XIII. CHAPTER the recruiting for which had but just commenced, twenty-four additional regiments of infantry, three regi 1799. ments of cavalry, a regiment and a battalion of riflemen, and an additional battalion of artillery, making a total force of regulars, should these and the other new regiments be filled up, of upward of forty thousand men; and also to organize such volunteers as might offer their services under the act of the last session, to the number of seventy-eight thousand men, distributed in certain quotas among the states. To carry these provisions into effect, should the emergency arise, two millions of dollars were appropriated. In the midst of the progress of these vigorous measures, great was the astonishment of the Federalists, and not less the exultation of the opposition, at a message Feb. 18. sent by the president to the Senate, nominating William Van Murray, resident minister at the Hague, as minister plenipotentiary to the French republic. There was sent to the Senate along with this message, and as the occasion of it, the copy of a letter from Talleyrand to Pichon, the French secretary of legation at the Hague-a letter intended, so it seemed to the president, as a compliance with the condition set forth in his message of June preceding, in which the return of Marshall had been notified, as that on which alone he would ever send another minister to France-" assurance that he would be re ceived, respected, and honored as the representative of a great, free, independent, and powerful nation." Being always disposed to embrace "every plausible appearance of probability" of preserving peace, he had thought proper, so he stated in his message, to meet this advance by making the present nomination. Duly to understand the exact position of affairs, and the occasion of the above-mentioned letter of Talley. XIII rand's and of the nomination of Murray, it will be nec- CHAPTER essary to go back for a moment to Europe, and to the attempt on the part of Talleyrand at the renewal of dip- 1799. lomatic relations with the United States, already men tioned as set on foot at the Hague. Very shortly after Gerry's departure, M. Pichon, formerly a resident in America, lately a clerk in Talleyrand'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 not long after addressed (August 28, 1798) a letter to Pichon, in which, after many compliments 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, a formal disavowal was made of 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 before, 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 went a step beyond the offer to treat contained in Talleyrand's closing letter to Gerry himself, and which the president at the opening of the session had pronounced inadmissible, clogged, as it was, by the proviso of an envoy "who should unite Gerry's advantages." Talleyrand expressly dis avowed, in this letter to Pichon, any disposition to dictate as to the selection of an envoy. He had only intended to intimate, in a friendly way, that the Directory CHAPTER Would have more confidence in an envoy who had not XII. manifested a predilection for England, and who did not 1799. profess hatred or contempt for the French republic. The letter finally closed with a strong hint that Murray himself would be perfectly acceptable. After some further communications from Pichon, of interviews between him and Murray, Talleyrand had written 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 op. position. In making the nomination, the president expressly pledged himself that Murray should not enter France without having first received direct and un XIII. equivocal assurances from the French minister of For- CHAPTER eign Relations that he should be received in character, and that a minister of equal grade would be appointed 1799. to treat with him. The motives which might have operated on Adams's mind for making this nomination are sufficiently obvious. The almost universal anxiety for peace with France, 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 griev ances 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, would the bulk CHAPTER even of the old Federal party support the administra XIII. tion in standing out against the advances of France, 1799. when they came to feel the burden of the new direct tax, for the collection of which the preliminary arrangements had been nearly completed, and of other taxes which must be imposed? This standing on the defensive was 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 en thusiasm 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 |