able that the treaty should have been exceedingly distasteful to the republican party. Nor is it a matter of surprise that such men at the south as Pinckney and Rutledge should have denounced it in unmeasured terms; that Madison should have censured it in the strongest language on the floor of the House of Representatives ; and that Jefferson himself, should for the moment have been ruffled in the serenity of his philosophic temper, and even have forgotten the ordinary courtesies of language, in giving expression to his dissatisfaction.*

A few days after Jay's arrival in America, the Senate assembled, and the treaty was submitted by the President. On the 24th of June the Senate advised the ratification of the treaty, except the article relating to the West India trade. Soon after, and while its consideration was still before the Senate, it was made public by a senator from Virginia.† At once the public was in a blaze of excitement, or, to use the language of the biographer of Mr. Jay, the torch was applied to that mass of combustibles which had long been collecting, and the intended explosion instantly followed. In a free country no one has a right to object to the free and unrestrained expression of public opinion;-but at the same time, while the people have a right to make known their sentiments without reserve in regard to public men and public measures, this liberty ought not to be abused, or be suffered to degenerate into licentiousness. On this occasion, though unquestionably much might be excused to the intensity of public feeling, yet no one will undertake to justify the violence of language and action employed by some of those who denounced the treaty. It was doubtless unpopular. It was such as a large portion of the people of the country did not and could not approve. But to look beyond the treaty itself, and attack the character and motives of the negotiator, was both illiberal and unjust. Some few even of the Democratic societies, transcended the bounds of decency as well as propriety, and talked of the GUILLOTINE, and of bringing JOHN JAY to trial and justice ;—while the mob did not hesitate, in following the example, to parade the effigy of Jay through

* In one of his letters Jefferson calls the negociator of the treaty a rogue of a pilot, who had run the vessel of state into an enemy's port.

† James T. Mason.

the streets, labelled, "Come up to my price, and I will sell you my country;" and publicly to burn the obnoxious treaty in front of his own house.* These details, however, are not necessary to be dwelt upon, and it is gratifying to know that such proceedings were neither shared in, nor approved, by temperate and intelligent political opponents, nor by the great mass of the Republican party.

Washington deliberated carefully and hesitated a long time before he signed the treaty. His habitual prudence, and his earnest desire to preserve the peace of the country, finally overcame his scruples and determined his conduct; and on the 15th August, 1795, he gave it his official sanction, and it thus became the law of the land. The treaty, however, had still a narrow escape in the House of Representatives the following spring, on the question of passing the laws necessary to carry it into effect. The sum of $90,000 was to be appropriated for this purpose, and a determined opposition was manifested. On a question taken in the House, it was found that the vote was equally divided, and the chairman, though opposed to the treaty, gave his casting vote in favor of its execution. Soon after the necessary laws were passed, and the treaty went into full effect.

It has already been mentioned that Chief-Justice Jay had been elected Governor of the State of New York during his absence, and had been put in nomination without even his knowledge or consent. Three years before, while, still holding his seat on the bench of the Supreme Court, he had consented to be put in nomination for this office against Governor Clinton. The election had been unusually

* It is but simple justice to say that the commission of outrages like these was not confined to the Republicans. Similar acts were perperatedg by the other party. Jefferson was subsequently treated in the same manner in New England; and during the absence of Mr. Gerry in France, his unoffenging wife and family were subjected to unheard of insults. "On several occasions," says Mr. Austin, in his life of Gerry, "the morning sun shone upon a model of a guillotine erected in the field before her windows, smeared with blood, and having the effigy of a headless man. Savage yells were uttered in the night time to disturb the sleep of this family of females, and the glare of blazing faggots suddenly broke upon its darkness to terrify them with the apprehensions of immediate conflagration." -2 Austin's Life of Gerry. 267.

close and animated. Mr. Jay received the greatest number of votes, but owing to an informality in the vote of the counties of Otsego, Tioga, and Clinton, these ballots had been rejected, and Mr. Clinton was declared by the canvassers duly elected Governor by a majority of 108. It was in this election that Mr. Jay's old friend, Chancellor Livingston, left the ranks of the Federal party, and allied himself to the Republicans, assuming an attitude of decided hostility to Mr. Jay's election. The decision of the canvassers was the subject of much dissatisfaction to the party which had supported Mr. Jay, and an investigation was had thereon at the ensuing session of the Legislature, but the house of Assembly, by a majority of only four votes, resolved that the canvassers had not conducted themselves with impropriety in the execution of their trust, and Mr. Clinton accordingly continued to discharge the duties of the office. These considerations doubtless influenced the party which had supported Mr. Jay, to present his name again for the same office, and that too without his knowledge, and before his arrival from Europe. Mr. Clinton declined a re-election, and the Chief-Justice, Mr. Yates, was selected as the opposing candidate. Jay was elected by a large majority, and he was welcomed by his friends with this flattering announcement on his arrival at New York, only two days after the result had been officially ascertained.

