In
addition to the specific issues or grievances that the Treaty of Paris (1783) had
failed to address, there were – as previously discussed – a number of disputes
that had arisen between the ratification of that document and the middle of the
1790s that further served to poison relations between the United States of
America and Great Britain. Mainly diplomatic and commercial in nature, these
various conflicts almost all stemmed from the same central cause – to wit, the
French Revolution (1789-1799). Triggered by the summoning of the
Estates-General – the equivalent of a parliament – for the first time in one
hundred and seventy-three years, the Revolution witnessed the collapse of the
Kingdom of France and the emergence of a radical republic in its place in 1792/93.
This in turn set in motion a series of devastating wars that would rage across
Europe for the better part of twenty years. Neighboring European powers like
Great Britain, the Holy Roman Empire, and Spain saw much to fear in the social
and ideological forces that the French Revolutionaries had violently unleashed,
and sought to preserve the reigning political order and prevent their own
potential collapse by taking up arms against the nascent French Republic. The
subsequent War of the First Coalition (1792-1797) pitted France against a cabal
of reactionary kingdoms and states, witnessed the overthrow of several, and
concluded with a largely unexpected French victory.
On
the far side of the Atlantic, Americans observed this revolutionary turmoil
with a mixture of jubilation and unease. While many citizens of the United
States heralded the collapse of the French monarchy as the beginning of the end
of the “ancient tyrannies of Europe,” others were not quite so sanguine. On one
hand, a number of prominent figures within the French Revolutionary movement –
notably including the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), George Washington’s
former aide-de-camp – pointed to the experience of the United States as
inspiration. On the other, the relationships that the American republic had
respectively nurtured in the 1780s with Great Britain and with France placed
them in a somewhat awkward position once war was declared between the two. French
army and naval officers had shed blood for the cause of American independence, and
France had been the first nation in the world to recognize the sovereignty of
the United States of America. In addition, the fact that the French Revolution
was an ostensibly republican one caused many Americans to emotionally and
philosophically identify the overthrow of Louis XVI (1754-1793) with their own
experience of violently casting off the rule of George III. At the same time,
however, Great Britain represented the USA’s single largest trading partner,
its neighbor in North America, and a nation with whom many American citizens
still maintained strong personal and business connections. In short, it seemed
that the United States of America was torn – perhaps fatally – between ideology
and ambition; principle and pragmatism.
Though in large part cognizant of
the competing motivations acting upon contemporary American foreign policy,
British authorities during the early 1790s nonetheless wasted little time in
placing their country on a firm wartime footing. To that end, the British Navy
began to very aggressively pursue and capture French merchant vessels in an
attempt to cut off their enemy from access to trade goods and military
supplies. This focus on attacking French commerce resulted in several
significant outcomes within the sphere of Anglo-American relations. First, it
created a tremendous opportunity for American ship-masters and merchants to
drastically expand their area of influence. As the risk of putting to sea for
the French merchant fleet increased, vessels flying the flag of an ostensibly
neutral nation like the United States were able to absorb the trade routes that
their European counterparts were forced to abandon. The immediate result was a
period of heightened demand and rising profits for American shipbuilders, merchants,
and sailors alike. Between 1792 and 1796, American ship-masters managed to
increase their average revenues by a factor of three, while carpenters and
laborers in port cities like Philadelphia in some cases saw their wages double
during this same period. By 1794, the United States was the dominant trading
nation in the West Indies, and its shipping industry was generating hundreds of
thousands to several million dollars every year. Unfortunately, this
unprecedented shipping boom – referred to at the time as the “carrying trade” –
was frustrated in the long term by two further consequences of the British
Navy’s focus on attacking the commerce of its enemies.
