To George Washington from Suffolk County, N.Y., Citizens, 6 August 1795
From Suffolk County, N.Y., Citizens
At the County Hall
in the County of Suffolk
and State of New York
Agst 6th 1795
To His Excellency George Washington Esq. President of the United States, the Memorial of the Subscribers, Respecfully sheweth that your Memorialists have been Elected by Meetings of a Number of Respectable Citizens in the Several Towns of EastHampton, Southampton, Southold, Riverhead, BrookHaven, and Smithtown, in the County of Suffolk, and State of New York, for the purpose of taking into Consideration the propriety of Ratifying the Treaty, of Amity, Commerce, & Navigation, lately Concluded upon between John Jay Esq. on the part of the United States, and the Minister appointed for that purpose on the part of Great Britain, and which has been agreed to by two thirds of the Senate of the United States, excepting the twelf Article,1 and now remains only to be Assented to by your Excellency, to become the Supreme Law of the Land, by Virtue of the powers Vested in your Excellency as President of the United States—That your Memorialists have in behalf of themselves and their fellow Citizens, whom they now Represent, taken the Said Treaty into Mature Consideration, and are of Opinion that in the most Important points in which the Essential Interests of this Country are most Materially concerned, it is destitute of those Stipulations in favor of the United States, which will promote either its commercial or political Interest, or even do Substantial Justice to our Citizens, for the many depredations committed on their Commerce;2 they therefore most respec⟨t⟩fully hope that your Excellency will with-hold your Assent to a Compact which will be so injurious to the most Essential Interests of our Country—They have not the Honor of being personally Know⟨n to⟩ your Excellency, and live in a part of the United States of which you may not perhaps have had any Personal knowledge—but Notwithstanding these Circumstances might seem to Lessen the weight of an Application from Us that may more Immedeately relate to the Important duties of your Office, Yet they have been, as they Concieve, so Justly Alarm’d at the Consequences that must result to this Country, if your Excellency should finally Ratify the Said Treaty, that they have conceived ⟨it⟩ their Duty to express their Sentiments to you on that Subject, in Cooperation with their fellow Citizens of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Other parts of the United States,3 and they trust that in doing this they not only express their Own but the Sentiments of the Inhabitants of the Several Towns, who have Elected them on this Occasion.4
LS, DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW.
The proceedings of the meeting were published in The Argus, or Greenleaf’s New Daily Advertiser (New York), 11 August. With the exception of Benjamin Horton, Jr., who was a militia officer, all of the signatories represented Suffolk County in the New York legislature at some time between 1786 and 1810. None, however, were in the legislature in 1795.
1. For the Senate ratification, see Notes from Edmund Randolph, c.24 June, and n.2 to that document.
2. Additional sentiments against the Jay Treaty unanimously approved at the meeting included: “the said treaty does not give to the citizens of the United States such terms and reciprocity of privileges as they ought, in point of interest or honor, to accept, and that if it should … become the supreme law of the land, its operations will be highly injurious to the commercial, agricultural, and manufacturing interests of the United States.”
The attendees also claimed that the treaty “gives no adequate compensation for the many losses and embarrassments our citizens have suffered … To say nothing of the piratical depredations upon our defenceless commerce, in the capture and condemnation of hundreds of our vessels and their cargoes, the detention of our seamen on board of prison ships, or impressing them on board their ships of war” (Argus, or Greenleaf’s New Daily Advertiser [New York], 11 Aug.).
3. For examples of previous gatherings concerning the treaty, see Boston Citizens to GW, 13 July; New York Citizens to GW, 20 July; Portsmouth, N.H., Citizens to GW, 17 July; and Philadelphia Citizens to GW, 25 July.
4. GW wrote an answer to the Suffolk County citizens on 7 Sept.: “It is now generally known that the Treaty has received my assent on the condition proposed by the Senate: this was not given until after the most mature deliberation. Notwithstanding the diversity of opinion which has been manifested, is much to be regretted I cannot but hope, that experience will shew, that the public interest required the course which has been pursued” (ALS [photocopy], Sotheby’s [London], 15 Dec. 1988, lot 184; LB, DLC:GW; copy, NRvS).