THE AMERICAN MEMORIAL
Separated far from Europe, we mean not to mingle in her quarrels. (Marshall.)
A fraudulent neutrality is no neutrality at all. (Marshall.)
We have a very considerable party in America who are strongly in our interest. (Madame de Villette.)
Four days after the festival of triumph to Bonaparte, Talleyrand's agents resumed their work. The sordid scenes were repeated, but their monotony was broken. Now the lady of the plot appeared upon the scene. In the long, vexed, and fruitless days of their stay in Paris, the American envoys, it seems, were not without the solace and diversion of the society of the French Capital.
Among the attractive feminine acquaintances they made, one was undoubtedly an agent of the French Foreign Office. Madame de Villette was one of the most engaging women in the French Capital.[658] Cultivated, brilliant, and altogether charming, she made herself particularly agreeable to the American envoys. She and Marshall became especially good friends; but Madame de Villette ventured no diplomatic suggestions to him, notwithstanding his easy good nature. She was far too good a judge of character to commit that indiscretion. So was Talleyrand, who by this time had begun to appreciate Marshall's qualities. But Pinckney, hearty, handsome man of the world, but without Marshall's penetration and adroitness, was another matter. Gerry the intriguers could already count upon; and only one other member of the commission was necessary to their ends. Perhaps Pinckney might be won over by this captivating Frenchwoman. On some occasion Madame de Villette approached him:—
"Why will you not lend us money?" said she to Pinckney. "If you were to make us a loan, all matters will be adjusted. When you were contending for your Revolution we lent you money." Pinckney pointed out the differences—that America had requested a loan of France, and France now demanded a loan of America. "Oh, no," said she. "We do not make a demand; we think it more delicate that the offer should come from you; but M. Talleyrand has mentioned to me (who am surely not in his confidence) the necessity of your making us a loan, and I know that he has mentioned it to two or three others; and that you have been informed of it; and I will assure you that, if you remain here six months longer, you will not advance a single step further in your negotiations without a loan."
If that is so, bluntly answered Pinckney, the envoys might as well leave at once. "Why," exclaimed Talleyrand's fair agent, "that might possibly lead to a rupture, which you had better avoid; for we have a very considerable party in America who are strongly in our interest."[659]
The fox-like Talleyrand had scented another hole by which he might get at his elusive quarry. "Every man has his price" was his doctrine; and his experience hitherto had proved it sound. He found that the brilliant Paris adventurer, Beaumarchais, had a lawsuit against the State of Virginia. Beaumarchais had won this suit in the lower court and it was now pending on appeal. John Marshall was his attorney.[660] Here, then, thought Talleyrand, was the way to reach this unknown quantity in his problem.
On December 17, Marshall, happening into Gerry's apartment, found Bellamy there. Beaumarchais had given a dinner to Marshall and his fellow envoys, from which Bellamy had been kept by a toothache. The envoys had returned Beaumarchais's courtesy; and he had retired from this dinner "much indisposed."[661] Since then Marshall had not seen his client. Bellamy casually remarked that he had not known, until within a short time, that Marshall was the attorney for Beaumarchais, who, he said, had very high regard for his Virginia attorney.
Marshall, his lawyer's instincts at once aroused, told Bellamy that Beaumarchais's case was of very great magnitude and that he was deeply interested in it. Whereupon, in a low tone, spoken aside for his ear only, Bellamy told Marshall that, in case the latter won the suit, Beaumarchais would "sacrifice £50,000 Sterling of it as the private gratification" demanded by the Directory and Talleyrand, "so that the gratification might be made without any actual loss to the American government." Marshall rejected this offer and informed Pinckney of it.[662]
Marshall's character is revealed by the entry he promptly made in his Journal. "Having been originally the Counsel of Mr. de Beaumarchais, I had determined & so I informed Genl. Pinckney, that I would not by my voice establish any argument in his favor, but that I would positively oppose any admission of the claim of any French citizen if not accompanied with the admission of claims of the American citizens to property captured and condemned for want of a Rôle d'équipage."[663]
Bellamy then urged upon Gerry his plan of the Marshall-Beaumarchais arrangement. Talleyrand had been entertaining Gerry privately, and the flattered New Englander again wished to call on the French Minister, "to return the civility" by inviting Talleyrand to dinner.[664] To Talleyrand, then, went Gerry in company with Bellamy and asked the Foreign Minister to dine with him. Then Gerry tediously reviewed the situation, concluding in a manner that must have amused the bored Talleyrand: He would rather see the envoys depart for some city in another nation, said Gerry, until the Directory would receive them, than to stay in Paris under the circumstances.
Gerry was sure that the French diplomat was alarmed by this stern threat. "M. Talleyrand appeared to be uneasy at this declaration," he told his colleagues. Still, Talleyrand avoided "saying a word on it"; but he did say that Bellamy's representations "might always be relied on." Talleyrand declared that he would go further; he would himself write out his propositions. This he proceeded to do, held the writing before Gerry's eyes and then burned it; after this performance Talleyrand said he would dine with Gerry "the decade [ten days] after the present."[665]
Meanwhile, however, Gerry dined with the Foreign Minister. It was not a merry function. Aside from his guest of honor, the French Minister also had at his board Hottenguer, Bellamy, and Hauteval. Gerry could not speak French and Hauteval acted as translator. It must have been a pallid feast; the brilliant, witty, accomplished Talleyrand, man of the world, bon vivant, and lover of gayety; the solemn, dull, and rigid Gerry; the three trained French agents, one of them, as interpreter, the only means of general communication.[666] On rising from the table, Hottenguer at once brought up the question of the bribe. Would the envoys now give it? Had they the money ready? Gerry answered no![667]
Talleyrand, by now the mouthpiece of the rising Bonaparte, had proposed terms of peace to Great Britain; "the price was a Bribe of a Million Sterling to be divided among Directors, Ministers, and others. Talleyrand's Department was to share one hundred thousand Pounds Sterling." The British Government declined.[668]
King in London hastens to inform his American diplomatic associates in Paris of this offer, and cautions the envoys to act in concert. To Pinckney, King writes in cipher his anxiety about Gerry, whose integrity King had hoped would "overcome a miserable vanity and a few little defects of character ... which I now fear have been discovered by those who will be assiduous to turn them to mischief."
