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1796.]

MONROE AND PICKERING.

605

United States. It was to be regretted that they were not made even so late as the twenty-fifth of March. The President trusts that those explanations have been since given, and that they have been satisfactory; but if not yet made, that they shall be no longer delayed. Written communications are deemed the most eligible, and are required to be used by the Minister.

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On the fourth of September, Mr. Monroe answers this letter of Mr. Pickering's. He defends his course with earnestness and warmth. He says the delay of the French Government in manifesting its discontent should lead to a directly opposite inference from Mr. Pickering's. He deemed it more prudent to remain silent than to provoke discussion, or to anticipate dissatisfaction on their part: that, before the fifteenth of February, no complaint was made to him. He then details the result of an informal conference with the members of the Directory, in which they renewed their former objections to the British treaty, and he his former vindication of the United States.

On the twenty-first of the same month, the American Minister writes to the Secretary of State, that, in answer to his inquiries about rumored attempts of the French to possess themselves of Canada, Louisiana, and Florida, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs informed him that they were not anxious about Canada, but merely wished to separate it from England; and that, as to Louisiana, if they took it, it would only be to keep the British from it, in case of a war with Spain. He also states that the French Government had issued an order to their cruisers to seize British property in neutral bottoms.

The American Minister wrote to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, inquiring into this order for seizing enemy's property in American vessels: to which, on the

606

MONROE AND THE MINISTRY OF FRANCE. [CHAP. VIII.

sixth of October, he had received no answer. Instead of a reply, he received a note couched in a very insulting tone, concerning the prosecution of the late Governor of Guadaloupe in the United States Courts, and which threatened reprisals if those suits were not dismissed.

On the seventh of October the Minister of External Relations wrote to Mr. Monroe that the Executive Directory had suspended the functions of the Minister from France to the United States,' and that they had passed a decree, of which he sends a copy, whereby the armed ships of France will treat the United States as these suffer the English to treat them. He then remarks, "but, citizen Minister, you know too well from what side the first blow was given to that friendship which our two nations had sworn to:" and he adds, "that the ordinary relations subsisting between the two people, in virtue of the Convention and treaties, shall not on this account be suspended. The Consuls will remain to superintend them."

"The Federal Government is too enlightened not to have foreseen all the results of that treaty, and no doubt too just to desire that its whole weight should fall on the French republic. It shall not be the fault of the Executive Directory if the political relations between the two nations be not speedily re-established."

This note was replied to by Mr. Monroe, on the twelfth of October. He expresses lively regret at the course pursued by the French Government; but he trusts that the discontent will be transitory, and that he shall soon witness a restoration of harmony. He shall add nothing at present on the subject of the complaints of France, because it would be unprofitable, and would not accord with the respect due to his own Government, whose further orders he shall await. He expresses his sense of personal obligation for their attention to his

Monroe's Views, page 390.

1796.] MONROE SUPERSEDED BY PINCKNEY.

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several communications, as well as for their liberal senments towards himself.

On the twenty-second of August, 1796, Mr. Pickering writes to Mr. Monroe, saying that the French Minister's exhibition of his complaints on the ninth of March, and Mr. Monroe's answer to them, had been received, and sent to the President at Mount Vernon: that, before this despatch had arrived, the President had decided on sending a new Minister to Paris, and had tendered the appointment to General Charles C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, who had accepted it. Mr. Pinckney would be the bearer of his letters of recall. He refers to his own letter of the thirteenth of June, which will manifest the "uneasiness and dissatisfaction" of the President, and explain the causes of both.

It seems that Mr. Monroe's letter to the French Minister, of the fourteenth of July, had not been received, when his letter of recall was written. The great and, as it may seem, undue forbearance towards the French, exhibited in that letter, had, then, no influence on the Government, but a dissatisfaction at the general tenor of his course. It is always hazardous for any administration, in its intercourse with other nations, to appoint one who has not its confidence, and who belongs to a different political party; and finding their error, they were determined on correcting it, without waiting for the Minister's defence of his course. He afforded no subsequent ground for his recall, as strong as the contents of his letter of the third of September, 1794, in which he stated that the American people and Government would bear their departures from the treaty of 1798 "not only with patience, but with pleasure." '

1

Mr. Pinckney was introduced by Mr. Monroe to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the ninth of December,

1 Monroe's View, page 34.

608

MONROE'S ADIEU TO THE DIRECTORY. [CHAP. VIII.

and two days later that Minister informed Mr. Monroe that the Executive Directory would no longer recognise nor receive a Minister from the United States, until the grievances of the French Government had been repaired; remarking that this measure was not opposed to the continuance of the affection between the French republic and the American people; an affection which, he says, Mr. Monroe had lost no means of cultivating.

In Monroe's address to the Directory, on taking leave, he expressed himself with grateful courtesy towards the French Government, and with respect towards his own, with lively wishes for the prosperity of the republic, and for harmony between the two nations.

The answer of the Directory was in bad temper and bad taste. They say, "that the Minister's recall offers a strange spectacle to Europe. France, rich in her freedom, surrounded by the train of her victories, will not stoop to calculate the consequences of the condescension of the American Government to the wishes of its ancient tyrants. The French republic expects, however, that the successors of Columbus, Raleigh, and Penn, always proud of their liberty, will never forget that they owe it to France-that the American people will find in the French that republican generosity which knows how to grant peace, as well as to cause its sovereignty to be respected."

Before Monsieur Adet, who had succeeded Fauchet as Minister of the United States, took his leave, he made a remonstrance that the American Government had refused, in conformity with the British treaty, to permit the sale of French prizes in the United States; and in October, he communicated the decree of the second of July, authorising the seizure of American vessels; and he subsequently published in the newspapers a proclamation, by

1796.] ADET'S PROCLAMATION AND COMPLAINTS.

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which all French citizens in the United States were called upon to wear the tri-colored cockade, on pain of not having the consular protection. It was generally worn by French citizens, and by not a few Americans, whose overflowing zeal for France made them forgetful of the respect due to their own nation.

He sent also a note to the State Department, on the fifteenth of November, 1796, demanding the execution of that contract which assured to the United States their existence, "and at the same time he announces the resolution of a Government terrible to its enemies, but generous to its allies.""

He proceeded to point out the injuries of which the French Government complains: that French vessels-ofwar had not been permitted to bring their prizes into the United States, agreeably to the seventeenth article of the treaty of 1778, and he refers to particular cases; and that the English vessels have been suffered to enjoy advantages interdicted by the same seventeenth article.

He resists the construction put on the seventeenth article by the American Secretary of State. He then complains of the treaty with England, which combines every thing that is injurious to France, and profitable to England: for proof, he refers to the articles respecting contraband, the right of seizing enemy's property, &c. He concludes with an appeal to the popular resentment felt against England during the Revolution, in that style of puerile declamation which characterized the French patriots of the Revolution."

This note was published in the Aurora, a Democratic journal of Philadelphia.

In September, General Washington, in pursuance of a

1 II. State Papers, page 196.

2

Ibid. page 214.

VOL. I.

39

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