Anglo-American Relations: Editorial Note
Anglo-American Relations
On 30 November 1782, the American Peace Commissioners, Jay, Adams, Franklin, and Henry Laurens, signed the provisional peace treaty that ended the war of independence.1 Three years later to the date, Adams, now the United States minister to London, penned a memorial to Lord Carmarthen, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Pitt ministry, protesting Britain’s noncompliance with it. Charges that the treaty was being violated by both sides had arisen days after the provisional treaty arrived in the United States. Optimism that good relations would be restored between the two contending parties gave way to uncertainty when the Shelburne ministry fell in February 1783 under an onslaught of criticism and resentment over its treaty concessions to the former colonies.
On 13 August 1783, Adams informed Robert R. Livingston that David Hartley, named by the Fox–North coalition to negotiate a commercial treaty and to conclude the definitive peace treaty, had proposed that all outstanding matters should be taken up by ministers mutually appointed, residing in London and Philadelphia. Hartley added that the British had expected an American minister at St. James’s three months ago. Adams advised Congress that Britain would never send a minister to the United States until Congress sent one to London, and suggested that much good would result from doing so.2 The coalition fell from power in December 1783, however, and was replaced by the Pitt administration, which was considerably less concerned about restoring harmonious relations with the United States.
On 7 May 1784, Congress empowered its commissioners in Europe to negotiate treaties of commerce with a number of European powers including Britain.3 When so apprised, the Duke of Dorset, Britain’s minister to France, informed them that a treaty might be more readily negotiated if the United States sent a “Person properly authorized and invested with the necessary powers” to London. Uncertain as to whether the British were referring to a permanent minister, on 9 December the American commissioners replied that, if the negotiations were only for a commercial treaty, they were fully empowered to conclude one and would relocate to London although it was inconvenient. If Britain was inviting the appointment of a minister, they said, they would inform Congress, with whom the decision rested. They then enclosed Dorset’s communication under cover of a report to Congress of 15 December 1784, which Congress received on 28 February.4
When he responded to the commissioners’ question about the “Person properly authorized,” Dorset, as instructed, pointedly inquired about the “real nature” of the Powers with which the American commissioners were invested: were they “merely commission’d by Congress,” he asked, or had they received separate powers from the “respective States.” A committee of merchants had, he said, pressed Carmarthen to determine this. “Repeated experience” had taught them how little authority Congress had where the interests of any individual state was concerned particularly when “the concerns of that particular State might be suppos’d to militate against such resolutions as Congress might think proper to adopt.”5
Congress had already decided that outstanding treaty issues, especially evacuation of British troops from the northwest posts and return of or compensation for Negroes taken by the British, would be addressed only if it had a minister in London. On 31 January 1785, without determining whether the Pitt administration would reciprocate, it voted to appoint a minister and instructed Jay to prepare his instructions. On 24 February, it named Adams minister for a term of three years, and appointed William Stephens Smith secretary to the mission a week later.6 On 5 February, Britain appointed John Temple its consul general—not its minister—to the United States even though it had not concluded a commercial treaty with the United States.7 News of Adams’s appointment reached London by early May and was ridiculed in the press. Despite these indications that his mission was doomed from the start, the king received him warmly when he was formally presented as Congress’s minister.8
Adams’s instructions enjoined him to “insist” respectfully but firmly that Britain evacuate its troops from all of the territory conceded to the United States in the peace treaty, to “remonstrate” against the exportation of slaves, and to “represent” to the ministry that its trade restrictions made it difficult for Americans to repay their debts to British creditors. He raised these issues with Carmarthen in the course of their first meeting. After Carmarthen offered only to refer them to another department, Adams met with Pitt. This encounter left Adams convinced that the British cabinet had an “unconquerable Reluctance” to decide anything, however willing any minister might be to talk. Pitt left him no room to doubt, however, that the western posts would not be evacuated until the American states removed the obstacles that prevented British merchants from collecting the debts and interest owed them.9 Jay had already concluded that Britain would not evacuate the posts. On 19 January 1786, he asked Jefferson whether France would consider herself bound by Article XI of the Franco-American treaty of 1778, in which she guaranteed any territory the United States acquired from Britain as a result of the war. Jefferson replied that he expected France would insist on full compliance by the United States with the 1783 treaty, including the repeal of all state laws that contravened it before it took any action under the guarantee. Once this was obtained, he believed that France would support the United States. He then raised the issue with Vergennes and found him unwilling to make an unequivocal commitment regarding it.10
Adams also met with frustration in the matter of the slaves and other American property the British had “exported” contrary to Article VII of the treaty.11 Soon after it was known in the United States that the preliminary treaty had been signed, Carleton created an Anglo-American commission to supervise the British withdrawal from New York City, where many of the Negroes who had fled to the British had been sent. Washington met him to discuss the evacuation on 6 May and appointed Egbert Benson, Daniel Parker, and William Stephens Smith to serve on the commission. It soon became obvious that Carleton’s interpretation of Article VII, which specified that the British should not carry off any “Negroes, or other Property of the American Inhabitants”, differed substantially from the Americans’. Carleton argued that it covered only those blacks who were “property” at the time they were carried off and that the British government could not have intended to obligate itself to return those who had sought British protection during the war under proclamations guaranteeing them freedom. Southern slaveholders pressed for the return of all slaves regardless of how they had come under British control and when they had been taken—during the British evacuation of Savannah and Charleston, completed before word that the preliminary peace treaty had been signed arrived, or during the British evacuation of New York City in November 1783, after the final draft was signed but before it had been ratified by either side.12 Carmarthen ignored the issue entirely and confined his reply to a single point—the debts.