In sudden and dire need of a steady
stream of manpower to keep its increasingly active fleet fully staffed, the
Royal Navy began an aggressive campaign to seek out and apprehend deserters and
impress – i.e. kidnap – as many able-bodied men as ship captains deemed
necessary. While no one considered to be the subject of a foreign nation or
sovereign was theoretically subject to such coerced service, American citizens represented
something of an exception. In spite of Britain’s ratification of the Treaty of
Paris and its formal recognition of American independence, British law failed
to acknowledge the existence of naturalised American citizenship. In practical
terms, this meant that the contemporary British government considered those of
its subjects who had settled in the United States of America after 1783 and
attained citizenship to in fact still be subjects of the British Crown. In
addition, there existed no information infrastructure – passports,
sophisticated record keeping, etc. – that would have otherwise prevented actual
British Navy deserters from simply claiming American citizenship in order to
avoid re-capture. In consequence, and despite repeated petitions by the
government of the United States, British “press gangs” captured and forced into
service several thousand sailors over the course of the 1790s who claimed –
truthfully or otherwise – to be American citizens.
At
the same time, Britain’s interdiction of enemy sea-bound trade and the
resulting expansion of American shipping into markets formerly dominated by the
French also had the effect of making American merchant vessels an increasingly
common target of Royal Navy aggression. In spite of American protestations that
“free ships make free goods” – i.e. that in time of war, the cargo of a neutral
vessel, even if it was bound for a belligerent nation, should be safe from
seizure – British authorities subscribed to the theory that any goods bound for
the ports of their enemies was fair game for capture. The logic of this
position doubtless appeared particularly obvious in the case of American
vessels carrying sugar from French colonies in the West Indies to French ports.
As far as contemporary British naval and political authorities were concerned,
this was simply French trade being conducted under an American flag. Such
vessels, they argued, were thus legitimate targets for confiscation. And while
Britain did not follow through on this interpretation of diplomatic norms for
the first several years of its war with France – perhaps out of consideration
for its economic relationship with the United States – it was only a matter of
time before circumstances forced their hand.
Granting that the commercial and
naval policies cited above do seem to present the British government as the
chief instigator of diplomatic tensions within the Anglo-American relationship
in the mid-1790s, it bears acknowledging that contemporary events in the United
States had done much to cast suspicion on American intentions. On April 8th,
1793, the first ambassador from the French Republic to the United States of
American arrived in Charleston, South Carolina. Edmond Charles Genêt
(1763-1834), who took to styling himself “Citizen Genêt,” subsequently behaved
in a manner very unlike the courtly dignitary that his office customarily
called for, and quickly found himself alternately embraced and held at arm’s
length by the American people and their government. Brash, charming, and
bombastic, Genêt carried with him both a series of requests to be formally
presented to the Washington Administration and a series of clandestine
instructions in case an affirmative response was slow in coming. Under the
former heading, he asked that the United States government extend a sizable
loan to the French Republic and agree to provide ample produce and military
supplies to the same. And under the latter category, he was authorized to
recruit armed expeditions for the purpose of striking British and Spanish
possessions in North America and carried with him the necessary paperwork to
commission the captains of private merchant vessels as privateers in service of
the French Republic. These duly-authorized vessels would then proceed to target
British shipping while at the same time seeking shelter in the ostensibly
neutral ports along the American coast.
Over the course of the next several months – April to August
of 1793 – the United States of America was subsequently wracked by a series of
partisan convulsions, became entangled in its first major crisis of foreign
policy, and began the long and difficult process of defining its role in the
international order. Perhaps the single defining cause of all of these
occurrences was a fairly simple piece of news that had accompanied Ambassador Genêt
across the Atlantic. War had broken out between Great Britain and the French
Republic, and it remained for the Washington Administration to determine how
best to position the United States of America vis-à-vis the European
belligerents. The subsequent cabinet meetings – held between April 8th
and May 16th, 1793 – produced agreement on the need for American
neutrality, though the specifics thereof were argued at length by Secretary of
State Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. While noted Francophile
Jefferson argued in favor of leveraging a formal declaration of neutrality in
order to extract favors from the concerned parties in Europe, Hamilton
meanwhile urged his cabinet colleagues that American foreign policy should be
based on sound principles rather than the whims of whichever foreign power was
willing to offer the best deal in exchange. President Washington – ever a man
of prudence and steady temperament – ultimately agree with his former
aid-de-camp, adding further that any delay in declaring American neutrality
would only increase the risk of the fragile young republic being drawn into the
struggle against the will and the best interests of its citizens.
