A Year With George Washington
On January 19th, 1791, President George Washington formally solicited an opinion from the Senate about a grievance lodged by the charge d’affaires of France in the name of King Louis XVI. The King believed that America had violated a long-standing agreement dating back to the Revolutionary War.
The agreement, titled the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and signed on February 6, 1778, was negotiated by Benjamin Franklin, Silas Dean, and Arthur Lee, representing the American side, and Conrad Alexandre Gérard de Rayneval, the French. The landmark treaty came in the wake of the decisive victory against the British at Saratoga and became the first formal recognition of the United States by France.
UNITED STATES, January 19, 1791.
Gentlemen of the Senate:
I lay before you a representation of the charge d’affaires of France, made by order of his Court, on the acts of Congress of the both of July, 1789 and 1790 imposing an extra tonnage on foreign vessels, not excepting those of that country, together with the report of the Secretary of State thereon, and I recommend the same to your consideration, that I may be enabled to give to it such answer as may best comport with the justice and the interests of the United States.
Go WASHINGTON.
The complaint, presented in the polite language of eighteenth-century diplomacy, pertained to a disagreement regarding tonnage fees the United States was levying on French vessels in American ports. The French contended that it ran counter to the language pertaining to “most favored nation” status in the Treaty. Below is the letter addressed to Thomas Jefferson from the charge d’affaires, Louis-Guillaume Otto, outlining the French King’s protest.
NEW YORK, January 8, 1791.
His Excellency M. JEFFERSON
Secretary of State.
SIR: I have the honor herewith to send you a letter from the King to Congress, and one which M. de Montmorin has written to yourself. You will find therein the sincere sentiments with which you have inspired our Government, and the regret of the minister in not having a more near relation of correspondence with you. In these every person who has had the advantage of knowing you in France participates.
At the same time, it gives me pain, sir, to be obliged to announce to you that the complaints of our merchants on the subject of the tonnage duty increase, and that they have excited not only the attention of the King but that of several departments of the Kingdom. I have received new orders to request of the United States a decision on this matter and to solicit in favor of the aggrieved merchants the restitution of the duties which have already been paid. I earnestly beg of you, sir, not to lose sight of an object which, as I have already had the honor to tell you verbally, is of the greatest importance for cementing the future commercial connections between the two nations.
In more particularly examining this question you will perhaps find that motives of convenience are as powerful as those of justice to engage the United States to give to His Majesty the satisfaction which he requires. At least twice as many American vessels enter the ports of France as do those of France the ports of America. The exemption of the tonnage of duty, then, is evidently less advantageous for the French than for the navigators of the United States. Be this as it may, I can assure you, sir, that the delay of a decision in this respect by augmenting the just complaints of the French merchants will only augment the difficulties.
I therefore beg of you to enable me before the sailing of the packet, which will take place toward the last of this month’ to give to my Court a satisfactory answer.
I have the honor to be, etc.,
L. G. OTTO.
France was thoroughly in the throes of the French Revolution with no end in sight. In fact, Otto himself would narrowly escape the Guillotine two years later. President Washington had privately expressed his concern that the French people did not seem prepared for the kind of liberty that his fellow Americans had recently won.
Despite his being grateful for French aid during the war, as well as his warm personal feelings toward the French, especially the Marquis de Lafayette, Washington felt he needed to steer clear of any “foreign entanglements,” particularly those of England and France. Washington performed his duties with fidelity to America’s interests over his own (as he always had) and sought just the right measured tone in his response.
Thomas Jefferson, in his role as Secretary of State, had produced a thoroughgoing opinion on the matter, which included several options for Washington and others to consider. Though often at odds with Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson consulted the Secretary of the Treasury before compiling his report.
After receiving President Washington’s formal submittal, the Senate formed a committee comprised of Robert Morris, Rufus King, Ralph Izard, Caleb Strong, and Oliver Ellsworth, who submitted a report to the full Senate in late January 1791.
A month later, the Senate considered the committee’s report and counter to King Louis XVI, wishes, resolved “that the fifth Article of the treaty of amity and commerce between the United States, and his Most Christian Majesty, is merely an illustration of the third and fourth Articles of the same treaty, by an application of the Principles comprized in the last mentioned Articles, to the case stated in the former. Resolved, that the Senate do advise that an answer be given to the Court of France, defending in the most friendly manner, this construction, in opposition to that urged by the said Court.”
King Louis XVI, though chastened, had much more to worry about in the coming years than tonnage fees, as soon he would be denied his kingly authority and eventually be beheaded, along with his wife and royal family attendants.
President Washington would achieve his goal of avoiding foreign entanglements, but French resentment would linger and be re-aggravated by America’s Jay Treaty with England late in his final term.
As a consequence, President John Adams would have to settle America’s differences with France in what came to be called the Quasi-War, a naval conflict between the two nations limited to the high seas, the Caribbean, and a few minor engagements in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean.
The Quasi-War lasted from July 7, 1798, to September 30, 1800, and concluded with the Convention of 1800, which annulled the 1778 Treaty of Amity and also ushered in the return to peace between America and France.
