"Within a few days past Philadelphia papers were received as late as the 3d of July, containing Mr. Jay's Treaty, together with such proceedings of the Senate upon it as were then published. As these gazettes are circulating everywhere, I conclude some of them are in possession of the committee of public safety, and that the details they contain will likewise soon find their way into the papers of this city. Indeed, it is said, they are already published at Havre. Of late I have heard nothing from the committee upon this subject; nor do I expect to hear any thing from that body upon it, let the impression be what it may, otherwise than in reply to such communication as I may make thereon, and respecting which it may be proper to add, that I shall take no step without your particular instruction; for, as I presume some ulterior plan is or will be adopted in regard to it, and upon which, in its relation to this republic, my conduct will be particularly marked out; so I deem it my indispensable duty to avoid, in the interim, any, the slightest, compromitment either of you or myself upon that subject. I mention this that you may distinctly know how completely the final result of this business, so far as it depends on me is, as indeed it ought to be, under your control."

Yet this did not prevent Mr. Monroe from entertaining doubts as to his instructions, and commenting upon them in his letters to the Secretary of State, and in some cases making these comments favorable to the French side of the argument. This led Mr. Randolph, in the summer of 1795, to review the whole course of this country towards France since the close of the Revolutionary War, and the conduct of France toward America, in a letter to the stubborn Minister.

But France now made the new English treaty a pretext for unfriendly conduct; and matters between the two countries went from bad to worse with a patched and doubtful peace until Napoleon easily settled the quarrels of the so-called republic, in 1803.

So deeply incensed were the "red republicans" or anarchic democrats over the state of affairs at this

time, that when C. C. Pinckney arrived in Paris as Mr. Monroe's successor, they refused to recognize him, or to hold further diplomatic relations with the United States. And Mr. Pickering directly charged Mr. Monroe with the failure to arrest this conduct on the part of France, when he possessed the means.

On the 7th of October, 1796, Mr. Monroe was notified that the French Minister to this country had been recalled; and soon afterwards the following notes passed between him and the Minister of Foreign Affairs :

"PARIS, Dec. 6, 1796.

"I have the honor to inform you that my successor (Mr. Pinckney) is arrived and is desirous of waiting on you for the purpose of presenting a copy of his letter of credence for the directoire executif of the French Republic. By him I have also received my letter of recall. Permit me therefore to request you will be so obliging as to appoint a time when Mr. Pinckney and myself shall have the honor to attend you for the purpose of presenting you copies of these documents."

"DEC. 11, 1796.

"CITIZEN MINISTER,-I hastened to lay before the executive directory the copy of your letter of recall and of the credentials of Mr. Pinckney, whom the President of the United States has appointed to succeed you as minister plenipotentiary of the said States near the French Republic. The directory has charged me to notify to you, 'that it will no longer recognize, nor receive, a minister plenipotentiary from the United States, until after a reparation of the grievances demanded of the American government, and which the French Republic has a right to expect.'

“I beg you, Citizen Minister, to be persuaded, that this determination, which is become necessary, does not oppose the continuance of the affection between the French Republic and the American people, which is grounded on former good offices and reciprocal interest; an affection which you have taken pleasure in cultivating by all the means in your power.

"Accept, Citizen Minister, the assurance of my perfect consideration. (Signed) CH. DE LA CROIX."

CHAPTER VI.

THE FRENCH MISSION-GENERAL WASHINGTON'S VIEW OF IT.

T was a misfortune that Mr. Monroe's views as to

IT

France were not in perfect harmony with those of President Washington. But whatever estimate may be placed upon Mr. Monroe's "View of the Conduct of the Executive," the evidence is not very clear that he allowed his private sentiments greatly to lead him astray in his behavior before the French. He went to France at an excited and trying period in her history. Under uncommonly changeful and irresponsible agents her government, if such it could be called, was conducted with great suspicion and ill-temper in its relations to other nations.

The tone of Mr. Monroe's communications to the French authorities is of a high and patriotic character. That his efforts were, to a great extent, fruitless, does not necessarily appear as a fault in him. It was his misfortune to be obliged to deal with a nation of such temper and at so evil a period. His methods of conducting his difficult undertaking were not agreeable to the Administration at home, and while they were not always such as it was reasonable to expect of him, by no means the least offensive feature of the case was his patronage of French views and arraignment of the

Administration under which he had served, in the spirit and manner of a champion of partisan theories.

When he returned home in 1797, Mr. Adams was President, and General Washington was retired at Mount Vernon, but this did not deter Mr. Monroe from making this very extensive publication concerning the conduct of the French Mission. The main point in the controversy rested, perhaps, on the Jay Treaty. A large class of his countrymen strongly sided with him in opposition to that treaty. And this class especially sustained Mr. Monroe in his published defense. He adopted the plan of self-vindication at the outset of his public career, although he stood less in need of it than General Jackson and many others who pursued the same course. But there was much more than self-defense involved in Mr. Monroe's "View."

He had started into the work of his mission, in a way entirely unknown in diplomatic affairs, with a public address, reception, and spectacle, which had a tendency to put his own country in a false attitude, and which the shrewd French managers designed should result to their benefit. He had, however, studied his instructions, and meditated more on what he had heard in Congress, and what he believed to be the general sentiment of the country outside of the Administration. From the outset the Administration was dissatisfied with his conduct, and Mr. Randolph had early taken occasion deprecatingly and reprovingly to say that in such precarious condition of the foreign relations it was to be expected that what he had to say as Minister from this country would be better said in private and not laid open to the criticism of other

nations; and advised him while in future cultivating friendly relations with France to do so "without unnecessary éclat."

While there is some evidence that Mr. Randolph repented slightly of the severity in his instructions to Monroe, he was succeeded in the State Department by a man who, besides not believing in Monroe, had no patience in dealing with him. The French managers had fallen into the opinion that Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Mr. Monroe's successor, belonged to the class of English aristocrats, then so offensive to the Jacobins. To this erroneous idea they were, perhaps, to a considerable extent indebted to Tom Paine. This restless, unfortunate, and unprincipled fellow lived for months in Mr. Monroe's house, and although Monroe respected him for the benefits one or two of his writings had conferred, as was generally believed, on this country, and sympathized with him in his troubles, there is lacking the evidence that he was, to any great degree, under Paine's influence in the course he pursued in France.

Mr. Monroe had a strong partisan feeling towards Mr. Jay, and it would have been difficult for him to view the treaty with England in a better sense than he did. And, although this treaty greatly cooled the temper of France towards him, he quitted there in the very personal "éclat" that Mr. Randolph dreaded and admonished him to avoid, the "red republicans" having learned to distinguish between Mr. Monroe and the Government he represented. How far Monroe was responsible for this line of demarkation it may not be easy to say. It could not possibly be to his credit to say that his failure in France was owing to his non