A Sovereign People

by Carol Berkin

  It was not Marshall’s “lounging manners” that made French observers in America shake their heads at this appointment. Alexandre d’Hauterive, the French consul in New York, told his superiors in Paris that “Mr. Marshall is a man of very pronounced character who hides neither his support for the English cause nor his distance from anything that favors French interest.” Yet d’Hauterive conceded that Marshall’s frank political views were “supported by a high standard of conduct, by a certain knowledge of human nature and of business, and by many talents.” As for Pinckney, d’Hauterive was willing only to acknowledge his good character. The consul was convinced, however, that Pinckney’s bitterness at his treatment by Delacroix would hamper his effectiveness. As neither Pinckney nor Marshall had any genuine experience as a diplomat, it was difficult not to conclude that the president was sending American sheep to French wolves.23

  Adams’s choice for the third member of the commission was even more difficult to explain. His recommendation was none other than Elbridge Gerry, perhaps the most unpopular American political figure of the era. Yet the friendship between Gerry and Adams was long standing, and the president believed that Gerry was, like him, a political independent who eschewed party loyalties. It was closer to the truth, however, that Gerry’s political loyalties were simply erratic. He had been a delegate to the Philadelphia convention but had refused to sign the Constitution. He had campaigned against ratification but ran for a seat in the House as soon as the new government was approved. Although he described himself as a lone watchdog for the peoples’ liberties, others considered him a leader of the Antifederalist faction in the early sessions of the legislature. But to most of the men who had served in the House with Gerry, the question of his party affiliation was less important than his remarkable irascibility. Sharp-tongued, argumentative, and exhausting to deal with, Elbridge Gerry was a man whose mission in life often seemed to be alienating others. The president’s wife, Abigail Adams, was not blind to Gerry’s eccentricity. “Poor Gerry,” she wrote, “always had a wrong kink in his head.” Those less tolerant of him would have agreed with the observation that Elbridge Gerry objected to everything he did not propose himself.24

  Adams’s proposal to add Gerry to the commission met with fierce protest from his cabinet. Secretary of War James McHenry, a veteran of debates with Gerry, warned the president bluntly, “If, Sir, it was a desirable thing to distract the mission, a fitter person could not, perhaps be found. It is ten to one against his agreeing with his colleagues.” In the face of the protest and warnings, Adams reluctantly backed down. He turned instead to Francis Dana, a fifty-four-year-old Massachusetts jurist who had signed the Declaration of Independence and supported the ratification of the Constitution. Dana was a sensible choice. He had diplomatic experience as Adams’s secretary to the Paris peace talks that ended the Revolution and as United States ambassador to Russia between 1780 and 1783. But Dana, too, declined. With that, Adams returned to his original choice, Elbridge Gerry—and this time he did not give in to the protest from his cabinet.25

  Adams was frank with Gerry when he told him that “some have expressed doubts of your orthodoxy in the Science of Government—others have expressed fears, of an unaccommodating disposition and others of an Obstinancy that will risque [sic] great Things to secure Small ones.” Gerry, however, pledged to cooperate fully with his colleagues on the commission and to encourage unanimity in all they did. There is little doubt that Gerry was sincere, but few who knew him would believe him capable of fulfilling this promise.26

  In the letter promising to strive for unity and cooperation, Gerry had declared, “I think it impossible for a jealousy to be excited in my mind against either of my colleagues.” But, in this, he proved disastrously wrong. The truth was that John Adams had put together a team of men whose temperaments rendered unity in the negotiations unlikely and whose inexperience in diplomacy could easily lead to disaster. Whether they succeeded or failed in forging a new, and more acceptable, relationship between the United States and France, the responsibility for the outcome rested in large part on the president’s selection.27

  3

  “Talleyrand… could not be for war with this country.”

  —John Adams, October 1797

  THE INSTRUCTIONS DRAFTED for the commissioners reflected the president’s awareness that they would have to be flexible. They were to ask for compensation to American merchants for French depredations of US commerce as well as compensation for unpaid claims for supplies provided by merchants to agents of the French government. However, a French refusal to meet these demands was not to be grounds to end the negotiations. The commissioners’ primary goal was a new treaty that could clarify—and ease—US-French relations. To accomplish this, they had the authority to place France on the same footing with Great Britain when it came to neutral shipping. In other words, America was willing to give up the “free ships / free goods” clause of the older treaty of 1778. In exchange, however, France would be asked to release the United States from the mutual guarantee of military support in that treaty. But on two points the president was unbending: the commissioners were explicitly ordered not to agree to restrictions on trade that the United States was legally entitled to under the law of nations, and they were to make no loans to France that could be used to pay for their war against Britain.28