From the same source Pinckney is warned: "You must not appear to suspect what you may really know; ... you must ... save him [Gerry] and, in doing so, prevent the Division that would grow out of a Schism in your Commission." Gerry will be all right, thinks King, "unless Pride shall be put in opposition to Duty, or Jealousy shall mislead a mind neither ingenuous nor well organized, but habitually suspicious, and, when assailed by personal vanity, inflexible."[669]
Pinckney informs King of the situation in Paris on December 27, declaring "that we ought to request our Passports and no longer exhibit to the World the unprecedented Spectacle of three Envoys Extraordinary from a free and independent nation, in vain soliciting to be heard."[670]
Marshall now insists that the American case be formally stated to the French Government. Gerry at last agrees.[671] Marshall, of course, prepares this vastly important state paper. For two weeks he works over the first half of this historic document. "At my request Genl. Pinckney & Mr. Gerry met in my room & I read to them the first part of a letter to the Minister of Exterior Relations which consisted of a justification of the American Government,"[672] he relates in his Journal.
Over the last half of the American case, Marshall spends seven days. "The Second part of the letter to the Minister of Exterior Relations, comprehending the claims of the United States upon France, being also prepared, I read it to Genl Pinckney & Mr. Gerry." Both sections of Marshall's letter to Talleyrand were submitted to his colleagues for suggestions.[673]
It was hard work to get Gerry to examine and sign the memorial. "I had so repeatedly pressed Mr. Gerry," notes Marshall, "on the subject of our letter prepared for the Minister of Exterior Relations & manifested such solicitude for its being so completed as to enable us to send it, that I had obviously offended. Today I have urged that subject and for the last time."[674] Two days later Marshall chronicles that "Mr. Gerry finished the examination of our letter to the Minister of Exterior Relations."[675] A week later the letter, translated and signed, is delivered to Talleyrand.[676]
Upon this memorial were based future and successful American negotiations,[677] and the statement by Marshall remains to this day one of the ablest state papers ever produced by American diplomacy.
Marshall reminds Talleyrand of the frequent and open expressions of America's regard for France, given "with all the ardor and sincerity of youth." These, he says, were considered in America "as evidencing a mutual friendship, to be as durable as the republics themselves." Unhappily the scene changed, says Marshall, and "America looks around in vain for the ally or the friend." He pictures the contrast in the language and conduct of the French Government with what had passed before, and says that the French charge of American partiality toward Great Britain is unfounded.
Marshall then reviews the international situation and makes it so plain that America could not take part in the European wars, that even Talleyrand was never able to answer the argument. "When that war [began] which has been waged with such unparalleled fury," he writes, "which in its vast vicissitudes of fortune has alternately threatened the very existence of the conflicting parties, but which, in its progress, has surrounded France with splendor, and added still more to her glory than to her territory," America found herself at peace with all the belligerent Powers; she was connected with some of them by treaties of amity and commerce, and with France by a treaty of alliance.
But these treaties, Marshall points out, did not require America to take part in this war. "Being bound by no duty to enter into the war, the Government of the United States conceived itself bound by duties, the most sacred, to abstain from it." Upon the ground that man, even in different degrees of social development, is still the natural friend of man, "the state of peace, though unstipulated by treaty," was the only course America could take. "The laws of nature" enjoined this, Marshall announces; and in some cases "solemn and existing engagements ... require a religious observance" of it.[678]
Such was the moral ground upon which Marshall built his argument, and he strengthened it by practical considerations. "The great nations of Europe," he writes, "either impelled by ambition or by existing or supposed political interests, peculiar to themselves, have consumed more than a third of the present century in wars." The causes that produced this state of things "cannot be supposed to have been entirely extinguished, and humanity can scarcely indulge the hope that the temper or condition of man is so altered as to exempt the next century from the ills of the past. Strong fortifications, powerful navies, immense armies, the accumulated wealth of ages, and a full population, enable the nations of Europe to support those wars."[679]
Problems of this character, Marshall explains, must be solved by European countries, not by the United States. For, "encircled by no dangerous Powers, they [the Americans] neither fear, nor are jealous of their neighbors," says Marshall, "and are not, on that account, obliged to arm for their own safety." He declares that America, separated from Europe "by a vast and friendly ocean," has "no motive for a voluntary war," but "the most powerful reasons to avoid it."[680]
America's great and undefended commerce, made necessary by her then economic conditions, would be, Marshall contends, the "immediate and certain victim" of engaging in European wars; and he then demonstrates the disastrous results to America of departing from her policy of Neutrality.
The immense and varied resources of the United States can only be used for self-defense, reasons the Virginia lawyer. "Neither the genius of the nation, nor the state of its own finances admit of calling its citizens from the plough but to defend their own liberty and their own firesides."
He then points out that, in addition to the moral wrong and material disaster of America's taking part in France's wars, such a course means the launching into the almost boundless ocean of European politics. It implies "contracting habits of national conduct and forming close political connections which must have compromitted the future peace of the nation, and have involved it in all the future quarrels of Europe."
Marshall then describes the "long train of armies, debts, and taxes, checking the growth, diminishing happiness, and perhaps endangering the liberty of the United States, which must have followed." And all this for what? Not to fulfill America's treaties; "not to promote her own views, her own objects, her own happiness, her own safety; but to move as a satellite around some other greater planet, whose laws she must of necessity obey."[681]
"It was believed," he declares, "that France would derive more benefit from the Neutrality of America than from her becoming a party in the war." Neutrality determined upon, he insists that "increased motives of honor and of duty commanded its faithful observance.... A fraudulent neutrality is no neutrality at all.... A ... nation which would be admitted to its privileges, should also perform the duties it enjoins."
If the American Government, occupying a neutral position, had granted "favors unstipulated by treaty, to one of the belligerent Powers which it refused to another, it could no longer have claimed the immunities of a situation of which the obligations were forgotten; it would have become a party to the war as certainly as if war had been openly and formally declared, and it would have added to the madness of wantonly engaging in such a hazardous conflict, the dishonor of insincere and fraudulent conduct; it would have attained, circuitously, an object which it could not plainly avow or directly pursue, and would have tricked the people of the United States into a war which it would not venture openly to declare."
