CHAPTER of a private lottery, the prizes to consist of houses, lands, XIII. and other real property, which it was hoped thus to dis1798. pose of at a generous price. But the friends of Lyon, by whom this lottery was got up, having made use of language in their call upon the public in itself indictable, the consequence was, that Haswell, the printer of the Vermont Gazette, in which the call appeared, was himself indicted, and after a twelvemonths' delay was found guilty and sentenced to a fine of $200 and two months' imprisonment. Just before the trial of Lyon the Vermont election took place. At first there was no choice in Lyon's district; but on a second trial, the imprisoned Democrat, no doubt in consequence of his imprisonment, was elected by a decided majority. The Maryland election, which shortly followed that Oct. 4. of Vermont, was very vehemently contested. Smith was re-elected in the Baltimore District by two hundred majority, and throughout the state the Federalists did little more than to hold their own. They succeeded, however, at the ensuing session of the Legislature, in electing Benjamin Ogle as governor. While these various events were occurring in America, Gerry, alone at Paris, found himself in a somewhat April 10. awkward situation. Four days after Marshall's depart ure, not having heard any thing further from Talleyrand, he reminded him by a note that nothing but threats of an immediate rupture, only to be prevented by his remaining at Paris, had prevented his departure at the same time with his colleagues. Although he did not feel authorized to continue the negotiation in character of minister plenipotentiary, as Talleyrand had proposed, he was, however, ready and desirous to receive from the French government, and to communicate to his own, a XIIL statement of the terms on which the differences between CHAPTER the two nations might be accommodated-terms, he doubted not, corresponding to the justice and magnanim- 1798. ity of a great nation. Such a communication, he hoped, would be promptly made, and a stop be put to further depredations on American commerce till an answer could be obtained from America. The adoption of such a course would at once extinguish all feelings of hostility. He hoped, at all events, not to be long detained. The state of his private affairs demanded his speedy return, and the residence at Paris of the American consul general would answer every political purpose. In consequence of this note, Gerry had several interviews with Talleyrand, who declined, however, to make the statement suggested on the ground that he did not know what the views of the United States were as to a treaty. Gerry thereupon explained, what Talleyrand perfectly well understood before, the nature of the American claims and complaints. Some conversation was afterward had about sending a French minister to the United States. Finally, Talleyrand promised to furnish Gerry with the project of a treaty. Pending these conversations, a special messenger ar- May 12. rived at Paris with a letter from Pickering, written just before the publication of the X, Y, Z dispatches, directing the ministers, if they had not already been admitted to a formal negotiation, to leave France forthwith. The same letter contained positive and precise instructions not to consent to any loan or douceur, or purchase of peace with money, and a hint, also, that the dispatches on this subject were about to be published. As that publication might endanger the safety of the ministers were they still in France, in order to insure them timely notice, this letter had been sent by a special dispatch boat. CHAPTER XIII. In consideration of "the new state of affairs," such was his own phraseology, Gerry seems to have held 1798. himself not bound to any implicit obedience of the instructions thus received. He resolved, indeed, to return in the dispatch boat, and took the opportunity to notify Talleyrand that it was necessary to make haste with his project of a treaty; but, rather than fail to obtain it, he determined to detain the vessel for such time as might seem expedient. May 26. Talleyrand excused his delays hitherto by pleading other and pressing engagements. Several interviews took place between Gerry and Talleyrand's secretary, who disavowed any desire on the part of the French government to break up the British treaty, their demand simply being that France should be placed on equal ground with Great Britain. As to payments for spoliations, they must be paid in the first place by the United States, to be reimbursed by France; but this, Gerry told him, was inadmissible. Gerry presently had an interview with Talleyrand himself, who told him that the Directory no longer had any thoughts of war. The results in America of the bullying system, of which the first advices began now to be received, had indeed made a change of tactics necessary. Talleyrand even promised to propose to the Directory to send a minister to the United States. So stood matters when the first news of the published dispatches reached the Directory. This was a stroke which Talleyrand had not anticipated. He had hoped, indeed, as we have seen already, himself to make the first appeal to the American people, by publishing in the Aurora-the joint organ of the French government and of the American opposition-his reply to the memorial of the envoys. XIII. The first notice Gerry had that the published dis- CHAPTER patches had reached France, was a call upon him, by one of the Paris newspapers, to deny their authenticity. 1798. "Having reason to suppose," such is his own statement, May 27. "that the result of this new embarrassment, if not pacific, would be very violent," he prepared himself for the worst by securing his papers. He might well be alarmed, for it was only a short time before that, on the occurrence of ruptures with Portugal and the pope, the Portuguese and Roman embassadors, instead of being furnished with passports, had been seized and thrown into prison. Soon after came a note from Talleyrand himself, in- May 30. closing a London Gazette, in which the dispatches were printed at length, "a very strange publication," so Talleyrand wrote; and he added, "It is with surprise I observe that intriguers have taken advantage of the insu lated condition in which the envoys of the United States have kept themselves, to make proposals and to hold conversations of which the object evidently was to deceive you." The letter then proceeded to demand the names represented by the letters W, X, Y, and Z, W having been used to designate the merchant by whom Hottinguer (X) had been introduced to the envoys. "I must rely upon your eagerness," so the letter concluded, "to enable the government to fathom these practices, of which I felicitate you on not having been the dupe, and which you must wish to see cleared up." After having been frightened by threats of instant war into remaining in France against his own better judgment, and coaxed by the phantom of a promised project of a treaty into remaining still longer in defiance of the express orders of his government and at the risk of his personal safety, Gerry was now called upon to assist in CHAPTER discrediting his own dispatches-a process of which the XIII. coolness can not but be admired, when it is recollected 1798. that Talleyrand himself had personally assured Gerry that full confidence might be given to whatever Bellamy (Y), the principal of the alleged intriguers, might state, and also that both Hottinguer and Bellamy had been present at dinner parties in company with Talleyrand and Gerry, got up for the very purpose of forwarding the negotiation. Writhing not a little under this infliction, Gerry attempted to get off by admitting that the persons in question did not produce any credentials of any kind, and that three of them were foreigners, while the fourth (Z) acted only as a messenger and linguist. Being furJune 4. ther pressed, however, he consented to give up the names, under an express assurance that they should not be published under his authority; and he also stated, in reply to Talleyrand's request, that none of the persons employed in that minister's office had ever said a word having the least reference to the "shocking proposition," as Talleyrand called it, to pay any sum whatever for corrupt purposes. This, indeed, was the only suggestion of the secret agents' which it was possible for Talleyrand to disavow; for the attempt to frighten the envoys into buying peace with a loan had been repeatedly made by that minister himself as well as by those agents, whose names, pretending not to know them, he had so formally demanded of Gerry. June 7. There appeared, shortly after, in the Paris Redacteur, the special organ of Talleyrand, a labored defense of that minister and of the Directory against the implications of the dispatches, at the close of which, contrary to Talleyrand's stipulations, were published the letters which had recently passed between him and Gerry as to the names of the agents-letters in which Gerry, as he had not |