600 MONROE'S CORRESPONDENCE. [CHAP. VIII. trary," he adds, "I well know that if, upon consideration, after the experiment made, you should be of opinion that it produces any solid benefit to the republic, the American Government, and my countrymen in general, will not only bear the departure with patience, but with pleasure."1 In his letter to his Government,' he suggests that the French decree might have been tolerated, lest a demand for rescinding it might produce a call for the guarantee. To this the Secretary replied that the redress he was instructed to apply for could not possibly be obtained unless the decree were rescinded; and if the fear of the guarantee was thus to operate, he could never claim compensation for any infraction of the treaty. He adds, that the omission of the French Government to ask the fulfilment of the guarantee, is a proof that their policy did not make it desirable. The Secretary says he is unapprised of any data upon which Mr. Monroe could have inferred that the American Government and people felt indifference on this subject; "and undoubtedly the President himself would not undertake that the people of the United States would bear with patience a departure from stipulations which are generally believed to be important to us." He is therefore urged to remonstrate against the decree without delay; but in asserting the rights of his country, it is not wished "that he should swerve from the line of conciliation." In the Minister's despatches of the first of February, 1795, he defends himself against the reprehensions of the Government. He refers to the state of things when he arrived; the prejudice entertained against the views and feelings of the Government of the United States; the 2 Ibid. page 116. 1 Monroe's View, page 34. 1796.] MONROE'S CORRESPONDENCE. 601 importance of regaining their confidence; and affirms that the course he took, so far from having a bad effect on Mr. Jay's negotiation, contributed to further it; Great Britain being not disposed to make a treaty with the United States but in consequence of the successes of France and of her belief in the good understanding between that country and the United States. He was thus justified in the warm language he had used, and in giving it publicity. On the third charge of our toleration of the breaches of the treaty, he merely urges that a generous policy was better calculated to produce a good effect in France than a strict one. He denies that he conceded the point, or showed an indifference to it. He insists on the success of his efforts to conciliate the French Government, and remarks, "I now declare that I am of opinion, if we stood firmly on that ground [the possession of their confidence unimpaired], there is no service within the power of this republic to render that it would not render us, and upon the slightest intimation." “I It appears from Mr. Monroe's despatches that the French Government manifested from the first much anxiety concerning the treaty with England, which was greatly increased by the strict secresy observed as to its contents, and by the delay of submitting it to the Senate, until the eighth of June. In January, 1795, the French Government, as if to take from the United States the plea that the treaty of 1778 was violated by France, enacted a decree by which the articles respecting enemy's goods and contraband (embraced in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth articles), were again recognized, and to have full force and effect. 1 Monroe's View, page 82. 602 COMPLAINTS BY THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT. [CHAP. VIII. At first, hopes were entertained that the British treaty would not be ratified, from the doubts expressed by Mr. Randolph to Mr. Monroe. But after it was published, the French authorities both in France and the United States regarded it as making concessions to England highly injurious to France, as well as incompatible with their treaty stipulations with her; and at length, in February, 1796, one of the members of the new French Executive told Mr. Monroe that from the moment the treaty was ratified, the Directory had considered the alliance between France and the United States as ceasing to exist, and that they should appoint an Envoy Extraordinary to communicate this inference to the American Government. The Minister made some unavailing efforts to alter this decision, and on pressing the Directory to state their causes of complaint against the United States, on the eleventh of March, they sent to the American Minister an exposition of their "complaints," arranged under five heads, in support of which they stated particular facts, and made full comments. First. They complain of the non-execution of treaties in the following particulars: 1. That American Courts took cognizance of the prizes made by French privateers, notwithstanding the prohibition of the treaty. 2. The admission of British vessels-of-war into the United States, contrary to the seventeenth article of the treaty with France. 3. The non-execution of the consular convention made between the two nations in two important particulars. 4. The arrest in Philadelphia of the captain of the corvette Cassius for an act committed by him on the high seas, contrary to the nineteenth article of the treaty. 1796.] MONROE DEFENDS THE UNITED STATES. 603 They complain, secondly, of the impunity of the outrage committed by the English ship Africa, and the English Vice-Consul on the republic, in the person of its Minister, the citizen Fauchet. Thirdly. The treaty concluded with Great Britain, in departing from the principles of the armed neutrality during their war of independence, and that they had extended the list of contraband even to provisions. To all these complaints Mr. Monroe returned an answer on the fifteenth of March, justifying or excusing the course of the United States.1 1 In a subsequent letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to Mr. Monroe, dated the seventh of July, 1796, he again refers to the British treaty, and says that "time had sufficiently ripened the points that were then in discussion (the fifteenth of March), and far from being enfeebled, our complaints against that treaty have acquired since, in our estimation, new force." He says the Directory "has seen in this act, concluded in the midst of hostilities, a breach of the friendship which unites the United States and this republic; and in the stipulations which respect the neutrality of the flag, an abandonment of the tacit engagement which subsisted between the two nations upon this point since their treaty of commerce of 1778." The Minister of the United States replied to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the fourteenth of July, 1796, in which he not only vindicates the course of the United States, but assails that of France in setting aside by a decree the very articles of the treaty now in question: in consequence of which, fifty American vessels had been brought into French ports, their cargoes taken from the owners, who are yet unpaid; and eighty others embarMonroe's View, page 324. 1 604 MONROE CENSURÈD BY HIS GOVERNMENT. [CHAP. VIII. goed at Bordeaux, and detained there more than a year. He complains also that no compensation had been made for supplies to the French West Indies, and for numerous spoliations; and he takes credit for his forbearance in not bringing forward these complaints before: nor does he at this time press those claims, but merely communicated them as important facts which ought to be known and considered by the present Government of France. To have urged those acts of the French Government, so injurious to the United States, as well as in direct conflict with the treaty, and to have at the same time tolerated, if not excused them, seems to have been the most objectionable part of Mr. Monroe's diplomatic course. He appears to have estimated the disinterested generosity of those with whom he was negotiating by his own, without recollecting how little these sentiments enter into the minds of politicians and diplomatists, unless they are also coupled with national interests. On the thirteenth of June, 1796, Mr. Pickering, now Secretary of State, wrote a severe letter of reprehension to Mr. Monroe. He says that the views of the Government had been communicated to him solely to furnish him with the means of removing objections to the treaty, and dispelling the jealousies of the French, both of which he had stated to exist. His failure to use those means had therefore greatly surprised the President. He adds, that, after his audience with the Directory, in which he had succeeded in inducing them to suspend the proposed extraordinary mission to the United States, from this favorable result, the happiest consequences might have been expected from the full communications he might then have made, and which he had long had the means of making in vindication of the measures of the |