CHAPTER my attention, I have an intimate conviction that I was VIIL mistaken in the propositions which I supposed to have

1795. been made to me."

That Fauchet might have misapprehended the purport of Randolph's conversation at the interview in question is highly probable; nor ought any serious regard to be paid to the extensive superstructure of inferences which the lively fancy of the French minister had erected upon it. Yet the new version of that conversation concocted at Newport, and based upon Randolph's explanatory suggestions upon his first reading the intercepted dispatch, has all the marks of a pure romance. A civil war to be prevented by penetrating into the secrets of a presumed cabal in New York between the British minister and others, and this object to be aecomplished by means of the contractors for supplying flour to the French government very likely persons indeed to be in Hammond's confidence! And then the precautions of Randolph to secure these agents against possible arrest for supposed British debts, by urging the payment of the amounts due them on their contracts! It is difficult to suppose, that a man of Randolph's sagacity made a special visit to the French minister's country house to propose any such ridiculous scheme, and not less difficult to imagine that Fauchet could so far have misunderstood a conversation, which strongly excited his attention, as to transform these nameless flour contractors into "four men" able, by their talents, influence, and energy, to save the country from a civil war, but needing a loan from the French minister to protect them from arrest by their English creditors. So little, indeed, was Randolph satisfied with a story which he himself had put into Fauchet's mouth, that, although he argued very stoutly, in his published Vindication, for

VIII.

the probability and consistency of that statement, he CHAPTER declined to say that he himself remembered one single particular of it; indeed, rather suggesting that he had 1795. merely challenged Fauchet to avail himself of the opportunity to substantiate the complaints he had often before made of machinations carried on in New York by Hammond, designed to operate on American politics unfavorably to the French republic.

Taking into account that Randolph was excessively embarrassed in his pecuniary circumstances, and that he left office a defaulter, the conjecture does not appear improbable that, to obtain some relief for himself, he might have attempted an experiment on the political credulity of the French minister. At all events, his conduct in the matter was by no means that of a man conscious of innocence. Instead of indignation against Fauchet, his whole anger was directed against Washington; and he attempted to withdraw attention from the true issue, and to shield himself behind the popular excitement against the British, by undertaking to show, in his published Vindication, that the intercepted dispatch had been communicated to Washington as part of a scheme concocted between Hammond and the cabinet officers to insure the ratification of the treaty, to drive Randolph from office, and "to destroy the Republicans in the United States."

The ratification of the treaty by no means quieted the public excitement. The idea was started that, although the president might ratify, it still rested with the House of Representatives to refuse, if they chose, the pecuniary means to carry the treaty into effect. The elections in all the states were not yet completed, yet it was confidently alleged that a majority hostile to the treaty had been already chosen.

IV. N N

CHAPTER
VIII.

But in proportion to the zeal with which the treaty had been attacked was the rally made in its favor. The 1795. Boston Chamber of Commerce, a few days before the president's decision, had passed a resolution, with only one dissenting voice, in favor of ratification. This was followed up by a memorial from the merchants and traders of Philadelphia, taking the same ground, and signed by a long list of names. Of the numerous public-meetings which continued to be held in all parts of the country, many came out in support of the treaty, and of the president's constitutional power in the matter. Some of the more violent of the Boston Democrats, as a counterdemonstration, paraded the streets with an effigy of Jay, which they persisted in burning. They then attacked the house of a Federal editor, but were fired on and repulsed. Disturbances were kept up for several nights; but, by alarming all friends of order, they served to strengthen the opposite party.

r

The question had already been carried into the newspapers, where it was discussed with great warmth, and in several cases with great ability. Not to mention numberless inferior writers, Brockholst Livingston assailed the treaty as Decius, to whom Hamilton, ever ready and able, responded as Camillus. So much was Jefferson alarmed at the force of Hamilton's reasoning, that he Sept. 21. pressed Madison, "for God's sake," to take up his pen, there being nobody but him able to meet that Federal champion, whom he described as "really a Colossus,” “a host within himself," and whose reasoning he had found by experience that "honest, sound-hearted men were unable to parry."

Notwithstanding the exclusion of American vessels from the British West Indies; and the various annoyances to which American trade was subjected, that trade was

increasing at a rapid rate.

The exports had risen in CHAPTER

five years from nineteen millions annually to forty-eight millions. A large part of this increase was in foreign 1795. merchandise, brought to the United States and again exported; but the value and amount of the domestic exports had also been greatly enhanced. Such a trade was not to be sacrificed to a war with Great Britain, except for the most urgent reasons; and, in spite of all the efforts of the opposition to arouse their passions, the great body of the merchants, and of the more judicious and reflecting portion of the people, came to the conclusion that the president had acted wisely in ratifying the treaty. Prudential considerations like these had, however, little weight with the more ignorant, thoughtless, passionate, and violent, the bitter haters of England and partisans of France; and, unfortunately, the conduct of too many of the British officials had been, and still continued to be, but little calculated to allay prevailing antipathies. Hammond, the late British minister for he too, as well as Fauchet, had gone home-was described by Wolcott as a weak, vain, and imprudent person, very much in the company and under the control of sour and prejudiced Tories, associations into which his connections by marriage naturally led him, The British naval officers were far from using that caution and delicacy by which alone the Americans could have been reconciled, if, indeed, any thing could have reconciled them, to the impressment of British seamen from American vessels. Indeed, the opinion very generally prevailed that most of these officers were quite careless whether the men impressed were British or not. Nor were the English, any more than the French cruisers, always observant of American territorial rights. Considerable feeling had lately been excited by an attempt to seize Fauchet, the

CHAPTER returning French minister, within the American waters, VIII. while on his passage through the Sound in an American 1795. packet-boat from New York to Newport, to embark in

The

a French frigate lying there, and which was watched by a British frigate outside the harbor. In consequence of stormy weather, the packet-boat put into New London, and Fauchet, on some hint of what was intended, proceeded to Newport by land. The boat was afterward stopped and many of her papers seized, in consequence of which the British frigate concerned in the outrage was ordered out of the waters of the United States. British consul at Newport, believed to have been concerned in the scheme, and who had written a somewhat disrespectful letter in relation to it, was deprived of his exequatur. Co-operating with this antipathy to England was a new enthusiasm in favor of the French, roused by their recent successes resulting in the conquest and revolution of Holland, the organization of the Batavian republic as a dependent ally of France, and the withdrawal, first of Prussia and then of Spain, from the alliance against the French republic. Notwithstanding the fearful atrocities of the late reign of terror, the strong American feeling in favor of the French had undergone but little diminution; and the danger of giving offense to so powerful an ally, the shame of deserting so magnanimous a friend, were pressed with energy as strong objections to the British treaty.

While this question of foreign affairs still engrossed all thoughts, the troublesome and expensive contest with the Northwestern Indians was brought at last to a satisfactory conclusion.. For the purpose of forming a treaty,. near eleven hundred warriors of the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanese, Ottawas, Chippewas, Potawatomies, Miamis, Weas, Kickapoos, Piankeshaws, Kaskaskias,