1. On 13 Nov. the Aurora General Advertiser (Philadelphia) reprinted from a Petersburg, Va., newspaper an address “To the Independent Citizens of Virginia,” which proposed a petition to the legislature as a final effort “by a declaration of the public sentiment, to prevent the final ratification & ultimate energy, of an instrument, which is deemed fatal to the interests, the happiness, and perhaps finally to the liberty and independence of the United States.” The petition (which continued into the issue of 14 Nov.) argued that because of the conditions attached to the previous ratification, the Jay Treaty “must again receive the sanction of the constituted authorities before it can be finally binding on the United States.” It then asked the assembly to consider six objections to the treaty (with many examples and subheads). First, the treaty exhibited an “inequality of terms” in its treatment of the violations of the previous treaty of peace, Indian trade, and access to the Mississippi River. Second, the treaty did not adequately address past spoliations and indeed offered “‘a general search warrant’ … against the American navigation.” It failed “to provide against the arbitrary seizure and imprisonment of the American seamen,” and by admitting that provisions could be considered contraband even when not destined to a blockaded port, it granted “an apparent licence … to fresh and more rapacious depredations on our lawful commerce” and violated the practice of “considering free ships as giving freedom to their cargoes.” Third, the treaty favored the interests of Great Britain over those of France and Holland. Fourth, the commercial provisions would remove the protections hitherto given American shipping by duties and tonnage regulations, while gaining no advantages for the West Indies trade. Moreover, it would prevent beneficial treaties with other nations. Fifth, “The President and Senate, by ratifying this treaty, usurp the power of regulating commerce, of making rules with respect to aliens, of establishing tribunals of justice, and of defining piracy.” Sixth, “A treaty thus incompatible with our constitution, thus unequal in its conditions, thus derogating from our national rights, thus insidious in some of its objects, and thus alarming in all of its operations … ought to have been rejected with disdain, in the most humiliating and adverse circumstances.” The petitioners asked the assembly to pursue “such measures towards a remedy … as may be judged most conformable to the nature of the case, and most consistent with constitutional principles.”