because such an alliance as Spain could be induced to accept would have been fruitful of embarrassment and trouble for the United States. So Mr. Jay felt, as he said : " The cession of the navigation (of the Mississippi) will in my opinion render a future war with Spain unavoidable, and I shall look upon my subscribing to the one as fixing the certainty of the other." Spain's hostility to England soon led her into war with that country, and the United States thereby reaped most of the benefits of an alliance without its necessary burdens.
It was plainly contrary to the interest of Spain to promote the cause of independence, and the Spanish statesmen so well understood this that all the efforts of the court of France to secure adhesion to the treaty of 1778 were of no avail. The Count de Aranda, the Spanish ambassador at Paris, fully comprehended the situation. In communicating the news of the treaty of peace and independence, he wrote his government words which to-day seem almost clothed with the spirit of prophecy : " The independence of the English Colonies has been there recognized. It is for me a subject of grief and fear. France has but few possessions in America; but she was bound to consider that Spain, her most intimate ally, had many, and that she now stands exposed to terrible reverses. From the beginning, France has acted against her true interests in encour- aging and supporting this independence, and so I have often declared to the ministers of this nation."
The Armed Neutrality was an agreement by means of
THE TREATY OF PEACE AND INDEPENDENCE. 43
a convention entered into in 1780 between Kussia, Den- mark, Sweden, and Holland, for the ostensible purpose of protecting their neutral commerce from undue inter- ference by the belligerents in the war then being carried on by England against her Colonies, France and Spain. It defined what were contraband goods, declared that free ships made free goods, and stipulated for the joint protection of their commerce by armed convoys, etc. While outwardly a proclamation of neutrality coupled with armed enforcement against all the belligerents, it was intended and accepted as an act unfriendly to Great Britain. It was an indication that she was practically without an ally or friend on the continent of Europe, and that she must fight her battles alone and unaided. Evidently her Colonies had fallen upon a favorable time for their revolt.
Next to the French alliance, the most important event in the foreign relations of the Colonies was the negotia- tion of the treaty with Holland. It was conducted by John Adams, and he is entitled to great credit for its successful termination. Henry Laurens, of South Caro- lina, had been sent by Congress, in 1779, to negotiate a commercial treaty and a loan from Holland, but en route he was captured on the ocean, brought to England, and confined in the Tower of London. John Adams, who had been commissioned to negotiate a treaty of peace with Great Britain and was then in Paris awaiting a favorable time to discharge his mission, was substituted for Laurens. While waiting in Paris, Adams entered into correspondence with Vergennes, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in which he criticised rather severely the
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"M, de Vergennes, who appears much offended, told me yesterday that he would enter into no further dis- cussions with Mr. Adams, nor answer any more of his letters. He is gone to Holland, to try, as he told me, whether something might not be done to render us a little less dependent on France. He says, the ideas of the court, and those of the people of America, are so totally different, as that it is impossible for any minister to please both. He ought to know America better than I do, having been there lately; and he may choose to do what he thinks will best please the people of America : but when I consider the expressions of Congress in many of their public acts, and particularly in their letter to the Chevalier de la Luzerne, of the 24th of May last, I cannot but imagine that he mistakes the sentiments of a few for a general opinion. It is my intention, while I stay here, to procure what advantages I can for our country by endeavoring to please this court." *
It is understood that the correspondence occasioned a violent discussion in Congress, and it is known the president of that body sent Mr. Adams a mild reproof; but it never withdrew its confidence from him, and he continued to hold the most important diplomatic posi- tions. He defended his diplomatic conduct to the president of Congress, 2 contrasting his course with " veterans in diplomatics " by referring to himself as "the militia" which "sometimes gain victories over regular troops even by departing from the rules. … I have long since learned that a man may give offense to a court to which he is sent and yet succeed." His
1 4 Dip. Cor. Rev. 22. 2 5 Ib. 196, 197.
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distorted view of his duty in this capacity is shown in this declaration, made sometime after the treaty of peace had been signed : " No man will ever be pleasing at a court in general who is not depraved in his morals or warped from your (his) country's interests." No wonder Vergennes should have been moved in his letter to Franklin to ask him to have Congress consider whether " he is endowed with that conciliating spirit which is necessary for the important and delicate business with which he is intrusted " to wit, negotiating peace with Great Britain. 1 Franklin suggested to Adams, in view of the great offense his letters had given Vergennes, that if the offensive remarks were the effects of inad- vertence he might write something effacing the impres- sions made by them; 2 but Adams declined to act on the suggestion. One may well conjecture what might have been the fate of the Revolutionary struggle if Adams had been our sole representative in Paris. It is due to him to say that when he became President he acted on different principles and his appointments to diplomatic posts were made with wisdom and care.
His usefulness was for the time being ended in Paris, and it was doubtless a relief to him, as it must have been to Vergennes and Franklin, soon to take his de- parture for Amsterdam. He found his task in Holland a difficult and tedious one, but he entered upon it with the zeal and devotedness which so marked his character; and after more than two years of effort his labors were crowned by a treaty of commerce, which was especially valuable as a recognition of the independence of the 1 4 Ib. 18. * 4 Ib. 87.
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Colonies, and made more easy the loans which were greatly needed. There were other reasons than the immediate political necessities which made the most friendly relations with the Dutch very welcome to the Colonies. Out of that country had sprung the most enlightened and liberal principles of international law, which found in America the most efficient champion. The Puritan forefathers brought with them to New England, not only a grateful memory of their refuge and hospitality, but of the lessons of liberty and govern- ment taught them; and various of the Colonies had received a most valuable contingent of its population from the Netherlands. For all these reasons the recog- nition of our independence by Holland, though tardy, was most welcome.
Mr. Adams was much elated with his success in Holland, and in his dispatches he did not conceal his satisfaction. He reports how one foreign minister told him: "Sir, you have struck the greatest blow of all Europe. It is the greatest blow that has been struck in the American cause, and the most decisive; " and how another said that " Mr. Adams was the Washing- ton of negotiation. A few of these compliments," he adds, " would kill Franklin if they should come to his ears." l By such glimpses of our early history we learn that the great founders of the Kepublic were not demigods, but men of like passions with ourselves.
The quotations just cited appeared in the diary which was transmitted by Mr. Adams to Congress with one of his dispatches, and according to custom they were being
i 3 J. Adams's Works, 309.
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read to that body, when his friends interposed and had the diary omitted. A delegate from Massachusetts, reporting to Adams the occurrence, wrote : " It was too minute for the delicacy of several of the gentlemen. They appeared very much disposed to make it appear ridiculous." l Hamilton, then a delegate, in giving an account of the event, said the reading of the diary " extremely embarrassed his friends, especially
