the Legislature, will, in the course of the session, receive our careful attention, and with a true zeal for the public welfare, we shall cheerfully co-operate in every measure that shall appear to us best calculated to promote the same."

By a resolution adopted the day before, the gallery of the Senate chamber was permitted to be opened, and in consequence we have, in the Debates of Congress, the heads of a discussion relative to the fourth and fifth paragraphs, which Mr. Mason moved to strike out, as he considered these two clauses would precipitate decisions in the Senate, that "the minority could not be expected to recede from the opinions" they held in the June session, and "could not therefore join in the indirect self-approbation which the majority appeared to wish for, and which was most certainly involved in the two clauses which he should hope would be struck out." If his motion was agreed to, the remainder of the address would, in his opinion, stand unexceptionable. He did not see, for his part, that our situation was every way auspicious. Notwithstanding the treaty, our trade is griev ously molested.

Mr. King remarked, that the principal features observable in the answer to the President's address were to keep up that harmony of intercourse which ought to subsist between the Legislature and the President, and to express confidence in the undiminished firmness and love of country which always characterize our chief executive magistrate. He objected to striking out especially the first clause, because founded on undeniable truth. It only declares that our prospects, as to our external relations, are not more satisfactory than a review of our internal situation would prove. Was not this representation true, he asked; could it be controverted? This clause, he contended, contained nothing reasonably objectionable; it did not say as much as the second, to which only most of the objections of the member up before him applied, an answer to which he should defer, expecting that a question would be put on each in order.

The clause, he said, appeared to him drawn up in such terms as could not offend the nicest feelings of the minority on the important decision in June; it was particularly circumspect and cautious. If liable to objection, it was in not going as far as the truth would warrant.

After some further debate, in which Messrs. Mason, Butler, and Tazewell urged the striking out of the two clauses, and Messrs. Ellsworth and Read, of South Carolina, sustained the report, it was adopted by a vote of 14 to 8.

A. HAMILTON TO R. KING.*

Dec. 14, 1795.

MY DEAR SIR:

An extraordinary press of occupation has delayed an answer to your letter on the subject of Mr. R.; though it may come too late I comply with your request as soon as I can.

The subject is truly a perplexing one; my mind has several times fluctuated; if there were nothing in the case but his imprudent sally upon a certain occasion, I should think the reasons for letting him pass would outweigh those for opposing his passage. But if it be really true that he is sottish or that his mind is otherwise deranged, or that he has exposed himself by improper conduct in pecuniary transactions, the byass of my judgment would be to negative; and as to the fact I would satisfy myself by careful inquiry of persons of character, who may have had an opportunity of knowing.

It is now, and in certain probable events will still more be, of infinite consequence that the judiciary should be well composed. Reflection upon this in its various aspects, weighs heavily on my mind against Mr. R., upon the accounts I have received of him and balances very weighty considerations the other way.

Yrs.

A. HAMILTON.

From what a Mr. Wadsworth lately in Philadelphia tells me of a conversation between Burr, Baldwin & Gallatin, it would seem

*Hamilton's Works., vi., 76.

that the two last Gentlemen have made up their minds to consider the Treaty, if ratified by G. Britain, as conclusive upon the H. of Representatives. I thought it well this should be known to you, if not before understood from any other quarter.

R. KING TO A. HAMILTON.*

16th December, 1795.

I send you Dunlap of this morning. In it you have foreign intelligence. Fenno, Dunlap and others have erroneously stated, that Mr. Warden brought the ratification of Great Britain. No official despatch has been received. Rutledge was negatived yesterday. From present appearances, the address to the President, will pass without a debate. The draft has been, by agreement in the Committee who reported it, shaped so as to reserve all points intended to be discussed relative to the treaty. The words underscored in the inclosed draft, were offered in the committee by Mr. Madison, who agreed to concur in the paragraph, if they were added. You perceive the object.

R. KING.

Upon the resignation of Mr. Jay from the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the President had appointed John Rutledge of South Carolina to that position. His letter of appointment reached him two days after, at a public meeting in Charleston, in which he denounced the treaty as "totally destitute of a single article worthy of approval. He even went so far as to reproach Jay with stupidity, if not corruption, in having signed it." It is to this fact that *Hamilton's Works, vi., p. 77.

"In the paragraph which declared that 'a secure foundation will be laid for accelerating, maturing and establishing the prosperity of our country; if by treaty and amicable negotiation, all those causes of external discord, which heretofore menaced our tranquillity, shall be extinguished on terms compatible with our national rights and honor,' Madison insisted, as a condition of his concurrence, that the words should be added-' and with our Constitution and great commercial interests.'"-Hamilton's Life, by J. C. H., vi., p. 326. Hildreth's History of the United States, 2d series, i., 551.

Hamilton probably alludes in his letter to Rufus King of December 14th, while the question of his confirmation as Chief Justice was pending in the Senate. He presided over the Court during one term, but was rejected by the Senate, as mentioned by Mr. King in his letter of December 16th. Mr. Cushing was offered the position, but having declined it, Mr. Ellsworth was appointed.

R. KING TO DR. SOUTHGATE.

DEAR SOUTHGATE :

PHILADELPHIA, 27th Decr., 1795.

William * [R. K.'s brother] I am informed is a member of the General Court, & I am sorry for it unless his Commercial Pursuits calling him to Boston, an attendance there will not be detrimental to his Business. When he has toiled as long as I have, I think he will agree with me that it would have been wiser altogether to have abstained from political Engagements.

Always sincerely yours,

RUFUS KING.

*Afterwards the first Governor of Maine.

CHAPTER IV.

Treaty with Great Britain communicated to Congress-Opposition in the House of Representatives-Demand made upon the President for Instructions to the Minister and Correspondence-Refusal of the President on constitutional Grounds to send in these Papers-Correspondence showing the Temper of the People about the Treaty-Correspondence relative to Patrick Henry's Nomination for the Presidency-Mr. King's Nomination as Minister to England-His Appointment.

On March 1, 1796, the President, having first proclaimed it as the law of the land, communicated to Congress the treaty with Great Britain, which had been duly ratified in London. This was the signal in the House of Representatives to let loose the pent up wrath against this measure, which had only been restrained until official notice of its ratification should be received. The Message was referred to the Committee of the Whole, and the consideration of it was begun the next day by a motion from Mr. Edward Livingston: "That the President of the United States be requested to lay before this House a copy of the instructions to the Minister of the United States, who negotiated the Treaty with Great Britain, communicated by his Message of the 1st of March, together with the correspondence and other documents relative to the said Treaty," which he modified a few days later by the addition of the words, excepting such of said papers as any existing negotiation may render improper to be disclosed."

66

Upon a call for the reasons which prompted such a resolution, if, for instance, it was to lay the ground for an im