at the pleasure of one of the belligerents.  It was a stupid thing to do, for if England desired to have peace with us, as her making the treaty indicated, she should not have renewed the most irritating of all her past performances before we had had opportunity even to sign and ratify.  Washington, on hearing of this move, withheld his signature, bade Randolph prepare a strong memorial against the provision order, and then betook himself to Mount Vernon on some urgent private business.

Before he started, however, the storm of popular rage had begun to break.  Bache had the substance of the treaty in the “Aurora” on June 29, and Mr. Stevens Thomson Mason, senator from Virginia, was so pained by some slight inaccuracies in this version that he wrote Mr. Bache a note, and sent him a copy of the treaty despite the injunction of secrecy by which he as a senator was bound.  Mr. Mason gained great present glory by this frank breach of promise, and curiously enough this single discreditable act is the only thing that keeps his name and memory alive in history.  All that he achieved at the moment was to hurry the inevitable disclosure of the contents of a treaty which no one desired to conceal, except in deference to official form.  Mason’s note and copy of the treaty, made up into a pamphlet, were issued from Bache’s press on July 2, and hundreds of copies were soon being carried by eager riders north and south throughout the Union.

Everywhere, as the treaty traveled, the popular wrath was kindled.  The first explosion came in Boston, Federalist Boston, devoted beyond any other town in the country to Washington and his administration.  There was a town meeting in Faneuil Hall, violent speeches were made, and a committee was appointed to draw up a memorial to the President against ratification.  This remonstrance was despatched at once by special messenger, who seemed to carry the torch of Malise instead of a set of dry resolutions.  Everywhere the anger and indignation flamed forth.  The ground had been carefully prepared, for, ever since Jay sailed, the partisans of the French had been denouncing him and his mission, predicting failure, and, in one case at least, burning him in effigy before it was known whether he had done anything at all.  As soon as the news spread that the treaty had actually arrived, the attacks were multiplied in number and grew ever more bitter as the Senate consulted.  The popular mind was so worked up that in Boston a British vessel had been burned on suspicion that she was a privateer, while in New York there had been street fights and rioting because of an insult to a French flag.  In such a state of feeling, artificially stimulated and ingeniously misled, the most brilliant diplomatic triumph would have had but slight chance of approval.  Jay’s moderate achievement was better than his enemies expected, but it was sufficient for their purpose, and the popular fury blazed up and ran through the country, like a whirlwind of fire over the parched