eroes whose exploits were by and by to
astonish the world. To deprive the Americans of their share in these
fisheries was to strike a serious blow at the strength and resources of
the new nation. The British government was not inclined to grant the
privilege, and on this point Vergennes took sides with England, in order
to establish a claim upon her for concessions advantageous to France in
some other quarter. With these views, Vergennes secretly aimed at
delaying the negotiations; for as long as hostilities were kept up, he
might hope to extort from his American allies a recognition of the
Spanish claims and a renouncement of the fisheries, simply by
threatening to send them no further assistance in men or money. In order
to retard the proceedings, he refused to take any steps whatever until
the independence of the United States should first be irrevocably
acknowledged by Great Britain, without reference to the final settlement
of the rest of the treaty. In this Vergennes was supported by Franklin,
as well as by Jay, who had lately arrived in Paris to take part in the
negotiations. But the reasons of the American commissioners were very
different from those of Vergennes. They feared that, if they began to
treat before independence was acknowledged, they would be unfairly dealt
with by France and Spain, and unable to gain from England the
concessions upon which they were determined.

[Sidenote: Jay detects the schemes of Vergennes.]

Jay soon began to suspect the designs of the French minister. He found
that he was sending M. de Rayneval as a secret emissary to Lord
Shelburne under an assumed name; he ascertained that the right of the
United States to the Mississippi valley was to be denied; and he got
hold of a dispatch from Marbois, the French secretary of legation at
Philadelphia, to Vergennes, opposing the American claim to the
Newfoundland fisheries. As soon as Jay learned these facts, he sent his
friend Dr. Benjamin Vaughan to Lord Shelburne to put him on his guard,
and while reminding him that it was greatly for the interest of England
to dissolve the alliance between America and France, he declared himself
ready to begin the negotiations without waiting for the recognition of
independence, provided that Oswald's commission should speak of the
thirteen United States of America, instead of calling them colonies and
naming them separately. This decisive step was taken by Jay on his own
responsibility, and without