ot secure to the United States a direct trade in their own
vessels, of certain defined burdens, with the British West India
islands, in whatever articles were at present allowed to be carried in
British bottoms.

Mr. Jay was fully impressed with the importance of his mission and the
necessity of prompt action. He arrived at Falmouth on the evening of the
eighth of June, and the same night he forwarded a letter to Lord
Grenville, the secretary for foreign affairs, announcing his arrival. He
reached London a few days afterward, took lodgings at the Royal Hotel,
Pall Mall, and on the fifteenth addressed the following note to Lord
Grenville:--

"MY LORD: You have doubtless received a letter which I had the
honor of writing to you from Falmouth. I arrived here this morning.
The journey has given me some health and much pleasure, nothing
having occurred on the road to induce me to make it shorter.

"Colonel Trumbull does me the favor to accompany me as secretary;
and I have brought with me a son, whom I am anxious should form a
right estimate of whatever may be interesting to our country. Will
you be so obliging, my lord, as to permit me to present them to
you, and to inform me of the time when it will be most agreeable to
your lordship that I should wait upon you, and assure you of the
respect with which I have the honor to be, &c."

Mr. Jay's appearance in London was at a time when all Europe was in a
state of the most feverish excitement. Robespierre and his bloody
companions were revelling in all the wantonness of irresponsible power.
The Reign of Terror was at its height, and the resentment against France
by all true friends of freedom in Europe, and especially the British
nation, was hot and uncompromising. England, supported by Russia,
Austria, and Spain, was waging war against the revolutionists; and at
the moment of Jay's arrival, the nation was madly rejoicing because of a
splendid victory obtained by Lord Howe over the French fleet. The fact
that a large party in the United States warmly sympathized with France,
the late proceedings of Congress manifesting a disposition hostile to
Great Britain, and the remaining soreness of wounded pride experienced
by England in the loss of her colonies, combined with the stirring
events then occurring in Europe, made the moment apparently
inauspicious for a mission like that of Mr. Jay. It required, on the
part of the mi