Notwithstanding this declaration, so positive and full we find the following extraordinary language in the Life of Jay, lately published.Speaking of the claims to the boundaries and fisheries, the author says;
"Dr. Franklin never questioned either the justice or the importance of these claims, but he did question the propriety of making the success of these claims an ultimatum of peace, when Congress had not made it so." And again; "Urged on the one hand by France, and fettered on the other by his instructions, Franklin would, in all human probability, but with feelings of deep mortification and regret, have set his hand to a treaty, sacrificing rights, which he had himself ably and zealously maintained, and which he knew to be of inestimable value to his country." — Life of John Jay, Vol. 1. pp. 153, 154.
These charges, equally unfounded and unsustained by proofs, may be regarded with the less surprise, when it is known that the author adopts all Mr. Jay's suspicions of the French court as historical facts, and appears to have acquired but a limited knowledge of the actual history of the negotiation.
