have been thus far made under the auspices of government. The accomplishment of this work, if practicable, will reflect undecaying lustre on our national character, and administer the most grateful consolation that virtuous minds can know,” (December, 1795.) Heckewelder, the missionary. Among the agents employed by the administration in dealing with the Indians was a remarkable man. John Heckewelder, born in England, of German parentage, came to Pennsylvania in his youth, and there in his early manhood became a missionary of the United Brethren, or Moravians, amongst the Delawares and the Mohegans, (1771.) His life thenceforward was devoted to the Indians. He preached to them, that they might be converted to God. He wrote of them, that they might be respected of men. "I still indulge the hope," he wrote in his old age, "that this work [for the Indians] will be accomplished by a wise and benevolent government." Tribute to Algiers. A far more savage foe than the Indian was appeased at the same period, but with much less credit, it must be added, to the nation. This was the Dey of Algiers, who, with a number of neighbors like himself, was wont to sweep the seas with piratical craft. Singular to say, the sway of these buccaneering potentates was acknowledged by the European states, who paid an annual tribute on condition of their commerce being spared. Ten years before the present date, the freebooters of the Dey of Algiers had captured two American vessels, and thrown their crews into bondage. He now (1795) consented to release, his captives, and to respect the merchantmen of the United States, on the reception of a tribute like that received from the powers of Europe. Three quarters of a million were paid down; an annual payment of full fifty thousand dollars being promised in addition. Other treaties of the same sort with Tripoli and Tunis were under way. Foreign The relations of the United States with civilized relations. nations were hardly more satisfactory. The monarchies of Europe looked down, if they looked at all, upon the infant republic, of which many of them really knew almost nothing. What was of vast moment to a people rising out of depression and of obscurity, was a trifle in the eyes of old states, accustomed to deal with great interests and with great resources. Their relations with America were matters of little concern to them. On the other hand, the relations of America to them, or to some of them, formed the chief point of attention and of exertion with the American nation for a quarter of a century. Commer ties. We must go back to days over which we have cial trea- passed, in order to see how the United States presented themselves to the older nations. "Our fathers," said John Quincy Adams, himself a foreign minister under Washington, "extended the hand of friendship to every nation on the globe." Their first treaty, the one with France, in which the affairs of commerce and of peace were mingled with those of alliance and of war, was followed by one with Prussia, (1785.) "This," remarked Adams, "consecrated three fundamental principles of foreign intercourse. First, equal reciprocity and the mutual stipulation of the commercial exchanges of peace; secondly, the abolition of private war on the ocean; and thirdly, restrictions favorable to neutral commerce upon belligerent parties with regard to contraband of war and blockades. These principles were assumed as cardinal points of the policy of the Union." It was a policy, however, in perpetual collision with the usages and prerogatives of the European powers; so much so, that, though the young nation held out an open hand, it was met by contracted grasps. The state of things will appear as we go on to the negotiations of Washington's administration. Treaty One of the first to come into more settled rela with tions with the new government was Spain. That Spain. power, through its colonial authorities in Florida, had been supposed to be tampering with the southern Indians. On the other hand, it was notorious that several expeditions from the southern and western frontiers were planned against the Spanish territory. All the while, the dividing line between Florida and the United States was unsettled, and the claim to the navigation of the Mississippi undetermined. Finally, a special envoy, Thomas Pinckney, was sent to Spain. It took him nearly a year to bring about a treaty defining the Florida boundary, and opening the Mississippi to the United States, (1795.) Even then the Spaniards delayed to fulfil provisions in which they took but small interest. Relations with Great Britain and France. The relations with Spain were bad enough. But those with Great Britain and France were worse. We must speak of these nations together, since it was their common, rather than their separate, influences which operated to the extent that is to be described. Side by side, in the first place, were the feelings of amity to France and of animosity to Britain; the seeds were planted in war, and their growth was not checked in peace. Britain continued to wear the aspect of an antagonist, keeping her troops upon the United States territory until her demands were satisfied, while on the other side of the sea she laid one restraint after another upon commerce, as if she would have kept the Americans at a distance from her shores. France, on the contrary, was still the friend of the rising nation, and not only as its patron, but as its follower. The same year that Washington entered the presidency, the French revolution began. Its early movements, professedly inspired by those that had taken place in America, kindled all the sympathies of American hearts. Hitherto, the bond between them and the French was one of gratitude and of dependence; now it was one of sympathy and of equality. Parties there upon. But we are not to imagine our fathers to have harmonized upon these points any more than upon the others that have been noticed. The nation was by no means unanimous against Great Britain, by no means unanimous for France. Deep, indeed, but still in action, were the sentiments of former times when France was the foe, and Britain the mother-land. To these a new impulse was given by the early excesses of the revolution. With their ideas of law and order, the Americans could not go along with the French, rioters from the first, and soon destroyers and murderers, rather than freemen. Many paused, and turning with distrust from the scenes of which France was the unhappy theatre, looked with kinder emotions towards the sedater and the wiser Britain. It would be too much to say that this led to a British party; but it did lead to a neutral one, while, on the other hand, a French party, applauding the license as well as the liberty of the revolution, clapped their hands the more enthusiastically as the spectacle became wilder and bloodier. This party was the republican; its more impetuous members. being the democratic republicans. Their opponents were the federalists. The new dissensions came just in time to keep up the division between the two. Mere federalist and republican questions might have waned; they were already less glowing than they had been. They were revived by the strife of the French with the anti-French party. Few had spoken of doing more than looking on at the events in Europe. Yet there were some so excited, so maddened, as to be ready for any extremities, especially Washing ton pro claims neutrality. when the France whom they worshipped declared war against the Britain whom they abhorred. More divided than ever, the nation was again close upon the breakers, when Washington never greater, never wiser — issued his proclamation of neutrality, making it known "that the duty and interest of the United States require that they should with sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial towards the belligerent powers," (April 22, 1793.) It is a memorable act in our history. Point Its purpose is not always rightly estimated. proposed. Look at the nation tasked to its utmost, one may almost say, to subdue a few Indian tribes, obliged to pay tribute to the Algerines, unable to keep the Spaniards to their obligations, and we shall not behold a power that could enter safely into European wars. If such a thing were attempted, it would be at the hazard of the independence that had been achieved. There were two risks; one arising from the certainty that the United States must be a subordinate ally in any war to which it became a party; and the other, a still graver one, that the passions aroused by a foreign would find no vent but in a civil war. It was, as he said, "to keep the United States free," that Washington proclaimed neutrality. Mission The system was soon put to trial. France, havof Genet. ing baptized herself a republic in the blood of her king, Louis XVI., sent a new minister to the United States in the person of citizen Genet. An enthusiastic representative of his nation, Genet excited a fresh enthusiasm in the French party of America. Feasted at Charleston, where he landed, (April, 1793,) and at all the principal places on the route northward, he was led to imagine the entire country at his feet, or at those of the French republic. He began at Charleston to send out privateers, and to |