considerable army to occupy Quebec by surprise. Lafayette, who had been consulted by Congress as to the scheme, and who was deeply interested in the separation of Canada from England, was about to make a visit to Paris, and to him was to be intrusted the plan for delivery to Dr. Franklin, by whom, seconded by Lafayette, it was to be urged upon the French government. After its formal adoption, the plan was sent to General Washington with request that he communicate directly with Franklin on the subject. Thereupon

Washington wrote Congress a long letter, strongly disapproving of the plan as impracticable and unwise, and suggested that before communicating with Franklin he should have a personal interview with Congress. Accordingly he came to Philadelphia, and the result was that the expedition was entirely, though reluctantly, given up. Washington assigned many military reasons why the plan was unwise, but he found one unsurmountable objection. "This," he wrote, "is the introduction of a large body of French troops into Canada, and putting them in possession of the capital of that province, attached to them by the ties of blood, habits, manners, religion, and former conception of government. I fear this would be too great a temptation to be resisted by any power actuated by the common maxims of national policy." He expressed the suspicion that the plan originated with the French government, and that Lafayette was made the instrument of bringing it to the attention of Congress; and adds: "I hope I am mistaken, and that my fears of mischief make me refine too much and awaken jealousies that have no

sufficient foundation." Unimpeachable as was the patriotism of Washington, it is no disparagement to his character to say that his partiality for the English race saw in the occupation of Canada by a French army a serious danger to the interests of his country. It was the same spirit of kinship of blood and institutions which, as we have seen, led Lord Shelburne to decline the overtures of the French government as to the boundaries, preferring the Americans rather than the Spaniards as neighbors in the Mississippi Valley.1

The action of the American commissioners in violating the instructions of Congress by separating themselves from Vergennes, and conducting their negotiations to a conclusion with the British commissioners without consultation with the French government, has been the subject of much discussion and criticism. In the correspondence from which quotation has already been made, it is seen that Vergennes did not intimate that the action of the commissioners was in violation of the treaty of alliance, and that he looked upon the nonobservance of the instructions of Congress rather as an act of indecorum than of bad faith; and Franklin in his reply terms it an indiscretion. His defense is that nothing was agreed contrary to the interests of France, and that no peace was to take place till France had come to an agreement with England. The commissioners, in their reply to Secretary Livingston's censure of their conduct, wrote: "As we had reason to imagine that the articles respecting the boundaries, the refugees,

1 2 Secret Journals of Congress, 11, 125; 3 Marshall's Washington, 568-580; 2 Pitkin's History U. S. 67.

and fisheries did not correspond with the policy of this court, we did not communicate the preliminaries to the minister until after they were signed; and not even then the separate article. We hope these considerations will excuse our having so far deviated from the spirit of our instructions. The Count de Vergennes, on perusing the articles, appeared surprised (but not displeased) at their being so favorable." In a letter accompanying the reply of the commissioners to Liv ingston, Franklin said: "I will not now take upon me to justify the apparent reserve respecting this court [of France] at the signature, which you disapprove. I do not see, however, that they have much reason to complain of that transaction. . . . I long since satisfied the Count de Vergennes about it here." 1

The correspondence attending the negotiations, now accessible, shows that the suspicions of the American commissioners as to the opposition of France respecting some of the provisions of the treaty were well founded, and that she was secretly using her influence in a manner injurious to the United States. A further confirmation of the views of the American commissioners is found in the documents submitted to our government by Genet, the envoy of the French republic, in 1793. In order to extinguish the gratitude of the American people towards Louis XVI. for his part in the revolutionary struggle (a very strange proceeding for any French government), the Directory submitted official documents to prove the attitude of Vergennes and Montmorin, manifesting "in plain terms the solicitude 1 6 Dip. Cor. Rev. 581.

of France and Spain to exclude the United States from the Mississippi, and their jealousies of the growing power and ambition of this country.""

A departure from instructions is not an unusual incident of negotiations even at the present day; and there was much more occasion and justification for it before the age of steam and electricity. The instructions of Congress were peculiar in the circumstances under which they were issued, and unusual in their tenor. I have already referred to the fact that the French government had objected to the appointment of Adams as sole commissioner, and had asked Congress that others be named. But it went further, and, through the direct intervention of the French minister, secured a modification of the instructions as to the boundaries, fisheries, and navigation of the Mississippi, the most essential subjects, after independence, to be decided; and finally, at the minister's instance, the commissioners were instructed, as we have seen, to undertake nothing in the negotiations without the knowledge or concurrence of the ministers of the king of France; and ultimately to govern themselves by their advice and opinion.

Such instructions virtually took away from the American negotiators all discretion, and made them the mere instruments of the French minister of state, Vergennes. No self-respecting public. men could be expected to follow literally such a course, and the only excuse which can be advanced on behalf of Congress for such action is that this body felt the necessities of the situation, as well as the treaty of alliance, required

1 1 Gibbs's Administrations of Washington and Adams, 95–96.

it to place its cause in the hands of "our generous ally." Had the commissioners been together when the instructions were received, they might have taken some action on the subject; but Adams was in Holland, Jay in Spain, and Franklin in Paris, and no common representation to Congress was practicable. But after the negotiations were concluded, and when Livingston's letter of censure on their action in withholding their proceedings from the French government was received, John Adams lost his temper (not an unusual occurrence with him), and he broke forth in this language: "I am weary, disgusted, affronted, and disappointed. . . . I have been injured, and my country has joined in the injury; it has basely prostituted its honor by sacrificing mine. But the sacrifice of me was not so servile and intolerable as putting us all under guardianship. Congress surrendered their own sovereignty into the hands of a French minister. Blush! blush! ye guilty records! blush and perish! It is glory to have broken such infamous orders. Infamous, I say, for so they will be to all posterity. How can such a stain be washed out? Can we cast a veil over it and forget it?" 1

Notwithstanding their natural feeling of resentment, the commissioners were anxious to remove from the French ministry all further occasions of complaint, and soon after the signature of the treaty they published a formal declaration t.t so long as peace was not concluded between France and England the preliminary treaty did not change the relations between England 13 John Adams's Works, 359.