While the Confederation was troubled with poverty and discontent at home, its foreign relations were far from satisfactory; for here again the incompetence of Congress was shown, making it difficult to reach satisfactory conclusions with other powers. The nations of Europe were in no mood to take the trouble of pleasing the United States.
France felt little or no interest in the political career of the country for whose cause she had been ostensibly fighting; she had little expectation that America would soon play a prominent role among the nations, and she had no desire to see the young republic push forward to prosperity and influence. The French statesmen were not unwilling to offer opportunities for trade, but were disappointed at the tendency of American merchants to carry on their commerce with England. English statesmen were cold and critical or absolutely unfriendly. They could see little to be gained by a consideration for the upstart republic, which had been so anxious to cast aside the guiding hand of the mother country. Spain respected America, perhaps, somewhat more than before the war; and her ministers may have wondered whether they had shown superior intelligence in treating the American representatives abroad with such masterly hauteur; but with this new respect, if such there was, came no addition of friendliness nor any purpose to surrender a portion of her policy. If she disliked and distrusted the states when they were fighting her detested enemy, England, she liked them no more when they had won their independence and were setting up titles to lands skirting her precious colonies on the Gulf of Mexico.
Some of the other European states showed an occasional gleam of interest in the possibility of securing some hold on the western trade. With Portugal, especially there grew up an important commerce; Adams had succeeded in getting a treaty with Holland, even before the peace; in 1783, one was made with Sweden; and in 1785, a treaty of commerce was made with Prussia. But perhaps the Barbary pirates really had the most intelligent appreciation of the fact that the United States were no longer British colonies, and they naturally confined their attention to the seizure of American ships and seamen, an occupation in which they indulged with their customary success.
The most serious diplomatic questions that arose were, in their essentials, those which had proved most perplexing and troublesome during the Revolution. Throughout the war, Spain had haughtily refused to recognize the independence of the states or to enter into a treaty of alliance. Wishing to retain a monopoly of their colonial commerce and fearing that the aggressive Americans would encroach upon their colonies, the anxious Spaniards had watched the course of the Revolution, vexed by irreconcilable fears and incompatible hopes, longing to see England humiliated and destroyed and dreading to see the impertinent rebels succeed.
When the treaty between England and the United States was published, Spain saw much cause for fault-finding. Her claims in the southwest, which she had for some years been steadily asserting and gradually extending, were by the treaty quietly ignored, for the line agreed on in the treaty ran down the Mississippi to the thirty-first parallel and thence by this parallel to the Appalachicola. England asserted at the same time the right of both England and America to navigate the Mississippi from its source to the gulf. In these cessions, Spain had no intention of acquiescing. For some years, she had been making much ado about the western country and the Mississippi, and even if the French ministers, with a half-amused shrug of the shoulders, were willing to recognize the results of the astute diplomacy of Jay and the other audacious Americans, Spain certainly would not yield up her claims. Less superciliously, but not less obstinately than before, she adhered to the purpose by cunning and by force to keep the western Americans away from her possessions; for the cardinal principle of the Spanish colonial policy was monopoly and seclusion. The idea of allowing the Americans to trade with her subjects or to introduce into her colonies the dreadful notions of freedom was intolerable.
The secret clause of the treaty of 1783 could not long be kept from the knowledge of Spain. It was soon known at Madrid that America had promised, in case England, in her negotiations with the other combatants, succeeded in holding West Florida, to accept as her southern boundary between the Appalachicola and the Mississippi a line running through the mouth of the Yazoo. The knowledge that such an arrangement had been made may have added to the ill humor of Spain, but her wrath needed no stimulus; her course of opposition to the United States had been for years consistent and unflagging. She did not long delay in letting Congress know that she had no intention of abiding by the boundaries that England had set or of admitting the right of the Americans freely to navigate the Mississippi to its mouth. In the summer of 1784 Congress was formally warned that England had no right to make such generous cessions at a time when the two borders of the river were held by the arms of Spain; and that, until the limits of Louisiana and the two Floridas should be settled and determined, American citizens, by seeking to navigate the Mississippi, would only expose their vessels to confiscation. Naturally, this news was not relished by Congress. Its members had been debating the western land question for years, and when England surrendered practically all that was asked from her, they were not pleased to find Spain standing in the way as unreasonably as ever.
