point out to you to the fifth or seventh of this decade to resume our reciprocal communications." Gerry weakly consented to remain, although he insisted that he had no power to treat independently of his colleagues; that he could only confer informally and communicate the results to the United States. He afterwards excused himself for remaining on the ground that Talleyrand had repeatedly threatened that his leaving Paris would be the signal for an immediate declaration of war by France against the United States. But Gerry's consenting to remain did not relieve the country of repeated insults in the persons of his two colleagues. Notwithstanding Talleyrand's desire to have Marshall leave, he was unable to obtain a passport and safe conduct until he had been subjected to repeated indignities. And it was only with great difficulty that Pinckney could get permission to stay for a few months with a sick daughter, in the south of France. QUESTIONS. 1. Why was the selection of envoys for the French mission a matter of so much difficulty? 2. Explain the name by which the mission is generally known. 3. Give some account of the men appointed as envoys. 4. Do you know what the passages in the President's speech were that gave offense to the Directory? 5. What demands were made of the envoys as a condition of their reception? 6. What sort of insult does one country give to another when the former refuses to receive the ministers of the latter? 7. What was the origin of the patriotic cry in America: "Millions for defense but not a cent for tribute?" 8. The envoys said that to lend money to a belligerent power was to relinquish neutrality. Were they right? 9. Also, that to do it under compulsion was to relinquish their sovereignty. Was that true? 10. Talleyrand's agents threatened the United States with the fate of Venice; what was the fate of Venice? 11. What light does this mission throw on the speech of Robert Goodloe Harper, of which an account has been given in a preceding chapter. CHAPTER XVIII. A PROVINCE OF FRANCE OR AN INDEPENDENT IT IS essential to a clear understanding of the history I' 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. 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 Charles Nature of the question at issue. ton 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 "cosovereign" 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, |