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there were those in that senate who would have incurred any sacrifice, rather than a sacrifice of the dignity of their country to avert the displeasure of any foreign power.

It was resisted, and resisted firmly, perseveringly, and successfully.

Different substitutes were offered. That of Hamilton declared, that "as congress are desirous of manifesting at all times the most perfect confidence in their ally, the secret article should be communicated to the minister of France by the secretary of foreign affairs; and that he inform the commissioners of the reasons for that communication, expressing to them the desire of congress that they will, upon all occasions, maintain perfect harmony and confidence with an ally to whose generous assistance the United States are so signally indebted; that congress entertain a high sense of the services of these commissioners, for their steady attention to the dignity and essential rights of the United States, and in obtaining from the court of Great Britain articles so favourable and so important to those interests."*

These substitutes were referred, and on the nineteenth of March, a report was made, the draft of which still exists with encomiastic interlineations in Hamilton's hand. During the debate on this report, intelligence of the sig

tacit acknowledgment." Also, March 18, 1783-"The latest letters from our ministers express the greatest jealousy of Great Britain; and secondly, that the situation of France between the interfering claims of Spain and the United States, to which may perhaps be added some particular views of her own, having carried her into a discountenance of our claims, the suspicions of our ministers on that side gave an opportunity to British address to decoy them into a degree of confidence, which seems to leave their own reputa. tions, as well as the safety of their country, at the mercy of Shelburne. In this business Jay has taken the lead, and proceeded to a length of which you can form little idea. Adams has followed with cordiality; Franklin has been dragged into it."

*Vol. 2, No. 25, state department.

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 :

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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.

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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

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