A history of Canada, 1763-1812Lucas, Charles Prestwood, Sir
History
A history of Canada, 1763-1812
Lucas, Charles Prestwood, Sir
Canada -- History -- 1763-1867
The most critical time was in the year 1794. In America the forces
which make for war were strongly in evidence. On the other side of
the Atlantic--to the lasting credit of both the British and the
American Governments--representatives of the two countries were
working hard for peace. In the spring of 1794 Washington nominated
John Jay, Chief Justice of the United States, to be a special
envoy to Great Britain with a view to settling, if possible, the
outstanding points of dispute between the two nations. The Senate
confirmed the nomination, and in June Jay reached England and
entered into negotiations with Lord Grenville. The result was that
on the 19th of November following Jay and Grenville signed the
well-known treaty which is associated with the American statesman’s
name, and which provided for an immediate or prospective settlement
of many if not of most of the questions at issue. The treaty
was bitterly attacked in the United States by the Republican
party and those who sympathized with France. Jay, Hamilton, even
Washington himself were denounced and reviled; but the government
had sufficient backing in the country to procure the assent of
the Senate to the terms of the treaty, with the exception of
one article, in the session of 1795; Washington ratified it in
August, 1795; and in the following year the measures for carrying
it into effect were voted by a small majority in the House of
Representatives. Under its provisions, in that same year, 1796, the
border forts were handed over to the United States.
[Sidenote: Wayne defeats the Indians.]
Meanwhile the war between the Americans and Indians ran the normal
course of such wars. The white men suffered some reverses; but,
with a strong body of regular troops supplemented by Kentucky
militia, and with the help of fortified posts constructed along
the line of advance, Wayne by August, 1794, had worn down the
Indians and menaced the British fort on the Maumee river, to whose
commandant, Major Campbell, he addressed threatening letters.
On either side, however, the orders were to abstain from blows,
while Jay and Grenville were negotiating, and the conclusion of
the treaty ensured the abandonment by the British troops of this
outpost of Detroit as well as of Detroit itself. Next year, on the
3rd of August, 1795, Wayne concluded the Treaty of Greenville with
the Western Indians. Under its terms the Americans advanced their
boundary beyond the Ohio, but still left to the Indians on the
south of Lake Erie and in the peninsula of Michigan lands of which
the treaty definitely recognized them to be owners, and where they
were to dwell under the protection of the United States.
[Sidenote: Dorchester and Simcoe leave Canada.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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