The Life of John Marshall (Volume 2 of 4). Beveridge Albert Jeremiah

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СКАЧАТЬ of Peace, solemnly promised to surrender.302 The Government that was committing these savage outrages was the same faithless Power, declared the general voice, that had pledged compensation for the slaves its armies had carried away, but not one shilling of which had been paid.

      If ever a country had good cause for war, Great Britain then furnished it to America; and, had we been prepared, it is impossible to believe that we should not have taken up arms to defend our ravaged interests and vindicate our insulted honor. In Congress various methods of justifiable retaliation were urged with intense earnestness, marred by loud and extravagant declamation.303 "The noise of debate was more deafening than a mill… We sleep upon our arms," wrote a member of the National House.304 But these bellicose measures were rejected because any one of them would have meant immediate hostilities.

      For we were not prepared. War was the one thing America could not then afford. Our Government was still tottering on the unstable legs of infancy. Orderly society was only beginning and the spirit of unrest and upheaval was strong and active. In case of war, wrote Ames, expressing the conservative fears, "I dread anarchy more than great guns."305 Our resources had been bled white by the Revolution and the desolating years that followed. We had no real army, no adequate arsenals,306 no efficient ships of war; and the French Republic, surrounded by hostile bayonets and guns and battling for very existence, could not send us armies, fleets, munitions, and money as the French Monarchy had done.

      Spain was on our south eager for more territory on the Mississippi, the mouth of which she controlled; and ready to attack us in case we came to blows with Great Britain. The latter Power was on our north, the expelled Loyalists in Canada burning with that natural resentment307 which has never cooled; British soldiers held strategic posts within our territory; hordes of Indians, controlled and their leaders paid by Great Britain,308 and hostile to the United States, were upon our borders anxious to avenge themselves for the defeats we had inflicted on them and their kinsmen in the savage wars incited by their British employers.309 Worst of all, British warships covered the oceans and patrolled every mile of our shores just beyond American waters. Our coast defenses, few, poor, and feeble in their best estate, had been utterly neglected for more than ten years and every American port was at the mercy of British guns.310

      Evidence was not wanting that Great Britain courted war.311 She had been cold and unresponsive to every approach for a better understanding with us. She had not even sent a Minister to our Government until eight years after the Treaty of Peace had been signed.312 She not only held our posts, but established a new one fifty miles south of Detroit; and her entire conduct indicated, and Washington believed, that she meant to draw a new boundary line which would give her exclusive possession of the Great Lakes.313 She had the monopoly of the fur trade314 and plainly meant to keep it.

      Lord Dorchester, supreme representative of the British Crown in Canada, had made an ominous speech to the Indians predicting hostilities against the United States within a year and declaring that a new boundary line would then be drawn "by the warriors."315 Rumors flew and gained volume and color in their flight. Even the poised and steady Marshall was disturbed.

      "We have some letters from Philadelphia that wear a very ugly aspect," he writes Archibald Stuart. "It is said that Simcoe, the Governor of Upper Canada, has entered the territory of the United States at the head of about 500 men and has possessed himself of Presque Isle." But Marshall cannot restrain his humor, notwithstanding the gravity of the report: "As this is in Pennsylvania," he observes, "I hope the democratic society of Philadelphia will at once demolish him and if they should fail I still trust that some of our upper brothers [Virginia Republicans] will at one stride place themselves by him and prostrate his post. But seriously," continues Marshall, "if this be true we must bid adieu to all hope of peace and prepare for serious war. My only hope is that it is a mere speculating story."316

      Powerless to obtain our rights by force or to prevent their violation by being prepared to assert them with arms, Washington had no recourse but to diplomacy. At all hazards and at any cost, war must be avoided for the time being. It was one of Great Britain's critical mistakes that she consented to treat instead of forcing a conflict with us; for had she taken the latter course it is not improbable that, at the end of the war, the southern boundary of British dominion in America would have been the Ohio River, and it is not impossible that New York and New England would have fallen into her hands. At the very least, there can be little doubt that the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence would have become exclusively British waters.317

      Amid a confusion of counsels, Washington determined to try for a treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation with Great Britain, a decision, the outcome of which was to bring Marshall even more conspicuously into politics than he ever had been before. Indeed, the result of the President's policy, and Marshall's activity in support of it, was to become one of the important stepping-stones in the latter's career.

      Chief Justice Jay was selected for the infinitely delicate task of negotiation. Even the news of such a plan was received with stinging criticism. What! Kiss the hand that smote us! It was "a degrading insult to the American people; a pusillanimous surrender of their honor; and an insidious injury to France."318 And our envoy to carry out this shameful programme! – was it not that same Jay who once tried to barter away the Mississippi?319

      It was bad enough to turn our backs on France; but to treat with the British Government was infamous. So spoke the voice of the people. The democratic societies were especially virulent; "Let us unite with France and stand or fall together"320 was their heroic sentiment. But abhorrence of the mission did not blind the Republicans to the advantages of political craft. While the negotiations were in progress they said that, after all, everything would be gained that America desired, knowing that they could say afterward, as they did and with just cause, that everything had been lost.321

      At last Jay secured from Great Britain the famous treaty that bears his name. It is perhaps the most humiliating compact into which America ever entered. He was expected to secure the restriction of contraband – it was enlarged; payment for the slaves – it was refused; recognition of the principle that "free ships make free goods" – it was denied; equality with France as to belligerent rights – it was not granted; opening of the West Indian trade – it was conceded upon hard and unjust conditions; payment for British spoliation of American commerce – it was promised at some future time, but even then only on the award of a commission; immediate surrender of the posts – their evacuation was agreed to, but not until a year and a half after the treaty was signed.

      On the other hand, the British secured from us free navigation and trading rights on the Mississippi – never contemplated; agreement that the United States would pay all debts due from American citizens to British creditors – a claim never admitted hitherto; prohibition of any future sequestration of British debts; freedom of all American ports to British vessels, with a pledge to lay no further restrictions on British commerce – never before proposed; liberty of Indians and British subjects to pass our frontiers, trade on our soil, retain lands occupied without becoming American citizens, but privileged to become such at pleasure СКАЧАТЬ