Washington decided that it would be wise to send a special envoy to deal with all the points at issue.  He thought first of Hamilton, but was warned that the Senate would not ratify such an appointment.  Hamilton recommended John Jay as “the only man in whose qualifications for success there would be thorough confidence.”  Jay was then chief-justice, but the crisis was so dangerous as to justify Washington in calling him even from that important post.  He had matchless qualifications for the mission.  He had been minister to Spain, 1778-1782; he had been one of the commissioners who had negotiated the treaty of peace of 1783; he had been Secretary of Foreign Affairs, 1784-1789; so that he had had an experience which familiarized him with every detail of the questions at issue.  As a negotiator he had always gained marked success by acting upon his own principle that “a little good-natured wisdom often does more in politics than much slippery craft.”  Jay showed fine patriotism in accepting the appointment.  He remarked to his friends that no man could frame a treaty with Great Britain without making himself unpopular and odious and he accepted the mission under “a conviction that to refuse it would be to desert my duty for the sake of my ease and domestic concerns and comforts.”

Jay was nominated as envoy extraordinary on April 16, 1794, and, after three days of violent debate, the appointment was confirmed by the Senate.  The event did not moderate the rage of the House for immediate action.  Some members urged that it was indelicate for the House to be passing reprisals at a time when the Executive was attempting friendly negotiations; but the reply was made that, if there was any indelicacy, it was on the part of the Executive, inasmuch as the House proceedings had been already begun when the President decided to nominate an envoy extraordinary.  While Congress was fuming and wrangling, Jay was proceeding with his difficult task.  He sailed on May 12, and on June 8 landed in England where he was hospitably received.  Despite these personal attentions, the differences to be adjusted were so numerous and complicated that on the surface the situation looked almost hopeless.  Conditions, however, were really more favorable than they appeared to be.  A change, latent but influential, had taken place in the mental attitude of the governing class in England.  There had been a notion that American independence would not last long and that the country would eventually be restored to the British Crown.  The drift of events was rather in that direction until Hamilton’s measures gave the ascendancy to the forces making for American national development.  The practical statesmanship of Great Britain perhaps saw more clearly the significance of what was taking place than did that of America itself, and it was prepared to reckon with this new condition.  Moreover, the European commotion resulting from the French Revolution had brought to the front a new set of interests and anxieties, for the free handling of which a settlement of differences with the United States might be advantageous.  The effect of such considerations was at least to render the situation more manageable than might have been expected, and Jay improved his opportunities with admirable tact.