XLIV. CHAPTER mont, by whomsoever made. The application of Vermont to Congress was not acted upon; she lost ground Dec. 5. in that body; and presently was called upon to make restitution to the banished partisans of New York-a demand accompanied with threats which Congress, however, had no means to carry into execution. Free from the burden of the Continental debt and the perpetual calls of Congress for money, and secured by the rapid increase and hardy character of her population against any attempt at force on the part of New York, Vermont, after the peace, felt little anxious for admission into the Union. The opposition of New York to that admission was strongly supported by the four southern states, dreading as they did the example of Vermont in its influence upon their own backwoodsmen. The settlers of Kentucky had not forgotten their original project of an independent state. Already, indeed, they had petitioned Congress on the subject. Similar ideas prevailed also among the settlers on the Tennessee. The usual division of parties in Congress had been between New England and Pennsylvania on the one side, and New York and the southern states on the other; but on the Vermont question Pennsylvania went with New York and the south. Alarmed at some movements toward independence among the western settlers, over whom her jurisdiction had been established by the settlement of the boundary with Virginia, Pennsylvania Dec. 3. even went so far as to impose the penalties of treason upon any attempts to set up an independent government within her limits, or the holding of public meetings for that purpose a law of which the settlers complained in a petition to Congress. CHAPTER XLV. DIPLOMATIC AFFAIRS. CHANGE OF MINISTRY IN ENGLAND. ON XLV. Feb. N his return to Paris as commissioner to treat for CHAPTER peace and to form a commercial treaty with Great Britain, John Adams took with him as private secretary his 1780. son, John Quincy Adams, then a boy of fourteen, afterward President of the United States. Very contrary to his own inclination, Adams was prevented by Vergennes from any attempt at immediate negotiation. The temper of Adams was quite too exacting and impetuous to make him a favorite at the French court. He thought, so Franklin wrote, that the Americans had been too free in their expressions of gratitude to France; that the obligation, in fact, was on the other side; and that aid ought to be demanded with spirit. As dissimulation made no part of his character, these opinions, if not openly expressed, were sufficiently indicated by his manner and bearing. The French embassador had complained to Congress of the losses to French merchants in consequence of the official reduction of the old tenor to forty for one. Similar complaints were reiterated by Vergennes. Ad CHAPTER ams, impatient at having nothing to do, undertook to XLV. justify that proceeding in a long memorial, which gave 1780. additional offense to the French minister, as an interference with Franklin's province. Aug. Finding himself uncomfortable at Paris, and being authorized to negotiate a loan in Holland, Adams proceeded thither. After the capture of Laurens became known in America, he was commissioned as American minister at the Hague. But he was discountenanced by the French resident; and, though Holland was on the brink of a war with England-probably on that very account -he was refused a reception; incidents which tended to increase the doubts and suspicions he had all along entertained of the designs of the French court. After the total destruction of the southern army in the battle of Camden, some of the southern delegates in Congress, very much alarmed at the progress of the British, and fearing a peace on the principle of leaving each belligerent in possession of what he held, became very anxious for the aid of Spain. They even proposed to abandon all claim to the navigation of the Mississippi, as the Oct. price of a Spanish subsidy and alliance. Bland support ed this proposition; but his colleague, James Madison, lately appointed a delegate from Virginia, and already a leading member of Congress, opposed it. To settle the difference between them, the matter was referred to the Virginia Assembly. The subject coming up during Arnold's invasion, that same terror which determined the question of the public 1781. lands, induced the Virginia Assembly to wave also the March. claim, till now so strenuously insisted upon, of a free naviApril. gation of the Mississippi. Madison, though contrary to his own opinion, drew up new instructions to Jay, which Congress adopted-not, however, without a strenuous op XLV. position from North Carolina, Connecticut, and Massa- CHAPTER chusetts, disinclined by their interest in the public lands, and, in the case of the two latter states, by their com- 1781. parative security, from so serious a sacrifice. Meanwhile the Empress of Russia had offered her Jan. mediation for bringing about a peace. At the request of Great Britain, the Emperor of Germany joined in the mediation. This offer, and the acceptance of it by Great Britain, being communicated to Congress by the French embassador, a committee was appointed to confer with May. him; and on the report of that committee, influenced by the French embassador's representations, and the financial pressure to which Congress was subjected, a decided modification took place in the terms of peace formerly agreed to. The express acknowledgment of independence was now waved. Any thing was to be accepted June 15. which substantially amounted to it. The treaty with France was to be maintained in full force; but every thing else was intrusted to the discretion of the negotiators, the former instructions to be considered as indicating the wishes of Congress. The most candid and confidential communications were to be made to the French minister for foreign affairs; nothing was to be undertaken without his knowledge and concurrence; and, in the last resort, the negotiators were to be governed by his advice. These concessions, opposed by the New England states, were carried by the influence of Virginia and the South, now, under the pressure of invasion, quite as anxious for a speedy peace as France herself. The idea was started of having five commissioners to represent the different sections of the Union, and Adams, Jay, Franklin, Jefferson, and Laurens were accordingly chosen. Adams's separate powers to negotiate a treaty of commerce CHAPTER were revoked, and the Dutch negotiation was presently XLV. put also under French control. 1781. The mediation of Russia and Germany resulted in Aug. nothing. Great Britain haughtily refused to acknowledge the independence of the United States, or to admit them in any way as parties to the negotiation, and France, in consequence, broke off the treaty. 1780. Dec. Dana, late secretary to Adams, appointed by Congress minister to Russia, with authority to accede to the prin ciples of the armed neutrality, received no encouragement from Vergennes to proceed on his mission, and 1781. when he did so, he met with no countenance from the Aug. French minister at St. Petersburg, where he was unsuccessful in his attempts to obtain an audience. M. de Luzerne stated to Congress, in explanation, that to receive an envoy from America would be inconsistent with the position of Russia as a mediator. Vergennes entertained the opinion, and so did Franklin, that nothing was to be gained for America by soliciting the reluctant countenance of European courts. Dana, however, concurred with Adams-and Jay inclined to the same opinion that France, for some sinister purpose of her own, was seeking an exclusive control over the foreign relations of the United States. On Franklin's complaint of the great amount of business thrown upon his shoulders, much of it relating to commercial and nautical affairs, in which he was not 1780. skilled, Congress had sought to relieve him by sending Nov. out Palfrey, the late paymaster general, as American But the ship in which he sailed was 1781, never heard of, and near a year elapsed before a successor Oct. was appointed. This was Thomas Barclay, who was presently authorized, also, to settle all outstanding accounts in Europe. consul at Paris. |