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

If the British government suffered internal problems, the Confederation
was in no enviable condition either. The reluctance of the different states to
share in the financial burdens of Congress as well as give up some of their
sovereignty to the national government was a serious handicap too. Such
conditions gave an impression of total anarchy and made the British predict
that it would not be long before the rebellious Congress crumbled and a social
upheaval or “revolution might soon happen” and reverse the situation “in their
favor.” 76 Looking back on the situation in 1783, the American historian Charles
Francis Adams, grandson of John Adams and editor of The Works of John
Adams (1865), wrote summarizing the approach of Lord Sheffield, a Tory
member of the British government and one of the most fervent opponents of a
commercial agreement:
Lord Sheffield gave expression to the remonstrance of the navigating
interest, the ruin and confusion in which the colonists were involved by
the state of anarchy consequent upon then independence. And then he
ventured to whisper the prediction that, out of this chaos, New England,
at least, would, in the end, solicit to come back as a repentant child to
the maternal embrace. 77
Whatever the fragilities of both governments, one may find in Lord
Sheffield’s pamphlet Observations on the Commerce of the American States
(1783), which was originally published as an argument against a commercial
treaty, another plausible explanation for failure. 78
In that widely circulated
76 DCAR, 6:688, Adams, Franklin, and Jay to the President of Congress, September 10, 1783.
77 WJA, 1:422.
78 John Baker Holroyd, Lord of Sheffield (1735-1821) was President of the Board of Agriculture, a
Lord of Trade and one of the Privy Council members. He was best known for his writings on political
economy. His work was published while negotiations between the United States and Great Britain were
going on. Extremely influential and very popular, his booklet went through 6 editions between 1783
and 1786. Schuyler, American Diplomacy, p. 227.
228