eat Britain to remove them. This determination was executed by the
nomination of an envoy extraordinary to his Britannic majesty, which
was announced to the senate on the 16th of April in the following
terms:

"The communications which I have made to you during your present
session, from the despatches of our minister in London, contain a
serious aspect of our affairs with Great Britain. But as peace ought
to be pursued with unremitted zeal, before the last resource which has
so often been the scourge of nations, and can not fail to check the
advanced prosperity of the United States, is contemplated, I have
thought proper to nominate, and do hereby nominate John Jay, as envoy
extraordinary of the United States, to his Britannic majesty.

[Sidenote: Mr. Jay appointed envoy extraordinary to Great Britain.]

"My confidence in our minister plenipotentiary in London continues
undiminished. But a mission like this, while it corresponds with the
solemnity of the occasion, will announce to the world a solicitude for
the friendly adjustment of our complaints, and a reluctance to
hostility. Going immediately from the United States, such an envoy
will carry with him a full knowledge of the existing temper and
sensibility of our country; and will thus be taught to vindicate our
rights with firmness, and to cultivate peace with sincerity."

To those who believed the interests of the nation to require a rupture
with England, and a still closer connexion with France, nothing could
be more unlooked for, or more unwelcome, than this decisive measure.
That it would influence the proceedings of congress could not be
doubted; and it would materially affect the public mind was probable.
Evincing the opinion of the executive that negotiation, not
legislative hostility, was still the proper medium for accommodating
differences with Great Britain, it threw on the legislature a great
responsibility, if they should persist in a system calculated to
defeat that negotiation. By showing to the people that their President
did not yet believe war to be necessary, it turned the attention of
many to peace; and, by suggesting the probability, rekindled the
almost extinguished desire, of preserving that blessing.

Scarcely has any public act of the President drawn upon his
administration a greater degree of censure than this. That such would
be its effect, could not be doubted by a person who had observed the
ardour with which opinions that it thwar