  These instructions were not made public until after the mission ended. But it would have made no difference to the Republican press if they had been widely published immediately. Benjamin Bache, for example, was certain that the goal of this mission was not peace but war with France. How could it be otherwise, he asked his readers, when Federalists hated France and loved England, when they were motivated by a desire for the lucrative jobs and patronage opportunities that war would bring, and when the threat of war would allow them to create a standing army and a huge national debt? “Various passions and interests will combine to drive or drag this country into a war,” he declared, adding that “the ambitious and the avaricious of every shade and complexion are at this moment straining every nerve to accomplish the object; and they will accomplish it, if the people continue to sleep.” Beneath the predictable rhetoric, however, was an astute reading of the situation facing the commission. It would meet with little more than cold civility, Bache argued, and the French government would simply stall until it discovered whether Britain could be forced to make peace. In other words, the envoys would find themselves powerless pawns whose fate would be decided by the struggle between France and Britain. The Federalist press was indignant at these gloomy predictions; one editor dismissed Bache’s views as the “foul water which continually issues through that sewer [the Aurora].”29

  Bache and his contributors did not, however, factor in the rapidly changing political situation in France. Despite the recent military victories and the expectation that England would indeed sue for peace, the Directory government was under attack by influential political opponents. These critics attacked the Directory leadership’s high-handed treatment of republican governments like those in Geneva and Venice as well as in the United States. The French government attempted to placate its critics by dismissing several of the most anti-American ministers, including Delacroix. But in September 1797, a coup d’état, led by three of the directors and aided by military forces assigned by Napoleon Bonaparte, put the remaining two in prison. The three victors then cancelled the results of the 1796 elections, closed at least thirty Parisian newspapers, exiled many of the government’s opponents, and called a halt to talks with England. Paul Barras, who had given the insulting speech on the occasion of Monroe’s departure, now held the reins of power.30

  Barras and his fellow directors appointed Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand as their foreign minister. It was not a post to accept lightly: of Talleyrand’s fourteen predecessors, five had been executed, four had been forced into exile, and two had been imprisoned. Whether Talleyrand would have better luck was unclear, but he was willing to take his chances
because the position opened up opportunities for personal profit. This chance to amass a fortune arose from the accepted practice of demanding bribes from foreign governments hoping to negotiate with France. Countries wishing to avoid invasion as well as those attempting to make peace were regularly required to line the pockets of French officials. Although this had become standard practice after the Revolution, it was far from a republican innovation. Silas Deane, sent as a purchasing agent by the Continental Congress in 1776, when France was still ruled by a king, had to pay a bribe to initiate the purchase of military supplies.31

  Like Barras, Talleyrand was descended from a noble family. As a young man he studied for the priesthood and took orders, but there is no evidence that his religious commitment ran deep. He preferred luxury, women, and political intrigue to prayer, charitable works, and Catholic ritual. Indeed, on the evening he was installed as bishop of Autun, Talleyrand dined with his mistress. Later, as he made the transition from Royalist to revolutionary, Talleyrand was excommunicated for supporting the nationalization of Catholic Church properties. During the political upheavals of 1792, Talleyrand left France and spent two years in England and then two in America. In the United States, he formed a close friendship with Alexander Hamilton, a fellow nationalist he admired greatly. He was reported to have said, “I consider Napoleon, Pitt and Hamilton as the three greatest men of our age, and if I had to choose, I would unhesitatingly give the first place to Hamilton.” Charming, cunning, and greedy: this was the man with whom the American envoys would have to deal if they hoped to establish a new relationship between his country and their own.32

  The coup and the appointments that followed boded ill for the American mission. John Marshall, who had arrived in the Netherlands one week before Barras came to power, believed that the violence and disorder, and the use of the military to crush civilian protest, threatened the survival of the French Republic. “The constitution of France may survive the wound,” he told Timothy Pickering in a letter later that month, “but the constitution of no other nation on earth could survive it.… A wanton contempt of rules so essential to the very being of a republic could not have been exhibited by men who wished to preserve it.” Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who had lingered in Amsterdam since leaving Paris that January, agreed with his younger colleague. The two men also shared the view that they would make little or no progress in improving American relations with France.33

  Pinckney and Marshall nevertheless made their way to Paris. Gerry did not arrive in the Netherlands until late September, after a long trip made more unpleasant by a “slow putrid fever” he contracted. Before heading to Paris, Gerry shared his thoughts on the upcoming negotiations with the US ambassador to the Netherlands, William Vans Murray. The best strategy, he declared, was to gain time by prolonging the discussions. This, he assured Murray, would diminish the possibility of war between the two countries. He also boasted to Murray that his appointment to the commission was a serious blow to the “British party” at home and to its plot to fill all diplomatic posts with anti-French ministers. As a Federalist and a staunch supporter of the administration, Murray was unlikely to applaud Gerry’s triumph.34

  By September 27, 1797, Pinckney and Marshall were in Paris; Gerry arrived the first week of October. They moved into a large townhouse, three blocks from the foreign ministry. Pinckney, whose family had joined him, took the main floor of the house while Gerry and Marshall found themselves in a small apartment on the ground floor. Gerry was miserable. He considered their location so dangerous that he slept with not one but two loaded pistols under his pillow. Later, the trio would move to far more attractive quarters in the home of the celebrated adopted daughter of Voltaire, Madame de Villette, known as “belle et bonne” within Parisian circles. But, until the end of November, they remained in rooms a stone’s throw from Talleyrand’s offices.35