The author of the Political History of New York thinks, and perhaps very correctly, that if the British treaty had been published on the 1st of April instead of the 1st of July, Jay could not have been elected Governor. In proof of this assertion he alludes to the fact, that although up to that time the city of New York had been almost unanimously Federal, and even DE WITT CLINTON, then a young man just entering public life, had failed of an election to the Legislature at the time of Jay's election, yet the very next year EDWARD LIVINGSTON, a decided Republican, was elected to Congress from that city. Be this as it may, it is certain that Mr. Jay came into office with a very flattering popular vote. The elections had generally been in favor of the Federalists, and the Governor found himself supported by a decided majority in both branches of the Legislature. The late venerable Chief-Justice AMBROSE SPENCER, Clarum et venerabile nomen, was the same year elected to the

State Senate. Though then comparatively a young man, but thirty years of age, his great talents were known and appreciated, and he at once assumed a position of commanding influence in support of the administration. Besides Mr. Spencer, the Governor found himself sustained in the Senate by many other gentlemen of great ability and influencé, among whom may be mentioned Gen. Schuyler, Mr. Cruger, and Mr. Ph. Livingston.

The Legislature convened in the city of New York on the 6th of January, 1796. The new Governor, as was usual at that period, met the two houses, and delivered a speech at the opening of the session, which though neat and appropriate, contained nothing very striking or remarkable. He declared his determination "to regard all his fellow-citizens with an equal eye, and to cherish and advance merit, wherever found." If this declaration referred to the dispensing of executive patronage, it was a declaration which, however honestly intended, was not, and probably could not, have been consistently carried out. Jay had been elected as a Federalist, and opposed by the Republicans, and his fidelity to his political friends, it is believed, has never been questioned. And although, in those primitive days, offices were not yet regarded as the "spoils of victory," and removals for opinion sake were comparatively unknown, yet when an office had become vacant by resignation or otherwise, it was generally filled by the appointment of a political friend, rather than of a political opponent. The course of Mr. Jay was no exception to this rule. Indeed, it had heretofore been made a cause of perhaps just complaint against him and Generals Hamilton and Schuyler, that, through their controlling influence with the Presi dent, most of the appointments under the Federal Government had been made from the ranks of the political opponents of Gov. Clinton and the Republicans. Nor does it appear that Gov. Jay ever urged upon the council of appointment the nomination of an anti-Federalist to office on the ground of superior merit alone.

The answer of the two houses to the Governor's speech was highly laudatory, going even beyond the bounds of ordinary compliment. "The evidence of ability, integrity and patriotism," it says, "which have been invariably afforded by your conduct in the discharge of the variety of arduous and important trusts, authorize us

to anticipate an administration conducive to the welfare of your constituents." The word "invariably" was not contained in the original draft. It was inserted by the Senate, on motion of Mr. Spencer, by a vote of 11 to 6, "thus repelling in unequivocal terms "remarks the son and biographer of Mr. Jay-"the calumnies with which the opposers of the British treaty had found it con venient to assail the minister who negociated it." Such, no doubt, was the object of Mr. Spencer's motion, and so far as a party vote in a legislative body may be said to reflect public sentiment, it was successful. It may be thought surprising that Mr. Spencer himself did not always continue to yield the same unqualified approbation to Mr. Jay's political actions. Before the close of the next gubernatorial term, we find him enrolled with the Republicans, and in connection with De Witt Clinton and another opposition member of the Council, sending in to the Assembly a paper, in which the character and conduct of the Governor are criticised with much asperity. This disagreement grew out of the contest between the Governor and Messrs. Clinton and Spencer, then in opposition, and members of the council of appointment, relative to the right of nominations to office-the Governor claiming an exclusive right of nomination, and the council, which consisted of four Senators, three of whom were in opposition, claiming a concurrent right.*

* From this it appears that notwithstanding Gov. Jay's declaration in his opening speech, his practice was uniformly to dispense official patronage among his political friends. Mr. William Jay, in his memoirs of his father, does not, indeed, claim that the Governor ever appointed anti-Federalists to office, but regards the fact that he made no removals, as evidence of the sincerity of his intention "to dispense his patronage for the good of the whole, and not of his friends." The explanation, it must be confessed, is not entirely satisfactory. It ought not, certainly, to be claimed as a peculiar merit in Governor Jay, that he declined to make removals, at a day when-as Mr. Barnard remarks in his able discourse on ChiefJustice Spencer-removal from office on account of political opinions, was unknown. Nor, can it be regarded as a fulfilment of the declaration made by the Governor, of his intention to "advance merit wherever found." In declining to make removals, Gov. Jay is entitled to no more, and no less, credit than his distinguished opponent, Gov. Clinton, who, on being again reinstated in office, says Mr. Barnard, utterly refused to give the practice the sanction of his name, and even caused his solemn protest to be entered on the journals of the Council, against some of the removals.