ize. Negotiations
dragged on for months. Reporting to Congress in August, 1786, Jay
advised the abandonment of the claim of free navigation of the
Mississippi for the sake of securing an advantageous commercial treaty
with Spain. The delegates from Northern States were ready to barter away
the Southwest; but the Southern delegates succeeded in postponing action
until the impotent Confederation gave way to a more perfect union.

At the Court of St. James, John Adams was having no better luck in
pressing the rights of the moribund Confederation. Notwithstanding the
explicit terms of the Treaty of 1783, British garrisons still held
strategic posts along the Great Lakes, exercising a strong influence
upon the Indians and guarding the interests of British fur traders. Such
a situation would have been intolerable to a self-respecting nation.
Smothering his pride, Adams mustered all the diplomacy which his nature
permitted and sought an explanation of this extraordinary conduct from
the ministers. He was finally told that he need not expect Great Britain
to relinquish the Western posts so long as the States continued to put
obstacles in the way of the collection of British debts.

A general reluctance to meet financial obligations was a deplorable
aspect of the depression to which American society had succumbed. In all
the States there was a more or less numerous class of debtors who were
convinced that the Government could help them out of all their
distresses. As the cause of all their woes was the scarcity of money,
why, let the Government manufacture money and so put an end to the
stringency. What Madison called "the general rage for paper money"
seized upon Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, and
Georgia. Coupled with paper-money acts were others designed to alleviate
the distress of the unfortunate. Stay laws of one sort or another were
devised to keep the wolf, in the guise of the sheriff, from the door.
Legal-tender acts made cattle and produce equivalent to money when
offered in payment of debts. Nor was this legislation inspired
altogether by dishonest intent. Many believed with Luther Martin, of
Maryland, that there were times of great public distress and extreme
scarcity of specie when it was the duty of the Government to pass stay
laws and legal-tender acts, "to prevent the wealthy creditor and the
moneyed man from totally destroying the poor, though even industrious,
debtor."

No State suffe