XIII. judged it safe to suggest any doubts on that subject, CHAPTER patches were making a great noise. Having swallowed his vexation the best he could at the roasting he had received in Talleyrand's newspaper, Gerry dispatched a note, intimating the necessity of his June 10. speedy departure for America, and of his being furnished by Talleyrand with the promised sketch of a treaty. Instead of sending that, Talleyrand replied with complaints against the president's message communicating the dispatches, and, as the terms of the note would seem to imply, at the non-communication of his own answer of March 18th to the memorial of the envoys, which he did not doubt they had duly forwarded-the very same paper, by-the-way, for the publication of which he had himself provided by sending a copy of it to the Au XIII. CHAPTER rora-a document quite sufficient, in his opinion, "to efface from the minds of the American people the ill1798. founded uneasinesses they may have been made to entertain." He asserted the disposition of France for peace on the basis of a restoration to her rights under the treaties and of mutual indemnities, ending with the old invitation to Gerry, so often rejected, to enter himself upon the negotiation as minister plenipotentiary. June 13. Gerry replied, as so often before, that he could not treat, since he had no powers. It would, however, be very easy for the French government to state their terms, and to send a minister to America to complete the negotiation there. As to himself, he must shortly sail in the government dispatch boat waiting for him at Havre; and he reminded Talleyrand that the passports asked for had not yet been received. Respecting the suppression of Talleyrand's letter of the eighteenth of March, so bitterly complained of, he begged leave to suggest that a document dated at Paris on that day could hardly have arrived at Philadelphia by the third of April, the date of the president's message communicating the dispatches. Talleyrand attempted to escape from this awkward blunder by denying any reference to that letter; but the pertinacious Gerry returned again to the charge; and Talleyrand finally explained that all he meant was the suppression by the president of the fact, apparently well known in America, since some statements to that effect had appeared in the Aurora, that the Directory were will ing to treat with one of the ministers, but not with the other two. A very curious correspondence followed, consisting, on the part of Talleyrand, of new attempts to persuade Gerry himself to commence a new negotiation, intermixed with various complaints against the Federal gov XIII. ernment, referring especially to the president's answers CHAPTER to the addresses presented to him; and on the part of Gerry-for, though he might be frightened or cajoled 1798. into concessions, he was not to be argued out of an opinion of new refutations of Talleyrand's sophistries, and, finally, of reiterated, and more and more urgent requests for his passports. Pending this singular correspondence, news continued to arrive of the vigorous measures of defense set on foot in the United States; and the effect of this news became sufficiently apparent in Talleyrand's letters. He was evidently alarmed lest war might result-an event rendered at once more probable and more formidable by the abandonment of the projected invasion of England, the total failure of the Irish insurrection, and the palpable evidences given by Great Britain, in spite of the suspension of specie payments and the late mutinies in the fleet, of undiminished ability to carry on the war. It was the evident object of his letters to manufacture, as Gerry expressed it, materials for a manifesto by making a plausible show, without committing himself to any thing in particular, of a desire to preserve peace. During the space of six weeks Talleyrand tried every art to detain Gerry, no doubt as a guarantee against war. When at last he yielded to repeated demands, the letter inclosing Gerry's passports contained reiterated assur- July 12. ances of peaceful intentions, and strongly urged Gerry to use his influence to the same end. Not content with assurances merely, Talleyrand cited as proofs his earnest efforts to treat ever since the departure of Pinckney and Marshall; and to enable the opposition in America to use this letter, he caused it to be printed at length in the Paris newspapers. In a postscript, dated three days after July 15. the body of the letter, but published along with it, after CHAPTER noticing the suspension by Congress of commercial interXIII. course with France and the authority given to capture 1798. French cruisers, news of which had meanwhile arrived, he declared that the "long-suffering of the Directory" was about to manifest itself "in the most unquestionable manner, so that perfidy itself would no longer be able to cast suspicion on their pacific intentions. Though this fresh provocation would appear to leave no honorable alternative but war, the Directory would be content with imposing a temporary embargo on American vessels in their ports, giving, at the same time, a promise of indemnity, should occasion for it arise. "The Directory is yet ready, and as much disposed as ever, to terminate by a united negotiation the differences which subsist between the two nations. So great is the repugnance of the Directory to consider the United States as enemies, that, notwithstanding the recent hostile demonstrations, they mean to wait till they are irresistibly forced into war by real hostilities." To this artful attempt to shift off upon the government of the United States and their envoys the failure July 20. of the negotiation, Gerry replied with great spirit. He contended that the late mission had been defeated by inadmissible demands of loans which would have violated the neutrality of the United States, and by demands equally inadmissible of reparation for the president's speech. He himself had been detained after the departure of his colleagues, first by threats of war, and then by a promise which had never been fulfilled, that he should be furnished with the project of a treaty such as would satisfy the Directory. If the French government were really sincere in their wishes for peace, they might at least show it by putting some restraint upon the outrageous depredations committed upon American com XIII. merce by French privateersmen, who were suffered to CHAPTER go, especially in the West Indies, far beyond what even the decrees of the French government would justify. 1798. This spirited paper, by far the best of Gerry's diplomatic letters, and not unworthy of his Revolutionary reputation, and which he insisted upon publishing in the newspapers, since Talleyrand had seen fit to publish the letter to which it was a reply, had the effect to draw out from Talleyrand an express disavowal of any claim of July 22. reparation for the president's speech, or of any demand for a loan. He also declared that any envoy possessing Gerry's qualifications, who might be sent to negotiate at Paris, might be sure of being well received. Indeed, Gerry thought, and it might have been so, that a French minister would have been sent to America but for some apprehension that the American government might retort the insults they had endured by refusing to receive him. After Gerry had obtained his passports and had gone July 26. to Havre, obstacles were still put in the way of his embarkation, partly, as he believed, to gain time for forwarding by him a decree of the Directory, of which a hint had been given in Talleyrand's last letter (passed, it would seem, by way of partial answer to Gerry's complaints), requiring all privateers to give bonds not to commit unauthorized depredations, and placing certain restraints upon the issue of commissions in the West Indies, and the condemnation there of captured vessels. Having been furnished with this proof, such as it was, of the peaceful disposition of the Directory, Gerry was August 8, at last permitted to sail. No sooner was Gerry gone than the Directory looked round for new means of recommencing the negotiation. Two decrees rapidly succeeded each other; one for re Aug. 1116. |