By year’s end, Adams found himself at a “full Stop.” He recommended that Congress instruct him to demand an answer and, if none were forthcoming, to take his leave. Without waiting for further instructions, however, on 30 November, he sent Carmarthen a memorial in which he “required” Britain to withdraw all its troops from the western posts. Carmarthen did not reply until 28 February 1786. His response noted that Article IV of the treaty stipulated that creditors of either nation should not meet with any impediments to the recovery of the full value of debts. By agreeing to Articles V and VI, he added, Congress had bound itself to “earnestly recommend” that the states restore confiscated Loyalist property, cease prosecuting Loyalists, and release them from confinement. These terms, he noted, were as binding on the Americans as was Article VII, which required Britain to evacuate all territory conceded to the United States and to return the slaves.13
Adams conveyed Carmarthen’s reply of 28 February 1786, with its catalog of state laws violating the treaty and merchant grievances, under cover of his letter to Jay of 4 March. Jay received it on 12 May, and sent it to Congress immediately, where it was presented on 15 May and referred back to him to report the next day.14 Because the ramifications of these documents were considered so serious, on 17 May, Congress removed the “Injunctions of secrecy,” on them. On 6 July, Jay enclosed a copy of Adams’s letter with its enclosures under cover of his circular letter to the governors of the states, in which he noted that the “papers” were under consideration and would probably give rise to “such Measures as the Subject of them seems to dictate.” This being the case, he suggested that it would be inexpedient to allow them to get into “the public Prints.”15
Concurrently, Congress’s and Jay’s attentions were largely occupied by the controversy surrounding Jay’s negotiations with Gardoqui. Nevertheless, by 13 October, Jay presented Congress with a monumental report which responded to Carmarthen’s detailed complaints about the states’ violations of the treaty, attempted to determine whether the charges leveled by the merchants were based on a valid reading of the laws, and assigned a date at which treaty violations could be said to begin—the date when the treaty was ratified by both parties,16 and not immediately after the preliminary treaty was announced in the United States in March 1783.17
Jay observed that the treaty did not assign a date by which British evacuation from American territory had to be accomplished. He also noted that Congress had fulfilled its obligation to recommend that the states should not inhibit British creditors from recovering monies owed them or continue to harass Loyalists. He established that many of the merchants’ charges were based on misreading of the laws or actions taken before the treaty was ratified, and therefore not done in violation of it.18 This left him with a much smaller list of violations by individual states to acknowledge. He also conceded that the states and not Britain were the initial violators of the treaty. He then recommended that Congress urge the states to pass general acts that repealed any and all of their laws that contravened the treaty. By so doing, he gave Adams a plausible negotiating position: acceptance of responsibility for a small number of infractions by a few individual states coupled with notification that Congress had once again assumed responsibility to bring the violations to an end and that it expected the states would comply.19 By the time Congress acted on the report, however, Adams’s term as minister was about to expire. In a letter to JJ of 24 January 1787, he requested a letter of recall and indicated in a private letter the next day that he would not accept reappointment. Congress took up the matter in April and referred it to Jay.20
Adams’s ministry in London clearly demonstrated what was obvious to other nations as well, that diplomatic relations with the United States under the Articles of Confederation was a matter of expediency rather than necessity. Britain’s unyielding posture and Congress’s inability to persuade several states to repeal legislation that conflicted with the treaty or to agree to uniform commercial regulations that could be used to leverage commercial concessions from Britain made Adams’s service in London an exercise in futility.
