To George Washington from Portsmouth, N.H., Citizens, 17 July 1795
From Portsmouth, N.H., Citizens
Portsmouth, New Hampshire July 17th 1795
Sir
Convinced of your inviolable attachment to the Interest & happiness of the States over which you preside & your readiness on all occasions to attend to every just complaint of the People—We the Citizens of Portsmouth constitutionally assembled in public Town meeting to signify our opinions relative to the Treaty between Great Britain & the United States of America consented to by a Majority of the Senate & recommended for your ratification having taken the same into our most serious consideration beg leave to express our most hearty disapprobation thereof for the following general reasons vizt.1
| 1st | Because that part of the Treaty of 1783 securing the payment of Debts due to British Subjects is rigorously enforced while an important Article in the same Treaty requiring compensation for Negroes & other property unjustly removed is placed wholly out of view.2 |
| 2 | Because the ninth Article confers a privilege on British Subjects, which though expressed in terms reciprocal, yet from the different circumstances of the two Nations not only wants an equivalent but is a direct invasion of the rights of individual States. |
| 3 | Because the Bonds required of Commanders of Privateers are wholly inadequate to the purposes for which such provision was made.3 |
| 4 | Because the regulation of Trade, Commerce & Navigation between the two parties contained in the 3d, 13th 15th & 17th Articles hold out the most decided advantages to British Subjects & must in their opperation prove destructive to American Commerce & Navigation. |
| 5 | Because by the 18th Article many Articles of export are admitted as contraband of War which by our Treaties with France, Holland & Sweden are declared free,4 by which means a disposition to aid the British in the destruction of the Navies5 of those Nations is fairly implied. |
| 6 |
Because all the essential advantages resulting to the United States from a ratification of the Treaty are such as they have a right to demand either by virtue of the Treaty of 1783, or from principals of common justice was there no Treaty existing, while many important privileges are allowed the British without a counterpart. Thus Sir, have we stated a few of the many objections that might be opposed to the Treaty we forbear entering into a more particular detail as it would probably be but a repetition of those which we presume must flow in to you from every quarter as the Guardian & Protector of our Rights & Liberties & who alone in the present instance can avert the many evils that threaten our ruin. We therefore most fervently request that the Treaty between Great Britain & the United States may not receive your ratification till it undergo such alterations as shall render it conducive to the Interest, honor & lasting peace of our Country. |
Voted unanimously that the above containing the sentiments of the Citizens of Portsmouth be transmitted by Jonathan Warner Moderator of this Meeting to the President of the United States without delay.6
Copy of Record
George Wentworth7
Town Clerk
DS, DLC:GW; DS (photocopy), MWA; LB, DLC:GW. The DS (photocopy) contains the signatures of the committee members responsible for the address. The paper was published in The New Hampshire Gazette (Portsmouth), 21 July 1795.
A notation by the letter-book copyist states that “The same answer was returned to the foregoing as to the Selectmen of Boston, the 12th August 1795” (see GW to Boston Selectmen, 28 July, and Edmund Randolph to GW, 31 July, n.1).
1. According to a report in The New Hampshire Gazette (Portsmouth) of 21 July, the citizens of the town assembled at the statehouse “agreeable to notification from the selectmen,” to discuss “such measures as might be deemed expedient” concerning the Jay Treaty.
Prior to the meeting, a handbill by “Ca Ira” circulated in Portsmouth and predicted dire consequences of the Jay Treaty. “Your all is at Stake. The Senate have bargained away your Blood Bought privileges, for less than a Mess of Pottage.” The notice continued: “Your only remaining hope is in the President! Assemble then to a Man! Shut up your shops and warehouses: let all business cease: Repair to the State House: Remonstrate with coolness, but spirit, against his signing a Treaty, which will be the Death Warrant of your TRADE, and entail beggary on us, and our posterity forever!!” (Independent Chronicle: and the Universal Advertiser [Boston], 20 July 1795).
2. This statement referred to Articles IV and VI of the definitive treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain, 3 Sept. 1783 (see 154–55). Article VI in the Jay Treaty discusses debt payments.
3. The bonds on privateers were discussed in the second clause of Article XIX.
4. The relevant articles of the treaties of amity and commerce with France, 1778; with the Netherlands, 1782; and with Sweden, 1783, were Articles XXV and XXVI with France, Article XXIV with the Netherlands, and Articles VIII, IX, and X with Sweden (see 20–23, 79–80, 129–31).
5. The letter-book copy has “natives.”
6. Jonathan Warner (1726–1814) was a Portsmouth merchant and justice of the peace. He transmitted the address with a cover letter to GW of the same date (LS, DLC:GW; copy [photocopy], MWA).
7. George Wentworth (1740–1820) served as town clerk from 1792 to 1806. The brother of Joshua Wentworth, New Hampshire supervisor of the revenue, he was at this time working as a collector of the revenue in the first division of New Hampshire.