nature of the preliminary articles was received, and on the fifteenth of April the instrument of ratification Hamilton had the gratification of preparing, was agreed to.

He wrote to Jay :-"Though I have not performed my promise of writing to you, which I made you when you left this country, yet I have not the less interested myself in your welfare and success. I have been witness with pleasure to every event which has had a tendency to advance you in the esteem of your country; and I may assure you with sincerity, that it is as high as you can possibly wish.

"The peace, which exceeds in the goodness of its terms the expectations of the most sanguine, does the highest honour to those who made it. It is the more agreeable, as the time was come when thinking men began to be seriously alarmed at the internal embarrassments and exhausted state of this country. The New-England people talk of making you an annual fish-offering, as an acknowledgment of your exertions for the participation of the fisheries.

"We have now happily concluded the great work of independence, but much remains to be done to reap the fruits of it. Our prospects are not flattering. Every day proves the inefficacy of the present confederation; yet the common danger being removed, we are receding instead. of advancing in a disposition to amend its defects. The road to popularity in each state is, to inspire jealousies of the power of congress; though nothing can be more apparent than that they have no power, and that for the want of it the resources of the country during the war could not be drawn out, and we at this moment experience all the mischief of a bankrupt and ruined credit. It is to be hoped that when prejudice and folly have run themselves out of breath, we may return to reason and correct our errors."

The preceding narrative develops a policy which evidently sought to curtail the limits and to check the growth of this infant empire. A confirmation of its purposes is to be found in the instructions of Montmorin, the successor of Vergennes, to his legate in the United States. “That it is not advisable for France to give to America all the stability of which she is susceptible: she will acquire a degree of power she will be too well disposed to abuse." It is seen in the continued efforts of her agents to support the impotent confederacy of the states, after every enlightened and every virtuous patriot had condemned it; and may be read in the proclamation to the world by their successors, of the perfidious conduct of the old government of France towards their too confiding ally.

Such a policy, it would seem, could only have been suggested by and founded upon the subservience of leading men in this country, who, prompted by illicit motives, allied themselves to her corrupt and crafty councils.

When the existence and consequences of such a connection are considered, Hamilton's public declaration will not excite surprise :

"Upon my first going into congress, I discovered symptoms of a party too well disposed to subject the interests of the United States to the management of France. Though I felt, in common with those who had participated in the revolution, a lively sentiment of good-will towards a power whose co-operation, however it was and ought to have been dictated by its own interest, had been extremely useful to us, and had been afforded in a liberal and handsome manner; yet, tenacious of the real independence of our country, and dreading the preponderance of foreign influence as the natural disease of popular government, I was struck with disgust at the appearance, in the very cradle of our republic, of a party actuated by an undue complaisance to a foreign power, and I resolved at once to

resist this bias in our affairs: a resolution which has been the chief cause of the persecution I have endured in the subsequent stages of my political life.

"Among the fruits of the bias I have mentioned, were the celebrated instructions to our commissioners, for treating of peace with Great Britain; which, not only as to final measures, but also as to preliminary and intermediate negotiations, placed them in a state of dependence on the French ministry, humiliating to themselves and unsafe for the interests of the country. This was the more exceptionable, as there was cause to suspect, that, in regard to the two cardinal points of the fisheries and the navigation of the Mississippi, the policy of the cabinet of Versailles did not accord with the wishes of the United States.

"The commissioners, of whom Mr. Adams was one, had the fortitude to break through the fetters which were laid upon them by those instructions; and there is reason to believe that, by doing it, they both accelerated the peace with Great Britain and improved the terms, while they preserved our faith with France. Yet a serious attempt was made to obtain from congress a formal censure of their conduct. The attempt failed, and instead of censure, the praise was awarded which was justly due to the accomplishment of a treaty advantageous to this country beyond the most sanguine expectation. In this result, my efforts were heartily united."*

* It is among the striking incidents of this remarkable revolution, that the American who brought Great Britain to terms, and controlled the policy of the Court of France, was the grandson of a French refugee. Thus, the descendant of a man whom Louis the Fourteenth had persecuted with a besotted rage, imposed his decisions upon the descendant of that sovereign, in his own palace, a hundred years after the banishment of his ancestor.-Brissot, 141.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE necessity felt by the friends of the public faith of availing themselves of the army discontents, much as the exercise of such an influence was apprehended, is shown by the proceedings of Massachusetts, at that time the richest state in the confederation, and which had suffered less than any other from the war.

It will be remembered, that the half-pay was established in seventeen hundred and eighty, by a congress elected before the articles of the confederation had gone into operation, while they were exercising all the large powers which, in the early exigencies of the country, had been conferred upon them, and which were incidental to the purposes of their election; no question could, therefore, exist as to their right to make this pledge.

The articles of the confederation were adopted on the first March, seventeen hundred and eighty-one. By the twelfth article, all the engagements of the previous congresses were sanctioned as a charge against the United States, "for the payment whereof the public faith was solemnly pledged." Yet, with a knowledge of this pledge, the legislature of Massachusetts, under the influence of the individuals who had been principally instrumental in framing those articles, though they admitted the discretionary power of congress to provide for the support of the army, declared that the principles of equity had not been attended to in the grant of half-pay: "that being, in their opinion, a grant of more than an adequate reward

for their services, and inconsistent with that equality which ought to subsist among citizens of free and republican states; that such a measure appeared to be calculated to raise and exalt some citizens in wealth and grandeur, to the injury and oppression of others."

Such was the language of a state, in reference to an explicit public engagement, to an army which had by that engagement alone been saved from dissolution. This remonstrance of Massachusetts was brought before congress at a later period than that now under consideration. A committee sustained the grant, independent of all considerations of policy, upon the ground that it was a complete and constitutional act; yet such were the jealousies of this assembly, that on the discussion of their report, the declaration of the constitutional power of congress to make it was stricken out; and the delegates of Massachusetts, though some of them were in favour of the measure, yielded so far to the influence of their state, as to decline voting on the final question.*

Among the resolutions adopted by the army on the fifteenth of March, one expressed their "unshaken confidence in the justice of congress and their country; and stated that they were fully convinced that the representatives of America would not disband or disperse them, until their accounts were liquidated, the balances accurately ascertained, and adequate funds established for their payment."

The terms of this resolution had given great embarrassment. The committee of which Hamilton was chairman, requested him to communicate their difficulties to the commander-in-chief, and to ask his private opinion, which he

A formal protest signed by Samuel Adams was presented to congress, in which it is to be remarked, that this provision for the army is assigned as one of the reasons for refusing the impost.