It was abundantly clear by then that Jay’s refusal to allow British consuls in the United States to exercise ministerial functions would not persuade Britain to send a minister to the United States. In his report of 26 July 1787, below, Jay expressed the hope that the convention then underway would find means to strengthen the American government sufficiently to enable an American minister in London to negotiate effectively. Congress debated the report on 1 August, 24 September, and 5 October 1787, when it decided to recall Adams effective at the end of his three-year term on 24 February 1788. William S. Smith’s commission expired at the same time.
Because Congress did not appoint a successor for either man, the United States had no representation at the Court of London. Only after Britain appointed twenty-eight-year-old George Hammond its minister to the United States in 1791, did Washington appoint Thomas Pinckney to represent the United States there. Britain continued to hold the western posts until it agreed to give them up in Article 2 of the Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation between Great Britain and the United States—the Jay Treaty, in 1794. In Article 6, the United States agreed to compensate British creditors for all losses specifically linked to state laws that obstructed claims for repayment for which they could not presently obtain compensation through the ordinary mechanisms of justice. The treaty did not provide compensation for slaves carried away by the British.21
1. On the preliminary and definitive treaties, see 3: 264–74, 462–68.
2. See 15: 221, 222, 256, 286. On the failure of previous negotiations for an Anglo-American commercial treaty, see 3: 373–95.
3. 27: 357.
4. See 7: 547, 560–61; 22: 225; the American commissioners to the President of Congress, 15 Dec. 1784, C, DNA: PCC, item 116, 138; and 40–41.
5. The American commissioners forwarded Dorset’s letter to JJ on 13 Apr. 1785, and commented: “as to the doubts they pretend and the information they ask with respect to the powers of Congress we do not decide what we shall say or do till we see whether we receive by this conveyance any new instructions.” See 8: 55–59, 82. For arguments that the ability of individual states to negate terms Congress had agreed to at will by passing their own trade restrictions had and would continue to frustrate negotiations for a commercial treaty, see Ridley to JJ, 2 May 1785, ALS, MHi: Ridley (EJ: 4865); JA to JJ, 8 May and 19 July and JJ to JA, 3 Aug. 1785, all below; and JA to JJ, 30 Aug. 1785, ALS, DNA: PCC, item 84, 5: 633–40 (EJ: 11854) in which JA reported that there was almost universal opposition to a commercial treaty in Britain, including by John Temple; and 20–21. For southern reluctance to support trade regulations from which they believed they would not benefit, see JJ to JA, 1 Nov. 1785 (second letter), below. For a later attempt by JA and TJ to resurrect negotiations for a commercial treaty, see JA and TJ to JJ, 25 Apr. 1786, 9: 406–7.
6. See 27: 657–58, 660–61, 675, 28: 25, 45–46, 98, 123; 22: 72, 208, 214–17, 219–20, 248; and PJA, 16: 526–30, 531, 544, 548–49, 566, 571; and Draft of Instructions to the American Minister in London, 5 Feb. 1785, below, which JJ transmitted to Richard Henry Lee under cover of a letter of 5 Feb. 1785, ALS, DNA: PCC, item 80, 1: 121 (EJ: 60). Congress approved JA’s instructions on 7 Mar. 1785. For JJ’s draft letters of credence for JA and for William Stephens Smith, see DNA: PCC, item 81, 1: 159–65 (EJ: 3824), with corrections in CT’s hand except the sentence in paragraph two of the letter of credence, which is JJ’s; LbkC, NNC: JJ Lbk. 3. LbkC, of covering letter, DNA: PCC, item 124, 1: 32. Cs of commissions in Secret Journals, DNA: PCC, item 4, 259z; item 5, 2: 1040–41; item 6, 3: 267–69. Congress amended JJ’s two draft commissions and referred the letter of credence back to him to rewrite “in the common manner, taking care not to have any reference to former disputes.” 28: 149–50. For JA’s acknowledgment of his appointment, see DNA: PCC, item 84, 5: 385–92 (EJ: 11832); 2: 615–16. Before he learned of his appointment, JA informed JJ that Congress must either send a minister to Britain or abandon negotiations with her altogether. He later recommended that if Britain refused to make a reciprocal appointment, he should be recalled. See JA to JJ, 9 Mar., and 8 May 1785, below; and 2 Sept. 1785, 2: 795.
