The American Consul: A History of the United States Consular Service 1776â1924. Revised Second Edition. Charles Stuart Kennedy
and other American naval commanders continued their activities in European waters.
While Congress procrastinated in naming consular officers to France, the court of Louis XVI lost no time in sending its men to its new ally. By early 1779 French consuls were established in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the Carolinas. New York was not on the list, but only because the occupying British army precluded French consular activity there. During the American Revolutionary War the French consuls had diverse duties. Their naval support activities included acting as purchasing agents for the French fleet, which put into American ports to be revictualed and to obtain naval stores. Moreover, these consuls were discreetly distributed about the thirteen ex-colonies to report on and influence political matters in the separate regions, since each ex-colony was an almost independent political entity with its own commercial interests. France hoped to take the lucrative American market away from Great Britain after the war and channel it into the French system. Their consuls were well placed to aid in this endeavor.
In 1780 John Adams was sent back to Europe to be on hand to negotiate a peace treaty with Great Britain whenever the time became propitious. In Paris Adams observed that “many of the disputes, delays and other inconveniences that have attended our affairs in this kingdom, have arisen from blending the offices of political Minister, Board of Admiralty, Chamber of Commerce, and Commercial Agent together.” He wrote that the business of the minister (Franklin) was to negotiate with the court, and that was enough to keep one man fully occupied. He urged Congress to put a consul in Nantes. “I think it should be an American, some merchant of known character, ability, and industry, who would consent to serve his country for moderate emoluments. Such persons are to be found in great number in America. There are many applications from French gentlemen. But I think that a want of knowledge of our language, our laws, customs, and even humors of our people, for even these must be considered, would prevent them from giving satisfaction, or doing justice.” Adams went on to extol the virtues of having consuls abroad who could report on political and commercial matters, which “in future times may be a rich treasure of the United States.”10
Later in 1780 the American minister in Madrid, John Jay, voiced his own complaint about the lack of American consuls abroad. Jay said that he was not able to write freely, as letters were routinely inspected at ports and post offices in Spain and France:
Is it not Time for America like other Nations to provide against these Inconveniences by proper Regulations and Establishments? They ought in my opinion have an American Consul or agent in some Port here [Spain] and in France. Their public Dispatches should be sent by Packet Boats to these Agents, and should on no account be delivered to any other Person. I have a very good Reason to suspect that the french Consuls in America are very watchful and attentive to these Matters, and good Care should be taken to keep american Letters out of their Way.11
Finally, on 4 November 1780 Congress appointed Lt. Col. William Palfrey a consul for France. Palfrey was the former paymaster general of the Continental army. But Palfrey never enjoyed his status as the first American consul, since his ship bound for France was lost in a storm. While awaiting confirmation that Palfrey had indeed drowned, Congress in June 1781 appointed Thomas Barclay of Pennsylvania as the vice consul to “perform the services required of William Palfrey, during his absence from the kingdom.”12 In October Barclay was named as consul to succeed Palfrey with a salary of $1,500 per year.
Congress refused to appoint other consuls but did appoint a commercial agent, Robert Smith, to reside in Havana “to manage the occasional concerns of Congress, to assist the American traders with his advice, and to solicit their affairs with the Spanish government, and to govern himself according to the orders he may from time to time, receive from the United States in Congress assembled, or the superintendent of Finance.”13
As the war subsided in the period between the battle of Yorktown in 1781 and the peace treaty of 1783, there was only one American consul, Thomas Barclay, and a handful of commercial agents helping American seamen stranded in foreign ports, purchasing and forwarding supplies to the relatively inactive and shrinking American military forces. Barclay’s activities were not confined to France; he was also in the Netherlands buying munitions for American forces. While making these purchases, Barclay and the commercial agents were taking their commissions and engaging in trade on their own behalf. Such activities were not forbidden by Congress: this was how the consuls supported themselves.
After Yorktown it was evident that the Revolution was a success and that the United States of America would enter the ranks of established nations as a minor power. Congress, however, still showed little enthusiasm for setting its diplomatic and consular affairs in order. Conrad Alexandre Géard, the French minister to the United States, prodded Congress to end the makeshift arrangement for accepting consuls without a consular treaty. At last Congress instructed Franklin in Paris to negotiate a consular convention, including a proposed draft written by a three-man congressional committee, using a model based on the French consular service as suggested by the French minister. Congress did not overwhelmingly support the proposed consular convention; four of the thirteen states had not approved the draft. But at least Franklin had permission to proceed with negotiations.
With the war over, Franklin was anxious for Congress to send him a consul to ease his work. He must have thought that with a consular convention signed in Paris, Congress would quickly appoint consuls to help commerce abroad. Elias Boudinot, a member of Congress, encouraged Franklin’s optimism when he wrote, “as far as I can judge of the peace establishment, it will be to employ two or three Ministers in Europe and those not higher in Character than Residents, or simply Minister – The business in other places to be done by Consuls. Our Finances are so very low as to require every economical measure.”14 Here was the nub of the matter governing consuls: they were cheaper than diplomats. All members of Congress recognized that since American ministers sent to foreign courts could not engage in private trade they had to be paid. But consuls could support themselves by trade and act as part-time consular officers, taking a small portion of the fees they charged.
Franklin had little difficulty with Charles Graves, Comte de Vergennes, the French minister of foreign affairs, in negotiating the consular convention. They signed the convention on 29 July 1784 in Paris. The pact was sent to Philadelphia for the expected swift approval by Congress.
Unfortunately, Franklin did not reckon on John Jay. At the time Franklin was completing the negotiations with Vergennes on the consular convention; Jay became the secretary of the Office for Foreign Affairs and played a major role in directing Congress on matters concerning treaties and conventions. Jay was no Francophile. His Huguenot forefathers had been forced out of France by the Bourbons, the family that still occupied the throne of France. While acting as minister to Spain, Jay had considered French consuls in the United States to be little more than spies and was not eager to legitimize their status.15
When Franklin’s signed consular convention came into the hands of Jay for his recommendation to Congress on ratification, Jay easily assumed the role of a lawyer attacking a contract detrimental to his client. There may have been some jealousy in the zeal with which Jay set upon Franklin’s work. He had had a miserable time in Spain as the American minister, with little to show for his efforts. Franklin, on the contrary, was the darling of the French and was considered the premier American diplomat. It may have given Jay some satisfaction to make it appear that Franklin had erred in not conforming exactly to the instructions of Congress in negotiating the consular convention.
On 4 July 1786 Jay sent a long report to Congress pointing out the flaws of the consular convention in great detail. Much of Jay’s attack amounted to quibbling, but he had a point. Congress’s instructions included too much of the original French draft proposal. For example, French consuls were granted great authority in the United States and might have prevented French subjects from becoming American citizens. The upshot of Jay’s report was that Congress rejected the Franco-American convention. 16
The French were unhappy. After giving the United States years to work on a consular convention, not an earthshaking proposition, and having made what they must have considered one-sided concessions to Franklin, they were to have all this overturned by a Congress guided by the Francophobe Jay. The French foreign minister showed remarkable restraint in dealing with his volatile ally and awaited