CHAPTER abilities of that gentleman, such a letter could not be the XIII. result of ignorance in him, nor, from the implications

1799, which are to be found in it, has it been written without the privity of the French Directory.” "Should you be

of opinion that his letter is calculated to bring on negotiations upon open, fair, and honorable grounds, and to merit a reply, and will instruct me as to the tenor of it, I shall, with pleasure and alacrity, obey your orders, more especially if there is reason to believe that it would become a means, however small, of restoring peace and tranquillity to the United States upon just, honorable, and dignified terms, which I am persuaded is the ardent desire of all the friends of this rising empire."

But, however strong might be the motives prompting to Murray's nomination, there was one remarkable circumstance about it which exposed the president subsequently to many injurious suspicions and imputations. With that strong self-reliance and readiness to assume responsibility for which he was distinguished, and resolved to vindicate his personal prerogative as president even at the hazard of giving great dissatisfaction to many of the leading men who supported him, he made the nomination, not only without any consultation with his cabinet, and against what he knew to be the opinions of a majority of its members as well as of many leading Federalists out of doors, but without any forewarning to any body of what he intended; and from this moment a breach commenced between him and a section of the Federalists, which rapidly became complete and final. His reason for anticipating by action any knowledge of his intention was, his certainty of the decided opposition of his cabinet to the course which he was just as decidedly determined to take, and his wish to escape, as to this matter, what Fisher Ames had noted as a peculiar

XIII.

ity of our government, that other governments found op- CHAPTER position after their measures were taken, ours in their very inception and commencement. The same policy, 1799. adopted by Adams on this occasion, of anticipating opposition by surprise, was afterward imitated in the cases of the embargo, the war with Great Britain, and the Mexican war, instances quite sufficient to raise the gravest doubts as to its propriety. There was this difference, however, between the cases, that Adams's surprise was upon his own counselors and leading partisans, while the surprise in the other cases was upon the opposition and the body of the people.

The nomination of Murray being referred by the Senate to a committee, of which Sedgwick was chairman, that committee took the unusual, and, as Adams esteemed it, unconstitutional course of attempting to persuade him to withdraw the nomination. Out of doors, also, a loud clamor was raised (the fact of the nomination having at once leaked out), the louder because, Talleyrand's letter to Pichon not being yet published, the public had no means whatever of perceiving that any change of circumstances had occurred since the president had declared in his speech at the opening of the session, but a few weeks before, that to send another minister to France without more determinate assurances that he would be received would be an act of humiliation to which the United States ought not to submit.

Though Adams refused to withdraw the nomination, yet, in consequence of the representations of the committee, and their expressed intention to report against Feb. 25. confirming it, he sent another message, nominating Chiefjustice Ellsworth and Patrick Henry, jointly with Murray, envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary to the French republic, the two former not to embark for

CHAPTER France until authentic and satisfactory assurances should XIII. be received as to their reception.

1799.

Thus modified, the nomination was confirmed, sorely against the inclination of a number of the Federal senators. But to reject it was a responsibility which they had not the courage to assume, leading, as it certainly would, to an immediate break-up of the Federal party.

In consequence of suggestions from the Russian minister at London to the American minister there, the president had previously nominated, and the Senate had confirmed, King, the minister at the British court, to negotiate at London a treaty of commerce with Russia, and Smith, the minister at Lisbon, to form a similar treaty with the Turks, both of those nations being now at war with France. But these negotiations were not pushed to any result. A consul general-a sort of embassador to Toussaint-was also appointed for the island of St. Domingo, the French part of which was now wholly under the dominion of that famous negro chief.

The age and increasing infirmities of Henry obliged him to decline the appointment of embassador to France. This he did in a letter, declaring that nothing short of absolute necessity could have induced him to withhold his little aid from "an administration deserving of gratitude and reverence for abilities and virtue." General Davie, who had been chosen, a few months before, governor of North Carolina, was appointed in his place.

Jefferson meanwhile continued to labor for the overthrow of the administration with that same persevering, unhesitating zeal which had prompted the nullifying resolutions of Kentucky and Virginia. But as in that matter, so now, according to his usual custom, he carefully avoided any exposure of himself, by any public use of his tongue or pen, to the dreaded quills of Porcupine and

XIII.

other Federal critics. Yet he was not, on that account, CHAPTER any the less busy, according to his established method, in stimulating others to the risk which he himself so sens- 1799. itively shunned.

In a letter of seeming sympathy and condolence, the Jan. 17. same one already quoted for another purpose, Gerry was most earnestly pressed—and that, indeed, seems to have been the sole object of the letter to imitate Monroe's example, and to attack the administration and his late colleagues "by full communication and unrestrained details, postponing motives of delicacy to those of duty." "It rests with you," so the letter went on, "to come forward independently, to make your stand on the high ground of your own character, to disregard calumny, and to be borne above it on the shoulders of your grateful" fellow-citizens, or to sink into the humble oblivion to which the Federalists, self-called, have secretly condemned you, and even to be happy if they will indulge you with oblivion, while they have beamed on your colleagues meridian splendor." But while thus urging, by this and many other like appeals to his pride, ambition, and revenge, the aged Gerry to a course which could hardly fail to expose him to the most bitter personal attacks, we find in this same letter striking marks not only of Jefferson's constitutional timidity and exceeding care for his own comfort and safety, but also of that transparent simplicity with which he so often betrays himself in a manner almost incredible in one so artful and shrewd. "My trust in you," so the letter concludes, "leaves me without a fear that this letter, meant as a confidential communication of my impressions, may ever go out of your own hand, or be suffered in any wise to commit my name. Indeed, besides the accidents which might happen to it, even under your care, considering

XII.

CHAPTER the accident of death to which you are liable, I think it safest to pray you, after reading it as often as you please, 1799. to destroy at least the second and third leaves.

Jan. 26.

The

first contains principles only, which I fear not to avow; but the second and third contain facts stated for your information, and which, though sacredly conformable to my firm belief, yet would be galling to some, and expose me to illiberal attacks. I therefore repeat my prayer to burn the second and third leaves. And did we ever expect to see the day when, breathing nothing but sentiments of love to our country, and its freedom and happiness, our correspondence must be as secret as if we were hatching its destruction? Adieu, my friend! and accept my sincere and affectionate salutations. I need not add my signature."

Three days after the date of this letter to Gerry, Jef ferson wrote to urge the superannuated Pendleton-now upward of eighty, and who, since the days of the Virginia Convention, in which the ratification of the Federal Constitution had been discussed, seems completely to have changed opinions with Patrick Henry-to take up his pen to expose, in a manner "short, simple, and level to every capacity," the wicked use made of the French negotiation, particularly the X, Y, Z dish cooked up by Marshall, where "the swindlers are made to appear as the French government." Of this exposition, having for its object to show the sincerity and good will of the French Directory, and the "dupery" practiced on the late envoys, it was proposed to print ten or twelve thousand in hand-bills, to be dispersed over the Union under the franks of members of Congress a work to which Pendleton was urged by many compliments on the weight of his character and his happy talent at that sort of comFeb. 14. position. In a second letter, a fortnight afterward, Pen