18 
Indiana University Studies 
cotton could be exported from the United States in Amer- 
ican ships.^° 
That Jay believed the article regarding the West India 
trade to be favorable to the United States is evident from 
the fact that he considered the “privilege” of trading to those 
islands as providing for the American claim to compensation 
for the British detention of the ports in the Northwest, a 
claim which he had at first strenuously urged.^^ Nor was he 
deceived as to the meaning of the proviso. On the contrary, 
he clearly realized that the article did prohibit the re-exporta- 
tion from the United States, in American vessels, of the West 
India commodities enumerated in the treaty, even tho brought 
from French islands. And yet he believed that it was mani- 
festly to the interest of the United States to accept it, because 
of the probability of its being introductory to more favorable 
arrangements, “as the public mind in Britain shall gradually 
become more reconciled to this, and the other unprecedented 
departures from their favorite navigation act”.^^ 
In fact Jay seems to have been ignorant that these re- 
strictions would hamper American commerce. He seems to 
have been unaware that cotton had already been introduced 
into the United States and had become an article of export.^^ 
This is not strange, perhaps, since only a few years before 
scarcely enough was raised in the United States for dom.estic 
consumption.^^ By 1795, however, it had become an article 
of export, tho when the treaty was made, the amount could 
not be ascertained, for till 1802 no discrimination was made 
between cotton of domestic and of foreign growth. This pro- 
viso, nevertheless, would certainly have stopped the export 
of cotton which amounted, at the time the twelfth article 
would have expired by its own limitation, to about 45,000,000 
pounds annually.^® 
Altho Jay may have failed to realize the probable effect 
of the proviso, many others in America did not.^® When the 
treaty was submitted to the Senate in June, 1795, that body 
promptly and vigorously disapproved of Article XII. It ad- 
Am. State Papers, For. Pel., I, 522. 
I, 494. 
‘‘2 7Hd, I, 520. 
‘‘s Pellew, John Jay, 309. 
Marshall, Life of Washington, 361. 
Lyman, Diplomacy of the U.S., 219, 220. 
Gibbs, Administrations of Washington and Adams, I, 201, 213, 214. Works of 
Alex. Hamilton, IV, 345, 346, 
