approved of the proposition, but laid it before Shelburne; but there is no evidence that it was ever considered by the British cabinet, and nothing further was heard of it during the negotiations.
While these proceedings were in progress, Jay ar- rived in Paris in June, 1782. He appears to have been very favorably impressed at first with his residence in Paris. He writes : " What I have seen of France pleases me exceedingly. … No people understand doing civil things as well as the French; " 2 but intercourse with the officials brought about a revulsion of feeling. Four months later Adams arrived in Paris to join in the ne- gotiations, and he records in his diary : " Mr. Jay likes Frenchmen as little as Mr. Lee and Mr. Izard did (who were openly hostile). He says they are not a moral people; they know not what it is; he don't like any Frenchman. … Our allies don't play fair, he told me." Of Franklin, Mr. Jay, on his arrival, wrote :
1 5 Dip. Cor. Rev. 541. 2 Ib. 523.
8 3 J. Adams's Works, 303.
60 .
" His mind appears more vigorous than that of any man of his age I have known. He certainly is a valuable minister and an agreeable companion." l Franklin was then seventy-six and Jay thirty-seven years of age.
Oswald had returned from London, bringing with him a commission to treat with any commissioners named by the Colonies. Jay objected to the terms of the com- mission, and insisted that it should specially mention the United States, and make it clear that he was not to treat with them as Colonies. Franklin thought the commission was sufficient to justify negotiations, and he was strongly supported in this view by Vergennes. But Jay was unmoved. Referring to the arguments advanced by Vergennes, he wrote : " Neither of these considerations had weight with me; for as to the first, I could not conceive of any event which would render it proper, and therefore possible, for America to treat in any other character than as an independent nation; and as to the second, I could not believe Congress in- tended we should follow any advice which might be repugnant to their dignity and interest." 2 Jay had his way, and Oswald wrote to Shelburne : " The American commissioners will not move a step until independence is acknowledged."
But new complications arose. First, Rayneval, pri- vate secretary to Vergennes, who had been designated to confer with Jay as to the terms of peace, revealed the fact that France favored giving Spain both sides of the Mississippi up to 31; the territory from thence east of the Mississippi and up to the Ohio to be an Indian
i 5 Dip. Cor. Rev. 517. 2 6 Ib. 20.
Pink. … British.
Green . . United States.
Yellow … Spanish. White … Indian Territory under Spanish or American tection, according as it lies West or East of the Yellow-Green inter-
naueral secting line.
Scale of English Miles
100 60 .100 200 800
Longitude West
from Greenwich
MAP OF NORTH AMERICA,
Showing the Boundaries of the UNITED STATES, CANADA, and the SPANISH POSSES- SIONS, according to the proposals of the Court of France in I 782.
THE TREATY OF PEACE AND INDEPENDENCE. 61
country, half under Spanish and half under an American protectorate; and all north and west of the Ohio to be retained by Great Britain; thus confining the Colonies to the strip between the Atlantic and the Alleghanies. Second, an intercepted letter of Marbois, secretary of the French legation in Philadelphia, was put by the British into Jay's hands, showing surprise at and disap- proval of the claims of the Colonies as to the territory and the fisheries, and that France would not support them. Third, the sudden departure for London of Rayneval, under an assumed name, to influence (as Jay supposed) the British cabinet on these points. Jay, being advised of Rayneval's departure, procured the dispatch of Vaughan, private secretary to Lord Shel- burne, to London, to counteract his representations to the British cabinet. This action was taken without consultation with Franklin. It was a bold step. Only Jay's success in the negotiations saved him from dis- grace.
Jay, in writing to Livingston, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Congress, said : 1 "It would have relieved me from much anxiety and uneasiness to have concerted all these steps with Dr. Franklin; but in conversing with him about M. Rayneval's journey, he did not con- cur with me in sentiment respecting the object of it, but appeared to me to have great confidence in this court and to be much embarrassed and constrained by our instructions. … Facts and future events must determine which of us is mistaken. Let us be honest and grateful to France, but let us think for ourselves."
1 Ib. 32.
62 .
The impressions of Mr. Jay on the last two points, it is now known, were not entirely well founded. The letter of Marbois which was captured by the British was in cipher. The original was not shown to Jay, but only a copy deciphered by the British. In trans- mitting this copy to Congress Mr. Jay wrote : " The original in French I have not seen. … I am not at liberty to mention the manner in which this paper came to my hands." l It is well known that the British were in the habit both of making false translations or de- cipherings and of forging documents. Marbois denied the authenticity of the letter, and Vergennes protested that it did not correctly represent the views of the king. The archives of the French and British govern- ments show that Kayneval's visit to London had rela- tion to the negotiations of Fitzherbert, the British ambassador, with Vergennes as to the terms of peace between England, France, and Spain. Years after Mr. Vaughan wrote: "Mr. Jay gave me two busi- nesses, one to get a new commission for Mr. Oswald, which I obtained in an instant, and the other to counter- act Mr. de R., which I found utterly needless." When the conduct of the commissioners in these negotiations was being discussed in Congress, Hamilton, the per- sonal and political friend of Jay, said of him, "that although he was a man of profound sagacity and pure intentions, yet he was of a suspicious temper."
The result of the hasty visit of Kayneval and Vaughan to London was a new commission to Oswald in terms required by Jay, and instructions to hasten
1 5 Ib. 740. For a copy of the letter, see Ib. 238.
THE TREATY OF PEACE AND INDEPENDENCE. 63
independent negotiations with the American commis- sioners. We have here the strange spectacle of the Colonies joining with their enemy, the mother country, to circumvent the scheme of their own allies. That which was most influential in bringing about this curi- ous combination was the subject of the boundaries. France was favoring the possession by Spain of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and Vergennes expected that the Colonies would be confined to the Atlantic sea- board. Shelburne, on the other hand, preferred to have the Colonies as neighbors of Canada in the lake region rather than the Spaniard. To meet the wishes of the American negotiators by carrying the boundary to the Mississippi was in harmony with the policy which he recommended to the British negotiator, to so act as " to regain the affections of America." 1 When he gave authority to Oswald to yield to the demands of our commissioners as to the vast domain west of the Alleghany Mountains, he could well say to Oswald : " We have put the greatest confidence, I believe, ever placed in man in the American commissioners. It is now to be seen how far they or America are to be de- pended upon. … I hope the public will be the gainer, else our heads must answer for it, and deservedly."
In the midst of these suspicions and differences be- tween Jay and Franklin, Adams arrived fresh from his successful negotiation with Holland. Learning of the situation, he declared himself fully in accord with Jay. Adams had an interview with Franklin, in which he
