XIII. lomatic relations with the United States, already men- CHAPTER tioned as set on foot at the Hague. Very shortly after Gerry's departure, M. Pichon, for- 1799. merly a resident in America, lately a clerk in Talley. rand's office, and at this moment secretary of the French legation at the Hague, had opened a communication, no doubt by Talleyrand's direction, with Murray, the American resident there. For Murray's satisfaction on certain points, Talleyrand presently addressed (August 28, 1798) a letter to Pichon, in which, after many compli ments to Murray personally, and admitting, also, that the Directory might have been mistaken (as Murray had asserted to Pichon) in ascribing to the American government a design to throw itself into the arms of England, Talleyrand formally disavowed any wish on the part of the Directory to revolutionize the United States, or any intention to make war upon them. "Every contrary supposition," said this letter, "is an insult to common sense;" though Talleyrand himself, not six months be fore, had frightened Gerry into remaining at Paris by threats of instant war if he departed! After complaining, in terms already quoted, of Gerry's diplomatic incapacity, this letter to Pichon went a step beyond the offer to treat contained in the closing letter to Gerry himself, and which the president's speech at the opening of the session had pronounced inadmissi ble, clogged, as it was, by the proviso of an envoy "who should unite Gerry's advantages." Talleyrand expressly disavowed, in this letter to Pichon, any disposition to dictate as to the selection of an envoy; having only intended to hint, as he said, in a friendly way, that the Directory would have more confidence in an envoy who had not manifested a predilection for England, and who did not profess hatred or contempt for the French repub CHAPTER lic. The letter finally closed with a strong hint that Murray himself would be perfectly acceptable. XIII. 1799. After some further communications, as it would seem, from Pichon, of interviews between him and Murray, Talleyrand wrote again (September 28)—and this was the letter communicated by the president as the basis of his nomination of Murray-giving his express sanction to a declaration which Pichon had taken it upon himself to make, that, whatever plenipotentiary the government of the United States might send to France, "he would undoubtedly be received with the respect due to the representative of a free, independent, and powerful nation." Both these letters had been communicated to Murray for transmission to the United States, but only the second was laid before the Senate, and that as a secret communication. When it had been received, or why the other was kept back, does not appear. The letter communicated had probably reached the State Department not long before the nomination was made. Possibly the other, though prior in date, had not yet arrived; or, more likely, the president did not care, by communicating it, to show how much his choice of a minister had been guided by Talleyrand's selection. The first letter, however, having probably been sent by Talleyrand himself for publication in America, made its appearance in print in the course of the following summer in Callender's new paper at Richmond; Callender, since the death of Bache, disputing with Duane the editorial leadership of the opposition. In making the nomination, the president expressly pledged himself that Murray should not enter France without having first received direct and unequivocal assurances from the French minister of Foreign Relations that he should be received in character, and that a minister of equal grade would be appointed to treat with him. XIII. The motives which might have operated on Adams's CHAPTER mind for making this nomination are sufficiently obvious. The almost universal anxiety for peace with France, 1799. for which the opposition seemed willing to sacrifice every thing, while even the Federalists professed a willingness to sacrifice every thing short of independence, national honor, and neutral rights, had prompted the mission of Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry, in face of an express declaration of the Directory that they would not receive another minister from America till their alleged grievances had first been redressed. If true policy had required the institution of an embassy in face of a declaration like that, how was it possible entirely to disregard the assurances of Talleyrand, communicated through Pichon and Murray ? assurances the most explicit and direct that could be made, short of the appointment of a French minister to America-a stretch of condescension hardly to be expected from the "terrible republic" toward a nation so weak as the United States, and rendered almost helpless by internal dissensions. There had no doubt been a great change in public sentiment since the appointment of the late rejected embassy. All the earnest efforts of Jefferson and his coadjutors had been unable to extinguish in their partisans the sense of national degradation; and many, especially in the Southern States, who had hitherto vehemently opposed the Federal administration, had come manfully forward to join in defending the national independence. But how far could this new-born zeal be relied upon? Would these new recruits to the Federal ranks-indeed, would the bulk of the old Federal party-support the administration in standing out against the advances of France, when they came to feel the burden of the new direct tax, for the collection of which the preliminary arrangements CHAPTER had been nearly completed, and of other taxes which XIII. must be imposed? This standing on the defensive was 1799. an expensive business. There was now no resource of bills of credit, as at the commencement of the Revolution; and to raise the five million loan it had been necessary to promise an interest of eight per cent. The costly naval and military establishments already on foot, and which it was proposed to enlarge, would require a great deal more of money; and Adams could foresee as well as Jefferson how this increase of expenses and taxes was likely to operate on public opinion. The zeal and enthusiasm kindled by the publication of the X, Y, Z dispatches was already subsiding. The opposition, though cowed and weakened, was by no means discouraged. The late nullifying resolutions of Kentucky and Virginia showed the extent to which the leaders in those states and their prompters behind the scene were ready to go. It was even threatened to introduce bills into the Virginia Assembly, such as the spirit of their resolutions demanded, nullifying the Alien and Sedition Laws, and authorizing resistance to them by the force of the state, and to that end to reorganize the militia. It was plain, from Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt, to what a romantic pitch the military ardor of the French was carried. Should they attempt an expedition to America, against which the present naval predominance of England seemed the only security, who could tell what the result might be? Was it perfectly certain that the many devoted partisans of the French-was it certain that such men as Giles and Monroe, Gallatin and Burr, even Jefferson himself, might not look on a French army more as liberators than as enemies, whose aid might lawfully be employed to put down a government denounced by Jefferson as having become more ar bitrary and more dangerous to liberty than even that of CHAPTER England? Even if this foreign force were not availed XIII. of to overturn at once the government and the Constitu- 1799. tion, it might still be employed to transfer the administration of it into new and so-called Republican hands; and the saving the country from the dangers of monarchy and British alliance might seem to a large faction to justify the risk of a subserviency to France, as pitiful and helpless as that of the Batavian republic, whose inscriptions Talleyrand had offered to the American en voys. What might have added to the weight of these considerations was a letter which Adams had lately received from Washington, inclosing one from Barlow to himself of very nearly the same date (October 2, 1798), with Talleyrand's second letter to Pichon. In terms more decent and respectful toward his country than he had of late been accustomed to use, taking for his text the appointment of Washington as commander-in-chief of the American armies, Barlow attempted to represent the present difficulties between France and the United States as growing out of a misunderstanding of each other's intentions. He insisted with emphasis on the desire of France for peace, as evinced not only by acts already done, but by intentions alleged by Barlow to be known to himself; and he ended with suggesting the appointment of another minister by the United States, as, under the circumstances, not inconsistent with the national honor. In transmitting to the president this letter, which Feb. 1. Washington did immediately on receipt of it, he remarked that this was the only communication he had ever received from the writer, and that it must have been made either with a very good or a very bad design, the president could best judge which. "From the known |