The Life of John Marshall Volume II Part 29

[566] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 55-63.

[567] See condensed summary of the American case in instructions to Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry; _ib._, 153-57.

[568] _Ib._, 64; and for numerous other examples see _ib._, 28-64.

[569] Ticknor, ii, 113.

[570] Pinckney to Secretary of State, Amsterdam, Feb. 18, 1797; _Am. St.

Prs., For. Rel._, vii, 10.

[571] See Barras's speech in _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 12.

[572] See Allen: _Naval War with France_, 31-33.

[573] Adams, Message to Congress, May 16, 1797; Richardson, i, 235-36; also, _Works_: Adams, ix, 111-18.

[574] Gibbs, ii, 171-72.

[575] Hamilton proposed Jefferson or Madison. (Hamilton to Pickering, March 22, 1797; Lodge: _Cabot_, 101.)

[576] _Works_: Adams, ix, 111-18.

[577] _Ib._

[578] Gibbs, i, 467, 469, and footnote to 530-31.

[579] Austin: _Gerry_, ii, 134-35.

[580] Jefferson to Gerry, June 21, 1797; _Works_: Ford, viii, 314. This letter flattered Gerry's vanity and nullified Adams's prudent advice to him given a few days later. (See _infra._)

[581] Sedgwick to King, June 24, 1797; King, ii, 193.

[582] McHenry to Adams, in Cabinet meeting, 1797; Steiner, 224.

[583] Adams to Gerry, July 8, 1797; _Works_: Adams, viii, 547-48.

Nine days later the President again admonishes Gerry. While expressing confidence in him, the President tells Gerry that "Some have expressed ... fears of an unaccommodating disposition [in Gerry] and others of an obstinacy that will risk great things to secure small ones.

"Some have observed that there is, at present, a happy and perfect harmony among all our ministers abroad, and have expressed apprehension that your appointment might occasion an interruption of it." (Adams to Gerry, July 17, 1797; _ib._, 549.)

[584] Marshall took the commission and instructions of John Quincy Adams as the American Minister to Prussia (_Writings, J.Q.A._: Ford, ii, footnote to 216), to which post the younger Adams had been appointed by Was.h.i.+ngton because of his brilliant "Publicola" essays.

[585] Marshall, to Was.h.i.+ngton, The Hague, Sept. 15, 1797; Was.h.i.+ngton MSS., Lib. Cong. See citations _ib._, _infra_. (Sparks MSS., _Proc._ Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc., lxvi; also _Amer. Hist. Rev._, ii, no. 2, Jan., 1897.)

[586] Pinckney and his family had been living in Holland for almost seven months. (Pinckney to Pickering, Feb. 8, 1797; _Am. St. Prs., For.

Rel._, ii, 10.)

[587] Marshall to his wife, The Hague, Sept. 9, 1797, MS. Marshall's brother had been in The Hague July 30, but had gone to Berlin. Vans Murray to J. Q. Adams, July 30, 1797; _Letters_: Ford, 358. Apparently the brothers did not meet, notwithstanding the critical state of the Fairfax contract.

[588] Marshall to Was.h.i.+ngton, The Hague, Sept. 15, 1797; _Amer. Hist.

Rev._, ii, no. 2, Jan., 1897; and MS., Lib. Cong.

[589] See _infra_, next chapter.

[590] Was.h.i.+ngton to Marshall, Dec. 4, 1797; _Writings_: Ford, xiii, 432-34.

[591] To justify the violence of the 18th Fructidor, the Directory a.s.serted that the French elections, in which a majority of conservatives and anti-revolutionists were returned and General Pichegru chosen President of the French Legislature, were parts of a royal conspiracy to destroy liberty and again place a king upon the throne of France. In these elections the French liberals, who were not in the army, did not vote; while all conservatives, who wished above all things for a stable and orderly government of law and for peace with other countries, flocked to the polls.

Among the latter, of course, were the few Royalists who still remained in France. Such, at least, was the view Marshall took of this episode.

To understand Marshall's subsequent career, too much weight cannot be given this fact and, indeed, all the startling events in France during the six historic months of Marshall's stay in Paris.

But Marshall did not take into account the vital fact that the French soldiers had no chance to vote at this election. They were scattered far and wide--in Italy, Germany, and elsewhere. Yet these very men were the soul of the Revolutionary cause. And the private soldiers were more enraged by the result of the French elections than their generals--even than General Augereau, who was tigerish in his wrath.

They felt that, while they were fighting on the battlefield, they had been betrayed at the ballot box. To the soldiers of France the revolution of the 18th Fructidor was the overthrow of their enemies in their own country. The army felt that it had answered with loyal bayonets a conspiracy of treasonable ballots. It now seems probable that the soldiers and officers of the French armies were right in this view.

Pinckney was absurdly accused of interfering in the elections in behalf of the "Royalist Conspiracy." (Vans Murray to J. Q. Adams, April 3, 1798; _Letters_: Ford, 391.) Such a thing, of course, was perfectly impossible.

[592] Marshall to Lee, Antwerp, Sept. 22, 1797; MS., New York Pub. Lib.

[593] Gouverneur Morris to Was.h.i.+ngton, Feb., 1793; Morris, ii, 37. While Morris was an aristocrat, thoroughly hostile to democracy and without sympathy with or understanding of the French Revolution, his statements of facts have proved to be generally accurate. (See Lyman: _Diplomacy of the United States_, i, 352, on corruption of the Directory.)

[594] Morris to Pinckney, Aug. 13, 1797; Morris, ii, 51.

[595] Loliee: _Talleyrand and His Times_, 170-71.

[596] King to Secretary of State, Dispatch no. 54, Nov. 18, 1797; King, ii, 243.

[597] Marshall's Journal, official copy, Pickering Papers, Ma.s.s. Hist.

Soc., 1.

[598] Loliee: _Talleyrand and His Times_, 147; and Blennerha.s.sett: _Talleyrand_, ii, 256-57.

[599] Talleyrand to Mme. de Stael, quoted in McCabe: _Talleyrand_, 137.

[600] _Memoirs of Talleyrand_: Broglie's ed., i, 179-82; also see McCabe's summary in his _Talleyrand_, 136-38. Talleyrand was greatly impressed by the statement of a New Jersey farmer, who wished to see Bingham rather than President Was.h.i.+ngton because he had heard that Bingham was "so wealthy.... Throughout America I met with a similar love of money," says Talleyrand. (_Memoirs of Talleyrand_: Broglie's ed., i, 180.) In this estimate of American character during that period, Talleyrand did not differ from other travelers, nor, indeed, from the opinion of most Americans who expressed themselves upon this subject.

(See vol. I, chaps. VII, and VIII, of this work.)

[601] Talleyrand as quoted in Pickering to King, Nov. 7, 1798; _Pickering_: Pickering, ii, 429.

[602] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 158.

[603] _Memoirs of Talleyrand_: Stewarton, ii, 10.

[604] Pinckney was the only one of the envoys who could speak French. He had received a finished education in England at Westminster and Oxford and afterward had studied in France at the Royal Military College at Caen.

[605] Marshall and Talleyrand were forty-two years of age, Pinckney fifty-one, and Gerry fifty-three.

[606] King to Talleyrand, London, Aug. 3, 1797; King, ii, 206-08.