CHAPTER personal popularity to secure to their country an honor. XIV. able peace. Adams seems, in fact, to have been right, 1799. when, long after (1809), in the freedom of confidential

correspondence, he asserted that this, the most ques tioned of all his actions, was "the most disinterested, the most determined, prudent, and successful of his whole life." "I was obliged," he added, "to give peace and unexampled prosperity to my country for eight years— and if it is not of longer duration it is not my faultagainst the advice, entreaties, and intrigues of all my ministers, and all the leading Federalists in both houses of Congress." In the agony of present suffering, groaning like the chained Prometheus or the mountain-buried Titan under the "intolerable load of obloquy and inso lence" heaped upon him by the "eternal reviling" of the Federal newspapers-revilings renewed at that moment in consequence of the political course adopted by his son-he despaired of and almost spurned at the justice of history. "Too many falsehoods are already transmitted to posterity that are irrevocable. Records themselves are often liars. No human being but myself can do me justice; and I shall not be believed. All I can say will be imputed to vanity and self-love." Yet, justice, there can be little doubt, he will ultimately obtain, as the party mist which has hitherto enveloped our postrevolutionary history rises and lets in the clear light of truth. None, at least, can deny to his conduct in renewing the negotiation a moral courage of which there are but few instances in our history. Washington's ratification of Jay's treaty furnishes one; perhaps almost the only other is to be sought in the opposition of Dickinson to what he esteemed the premature declaration of independencea reminiscence which can not but suggest a very curious and instructive parallel. Adams, in fact, now occupied,

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in relation to the more ardent Federalists, very much the CHAPTER same position which Dickinson had occupied a quarter of a century before in relation to himself. On that oc- 1799. casion, in his youthful ardor, he had been ready to set down Dickinson as a "piddling genius" because he hesitated at a step quite in advance of any thing originally contemplated, and of which the ultimate consequences, though all agreed they must be very serious, could not be foreseen. And now that Adams hesitated in his turn at a like tremendous responsibility, there were not wanting among his late political adherents those ready to denounce him as a "piddling genius" not up to the emergency, and too much concerned about his own interests to merit the title of a patriot. Dickinson occupied in both cases the same ground. As he was then opposed to a war with England, so he was now opposed to a war with France. He had long since retired from public life, but his last published essays were on this topic.

About the time of the departure of the envoys, the proceedings of the commission sitting under Jay's treaty encountered a serious interruption. The commission sitting at London, under the sixth article, of which John Trumbull was the umpire, had made considerable progress, and damages to the amount of near half a million of dollars had already been awarded and paid for illegal captures of American vessels, for which the ordinary course of law furnished no remedy. The commission sitting at Philadelphia under the seventh article, the appointment of the fifth commissioner or umpire of which had fallen to the British, was by no means so harmonious. Claims of all sorts had been filed, including many by expatriated Tories, for the value of their confiscated property, to the amount, in the whole, of twentyfour millions of dollars; and the ground taken by the

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CHAPTER majority of the commission was such as threatened a very heavy burden to the United States. There was a 1799. difference in the commission both as to the allowance of interest while the war continued, and as to the classes of persons entitled to claim under the treaty. The British majority of the commissioners were disposed to hold the United States responsible, in the first place, for all unpaid debts, and to throw upon them the burden of proving that, had due diligence been used, those debts might have been collected. The American commissioners maintained, on the other hand, that as the United States were only responsible for those debts the recovery of which had been prevented by legal impediments, it rested on each claimant to show that due diligence had been used, and that the recovery of his debt had been prevented by legislative obstacles, or by the debtor's be coming insolvent during the continuance of such obstacles. After much discussion, some of it very warm, and before any one claim had been definitely adjudicated, the American commissioners, with the approbation of their government, prevented any awards by withdrawing. When this became known in England, the British government withdrew their members from the board sitting there; and both commissions thus came to a full stop. But, notwithstanding this interruption, both governments expressed their anxiety to carry out the treaty in good faith; and Sitgreaves was soon after dispatched to England to co-operate with King in obtaining, if possible, some explanatory article on the subject of the British debts.

From a statement made by Wolcott preliminary to the meeting of Congress, it appeared that for the year ending the 30th of September, there had been a falling off in the customs, the main source of revenue, of near a million of dollars, occasioned in part by the interruptions to

amount.

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rade, the whole produce being $7,117,000. The inter- CHAPTER nal duties, including the Stamp Act, had produced $773,000-a considerable increase upon any former annual 1799. The preliminaries for the collection of the direct tax had been mostly arranged, but the collection had not yet been begun. The total income of the year, including about four millions received on the eight per cent. loan, amounted to $12,770,000; the expenditures had been $10,356,000. This left a balance in the treasury (including that part of the five million loan outstanding) of near three millions and a half; but as the existing estab lishments called for an expenditure exceeding the stand ing revenue by five millions, new loans or taxes would be necessary to meet the expenses of the ensuing year.

This was not a very agreeable state of affairs to lay before the sixth Congress, which came together, soon af ter, for its first session. In the Senate several new members appeared-Dexter, of Massachusetts, known to us already as a former member of the House, in place of Sedgwick, and William H. Willes, of Delaware, in place of Vining, whose terms had expired. Dayton, late speaker of the House, and Baldwin, so long a member of that body, appeared also among the new senators. From Virginia, in place of Tazewell, who had resigned, came Wilson C. Nicholas, the confidential friend of Jefferson, but inferior in ability to either of his two brothers. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, appointed to fill a vacancy just at the close of the last Congress, was also a member of this. Near the end of the session, Gouverneur Morris took his seat from New York, to fill a vacancy occasioned by Watson's resignation.

Still more extensive changes had taken place in the House, where the Federalists were now, for the first time since 1793, in a decided majority. Of former members,

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CHAPTER the most distinguished were Otis, Sewall, Thacher, Var num, and Sedgwick, of Massachusetts-the latter, on the 1799. expiration of his senatorial term, having been again elected to the House; Dana, Chauncey Goodrich, and Griswold, of Connecticut; Livingston, of New York; Gallatin, Hartley, Kittera, Smilie, and Peter Muhlenburg, of Pennsylvania; Bayard, of Delaware; Smith, of Mary land; John Nicholas, and Parker, of Virginia, of whom the former had carried his election only by a few votes, while the latter had gone over to the Federalists; Macon, of North Carolina; Harper, Rutledge, Thomas Pinckney, and Sumter, of South Carolina. The most remarkable of the new members were Dr. Michael Leib, already known to us as a very fierce Democrat, from Pennsylvania; Joseph H. Nicholson, of similar politics, from Maryland; John Marshall, Henry Lee, and the eccentric and afterward celebrated John Randolph, from Virginia. William Henry Harrison, afterward president of the United States, appeared as a delegate from the Territory northwest of the Ohio, skirted then by a few feeble and scattered settlements, but counting while I now write, at the end of only fifty years, five states, and near five millions of inhabitants. Sedgwick was elected speaker over Macon by forty-four votes to thirty-eight.

Dec

The president's speech, after noticing the Northampton insurrection (Fries's), the revival of trade with St. Domingo, the departure of the envoys for France, and the suspension of the commissions under the British treaty, devoted itself principally to two topics; first, a re-organization of the Federal judiciary, already more than once suggested by the judges, and repeatedly brought by Washington to the notice of Congress; and, secondly, a steady perseverance in a system of national defense, commensurate with the resources, and corresponding