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The London Press and the First Decade of American Independence, 1783-1793
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2014
Extract
The years immediately following the War for American Independence have been rightly called the “critical period” in the history of the United States. Internal order, stability, even national existence were the issues of the struggle culminating in the Constitution. The times were critical for the new nation, too, in the regulation of her external affairs. The French attempted to make her a satellite. The Spanish would forbid her the Mississippi. By far the greatest problem in foreign affairs, however, was the reestablishment of peace-time relations with Britain, the erstwhile Mother Country.
Anglo-American relations during the decade after the Peace of 1783 have claimed much attention from American historians. Disagreement about internal developments are often bitter; but evaluations of British policy toward the former colonies are remarkably unanimous. Whether “Federalist” or “Jeffersonian,” American writers generally depict Britain as the villain. Beaten in war and vengeful, she manifested “disgust and exultation” at the difficulties which befell the new republic. Seizing upon every occasion to show her “casual contempt,” Britain adopted a policy based on “an intention of humiliating the Americans”; and her subjects plotted “how to punish their former colonies.” The British nation resolved to disregard the Treaty of 1783 with a callousness and a cynicism which made a mockery of their pledged word.
Resting upon studies in the voluminous American sources, these judgements and assumptions correctly reflect the convictions of many important Americans of the time. They accord but little, however, with a dispassionate examination of British sources.
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- Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1963
References
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51. Morning Chronicle, April 23, 1787.
52. Ibid., May 4, 1787. Additional letters from “A Hater of Incendiaries,” all of which have been used below, are ibid., May 18, June 8, and June 15, 1787. For “A Lover of Humanity” see ibid., May 14, 1787. [followed by] certain passages, particularly the “pledge” that legal impediments to the collection of pre-war debts would be removed if only Britain herself would fulfill the treaty, seem to indicate an intimacy with American official circles.
53. The Congressional Resolution was dated March 21, 1787, and it was embodied in a Circular Letter to all the States on April 13, 1787. The question of “prior infraction” of the Treaty of Peace has much exercised American historians, who generally defend the United States by charging Britain with the first breach of the Treaty. The best and fairest of these is Bemis, Samuel Flagg, Jay's Treaty (New York, 1923), ch. iGoogle Scholar; and ch. v, pp. 101-02. He rests his case upon the assertion that it cannot be proven that the United States violated the treaty first; and the burden of his argument is essentially negative: his task is not the positive vindication of the United States, but the criticism and destruction of British charges of prior American infraction. A more balanced view is found in Burt, A. L., The United States, Great Britain, and British North America (New Haven, 1940), p. 82 Google Scholar: “Both Britain and the United States violated the Treaty of Paris from the very beginning. Each side entered upon this unhappy course quite independently, and then tried to cast the blame on the other.” Legalistic hair-splitting quite aside, the fact remains that the British public had not the slighest doubt of American guilt and welcomed the Government's retention of the American posts as just retaliation.
54. “Revolution” appeared on Sep. 27, Oct. 1, 7, 14, and 27. Among her many antagonists, “Scourge,” Sep. 30, 1788, and “The People of Great Britain and Ireland,” Oct. 20, 1788, are particularly to be noted.
55. “Civis,” Morning Chronicle, April 22, 1785; “Whipcord,” ibid., Nov. 29, 1787.
56. “Sting,” ibid., Oct. 24, 1788.
57. Morning Chronicle, Dec. 8, 1787, July 22, Oct. 3, 1788; Public Advertiser, Dec. 2, 1789.
58. Morning Chronicle, Oct. 3, 1788.
59. The Resolution of the Committee of Merchants trading to North America, dated April 13, 1787 and signed by Edward Payne, the Chairman, is in BM, Add. MSS., 38221, f. 334.
60. Morning Chronicle, April 28, 1787.
61. Ibid., May 6, 1787, signed “Committee of Merchants trading to America,” a signature to which the author was not entitled, although it appears likely that he was a member of the group. “Plain Truth” replied on May 17, 1787; and the “Committee of Merchants” — this time, the genuine article — entered the fracas on May 28, 1787. “One Word More” appeared on June 6, 1787.
62. This is not to deny that several Loyalists rose to positions of power and influence. Among these were George Chalmers, First Clerk of the Board of Trade; William Smith, Dorchester's chief adviser in Canada; General Simcoe, Governor of Upper Canada; Phineas Bond and Sir John Temple, both consuls-general in the United States. The list could be extended. Suspicions and assertions of American statesmen and politicians to the contrary notwithstanding, there is no evidence that Loyalists ever influenced British policy toward the United States to any decisive degree. Loyalist influence behind the British political scene was largely a figment of the American imagination.
63. Public Advertiser, Dec. 2, 1789.
64. Ibid., “Weekly Review of Politics,” Dec. 12, 1791.
65. Ibid. When the news of the appointment of Charles Pinckney as American Minister was made public, press response was enthusiastic, much being made of his English education. See ibid., Aug. 10, 12, 1792.
66. Woodfall's Register, Aug. 17, 1792.