Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/112

 92 JOHN" ADAMS Talleyrand finally obliged them to leave, after which he attempted, though still without suc- cess, to extract money or promises of it from Gerry alone. The publication of the despatches in which these discreditable intrigues were disclosed (an event on which Talleyrand had not calculated) produced a great excitement both in Europe and America. Talleyrand at- tempted to escape by disavowing his agents, and pretending that the American ministers had been imposed upon by adventurers. Gerry left France, and the violation of American commercial and maritime rights was pushed to new extremes. In America the effect of all this was greatly to strengthen for the moment the federal party. The grand jury of the fed- eral circuit court for Pennsylvania set the ex- ample of an address to the president, applaud- ing his manly stand for the rights and dignity of the nation. Philadelphia, which, under the lead of Mifflin, McKean, and others, had gone over to the opposition, was suddenly converted once more, as during Washington's first term, to the support of the federal government. That city was then the headquarters of the American newspaper press. All the hitherto neutral papers published there, as well as several others which had more or less deci- dedly leaned to the opposition, came out now in behalf of Adams. Besides an address from five thousand citizens, the young men got up a separate address of their own. This ex- ample was speedily imitated all over the coun- try, and the spirited replies of the president, who was now in his element, served in their turn to blow up and sustain the blaze of patri- otic indignation. These addresses, circulated everywhere in the newspapers, were collected at the time in a volume, and they reappear in Adams's works, of which they form a charac- teristic portion. A navy was set on foot, the old continental navy having become extinct, and an army was voted and partly levied, of which "Washington accepted the chief com- mand. Merchant ships were authorized to pro- tect themselves. The treaty with France was declared to be at an end, and a quasi war with France ensued. It was not, however, the policy of France to drive the United States into the arms of Great Britain. Even before Gerry's departure Talleyrand had made some advances toward reconciliation, which were afterward renewed by communications opened with Vans Murray, the American minister to Holland. The effect of the French outrages and of the progress of the French revolution had been to create, in a part at least of the federal party, the desire for an absolute breach with France a desire fclt by Hamilton, and by three at least out of the four cabinet offi- cers whom Adams had found and had kept in office. In his message to congress announc- ing the expulsion of Pinckney and Marshall, Adams had declared "that he would never send another minister to France without as- surances that he would be received." This was on the 21st of July, 1798. When, there- fore, on the 18th of February following, with- out consulting his cabinet or giving them any intimation of his intentions, he sent into the senate the nomination of Vans Murray as min- ister to France, this act took the country by surprise, and hastened the downfall of the federal party. Some previous acts of Adams, such as the appointment of Gerry, which his cabinet officers had striven to prevent, and his disinclination to make Hamilton second in command of the army till forced into it by "Washington, had strengthened the distrust en- tertained of Adams by Hamilton and many of his friends ; and Adams was now accused of seeking, in his attempt to reopen diplomatic intercourse with France, to reconcile his polit- ical opponents of the republican party, and to secure by unworthy and impolitic concessions his own reelection as president. The opposition to Murray's nomination so far prevailed that Murray received two colleagues, Ellsworth of Connecticut and Davie of North Carolina; but the president would not authorize the departure of Ellsworth and Davie till he had received explicit assurances from Talleyrand that they would be duly received as ministers. On arriving in France they found the directory superseded and Napoleon Bonaparte first con- sul, with whom they managed to arrange the matters in dispute. But, however beneficial to the country, this mission proved very disastrous to Adams personally, and to the political party to which he belonged. He justified its appoint- ment on the ground of assurances conveyed to him through a variety of channels that France desired peace, and he excused himself for not having consulted his cabinet by the fact that he knew what their opinion was without asking them decidedly hostile, that is, to any such attempt as he had determined to make. The masses of the federalists, fully confident of Adams's patriotism, were well enough disposed to acquiesce in his judgment ; but many of the leaders were implacable. The quarrel was fur- ther aggravated by Adams's dismissal at this time of his cabinet officers and the construction of anew cabinet. The pardon of Fries, convicted of treason for armed resistance in Pennsylvania to the levy of certain direct taxes, was also re- garded by many at the time as a piece of mis- placed lenity on the part of Adams, dictated, it was said, by a mean desire of popularity in a case in which severe example was needed. But Adams will hardly suffer with posterity from his unwillingness to be the first president to sign a death warrant for treason, especially as there was room for grave doubts whether the doings of this person amounted to treasor as defined by the constitution of the Uniu-i: States. In this divided condition of the fed- eral party the presidential election came on. Adams was still too popular with the mass of the party to encourage any attempt to drop him altogether, and the malcontents were redn to the old expedient of attempting by secret