riotous proceedings, until the measure, by being carried into full effect in other parts of the union, should be better understood; and until congress should assemble, and,modify the system in such a manner as to remove any real objections to it, the existence of which might be suggested by experience. Accordingly, in the legislature which convened in October, 1791, this subject was taken up in pursuance of the recommendation of the President, and an amendatory act was passed in May, 1792, in which the whole system was revised, and great pains were taken to alter such parts of it as could be deemed exceptionable.

This conciliatory measure did not produce the desired effect. No abatement took place in the violence and outrage with which the resistance to the law was conducted. To carry it into execution, officers of inspection were necessary in every county. The malcontents, for a considerable time, deterred every person from consenting to permit an office to be held at his house; and when at length this difficulty was supposed to be overcome, those who had been prevailed on to accede to the propositions of the supervisor in this respect, were compelled, by personal violence, and by threats of the destruction of property, and even of death, to retract the consent they had given.

A meeting was again convened at Pittsburg, in which, among other very exceptionable resolutions, committees were established to correspond with any committees of a similar nature that might be appointed in other parts of the United States. By this meeting it was declared, that they would persist in every legal measure to obstruct the execution of the law, and would consider those who held offices for the collection of the duty as unworthy of their friendship; that they would have no intercourse or dealings with them; would withdraw from them every assistance, and withhold all the comforts of life which depend upon those duties which, as men and fellow citizens, they owed to each other; and would, upon all occasions, treat them with contempt. It was at the same time earnestly recommended to the people at large to adopt the same line of conduct.

No man could be more sensible than the President of the dangerous tendency of these measures, nor more indignant at the outrage thus offered to the government of the United States. But his prudence, and his high respect for the laws restrained him within the narrow limits which the legislature had prescribed. A proclamation was issued exhorting

* In his letter enclosing the proclamation to the secretary of the treasury, the Presi dent observed, “I have no doubt but that the proclamation will undergo many strictures; and, as the effect proposed may not be answered by it, it will be necessary to look forward in time to ulterior arrangements. And here, not only the constitution

and admonishing all persons to desist from any combinations or proceedings whatsoever, tending to obstruct the execution of the laws, and requiring the interference of the civil magistrate; and prosecutions against the offenders were directed to be instituted in every case in which they could be supported.

This proclamation produced no salutary effect. Many of the civil magistrates were themselves concerned in stimulating the excesses they were required to suppress; and those who had not embarked in the criminal enterprise, found themselves totally unable to maintain the sovereignty of the laws.

With a laudable solicitude to avoid extremities, the government still sought for means to recall these misguided people to a sense of duty, without the employment of a military force. To obtain this desirable object, the following system was digested and pursued.

Prosecutions were instituted against delinquents in those cases in which it was believed that they could be maintained. The spirits distilled in the non-complying counties were intercepted on their way to market, and seized by the officers of the revenue; and the agents for the army were directed to purchase only those spirits on which the duty had been paid. By thus acting on the interests of the distillers, the hope was indulged that they might be induced to comply with the law. Could they have obeyed their wishes, these measures would have produced the desired effect; but they were no longer masters of their own conduct. Impelled by a furious multitude, they found it much more dangerous to obey the laws than to resist them. The efficacy of this system too was diminished by a circumstance, which induced the necessity of a second application to the legislature. The act had not been extended to the territory northwest of the Ohio, in which great part of the army lay; and the distillers eluded the vigilance of the government by introducing their spirits into that territory.

While from causes which were incessant and active in their operation, some of which seem too strongly fixed in the human mind ever to be removed, a broad foundation was thus laid for those party struggles whose fury is generally proportioned to the magnitude of the objects to be attained, and to the means which may be employed in attaining them, the external affairs of the United States sustained no material change.

Of the good understanding which was preserved with France, a fresh and laws must strictly govern, but the employment of the regular troops avoided, if it be possible to effect order without their aid; yet if no other means will effectually answer, and the constitution and laws will authorize these, they must be used as the dernier resort."

proof had been recently given by the employment of Mr. Ternan, a person peculiarly acceptable to the American government, to succeed the Count de Moustiers, as minister plenipotentiary of his most Christian Majesty; and in turn, Mr. Gouverneur Morris, who was understood to have rendered himself agreeable to the French government, was appointed to represent the United States at the court of Versailles.

In addition to these interchanges of civility, a melancholy occasion had presented itself for giving much more substantial evidence of the alacrity with which the American administration would embrace any proper opportunity of manifesting its disposition to promote the interests of France.

