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CHAPTER XVIII.

A PROVINCE OF FRANCE OR AN INDEPENDENT

NATION-WHICH?

IS essential to a clear understanding of the history.

of political parties in this country for the next few years, to obtain a vivid realization of the nature and extent of the insults and outrages, to which the United States were subjected at the hands of France. We have seen how one French minister defied the government, and attempted to compel it to take part with France in her war with England; how another, profiting so far by the experience of his predecessors

Conduct of French ministers of the United States and treatment of American ministers in France.

as to realize the impossibility of driving the government out of the path of neutrality, so far forgot the proprieties of his office, and the respect due to the constituted authorities, as to publish article after article in a Republican paper with the object of influencing the presidential election. We have seen how one minister of the United States was insultingly driven from France, and how this country, in spite of the assertion by the French government that France would never receive another minister till the grievances of which she complained were redressed, sent three envoys extraordinary for the purpose of settling, if possible, in an amicable way, the difficulties between the two countries.

We have seen these envoys patiently waiting, hat in hand, at the door of the French republic, knocking in vain for admission; we have seen them in their intense anxiety to preserve peace, ignore these insults and, contrary to diplomatic usage, write a letter to the government that had refused to receive them-as a man bent on peace, might go to the house of his enemy and, after waiting in vain for him to open the door, go to the window and shout through it in mild and conciliatory language, the message of peace he had come to bring; we have seen the dignified and convincing, and yet passionless way in which they stated the case of the United States, and the false and insulting reply made by the French minister of foreign affairs; we have seen the envoys, still bent on preserving peace between the two countries, ignoring his insults, and declaring in reply that they were ready to do anything not inconsistent with the interests and the independence of the United States, in order to restore cordial relations between the two countries, that unless the United States could do as they pleased about maintaining a position of neutrality, they were not independent, and that for France to demand them to give up their neutrality as a condition of peace, was in effect to say that the only terms upon which she would be at peace with them, was that they should renounce their sovereignty and independence and become a province of France; we have seen Tallyrand bowing the two Federalist envoys out of the republic and yet subjecting one of them to

insulting indignities before giving him the passport without which he could not leave France, and giving the other with manifest reluctance permission to remain a few months in France with a sick daughter-all this we have seen, but it by no means completes the list of insults and outrages to which the United States were subjected at the hands of France.

Nature of the question at issue.

But before attempting, not to complete the list, but to make it less incomplete, at the risk of unnecessary repetition, we must again call attention to the nature of the question which was at issue between the two countries, and had been since Genet landed at Charleston in the spring of 1793. That question was essentially this: Should the United States rule themselves, or should they be ruled by France? Was there, on this side of the Atlantic, an independent and sovereign American State, or was there in effect, a province of France, amusing itself in child-like fashionwith the forms and airs of sovereignty? For several months, as we have seen, Genet, acting on the theory that the United States was a province of France, conducted himself as "co-sovereign" of the country. The government determined one way, and he, the representative of France, not only determined another, but acted on his determination. The government said that the United States were and wished to be neutral in the war between England and France; he, in effect, said that they were not neutral, and employed to some extent the resources of the country,

When the

Explanation of

Genet and Adet.

-and plainly hoped to be able to employ them all eventually on the theory that they were not. French agent was overthrown through the popularity and firmness of Washington, the conduct of France by no means abandoned the purpose of bending the United States to her will, of making the country in effect a French province. Genet's experience only made her realize the necessity of resorting to other methods. As she could not array the people against their government, the easiest way of accomplishing her designs seemed to be to exert her influence to put the government in the hands of men, whom she supposed herself able to control. This was why Adet openly attempted to win votes for Jefferson in the presidential election of 1796.

Policy of France

of Jefferson.

But when Jefferson was beaten, and the government was continued in the hands of what France chose to consider the British party, she determined to resort to more violent methods to gain her after the defeat ends. Adet had attempted to convince the people through the columns of the Aurora that they must elect Jefferson if they would avoid war with France. After the defeat of Jefferson the policy of the French was to make the government believe that it must choose between war with France, and submission to the will of France. France felt confident that the American people, to use an expression afterwards made famous by Josiah Quincy, could not be kicked into war with her. If she

could convince the government that its choice was narrowed between an impossibility, and submission to her will, she felt sure of accomplishing her purpose. This is why one American minister was driven from France; why the three envoys were kept waiting for admission six months in the ante-room of the French republic, and why two of them, supposed to be less manageable than the third, were finally dismissed.

But, as the letter of the envoys to Talleyrand has already shown, France by no means relied on the means employed by her ministers in the United

Explanation of the anti-neutral

decree of 1793.

States, and on the pressure she was able to bring upon the government through her treatment of American ministers in France, for the attainment of her ends. The first decree mentioned in the letter of the envoys, the decree passed, be it remembered, in May, 1793, before the British provision order-ordering French ships of war and privateers to bring into the ports of the republic, neutral ships, laden with merchandise belonging to enemies, or with provisions bound for the ports of enemies, was probably no part of the system, afterwards developed, to compel the United States to do the will of France. In the then situation of the French republic, engaged in a desperate struggle with nearly the whole of Europe, that decree was doubtless regarded by the French National Convention, which then governed France, as a desperate measure rendered justifiable and necessary, by the desperate position of France. A govern

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