demagogues! You accuse the envoy extraordinary of having made a humiliating treaty, while you blame him for not having made you drink off the cup of humility to the very dregs.
The truth is, these depredations on your commerce by all the belligerent nations, and by the Algerines, is what ought to surprise nobody; it is one of those little rubs to which your situation naturally exposes you: independence, for some years at least, is not a rose without a thorn. All that ought to surprise you in contemplating this subject is, that France, to whom alone you give shelter, for whose cause your good citizens have ever felt the most unbounded enthusiasm, and for whose successes they have toasted themselves drunk and sung themselves hoarse a thousand times, should stand foremost on the list of the spoilers; and that notwithstanding this your patriots should insist upon a close alliance with her, while they reprobate the treating with Great Britain as an act at once unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous, and dishonourable.
Having now gone through Franklin’s reasons for not treating with Great Britain, I proceed to examine his objections to the terms of the treaty itself.
II. Franklin asserts, that if forming a treaty with Great Britain were consistent with sound policy, the terms of the present treaty are disadvantageous, humiliating, and disgraceful to the United States.
This is the place to observe, that the letters of Franklin were written before the contents of the treaty were known. He introduces his subject in the following words: “The treaty is said to be arrived, and as it will be of serious consequence to us and to our posterity, we should analyze it before it becomes the supreme law of the land.” That is to say, before it be known. “It will be said,” continues he, “to be a hasty opinion which shall be advanced before the treaty itself shall be before us; but when it shall be promulgated for our consideration, it will have all the force of law about it, and it will then be too late to detect its baneful effects.” Certainly no mortal ever heard reasoning like this before; what a lame apology for an inflammatory publication, intended to prepossess the rabble against the treaty!
It is not my design to dwell upon every objection that has been started, either by Franklin or the town-meeting; I shall content myself with answering those only in which they discover an extraordinary degree of patriotic presumption or dishonesty.
Art. I. Says that there shall be peace and friendship between the two countries.
As nobody but the French can have anything to say against this article, and as I have already answered all that their emissary Franklin has said on the subject, I look upon it as unexceptionable.
Art. II. Stipulates, that the western posts shall be evacuated in June next; that in the mean time the United States may extend their settlements to any part within the boundary line as fixed at the peace, except within the precincts and jurisdiction of the posts; that the settlers now within those precincts shall continue to enjoy their property, and that they shall be at full liberty to remain there, or remove; that such of them as shall continue to reside within said boundary lines, shall not be compelled to become citizens of the United States, but that they may do so if they think proper, and that they shall declare their choice in one year after the evacuation of the forts, and that all those who do not declare their choice during that time, are to be looked upon as citizens of the United States.
The citizens of the Boston-town meeting object to “this article, because it makes no provision to indemnify the United States for the commercial and other losses they have sustained, and the heavy expenses to which they have been subjected in consequence of being kept out of possession for twelve years, in direct violation of a treaty of peace.”
The good citizens, before they talked about indemnity, should have been certain that Great Britain was not justifiable in her detention of the western posts; because, if it should appear that she was, to make a claim for indemnity would be ridiculous.
By a treaty of peace, Great Britain was to give up these posts, and by the same treaty, the United States were to remove certain legal impediments to the payment of British debts, that is to say, debts due to British merchants before the war. These debts were to a heavy amount, and Great Britain had no other guarantee for their payment than the posts. Your credit, at that time, was not in the most flourishing state; and that the precaution of having a security was prudent, on the part of Great Britain, the event has fully proved. Nobody pretends that the impediments, above mentioned, are removed; nay, some of the States, and even their members in Congress, aver that they ought not to be removed; what right have you, then, to complain of the British for not giving up the posts? Was the treaty to be binding on them only? If this be the case, your language to Great Britain resembles that of Rousseau’s tyrant: “I make a covenant with you, entirely at your expense and to my profit, which you shall observe as long as it pleases me, and which I will observe as long as it pleases myself.” This is not the way treaties are made now-a-days.
It is said that the federal government has done all in its power to effect the removal of the impediments, according to stipulation; but to this I answer, that all in its power is not enough, if the impediments are not removed. Are they removed, or are they not? is the only question Great Britain has to ask. The States from which the debts are due, having enacted laws that counteract those made by the general government, may be pleaded in justification of the latter, in a domestic point of view; but every one must perceive, that it would be childish in the extreme to urge it as an excuse for a failure towards foreign nations. The very nature of a treaty implies a power in the contracting parties to fulfil the stipulations therein contained, and, therefore, to fail from inability is the same thing as to fail from inclination, and renders retaliation, at least, just and necessary. Upon this principle, founded on reason and the law of nations, Great Britain was certainly justifiable in her detention of the western posts.
Another objection, though not to be found in the resolutions of the Boston citizens, deserves notice, “That the leaving British subjects in possession of their lands &c. in the precincts of the forts, will be to establish a British colony in the territory of the United States, &c.” Ref 039 This is an objection that I never should have expected from the true republicans. The treaty says that the settlers in those precincts shall have full liberty to choose between being subjects of the King of Great Britain and citizens of the United States: and can these republicans doubt which they will choose? Can they possibly suppose that the inhabitants near the forts will not rejoice to exchange the humiliating title of subject for the glorious one of citizen? Can they, indeed, imagine that these degraded satellites of the tyrant George will not be ready to expire with joy at the thought of becoming “sovereigns of a free country?” Each individual of them will become a “prince and legislator” by taking the oath of allegiance to the United States; is it not, then, sacrilege, is it not to be a liberticide to imagine that they can hesitate in their choice? How came these enlightened citizens to commit such a blunder? How came they to suppose, that the people in the precincts of the forts were more capable of distinguishing between sound and sense, between the shadow and the substance, than they themselves are. Thousands of times have you been told that the poor Canadians were terribly oppressed, that they were ripe for revolt, that the militia had refused to do their duty, and, in short, that the United States had nothing to do but to receive them. And now, when a handful of them are likely to be left amongst you, you are afraid they will choose to remain subjects to the king of Great Britain?
Art. III. Stipulates for a free intercourse and commerce between the two parties, as far as regards their territories in America. This commerce is to be carried on upon principles perfectly reciprocal; but it is not to extend to commerce carried on by water, below the highest ports of entry. The only reservation in this article, is, the King of Great Britain does not admit the United States to trade to the possessions belonging to the Hudson’s Bay Company.
To this the citizens of Boston object: “because it admits British subjects to an equal participation with our own citizens of the interior traffic of the United States with the neighbouring Indians, through our whole territorial dominion; while the advantages ostensibly reciprocated to our citizens, are limited both in their nature and extent.”
The word ostensibly is the only one of any weight in this objection. They could not say that the advantages were not reciprocal, as stipulated for; they therefore