The Critical Period of American History. Fiske John
great reformer of later years, the Charles Fox who came to be loved and idolized by all enlightened Englishmen. Next to Fox, the ablest leader in the party was the Duke of Richmond, but his advanced views on parliamentary reform put him out of sympathy with the majority of the party. In this embarrassment, the choice fell upon the Duke of Portland, a man of great wealth and small talent, concerning whom Horace Walpole observed, "It is very entertaining that two or three great families should persuade themselves that they have a hereditary and exclusive right of giving us a head without a tongue!" The choice was a weak one, and played directly into the hands of the king. When urged to make the Duke of Portland his prime minister, the king replied that he had already offered that position to Lord Shelburne. Hereupon Fox and Cavendish resigned, but Richmond remained in office, thus virtually breaking his connection with the Old Whigs. Lord Keppel also remained. Many members of the party followed Richmond and went over to Shelburne. William Pitt, now twenty-three years old, succeeded Cavendish as chancellor of the exchequer; Thomas Townshend became secretary of state for home and colonies, and Lord Grantham became foreign secretary. The closing days of Parliament were marked by altercations which showed how wide the breach had grown between the two sections of the Whig party. Fox and Burke believed that Shelburne was not only playing a false part, but was really as subservient to the king as Lord North had been. In a speech ridiculous for its furious invective, Burke compared the new prime minister with Borgia and Catiline. And so Parliament was adjourned on the 11th of July, and did not meet again until December.
French policy opposed to American interests.
The task of making a treaty of peace was simplified both by this change of ministry and by the total defeat of the Spaniards and French at Gibraltar in September. Six months before, England had seemed worsted in every quarter. Now England, though defeated in America, was victorious as regarded France and Spain. The avowed object for which France had entered into alliance with the Americans was to secure the independence of the United States, and this point was now substantially gained. The chief object for which Spain had entered into alliance with France was to drive the English from Gibraltar, and this point was now decidedly lost. France had bound herself not to desist from the war until Spain should recover Gibraltar; but now there was little hope of accomplishing this, except by some fortunate bargain in the treaty, and Vergennes tried to persuade England to cede the great stronghold in exchange for West Florida, which Spain had lately conquered, or for Oran or Guadaloupe. Failing in this, he adopted a plan for satisfying Spain at the expense of the United States; and he did this the more willingly as he had no love for the Americans, and did not wish to see them become too powerful. France had strictly kept her pledges; she had given us valuable and timely aid in gaining our independence; and the sympathies of the French people were entirely with the American cause. But the object of the French government had been simply to humiliate England, and this end was sufficiently accomplished by depriving her of her thirteen colonies.
The valley of the Mississippi; Aranda's prophecy.
The immense territory extending from the Alleghany Mountains to the Mississippi River, and from the border of "West Florida to the Great Lakes, had passed from the hands of France into those of England at the peace of 1763; and by the Quebec Act of 1774 England had declared the southern boundary of Canada to be the Ohio River. At present the whole territory, from Lake Superior down to the southern boundary of what is now Kentucky, belonged to the state of Virginia, whose backwoodsmen had conquered it from England in 1779. In December, 1780, Virginia had provisionally ceded the portion north of the Ohio to the United States, but the cession was not yet completed. The region which is now Tennessee belonged to North Carolina, which had begun to make settlements there as long ago as 1758. The trackless forests included between Tennessee and West Florida were still in the hands of wild tribes of Cherokees and Choctaws, Chickasaws and Creeks. Several thousand pioneers from North Carolina and Virginia had already settled beyond the mountains, and the white population was rapidly increasing. This territory the French government was very unwilling to leave in American hands. The possibility of enormous expansion which it would afford to the new nation was distinctly foreseen by sagacious men. Count Aranda, the representative of Spain in these negotiations, wrote a letter to his king just after the treaty was concluded, in which he uttered this notable prophecy: "This federal republic is born a pygmy. A day will come when it will be a giant, even a colossus, formidable in these countries. Liberty of conscience, the facility for establishing a new population on immense lands, as well as the advantages of the new government, will draw thither farmers and artisans from all the nations. In a few years we shall watch with grief the tyrannical existence of this same colossus." The letter went on to predict that the Americans would presently get possession of Florida and attack Mexico. Similar arguments were doubtless used by Aranda in his interviews with Vergennes, and France, as well as Spain, sought to prevent the growth of the dreaded colossus. To this end Vergennes maintained that the Americans ought to recognize the Quebec Act, and give up to England all the territory north of the Ohio River. The region south of this limit should, he thought, be made an Indian territory, and placed under the protection of Spain and the United States. A line was to be drawn from the mouth of the Cumberland River, following that stream about as far as the site of Nashville, thence running southward to the Tennessee, thence curving eastward nearly to the Alleghanies, and descending through what is now eastern Alabama to the Florida line. The territory to the east of this irregular line was to be under the protection of the United States; the territory to the west of it was to be under the protection of Spain. In this division, the settlers beyond the mountains would retain their connection with the United States, which would not touch the Mississippi River at any point. Vergennes held that this was all the Americans could reasonably demand, and he agreed with Aranda that they had as yet gained no foothold upon the eastern bank of the great river, unmindful of the fact that at that very moment the fortresses at Cahokia and Kaskaskia were occupied by American garrisons.
The Newfoundland fisheries.
Upon another important point the views of the French government were directly opposed to American interests. The right to catch fish on the banks of Newfoundland had been shared by treaty between France and England; and the New England fishermen, as subjects of the king of Great Britain, had participated in this privilege. The matter was of very great importance, not only to New England, but to the United States in general. Not only were the fisheries a source of lucrative trade to the New England people, but they were the training-school of a splendid race of seamen, the nursery of naval heroes whose exploits were by and by to astonish the world. To deprive the Americans of their share in these fisheries was to strike a serious blow at the strength and resources of the new nation. The British government was not inclined to grant the privilege, and on this point Vergennes took sides with England, in order to establish a claim upon her for concessions advantageous to France in some other quarter. With these views, Vergennes secretly aimed at delaying the negotiations; for as long as hostilities were kept up, he might hope to extort from his American allies a recognition of the Spanish claims and a renouncement of the fisheries, simply by threatening to send them no further assistance in men or money. In order to retard the proceedings, he refused to take any steps whatever until the independence of the United States should first be irrevocably acknowledged by Great Britain, without reference to the final settlement of the rest of the treaty. In this Vergennes was supported by Franklin, as well as by Jay, who had lately arrived in Paris to take part in the negotiations. But the reasons of the American commissioners were very different from those of Vergennes. They feared that, if they began to treat before independence was acknowledged, they would be unfairly dealt with by France and Spain, and unable to gain from England the concessions upon which they were determined.
Jay detects the schemes of Vergennes.
Jay soon began to suspect the designs of the French minister. He found that he was sending M. de Rayneval as a secret emissary to Lord Shelburne under an assumed name; he ascertained that the right of the United States to the Mississippi valley was to be denied; and he got hold of a dispatch from Marbois, the French secretary of legation at Philadelphia, to Vergennes, opposing the American claim to the Newfoundland fisheries. As soon as Jay learned these facts, he sent his friend Dr. Benjamin Vaughan to Lord Shelburne to put him on his guard, and while reminding him that it was greatly for the interest of England to dissolve the alliance between America and France, he declared himself ready to begin the negotiations without waiting