Then follows this keen thrust which Talleyrand could not evade: "It was a matter of real delight to the government and people of America," suavely writes Marshall, "to be informed that France did not wish to interrupt the peace they [the American people] enjoyed."
Marshall then makes a sudden and sharp attack memorable in the records of diplomatic dueling. He calls attention to the astounding conduct of the French Minister on American soil immediately after the American Government had proclaimed its Neutrality to the world and had notified American citizens of the duties which that Neutrality enjoined. In polite phrase he reminds Talleyrand of Genêt's assumption of "the functions of the government to which he was deputed, ... although he was not even acknowledged as a minister or had reached the authority which should inspect his credentials."
But, notwithstanding this, says Marshall, "the American Government resolved to see in him [Genêt] only the representative of a republic to which it was sincerely attached" and "gave him the same warm and cordial reception which he had experienced from its citizens without a single exception from Charleston to Philadelphia."
Two paragraphs follow of fulsome praise of France, which would seem to have been written by Gerry, who insisted on revising the memorial.[682] But in swift contrast Marshall again throws on the screen the indefensible performances of the French Minister in America and the tolerance with which the American Government treated them. "In what manner would France have treated any foreign minister, who should have dared to so conduct himself toward this republic?... In what manner would the American Government have treated him [Genêt] had he been the representative of any other nation than France?"
No informed man can doubt the answer to these questions, says Marshall. "From the Minister of France alone could this extraordinary conduct be borne with temper." But "to have continued to bear it without perceiving its extreme impropriety would have been to have merited the contempt" of the world and of France herself. "The Government of the United States did feel it," declares Marshall, but did not attribute Genêt's misconduct to the French Nation. On the contrary, the American Government "distinguished strongly between the [French] Government and its Minister," and complained "in the language of a friend afflicted but not irritated." Genêt's recall "was received with universal joy" in America, "as a confirmation that his ... conduct was attributable only to himself"; and "not even the publication of his private instructions could persuade the American Government to ascribe any part of it to this [French] republic."[683]
Marshall further points out "the exertions of the United States to pay up the arrearages" of their debt to France; America's "disinterested and liberal advances to the sufferers of St. Domingo ... whose recommendation was that they were Frenchmen and unfortunate"; and other acts of good-will of the American Government toward the French Republic.
He then makes a characteristically clear and convincing argument upon the points at issue between France and America. France complained that one article of the Jay Treaty provided that in case of war the property of an enemy might be taken by either out of the ships of the other; whereas, by the Treaty of 1778 between France and America, neither party should take out of the vessels of the other the goods of its enemy. France contended that this was a discrimination against her in favor of Great Britain. Marshall shows that this provision in the Jay Treaty was merely the statement of the existing law of nations, and that therefore the Jay Treaty gave no new rights to Great Britain.
Marshall reminds Talleyrand that any two nations by treaty have the power to alter, as to their mutual intercourse, the usages prescribed by international law; that, accordingly, France and America had so changed, as between themselves, the law of nations respecting enemy's goods in neutral bottoms. He cites the ordinance of France herself in 1744 and her long continued practice under it; and he answers so overwhelmingly the suggestion that the law of nations had not been changed by the rules laid down by the "Armed Neutrality" of the Northern Powers of Europe in the war existing at the time of that confederation, that the resourceful Talleyrand made no pretense of answering it.
The stipulation in the Franco-American Treaty of "protecting the goods of the enemy of either party in the vessels of the other, and in turn surrendering its own goods found in the vessels of the enemy," extended, Marshall insists, to no other nation except to France and America; and contends that this could be changed only by further specific agreements between those two nations.
Marshall wishes "that the principle that neutral bottoms shall make neutral goods" were universally established, and declares that that principle "is perhaps felt by no nation on earth more strongly than by the United States." On this point he is emphatic, and reiterates that "no nation is more deeply interested in its establishment" than America. "It is an object they [the United States] have kept in view, and which, if not forced by violence to abandon it, they will pursue in such manner as their own judgment may dictate as being best calculated to attain it."
"But," he says, "the wish to establish a principle is essentially different from a determination that it is already established.... However solicitous America might be to pursue all proper means, tending to obtain for this principle the assent of any or all of the maritime Powers of Europe, she never conceived the idea of attaining that consent by force."[684] "The United States will only arm to defend their own rights," declares Marshall; "neither their policy nor their interests permit them to arm, in order to compel a surrender of the rights of others."
He then gives the history of the Jay Treaty, and points out that Jay's particular instructions not to preserve peace with Great Britain, "nor to receive compensations for injuries sustained, nor security against their future commission, at the expense of the smallest of its [America's] engagements to France,"[685] were incorporated in the treaty itself, in the clause providing that "nothing in this treaty shall, however, be construed or operate contrary to former and existing public treaties with other sovereignties or states."[686] So careful, in fact, was America to meet the views of France that "previous to its ratification" the treaty was submitted to the French Minister to the United States, who did not even comment on the article relating to enemy's goods in neutral bottoms, but objected only to that enlarging the list of contraband;[687] and the American Government went to extreme lengths to meet the views of the French Minister, who finally appeared to be satisfied.
The articles of contraband enumerated in the Jay Treaty, to which the French Government objected, says Marshall, were contraband by the laws of nations and so admitted by France herself in her treaties with other countries.[688]
Answering the charge that in the treaty the United States had agreed that more articles should be contraband than she had in compacts with other Powers, Marshall explains that "the United States, desirous of liberating commerce, have invariably seized every opportunity which presented itself to diminish or remove the shackles imposed on that of neutrals. In pursuance of this policy, they have on no occasion hesitated to reduce the list of contraband, as between themselves and any nation consenting to such reduction. Their preëxisting treaties have been with nations as willing as themselves to change this old rule." But these treaties leave other governments, who do not accept the American policy, "to the law which would have governed had such particular stipulation never been made"—that is, to the law of nations.
