It may seem singular that the American minister should have consented to prohibit the exportation of cotton, one of the articles enumerated in the clause relating to the West Indian trade. The explanation is curious. In the original draft of the treaty, the United States minister stipulated to prohibit during the continuance of the article in force, all “West Indian productions and manufactures.” The expression was, on reflection, deemed to be too general, and it was agreed to specify the prohibited articles, and accordingly “cotton” was inserted as a West Indian production; the cotton then used in the United States being almost wholly brought from the West Indies.[313] A few months prior to Mr. Jay’s departure for England, Mr. Jefferson, the Secretary of State, in a report to Congress on the commerce of the United States, enumerated the exports of the country, but made no mention of cotton. It was not, in fact, then known as a production of the United States, although it now requires for its transport a greater amount of shipping than almost any other article in the whole range of commerce. [Sidenote: Indignation in France at the treaty.] The treaty so satisfactorily concluded between Great Britain and the United States, having been undoubtedly a successful effort of diplomacy in bringing together two nations which had been torn asunder by revolution, was viewed in France with the most profound alarm and indignation. The resentment of the French scarcely knew any bounds. They were full of the idea that the Americans owed their national independence to the aid rendered by them to the revolted colonies, a support which, as already explained, was furnished with a view less to promote the cause of freedom in the United States than to aim a blow at the maritime power of England. [Sidenote: The French protest against its principles.] So loud and clamorous were the complaints against the treaty, that if the voice of the French had been listened to, an open rupture must then have ensued. They publicly declared that it violated in a positive and hostile manner the treaty they had concluded “in favour of the Americans in the year 1778, by which the United States agreed to guarantee the possessions of France in the West Indies; whereas, by this treaty, the very furnishing of provisions to the French islands was pronounced illegal.”[314] They alleged that it “deprived France of all the advantages stipulated in a former treaty;” and they charged the Americans with “the abandonment of their neutral rights, to the injury of France,” in not maintaining the pretended principle of the modern law of nations, that free ships make free goods, and that timber and naval stores for the equipment and armament of vessels are not contraband of war. [Sidenote: Interest of England to have private property free from capture at sea.]