A convention was entered into by him, and was submitted to congress in seventeen hundred and eighty-four; France having in the mean time appointed Marbois consul-general, with a subordinate corps of consuls and vice-consuls. On the consideration of this convention, congress, at the instance of Jay, unanimously resolved, that instructions should be given that the signature of the convention should be delayed until further advices, unless it had been already signed. A despatch from Franklin announced that it had been already signed, and that a copy had been so long since transmitted to congress, that its ratification was expected; he added, "I am not informed what objection has arisen in congress to the plan sent me. Mr. Jefferson thinks it may have been to that part which restrained the consuls from all concerns in, commerce."* Congress had delayed to act upon it, until, a formal demand of its ratification being made by France, the convention was deliberately examined by the secretary of foreign affairs. On this examination it appeared that it proposed three principal objects, in the promotion of which, it was manifest, that the United States had no interest. The first was, a provision against the infraction of the French and American laws of trade. As the United States had no laws for the regulation of her commerce with France or her dominions, there could be no use in a provision against the infraction of them. The second was, a restriction of the emigration to the other, of the people of either country, which, as there was no reason to apprehend emigration from the United States to France, was superfluous. The third, established a corps of "consuls, vice-consuls, and agents," so coherent, so capable of acting jointly and secretly, and so ready to obey the order of their chief, that it could not fail of being influential in two 2 Dip. Cor. 44. VOL. III.-7 very important political respects-the acquisition and communication of intelligence, and the dissemination and impression of such advices, sentiments, and opinions, of men and measures, as it might be deemed expedient to dif fuse and encourage." An arrangement, which, in France, "where nothing could be printed without being licensed, or said without being known, and, if disliked, followed with inconvenience, and where the people being perfectly unimportant, every measure to influence their opinions must be equally so, could be of no use to America," but which in the United States would be most dangerous to her institutions. The powers and immunities with which this corps was clothed, were equally objectionable. By one article, certified declarations made before the consuls, were to be received in evidence as conclusive. By another, the consuls were invested with jurisdiction over all offences in which the citizens of the respective countries were parties, to the exclusion of the civil tribunals constitutionally created, while full immunity was conferred on their persons, papers, houses, and dependants. Consular chanceries were also created, which in many respects clashed with the internal policy of the United States, and a complete jurisdiction was given over French vessels in American harbours. It is also not a little remarkable, that the original feature in the French plan, which directed the commissions to be presented on their arrival to the respective states, according to the forms established there, was retained, notwithstanding the express instruction to follow the plan of congress, which directed these commissions, "in the first instance" to be presented to them. This, connected with the suggestion of Vergennes to Adams, that each state should appoint its own ministers, combined with the other circumstances of a direct loan being made by France to Virginia, and a commercial exemption being obtained from her, leaves a strong implication that France had in view relations with the individual states, independent of congress, and in direct violation of the articles of confederation, and that Jefferson was not insensible of the advantages Virginia might derive from these dispositions. The position of the United States was not a little embarrassing. The scheme having been framed by a former legislature, was conclusive upon the country, and its execution was urgently pressed by the French chargé d'affaires. As the only alternative, instructions were transmitted to Jefferson to state the objections to the present form, and to give assurances of their readiness to ratify a convention agreeable to the scheme originally framed, on the condition of its being limited to eight or ten years, instead of its being perpetual, as was first agreed. After much negotiation, a convention liable to fewer objections than that signed by Franklin, was concluded in seventeen hundred and eighty-eight; and after an inquiry how far it was obligatory upon the country, was ratified from necessity by the present government. The fruitless efforts made by the Spanish resident at Paris to induce Jay to enter into a treaty, the basis of which was a sacrifice of a large part of the undoubted territory of the United States, and, as a consequence of such sacrifice, the total abandonment of the Mississippi, have been the subject of previous comment. On the third of June, seventeen hundred and eighty-four, a few days after Jay had been elected secretary of foreign affairs, and Jefferson chosen commissioner in his place, it was thought advisable to renew the instructions of seventeen hundred and eighty-two; and a resolution, moved by Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, passed, directing the American commissioners" not to relinquish or cede, in any event, the right of the citizens of the United States to the free navigation of the Mississippi from its source to the ocean." It has been seen that, notwithstanding the recent negotiation with Jay at Paris, the commissioners, or some of thcm, were required to repair to Madrid. This was not acceded to, and Spain, sensible of her error, sought to remove the prejudices of the United States by a course of conciliation. She mediated a peace between them and the emperor of Morocco, on terms favourable to the former. She released a number of Americans, who had been imprisoned at Havana for breaches of her navigation laws, and she commissioned Gardoqui, a partner of a commercial house at Bilboa, who had been the medium of aids from Spain at an early period of the revolution, to negotiate a treaty. He arrived in seventeen hundred and eighty-five, when the secretary of foreign affairs was authorized to treat with him. The point upon which the former negotiation had broken off, still remained an insuperable obstacle. While Spain offered to treat on terms, in other respects deemed by Jay of the greatest advantage, she still insisted upon the retention of the territory east of the Mississippi, and consequently upon the exclusion of our citizens from its navigation. Late in the preceding year she had caused it to be announced to the United States, that vessels trading through that river would be exposed to process and confiscation. The obstruction of them, by her garrison at Natchez, was indicative of her determination to enforce her pretensions. The question now assumed a new aspect. The navigation could not be permanently relinquished. To submit to the enforcement of her restrictions, while their justice was denied, would be humiliation; to resist by arms, was war. Influenced by this state of things, by his impression of the other advantages of the treaty, and by the consideration that Spain was in possession of posts on both branches of the river, rather than the United States, without money, without credit, and without an army, should be plunged into a war, "with very little prospect of terminating it by a peace, either advantageous or glorious," the American secretary attended congress, and enforced the propriety of a treaty, limited to twenty-five or thirty years; one of the articles of which would have stipulated the forbearance of our citizens to use its navigation below their own territories to the ocean for a like term. This proposition gave great offence. The delegates from the northern states approving it, while those of the southern condemned it. A motion was made to revoke his commission, which was defeated; and a resolution was introduced, repealing the instruction to stipulate the free navigation of the Mississippi to the ocean, consenting to a modified use of it,† but with a proviso to insist upon the territorial limits fixed by the definitive treaty with Great Britain. A strong remonstrance was made by the delegates of Virginia, in which, not merely these questions, but the whole plan of the treaty, was objected to.‡ Jay's plan proposed to give to the merchants, vessels, productions, and manufactures of each country, the same privileges as if they were those of the country itself. It was urged that as Spain made no discrimination in her ports between her merchants and those of other nations, by this article the United States relinquished the right of making any discrimination, however beneficial it might be to her, without any consideration. As to the vessels, it was objected that as Spain admitted those of all coun * 6 D. C. 165.-August 3d, 1786. + These modifications were, permission to land and store American productions at New-Orleans; an advalorem duty to be paid to Spain on all shipments thence by American citizens; permission to our merchants to reside there; a privilege to American vessels to return from its mouth to that port, but not to carry any goods, contrary to the regulations of Spain, under pain of confiscation. $ 4 S. J. 87. RHODES HOUSE *OXFORD* LIBRARY |