Great Britain declined to accept this American view of the freedom of the seas; and, therefore, America was forced to leave that nation where it had found her on the subject of contraband and freedom of ocean-going commerce. Thus, contends Marshall, the Jay Treaty "has not added to the catalog of contraband a single article ... ceded no privilege ... granted no right," nor changed, in the most minute circumstance, the preëxisting situation of the United States in relation either to France or to Great Britain. Notwithstanding these truths, "the Government of the United States has hastened to assure its former friend [France], that, if the stipulations between them are found oppressive in practice, it is ready to offer up those stipulations a willing sacrifice at the shrine of friendship."[689]
Stating the general purposes of the United States, Marshall strikes at the efforts of France to compel America to do what France wishes and in the manner that France wishes, instead of doing what American interests require and in the manner America thinks wisest.
The American people, he asserts, "must judge exclusively for themselves how far they will or ought to go in their efforts to acquire new rights or establish new principles. When they surrender this privilege, they cease to be independent, and they will no longer deserve to be free. They will have surrendered into other hands the most sacred of deposits—the right of self-government; and instead of approbation, they will merit the contempt of the world."[690]
Marshall states the economic and business reasons why the United States, of all countries, must depend upon commerce and the consequent necessity for the Jay Treaty. He tartly informs Talleyrand that in doing so the American Government was "transacting a business exclusively its own." Marshall denies the insinuation that the negotiations of the Jay Treaty had been unusually secret, but sarcastically observes that "it is not usual for nations about to enter into negotiations to proclaim to others the various objects to which those negotiations may possibly be directed. Such is not, nor has it ever been, the principle of France." To suppose that America owed such a duty to France, "is to imply a dependence to which no Government ought willingly to submit."[691]
Marshall then sets forth specifically the American complaints against the French Government,[692] and puts in parallel columns the words of the Jay Treaty to which the French objected, and the rules which the French Directory pretended were justified by that treaty. So strong is Marshall's summing up of the case in these portions of the American memorial that it is hard for the present-day reader to see how even the French Directory of that lawless time could have dared to attempt to withstand it, much less to refuse further negotiations.
Drawing to a conclusion, Marshall permits a lofty sarcasm to lighten his weighty argument. "America has accustomed herself," he observes, "to perceive in France only the ally and the friend. Consulting the feelings of her own bosom, she [America] has believed that between republics an elevated and refined friendship could exist, and that free nations were capable of maintaining for each other a real and permanent affection. If this pleasing theory, erected with so much care, and viewed with so much delight, has been impaired by experience, yet the hope continues to be cherished that this circumstance does not necessarily involve the opposite extreme."[693]
Then, for a moment, Marshall indulges his eloquence: "So intertwined with every ligament of her heart have been the cords of affection which bound her to France, that only repeated and continued acts of hostility can tear them asunder."[694]
Finally he tells Talleyrand that the American envoys, "searching only for the means of effecting the objects of their mission, have permitted no personal considerations to influence their conduct, but have waited, under circumstances beyond measure embarrassing and unpleasant, with that respect which the American Government has so uniformly paid to that of France, for permission to lay before you, citizen Minister, these important communications with which they have been charged." But, "if no such hope" remains, "they [the envoys] have only to pray that their return to their own country may be facilitated."[695]
But Marshall's extraordinary power of statement and logic availed nothing with Talleyrand and the Directory. "I consider Marshall, whom I have heard speak on a great subject,[696] as one of the most powerful reasoners I ever met with either in public or in print," writes William Vans Murray from The Hague, commenting on the task of the envoys. "Reasoning in such cases will have a fine effect in America, but to depend upon it in Europe is really to place Quixote with Ginés de Passamonte and among the men of the world whom he reasoned with, and so sublimely, on their way to the galleys. They answer him, with you know stones and blows, though the Knight is an armed as well as an eloquent Knight."[697]
The events which had made Marshall and Pinckney more resolute in demanding respectful treatment had made Gerry more pliant to French influence. "Mr. Gerry is to see Mr. Talleyrand the day after to-morrow. Three appointments have been made by that gentleman," Marshall notes in his Journal, "each of which Mr. Gerry has attended and each of which Mr. Talleyrand has failed to attend; nor has any apology for these disappointments been thought necessary."[698] Once more Gerry waits on Talleyrand, who remains invisible.[699] And now again Beaumarchais appears. The Directory issues more and harsher decrees against American commerce. Marshall's patience becomes finite. "I prepared to-day a letter to the Minister remonstrating against the decree, ... subjecting to confiscation all neutral vessels having on board any article coming out of England or its possessions." The letter closes by "requesting our passports."[700]
ELBRIDGE GERRY
Marshall's memorial of the American case remained unread. One of Talleyrand's many secretaries asked Gerry "what it contained? (for they could not take the trouble to read it) and he added that such long letters were not to the taste of the French Government who liked a short address coming straight to the point."[701] Gerry, who at last saw Talleyrand, "informed me [Marshall] that communications & propositions had been made to him by that Gentleman, which he [Gerry] was not at liberty to impart to Genl Pinckney or myself." Upon the outcome of his secret conferences with Talleyrand, said Gerry, "probably depended peace or war."[702]
Gerry's "communication necessarily gives birth to some very serious reflections," Marshall confides to his Journal. He recalls the attempts to frighten the envoys "from our first arrival"—the threats of "a variety of ills ... among others with being ordered immediately to quit France," none of them carried out; "the most haughty & hostile conduct ... towards us & our country and yet ... an unwillingness ... to profess the war which is in fact made upon us."[703]
A French agent, sent by the French Consul-General in America, just arrived in Paris, "has probably brought with him," Marshall concludes, "accurate details of the state of parties in America.... I should think that if the French Government continues its hostility and does not relax some little in its hauteur its party in the United States will no longer support it. I suspect that some intelligence of this complexion has been received ... whether she [France] will be content to leave us our Independence if she can neither cajole or frighten us out of it or will even endeavor to tear it from us by open war there can be no doubt of her policy in one respect—she will still keep up and cherish, if it be possible, ... her party in the United States." Whatever course France takes, Marshall thinks will be "with a view to this her primary object."
Therefore, reasons Marshall, Talleyrand will maneuver to throw the blame on Pinckney and himself if the mission fails, and to give Gerry the credit if it succeeds. "I am led irresistibly by this train of thought to the opinion that the communication made to Mr. Gerry in secret is a proposition to furnish passports to General Pinckney and myself and to retain him for the purpose of negotiating the differences between the two Republics." This would give the advantage to the French party in any event.
