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One further phase of diplomacy under the Confederation may be noted, namely the question of the diplomatic proprieties confronting the minister to a country in revolution. For before Jefferson's return to America, the Bastile had fallen and the great days of the first stage of the French Revolution had brought their thrill of hope. The presence at Paris of the author of the Declaration of Independence necessarily drew to him the leaders of the new movement. La Fayette in particular was his friend. The situation was most delicate. To aid revolutionists by advice and counsel might rupture all relations with the lawful authorities. The problem reached its crisis when without Jefferson's foreknowledge La Fayette and a party of eight gathered at the minister's residence to ascertain his views. Thus solicited, Jefferson did not refuse advice. But he hastened next day to the foreign office to express his regrets to the Count de Montmorin, as secretary, concerning a situation that had embarrassed him greatly. Montmorin, who already knew of the episode through agents in the secret service, absolved Jefferson of all responsibility, and even encouraged him to offer in the future such counsel as might lead to a constructive program of reform. It was Revolution at its best that Jefferson witnessed. Long before the Terror he was on his native soil.18

The return of Jefferson to America in 1789 coincided with a new era in our diplomacy. During his absence the Constitution had been drawn up and adopted, and under its provisions a new government set up. The mission to France had deprived Jefferson of opportunity to assist directly in framing the Constitution. But his approval of the document in its essentials, subject to the incorporation of a Bill of Rights, had aided in securing its adoption. His appointment, therefore, as Secretary of State under the new government was a fitting tribute to the greatness of the man, and his experience in diplomacy.

To a large extent the problems which so long perplexed the government of the Confederation were carried over as 13 Ibid. I, 155.

a legacy to the new nation under the Constitution. But the gifted men who grappled with them in the trying years from 1781 to 1789 were to find their solution in the new machinery of government and the power of national unity, for the associates of Washington in the early days of the republic were men of ripe experience. Their failure in the diplomacy of the Confederation was far from personal. With the advent of a new government came a new faith and courage in the conduct of diplomacy.

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CHAPTER IV

THE NEW NATION

HE United States in its infancy required a careful foreign policy if the country were to survive and

expand. The conduct of this policy was the political equivalent of adaptation to environment. That is the meaning of success for any organism. But the weaker the organism the greater the compulsion to do the adapting. The strong, while subject to the law of adaptation, accomplish their ends through coercion of the weak. The immediate environment enveloping America consisted of two neighbors and an ally. The United States shared North America with Great Britain and Spain. Her chief connection with Europe lay politically through France, and economically through Great Britain, though the Confederation had already negotiated commercial treaties with Sweden and Portugal, and was under financial obligations to Holland.

But America's position was inherently far stronger than would appear from a comparison of herself with any one of these powers. Even as Napoleon ascribed most of his military successes to the simple formula of being strongest only at the point of attack, so America possessed an important diplomatic asset in being in her own immediate zone the strongest of the nations. The sparse populations of Canada, Louisiana, and the Floridas offered no serious menace to 3,000,000 people in the American settlements. And as for France, while it would be well to please her, there was slight need to fear her.

Nor could it be said that the whole strength of any of these states was in direct opposition to that of America. Speaking again in terms of environment, the nations of the world, even those most concerned with us, viewed America

as but a portion, and insignificant at that, of their own environment. While they could not ignore her, still less could they ignore each other.

From all these circumstances, the statesmanship of Washington and his Secretary was to reap advantage. Granting America's ability to subsist at all—and this was insured by the financial genius of Alexander Hamilton-the rivalries of foreign powers must play into her hands. Of this an illustration occurred in 1790, almost at the outset of the administration, in a controversy between Great Britain and Spain arising out of an incident at Nootka Sound on the distant shores of the Pacific. Events on that ocean could not be matter of indifference to Americans engaged since 1784 in the fur trade with Canton. But the episode's significance consisted in its influence upon British attitude toward us.

THE NOOTKA SOUND INCIDENT

Nootka Sound, a small inlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island, was the objective for two expeditions, a British and a Spanish, each setting forth in the spring of 1789 to plant a colony on a coast long claimed by Spain but never previously settled. The Spaniard arrived first. Two months later the Briton challenged his occupation. The Spaniard was the victor and sent his enemy in chains to Mexico. Great Britain demanded an apology; Spain refused one. Both nations girded for a war in which Great Britain, urged on by the Venezuelan patriot Miranda, dreamed of taking over the Spanish empire in America.

In the event of war, New Orleans would become at once an objective for British forces. Lord Dorchester, the Governor of Canada, was instructed to ascertain whether America would permit a British expedition from Canada to cross our territories for an attack on Spanish Florida and New Orleans. Accordingly his lordship dispatched to Philadelphia an agent, Major Beckwith, previously referred to, who presented the situation to our government, and conducted unofficial inquiries into the trend of American opin

ion, which, even in high quarters, he found unexpectedly favorable to England.1

Facing what amounted to a test case in international law, Washington sought the advice not only of his cabinet, but of John Jay, who was now chief justice. Unanimously they favored American neutrality. The movement of troops must not be welcomed, though it might be better to tolerate it than to incur by a refusal the flouting of our national authority. But in the event that Great Britain should send such an expedition, it was agreed that our government must take particular pains to assure Spain of our inability to prevent it.

Thus neutrality which has since come to be a first principle of American diplomacy was the united recommendation of Washington's advisers respecting the first case which came before them. To neither possible combatant must we afford advantage. Official neutrality, however, did not preclude individual preferences. And Jefferson, of all those consulted, saw most clearly the menace in British aggrandizement at New Orleans and beyond. He expressed a decided preference for a weak neighbor like Spain to a mighty neighbor like Great Britain, and in his opposition to the latter's designs on South America he foreshadowed once again the cardinal principle of the Monroe Doctrine. From Spain, herself, meanwhile, he hoped to extract free navigation of the Mississippi as the price of our neutrality. If the American demands had reached Spain at the right moment, there is some reason to suppose that they would have been granted.

In determining upon and adhering to a policy of neutrality Washington was insuring to his country ultimate title to the Mississippi Valley. As long as Britain held the posts along the Great Lakes and intrigued with the Indians north of the Ohio, and as long as Spain made use of the Floridas in urging the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws and Seminoles

1 For America's relations to the Nootka Sound incident, see William Ray Manning's "The Nootka Sound Controversy," in Am. Hist. Assn. Ann. Rept. for 1904, especially 410-423.

2 The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition, VI, 90-95.

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