Early and bitter fruits of that malignant philosophy, which, disregarding the actual state of the world, and estimating at nothing the miseries of a vast portion of the human race, can coolly and deliberately pursue, through oceans of blood, abstract systems for the attainment of some fancied untried good, were gathered in the French West Indies. Instead of proceeding in the correction of any abuses which might exist, by those slow and cautious steps which gradually introduce reform without ruin, which may prepare and fit society for that better state of things designed for it; and which, by not attempting impossibilities, may enlarge the circle of happiness, the revolutionists of France formed the mad and wicked project of spreading their doctrines of equality among persons, between whom distinctions and prejudices exist to be subdued only by the grave. The rage excited by the pursuit of this visionary and baneful theory, after many threatening symptoms, burst forth on the 23d day of August 1791, with a fury alike destructive and general. In one night, a preconcerted insurrection of the blacks took place throughout the colony of St. Domingo; and the white inhabitants of the country, while sleeping in their beds, were involved in one indiscriminate massacre, from which neither age nor sex could afford an exemption. Only a few females, reserved for a fate more cruel than death, were intentionally spared; and not many were fortunate enough to escape into the fortified cities. The insurgents then assembled in vast numbers, and a bloody war commenced between them and the whites inhabiting the towns. The whole French part of the island was in imminent danger of being totally lost to the mother country. The minister of his most Christian Majesty applied to the executive of the United States for a sum of money which would enable him to preserve this valuable colony, to be deducted out of the debt to his sovereign; and the request was granted in a manner evincing the interest taken by the administration in whatever might concern France.

On the part of Spain, a desire had been expressed to adjust the sub

jects in controversy between the two nations by negotiations to be carried on at Madrid; and Mr. Carmichael, and Mr. Short, had been appointed commissioners, with powers equal to the object. In the mean time, the officers of that nation persisted in, measures which were calculated to embroil the United States with the southern Indians. By their intrigues with the Creeks, the treaty formed in 1790 with M'Gillivray, was prevented from being ratified, and the boundary line then agreed upon was not permitted to be run. The indefinite claim of territory set up by Spain was alleged to constitute a sufficient objection to any new line of demarcation, until that claim should be settled; and her previous treaties and relations with the Creeks were declared to be infringed by their stipulation, acknowledging themselves to be under the protection of the United States.

An official diplomatic intercourse had at length been opened with Great Britain also. Mr. Hammond, the minister plenipotentiary of that nation to the United States, arrived at Philadelphia in the autumn of 1791; upon which, Mr. Thomas Pinckney, a gentleman of South Carolina, who was highly and justly respected, had been charged with the interests of his country at the court of London.* Soon after the arrival of Mr. Hammond, the non-execution of the treaty of peace became the subject of a correspondence between him and the secretary of state, in which the complaints of their respective nations were urged in terms manifesting clearly the sense entertained by each of the justice of those complaints, without furnishing solid ground for the hope that they would be immediately removed on either side.

Mr. Hammond's powers on the subject of a commercial treaty were far from being satisfactory. To the inquiries of Mr. Jefferson on this point, he replied, that he was authorized to enter into a negotiation respecting the commercial intercourse between the two countries, and to discuss those principles which might serve as a basis for a treaty, but not to conclude any definitive arrangements. In fact, there was much reason to believe that the obstacles to a commercial treaty between the two countries would not be soon or easily surmounted. In America,

* In consequence of these nominations of foreign ministers, a motion was made in the senate on a point which is of some importance in settling the principles of the American government. It was contended that the power of that body over the appointment of a foreign minister gave the right to inquire into the policy of making any appointment whatever; and that in exercising this power, they were not to confine themselves to a consideration of the fitness of the person nominated, but were to judge of the propriety of the mission; and were consequently to be informed of the motives which had decided the President to adopt the measure. This opinion was overruled by a small majority.

such an alteration in the law of nations as would permit the goods of an enemy to pass freely in the bottom of a neutral, was a favourite project; and a full participation of the colonial trade was also most earnestly desired. That the latter of these objects would not be readily conceded by Great Britain did not admit of a doubt; but many intelligent men, possessing great political influence, had embraced the opinion that she could be forced out of that colonial system which every European power having settlements in America had adopted, by regulations restricting her navigation and commerce with the United States. To those who entertained this opinion, no commercial treaty could be acceptable, which did not contain the concessions they required.

In addition to a general knowledge of the sentiments of the British cabinet on these points, particular evidence had lately been received of ts positive decision respecting them. A comprehensive report on American affairs had been made to the privy council by a committee of that body, which was laid before the king. A few copies of it had been printed for the members of the cabinet, which were soon called in by a sudden order of council; but one of these copies was obtained, and transmitted to the secretary of state of the United States. This report manifested a willingness to form a commercial treaty with the American government on principles of perfect equality, both with respect to navigation and commerce, so far as regarded the dominions of his Britannic Majesty in Europe; but it also discovered a determination, to adhere inflexibly to the existing regulations for the colonies; and to reject the principle that free bottoms make free goods.

In this state paper the opinion was advanced, that several important articles of exportation from the United States, especially tobacco, had been peculiarly favoured in Great Britain; but that these friendly regu lations were not reciprocated by America. The means of retaliating injuries which might be inflicted on British commerce were stated, but those means, it was said, ought not hastily to be adopted, the more especially, as the existing government of the United States had discovered dispositions more favourable to a liberal and fair intercourse between the two countries, than had been manifested by the respective states. For several reasons it was deemed adviseable not suddenly to disturb the existing state of things, but to regulate the trade of the two nations by a treaty, the stipulations of which should be equal, and mutually beneficial, provided such a treaty could be formed without a departure from those principles which were considered as fundamental.

No abatement of hostility having taken place among the northwestern Indians, the preparations for terminating the war by the sword were