understanding should be put into writing, it was not to be regarded as
official or binding, but simply as an exchange of private memoranda. So
strictly was this informal method adhered to that the regular force of
secretaries and copyists had nothing to do with the proceedings until the
treaty was almost ready for signing. Jay had been instructed to demand
compensation for some three thousand slaves who had followed the British
troops when they departed, but Lord Grenville stood firm on the principle
that the slave, once under the British flag, became a free man, the
property rights of the former owner thereupon becoming extinct and not
forming a subject for compensation. Jay, who really held the same opinion,
had to yield the point. It was agreed that the western posts should be
evacuated by June 1, 1796, an arrangement which would allow the British
government to retain them about two years longer. That government had
already justified its retention of these posts by averring that the United
States had not complied with the articles of the peace treaty relating to
British debts. Jay was not in a position to argue the point with any
force, for when he was Secretary of Foreign Affairs he had advised
Congress that these articles "have been constantly violated on our part by
legislative acts, then and still existing and operating"; and that Great
Britain was therefore not to blame for retaining the posts. The British
government was undoubtedly cognizant of this report, and Jay could not
make any effective opposition to a proviso which in effect said to the
United States, "before surrendering the posts we will wait and see whether
you intend to fulfill your agreements." The root of the trouble--an evil
often felt and still experienced in the United States--was defective
sovereignty, an inability of the whole to control the behavior of its
parts. Jay could not deny that the peace treaty had been violated by state
legislation, and only by the humiliating means of an avowal of its
impotence could he exonerate the national government from the imputation
of bad faith. The matter was disposed of by provision for a joint