[740] Pinckney to King, Paris, April 4, 1798, enclosed in a letter to Secretary of State, April 16, 1798; Pickering MSS., Mass. Hist. Soc.
CHAPTER IX
THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN
The present crisis is the most awful since the days of Vandalism. (Robert Troup.)
Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute. (Toast at banquet to Marshall.)
We shall remain free if we do not deserve to be slaves. (Marshall to citizens of Richmond.)
What a wicked use has been made of the X. Y. Z. dish cooked up by Marshall. (Jefferson.)
While Talleyrand's drama of shame was enacting in Paris, things were going badly for the American Government at home. The French party in America, with whose wrath Talleyrand's male and female agents had threatened our envoys, was quite as powerful and aggressive against President Adams as the French Foreign Office had been told that it was.[741]