"I am firmly persuaded of his [Talleyrand's] unwillingness to dismiss us while the war with England continues in its present uncertain state. He believed that Genl Pinckney and myself are both determined to remain no longer unless we can be accredited." Gerry had told Marshall that he felt the same way; "but," says Marshall, "I am persuaded the Minister [Talleyrand] does not think so. He would on this account as well as on another which has been the base of all propositions for an accommodation [the loan and the bribe] be well pleased to retain only one minister and to chuse that one [Gerry]."[704]
Marshall and Pinckney decided to let Gerry go his own gait. "We shall both be happy if, by remaining without us, Mr. Gerry can negotiate a treaty which shall preserve the peace without sacrificing the independence of our country. We will most readily offer up all personal considerations as a sacrifice to appease the haughtiness of this Republic."[705]
Marshall gave Gerry the letter on the decree and passport question "and pressed his immediate attention to it." But Gerry was too excited by his secret conferences with Talleyrand to heed it. Time and again Gerry, bursting with importance, was closeted with the Foreign Minister, hinting to his colleagues that he held peace or war in his hand. Marshall bluntly told him that Talleyrand's plan now was "only to prevent our taking decisive measures until the affairs of Europe shall enable France to take them. I have pressed him [Gerry] on the subject of the letter concerning the Decree but he has not yet read it."[706]
Talleyrand and Gerry's "private intercourse still continues," writes Marshall on February 10. "Last night after our return from the Theatre Mr. Gerry told me, just as we were separating to retire each to his own apartment, that he had had in the course of the day a very extraordinary conversation with" a clerk of Talleyrand. It was, of course, secret. Marshall did not want to hear it. Gerry said he could tell his colleagues that it was on the subject of money. Then, at last, Marshall's restraint gave way momentarily and his anger, for an instant, blazed. Money proposals were useless; Talleyrand was playing with the Americans, he declared. "Mr. Gerry was a little warm and the conversation was rather unpleasant. A solicitude to preserve harmony restrained me from saying all I thought."[707]
Money, money, money! Nothing else would do! Gerry, by now, was for paying it. No answer yet comes to the American memorial delivered to Talleyrand nearly three weeks before. Marshall packs his belongings, in readiness to depart. An unnamed person[708] calls on him and again presses for money; France is prevailing everywhere; the envoys had better yield; why resist the inevitable, with a thousand leagues of ocean between them and home? Marshall answers blandly but crushingly.
Again Talleyrand's clerk sees Gerry. The three Americans that night talk long and heatedly. Marshall opposes any money arrangement; Gerry urges it "very decidedly"; while Pinckney agrees with Marshall. Gerry argues long about the horrors of war, the expense, the risk. Marshall presents the justice of the American cause. Gerry reproaches Marshall with being too suspicious. Marshall patiently explains, as to a child, the real situation. Gerry again charges Marshall and Pinckney with undue suspicion. Marshall retorts that Gerry "could not answer the argument but by misstating it." The evening closes, sour and chill.[709]
The next night the envoys once more endlessly debate their course. Marshall finally proposes that they shall demand a personal meeting with Talleyrand on the real object of the mission. Gerry stubbornly dissents and finally yields, but indulges in long and childish discussion as to what should be said to Talleyrand, confusing the situation with every word.[710] Talleyrand fixes March 2 for the interview.
The following day Marshall accidentally discovers Gerry closeted with Talleyrand's clerk, who came to ask the New Englander to attend Talleyrand "in a particular conversation." Gerry goes, but reports that nothing important occurred. Then it comes out that Talleyrand had proposed to get rid of Marshall and Pinckney and keep Gerry. Gerry admits it. Thus Marshall's forecast made three weeks earlier[711] is proved to have been correct.
At last, for the first time in five months, the three envoys meet Talleyrand face to face. Pinckney opens and Talleyrand answers. Gerry suggests a method of making the loan, to which Talleyrand gives qualified assent. The interview seems at an end. Then Marshall comes forward and states the American case. There is much parrying for an hour.[712]
The envoys again confer. Gerry urges that their instructions permit them to meet Talleyrand's demands. He goes to Marshall's room to convince the granite-like Virginian, who would not yield. "I told him," writes Marshall, "that my judgment was not more perfectly convinced that the floor was wood or that I stood on my feet and not on my head than that our instructions would not permit us to make the loan required."[713] Let Gerry or Marshall or both together return to America and get new instructions if a loan must be made.
Two days later, another long and absurd discussion with Gerry occurs. Before the envoys go to see Talleyrand the next day, Gerry proposes to Marshall that, with reference to President Adams's speech, the envoys should declare, in any treaty made, "that the complaints of the two governments had been founded in mistake." Marshall hotly retorts: "With my view of things, I should tell an absolute lye if I should say that our complaints were founded in mistake. He [Gerry] replied hastily and with warmth that he wished to God, I would propose something which was accommodating: that I would propose nothing myself and objected to every thing which he proposed. I observed that it was not worth while to talk in that manner: that it was calculated to wound but not to do good: that I had proposed every thing which in my opinion was calculated to accommodate differences on just and reasonable grounds. He said that ... to talk about justice was saying nothing: that I should involve our country in a war and should bring it about in such a manner, as to divide the people among themselves. I felt a momentary irritation, which I afterwards regretted, and told Mr. Gerry that I was not accustomed to such language and did not permit myself to use it with respect to him or his opinions."
Nevertheless, Marshall, with characteristic patience, once more begins to detail his reasons. Gerry interrupts—Marshall "might think of him [Gerry] as I [he] pleased." Marshall answers moderately. Gerry softens and "the conversation thus ended."[714]
Immediately after the bout between Marshall and Gerry the envoys saw Talleyrand for a third time. Marshall was dominant at this interview, his personality being, apparently, stronger even than his words. These were strong enough—they were, bluntly, that the envoys could not and would not accept Talleyrand's proposals.