In consequence, President Washington issued a proclamation
under his own hand on April 22nd, 1793 that made it abundantly clear
where the United States of American stood in relation to the armed conflict
then raging in Europe. Owing to the ongoing state of war between various
nations on the European continent, it read, “The duty and interest of the
United States require that they should with sincerity and good faith adopt and
pursue a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers [.] This
impartiality encompassed both official policy – i.e. the actions of the federal
and state governments and any officers thereof – as well as the activities of
private citizens. To that end, Washington specifically declared that,
Whosoever
of the citizens of the United States shall render himself liable to punishment
or forfeiture under the law of nations by committing, aiding, or abetting
hostilities against any of the said powers […] will not receive the protection
of the United States against such punishment or forfeiture; and further, that I
have given instructions to those officers to whom it belongs to cause
prosecutions to be instituted against all persons who shall […] violate the law
of nations with respect to the powers at war, or any of them.
Jefferson and his allies were
understandably crestfallen – by the increasing influence that Hamilton and his
partisan seemed to exert over the Washington Administration and by the harm
that they believed such an unequivocal policy statement would do to their
ideological compatriots in France. Hamilton was conversely triumphant, though
only in part. While he had managed to secure a formal, unconditional
proclamation of neutrality, and had successfully argued that the 1778 Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the
United States and the Kingdom of France had been nullified by the execution of
Louis XVI, the Treasury Secretary nonetheless failed to convince his cabinet
colleagues or President Washington that the latter ought to refuse to receive
and accredit the newly named French ambassador.
If Hamilton`s rationale for
rebuffing Genêt failed to carry the day in cabinet in April, 1793, it soon
became apparent exactly what he had wished to avoid upon the latter`s arrival
in Philadelphia. While the envoy’s more outwardly alarming efforts amounted to
very little in the long run – his planned expedition to conquer the Spanish
colony of Louisiana failed to materialize, and his efforts to enlist American
sailors as privateers in French service produced only minimal injury to British
shipping – his disregard for protocol and his revolutionary rhetoric sparked
any number of controversies that the Washington Administration then hastened to
quench. Feted upon his arrival on May 16th, 1793 – toasted, hosted,
and made the centre of attention at numerous receptions and banquets – Genêt did
not hesitate to bring this public confidence to bear against Washington’s newly
declared policy of non-interference. At times this subversive behavior took the
form of enlisting prominent American statesmen to the cause of the French
Republic – Thomas Jefferson notably provided Genêt with letters of introduction
during the latter’s failed excursion against Spanish Louisiana, and Pennsylvania
Governor Thomas Mifflin (1744-1800) was at one point heard to offer a public
toast in Genêt’s honor to, “The ruling powers in France. May the United States
of America, in alliance with them, declare war against England.” Worse yet,
however, was Genêt’s uncanny ability to elicit mass demonstrations of
revolutionary enthusiasm from among the general population. During his stay in
the nation`s capital, French and American flags waved side-by-side across the
city and verses of the revolutionary anthem La
Marseillaise echoed in the streets. Meanwhile in the cities and towns that
he visited since his arrival, political societies sprang to life that claimed
to promote the shared values of the French and American Revolutions.
These ad-hoc societies – dubbed either “Democratic”
or “Republican” – appeared particularly sinister to American proponents of
non-interference. While their members claimed that a defeat for the French
Republic would allow the newly-empowered monarchies of Europe to extend their
reactionary campaign across the Atlantic, opponents perceived in them far too
many similarities to the political clubs that had fueled the most destructive
aspects of the ongoing revolution in France. Secretary of State Hamilton in
particular saw in their rhetoric and their structure a distressing potential
for insurrection, and endeavored to monitor their activities for any hint of
treasonous behavior. Meanwhile, resulting from the emergence of these
proto-party organizations, Genêt’s patronage thereof, and the tensions arising
from the enforcement of Washington’s declaration of neutrality, the political
press began churning out editorials, essays, broadsides, and polemics,
alternately in favor of or opposed to Britain, France, President Washington,
the French Ambassador, or the federal government in general. Pro-administration
publications like The Gazette of the
United States and The American Daily
Advertiser were countered by the likes of the anti-administration National Gazette, each with its stable
of statesmen disguised by pseudonyms – Hamilton, for instance, wrote a series
of essays under the name “Pacificus,” while Congressman James Madison
(1751-1836) contributed a run of responses as “Helvidius.” Each side regularly
accused the other of treason, conspiracy, and betraying the principles of ’76
while leaving little room in their stated positions for compromise,
conciliation, or complexity.
