The communications made from the minister of France concurred, with other circumstances, in effacing the impressions made by Mr. Jay's letter and Marbois's enclosed. The vote of thanks to Count Rochambeau passed with unanimity and cordiality, and afforded a fresh proof that the resentment against France had greatly subsided.
Thursday, January 2.
Nothing requiring notice.
Friday, January 3.
The vote of thanks to the minister of France, which passed yesterday, was repealed in consequence of his having expressed to the president a desire that no notice might be taken of his conduct as to the point in question, and of the latter's communicating the same to Congress. The temper of Congress here again manifested the transient nature of their irritation against France.
The motion of Mr. HOWELL, put on the Secret Journal, gave Congress a great deal of vexation. The expedient for baffling his scheme of raising a ferment in his state, and exposing the foreign transactions, was adopted only in the last resort; it being questioned by some whether the Articles of Confederation warranted it.
The answer to the note of the French minister passed unanimously, and was a further testimony of the abatement of the effects of Mr. Jay's letter, &c.
The proceedings of the court in the dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania were, after debates as to the meaning of the Confederation in directing such proceeding to be lodged among the acts of Congress, entered at large on the Journals. It was remarked, that the delegates from Connecticut, particularly Mr. Dyer, were more captious on the occasion than was consistent with a perfect acquiescence in the decree.
Monday, January 6.
The memorial from the army was laid before Congress, and referred to a grand committee. This reference was intended as a mark of the important light in which the memorial was viewed.
Mr. Berkley having represented some inconveniences incident to the plan of a consular convention between France and the United States, particularly the restriction of consuls from trading, and his letter having been committed, a report was made proposing that the convention should for the present be suspended. To this it had been objected that, as the convention might already be concluded, such a step was improper; and as the end might be obtained by authorizing the minister at Versailles to propose particular alterations, that it was unnecessary. By Mr. MADISON it had been moved, that the report should be postponed, to make place for the consideration of an instruction and authority to the said minister for that purpose; and this motion had, in consequence, been brought before Congress. On this day the business revived. The sentiments of the members were various, some wishing to suspend such part of the convention only as excluded consuls from commerce; others thought this exclusion too important to be even suspended; others, again, thought the whole ought to be suspended during the war; and others, lastly, contended that the whole ought to be new modelled, the consuls having too many privileges in some respects, and too little power in others. It was observable that this diversity of opinions prevailed chiefly among the members who had come in since the convention had passed in Congress; the members originally present adhering to the views which then governed them. The subject was finally postponed; eight states only being represented, and nine being requisite for such a question. Even to have suspended the convention, after it had been proposed to the court of France, and possibly acceded to, would have been indecent and dishonorable, and, at a juncture when Great Britain was courting a commercial intimacy, to the probable uneasiness of France, of very mischievous tendency. But experience constantly teaches that new members of a public body do not feel the necessary respect or responsibility for the acts of their predecessors, and that a change of members and of circumstances often proves fatal to consistency and stability of public measures. Some conversation, in private, by the old members with the most judicious of the new, in this instance, has abated the fondness of the latter for innovations, and it is even problematical whether they will be again urged.
In the evening of this day the grand committee met, and agreed to meet again the succeeding evening, for the purpose of a conference with the superintendent of finance.