  Their first encounter with Talleyrand came on October 8. It was a fifteen-minute audience that gave them time only to present their credentials and receive the necessary cards of hospitality that would allow them to remain in Paris. A week then passed with no word from the minister. During that time, Thomas Paine, who had been living in France since 1792, sent the envoys a letter urging the United States not to arm merchantmen in defense against French privateers. Although Marshall was offended by Paine’s interference, the usually cantankerous Gerry took to heart Paine’s underlying message: do nothing to irritate the French government.36

  Talleyrand, like Gerry, was happy to see the negotiations move slowly. The French minister assumed that eventually a new treaty would be signed, but he saw no reason to rush. He was certain that the United States would not declare war on his country, and, as long as there was no treaty, France could continue its successful privateering against US merchantmen. Marshall took the measure of the situation almost immediately, quick to see that the delays meant money in the pockets of French ship owners, French merchants, and French government officials. Gerry, blinded by his fear that a war with France would drive the United States into alliance with Britain, was unable to see things so clearly.

  Talleyrand had a second, more personal reason for delay; he intended to see American money reach his own pockets. He planned to drag out the negotiations by demanding apologies for real or imagined wrongs and then offer to facilitate matters once a bribe, or douceur, had been paid. Across the Atlantic, John Adams assumed that delay would be Talleyrand’s strategy. “Talleyrand,” he told Pickering, “I should Suppose could not be for War with this Country; nor can I apprehend that even the Triumvirate, as they begin to be called in France, will be for a measure so decided. A Continued Appearance of Umbrage, and continued Depredations on a weak defenceless Commerce, will be much more convenient.” What Adams did not realize, however, was the role Talleyrand’s desire for personal gain played in his strategy.37

  On October 14, Talleyrand sent his secretary to James Mountflorence, the United States vice consul in France who had served as the primary contact between the French and American governments since the expulsion of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. Mountflorence was to convey a message to Pinckney: the Directory was “excessively exasperated” with the United States and would not begin negotiations until the envoys explained the suggestion of French interference in American domestic politics made by John Adams in his May 1797 speech. Although Talleyrand was the actual source of this demand, he expected the vice consul to assure the Americans that he opposed it. A pattern would soon emerge: Talleyrand would present claims from the Directory that were in fact his own invention and then pose as an advocate for the envoys.

  This was the first use of an intermediary by Talleyrand, but it would not be the last. In this instance, the envoys chose the appropriate response to an irregular transmission of information: no response at all. Talleyrand might not have employed this tactic again if the envoys had held firm in their refusal to deal with intermediaries or if Marshall’s proposal to send a message directly to Talleyrand demanding negotiations begin at once had been agreed to by his colleagues. But Gerry vetoed Marshall’s idea, urging patience and warning that putting pressure on the French government might result in no negotiations at all. Over the following months, this would become Gerry’s mantra. And none of the three Americans proved able to turn away the men Talleyrand sent bearing information, threats, proposals, or suggestions on how to advance the negotiations. The result would be a succession of intermediaries, three of whom would later be known simply as X, Y, and Z.

  On October 18, the second indirect contact was made. Nicholas Hubbard, an Englishman who was a partner in the Amsterdam bank that had financed the US national debt, called on Pinckney to ask whether he would receive a visit from a colleague, Jean Conrad Hottinguer. This colleague, Hubbard said, had an important message for the Americans. Hottinguer—or “X” as he was referred to in the documents President Adams would later turn over to the Congress—was a Swiss banker, a member of a European syndicate that speculated in US investments. He had live
d in the United States in the 1780s and was involved with the American financial genius Robert Morris in land purchases in Pennsylvania. Hottinguer knew Pinckney and he also knew Marshall’s brother James, whom he had helped with a loan. X’s mission was to lay out Talleyrand’s terms to Pinckney: first, the United States must assume responsibility for all the damages done to American merchants by French privateers; second, the United States must make a substantial loan to France; and third, the United States must give Talleyrand £50,000 for his troubles in negotiating the new treaty with America. The first condition reversed the demand for reparations in the envoys’ instructions. The second had been expressly forbidden by those same instructions. And the third offended the envoys, who saw it as an insult to their country.

  Most Americans had included British corruption among the central causes of their own revolution, and thus they would have been uncomfortable, if not repulsed, by Talleyrand’s insistence on a bribe. This was Pinckney’s reaction. When he shared X’s message with his fellow envoys, the difference in their responses was telling: Marshall was furious; Gerry was noncommittal. In Marshall’s view, the proposals made by X were tantamount to a demand for America’s absolute surrender of its independence. Again, the Virginian urged that they write to Talleyrand with their own demand for a meeting with him. Yet, after some discussion, it was instead agreed that Pinckney should meet once again with X to acquire more details. This was their second major mistake, for it suggested a willingness to deal with unauthorized agents rather than the foreign minister. Talleyrand’s strategy seemed to be working.