Quite naturally he assumed the part of a man on the verge of the grave, which increased the impressiveness of his words.  He spoke for three hours.  The members of the House listened with feverish attention; the crowds in the balconies could not smother their emotion.  One witness reports that Vice-President John Adams sat in the gallery, the tears running down his cheeks, and that he said to the friend beside him, “My God, how great he is!”

When Ames began, no doubt the Anti-British groups which swelled the audience turned towards him an unsympathetic if not a scornful attention—­they had already taken a poll of their members, from which it appeared that they could count on a majority of six to defeat the Treaty.  As he proceeded, however, and they observed how deeply he was moving the audience, they may have had to keep up their courage by reflecting that speeches in Congress rarely change votes.  They are intended to be read by the public outside, which is not under the spell of the orator or the crowd.  But when Fisher Ames, after what must have seemed to them a whirlwind speech, closed with these solemn, restrained words, they must have doubted whether their victory was won: 

Even the minutes I have spent in expostulating, have their value [he said] because they protract the crisis and the short period in which alone we may resolve to escape it.  Yet I have, perhaps, as little personal interest in the event as any one here.  There is, I believe, no member, who will not think his chance to be a witness of the consequences greater than mine.  If, however, the vote should pass to reject—­even I, slender and almost broken as my hold on life is, may outlive the government and Constitution of my country.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Elson, 359.]

The next day when the vote was taken it appeared that the Republicans, instead of winning by a majority of six, had lost by three.

The person who really triumphed was George Washington, although Fisher Ames, who won the immediate victory, deserved undying laurel.  The Treaty had all the objections that its critics brought against it then, but it had one sterling virtue which outweighed them all.  It not only made peace between the United States and Great Britain the normal condition, but it removed the likelihood that the wrangling over petty matters might lead to war.  For many years Washington had a fixed idea that if the new country could live for twenty years without a conflict with its chief neighbors, its future would be safe; for he felt that at the end of that time it would have grown so strong by the natural increase in population and by the strength that comes from developing its resources, that it need not fear the attack of any people in the world.  The Jay Treaty helped towards this end; it prevented war for sixteen years only; but even that delay was of great service to the Americans and made them more ready to face it than they would have been in 1795.