Adams was placed by his precipitation in an awkward predicament.

"It is," a Senator wrote to Hamilton, "one of the misfortunes to which we are subjected by the wild and irregular starts of a vain, jealous, and half-frantic mind, that we are obliged to practise an infraction of correct principles, a direct communication between the President and Senate. I am this morning to wait upon him and solicit an interview between him and the committee upon his nomination, to induce him to alter it as respects the person; and, instead of an individual, to propose a commission, as it respects the principles on which the negotiation shall commence, and as respects the scene within which it shall be carried on."

The Committee had an interview with the President. "He declared repeatedly, that to defend the Executive against oligarchic influence, it was indispensable that he should insist on a decision on the nomination;" and he added, "I have, on mature reflection, made up my mind, and I will neither withdraw nor modify the nomination." If Murray was negatived, he said, he would then propose a Commission, two of which should be gentlemen within the United States; that the commission should be joint; that in no case they should be permitted to leave the country until the positive official assurances of their reception, "shall have been given." *

In consequence of this decision, it was resolved to reiect the nomination; but at the request of Adams, the rejecting report was deferred to give him time to prepare a message to the Senate. He now abandoned the ground he had recently taken, and nominated Ellsworth the ChiefJustice of the United States-Patrick Henry and Murray as Commissioners-for the reason that it would give more general satisfaction.

"This modification of the measure," Hamilton ob

* Sedgewick to Hamilton, February 28, 1799.

served, "was a virtual acknowledgment, that it had been premature. How unseemly was this fluctuation. It argued either instability of views, or want of sufficient consideration beforehand. The one or the other, in an affair of so great moment, is a serious reproach."

Henry declined the mission, General Davie of North Carolina was substituted.

It has been perceived, that in the act suspending intercourse with the French dominions, power to except its dependencies had been reserved. It was among the extraordinary inconsistencies of Adams, that, while he appointed a minister to France to negotiate an accommodation with her, he should have sent an agent to Toussaint to encourage the independence of St. Domingo. This did not escape Hamilton's observation, when urged by Pickering to frame a plan for the temporary government of that Island. Previous to the nomination of Murray, he had observed to him:

"The provision in the law is ample, but in this, my dear sir, as in every thing else, we must unite caution with decision. The United States must not be committed on the independence of St. Domingono guarantee—no formal treaty *-nothing that will rise up in judgment. It will be enough to let Toussaint be assured verbally, but explicitly, that upon his declaration of independence, a commercial intercourse will be opened; and continue while he maintains it and gives due protection to our rights and property. I incline to think the declaration of independence ought to precede." This suggestion was made in confcrmity with an opinion he entertained, that "the independence of the French West India colonies ought to be aimed at."

The Secretary of State having renewed his request, Hamilton enclosed a plan for the government of St. Do

The British government had proposed a plan to Rufus King, which he disapproved; but he suggested a joint treaty of protection.

retary of State, January 10, 16, 25, 1799.

R. King to Sec

mingo, which, he wrote, "had been delayed by the multiplicity of his avocations and imperfect health, that had prevented his bestowing sufficient thought to offer any thing worth having."

It is a document indicative of the fertility of his genius-being well devised to protect an ignorant and semibarbarous people from total licentiousness on the first acquisition of independence; and to prepare them for the gradual advances towards liberty, which their social improvement would require and suggest.

"The multiplicity of my avocations, joined to imperfect health, has delayed the communication you desired respecting St. Domingo. And what is worse, it has prevented my bestowing sufficient thought to offer at present any thing worth having.

"No regular system of liberty will at present suit St. Domingo. The government, if independent, must be military, partaking of the feudal system."

In this view of what the condition of St. Domingo required, he framed the outline of a form of government, to rest on a military basis. At the close of this letter he observed: "These thoughts are very crude, but perhaps they may afford some hints. How is the sending an agent to Toussaint to encourage the independency of St. Domingo, and a minister to France to negotiate an accommodation, reconcilable to consistency or good faith?”*

On the second of March the "act to regulate the med. ical establishment," drawn by General Hamilton,—an act "giving eventual authority to the President to augment the army;" and another "authorizing the augmentation of the marine corps," were approved; and on the third, the day prior to the adjournment of Congress, the bill, also drawn by Hamilton, "for the better organizing

* February 21, 1799.

of the troops of the United States," was likewise approved. This act, it has been stated, created the rank of "GENERAL," abolishing that of "Lieutenant-General." Though its avowed object was to confer upon Washing ton the higher rank he had held during the Revolution,* to which Adams claimed to have nominated him; and though its language was imperative, yet Adams, regarding it as an attempt "to appoint a General over the President," WITHHELD the commission!!

June 15, 1775. The Committee appointed to draft a commission and instructions for "GENERAL Washington," were Lee, E. Rutledge, John Adams

CHAPTER CL.

THIS Republic had now virtually passed from under the counsels of its great founders, though still in power. All the salutary personal influences which had elevated it to its high and dignified station among the nations were checked. And it is to be no longer seen, subduing, but fitfully struggling with the antagonistic force, which had opposed its establishment, and was soon to obtain over it a long-enduring mastery.

The session of Congress ended on the fourth of March, seventeen hundred and ninety-nine, and the leading administration members left the seat of government with a fixed distrust of Adams, and with serious alarms for the future. They knew that no confidence was to be placed in the counsels of France, and that a mission thus instituted, would only encourage a renewal of her efforts to render the United States, an open auxiliary in her projects of ambition. They saw all their exertions to sustain the high sense of national honor her injuries had aroused, baffled; that their country, humiliated and weakened, would become, for a time, the mere satellite of an armed despotism, that aggressions on the part of England would follow, then commercial restrictions and retaliations, the policy Jefferson had proposed and Madison had supported, then a feeble war-and a compromising peace.