the first member of the Committee. The report, after some discussion, had been recommitted, and had lain in their hands until, being called for, it was thought proper by the Committee to obtain the sense of Congress on the inain question, whether the act should be ratified or annulled; in order that a report might be made correspondent thereto. With this view, a motion was this day made by Mr. MADISON, Seconded by Mr. OSGOOD, that the Committee be instructed to report a proper act for the ratification of the measure. In support of this motion it was alleged, that whenever a public minister entered into engagements without authority from his Sovereign, the alternative which presented itself was either to recall the minister, or to support his proceedings, or perhaps both; that Congress had, by their resolution of the seventeenth day of September refused to accept the resignation of Mr. Laurens, and had insisted on his executing the office of a Minister Plenipotentiary; and that on the twentieth day of September they had ⚫rejected a motion for suspending the said resolution; that they had no option, therefore, but to fulfil the engagement entered into on the part of that Minister; that it would be in the highest degree preposterous to retain him in so dignified and confidential a service, and at the same time stigmatize him by a disavowal of his conduct, and thereby disqualify him for a proper execution of the service; that it was

improper to send him into negotiations with the enemy, under an impression of supposed obligations; that this reasoning was in a great degree applicable to the part which Dr. Franklin had taken in the measure; that, finally, the Marquis de la Fayette, who, in consequence of the liberation of Cornwallis, had undertaken an exchange of several officers of his family, would also participate in the mortification; that it was overrating far the importance of Cornwallis, to sacrifice all these considerations to the policy or gratification of prolonging his captivity.

On the opposite side it was said, that the British Government having treated Mr. Laurens as a trai tor, not as a prisoner of war, having refused to exchange him for General Burgoyne, and having declared, by the British General at New York, that he had been freely discharged, neither Mr. Laurens nor Congress would be bound, either in honor or justice, to render an equivalent; and that policy absolutely required that so barbarous an instrument of war, and so odious an object to the people of the United States, should be kept as long as possible in the chains of captivity; that as the latest advices rendered it probable that Mr. Laurens was on his return to America, the commission for peace would not be affected by any mark of disapprobation which might fall on his conduct; that no injury could accrue to Dr. Franklin, because he had guarded his act by an express reservation for the confirmation or disallowance of Congress; that the case was the same with the Marquis de la Fayette; that the declaration against partial ex

changes, until a cartel on national principles should be established, would not admit even an exchange antecedent thereto.

These considerations were, no doubt, with some the sole motives for their respective votes. There were others, however, who at least blended with them, on one side, a personal attachment to Mr. Laurens, and on the other, a dislike to his character, and a jealousy excited by his supposed predilection for Great Britain, by his intimacy with some of the new Ministry, by his frequent passing to and from Great Britain, and by his memorial, whilst in the Tower, to the Parliament. The last consideration was the chief ground on which the motion had been made for suspending the resolution, which requested his continuance in the commission for peace,

In this stage of the business, a motion was made by Mr. DUANE, seconded by Mr. RUTLEDGE, to postpone the consideration of it; which being lost, a motion was made by Mr. WILLIAMSON, to substitute a resolution declaring, that as the British Government had treated Mr. Laurens with so unwarrantable a rigor, and even as a traitor, and Cornwallis had rendered himself so execrable by his barbarities, Congress could not ratify his exchange. An adjournment was called for, in order to prevent a vote with so thin and divided a House.

43

No Congress till

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25TH.

A letter from the Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island was read, containing evidence that some of the leaders in Vermont, and particularly Luke Nolton, who had been deputed in the year 1780 to Congress as agent for that party, opposed to its independence, but who had since changed sides, had been intriguing with the enemy in New York. The letter was committed. (See November the twenty-seventh.)

The consideration of the motion for ratifying the discharge of Cornwallis was resumed. Mr. WILLIAMSON renewed his motion, which failed. Mr. MCKEAN suggested the expedient of ratifying the discharge, on condition that a general cartel should be acceded to. This was relished at first by several members, but a developement of its inefficacy and inconsistency with national dignity stifled it.

A motion was made by Mr. RUTLEDGE, seconded by Mr. RAMSAY, that the discharge should be ratified in case Mr. Laurens should undertake the office of commissioner for peace. This proposition was generally considered as of a very extraordinary nature, and after a brief discussion withdrawn.

In the course of these several propositions, most of the arguments stated on Friday last were repeated. Colonel HAMILTON, who warmly and urgently espoused the ratification, as an additional argument, mentioned that some intimations had been given by Colonel Laurens, of the army, with the privity of General Washington, to Cornwallis,

previous to his capitulation, that he might be exchanged for his father, then in the Tower.

The report of the Committee on Mr. MADISON'S motion, on the twenty-first instant, relative to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, passed without opposition.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26TH.

No Congress, but a Grand Committee * composed of a member from each State.

The States of New Hampshire and Massachusetts having redeemed more than their quota of the emissions prior to the eighteenth of March, 1780, had called on Congress to be credited for the surplus, on which the Superintendent of Finance reported, that they ought to be credited at the rate of one dollar specie for forty of the said emission, according to the act of March aforesaid. This report, being judged by Congress unjust, as the money had been called in by those States at a greater depreciation, was disagreed to. Whereupon, a motion was made by Mr. OSGOOD, that the States who had redeemed a surplus should be credited for the same according to its current value at the time of redemption.

This motion, with a letter afterwards received from the State of Massachusetts on the same subject, was referred to the Grand Committee in question.

The proceedings of Grand Committees, though often rendered particularly important by the freedom and fulness of discussion, make no part of the Journal, except in the reported result.

« ZurückWeiter »