At that time the delegates from the southern, no
less than from the northern, States, in the Continental Congress, showed
much weakness in yielding to this attitude of France and Spain. On the
motion of those from Virginia all the delegates with the exception of
those from North Carolina voted to instruct Jay, then Minister to Spain,
to surrender outright the free navigation of the Mississippi. Later,
when he was one of the Commissioners to treat for peace, they
practically repeated the blunder by instructing Jay and his colleagues
to assent to whatever France proposed. With rare wisdom and courage Jay
repudiated these instructions. The chief credit for the resulting
diplomatic triumph, almost as essential as the victory at Yorktown
itself to our national well-being, belongs to him, and by his conduct he
laid the men of the West under an obligation which they never
acknowledged during his lifetime. [Footnote: It is not the least of Mann
Butler's good points that in his "History" he does full justice to Jay.
Another Kentuckian, Mr. Thomas Marshall Green, has recently done the
same in his "Spanish Conspiracy."]
Jay and Gardoqui.
Shortly after his return to America he was made Secretary of Foreign
Affairs, and was serving as such when, in the spring of 1785, Don Diego
Gardoqui arrived in Philadelphia, bearing a commission from his Catholic
Majesty to Congress.
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