Spain did not content herself with formal warnings. On this subject, she was in earnest; on this one matter, her ministers had convictions. She was determined to hold fast to her colonies, even though they were strangled in her grasp. There were various methods open to her, and she was under strong temptation to use all of them: first, to carry on frank and fair diplomatic negotiations, backed by a maintenance of her authority on the river and in the disputed territory; second, to intrigue with the Indians, who by sundry well-known methods could be induced to make the life of the western pioneer unpleasant and his residence in the Mississippi Valley unattractive; third, to stir up dissatisfaction among the American settlers, and by bribes and threats help to bring about the separation of the western territory from the eastern states. Spanish gold looked good and fair to the average westerner, whose currency was often nothing better than otter skins or whiskey, and it was not hard to find those whose consciences did not revolt at the sight of a reasonable bribe.
In the early summer of 1785, Don Diego de Gardoqui came to Philadelphia as the first Spanish minister, presenting a commission authorizing him to treat with the United States concerning boundaries and to settle all differences on that subject. To John Jay, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Congress entrusted the duty of carrying on the negotiations. Inasmuch as Jay had in the past taken such an independent stand against Spanish presumption, he might well have been expected to be especially opposed to the Spanish claims in the Mississippi Valley. But in Gardoqui, Jay found a foe worthy of his steel. The wily Spaniard, knowing the feebleness of Congress, probably aware of the intrigues on the frontier, and conscious that no harm could come to the Spanish cause by delay, so long as Spain actually held the country in dispute, was unyielding to the last degree.
Before the negotiations began, Jay had written Lafayette that the Kentucky settlements were increasing "with a degree of rapidity heretofore unknown in this country," and that they would continue to increase notwithstanding the attempt of anybody to prevent it. And yet, perhaps, in spite of all he had done before, Jay did not quite appreciate the fact that the right to navigate the Mississippi must be speedily secured. It was no longer a theoretical right affecting American pride and ambition and only vaguely touching American life, for now, the great western wilderness, to which, when the Revolution began, only a few hardy hunters and adventurers had found their way, was being rapidly peopled. With that patient endurance, that marvellous disregard of danger, which have characterized the frontiersman in our history, men were moving into the new country, following Boone's old wilderness road through eastern Tennessee, or floating down the Ohio to found settlements in the attractive land of Kentucky. In 1785, the inhabitants of the latter region were estimated to be more than twenty thousand persons, and the population was increasing with a remarkable rapidity that surprised even those who were used to the ease of American movement. "Do you think to prevent the emigration from a barren country loaded with taxes and impoverished with debts to the most luxurious and fertile soil in the world?" wrote an exuberant pioneer at the Falls of the Ohio to a friend in New England. "You may as well endeavour to prevent the fishes from gathering on a bank in the sea which affords them plenty of nourishment." Of course, these self-reliant and eager frontiersmen could not long be kept from using the Mississippi and following its current to the gulf.
Jay was instructed to insist on the recognition of the thirty-first parallel and the free navigation of the Mississippi to its mouth, rights guaranteed by the treaty with England. Over this question, he and Gardoqui debated and haggled until Jay was weary. In February of 1786, he reported that the discussions were still in progress and that American rights on the Mississippi could be secured only "by arms, or by treaty." Doubtful of the success of the negotiations, he was, nevertheless, anxious that the matter should not be precipitated by rash demands or by inconsiderate action in the west, for the time was not come for war, and the building up of the western country and the gradual regulation of the affairs of the nation would enable America to attain its ends. The fact is, the negotiations were becoming more and more disagreeable. Gardoqui flatly informed Jay that the king refused to recognize the treaty of 1783 as binding him. Then from polite circumlocutions he resorted to unambiguous threats, reminding Jay that the friendship of the king could win in considerable measure the friendship of Morocco and Algiers, and calling to mind the fact that America was in debt to Spain.
