CHAPTER judged of by the experience of the two last years of the IX. Revolutionary war. A striking defect in the British 1795. naval arrangements in preceding years had left the

American ports open for the entry of commerce, for the equipping of privateers, and the introduction of prizes. A different arrangement in the latter period of that war totally changed the scene. The larger privateers were taken; the small privateers were hauled up, as no longer able to cope even with armed merchantmen. The mercantile shipping of the United States fell, at the same time, a sacrifice to the vigilant operations of the British navy. At the present moment, the naval power of England was greater than ever. She had the command of the sea, and was likely to keep it. American commerce might be annihilated in a single year, and thousands of seamen be shut up to die in jails and prisonships. With the cessation of commerce, agriculture, above the supply of domestic wants, would be suspended, or its produce would perish on the hands of the producers. The sources of revenue failing, public credit would be destroyed. The people at large would be plunged from the summit of prosperity into an abyss of misery—a misery, too, sudden, and too severe to be patiently borne. To increase their calamities, or to make them the more sensibly felt, direct taxes must be levied to support the war, and happy would it be if to all these calamities internal dissensions were not added. Such a war would be injurious even to France. It would put an end to American commerce, and by commerce only could America give her any valuable aid. A fruitless diversion on the side of Canada would nearly bound our efforts.

Monroe, in his book, alluded with scorn to these alleged consequences of a war with Great Britain, particu

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larly to the "fruitless diversion on the side of Canada." CHAPTER Twenty years after, he might have seen in what had then just passed before his eyes a remarkable fulfill- 1795. ment of all Pickering's prognostications, and unquestionable proof how much sounder than his and that of his political associates was the judgment of Washington's cabinet.

After the above statement of the grounds on which the policy of the American government in entering into the treaty with Great Britain had been founded and was to be defended, Monroe was specially instructed to urge that the late negotiation had not proceeded from any predilection toward England. There were many causes of difference with that nation, especially the detention of the Western posts, that admitted of no longer delay, while the remembrance of a long, bloody, and distressing war, from which the nation was but just beginning to recover, was enough to cause the possible renewal of it to be most seriously deprecated. The commercial articles, though not unimportant, were, however, a subordinate object, but still not a new one, having been repeatedly urged upon the government, and measures having been powerfully supported in Congress, of which the sole object was to force Great Britain into a commercial treaty. Monroe was to insist upon the friendly disposition of the American government toward France; but, as there was no probability that the United States would become in any way a party to the existing war, he was carefully to avoid any thing which might raise such an expectation in the mind of the French government.

The task imposed upon Monroe by this letter could not but be exceedingly distasteful. Not only were the views he was thus instructed to urge in every respect counter to his own, but he stood personally in a very

CHAPTER delicate position, liable to be suspected by the French IX. government of having been voluntarily or ignorantly 1795. used, while the English negotiation had been in progress,

to throw dust in their eyes. Moreover, he was not without his hopes, in which, no doubt, his Virginia correspondents encouraged him, that the treaty might yet be defeated by the House of Representatives. Under these circumstances, he adopted the policy of saying nothing, a policy which he defended on the ground that it was best to leave it to the French government to state their complaints before he attempted to obviate them. So the matter rested for two months or more, when De la Croix, the French minister for Foreign Affairs, took occasion to 1796. inform Monroe that, since the ratification of Jay's treaty, Feb. 15. the Directory regarded the alliance between France and America at an end; that Adet was to return, and a special minister was to be sent out to make this announcement to the American government. Monroe remonstrated against this course, as likely to place the two March 8. republics in a hostile position, and, in a special interview with the Directory, professed his readiness to answer all such objections as might be urged against the treaty. In consequence of this interview, Monroe was furnished with a paper, signed by De la Croix, apparently a report to the Directory on the subject of American relations. It charged the United States with the non-execution of treaty obligations in five particulars: taking cognizance of the legality of French captures in case of prizes carried into American ports; admitting into American harbors English ships of war which had made prize of French vessels; refusing to enforce the judgments which French consuls were authorized by the Consular Convention to render in all cases between French citizens; requiring for the legal arrest of deserters from French vessels the

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presentation in court of the original register of equipage CHAPTER or shipping paper, notwithstanding the provision in another article of the Consular Convention that all faith 1796. should be given to consular copies; lastly, the seizure at Philadelphia of the French national corvette, the Cassius, for acts done on the high seas. Two other heads of complaint were added: first, the omission properly to resent the insult of the late attempted seizure of Fauchet, and the search of his baggage by a British ship of war within the waters of the United States; and, secondly, the extension given by the treaty with Great Brit-ain to the list of contraband, so that even provisions were included in it-an abandonment of the independence of their commerce inconsistent with the neutrality of the United States, and with their obligations to defend the colonial possessions of France.

To these several charges Monroe made a brief reply. The cognizance claimed of French prizes was only in case of captures within the waters of the United States, or by vessels fitted out within those waters-cases which must, in the nature of things, be excepted from the general terms of the treaty. The treaty prohibited the admission into American ports of armed vessels belonging to the enemies of France having prizes with them, a stipulation fulfilled as far as the limited means of the United States would admit, but which was not understood to extend to the exclusion of British ships of war, merely because at some former time they had made prize of French vessels. An answer as to the alleged breaches of the Consular Convention was promised when the cases should be more specifically stated. Though Monroe probably did not know it, the Supreme Court of the United States had decided that the jurisdiction provided for by the Consular Convention was only in the nature of an

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CHAPTER arbitration, and that the French consuls were not entitled to expect the assistance of the United States in 1796. enforcing their decrees. As to the corvette Cassius, she had been seized on the charge of having been fitted out at Philadelphia. The insult to Fauchet had been punished as far as could be done by a nation having no fleet -the guilty vessel had been ordered away, and complaint had been made to the British government. As to the provisions of the British treaty on the subject of contraband, the arguments which Pickering had suggested were briefly urged.

No reply was made to this paper, nor was the matter further pressed by Monroe. Both parties, no doubt, were waiting for the rejection of the treaty by the House of Representatives. Instead of this, news presently arrived June 25. that the appropriations for the treaty had passed.

July 7.

De

la Croix immediately wrote to Monroe to inquire if this information could be relied upon. Monroe replied that he knew no more than was stated in the newspapers, but at the same time expressed his readiness to answer any further objections to the treaty.

In

Another note from De la Croix, reiterating the dissatisfaction of the Directory, announced that they no longer considered themselves bound by the provisions as to neutral rights in their treaty with the United States. July 2. fact, an order had already issued-though no official notice of it had been given to Monroe, to whom, indeed, its existence was even denied-authorizing the ships of war of the Republic to treat neutral vessels in the same manner in which they suffered themselves to be treated by the English, thus again setting aside the stipulations of the treaty with America as to contraband and the carriage of enemy's goods.

In his answer to De la Croix's note, Monroe ventured