Further concessions cannot be attained: the Jay-Grenville Treaty and the politics of Anglo-American relations, 1789-1807

Abstract

The Jay-Grenville Treaty, signed between Great Britain and the United States in 1795, resolved numerous outstanding diplomatic disputes and diffused a potential second Anglo-American war. It provided ten years of peace, and through new commercial opportunities materially aided a decade of remarkable American economic growth. Yet the treaty caused considerable political controversy in the United States. The compromise it involved on liberal principles of maritime law proved politically unpopular with instinctively Anglophobic Jeffersonian Republicans. Bitter memory of defeat in the treaty ratification later led President Thomas Jefferson to reject a second Anglo-American treaty in 1806, after the first had expired. Though not solely responsible, this decision led directly to the War of 1812. Chapter one employs British records to show how far the Jay-Grenville Treaty improved the fortunes of American merchants in admiralty court proceedings. Chapter two uses personal papers of American merchants to examine their collective view of the treaty. Chapter three analyzes the importance of the treaty to Alexander Hamilton's theory of political economy, focusing particularly on finance and social mobility. Chapter four shows the very different theory of political held by Thomas Jefferson, explaining why the treaty proved so controversial despite its successful operation. Chapter five uses newspapers to describe popular engagement with the political issues outlined in chapters three and four, emphasizing the treaty's role in the emergence of American democracy.