LB, DLC:GW.

Although this address was not sent to GW until 30 Sept., when Edward St. Loe Livermore enclosed it in a letter he had written to acting Secretary of State Timothy Pickering (DLC:GW; see also GW to Thomas Johnson, 24 Aug., source note), it was circulated in Portsmouth in early September and had been signed by 9 September. It sparked an angry response from treaty opponents in that city on 10 September. According to a letter printed in the Oracle of the Day (Portsmouth) on 15 Sept., many residents of Portsmouth had either failed to attend a meeting in July at which an address opposing the Jay Treaty was approved (see Portsmouth, N.H., Citizens to GW, 17 July), or they had considered it “not prudent” to express contrary opinions at that time. “As the Treaty became more known, and better understood, its advocates encreased, and a number early had it in contemplation to express their dissent to the doings of the Town, in an address to the President,” but nothing had been done until early September. About forty had signed the address when a handbill was posted on the morning of 10 Sept. observing that “the signers … and the gentleman who had circulated it about, had highly displeased those who were of an opposite sentiment” and “disagreeable consequences were apprehended.” A crowd gathered, from which a committee was formed who “demanded an immediate delivery of the paper containing the address” from the man circulating it. He refused, although he offered to supply a copy. By afternoon, “preparations were making for burning the Effigies of Messrs. Jay and Livermore,” and “a public Cryer with his Bell was sent round the town, to invite the inhabitants to attend the execution … which was to take place in the evening.” Soon after, “a procession was formed,” following a cart with the two effigies, “accompanied with a Drum, Colours, &c.,” which paraded through the streets to Jonathan Warner’s wharf, where the effigies “were burnt with every possible mark of contempt.” The growing crowd then paraded again “with Drum and Fife, beating a solemn mournful tune, and as they passed the houses of those gentlemen who had signed the address, the most abusive insulting language was freely loaded on them.” Although the paraders did no physical damage, except to some trees in one yard, after the crowd had dispersed, the houses of three signers were stoned (see also the letter of “Truth” to the editor in The New Hampshire Gazette [Portsmouth], 15 Sept.).

By late September, a number of men were under indictment for their actions on that day (see the Independent Chronicle: and the Universal Advertiser [Boston], 8 Oct., and the Columbian Centinel [Boston], 10 Oct.). On 8 Oct., The Independent Chronicle printed the address, with thirty signers, giving a contrary view of events. Agreeing that a procession was formed out of “indignation” at the “insult” offered “when about 33 men came forward, some by coxing, some by threats and some by some other motive, to favor of the treaty, against the unanimous voice of the town,” the paper claimed that the procession was “as orderly as was the procession in that town when the Constitution was adopted.” Moreover, the treaty opponents were the veterans of 1775, while the signers were mostly men who had not “afforded the least assistance to carry on the late war.”

Pickering replied to Livermore on 9 Nov., stating that GW’s views on the treaty “have so often and so long since been repeated, he wishes to be excused from entering into any fresh correspondence on the subject,” but he “entertains a proper sense of the confidence in his administration” expressed by the signers (DNA: RG 59, Domestic Letters).