Jay, in desperation, asked for a special committee of Congress to advise and instruct him. In August, he made a long report. Spain, he said, was ready to make a favorable commercial treaty, but would not yield an inch on the western question. What, then, was to be done? America was in no condition to fight and could not disgracefully surrender her claims. But one thing was left. Jay thought, and that was to enter into a treaty limited to a duration of twenty-five or thirty years, securing commercial advantages, and stipulating that the United States would forbear the use of the Mississippi below its boundaries. Unless some such step were taken, the secretary declared, he could see no hope, at least not until the American nation should "become more really and truly a nation" than it was in those disconsolate months of 1786. "For, unblessed with an efficient government, destitute of funds, and without public credit, either at home or abroad, we should be obliged to wait in patience for better days, or plunge into an unpopular and dangerous war with very little prospect of terminating it by a peace, either advantageous or glorious."
One of the stipulations of this proposed commercial treaty was to the effect that, inasmuch as America was often in need of gold and silver as a circulating medium, his Catholic majesty would agree to order in this country the masts and timber for his royal navy and pay for them in specie. Nothing could more lucidly show the apparent magnificence of decrepit old Spain, whose whole colonial empire, built on a principle of seclusion and selfishness, was on the very brink of ruin, and, on the other hand, the humiliating poverty of young America, whose feet were already set on the highway to wealth and imperial grandeur.
Heated debates ensued in Congress. The southern states voted solidly against Jay's proposition, for they still claimed land beyond the Alleghenies, and their citizens were passing over into the great valley. The northern states just as unanimously voted to relieve the secretary from his former instructions, which directed him to insist on the boundaries of the treaty with England and on the navigation of the Mississippi; for the New-Englanders were naturally anxious for a commercial treaty and were not solicitous about the southwest. Twelve states were in attendance, and Jay was openly supported by a vote of seven, but it was a question as to whether less than nine states could give him authority to make a treaty. Certainly, nine states would be needed to ratify any agreement he should reach. A candid examination of Jay's embarrassment will convince the reader that he was not weak. His difficulties were stupendous; a large portion of the burden of the government was thrown on his uncomplaining shoulders, and he toiled honestly and ably. Congress was fit for little, and the country was woeful and distracted. And yet men on the frontier and the self-complacent men in the east spoke of resisting Spain's demands and defending American rights.
Some wise men, even in the south, admitted that there was no haste, and the wisest of them all said frankly, more than once, that until there was time to open and make easy the ways between the Atlantic states and the western country, the obstruction of the Mississippi would not be harmful. "There is nothing," wrote Washington to Lee, "which binds one county or one State to another, but interest. Without this cement, the western inhabitants, who more than probably will be composed in a great degree of foreigners, can have no predilection for us, and a commercial connexion is the only tie we can have upon them." But the Virginians, as a rule, were indignant that the North should seize the advantage of a commercial treaty and barter away the rights of the South. Even the mild-mannered Madison was near to anger, and Patrick Henry was reported to have remarked, "that he would rather part with the confederation than relinquish the navigation of the Mississippi." Coming at a time when efforts were being made to solidify the Union and to increase the power of the national government, the Mississippi question, which could indeed be solved only by national growth and national authority, increased for a period the particularistic spirit and put obstacles in the way of those who were working for union and government.