A week later Marshall's client, Beaumarchais, called on his American attorney with the alarming news that "the effects of all Americans in France were to be Sequestered." Pay the Government money and avoid this fell event, was Beaumarchais's advice; he would see Talleyrand and call again. "Mr. Beaumarchais called on me late last evening," chronicles Marshall. "He had just parted from the Minister. He informed me that he had been told confidentially ... that the Directory were determined to give passports to General Pinckney and myself but to retain Mr. Gerry." But Talleyrand would hold the order back for "a few days to give us time to make propositions conforming to the views of the Government," which "if not made Mr. Talleyrand would be compelled to execute the order."
"I told him," writes Marshall, "that if the proposition ... was a loan it was perfectly unnecessary to keep it [the order] up [back] a single day: that the subject had been considered for five months" and that the envoys would not change; "that for myself, if it were impossible to effect the objects of our mission, I did not wish to stay another day in France and would as cheerfully depart the next day as at any other time."[715]
Beaumarchais argued and appealed. Of course, France's demand was not just—Talleyrand did not say it was; but "a compliance would be useful to our country [America]." "France," said Beaumarchais, "thought herself sufficiently powerful to give the law to the world and exacted from all around her money to enable her to finish successfully her war against England."
Finally, Beaumarchais, finding Marshall flint, "hinted" that the envoys themselves should propose which one of them should remain in France, Gerry being the choice of Talleyrand. Marshall countered. If two were to return for instructions, the envoys would decide that for themselves. If France was to choose, Marshall would have nothing to do with it.
"General Pinckney and myself and especially me," said Marshall, "were considered as being sold to the English." Beaumarchais admitted "that our positive refusal to comply with the demands of France was attributed principally to me who was considered as entirely English.... I felt some little resentment and answered that the French Government thought no such thing; that neither the government nor any man in France thought me English: but they knew I was not French: they knew I would not sacrifice my duty and the interest of my country to any nation on earth, and therefore I was not a proper man to stay, and was branded with the epithet of being English: that the government knew very well I loved my own country exclusively, and it was impossible to suppose any man who loved America, fool enough to wish to engage her in a war with France if that war was avoidable."
Thus Marshall asserted his purely American attitude. It was a daring thing to do, considering the temper of the times and the place where he then was. Even in America, at that period, any one who was exclusively American and, therefore, neutral, as between the European belligerents, was denounced as being British at heart. Only by favoring France could abuse be avoided. And to assert Neutrality in the French Capital was, of course, even more dangerous than to take this American stand in the United States.
But Beaumarchais persisted and proposed to take passage with his attorney to America; not on a public mission, of course (though he had hinted at wishing to "reconcile" the two governments), but merely "to testify," writes Marshall, "to the moderation of my conduct and to the solicitude I had uniformly expressed to prevent a rupture with France."
Beaumarchais "hinted very plainly," continues Marshall, "at what he had before observed that means would be employed to irritate the people of the United States against me and that those means would be successful. I told him that I was much obliged to him but that I relied entirely on my conduct itself for its justification and that I felt no sort of apprehension for consequences, as they regarded me personally; that in public life considerations of that sort never had and never would in any degree influence me. We parted with a request, on his part, that, whatever might arise, we would preserve the most perfect temper, and with my assuring him of my persuasion that our conduct would always manifest the firmness of men who were determined, and never the violence of passionate men."
"I have been particular," concludes Marshall, "in stating this conversation, because I have no doubt of its having been held at the instance of the Minister [Talleyrand] and that it will be faithfully reported to him. I mentioned to-day to Mr. Gerry that the Government wished to detain him and send away General Pinckney and myself. He said he would not stay; but I find I shall not succeed in my efforts to procure a Serious demand of passports for Mr. Gerry and myself."[716]
During his efforts to keep Gerry from dangerously compromising the American case, and while waiting for Talleyrand to reply to his memorial, Marshall again writes to Washington a letter giving a survey of the war-riven and intricate European situation. He tells Washington that, "before this reaches you it will be known universally in America[717] that scarcely a hope remains of" honorable adjustment of differences between France and America; that the envoys have not been and will not be "recognized" without "acceding to the demands of France ... for money—to be used in the prosecution of the present war"; that according to "reports," when the Directory makes certain that the envoys "will not add a loan to the mass of American property already in the hands of this [French] government, they will be ordered out of France and a nominal [formally declared] as well as actual war will be commenc'd against the United States."[718]
Marshall goes on to say that his "own opinion has always been that this depends on the state of war with England"; the French are absorbed in their expected attack on Great Britain; "and it is perhaps justly believed that on this issue is stak'd the independence of Europe and America." He informs Washington of "the immense preparations for an invasion" of England; the "numerous and veteran army lining the coast"; the current statement that if "50,000 men can be" landed "no force in England will be able to resist them"; the belief that "a formidable and organized party exists in Britain, ready, so soon as a landing shall be effected, to rise and demand a reform"; the supposition that England then "will be in ... the situation of the batavian and cisalpine republics and that its wealth, its commerce, and its fleets will be at the disposition of this [French] government."
But, he continues, "this expedition is not without its hazards. An army which, arriving safe, would sink England, may itself be ... sunk in the channel.... The effect of such a disaster on a nation already tir'd of the war and groaning under ... enormous taxation" and, intimates Marshall, none too warm toward the "existing arrangements ... might be extremely serious to those who hold the reins of government" in France. Many intelligent people therefore think, he says, that the "formidable military preparations" for the invasion of England "cover and favor secret negotiations for peace." This view Marshall himself entertains.
He then briefly informs Washington of Bonaparte's arrangement with Austria and Prussia which will "take from England, the hope of once more arming" those countries "in her favor," "influence the secret [French] negotiations with England," and greatly affect "Swisserland." Marshall then gives an extended account of the doings and purposes of the French in Switzerland, and refers to revolutionary activities in Sardinia, Naples, and Spain.
But notwithstanding the obstacles in its way, he concludes that "the existing [French] government ... needs only money to enable it to effect all its objects. A numerous brave and well disciplined army seems to be devoted to it. The most military and the most powerful nation on earth [the French] is entirely at its disposal.[719] Spain, Italy, and Holland, with the Hanseatic towns, obey its mandates."
