England, compelled to make a treaty to
close the war, refused to do more. Sweden, Prussia, and Morocco were
of insufficient maritime importance to make the treaties with them a
cause for rejoicing.
Admission to full membership and to an equal share in trade did not
follow necessarily from these first greetings. They could be gained
only by proof of fitness and even compulsion. The applicant must make
a place for himself. Sentiment plays no part in the rivalry of nations.
Self-preservation is the prime law.
John Adams, conscious of his prominent part in the rebellion, militant
in his ideas of republicanism, elbowed his way into the Court of St.
James as the first representative of the former British possessions.
He was distressed, as he wrote to Livingston, Secretary of Foreign
Affairs, at being obliged to consume the labour of his fellow-citizens
upon the foolish ostentation of a Court presentation. Anxious concerning
the reception which he would meet from representatives of other nations,
he was relieved to find that custom required them to call first upon
a new-comer. "We shall now see," he wrote, "who will and who will not.
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