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ity which Talleyrand had no doubt discovered to be a CHAPTER weak point in Gerry's character, he had too much sense to be taken in by so transparent a sophism, though it 1798. was warmly urged upon him at two separate 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 private 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, Feb. 27. a request to which Talleyrand readily acceded. Pinck- March 2. 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 negotiators in those cases were so much nearer to their own governments than the American envoys. Express instructions

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CHAPTER might, indeed, be a fetter, but he argued on the presumption, into which the former communications of the 1798. envoys 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 enormous 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 Under the American form of government, a secret loan was entirely out of the question.

war.

To

A second interview took place a few days after, the conversation being opened with a remark that Talleyrand's proposals seemed to be the same in substance with the suggestions of Hottinguer and Bellamy. put an end to that matter, he was now 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 instruc

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tions were as much against such a loan as any other. CHAPTER What their government might think about it they could not tell. If Talleyrand desired it, Marshall and Gerry 1798. would go home for further instructions, or they would wait in expectation of answers to their communications already made.

Some two weeks after this interview Talleyrand made March 18 a long reply to the elaborate memorial of the envoys, it being now supposed, as it would seem, that Gerry was prepared to act the part expected of him. 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 endeavored 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

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CHAPTER tending by this time to the value of many millions of dollars) were assumed to be merely retaliations for pre1798. vious 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 had 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 this 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 negotiating 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

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a minister should do, to the policy of those for whom he CHAPTER acted. "When the agents of the republic complained

of this mysterious conduct," such were Talleyrand's com- 1798. ments, "they were answered by an appeal to the independence of the United States, solemnly sanctioned in the treaties of 1778-a strange manner of contesting a grievance, the reality of which was demonstrated by the dissimulation to which recourse was had; an insidious subterfuge, which substitutes for the true point in question a general principle which the republic can not be supposed to dispute, and which destroys, by the aid of a sophism, that intimate confidence which ought to exist between the French republic and the United States."

Having referred to the small majorities by which the British treaty had been sanctioned, and to "the multitude of imposing wishes expressed by the nation against it," as confirming the views of the French government, Talleyrand proceeded to denounce the treaty as calculated in every thing to turn the neutrality of the United States to the disadvantage of the French republic and to the advantage of England, making concessions to Great Britain "the most unheard of, the most incompatible with the interests of the United States, and the most derogatory to the alliance between the said states and the French republic," in consequence of which the republic became perfectly free "to avail itself of the preservative means with which the law of nature, the law of nations, and prior treaties furnished it." Such were the reasons which had produced the decrees of the Directory, and the conduct of the French agents in the West Indies complained of by the United States; measures alleged to be founded on that article of the commercial treaty which provided that in matters of navigation and commerce the French should always stand with respect to the United

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