IN CHAPTER XXII. THE REVOLUTION OF 1800. N accordance with the law of 1798 authorizing the President to give instructions to the commanders of public armed vessels to capture any The quasi-war armed French vessel, the United States frig with France. ate Constellation "captured a French frigate, "L'Insurgente" (February, 1799), after a three hours' pursuit and a fight in which the French lost twenty killed and forty-six wounded, while the casualties of the Americans were only four. About a year later, the same ship gained a decided victory over the French frigate "La Vengeance." During the summer, also, a number of French privateers had been taken by American cruisers. These victories undoubtedly increased the desire of the French government to restore friendly relations with the United States. When the envoys reached Paris (March 2, 1800) they were warmly received, and without delay they entered upon negotiations. A difficulty immediately appeared which threatened to break up the negotiation. The Americans were instructed to insist upon the renunciation. The negotia France in 1800. of the old treaties and also upon an in- tion with demnity for spoliation of American com merce as indispensable provisions of any treaty which might be negotiated. But the French commissioners were unwilling either to relinquish the treaties of 1778 or to pay indemnities. The French finally (in August, 1800) offered the alternative of continuing in force the old treaties with provisions for mutual indemnities or making a new treaty without indemnities. The peremptory character of the instructions of the Americans made it impossible for them to accept either of these offers. They were compelled A convention agreed upon. either to break off the negotiation or make a temporary arrangement which would enable the American government to resume peaceful relations with France and which it might approve or reject as it saw fit. In October a convention was agreed upon leaving the question as to indemnity and the binding force of the old treaties, which meanwhile were to be inoperative, to future negotiations; providing for the mutual restoration of all captured property, French or American, not already condemned by either party; and for the mutual payment of debts whether they were owed by either of the governments or by individuals. When in December, 1800, the convention was submitted to the Senate, the Federalist senators who had been opposed to the mission struck out the article which referred the treaties of 1778 and indemnities to a future negotiation. The convention as modified by the Senate. Adams ratified the convention without this article, although he preferred it, as he informed the Senate, in its original form. Napoleon's When the convention was submitted to Napoleon, who was then at the head of the French government, he added a proviso to the effect that the expunging of the article relating to future proviso. negotiations should be understood as an abandonment of the claims of both sides, thus making the convention the equivalent of a new treaty without indemnities. In this form it was finally ratified by the United States. To free itself from the embarrassments of the treaties of 1778, the American government gave up its just claims to indemnity for French spoliation of American commerce. If the object of this history were to delineate the characters of the public men of the country rather than to follow the fortunes of its political parties, it would be necessary at this point to give a detailed account of the quarrels between Adams and his cabinet, and seek to measure out the proper portion of praise and blame. We should have to tell how Pickering, Wolcott, and McHenry kept their positions as confidential advisers of a President whose plans and policy they were trying to defeat. We should have to tell how they imparted the knowledge which they acquired in the confidential discussions of the cabinet to Alexander Hamilton, when they knew that he intended to use it to injure the reputation of the man to whom they owed their positions and whom they were professing to serve. There is one point, however, of a semi-personal nature that we cannot avoid discussing. To whom was the overthrow of the Federalist party due? Was it due to Adams' lack of tact and judgment, or was it due to the lack of judgment of the Hamiltonian Federalists, and especially of Hamilton himself? of the Federal ists. At this stage of our story the answer to this question ought not to be in doubt. The Federalist party The two wings was composed of two wings which differed from each other almost as widely as did the more moderate Federalists from the Republicans. The radical wing, headed by Hamilton, were profoundly convinced that the country was seriously menaced by dangers that threatened the very foundations of our social system; the moderate element, represented by John Adams, John Marshall, and the Southern Federalists generally, suffered from no such delusion; they were Federalists in that they accepted the broad construction of the constitution, not only as expressing its true meaning, but as conducing to the best interests of the country, and in that they did not share in the optimistic delusions of Democrats like Jefferson and Gallatin. The radicals, as we may term them, formed a very small minority of the party. Fisher Ames, who was one of its typical representatives, said that there were not more than five hundred men in way They agree as to foreign policy for some time after Adams' election. the country who were of his of thinking. He was probably right. But this small minority, through the great ability of its leader, Alexander Hamilton, and through the influence he was able to exert over Washington, determined in the main the policy of the country up to the election of Adams. For some time after the election of Adams there was no occasion for divergence between the two wings of the party. From the point of view of the believers in a "crisis," as well as from that of the President and of men like John Marshall, neutrality between the warring nations of Europe was so extremely desirable as to make it proper to send a new mission to France after the rejection of Pinckney. (But many of the Hamiltonian Federalists, Fisher Ames, George Cabot, Timothy Pickering, Oliver Wolcott, and Theodore Sedgwick, for example, were opposed to it.) * Nor did the two wings of the party come to the parting of the ways immediately after the failure of this mission. The difference between their ten- They disagree dencies was indeed clearly manifest. The as to war and as to the amount of military preparation desirable radicals wanted to declare war, but the moderates would not consent to it. The radicals also wanted to make much more extensive preparations for war than the moderates would permit. On March 17, 1798, Hamilton wrote to Pickering that our military establishment ought to be increased to twenty thousand men and a provisional army of thirty thousand provided for.† The Alien and Sedition laws were also primarily the work of the radicals; for, although they *Gibbs' Administrations of Washington and Adams, passim; Fisher Ames' Works; Life and Letters of Cabot, etc. Hamilton's Works (Lodge's Edition), VIII., 476, 478. |