1. Russell referred to a statement, dated 15 July, dissenting against the sentiments of Boston citizens recorded in a meeting of 13 July (see Boston Citizens to GW of that date). The document includes the names of 181 signers of the following statement: “Whereas the Votes adopted at a late Meeting of this Town … have been represented as expressing the Unanimous Sentiments of the Merchants and other Inhabitants upon that subject.

“We the Subscribers unwilling to be implicated in the number of those who approve of the doings of that Meeting, and reserving to ourselves the right of expressing our opinion individually upon the Merits or demerits of Public Men and Measures, do hereby declare our dissapprobation of and dissent from the Votes of said Meeting” (D, DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW). The letter-book copy does not contain the list of signatures, but at the bottom of the statement, the copyist wrote: “Signed by One hundred and seventy seven persons.” A copy of the document appeared in the Federal Orrery [Boston] on 20 August.

2. Members of the Boston Chamber of Commerce met on 11 Aug. to discuss the Jay Treaty. Upon a motion “to discuss and pass upon the Treaty article by article,” an objection arose “because the subject had been so fully and so publicly discussed, and the members had had so much time to study the Treaty and deliberately to form their Opinion, that every one must be ready for the Question.”

The members dispensed with that motion and continued with another: “Resolved … that the recommendation of the Senate to the President of the United States to ratify the Treaty, as amended by them, was Wise and Prudent. because it settles in a fair amicable manner points of difference between the Two nations, which must otherwise necessarily subject our Country to a humiliating submission to British impositions & Injuries, or induce a War, with all its horrors and distresses, to seek redress; & because, when considered collectively, the tendency of the Treaty must be to promote and extend, rather than to injure and restrain our Commerce.” The members engaged in “a lengthy and free discussion of the subject at large, after which the question was put by the President, when the same was adopted with one dissentient only.”

In another resolution, chamber members lamented and disapproved “every attempt to excite an opposition to the Treaty, in the minds of the People, and to detach their confidence from the Government of the Union because in a Free Government like ours, a firm reliance of the People in the wisdom and integrity of those authorities, which they have themselves constituted to manage their Public concerns, and a chearful acquiescence in the decissions of Rulers of their own appointment are indispensable to secure the Peace, the Honor, and the Happiness of the Community.” The resolution passed “after a short discussion,” with one dissenting vote.

The attendees unanimously agreed to forward an authenticated copy of their resolutions to GW and publish them in the newspapers (DS, DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW). The proceedings were published in the Columbian Centinel (Boston), 15 August.

3. The report of the 13 July meeting in the Federal Orrery (Boston) of 16 July claimed that the resolutions adopted there were “unanimously passed, as the sense of the town.” A widely reprinted account of the meeting on 10 July that created the committee to write the address stated that “The merchants, tradesmen, and other Citizens, formed the assembly” of “about 1500 persons” that almost unanimously disapproved of the treaty (Independent Chronicle: and the Universal Advertiser [Boston], 13 July). Others, however, denied that the meeting spoke for the town. The comments of “A Merchant” appeared in the Columbian Centinel [Boston] on 22 July: “above three quarters of the mercantile interest of this town are satisfied with the greatest part of” the treaty, he wrote, adding that “their number, as well as that of other citizens, is daily increasing.” Another supporter of the treaty, “A Singer,” wrote in the Centinel of 29 July that the men who put their names to the dissenting document would “assure their beloved Chief Magistrate, that the assertion of their being unanimously opposed to the treaty, is false.”

4. GW replied to Russell on 22 Aug.: “While I regret the diversity of opinion which has been manifested on this occasion it is a satisfaction to learn that the Commercial part of my fellow Citizens, whose interests are thought to be most directly affected, so generally consider the treaty as calculated, on the whole, to procure important advantages. This sentiment I trust will be extended in proportion as the provisions of the treaty become well understood” (LB, DLC:GW).