The people of the West were out of patience with the delay and annoyed at the notion of surrendering the navigation of the Mississippi. "To sell us, and make us vassals to the merciless Spaniards, is a grievance not to be borne," said one. There was danger of war, brought on by the impatient frontiersmen, who fretted at being hemmed in by the mandate of Spain. Moreover, ambitious conspirators were beginning to contemplate alliance or political connection with Spain, or at least the separation of the Kentucky country from the Union. The most adroit of the plotters was James Wilkinson. He had been an officer in the Revolution, and with other traders and sharpers had recently moved to Kentucky to make his fortune, and no methods were too dishonorable to suit his purpose. Scarcely thirty years of age, he was already well entered on the career of corruption which won him the well-deserved reputation of being the most finished rascal in American annals. A copy of a paper by Wilkinson announcing his allegiance to the king of Spain has been found in the Spanish archives. In the end, he did not accomplish much, though doubtless he was satisfied so long as he lined his pockets with Spanish gold. It is hard today to take the plots of the conspirators very seriously, for, out of patience as they were, the people of Kentucky were too loyal to break away from the Union. But they had no sympathy with schemes for giving more power to the central authority when they heard that Congress was actually considering the possibility of surrendering the use of the great river that formed their outlet to the sea.
During the winter of 1786-1787, negotiations between Jay and Gardoqui dragged wearily on. The Spaniard would not yield on the main points at issue, and the following spring Jay still believed that the only way out of the difficulty was to promise not to navigate for a time the lower course of the river. But he reported that the negotiations were "dilatory, unpleasant, and unpromising." Nothing was done until, under better conditions, the Americans, with a new government, were able to speak with more assurance. In the meantime population continued to pour into the valley, and the day could not be far distant when the demand of the west for the free use of the Mississippi must be obeyed.
While Spain was occupying the southwest and denying that America had any title to territory as far south as the thirty-first parallel, England, in her turn, was quietly holding the frontier forts on the northern boundary within the limits marked out by the treaty of peace. By the retention of these strategic positions from Lake Champlain to Michilimackinac, English influence over the Indians was made secure, and English traders were enabled to retain their hold on the fur trade in a rich and extensive region. For some years after the peace, therefore, and indeed through the whole of the period covered by this volume, a large portion of American territory was held by England and Spain in simple disregard of the treaty. The settlers in the region south of the Ohio plotted with Spain or threatened to fight her, and meanwhile grew in numbers and strength; into the north for seven years after the peace, there was almost no immigration, and for some years after that the presence of the English within the limits marked off by the treaty was a constant cause for irritation.
In 1785, John Adams, who was then in Paris, was appointed minister to England. He went to London in hopes that he could enter into some commercial agreement satisfactory and helpful to the United States, persuade England to withdraw her troops from our territory, and secure indemnity for the exportation of the negroes from America after the peace in plain violation of the treaty. He had a hard task before him. If at the close of the war there had seemed some chance that the English, hating the Spaniards and the French with a manly hatred, would be especially considerate of the welfare of their kinsmen across the sea, hope of any such good temper soon disappeared. Adams was probably as well fitted as anyone could be to undertake the task assigned him. If English ministers were blunt and self-satisfied, no less was Adams. It never occurred to him to fawn and flatter or to be ashamed of the young, distracted country he represented; and in the power of lucid, forceful expression or in knowledge of public law, he had few, if any, superiors among the English statesmen of the time.
The residence in England began auspiciously. In June, Adams was presented to the king and was courteously received. His words were well chosen and seemed to have deeply affected the monarch, who had not ceased to mourn the loss of his colonies. Adams expressed the hope that he could be instrumental in "restoring an entire esteem, confidence, and affection; or, in better words, the old good nature and the old good humor between people who, though separated by an ocean, and under different Governments, have the same language, a similar religion, and kindred blood." The king, after polite words of commendation and a declaration that he had done in the past only what he felt it his duty to do, assured Adams that he would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States. "The moment I see such sentiments and language as yours prevail, and a disposition to give this country the preference, that moment I shall say, let the circumstances of language, religion, and blood have their natural and full effect."
