VERGENNES COMPLAINS; FRANKLIN REPLIES. * tion in this matter, the negotiations proceeded along the lines he indicated, and the provisional articles were agreed upon without consulting the French court. Mr. Adams was in hearty accord with Jay, and finally Franklin took sides with the other two. While the commissioners violated their instructions for which there were numbers at home to censure them, still it can be asserted that what they did was perfectly right under the circumstances, and in the end the best they could do to serve their country's interest.‡ Vergennes complained of the conduct of the American commissioners in a note to Franklin, saying: "I am at a loss to explain your conduct and that of your colleague on this occasion. You have concluded your preliminary articles without any communication between us, although the instructions from Congress prescribe that nothing shall be done without the participation of the king. *For Adam's views regarding the course of the French court, see John Adams, Works, vol. i., pp. 392-395. John Adams, Works, vol. iii., p. 336. Morse, Life of Franklin, p. 373; Hale, Franklin in France, vol. ii., pp. 84-85, 125 et seq.; John Adams, Works, vol. i., pp. 340–342, 363-376, vol. viii., pp. 86-89; Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, vol. i., Introduction, §§ 109111; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, vol. vii., chap. ii.; Prescott, Diplomacy of the United States, vol. i., pp. 100-106, 118–128; Wheaton, International Law (ed. Dana), §§ 257262; Hall, International Law (4th ed.), p. 347; Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. iv., pp. 255-264. 305 Sir; you have all your life performed your duties. I pray you to consider how you propose to fulfill those which are due to the king."* Franklin was requested by the other commissioners to make reply in behalf of all. In answer therefore, he said: Nothing has been agreed, in the preliminaries, contrary to the interests of France, and no peace is to take place between us and England till you have concluded yours. Your observation is, however, apparently just- -that in not consulting you before they were signed, we have been guilty of neglecting a point of bienséance. But as this was not from want of respect for the king, whom we all love and honor, we hope it will be excused, and that the great work which has hitherto been so happily conducted, which is so nearly brought to perfection, and is so glorious to his reign, will not be ruined by a single indiscretion of ours." + In a letter to Luzerne, the French minister in America, Vergennes speaks of this subject and says that Franklin's apology very much softened the displeasure of the French court. He says: I blame no one, Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence of the Revolution, vol. vi., p. 140. See also the letter to Franklin, in Morse, Life of Franklin, p. 379. Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence of the Revolution, vol. vi., p. 144. Moore says that no paper ever written by Franklin more advantageously displays his marvelous skill than his reply to these reproaches.- American Diplomacy, p. 31. Parton, Life of Franklin, vol. ii., p. 501 et 306 ADAMS AND SPARKS ON ACTIONS OF FRENCH COURT. ence. Under the circumstances it was not unnatural that the American commissioners should be suspicious of France, particularly as the British envoys endeavored by insinuation, inuendo, and otherwise to excite jealousy between the Americans and the French as to the ulterior plans and purposes of the latter. Adams said: "There is nothing that humbles and depresses, nothing that shackles and confines, in short, nothing that renders totally useless all your ministers in Europe, so much as these positive instructions to consult and communicate with French ministers upon all occasions, and to follow their advice. And I really think it would be better to constitute the Count de Vergennes our sole minister, and give him full powers to make peace and treat with all Europe, than to continue any of us seq.; Sparks, Life of Franklin, p. 490; Morse, Life of Franklin, pp. 380-382. See also the various letters of Vergennes in Hale, Franklin in France, vol. ii., pp. 149-159, 195-197. Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence of the Revolution, vol. vi., p. 152. See also Franklin's letter accompanying the reply of the commissioners to the censure upon their actions, in ibid, vol. vi., p. 581. in the service under the instructions in being, if they are to be understood in that unlimited sense which some persons contend for."