All through these engrossing affairs, he kept up the liveliest interest in what was going on in his own country, writing home shrewd observations on every step taken. One of his remarks deserves to be kept in mind. In speaking of the desire of European nations to legislate against the introduction of our produce, he says that this effort has after all its bright side; because it will force us "to make great and rapid progress in useful manufactures. This alone is wanting to complete our independence. We shall then be, as it were, a world by ourselves."
[CHAPTER X.]
MINISTER TO FRANCE.
In the spring of 1792, Morris received his credentials as minister to France. There had been determined opposition in the Senate to the confirmation of his appointment, which was finally carried only by a vote of sixteen to eleven, mainly through the exertions of Rufus King. His opponents urged the failure of the British negotiations, the evidences repeatedly given of his proud, impatient spirit, and above all his hostility to the French Revolution, as reasons why he should not be made minister. Washington, however, as well as Hamilton, King, and the other federalists, shared most of Morris's views with regard to the Revolution, and insisted upon his appointment.
But the president, as good and wise a friend as Morris had, thought it best to send him a word of warning, coupling with the statement of his own unfaltering trust and regard, the reasons why the new diplomat should observe more circumspection than his enemies thought him capable of showing. For his opponents asserted that his brilliant, lively imagination always inclined him to act so promptly as to leave no time for cool judgment, and was, wrote Washington, "the primary cause of those sallies which too often offend, and of that ridicule of character which begets enmity not easy to be forgotten, but which might easily be avoided if it were under the control of caution and prudence.... By reciting [their objections] I give you a proof of my friendship, if I give none of my policy."
Morris took his friend's advice in good part, and profited by it as far as lay in his nature. He knew that he had a task of stupendous difficulty before him; as it would be almost impossible for a minister to steer clear of the quarrels springing from the ferocious hatred born to each other by the royalists and the various republican factions. To stand well with all parties he knew was impossible: but he thought it possible, and merely so, to stand well with the best people in each, without greatly offending the others; and in order to do this, he had to make up his mind to mingle with the worst as well as the best, to listen unmoved to falsehoods so foul and calumnies so senseless as to seem the ravings of insanity; and meanwhile to wear a front so firm and yet so courteous as to ward off insult from his country and injury from himself during the days when the whole people went crazy with the blood-lust, when his friends were butchered by scores around him, and when the rulers had fulfiled Mirabeau's terrible prophecy, and had "paved the streets with their bodies."
But when he began his duties, he was already entangled in a most dangerous intrigue, one of whose very existence he should not, as a foreign minister, have known, still less have entered into. He got enmeshed in it while still a private citizen, and could not honorably withdraw, for it dealt with nothing less than the escape of the king and queen from Paris. His chivalrous sympathy for the two hemmed-in, hunted creatures, threatened by madmen and counseled by fools, joined with his characteristic impulsiveness and fearlessness, to incline him to make an effort to save them from their impending doom. A number of plans had been made to get the king out of Paris; and as the managers of each were of necessity ignorant of all the rest, they clashed with and thwarted one another. Morris's scheme was made in concert with a M. de Monciel, one of the royal ministers, and some other French gentlemen; and their measures were so well taken that they would doubtless have succeeded had not the king's nerve invariably failed him at the critical moment, and brought delay after delay. The Swiss guards, faithful to their salt, were always ready to cover his flight, and Lafayette would have helped them.
Louis preferred Morris's plan to any of the others offered, and gave a most striking proof of his preference by sending to the latter, towards the end of July, to say how much he regretted that his advice had not been followed, and to ask him if he would not take charge of the royal papers and money. Morris was unwilling to take the papers, but finally consented to receive the money, amounting in all to nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand livres, which was to be paid out in hiring and bribing the men who stood in the way of the escape; for most of the revolutionists were as venal as they were bloodthirsty. Still the king lingered; then came the 10th of August; the Swiss guards were slaughtered, and the whole scheme was at an end. Some of the men engaged in the plot were suspected; one, D'Angrémont, was seized and condemned, but he went to his death without betraying his fellows. The others, by the liberal use of the money in Morris's possession, were saved, the authorities being bribed to wink at their escape or concealment. Out of the money that was left advances were made to Monciel and others; finally, in 1796, Morris gave an accurate account of the expenditures to the dead king's daughter, the Duchesse d'Angoulême, then at the Austrian court, and turned over to her the remainder, consisting of a hundred and forty-seven pounds.