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Maclay, or for any other, expressed in any manner whatever, provided it embraces the object I have in view, to wit, the suspension of the final vote a postponement of the laws necessary to carry the treaty into effect, until satisfactory assurances are obtained that Great Britain means, in future, to show us that friendly disposition which it is my earnest wish may at all times be cultivated by America towards all other nations.
In January, 1791, Maclay noted that a committee had decided that the Mediterranean trade could not be preserved without an armed force to protect it, and that a navy should be established as soon as the Treasury was in a position to bear the expense. Meanwhile the President began fresh negotiations, which were attended by singular fatality.
I have a cook who never asks whether the company has come, but whether the hour has come. The company usually assembled in the drawing-room, about fifteen or twenty minutes before dinner, and the president spoke to every guest personally on entering the room." Maclay attended several of the dinners, and has left descriptions of them. "Dined this day with the President," he writes.
Maclay, who went over to the House from the Senate to witness the event, gloated over the defeat in his diary: "Sedgwick, from Boston, pronounced a funeral oration over it. He was called to order; some confusion ensued; he took his hat and went out. When he returned, his visage bore the visible marks of weeping. Fitzsimmons reddened like scarlet; his eyes were brimful.
In company with General Knox he went to the Senate chamber, prepared to explain his negotiations with the Indian chiefs, but he forthwith experienced the truth of the proverb that although you may lead a horse to water you cannot make him drink. In his diary for August 22, 1789, Maclay gave a characteristic account of the scene. Washington presided, taking the Vice-President's chair.
The debate did not follow sectional lines, and in general it was not unfairly described by Maclay as a lawyer's wrangle. The bill was put into shape by the Senate, and reached the House toward the close of the session when the struggle over the site of the national capital was overshadowing everything else.
Anyone might have found him, as Senator Maclay did, sitting "in a lounging manner, on one hip commonly, and with one of his shoulders elevated much above the other," a loose, shackling figure with no pretense at dignity.
On April 30 he took the oath of office in Federal Hall on Wall Street, New York, and Maclay records for the benefit of posterity that "he was dressed in deep brown, with metal buttons with an eagle on them, white stockings, a bag, and sword." As the presidency was an entirely new office, there was much difficulty and some squabbling over the details of his place.
As early as April 26, 1789, before Washington had been installed in his office, Maclay mentions a meeting "to concert some measures for the removal of Congress." Thereafter notices of pending deals appear frequently in his diary. After the defeat of the assumption bill, the diary notes the activity of Hamilton in this matter.
Maclay arrived at Amoy on their way to Foochow. They had a long passage from Hongkong, having been out twenty-nine days." The distance from Hongkong to Amoy is less than three hundred miles, and is made in twenty-four hours by an ordinary coast steamer. "June 5th. Monday. Several dragon boats filled with rowers, rather paddlers, were contesting this afternoon in the harbor.
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