Jay’s Treaty is signed

On this day in history, November 19, 1794, Jay’s Treaty is signed to bring to an end several years of conflict between Great Britain and the United States after the end of the American Revolution. Once America’s independence had been achieved with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, several areas of contention with Britain began to arise. Things got worse and worse, until it looked like war might break out again.

Britain was in a war with France and wanted to keep the Americans on its side. Britain was capturing American merchant vessels sailing into French waters and impressing American sailors into service in the British navy. Americans wanted to be reimbursed for their confiscated ships. Trade between the two countries was vital for America’s continued growth and for Britain’s ability to sustain itself as a leading global power.

Britain still had several operating forts on the frontier in the Ohio River valley, territory it had ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. Indian tribes in the area who were hostile to the US were receiving help from British Canada. Conflict also continued along the northeast border with Canada because of unclear boundaries between the two nations. In addition, slaveholders in the South wanted reparations from Britain for slaves who had fled with the British when they left America and British Loyalists who had left America at the end of the war wanted remunerations for their confiscated property.

George Washington sent John Jay to London to try to negotiate a peace and resolve these issues to prevent a further war. John Jay was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and, along with John Adams and Ben Franklin, was one of the chief negotiators of the Treaty of Paris. Jay was able to negotiate a treaty with England, but the terms were not all that favorable to the Americans and many in the United States vehemently opposed the treaty’s signing. President Washington approved the treaty and it was eventually ratified by the required 2/3s of the Senate.

In Jay’s Treaty, the British agreed to abandon the forts in the Ohio River Valley by June 1796. They opened up limited trade to the Americans in the West Indies and in India. They agreed to establishing commissions to deal with boundary issues with Canada, reparations for captured merchant vessels and remuneration for Loyalist losses. Jay’s Treaty failed to deal with remunerations for slave losses and with British impressment of American sailors.

Many Americans, including the Republican faction led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, opposed Jay’s Treaty. They felt it gave the "monarchists" in Britain to much favor. Jefferson’s party favored France instead, which was having its own revolution at the time. Opposition to Jay’s Treaty was so strong that John Jay was burned in effigy in towns across the country. In the end, George Washington supported the Treaty, even though he didn’t agree with everything in it, because he thought it would help avert another war. Indeed it did, and war was averted with Great Britain for another decade, when the War of 1812 began and some of the remaining conflicts between the United States and Great Britain were dealt with once and for all.

http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com  

Jack Manning

President General

2019 – 2021

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org

“Our Constitution is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.”
Patrick Henry

General Philip Schuyler dies

On this day in history, November 18, 1804, General Philip Schuyler dies. Philip Schuyler was a wealthy planter from Albany, New York who owned tens of thousands of acres of land and his own lumber, flour and flax mills, including the first flax mill in America for making linen.

Schuyler served in the French and Indian War as a young man after raising his own militia company and was given the commission of Captain. He became a quartermaster during the war, meaning he was in charge of procuring and managing equipment and supplies.

When the American Revolution broke out, Philip Schuyler was elected as a delegate to the Continental Congress from New York, a position he served in only for a few months when he was appointed a Major General in the Continental Army and was placed in charge of the Northern Department. General Schuyler planned the invasion of Canada, but had to place General Richard Montgomery in charge of the operations due to ill health. Montgomery was killed at the Battle of Quebec.

The American invasion of Canada failed and the British launched an attack against New York from Canada in 1777. General Schuyler played a major role in planning the patriots’ defense. In July of that year, Fort Ticonderoga fell to a small detachment of British soldiers and General Schuyler was replaced by General Horatio Gates for dereliction of duty. The British were eventually defeated in New York at the Battle of Saratoga under General Gates and Benedict Arnold, but Schuyler’s country home at Saratoga was destroyed in the process. It was later rebuilt and is part of the Saratoga National Historical Park today.

Schuyler demanded a court martial to investigate the charges of dereliction of duty against him and the court martial exonerated him, but he resigned from the army on April 19, 1779. After this Schuyler served two more terms in the Continental Congress.

Over the next decade, General Schuyler served in the New York State Senate from 1780 to 1784 and from 1786 to 1790. In 1789, he became a senator to the First United States Congress from New York. He lost re-election and returned to the State Senate from 1792 to 1797. He was elected a US Senator again in 1797, but resigned in 1798 due to ill health. General Schuyler and his wife, Catherine, had fifteen children. One of whom, Elizabeth, married Alexander Hamilton, future Secretary of the Treasury under George Washington.

http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com  

Jack Manning

President General

2019 – 2021

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org

“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”
Patrick Henry

Henry Knox begins the Knox Expedition

On this day in history, November 17, 1775, Henry Knox begins the "Knox Expedition," leaving Boston for Fort Ticonderoga at the direction of George Washington to bring 60 tons of captured British artillery across the frozen mountains of New England and back to Boston to help drive the British out of the city. The trip became known as the Knox Expedition and makes the history books because of Knox’s daring feat, bringing the cannons across a large lake, on snowsleds and across frozen rivers.

Henry Knox was a 25 year old bookseller from Boston with an interest in military history. When George Washington took control of the Continental Army at Boston, he and Knox became friends. Benedict Arnold, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont had captured Fort Ticonderoga in New York in May, along with its huge supply of cannons and other materials.

Washington sent Knox to retrieve the cannons, a journey that was supposed to last two weeks. Knox reached Ticonderoga on December 5. He chose 60 tons of cannons, mortars and howitzers, including several 24 pound cannons known as "Big Berthas," which were 11 feet long and weighed 5,000 pounds.

The cannons were carried to the northern end of Lake George and put on a ship. The ship grounded once on a rock and began to sink at another point because of the weight. It was almost a disaster, but the water was bailed out and the cannons arrived safely at the southern tip of the lake. It was already winter and Knox built 42 sleds to pull the cannons across the wilderness with 80 yoke of oxen. Two frozen rivers had to be crossed and several cannons broke through the ice, but were retrieved each time.

Snow and ice, including two feet of snow that fell on Christmas Day, impeded Knox’s progress, but he continued to press on. John Adams wrote that he saw the "noble train of artillery," as the equipment came to be called, pass through Framingham, Massachusetts on January 25. The weapons arrived at Cambridge, just outside Boston, on January 27, nearly two months after leaving Ticonderoga. General Washington placed the cannons around Boston, including at the high point of Dorchester Heights, overlooking both the city and the harbor. The advantage forced General William Howe to abandon the city and the British never did return to northern New England.

Coincidentally, Henry Knox received a Colonel’s commission from the Continental Congress, and was appointed Chief of the Continental Artillery, also on November 17, 1775, the same day he left to begin the expedition. One year later, after the Battle of Trenton, in which his artillery played an important role, Colonel Knox was promoted to Brigadier General. He became one of George Washington’s most trusted advisers. He was promoted to Major General in 1782 and later served as President Washington’s Secretary of War.

http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com  

Jack Manning

President General

2019 – 2021

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org

“Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual… Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us.”
John Hancock