The Wars Between England and America

course of which the two countries entered upon a long history of difficult and unfriendly diplomatic relations. The treaty of peace ended the political union of the two communi

antation products must be replaced on a profitable basis, and the United States must be prepared to purchase these privileges by whatever concessions lay in its power to grant. It rested chiefly with England to decide wh

plete resumption of the former trade relations almost impossible. According to the political and economic doctrines underlying the Acts of Trade, the moment that the two countries became separated their interests automatically became antagonistic. A

reserve the West Indies for exclusive British control. At the possibility of losing the {151} profitable American market through retaliatory measures, Sheffield laughed in scorn. "We might as reasonably dread the effect of combinations among the German as among the American States," he sneered, "and deprecate the resolves of the Diet as those of Congress." There were elements

ial distinctions, which prior to 1776 had rendered the nobility, the gentry, the clergy, and the professions contemptuous toward the colonists, still reigned unchecked; and the Tories and most of the ruling classes, regarding the Americans as a set of ungrateful and spiteful people, whom it was well {152} to have lost as subjects, ceased to

attitude, and tried to treat the United States with a consideration which usually had no place in Tory manners. But Whigs as well as Tories held the prevailing conceptions of naval and economic nece

ox and North as Ministers under the nominal headship of the Duke of Portland. So Tories were restored to a share in the government, since nearly half of the coalition majority depended upon Tory votes. In December, 1783, the King, by a direct exercise of his influence, caused the Lords to throw out a Ministerial bill for the government of India and, dismissing the coalition Ministers, he appealed to William Pitt. That youthful politician, who had first entered office as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Shelburne, succeeded, after a sharp parliamentary contest, in breaking down the opposition majority in the House, and in a general election in March, 1784, won a great victory. Then, at the head of a mixed Cabinet, supported by Tories

les from the United States, not including fish or lumber, and {155} only in British bottoms. It was hoped that Canada would take the place of the United States in supplying the West India colonies, and that British vessels would monopolize the carrying. In 1787 this action was ratified by Parliament, and the process of discouraging American shipping was adopted as a national policy. American vessels henceforward came under the terms of the Navigation Acts, and could take part only in the direct trade between their own country and England. When John Adams, in 1785, arrived at London as Minister, and tried to open the subject of a commercial t

e, could secure no important concessions save one. In 1784, as though to step into the place left vacant by the English, the French crown, by royal order, permitted direct trade between the United States and the French West Indies in vessels of less than sixty tons burden. The result was striking. In a few years the American molasses trade, driven from the

two degrees to the United States, and, further, had granted the latter the free navigation of the Mississippi, through Spanish territory. Gardoqui offered in substance to make a commercial treaty provided the United States would surrender the claim to navigate the Mississippi for twenty years. Jay, to whose mind the interests of the seaboard shipowners and producers far outweighed the desires of the few settlers of the interior waters, was willi

the western fur trade and to retain a hold over the western Indians was recognized as the correct and necessary policy for Canada; and the British government, in response to Canadian suggestions, decided to retain their military posts along the Great Lakes within the boundaries of the United States. To justify them in so doing, they pointed with unanswerable truth to the fact that the United States had not carried out the provisions

vance, and the years 1783-1794 are a chronicle of smouldering border warfare, broken by intermittent truces. During all this time it was the firm belief of the frontiersmen that the Indian hostility was stimulated by the British posts, and hatred of England and the English grew into an article of faith on their part. Ultimately, the new government under Washin

own revolution, was incapable of carrying out any consistent action. The Pitt Ministry, absorbed in the game of European politics and in internal {160} legislation, sent a Minister, Hammond, but was content to let its commercial and frontier policies continue. But when, in 1792, the French Revolution

n, all the tradition of British oppression and ravages, all the recent irritation at the British trade discrimination and Indian policy coupled with appreciation of French concessions, swept crowds in every State and every town into a tempest of welcome to Genet. Shipowners rushed to apply for privateers' commissions, crowds adopted French democratic jargon and manners. Democratic clubs were formed on the model of

Federalist leaders and most of their followers-men of property, standing, and law-abiding habits-were distinctly shocked at the horrors of the Reign of Terror, and felt with Burke, their old friend and defender in Revolutionary days, that such liberty as the French demanded was something altogether alien to that known in the United States or in England. And as the {162} news became more and more ghastly, the Federalists grew rapidly to regard England, with all its unfriendliness, with all its commercial s

hibition, and ultimately in fury appealed to the people against their government. This conduct lost him the support of even the most sanguine democrats, and, when the administration asked for his recall, he fell from his prominence unregr

dia prize courts. It was a British dogma, known as the Rule of 1756, that if trade by a neutral with enemies' colonies had been prohibited in peace, it became contraband in time of war, otherwise belligerents, by simply opening their ports, could employ neutrals to do their trading for them. In this case, the trade between the French West Indies and America had not been prohibited in peace, but the seizures were made none the less, causing a roar of indignation

c steps by promising to send a special diplomatic mission to prevent war. During the summer the excitement grew, for it was in this year that Wayne's campaign against the western Indians took place, which was generally believed to be rendered necessary by the British retention of the posts; and also in this same summer the inhabitants of western Pennsylvania broke into insurrection against the hated exc

istry was now supported by all Tories, representing the land-holding classes, the clergy, and the professions, and by nearly all the aristocratic Whigs. Burke, one-time defender of the American Revolution, was exhausting his energies in eloquent and extravagant denunciations of the French. Only a handful of radicals, led by Fox, Sheridan, and Camde

lude precise provisions. The up-shot was that when Jay finished his negotiations he had secured a treaty which for the first time established a definite basis for commercial dealings and removed most of the dangerous outstanding difficulties. British debts were to be adjusted by a mixed commission, and American claims for unjust seizures in the West Indies were to be dealt with in similar fashion. The British were to evacuate the north-western military posts, and, while they did not withdraw or modify the so-called "rule of

d a tempest of disappointment and anger swept the country. In every seaport Jay was execrated as a fool and traitor and burned in effigy. Washington watched unmoved. The Senate voted ratification by a bare two-thirds, but struck out the West India article, preferring to retain the power of re-exporting French West India produce rather than to acquire the direct trade with the English islands. Washington added his signat

he presence of their protectors, made a treaty abandoning all claims to the region south of Lake Erie. The Spanish government, on hearing of the Jay treaty, came to terms in October, 1795, agreeing to the boundaries of 1783

e support of all the mercantile elements and all the townspeople, for, by their policy toward France and England, Washington, Hamilton, and their associates had set themsel

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