But, says he, it is hard to "procure funds to work this vast machine. Credit being annihilated ... the enormous contributions made by foreign nations," together with the revenue from imposts, are not enough to meet the expenses; and, therefore, "France is overwhelmed with taxes. The proprietor complains that his estate yields him nothing. Real property pays in taxes nearly a third of its produce and is greatly reduc'd in its price."[720]
While Marshall was thus engaged in studying French conditions and writing his long and careful report to Washington, Talleyrand was in no hurry to reply to the American memorial. Indeed, he did not answer until March 18, 1798, more than six weeks after receiving it. The French statement reached Marshall and Pinckney by Gerry's hands, two days after its date. "Mr. Gerry brought in, just before dinner, a letter from the Minister of exterior relations," writes Marshall, "purporting to be an answer to our long memorial criminating in strong terms our government and ourselves, and proposing that two of us should go home leaving for the negotiation the person most acceptable to France. The person is not named but no question is entertained that Mr. Gerry is alluded to. I read the letter and gave it again to Mr. Gerry."[721]
The next day the three envoys together read Talleyrand's letter. Gerry protests that he had told the French Foreign Minister that he would not accept Talleyrand's proposal to stay, "That," sarcastically writes Marshall, "is probably the very reason why it was made." Talleyrand's clerk calls on Gerry the next morning, suggesting light and innocent duties if he would remain. No, theatrically exclaims Gerry, I "would sooner be thrown into the Seine."[722] But Gerry remained.
It is impossible, without reading Talleyrand's answer in full, to get an idea of the weak shiftiness to which that remarkable man was driven in his reply to Marshall. It was, as Pinckney said, "weak in argument, but irritating and insulting in style."[723] The great diplomat complains that the Americans have "claimed the right to take cognizance of the validity of prizes carried into the ports of the United States by French cruisers"; that the American Government permitted "any vessels to put into the ports of the United States after having captured the property of ships belonging to French citizens"; that "a French corvette had anchored at Philadelphia and was seized by the Americans"; and that the Jay Treaty was hostile to France.
But his chief complaint was with regard to the American newspapers which, said Talleyrand, "have since the treaty redoubled the invectives and calumnies against the [French] republic, and against her principles, her magistrates, and her envoys";[724] and of the fact that the American Government might have, but did not, repress "pamphlets openly paid for by the Minister of Great Britain" which contained "insults and calumnies." So far from the American Government stopping all this, snarls Talleyrand, it encouraged "this scandal in its public acts" and, through its President, had denounced the French Directory as endeavoring to propagate anarchy and division within the United States.
Talleyrand then openly insults Marshall and Pinckney by stating that it was to prevent the restoration of friendship that the American Government had sent "to the French republic persons whose opinions and connections are too well known to hope from them dispositions sincerely conciliatory." Appealing directly to the French party in the United States, he declares that he "does not hesitate to believe that the American nation, like the French nation, sees this state of affairs with regret, and does not consider its consequences without sorrow. He apprehends that the American people will not commit a mistake concerning the prejudices with which it has been desired to inspire them against an allied people, nor concerning the engagements which it seems to be wished to make them contract to the detriment of an alliance, which so powerfully contributed to place them in the rank of nations, and to support them in it; and that they will see in these new combinations the only dangers their prosperity and importance can incur."[725]
Finally, with cynical effrontery, Talleyrand actually proposes that Gerry alone shall conduct the negotiations. "Notwithstanding the kind of prejudice which has been entertained with respect to them [the envoys], the Executive Directory is disposed to treat with that one of the three, whose opinions, presumed to be more impartial, promise, in the course of explanations, more of that reciprocal confidence which is indispensable."[726]
Who should answer Talleyrand? Marshall, of course. "It was agreed ... that I should ... prepare an answer ... in which I should state that no one of the ministers could consent to remain on a business committed to all three."[727] In the discussion leading to this decision, "I," writes Marshall, "was perfectly silent." Again Dutrimond, a clerk of Talleyrand's, calls on Gerry, but sees Marshall instead, Gerry being absent.
Dutrimond's advice to Marshall is to leave France. The truth is, he declares, that his chief must order the envoys out of France "in three days at farthest." But spare them Gerry; let him remain—all this in polite terms and with plausible argument. "I told him," relates Marshall, "that personally nothing could be more desirable to me than to return immediately to the United States."
Then go on your own initiative, urges Talleyrand's clerk. Marshall grows evasive; for he wishes the Directory to order his departure. A long talk ensues. Dutrimond leaves and Gerry returns. Marshall relates what had passed. "To prevent war I will stay," exclaims Gerry. "I made no observation on this," dryly observes Marshall in his Journal.[728]
Beaumarchais again tries his luck with Marshall, who replies that he will go home by "the direct passage to America" if he can get safe-conduct, "tho' I had private business of very considerable consequence in England."[729] Otherwise, declares Marshall, "I should embark immediately for England." That would never do, exclaims Beaumarchais; it would enrage the Directory and subject Marshall to attacks at home. Marshall remarks that he prefers to sail direct, although he knows "that the captains of privateers had received orders to cruise for us ... and take us to the West Indies."[730]
Beaumarchais sees Talleyrand and reports that the Foreign Minister is horrified at the thought of Marshall's returning by way of England; it would "irritate this government" and delay "an accommodation"; it would blast Marshall's reputation; the Directory "would immediately publish ... that I was gone to England to receive the wages I had earned by breaking off the treaty with France," Marshall records of the representations made to him.
"I am entitled to safe conduct," cries Marshall; and "the calumny threatened against myself is too contemptible to be credited for a moment by those who would utter it." I "despise" it, exclaims the insulted Virginian.[731] Thus back and forth went this fantastic dance of corrupt diplomacy and cautious but defiant honesty.
At the long last, the interminable Gerry finished his review of Marshall's reply to Talleyrand and made a lengthy and unctuous speech to his colleagues on the righteousness of his own motives. Pinckney, intolerably bored and disgusted, told Gerry what he thought of him. The New Englander peevishly charged Marshall and Pinckney with concealing their motives.
