CHAPTER Before this document was sent, the very day, indeed, after its signature, a new decree was promulgated, for 1798. some time under discussion in the French legislative Jan. 18. body, and a draft of which had been forwarded to the Feb. 4. United States with the last dispatches of the envoys. This decree, of a more sweeping and outrageous charac ter than any yet issued, never paralleled, indeed, except by Bonaparte's subsequent imitations of it, while it forbade the entrance into any French port of any vessel which at any previous part of her voyage had touched at any English possession, declared good prize all vessels having merchandise on board the produce of England or her colonies, whoever the owner of the merchandise might be. Feb. 6. A letter was speedily prepared remonstrating against this decree, and concluding with an explicit request for passports; but, even after it had been redrafted to acFeb. 18. commodate it to Gerry's taste, he still refused to sign it. This separation of Gerry from his colleagues grew out of a recent interview to which Talleyrand had specially in vited him, and at which he had consented to receive communications under a promise to keep them secret— a promise wholly unwarrantable, since, by the very terms of their commission, in all that related to the embassy the envoys were to act jointly. Having obtained this promise of secrecy, Talleyrand had stated that the Directory were not satisfied with Gerry's two colleagues, and would have nothing to do with them, but that they were ready to treat with Gerry alone; adding, that his refusal would produce an immediate declaration of war. Since Gerry's commission was several as well as joint, he had full powers, so Talleyrand argued, to treat independently of his colleagues. But however flattering this preference might be to a vanity which Talleyrand had no doubt discover. XI. ed to be a weak point in Gerry's character, he had too CHAPTER much sense to be taken in by so transparent a sophism, though it was warmly urged upon him at two separate 1798. interviews. Nor, indeed, was the prospect of a separate negotiation very inviting. Gerry's colleagues soon became aware of his secret interviews with Talleyrand; nor were they long in conjecturing what might be their subject-matter, if, indeed, they were not actually put upon the track by some of Talleyrand's secret agents. Near a month passed away, and no notice had been taken of Marshall's long memorial on the claims and rights of the two republics. Indeed, Talleyrand's pri vate secretary had intimated that nobody had yet taken the trouble to read it, such long papers not being to the taste of the French government, who desired to come to the point at once. To come to some point as speedily as possible was the very thing which the envoys wished, and, to that end, it was agreed to ask a joint interview with the minister, a request to which Tallyrand readily acceded. Pinck ney opened the conversation by observing that the envoys had received various propositions through Bellamy, to which they found it impossible to accede, and that their present object was to ascertain if no other means of accommodation could be devised. Talleyrand, in reply, reverted at once to the old idea of a loan. As to want of power, envoys at such a distance from their own government, and possessing, as they did, the public confidence, must often use their discretion, and exceed their powers for the public good. In almost all the treaties made of late, this had been done, though the negociators in those cases were so much nearer to their own governments than the American envoys. Express instructions Feb. 27. March 2. XI. CHAPTER might, indeed, be a fetter, but he argued on the presumption, into which the former communications of the en1798. voys had tended to lead him, that their instructions were merely silent on the subject. A loan, he said, was absolutely necessary to convince the Directory that the United States were really friendly. A thousand ways might be found to cover it up so as not to expose them to the charge of a breach of neutrality. March 6. To these observations Marshall replied, that the friendship of the United States for France might seem to have been sufficiently exhibited by the appointment of the present mission, and by the patience with which the enor mous losses of property inflicted by French captures had so long been borne. A loan to France would be wholly inconsistent with that neutrality so important to the United States, and which they had struggled so hard to maintain. If America were actually leagued with France, it could only be expected of her to furnish money; so that to furnish money would be, in fact, to make war. Under the American form of government, a secret loan was entirely out of the question. At a second interview a few days after, the conversation was opened with a remark that Talleyrand's proposal seemed to be the same in substance with the suggestions of Hottinguer and Bellamy. To put an end to that matter, he was distinctly informed that any loan, even the assumption of debts due to American citizens, was expressly prohibited by the instructions of the envoys. Talleyrand then reverted to a proposition suggested through his secretary a few days before to Gerry, and which Gerry had then seemed disposed to entertain-a loan to take effect after the conclusion of the pending war. Upon this there was much argument, the envoys insisting that their present instructions were What CHAPTER XI. as much against such a loan as any other. their government might think about it they could not tell. If Talleyrand desired it, Marshall and Gerry would 1798. go home for further instructions, or they would wait in expectation of answers to their communications already made. Some two weeks after this interview, it being now March 18 supposed, as it would seem, that Gerry was prepared to act the part expected of him, Talleyrand made a long reply to the elaborate memorial of the envoys. Throughout that memorial it had been tacitly assumed that the United States had been fully justified in taking a position of neutrality, an assumption which the former admissions of the French government would seem to warrant, and upon which the whole argumentation of the memorial depended. While discussing separately and minutely all the specific complaints made by the French government, there had been no reference in that paper to the subject of the guarantee contained in the treaty of alliance. Avoiding equally any direct discussion, Talleyrand tacitly assumed, on the other hand, that the treaty of alliance did impose a certain duty of assisting France inconsistent with a rigid neutrality; and he complained that the envoys, "reversing the known order of facts," had passed over in silence "the just motives of complaint of the French government," and had endeav ored to show, by "an unfaithful and partial exposition," that the French republic had no real grievance, the United States being alone entitled to complain and to demand satisfaction; whereas the first right of complaint was on the side of the French, who had real and numer ous grounds for it, long before the existence of any of the facts on which the envoys dilated with so many details. All the depredations on the part of France (ex. XI. 1798. CHAPTER tending by this time to the value of many millions of dollars) were assumed to be merely retaliations for previous breaches of treaty obligations on the part of the United States. Having laid down this preliminary, which, even upon his own principles, was far from being well founded-since the act of France in setting aside that article of the treaty which protected enemy's goods in American vessels had preceded any act whatever of the American government of which France, under any view, had a right to complain-Talleyrand proceeded to reiterate the old charges: the jurisdiction exercised over French cruisers and their prizes in American ports; the admission of English ships of war into American ports; the refusal to carry out the consular convention; and, above all, the British treaty, "as filling up the measure of the grievances of the republic." As to Genet's admissions of the right of the United States to assume a neutral position, he has gone no further, so Talleyrand stated it, than merely to intimate that, though the case provided for had clearly occurred, the United States would not be pressed on the guarantee. "Far from appreciating this conduct"-this proof of the friendly disposition of France-" the American government received it as the acknowledgment of a right, and it is in this spirit also that the envoys extraordinary have met this question." To the friendly disposition of France, still further evinced by the national embrace which Merlin had given to Monroe, the United States had most ungratefully responded by negociating the British treaty, deluding France all the while with the idea that Jay had no powers except to demand reparation for injuries. Thus was brought up in judgment against the American government the attempts of Monroe to pledge it to his own policy, instead of conforming himself, as |