7. Confused by John Temple’s appointment as consul general to the United States, Hartley commented to BF that a consul was “not negotiating minister.” Consuls were, he added, appointments that arose out of “some treaty formed,” and asked whether the Americans had perhaps signed “some treaty incog.?—” See JA to JJ, 13 Apr. 1785, C, DNA: PCC, item 84, 5: 421–29 (EJ: 11837), and 2 Sept. 1785, C, DNA: PCC, item 84, 5: 645–48 (EJ: 11856); and 2: 587, 606, 795. On Temple’s appointment, see the editorial note “Consuls de Gratia: The Role of British Consuls,” below.
Although Carmarthen told JA that a minister would “certainly” be sent to Congress, Britain’s attempts to expand the role and functions of its consuls beyond commerce soon made it apparent that the United States should not expect a reciprocal appointment of a minister. See JA to JJ, 2 Sept. 1785, ALS, DNA: PCC, item 84, 5: 645–48 (EJ: 11856), and 16 June 1786, ALS, DNA: PCC, item 84, 6: 299–304 (EJ: 11892); and 2: 795–96; 3: 201–3, 234. On French efforts to enlarge the role of consuls to include ministerial functions, see the editorial note “The Franco-American Consular Convention,” below.
8. See JA to JJ, 2 June 1785, LS, in code, with deciphered text, DNA: PCC, item 84, 5: 469–75, 477–84 (EJ: 11841); ALS (FC), marked “Duplicate”, NNGL (EJ: 90513); LbkC, with deciphered text, DNA: PCC, item 104, 5: 251–57, 258–64; C, NHi: King, 1785–87 (EJ: 638); 4: 198–203; 8: 255–59.
9. See JA to JJ, 17 June 1785, ALS, DNA: PCC, item 84, 5: 507–13, printed in 3: 660–64; and 8: 410–11. Samuel Flagg Bemis contends that Britain’s real reason for holding the posts was its desire to retain the fur trade and to minimize resentment of its Indian allies, whose lands Britain had ceded to the United States in the treaty, and that the policy originated with Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney (1733–1800), secretary of state for Home Affairs in the Pitt cabinet. See 4–10, 14, 16.
10. See JJ to TJ, 19 Jan., and his reports to Congress of 31 Jan. and 22 Mar. 1786, all below; and TJ to JJ, 12 Mar. and 23 May 1786, 9: 326, 568–69. France and Britain were then engaged in negotiations for the Anglo-French commercial treaty signed in September 1786. For a statement published in the General Advertiser (London), 10 Aug. 1786, that France would probably rejoice at a conflict between England and America, and would remain neutral if one occurred, see 3: 277–78.
11. Concern that JA was “totally adverse to the Slave Trade,” Elbridge Gerry reported, made southern delegates fear he would not exert himself to obtain restitution for them and figured in the debate over the choice of JA as its minister to London. See 22: 215.
12. Reports indicated that the British carried off between 6,000 and 7,000 slaves from Charleston. See , 1: 50–56; and 19: 430, 589, 590, 667; 20: 119, 248, 249–50, 279, 281–82, 287–88, 583–84; 21: 770–71. The records kept by the commissioners showed approximately 3,000 slaves taken from New York in the course of the evacuation, about half the number said to have been taken from Charleston. On the rolls of “Negroes” embarked from New York and the efforts to provide JA with a copy, see CT to JJ, 22 Apr. 1785, ALS, DNA: PCC, item 55, 271 (EJ: 1627); and , 1: 54–55; JJ to GW, 25 Aug., ibid., 3: 204; and GW to JJ, 27 Sept. 1785, below. In a letter to JJ of 25 May 1786, 3: 179–81, JA reported that the British ministers privately admitted the right of owners of slaves to be compensated, but would not respond to any of the American complaints until the laws preventing British creditors from collecting the monies owed to them had been repealed.
13. For JA’s memorial, see 31: 781–82. For a summary from a British perspective of JA’s exchanges with Pitt, Carmarthen, and merchant creditors from his arrival at London through February 1786, and Britain’s determination to hold the posts and to refuse to conclude a commercial treaty until debts to British creditors had been repaid, see Richeson, Aftermath of Revolution, 77–87.