By July of 1793, public opinion in
the United States was arguably as inflamed as it had ever been during the years
leading up to the American Revolution. Citizen Genêt continued to brazenly
flaunt the admonitions of the Washington Administration, and the political
press daily churned out editorials viciously denouncing the President, or the
Democratic/Republican societies, or the supporters of either. Jefferson,
doubtless still smarting from his defeat in the debate over American
neutrality, actively provided cover from within the federal government for
Genêt’s more indiscreet declarations to members thereof. Hamilton, meanwhile, took
pains to preserve the policy of non-interference that he had lobbied so
successfully for while at the same time quietly providing assurances to certain
foreign dignitaries who had reason to doubt American intentions. George Hammond
(1763-1853), British minister to the United States of America, was chief among
these interested parties. Faced with Washington’s proclamation on one hand and
the public popularity of Ambassador Genêt on the other, Hammond had every
reason to be confused. Was the President merely playing the statesman in public
while simultaneously giving private assurances that Americans found to be
offering material aid to France would not face formal prosecution? Hamilton,
for his part, endeavored to convince the British ambassador that he would do
all that was in his power to counter the efforts of both Genêt and his American
supporters. While Hammond expressed his faith in Hamilton’s pledge in
dispatches to his superiors, it nonetheless remained an open question in
British ministerial circles whether or not the heartfelt promises of one man
would be enough to stem the tide of pro-French sentiment sweeping across the
American republic in that turbulent summer of 1793.
While Genêt’s continued
intemperance soon resulted in a request to the government of the French
Republic for his immediate recall, the departure of the renegade ambassador
from the domestic political scene provided the beleaguered Washington
Administration with only a brief reprieve. The government of Prime Minister
William Pitt, whose ambassador to the United States had, as aforementioned,
witnessed the full extent of the “Genêt Affair,” remained unconvinced either by
substance of Washington’s June 22nd proclamation of neutrality or by
the ability of the United States government to enforce its terms. As Genêt’s
efforts had made quite clear, countless American citizens were willing and able
to defy the authority of the President and evade the various resources at his
disposal. American-crewed privateers in French service had seized a number of
British merchant vessels, and public support for the French Republic – in the
form of newspaper editorials, pamphlets, and the growth of pro-revolutionary
political societies – showed little sign of abating. Some manner of response
was called for, in order to both arrest the ability of France to continue
benefiting from American neutral shipping as well as to make clear that Great
Britain would not tolerate duplicity in its diplomatic relations. To that end,
the government of Prime Minister Pitt accordingly decreed in an order in
council dated to November, 1793, that the Royal Navy would henceforth,
Stop and
detain all ships laden with goods the produce of any colony belonging to
France, or carrying provisions or other supplies for the use of any such
colony, and shall bring the same, with their cargoes, to legal adjudication in
our Courts of Admiralty.
Two hundred and fifty
captured American merchant ships later, the supporters of Hamilton –
increasingly known as “Federalists” – and the devotees of Jefferson – often
referred to as “Republicans” – found themselves in a shared state of shock and
outrage. While both factions responded in January of 1794 by promoting –
unsuccessfully – some form of commercial reprisal against British trade, it was
the Federalist proposal to send an envoy to Britain that was ultimately set in
motion. Though concerns abounded as to whom Washington would commission for the
task – Jefferson suspected Hamilton would seize the opportunity to personally establish
stronger ties with British officialdom, and several Republicans echoed his
objection in letters to the President – Chief Justice John Jay was ultimately
selected in April, 1794. As head of the judicial branch of the federal
government, Jay enjoyed a position of authority and trust that was relatively
untouched by the roiling partisanship then plaguing American public life. He
was also widely known to be a man of honor, integrity, and restraint. While not
quite the Republicans’ preferred choice – some regarded him as a Federalist at
heart – he nevertheless secured the approval of the United States Senate and
made ready to depart on May 12, 1794. He carried with him to London the
confidence – though in some cases only nominal – of both major factions in
contemporary American politics, a series of instructions from his government,
and the ardent hopes of his fellow countrymen.
No comments:
Post a Comment