The mission thus pleasantly begun was, however, destined to prove almost fruitless. The English ministers were leisurely and deliberate, while Adams, with remarkable humility and praiseworthy persistence, sought to discover why England did not give up its territory. In October he wrote to Jay: "I have the honor to agree fully with you in your opinion, that 'it is manifestly as much the interest of this country to be well with us as for us to be well with them'; but this is not the judgment of the English nation, it is not the judgment of Lord North and his party, it is not the judgment of the Duke of Portland and his friends, and it does not appear to be the judgment of Mr. Pitt and the present set." He found the Englishmen confident that America could do nothing, neither raise a revenue, nor exclude shipping of foreign nations, nor build a fleet, and in truth, they were not far from right.
Finally, nearly five months after his dramatic interview with the king, Adams succeeded in getting from the retentive ministers some notion as to their intentions. Lord Carmarthen told him that the frontier posts would not be delivered till "the debts were paid." "Paid! my Lord!" ejaculated Adams; "that is more than ever was stipulated." It was February, however, before the ministry gave an explicit answer to the American demands. The fourth article of the treaty stipulated that creditors of either country should find no lawful impediment to the recovery of their debts. To this article, Carmarthen said America had paid little attention, and it would be foolish to suppose that England was obliged to carry out her promises if the United States was not under a similar obligation. Further satisfaction than this, Adams could not get. He returned home in 1788 without a treaty and without much hope that England would deviate by a hair from the path which seemed to her the best-suited to her own gain.
Doubtless, England refrained from entering into a commercial treaty because she believed the enforcement of navigation laws would put money in her merchants' pockets, and because she believed that, notwithstanding restrictions on West-Indian trade, she could secure and hold her commerce with the United States. She was, moreover, in no haste to deliver the western posts so long as their retention gave her traders opportunity to control the fur-trade. But withal, it must be remembered that the states had done little to promote good feeling. Their treatment of the loyalists after the peace was outrageous, while, in utter disregard of the treaty, they placed in one form or another impediments in the way of the collection of British debts. Jay declared that there had not been a single day since the ratification of the treaty on which it had "not been violated ... by one or other of the States." "I suspect," he said to Adams, in speaking of the disorder and lawlessness in America, "that our posterity will read the history of our last four years with much regret."
Before the Revolution, a large portion of the flour and fish exported from the United States found its best markets in the Mediterranean ports. But now the Barbary powers felt at liberty to seize American vessels and imprison the seamen. A number of men were held for ransom, and handsome prices were demanded for their liberty. Agents were sent to make peace and to see about the succor of the prisoners, but accomplished nothing. Algiers had twenty-one captives, for whose release was demanded the sum of $59,496. America had no funds to spend on redeeming its citizens from slavery, and its statesmen could do no more than ponder on the possible effect of war. A Tripolitan ambassador appeared in London, and with him Adams had a series of remarkable interviews, the htmior of which appealed even to the serious mind of the American minister. "His Excellency made many inquiries concerning America, the climate, soil, heat, and cold, etc., and observed, it is a very great country, but Tripoli is at war with ity He said "that Turkey, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco were the sovereigns of the Mediterranean, and that no nation could navigate that sea without a treaty of peace with them." The sum of 30,000 guineas was mentioned as the price of a treaty, making for the four Barbary powers, if all accepted the terms, 120,000 guineas. Jefferson went over from Paris to London, and in company with Adams had conferences with the stately Abdrahaman, who repeated his demand for 30,000 guineas, plus a little douceur of £3,000 for himself. A treaty was made with Morocco at the beginning of 1787, but the relations with the other Barbary states could not be arranged. America was too poor to pay and could not make up her mind to fight, and so this question, like others, awaited the establishment of a national government.
All this, like everything else one touches during the dismal period, discloses the helplessness of the confederacy. The English at first were actually curious to know whether Congress or the states individually had the right to negotiate, and until 1791, eight years after the peace, sent no minister to America; Spain felt no fear save from the aggressive, ambitious spirit of the western settlers; the Barbary powers found the taking of American seamen an easy but not a lucrative employment.