"It is false, sir," shouted Pinckney. Gerry, he said, was the one who had concealed from his colleagues, not only his purposes, but his clandestine appointments with Talleyrand. Pinckney rode Gerry hard, "and insisted in plain terms on the duplicity which had been practiced [by Gerry] upon us both." The latter ridiculously explained, evaded, and, in general, acted according to the expectation of those who warned Adams against his appointment. Finally, however, Marshall's reply was signed by all three and sent to Talleyrand.[732]
The calmness, dignity, and conclusiveness of Marshall's rejoinder can be appreciated only by reading the entire document. Marshall begins his final statement of the American case and refutation of the French claims by declaring what he had stated before, that the American envoys "are ready to consider and to compensate the injury, if the American Government has given just cause of complaint to that of France"; and points out that the negotiations which the American envoys had sought fruitlessly for six months, if taken up even now, would "demonstrate the sincerity of this declaration."[733] This offer Marshall repeats again and again.
Before taking up Talleyrand's complaints in detail, he states that if the envoys cannot convince Talleyrand that the American Government is not in the wrong on a single point Talleyrand mentions, the envoys will prove their good faith; and thus, with an offer to compensate France for any wrong, "a base for an accommodation" is established. Every grievance Talleyrand had made is then answered minutely and at great length. History, reason, evidence, march through these pages like infantry, cavalry, and artillery going to battle. Marshall's paper was irresistible. Talleyrand never escaped from it.
In the course of it there is a passage peculiarly applicable to the present day. Answering Talleyrand's complaints about newspapers, Marshall says:—
"The genius of the Constitution, and the opinions of the people of the United States, cannot be overruled by those who administer the Government. Among those principles deemed sacred in America, ... there is no one ... more deeply impressed on the public mind, than the liberty of the press. That this liberty is often carried to excess, that it has sometimes degenerated into licentiousness, is seen and lamented; but the remedy has not been discovered. Perhaps it is an evil inseparable from the good with which it is allied; perhaps it is a shoot which cannot be stripped from the stalk, without wounding vitally the plant from which it is torn."
At any rate, declares Marshall, there is, in America, no redress for "the calumnies and invectives" of the press except "legal prosecution in courts which are alike open to all who consider themselves as injured. Without doubt this abuse of a valuable privilege is [a] matter of peculiar regret when it is extended to the Government of a foreign nation." It never is so extended "with the approbation of the Government of the United States." But, he goes on to say, this is unavoidable "especially on points respecting the rights and interests of America, ... in a nation where public measures are the results of public opinion."
This practice of unrestricted criticism was not directed toward France alone, Marshall assures Talleyrand; "it has been lavished still more profusely on its [France's] enemies and has even been bestowed, with an unsparing hand, on the Federal [American] Government itself. Nothing can be more notorious than the calumnies and invectives with which the wisest measures and most virtuous characters of the United States have been pursued and traduced [by American newspapers]." It is plain, therefore, that the American Government cannot influence the American press, the excesses of which are, declares Marshall, "a calamity incident to the nature of liberty."
He reminds Talleyrand that "the same complaint might be urged on the part of the United States. You must well know what degrading and unworthy calumnies against their Government, its principles, and its officers, have been published to the world by French journalists and in French pamphlets." Yet America had not complained of "these calumnies, atrocious as they are.... Had not other causes, infinitely more serious and weighty, interrupted the harmony of the two republics, it would still have remained unimpaired and the mission of the undersigned would never have been rendered necessary."[734]
Marshall again briefly sums up in broad outline the injuries which the then French Government had inflicted upon Americans and American property, and finally declares: "It requires no assurance to convince, that every real American must wish sincerely to extricate his country from the ills it suffers, and from the greater ills with which it is threatened; but all who love liberty must admit that it does not exist in a nation which cannot exercise the right of maintaining its neutrality."
Referring to Talleyrand's desire that Gerry remain and conduct the negotiations, Marshall remarks that the request "is not accompanied by any assurances of receding from those demands of money heretofore made the consideration on which alone the cessation of hostility on American commerce could be obtained." No one of the three American envoys had power to act alone, he maintains. In spite of neglect and insult Marshall still hopes that negotiations may begin; but if that is impossible, he asks for passports and safe-conduct.
Marshall made his final preparations for sailing, in order, he says, "that I might be in readiness to depart so soon as the will of the government should be signified to me." He was so hurried, he declares, that "I could not even lay in a moderate stock of wine or send my foul linen to be washed."[735] The now inescapable Beaumarchais saw Marshall again and told him that Talleyrand said that "I [Marshall] was no foreign minister; that I was to be considered as a private American citizen, to obtain my passport in the manner pursued by all others through the Consul ... I must give my name, stature, age, complexion, &c., to our Consul."
Marshall answered with much heat. Beaumarchais conferred with Talleyrand, taking Marshall's side. Talleyrand was obdurate and said that "he was mistaken in me [Marshall]; that I prevented all negotiation and that so soon as I was gone the negotiation would be carried on; that in America I belonged to the English faction, which universally hated and opposed the French faction; that all I sought for was to produce a rupture in such a manner as to throw the whole blame on France." Marshall replied that Talleyrand "endeavored to make our situation more unpleasant than his orders required, in order to gratify his personal feelings," and he flatly refused to leave until ordered to go.[736]
Finally Marshall and Pinckney received their passports. Pinckney, whose daughter was ill and could leave France at that time only at the risk of her life, had serious difficulty in getting permission to stay in the south of France. On April 24, Marshall sailed for home. It is characteristic of the man that, notwithstanding his humiliating experiences and the failure of the mission, he was neither sour nor depressed. He had made many personal friends in Paris; and on taking ship at Bordeaux he does not forget to send them greetings, singling out Madame de Villette for a gay message of farewell. "Present me to my friends in Paris," he writes the American Consul-General at the French Capital, "& have the goodness to say to Madam Vilette in my name & in the handsomest manner, every thing which respectful friendship can dictate. When you have done that You will have rendered not quite half justice to my sentiments."[737]
Gerry, to whom Pinckney and Marshall did not even bid farewell,[738] remained in Paris, "extremely miserable."[739] Infinitely disgusted, Pinckney writes King that Gerry, "as I suspected, is resolved to remain here," notwithstanding Pinckney's "warm remonstrances with him on the bad consequences ... of such conduct and on the impropriety of" his secret "correspondence with Talleyrand under injunction not to communicate it to his colleagues." Pinckney says: "I have made great sacrifices of my feelings to preserve union; but in vain. I never met with a man of less candour and so much duplicity as Mr. Gerry. General Marshall is a man of extensive ability, of manly candour, and an honest heart."[740]