Ottoman Algeria in Western Diplomatic History with ... - Bibliothèque

the part of that state or its subjects. 68 That attempt also ended in failure. Adams
reported to Congress that “We cannot as yet obtain from Mr. Hartley [British
negotiator], or his principals, an explicit consent to any one proposition
whatever.” 69 Two days later, he was also writing: “The liberal sentiments in
England respecting trade are all lost for the present, and we can get no answer
to anything.” 70 The Commissioners tried repeatedly to insert in the final treaty
a protective clause for their Mediterranean trade but Britain turned a deaf ear to
their demands. Adams reported again desperately one week later, but that time
enclosing a document that, once read, one understands why Britain refused to
conclude a commercial agreement with the United States:
I think it is evident that the coalition [government], do not intend to
make any agreement with us about trade, but to try experiments by their
proclamations. I think, too, that they mean to postpone the definitive
treaty as long as possible. We can get no answer, and I believe Mr.
Hartley gets no decisive answers to any thing. Enclosed, also, is a
pamphlet entitled “Observations on the American States,” said to have
been published by Lord Sheffield, and to have been composed by four
American renegadoes. The spirit of it needs no comments. 71
Less than one month later, the Commissioners signed the provisional treaty
with Great Britain as a definitive one with no securities for commercial
cooperation or protective clause for Mediterranean trade attached to it. 72
To judge by the mass of distressed correspondence between the
American negotiators in Europe and the Department of Foreign Affairs, the
68 USRDC, 6:471, Propositions made by the Commissioners to David Hartley for the Definitive Treaty,
June 1, 1783.
69 Ibid., 6:517, J. Adams to Livingston, July 7, 1783.
70 Ibid., 6:529, From the same to the same, July 9, 1783.
71 Ibid., 6:545, From the same to the same, July 15, 1783.
72 Ibid., 6:645, From the same to the same, August 13, 1783.
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