JA sent JJ a copy of his memorial to Carmarthen under cover of his letter of 6 Dec., below. On 27 Feb., he noted that Carmarthen had apologized for the delay in responding to it. He subsequently sent JJ a copy of Carmarthen’s reply of 28 Feb., followed by a state of merchant grievances that identified specific states and their offending laws. See JA to JJ, 27 Feb. and 4 Mar. 1786, both ALS, DNA, PCC: item 84, 6: 142–44, 147–78; and 3: 109.
14. JJ acknowledged receipt of the letter on 6 June. C, , 186. The entry for 13 Oct. indicates that JA’s letter and its enclosures had been referred back to JJ to report on 16 May. See , entries for May, June, and October 1786 (EJ 3763, 3764, 3768); 30: 267; and 23, 287–90.
15. For JJ’s circular to the governors of 6 July 1786 enclosing copies of JA’s letter of 4 Mar. 1786, Carmarthen’s letter to JA of 28 Feb. 1786, and the list of Grievances accompanying them, see Dft, NNC (EJ: 5854); , July 1786 (EJ: 3765); LS, to Governor of Massachusetts, MHi: Bowdoin-Temple (EJ: 4726); LS, to the Governor of Rhode Island, with enclosures, RPB (EJ: 5270); LS, to the Governor of Connecticut, MWA (EJ: 572, 11337); LbkC, to the Governor of New York, , 2: 398–99 (EJ: 1995); LS, to the Governor of New Jersey, MHi: Livingston II (EJ: 4725); LS, with enclosures, to the Governor of Maryland, MdAnMSA (EJ: 13260); LS, to the Governor of Virginia, Vi (EJ: 3678). JJ also included copies of both JA’s memorial and Carmarthen’s response in his report of 13 Oct. 1786, below, and 31: 781–84. For extant replies from the states, see John Sullivan of New Hampshire to JJ, 22 July 1786, ALS, DNA: PCC, item 78, 21: 469–70 (EJ: 10911); LbkC, , 2: 418 (EJ: 2009); and William Moultrie of South Carolina to JJ, 4 Aug. 1786, LS, DNA: PCC, item 78, 16: 499–501 (EJ: 10736); LbkC, , 2: 444–45 (EJ 2024).
16. Although JJ considered violations that occurred only after the treaty was ratified, he remarked to JA that his observation about state violations was “equally just” whether counting from the time that the provisional articles were exchanged or from the date of the definitive treaty or from its ratification. See JJ to JA, 1 Nov. 1786, below. In a letter to Edmund Randolph, JM remarked that he was surprised to learn that violations by the states “preceded in several instances even the violation on the other side in the instance of the Negroes.” See 9: 271.
17. For JJ’s arguments asserting that Britain was obliged to return the slaves or compensate their owners, see “Section 2: Regarding British Destruction of American Property for Carrying Away of Slaves” of his report of 13 Oct. 1786, below.
18. Article II of the treaty required the British to evacuate the posts with “all convenient speed.” Ratifications of the definitive treaty were exchanged on 12 May 1784.
19. See JJ’s reports of 13 Oct. 1786, and 23 Apr. 1787, below. Bemis describes JJ as “honestly persuaded” that the states’ treaty violations left Britain relatively blameless for its decision to hold on to the posts, but holds him responsible for Britain’s refusal to give them up and censures him for divulging the content of his report to Temple, who quickly reported it to Carmarthen. See Samuel Flagg Bemis, “John Jay,” in 1: 230–31; and 284–86. 205, contends that Carmarthen would have been quickly informed about the report’s content by other means. JJ explained his position to GW in a letter of 27 June 1786, below.
20. See JA to JJ, 24 Jan., LS, DNA: PCC, item 84, 393–95 (EJ: 11902), and 25 Jan. 1787, ALS, NNC (EJ: 5427). On 25 July JJ drafted a private letter to explain that Congress had been very poorly attended and had not taken up the matter of JA’s recall. See JJ to JA, 25 July 1787, Dft, NNC (EJ: 12784). The following day, JJ submitted JA’s request to Congress under cover of his report of 26 July, below. Congress agreed to JA’s return. See JJ to JA, 16 Oct. 1787, LbkC, , 282; and 24: 424. On his request to be named minister to Britain, see William S. Smith to JJ, 4 Feb. 1787, ALS, NCC (EJ: 7151); and JJ to Smith, 20 July 1787, below.
21. See 344–73. On Hammond’s appointment, and on TJ’s negotiations with him, see 244–50. On Pinckney’s appointment, see PGW: Presidential Series, 9: 306–7.