thereof to the Dissolution of the Confederation by the Adoption of the Constitution; The American State Papers, Foreign Affairs, 4 vols. folio, from the Adoption of the Constitution to the Treaty of Ghent; and the Lives and Letters of such of the distinguished actors in our political history as have been published. Among these I feel bound to refer specially to the large and valuable publication of the Letters and Works of John Adams, prefaced by a biography of great interest and value, and, considering the relation of the author and the subject, of singular and honorable impartiality. Besides these, I have had the MSS. collections of General Thomas Pinckney and General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the one minister to England and Spain, and the other minister to France.

As there were no discoveries to make in our diplomatic history, I have made none, and whatever value these pages may have must attach to the connected and impartial narrative which I have endeavored to construct.

Whenever I have quoted a public state paper without a special reference, it will be found under its proper date in one of the above published collections; and for the facts of our general history, a knowledge of which I have assumed in the reader, the authority will

be found in any of the general histories of the United

States.

I cannot conclude this preface without acknowledging my sense of grateful obligation to Professor Bowen, of Harvard University, for the kindness with which he undertook, and the care with which he has accomplished, the troublesome task of correcting the proofs of this volume as they came from the press.

In the body of this work, by inadvertence, a reference to the Life of Gouverneur Morris, by Dr. Sparks, as authority for certain facts in Mr. Morris's ambassadorial career, was omitted. The reference belongs to the chapter on the French negotiations.

ERRATA.

Page 112, 3d line from bottom, for included read excluded.

Page 127, line 17, for a contemporary statesman, read contemporary statesmen.

Page 171, 3d line of note, for creditable to Mr. Pinckney, read creditable to Mr. Pickering.

DIPLOMATIC HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

FROM THE TREATY OF PEACE, 1783, TO THE ADOPTION OF THE
CONSTITUTION, 1788.

THE Diplomatic History of the United States may be divided into three periods, from Washington to Jefferson, from Jefferson to the Declaration of Mr. Monroe, and from that Declaration to the present day.* This division is, of course, to some extent arbitrary, but still correct enough for the purposes of a continuous and general narrative; and each of these periods may be fairly considered as the illustration of a special condition of public necessities, and as the natural manifestation of an independent principle of our foreign policy.

*The character and circumstances of this famous Declaration will be discussed in its proper place in the history of the period to which it belongs. I use the term here simply as a convenient description of that period, when the consequences of our foreign policy, from the accession of Mr. Jefferson to the Treaty of Ghent, were, to borrow a compact and comprehensive French phrase, resumé, in the official acts of the government.