CHAPTER VIII.

Commentary on the mission continued.......Further strictures on Mr. Pickering's publication.

Or the circumstances occurring after the departure of the two envoys, the most important are those, which ensued when their despatches had returned from America. These probably changed the whole complexion of the case. Mr. Gerry communicated to Talleyrand at his request the names of those individuals, whose discourse about loans and doceurs was conveyed to the American government. This forms another allegation against the propriety of his conduct.

There is something so ludicrous in finding in the diplomatic despatches of an important embassy grave discourse with people, who have neither local habitation nor a name, save at the end of the alphabet, that it is almost forgotten; these diminutive appellations were inserted not by the envoys but by the secretary of state.*

On the return of these despatches to France and to Europe, the envoys were exhibited as the subjects of an intrigue too base to permit even its agents to be named. But the implication, for in diplomatic arrangements insinuations often supply

* American state papers, vol. 3. p. 475. 2d ed.

the place of facts, plainly was that the French directory or its minister had endeavoured for their own corrupt purposes to impose on the unaccredited envoys, and taking advantage of the isolated condition in which they kept themselves, proposed to open a passage to the French government by bribery and fraud.

Whatever was the truth of the case, no course was left but for the French minister to pretend ignorance of the whole transaction, and demand, with the show of indignation, who it was that thus had offended the government, and tampered with envoys at its court?

The demand being made of the only individual, who was in a condition to answer it, Mr. Gerry might have refused to reply; and his silence would have been trumpeted through Europe as evidence of the fabrication, which in the spirit of a war party its ministers had circulated to rouse the indignation they were desirous of producing.

Or Mr. Gerry might have said, you Mr. minister know who they were: you employed, authorized, countenanced and directed them. You saw them with the American envoys, you knew what they were saying, doing, desiring, soliciting. You knew we refused to accede to their propositions, and you would not receive us. They were your agents, and it is an insult for you to ask me their residence or their name.

To such an honest expression of the truth

Talleyrand would reply, Sir, if your allegations are true, produce me the credentials, which entitled them to be received by you as my agents, or in want of such evidence, be contented that you and your colleagues shall be deemed dupes to sharpers, who came to you without authority, and that you sir, in addition, should stand accused before Europe with aiding their machinations by a declaration that you cannot maintain. They were not my agents. Your assertions are not warranted by the fact.

In this issue of fact between Mr. Gerry and M. Talleyrand, to have called individuals within the reach of the gens d'armorie of Paris to testify to the truth of their agency, could hardly have been prudent, and the Frenchman by the advantage of position, which his sagacity originally foresaw, was enabled to stand securely on his defence. There was a third course. It was to answer the question strictly and literally.

Who are the individuals intended by the letters X, Y, Z, &c. in your despatches.

They are Mr. Hottinguer, Mr. Bellamy, and Mr. Hauteval. If you knew them before, as I believe you did, my answer gives you no additional information; if you did not, punish them for an imposition mutually on you and us.

The whole error is to be traced to the informal conferences with individuals not bearing any credentials, and whose authority the French minister

might affirm or deny at his pleasure; and this error is to be shared in common by all the envoys. If their proportion is unequal, Mr. Gerry's is the least, as he first proposed its termination.*

To these material charges some others of inferior nature, to increase the weight of popular indignation, have at times been added. Thus it was gravely said that Mr. Gerry was at a private dinner with Mons. Talleyrand, where the business of the money was discussed.† A private dinner seemed to mark a degree of intimacy and unwarrantable compliance, which alarmed the minds of our plain republican citizens, to whom the corruptions and the manners of a court are equally matters of mystery. It was true that in the effort to establish that interchange of civility, which might lead to a mutual good understanding, Mr. Gerry dined at the table of the French minister, who in return

* Mr. Pickering intended in his report to have charged the whole of this informal mismanagement to Mr. Gerry.

As it was draughted it reads thus. Paragraph 34. “While we, amused and deluded by warm but empty professions of the pacific views and wishes of France, and by Mr. Gerry's informal conferences might wait in fruitless torpor hoping for a peaceful

result."

This part was amended by Mr. Adams, who caused the words, "Mr. Gerry's" to be erased, whereby the impropriety, if there was one, was attributed to the whole embassy, and not to any individual.

The disingenuousness of an atteinpt to charge the informal conferences on Mr. Gerry alone, who was the first of the three to propose their termination, is only a specimen of the whole of the secretary's report.-See Pickering's Review, p. 131.

+ Pickering's Review, p. 141.

for this customary form of politeness, was invited to the hotel of the American envoy. The dinner at Talleyrand's was what is called a private dinner, in opposition to those dinners called public, in which the ministers of the directory were accustomed to receive the public functionaries. It was in fact as public as forty or fifty guests of different classes, countries and sexes would permit. At such a private dinner was the money concerns of the American embassy supposed to be brought into discussion, and in such privacy was it that the American envoy was plotting treason against the rights of his country!

Mr. Gerry on two or three occasions failed of finding M. Talleyrand at his bureau, and although the secretary of the latter made an apology* for his absence, the fact has been adduced to show the slight regard he paid to the American envoy.t In offset to this it has been alleged that he became the dupe of the French minister's threats, mingled with blandishments flattering to his vanity. He had even the folly to imagine his colleagues envious of his good fortune.‡

*Mr. Pickering says, 66 one of Talleyrand's secretaries called to make a slight apology." This slight mode of speaking shows the temper of the party who uses it. How was it possible for Mr. Pickering to ascertain whether the apology was slight or formal, serious or delusive. It was an apology brought by the principal secretary of the minister's bureau.

† By the barbarous calendar adopted in the country, it was difficult always to remember when it was the Frenchman's sabbath. Mr. Gerry went once on a decade and the office was closed. Pickering's Review, p. 127.