CHAPTER into all the sufferings, expenses, and dangers of a war? XIV. Even as a party expedient, was the policy of protracting 1799. the dispute with France so certain? All the considerations already suggested as motives for the nomination of Murray would weigh equally strong in favor of proceeding with the mission. How little to be relied upon the recent outbursts of Federal feeling really were, was apparent in the result of the Pennsylvania election, just concluded, in which M'Kean had been elected governor by twenty-eight thousand votes to twenty-three thousand for Ross, the Federal candidate. Nor did there seem any great force in the reasons urged for delaying the mission. The harder pressed the Directory were, the more likely they would be to treat. And even in case the Republic should fall, there would be no harm, as Adams suggest. ed, to have envoys present on the spot to welcome the restoration of the ancient monarchy. So fluctuating,

4

in fact, were the chances of war, that before the envoys reached France, the fortunes of the Republic had begun. again to ascend. Had negotiation been unprovided for, the speedy European peace that followed would have left America to fight alone; or, that being out of the question, as it would have been, to accept such terms as France might choose to dictate.

The wisdom of the mission being thus justified, as well on general considerations as by the actual result, it will not take long to dispose of the imputations against its author, freely thrown out at the time, and which have so often since been reiterated. The principal of these imputations are, jealousy of Hamilton, to whom a war would be likely to bring great addition of influence and reputation, and the hope, by appeasing the hostility of the opposition, to secure his own re-election. Give to these motives all the force which, under the circum

Making

XIV.

stances, they can be presumed to have had-and that CHAPTER
Adams was quite accessible to such motives is not to be
denied yet they prompted to no sacrifice of the coun- 1799.
try's interest or honor; at the most, they only tended to
confirm a resolution wise and good in itself.
due allowance, then, for the natural infirmities of hu
manity—the more necessary in the case of a man like
Adams, the ungovernable vehemence and incautiousness
of whose temper, a most striking contrast to Jeffer
son's, made his weakness but too patent to the world
-and in spite of the somewhat misplaced sneers of Jef-
ferson and others, who profited by his fall; in spite of
what he himself felt infinitely more, the anger and oblo-
quy of many of his former political supporters—an ob-
loquy which clouded the long remainder of his life, sour-
ing his temper, embittering his heart, and making him,
as to certain persons, excessively unjust-it is yet im-
possible to discover, in the institution of this second mis-
sion to France, any thing to conflict with that character.
for honesty and independence which Franklin and Jeffer-
son, neither of them partial judges, had united to bestow
upon Adams; and in which the general voice of his coun-
try, including even his political opponents, had, down to
this moment, almost unanimously concurred.

Nor will a due sense of historical justice allow us to
stop here. Whatever, on this memorable occasion, might
have been the mixture of personal motives in Adams's
conduct, no reason appears to esteem it so great as ma
terially to detract from the merits of an action of the
highest and noblest class which it ever falls to the lot of
statesmen to perform; that of boldly risking their own
personal popularity to secure to their country an honor.
able peace.
Adams seems, in fact, to have been right,
when, long after (1809), in the freedom of confidential

CHAPTER correspondence, he asserted that this, the most questionXIV. ed of all his actions, was "the most disinterested, the 1799. most determined, prudent, and successful of his whole life." "I was obliged," he added, "to give peace and unexampled prosperity to my country for eight years— and if it is not of longer duration it is not my faultagainst the advice, entreaties, and intrigues of all my ministers, and all the leading Federalists in both houses of Congress.". In the agony of present suffering, groaning like the chained Prometheus or the mountain-buried Titan under the "intolerable load of obloquy and insolence" heaped upon him by the "eternal reviling" of the Federal newspapers-revilings renewed at that moment in consequence of the political course adopted by his son -he despaired of and almost spurned at the justice of history. "Too many falsehoods are already transmitted to posterity that are irrevocable. Records themselves are often liars. No human being but myself can do me justice; and I shall not be believed. All I can say will

Yet, as the party

be imputed to vanity and self-love."
mist which has hitherto enveloped our post-revolutionary
history rises and lets in the clear light of truth, justice,
there can be little doubt, he will ultimately obtain. None,
at least, can deny to his conduct in renewing the nego-
tiation a moral courage of which there are but few in-
stances in our history. Washington's sustention of Jay's
treaty furnishes one. Perhaps almost the only other is
to be sought in the opposition of Dickinson to what he
esteemed the premature declaration of independence—a
reminiscence which can not but suggest a very curious
and instructive parallel. Adams, in fact, now occupied,
in relation to the more ardent Federalists, very much the
same position which Dickinson had occupied a quarter
of a century before in relation to himself. On that oe-

XIV.

casion, in his youthful ardor, he had been ready to set CHAPTER down Dickinson as a "piddling genius" because he hesitated at a step quite in advance of any thing originally 1799. contemplated, and of which the ultimate consequences, though all agreed they must be very serious, could not be foreseen. And now that Adams hesitated in his turn at a like tremendous responsibility, there were not wanting among his late political adherents those ready to denounce him as a "piddling genius" not up to the emergency, and too much concerned about his own interests to merit the title of a patriot. Dickinson occupied in

both cases the same ground. As he was then opposed to a war with England, so he was now opposed to a war with France. He had long since retired from public life, but his last published essays were on this topic.

་

About the time of the departure of the envoys, the proceedings of the commissions sitting under Jay's treaty encountered a serious interruption. The commission at London, under the sixth article, of which John Trumbull was the umpire, had already made considerable progress; and damages to the amount of near half a million of dollars had already been awarded and paid for illegal captures of American vessels, for which the ordinary course of law furnished no remedy. The commission under the seventh article, sitting at Philadelphia, the appointment of the fifth commissioner or umpire having fallen by lot to the British, was by no means so harmonious. Claims of all sorts had been filed, including many by expatriated Tories, for the value of their confiscated property, to the amount, in the whole, of twentyfour millions of dollars; and the ground taken by the majority of the commission was such as threatened a very heavy burden to the United States. The American commissioners maintained that, as the United States

CHAPTER were only responsible for those debts the recovery of which XIV. had been prevented by legal impediments, it rested on 1799. the claimant to show that due diligence had been used, and that the recovery of the debt had been prevented by actual legal obstacles, or by the debtor's becoming insolvent during the continuance of such obstacles. The majority of the commission were disposed to hold the United States responsible, in the first place, for all unpaid debts, and to throw upon them the burden of proving that, had due diligence been used, those debts might have been collected. There was also a difference both as to the allowance of interest while the war continued, and as to the classes of persons entitled to claim under the treaty. After much discussion, some of it very warm, and before any one claim had been definitively adjudicated, the American commissioners, with the approbation of their government, prevented any awards by withdraw. ing. When this became known in England, the British government withdrew their members from the board sitting there; and both commissions thus came to a full stop. But, notwithstanding this interruption, both gov. ernments expressed their anxiety to carry out the treaty in good faith, and Sitgreaves was soon after dispatched to England to co-operate with King in obtaining, if pos sible, some explanatory article on the subject of British debts.

From a statement made by Wolcott preliminary to the meeting of Congress, it appeared that for the year ending the 30th of September, the internal duties, including the Stamp Act, had produced $773,000-a considerable increase upon any former annual amount; but in the customs, the main source of revenue, there had been a falling off of near a million, occasioned in part by the interruptions to trade, the whole produce being $7,117,000.