mation, "warning the insurgents to desist from their opposition to the laws." Commissioners were at the same time appointed to proceed to the scene of disturbance, and persuade the actors to return to their duty. It being found, however, that nothing but force, or the show of force, would put down the insurrection, another proclamation was published, announcing the march of fifteen thousand militia from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. The president himself took the field for a few days; but finding that the insurgents had disappeared before the approach of his troops, he left his officers General Henry Lee, governor of Virginia, being commander-in-chief complete the work that was no sooner begun than it was ended. A considerable number of prisoners was taken; but no executions followed, (November.) Enough had been done to decide "the contest," as Washington described it, "whether a small proportion of the United States shall dictate to the whole Union."

Indian wars.

to

a

The same year (1794) witnessed the suppression of a danger, half domestic and half foreign long-continued Indian war. It broke out, four years before, on the attempt of various western tribes to recover the country as far as the Ohio. A thousand men, partly United States troops, and partly militia from Pennsylvania and Kentucky, were sent into the heart of the hostile region. Two detachments, under Colonel Hardin, fell into ambuscades; while the main body, under General Harmer, marched, countermarched, and at length retreated, (1790.) The next year, after several incursions of volunteers into the Indian territory, an army of some two thousand, under General St. Clair, started, late in the autumn, to reduce the enemy. Delayed by the construction of forts, the troops were advancing but slowly, when they were surprised in camp, and utterly routed by the Indians, (1791.) Two

years passed in fruitless attempts at negotiation. An army of three or four thousand, slowly enlisted under the command of General Wayne, the hero of Stony Point, at length proceeded to more decisive measures. Spending the winter and the spring in camp, Wayne took the field in the following summer. Securing his rear by forts along the route which he pursued, he overtook and completely vanquished the Indians, driving them from their posts, and laying waste their fields, (1794.) A treaty made with Wayne a year afterwards (1795) renounced the claims which had led the unhappy Indians into war. There still remained upon the south-western borders the restless tribes that had taken up arms from time to time during the war with their brethren of the north-west. Peace with them was made a year later, (1796.) In both treaties, the United States took an attitude never before assumed by the whites, as a nation, towards the red man. The truth that the Indians were not the aggressors so much as the borderers, nay, the United States themselves, seems to have been tacitly recognized by the indemnities to the conquered or the pacified tribes.

Indian It was equally new in the history of the Indian interests. race, that the white men should unite nationally in supplying their wants and improving their relations. No part of Washington's administration, domestic or foreign, was more original or more benign than the policy which he constantly urged towards the Indians of the United States. To save them from the frauds of traders, a national system of trade was adopted. To protect them from the aggressions of borderers, as well as to secure them in the rights allowed them by their treaties, a number of laws were prepared. I add with pleasure," said the president in one of his later addresses to Congress, "that the probability of their civilization is not diminished by the experiments which

66

have been thus far made under the auspices of government. The accomplishment of this work, if practicable, will reflect undecaying lustre on our national character, and administer the most grateful consolation that virtuous minds can know," (December, 1795.)

Heckewelder,

the missionary.

Among the agents employed by the administration in dealing with the Indians was a remarkable man. John Heckewelder, born in England, of German parentage, came to Pennsylvania in his youth, and there in his early manhood became a missionary of the United Brethren, or Moravians, amongst the Delawares and the Mohegans, (1771.) His life thenceforward was devoted to the Indians. He preached to them, that they might be converted to God. He wrote of them, that they might be respected of men. "I still indulge the hope," he wrote in his old age, "that this work [for the Indians] will be accomplished by a wise and benevolent government."

Tribute to Algiers.

A far more savage foe than the Indian was appeased at the same period, but with much less credit, it must be added, to the nation. This was the Dey of Algiers, who, with a number of neighbors like himself, was wont to sweep the seas with piratical craft. Singular to say, the sway of these buccaneering potentates was acknowledged by the European states, who paid an annual tribute on condition of their commerce being spared. Ten years before the present date, the freebooters of the Dey of Algiers had captured two American vessels, and thrown their crews into bondage. He now (1795) consented to release his captives, and to respect the merchantmen of the United States, on the reception of a tribute like that received from the powers of Europe. Three quarters of a million were paid down; an annual payment of full fifty thousand dollars being promised in addition. Other

treaties of the same sort with Tripoli and Tunis were

under way. Foreign

The relations of the United States with civilized relations. nations were hardly more satisfactory. The monarchies of Europe looked down, if they looked at all, upon the infant republic, of which many of them really knew almost nothing. What was of vast moment to a people rising out of depression and of obscurity, was a trifle in the eyes of old states, accustomed to deal with great interests and with great resources. Their relations with America were matters of little concern to them. On the other hand, the relations of America to them, or to some of them, formed the chief point of attention and of exertion with the American nation for a quarter of a century.

Commer

We must go back to days over which we have cial trea- passed, in order to see how the United States preties. sented themselves to the older nations. "Our fathers," said John Quincy Adams, himself a foreign minister under Washington, "extended the hand of friendship to every nation on the globe." Their first treaty, the one with France, in which the affairs of commerce and of peace were mingled with those of alliance and of war, was followed by one with Prussia, (1785.) "This," remarked Adams, “consecrated three fundamental principles of foreign intercourse. First, equal reciprocity and the mutual stipulation of the commercial exchanges of peace; secondly, the abolition of private war on the ocean; and thirdly, restrictions favorable to neutral commerce upon belligerent parties with regard to contraband of war and blockades. These principles were assumed as cardinal points of the policy of the Union." It was a policy, however, in perpetual collision with the usages and prerogatives of the European powers; so much so, that, though the young nation held out an open hand, it was met by contracted

grasps.

The state of things will appear as we go on to the

negotiations of Washington's administration.

Treaty

Spain.

One of the first to come into more settled rela with tions with the new government was Spain. That power, through its colonial authorities in Florida, had been supposed to be tampering with the southern Indians. On the other hand, it was notorious that several expeditions from the southern and western frontiers were planned against the Spanish territory. All the while, the dividing line between Florida and the United States was unsettled, and the claim to the navigation of the Mississippi undetermined. Finally, a special envoy, Thomas Pinckney, was sent to Spain. It took him nearly a year to bring about a treaty defining the Florida boundary, and opening the Mississippi to the United States, (1795.) Even then the Spaniards delayed to fulfil provisions in which they took but small interest.

Relations

with Great

Britain

France.

The relations with Spain were bad enough. But those with Great Britain and France were worse. We must speak of these nations together, since it and was their common, rather than their separate, influences which operated to the extent that is to be described. Side by side, in the first place, were the feelings of amity to France and of animosity to Britain; the seeds were planted in war, and their growth was not checked in peace. Britain continued to wear the aspect of an antagonist, keeping her troops upon the United States territory until her demands were satisfied, while on the other side of the sea she laid one restraint after another upon commerce, as if she would have kept the Americans at a distance from her shores. France, on the contrary, was still the friend of the rising nation, and not only as its patron, but as its follower. The same year that Washington entered the presidency, the French revolution began.