Only one question remains which demands a word before tracing briefly the subsequent fate of the Jay treaty, and that is, to know exactly why the President signed it.  The answer is fortunately not difficult.  There was a choice of evils.  When Washington determined to send a special envoy, he said:  “My objects are, to prevent a war, if justice can be obtained by fair and strong representations (to be made by a special envoy) of the injuries which this country has sustained from Great Britain in various ways; to put it into a complete state of military defense; and to provide eventually such measures for execution as seem to be now pending in Congress, if negotiation in a reasonable time proves unsuccessful.”  From these views he never varied.  The treaty was not a perfect one, but it had good features and was probably, as has been said, the best that could then be obtained.  It settled some vexed questions, and it gave us time.  If the United States could only have time without making undue sacrifice, they could pass beyond the stage when a foreign war with its consequent suffering and debt would endanger our national existence.  If they could only have time to grow into a nation, there would be no difficulty in settling all their disputes with other people satisfactorily, either by war or negotiation.  But if the national bonds were loosened, then all was lost.  It was in this spirit that Washington signed the Jay treaty; and although there was much in it that he did not like, and although men were bitterly divided about the ratification, a dispassionate posterity has come to believe that he was right at the most difficult if not the most perilous crisis in his career.

The signature of the treaty, however, did not put an end to the attacks upon it, or upon the action of the Senate and the Executive.  Nevertheless, it turned the tide, and, as Washington foresaw, brought out a strong movement in its favor.  Hamilton began the work by the publication of the letters of “Camillus.”  The opposition newspapers sneered, but after Jefferson had read a few numbers he begged Madison in alarm to answer them.  His fears were well grounded, for the letters were reprinted in newspapers throughout the country, and their powerful and temperate arguments made converts and strengthened the friends of the administration everywhere.  The approaching surrender of the posts gratified the western people when they at last stopped to think about it.  The obnoxious provision order was revoked, and the traders and merchants found that security and commerce even under unpleasant restrictions were a great deal better than the uncertainty and the vexatious hostilities to which they had before been exposed.  Those who had been silent, although friendly to the policy of the government, now began to meet in their turn and send addresses to Congress; for in the House of Representatives the last battle was to be fought.