CHAPTER States on the footing of the most favored nation. If, in XI. the execution of this "provisional clause of the treaty," 1798. some inconvenience had resulted to the United States, the Directory could not be responsible for that. As to any abuses attendant upon the execution of the late decrees, those Talleyrand was ready to discuss "in the most friendly manner." The extraordinary doctrine suggested by Adet, and now formally set forth by Talleyrand, was simply this: If other nations were not willing to make with the United States certain stipulations as to maritime rights, out of the common course, such as France and the United States had mutually made, France, under the above-cited provision, was entitled to a release from her special stipulations. Nay, further; if any other nation wrongfully depredated on American commerce, France was at liberty, under the treaty, to depredate equally!

But, according to Talleyrand, the grievances of France did not end with the negotiation of Jay's treaty. The Federal courts had since expressly decided that French cruisers should no longer be permitted to sell their prizes, as they had done, in American ports. Nor was this all. "The newspapers known to be under the indirect control of the cabinet have, since the treaty, redoubled their invectives and calumnies against the republic, her principles, her magistrates, and her envoys. Pamphlets openly paid for by the British minister have reproduced, in every form, those insults and calumnies ;" an allusion, no doubt, to some of Cobbett's pamphlets, particularly the "Bloody Buoy," setting forth the horrors of the French Revolution" nor has a state of things so scandalous ever attracted the attention of the government, which might have repressed it. On the contrary, the government itself has been intent upon encouraging this scan

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XI.

dal in its public acts. The Executive Directory has seen CHAPTER itself denounced, in a speech delivered by the president, as endeavoring to propagate anarchy and division within 1798. the United States. The new allies which the republic has acquired, and which are the same that contributed to the independence of America, have been equally insulted in the official correspondences which have been made public. In fine, one can not help discovering, in the tone of the speech, and of the publications which have just been pointed out, a latent enmity, which only waits an opportunity to break forth."

The instructions to the present ministers, so Talleyrand proceeded to charge, had been prepared, not with the view of effecting a reconciliation with France, but for the purpose of throwing upon the French republic the blame of a rupture, being plainly based on a determination “of supporting at every hazard the treaty of London, which is the principal grievance of the republic; of adhering to the spirit in which that treaty was formed and executed, and of not granting to the republic any of the reparations" which had been proposed through the medium of Talleyrand. Chiming in with the tone of the opposition in America, this extraordinary manifesto proceeded as follows: "Finally, it is wished to seize the first favorable opportunity to consummate an intimate union with a power toward which a devotion and partiality is professed, which has long been to the Federal government a principle of conduct." "It was probably with this view that it was thought proper to send to the French republic persons whose opinions and connections are too well known to hope from them dispositions sincerely conciliatory. It is painful to be obliged to make a contrast between this conduct and that which was pursued, under similar circumstances, toward the cabinet of St. James.

CHAPTER An eagerness was then felt to send to London ministers XI. well known for sentiments corresponding with the objects 1798. of their mission. The republic, it would seem, might

have expected a like deference, and if the same propriety has not been observed with regard to it, it may with great probability be attributed to the views above alluded to." Upon this specious paragraph it may be observed that the present envoys had, in point of fact, been selected, the one for his pronounced attachment to France, the others from their known freedom from any prejudice or warmth of feeling against her. Jefferson's endorsement of the mission has already been recorded. There had been already experience enough in Monroe's case of leav. ing the negotiations entirely in the hands of envoys destitute of any sympathy for the government which they represented.

"The undersigned," so the document proceeds, "does not hesitate to believe that the American nation, like the French nation, sees this state of things with regret. The American people, he apprehends, will not be deceived either as to the prejudices with which it is sought to inspire them against an allied people, nor as to the engagements into which it is sought to seduce them to the detriment of an alliance which so powerfully contributed to place them in the rank of nations and to support them in it, and that they will see in these new combinations the only dangers their prosperity and importance can incur." "Penetrated with the justice of these reflections and their consequences, the Executive Directory has authorized the undersigned to express himself with all the frankness that becomes the French nation. It is indispensable that, in the name of the French Directory, he should dissipate those illusions with which, for five years, the complaints of the ministers of the republic at Phila

XI.

delphia have been incessantly surrounded, in order to CHAPTER weaken, calumniate, or distort them. It was essential, in fine, that, by exhibiting the sentiments of the Direc- 1798. tory in an unequivocal manner, he should clear up all the doubts and all the false interpretations of which they might be the object."

After these lengthened preliminaries, intended, as he said, only to smooth the way for discussions, Talleyrand came at last to the point. "Notwithstanding the kind of prejudices which had been entertained with respect to the envoys, the Executive Directory were disposed to treat with that one of the three whose opinions, presumed to be more impartial, promised, in the course of the explanations, more of that reciprocal confidence which was indispensable." This overture, it was hoped, would be met without any serious difficulty; the more so, as the powers of the envoys were several as well as joint, "so that nothing but the desire of preventing any accommodation could produce any objection." This method was only "pointed out" to the commissioners, not imposed upon them, and it evidently could have no other object, so Talleyrand asserted, "than to assure to the negotiation a happy issue, by avoiding at the outset any thing which might awaken, on either side, in the course of the negotiation, sentiments calculated to endanger it."

It might seem strange that the Directory, unless they really intended to drive America into a war, should have ventured to put forth a manifesto like this. To preserve peace with France, the United States were required to repudiate the treaty with Great Britain, after having secured in the Western posts one of the great objects of that negotiation, and, like unfortunate Holland, "liberated," as it was termed, by the French arms, to become a forced lender to the French republic, perhaps presently,

CHAPTER When drained of cash and credit, to supply "inscriptions," XI. like those of Holland, to be palmed off in the same way 1798. upon some new victim of French rapacity. These dis

graceful concessions would naturally be followed by an open engagement on the side of France in the pending war with Great Britain-a ruinous entanglement, to avoid which had been the great object of Washington's policy during the five years past. To venture upon these outrageous demands, Talleyrand had been encouraged by what he believed to be the sentiments, if not of a majority of the American people, at least of a minority so large as effectually to embarrass, if not to control, the action of the government. To judge by most of the Ameri cans then or lately resident in France-not merely those infamous persons ready to enrich themselves by any means, even by privateering against their own countrymen, but by such men as Monroe, as Skipwith the consul general, as Barlow, who, having accumulated a fortune by commercial speculations, had lately purchased at Paris one of the confiscated palaces of the old nobility -the body of the American people wanted nothing bet ter than to throw themselves headlong into that French embrace, so deadly to all whom it encircled; an opinion which might derive confirmation from the tone of the opposition leaders and opposition newspapers in America, claiming, as they did, to be the true representatives of the American people, while, as they alleged, the administration was sustained only by a few monarchists, aristocrats, speculators, old Tories, and merchants trading on British capital. From his residence in America, Talleyrand must have known that these representations were greatly exaggerated. But he also knew well the strength and bitterness of the opposition, and the fierce hatred of Great Britain which so extensively prevailed; and he