of the treaty by Great Britain. Had there been any valid case prior to this one, it is at least probable that Mr. Hammond would have included it in his list with its date.

Jefferson dated the breach of the treaty by Great Britain from April, 1783, when orders were received in New York for the evacuation of that place, and orders should have been received, but, were not, for the evacuation of the Western posts. He dates the breach of it by the United States from the passage of a certain law by the State of Virginia in December, 1783,"nine months after the infractions committed by the other party."

Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation (Jay Treaty, 1795)

In 1795 we ratified a treaty, the first Article of which declared:

There shall be a firm, inviolable and universal peace and a true and sincere friendship, between his Britannic Majesty and his heirs and successors, and the United States of America, and between their respective countries, territories, cities, towns, and people of every degree, without exception of persons or places.

His Majesty violated the "inviolable and universal peace," mocked and converted into hatred the "true and sincere friendship" of these profes

1 Jefferson to Hammond, May 29, 1792. Am. State Papers, For. Rel., I, 215.

sions, by his outrageous treatment of American seamen. This reached its climax when in 1807 a United States warship, the Chesapeake, was summoned by the British ship, Leopard, to submit to search for British deserters. Taken by surprise, the Chesapeake received three full broadsides without being able to reply; and in fifteen minutes was reduced to a helpless condition. The boats of the Leopard came over, bringing several British officers, who mustered the ship's company and took from it three sailors.

"Disgraced, degraded, with officers and crew smarting under a humiliation that was never forgotten nor forgiven, the unlucky Chesapeake dragged her way back to Norfolk.” i But the war of 1812 was only a few years off. The indignity was then to be effaced, so far as that was possible, by a succession of naval victories, which, together with New Orleans and Saratoga and Yorktown, were to give to the United States the distinction of having done more to lower the military and naval prestige of Great Britain than all other nations of the world together.

Article II of the Jay Treaty required that Great Britain withdraw her garrisons from the Western posts by the 1st of June, 1796. On account of opposition to the treaty in Congress, the bill appropriating the funds necessary to the occupation 1 Hist. of the United States by H. Adams, IV, 1920.

1

of the posts by the United States was not signed by the President until the 6th of May, and there was not time between then and the 1st of June for the Department of War to get officers with troops and supplies to those distant points. On the 10th of May, Captain Lewis of the United States army was sent to Quebec to make arrangements with Lord Dorchester, commanding the British forces in Canada, for the reception of the posts. At the end of May orders were issued to the British commandants to evacuate them; but Lewis, now in Quebec, represented that the American troops were not ready for their reception. Lord Dorchester agreed to await their coming and on the 1st and 2nd of June issued orders for the transfer to take place on the arrival of the American troops. The small posts, Dutchman's Point and Oswegatchie, were abandoned without formal transfer about the 1st of July. The larger posts were delivered to American officers in the following order:

1

1 Michigan Pioneer and Hist. Collection, XXV, 121; The Westward Movement by Justin Winsor, pp. 482, 483.

2 The British Evacuation of the United States by H. C. Osgood. 3 Letter to the author, Feb. 20, 1914, from the assistant editor of the Michigan Historical Commission.

If the United States officers had been ready to receive the posts on the 1st of June, the transfer I could not have been made then, for the British orders were not issued in the first instance until the end of May and weeks must be allowed for their transmission. To account for this tardiness on the part of the British it is necessary to consider a particular stipulation of the Jay Treaty and another treaty. Article III of the Jay Treaty gave to British subjects as well as to citizens of the United States, the right to trade freely with the Indians on either side of the boundary line between Canada and the United States. A treaty subsequently concluded between the United States and certain tribes of Indians debarred those Indians from trading with persons not provided with a license from the Government of the United States.1

Great Britain naturally considered this Indian Treaty as repugnant to Article III of the Jay Treaty. She believed that the United States had ratified the Indian Treaty without knowing the terms of the previously ratified Jay Treaty, as in fact it had, and that it had no intention of violating the latter treaty; at the same time she pro

1 Treaty of Greenville, concluded Aug. 3, communicated to Senate, Dec. 9, ratified Dec. 22, 1795. The Jay Treaty was concluded Nov. 19, 1794, ratified by the President, and its ratifications exchanged, Oct. 28, 1795.

2 Hist. of the United States, Hildreth, I, 598, 599,

posed the negotiation of an additional article declaring that no stipulation entered into subsequently to the Jay Treaty should be understood as derogating in any manner from the rights of free intercourse and commerce secured by Article III of that treaty.1 This article was concluded on the 4th of May, 1796.2 Information of the fact could not have reached Quebec before the latter part of May, and, until it did, orders for the evacuation were not to issue. Taking these circumstances into account, it appears that the original tardiness of Great Britain in providing for the surrender of the posts was another case of her holding them as security for the observance of the treaty by the United States; another attempt to enforce the treaty by violating it herself. The remissness of the United States in not being prepared to receive the posts by the 1st of June was not contrary to any stipulation. The treaty did not call for a transfer; it provided only for a withdrawal. Grateful acknowledgment is due therefore to the British officers for favoring the United States, as they generally did by executing

1 Bond, British Minister, to Pickering, Secretary of State, Mch. 26, 1796.

2 Its ratification was advised by the Senate on the 9th of the same month. Whether afterwards ratified or not does not appear in the official publication of treaties, etc., compiled by M. C. Mallory.

3 Hist. of the United States, Hildreth I, 598; British Evacuation of the United States, Osgood.