Mr. HIGGINSON contended, that the facts stated by our ministers justified the part they had taken.
Mr. MADISON expressed his surprise at the attempts made to fix the blame of all our embarrassments on the instruction of June the fifteenth, 1781, when it appeared that no use had been made of the power given by it to the court of France that our Ministers had construed it in such a way as to leave them at full liberty and that no one in Congress pretended to blame them on that account. For himself, he was persuaded that their construction was just; the advice of France having been made a guide to them only in cases where the question respected the concessions of the United States to Great Britain necessary and proper for obtaining peace and an acknowledgment of independence; not where it respected concessions to other powers, and for other purposes. He reminded Congress of the change which had taken place in our affairs since that instruction was passed; and remarked the probability that many who were now, perhaps, the loudest in disclaiming, would, under the circumstances of that period, have been the foremost to adopt it.[1] He admitted, that the change of circumstances had rendered it inapplicable, but thought an express repeal of it might, at this crisis at least, have a bad effect. The instructions, he observed, for disregarding which our ministers had been blamed, and which, if obeyed, would have prevented the dilemma now felt, were those which required them to act in concert and in confidence with our ally; and these instructions, he said, had been repeatedly confirmed, in every stage of the revolution, by unanimous votes of Congress; several of the gentlemen present,[2] who now justified our ministers, having concurred in them, and one of them[3] having penned two of the acts, in one of which Congress went farther than they had done in any preceding act, by declaring that they would not make peace until the interests of our allies and friends, as well as of the United States, should be provided for.
As to the propriety of communicating to our ally the separate article, he thought it resulted clearly from considerations both of national honor and national security. He said, that Congress, having repeatedly assured their ally that they would take no step in a negotiation but in concert and in confidence with him, and having even published to the world solemn declarations to the same effect, would, if they abetted this concealment of their ministers, be considered by all nations as devoid of all constancy and good faith; unless a breach of these assurances and declarations could be justified by an absolute necessity, or some perfidy on the part of France; that it was manifest no such necessity could be pleaded; and as to perfidy on the part of France, nothing but suspicions and equivocal circumstances had been quoted in evidence of it,—and even in these it appeared that our ministers were divided; that the embarrassment in which France was placed by the interfering claims of Spain with the United States must have been foreseen by our ministers, and that the impartial public would expect that, instead of cooperating with Great Britain in taking advantage of this embarrassment, they ought to have made every allowance and given every facility to it, consistent with a regard to the rights of their constituents; that, admitting every fact alleged by our ministers to be true, it could by no means be inferred that the opposition made by France to our claims was the effect of any hostile or ambitious designs against them, or of any other design than that of reconciling them with those of Spain ; that the hostile aspect which the separate article, as well as the concealment of it, bore to Spain, would be regarded by the impartial world as a dishonorable alliance with our enemies against the interests of our friends; but notwithstanding the disappointments and even indignities which the United States had received from Spain, it could neither be denied nor concealed that the former had derived many substantial advantages from her taking part in the war, and had even obtained some pecuniary aids; that the United States had made professions corresponding with those obligations; that they had testified the important light in which they considered the support resulting- ↑ The committee who reported the instruction were Mr. Carroll, Mr. Jones, Mr. Witherspoon, Mr. Sullivan, and Mr. Matthews. Mr. Witherspoon was particularly prominent throughout.
- ↑ Messrs. Bland, Lee, and Rutledge.
- ↑ Mr. Rutledge, who framed, in the committee, the first draft of the declaration made in September last, and the instruction about the same time. This was considerably altered, but not in that respect.
