XIII. Atlantic by Logan, the account of whose mission, given CHAPTER by the French papers, had greatly inflamed the suspicions against him. He was received by the Federalists with 1798. shouts of execration as the treasonable envoy of a political party which had undertaken to carry on a correspondence of its own with a foreign and hostile power. The good Quaker hastened to present himself at the Department of State, but he brought no papers except duplicates of some old letters of Skipwith, and his reception by Pickering was not very gracious. Nor was he much better received by Washington, upon whom he waited shortly after, and who has left, in his own handwriting, a curious memorandum of the interview. Though received standing, and with a repulsive coldness and distance which no man knew better than Washington how to assume toward an unwelcome visitor, Logan would persist in giving an account of his mission; to which Washington replied that it was something very singular that he, a mere private individual, unprovided with powers, and it was to be presumed unknown in France, should suppose that he could effect what three gentlemen of the first respectability in the country, and specially charged under the authority of government, had been unable to do. At first the good doctor seemed a little disconcerted; but he soon recovered himself, and stated, by way of answer to the suspicions afloat concerning his mission, that not five persons knew of his going, that Jefferson and M'Kean had furnished him with certificates of citizenship, and that Merlin, the president of the Directory, had evinced the greatest desire that the two republics should be on the best terms. To which Washington dryly answered that the doctor had been decidedly more fortunate than our envoys, since they could neither be received nor heard by Merlin or the Directory. XIII. CHAPTER If the authorities of France were serious in their professions of a desire for peace, there was a very plain and 1798. effectual way to show it, the repeal, namely, of the obnoxious decrees by which the commercial rights of America had been so seriously invaded; the putting a stop to 'further depredations; and the making restitution for the injuries already inflicted. To a suggestion of Logan's that the Directory had regarded the American government and the envoys as disposed to hostilities, Washington asked, what better evidence could be given in refutation of such an opinion than the long-suffering of our government under the outrageous conduct of France, and the dispatching thither three gentlemen of unquestionable worth, with ample powers to reconcile all difficulties, even though it might require great sacrifices on our part? Did the Directory look upon us as worms not even allowed to turn when trod upon? It was evident to all the world that we had borne and forborne beyond what even common respect for ourselves permitted. Logan stated that the Directory had taken off the embargo, and were making restitution of property, and he mentioned one instance of it. To which Washington answered that taking off the embargo or keeping it on was of very little consequence, as there were but very few of our vessels in France. The self-appointed Quaker envoy then began to magnify the power of France and the danger of the United States if they persisted in holding a hostile attitude, to which Washington rejoined that we were driven into these measures in self-defense, and that he hoped the spirit of the country never would suffer injuries to be inflicted with impunity by any nation under the sun a sentiment to which Logan so far responded as to state that he had told Citizen Merlin that, if the United States were invaded by France, they would XIII. unite to a man to oppose the invaders. So ended this CHAPTER conversation, which is given at length, not only as remarkably illustrating the characters of the speakers, but 1798. as exhibiting in a striking light the views of the parties to which they respectively belonged. What Washington had said was in every Federalist's mouth, while the more moderate of the opposition talked like Logan. Not discouraged by these rebuffs, Logan waited soon after upon the president, who arrived about this time at Philadelphia, and upon whom, as it would seem, his visit was not altogether without impression. As well on his return from Braintree as in going thither, the president had been received at New York and elsewhere on the road with great enthusiasm. It was even proposed to The news of the capture of Bonaparte's fleet in the battle of the Nile was received in America with open joy on the part of the Federalists-first of English victories so welcomed for a quarter of a century—and with ill-concealed vexation on the part of the opposition. The Federal papers chronicled with triumph the bringing in from time to time of captured French cruisers. Already there were at sea, of American public armed vessels, besides the three frigates, twelve sloops of war of from twenty-eight to twenty-four guns, and eight armed The entrances of the American harbors were no longer safe cruising ground for picaroon vessels, nom cutters. XIII. CHAPTER inally French privateers, but very often little better than pirates. Not content with driving them from the coast, 1798. the American squadron had pursued them to the West Indies, where a serious check was already given to the depredations, so long committed without resistance, on American commerce. Orders had been issued by the British naval commander on the West India station to treat the American ships of war with all courtesy; but even at this important and interesting moment it was impossible to put a complete check upon that insufferable insolence of British naval officers which had already bred so much ill blood between the two nations, and was destined to breed more. While cruising off the Havana -the commerce of which, since the late alliance between France and Spain, had been opened for the first time, as well as that of Vera Cruz and other Spanish-American ports, to other than Spanish vessels-the commander of a British squadron of heavy ships had the impertinence to Nov. 18. intercept and detain a part of a convoy of American merchantmen sailing to that port under escort of the sloop of war Baltimore; and even to send on board that vessel and to take out five or six of her crew, under claim that they were British subjects. This affair, which became Dcc. 29. presently the occasion of a motion in Congress, caused the issue of an order by the Navy Department that no commander of any American ship of war should ever allow his ship to be searched or detained, or any of her men to be taken from her, under any pretense whatever; but to resist to the uttermost, and if overpowered by superior force, to strike his flag and yield up vessel as well as men, but never men without the vessel. Representations on this subject were immediately made to the British government, by whom the outrage was promptly disavowed; but that could not prevent the ill effects XIII. which such an occurrence could not but produce upon CHAPTER minds as sensitive to British as they were callous to French insults. The commander of the Baltimore had submitted to a force which did not admit of the idea of resistance. Captain Tingley, in the Ganges sloop of war, while cruising in the same seas, being inquired of by a boat from a British frigate whether he had among his men any British subjects, returned for answer that the American flag was a sufficient protection to any man in his ship—an answer with which the captain of the frigate judged it prudent to be content. The two points whence the French privateers had chiefly issued were the island of Guadaloupe and the coasts of French St. Domingo. The English, after vainly struggling for several years to obtain possession of the latter colony, had at last judged it expedient, in hopes of thus detaching it from France, to resign the French part of the island into the hands of the blacks, by whom it had been so long and so bravely defended. There was a large and well-organized black army under Toussaint, a man as distinguished for civil as for military talents, remarkable, though born and bred a slave, for an equity, moderation, and justice, exhibited toward blacks and whites alike, of which the French Revolutionary annals afford but very few examples. Finding it impossible to conquer the island, and perceiving that the actual control of things was in Toussaint's hands, the English had entered into negotiations with him, and had withdrawn their troops with an understanding that he should assume the government and keep the island neutral during the war. Toussaint, on his part, had compelled Hedonville, the commissioner of the Directory, to depart with his few white troops. The mulattoes in the southern 1798. |