*. However, Jay's stand in the matter would seem to be justified, as he was there to conserve the interests of the United States alone. Sparks says: "The French court, from first to last, adhered faithfully to the terms of the alliance, not that they had any special partiality for the Americans, or were moved by the mere impulse of good will and friendship, unmixed with motives of interest. Why should this be expected? When was entire disinterestedness ever known to characterize the intercourse between nations? But no fact in the history of the American Revolution is more clearly demonstrable, than that the French government, in their relations with the United States, during the war, and at the peace, maintained strictly their honor and fidelity to their engagements; nay more, that they acted a generous, and in some instances, a magnanimous part."t Undoubtedly Jay greatly aided the pp. 12-13. * John Adams, Works, vol. viii., † Sparks, Life of Franklin, p. 495. See also McLaughlin, The Confederation and the Constitution, p. 18 et seq.; Pitkin, Political and Civil History of the United States, vol. ii., pp. 123-152; Pellew, John Jay, pp. 204-207; Jay, Life of John Jay, vol. i., p. 133 et seq.; George W. Green, The Diplomacy of the Revolution, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. xv., p. 576; John Adams, Works, vol. i., pp. 354-399. As to its effects on the Northwest see Moore, The Northwest under Three Flags, p. 279 et seq., and authorities cited. RIGHT OF FRANCE TO PARTICIPATE IN NEGOTIATIONS. cause by his exhibition of firmness regarding the minutest technicalities, but it hardly seems possible that France, considering her former conduct, would have gone back on the United States entirely. The conclusions reached by various historians depend upon the manner in which they interpret the personal conduct of the various principals in the negotiations.* France was not pouring out her money and the blood of her soldiers for the pleasure of it. Since 1782 she had practically borne the greater part of the burden of the war against England, and simply because she did not desire that America should conduct her negotiations separately from the other allies is not sufficient ground for saying that she was playing false to America. America was only one of the allies * C. F. Adams says: "The great diplomatists, without exception, proceed upon one maxim, which is, to advance their own country in power, regardless, if not at the cost, of every other. * ** The notion that the ministers of Louis the Sixteenth, who had grown gray in the service of this system, in taking the course which they did towards America, could have been actuated by any other than the accepted ideas of their day, or that they shared in the enthusiasm generated in the hearts of the French nation by the sight of brave men struggling for liberty against power, seems entirely out of keeping with any thing that previously happened in their lives, or that marked the rest of their career. * The ideas of Count de Vergennes had never swerved from the doctrine of his time, which was to maintain France as the centre around which the various European powers were to be kept moving in their respective orbits."- John Adams, Works, vol. i., p. 303. "Generosity of spirit or sympathy with liberty was not even thought of. It was the cry of vengeance from France, humiliated by the domineering Anglicism of William Pitt.”—Ibid, p. 309. 307 included in a general war with Eng- * * * *See also Foster, Century of American Diplo macy, p. 77 et seq. When Adams received Liv ingston's letter of censure on the action of the commissioners in disregarding the French court, he said: "I am weary, disgusted, affronted and disappointed. I have been injured and my country has joined in the injury; it has basely prostituted its own honor by sacrificing mine. But the sacrifice of me was not so servile and intolerable as putting us all under guardianship. Congress surrendered their own sovereignty into the hands of a French minister. Blush! blush! ye guilty records! blush and perish! It is glory to have broken such infamous orders. Infamous, I say, for so they will be to all posterity. How can such a stain be washed out? Can we cast a veil over it and forget it?"-John Adams, Works, vol. iii., p. 359. See also vol. viii., pp. 11-13. 308 THE BASIS FOR A TREATY. In October, shortly after the arrival of Oswald's revised commission, Jay submitted to Oswald a scheme for a treaty,† which was accepted by Oswald and sent to London for acceptance by the ministry. As defined by this plan, the northern boundary line was to run from the intersection of the 45th degree of N. Lat. with the St. Lawrence, to the south end of Lake Nipissing, and thence to the sources of the Mississippi, thus including much of what is now Canada; the western boundary was the Mississippi. The Americans assured to themselves the right to the fisheries, but on the other hand made no provisions for paying the refugees or repealing the confiscatory laws. The English ministry refused to accept this draft of the treaty, and early in November another scheme was agreed upon by the commissioners and taken to England. In drawing up this second John Adams, Works, vol. viii., p. 89. Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence of the Revolution, vol. v., p. 811. Pellew, John Jay, pp. 200–201. McLaughlin, The Confederation and the Constitution, pp. 24-25. See also Fitzmaurice, Life of Shelburne, vol. iii., p. 269 et seq. Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, vol. v., p. 851; Pellew, John Jay, pp. 210-212; John Adams, Works, vol. i., pp. 377-378. draft, it was due to the tenacity of Adams, who had some time previously arrived on the scene, that the fishery rights were retained in the treaty. It was agreed in this second treaty that no hindrances should be placed in the way of British creditors in their endeavors to collect debts contracted before 1775, but regarding the Loyalists the American commissioners would only agree that Congress would recommend that the States change their confiscation laws so as to be consistent with justice and equity. Scarcely any change * Pellew, John Jay, pp. 216-217. See, however, p. 223. In a letter to Secretary Livingston, November 8, 1782, Adams says: "If Mr. Jay and I had yielded the punctilio of rank, and taken the advice of the Count de Vergennes and Dr. Franklin, by treating with the English or Spaniards, before we were put upon the equal footing that our rank demanded, we should have sunk in the minds of the English, French, Spaniards, Dutch, and all the neutral powers. The Count de Vergennes certainly knows this; if he does not, he is not even a European statesman; if he does know it, what inference can we draw, but that he means to keep us down if he can; to keep his hand under our chin to prevent us from drowning, but not to lift our heads out of water? If we conduct ourselves with caution, prudence, moderation, and firmness, we shall succeed in every great point; but if congress or their ministers abroad suffer themselves to be intimidated by threats, slanders, or insinuations, we shall be duped out of the fishery, the Mississippi, much of the western lands, compensation to the tories, and Penobscot at least, if not Kennebec. This is my solemn opinion, and I will never be answerable to my country, posterity, or my own mind, for the consequences that might happen from concealing it."-John Adams, Works, vol. viii., pp. 4-5. Franklin said: "Your ministers require that we should receive again into our bosom those who have been our bitterest enemies and restore their properties who have destroyed ours, and thus, while the wounds they have given us are PRELIMINARY TREATY CONCLUDED. was made This was not entirely acceptable to Shelburne, and as the king was shortly to meet Parliament, Shelburne decided that as favorable a treaty as possible should be presented when Parliament convened.† However, he determined to make one more effort for the Loyalists and the fisheries, but the Americans mained firm in their refusal to compensate the Loyalists and insisted that the United States be given a re still bleeding! It is many years since your na- + Wharton, vol. v., pp. 851-853. See also Fisher, Struggle for American Independence, vol. ii., pp. 541-545; Gordon, American Revolution, vol. iv., pp. 331-341 (ed. 1778); Lecky, England in the 18th Century, vol. iv., pp. 252-268; the Works and Letters of Jay, Franklin and Adams; Ogg, Opening of the Mississippi, p. 397; Hale, Franklin in France, vol. ii., chap. viii. Fitzmaurice, Life of Shelburne, vol. iii., pp. 287, 298; Pellew, John Jay, pp. 214-215. 309 share in the fisheries.* Finally, as the English saw they could obtain no further concessions, a preliminary treaty was agreed to on November 30, 1782, and signed by the commissioners at Paris,† and early the following year was approved and ratified by Congress. Much was left to be determined by later negotiation, particularly as to boundaries. The northeastern boundary was defined as" a line drawn due north from the source of the Saint Croix River to the Highlands; along the said Highlands which divide these rivers that John Adams, Works, vol. i., pp. 379-386, vol. iii., p. 327 et seq. For the remarks of the commissioners on the various articles see vol. viii., pp. 18-20. Beside the works on the peace negotiations previously mentioned, see Wharton, Digest of International Law, vol. iii; Sparks, Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution (in 12 vols., 1829-1830 and in 6 vols., 1857); Johnston, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, vols. ii. and iii.; John Jay, The Peace Negotiations of 1782-1783, in Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. vii., chap. ii.; Theodore Lyman, The Diplomacy of the United States, vol. i., chap. iv.; Foster, A Century of American Diplomacy, chap. ii.; John Jay, The Peace Negotiations of 1782-1783, in Papers of the American Historical Association, vol. iii., pp. 79-100, and Ibid, Count de Vergennes, in Magazine of American History, vol. xiii., pp. 31-38; W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. iv.; Lord John Russell, Life and Times of Charles James Fox (3 vols., 1859-66); John Adolphus, History of England from the Accession to the Decease of George III. (7 vols., 1840-1845). For the designs of France on the Mississippi Valley, see F. J. Turner, The Policy of France toward the Mississippi Valley in the Period of Washington and Adams, in American Historical Review, vol. x., pp. 249 279. Watson (Men and Times of the Revolution, pp. 203-206) gives an interesting account of his being present when the king read his speech in Parliament, December 5, 1782. |