tion for French seizures of American property in the war with England then waging. He was not informed as to the full extent of Jay's negotiations with England, being unaware that a commercial treaty and the opening of a West India trade were contemplated. In this omission the American government treated neither Monroe nor France with candor, and sowed the seed of much discontent.

Monroe arrived in France at a time of extreme confusion. Robespierre had just fallen, and the era of violence was entering its final phase. The Committee of Public Safety showed no disposition to treat with him. He effected a master stroke by a request to address the assembly as a whole. Here he was welcomed fraternally, and amid a tremendous demonstration of enthusiasm, he assured his auditors of American sympathy with the great cause of liberty, and particularly with its votaries in France.

The French people interpreted Monroe's remarks and their accompanying circumstances as a renewal of the American alliance. The minister's popularity was at once assured. Monroe used it to considerable advantage. For one thing, he brought about a semi-official working agreement whereby France and the United States made some progress in negotiations with the Dey of Algiers, although David Humphreys, who had these relations in his special charge, was too ardent a Federalist to profit to the full by coöperation with Monroe. Far more important, Monroe advocated French support for American claims to free commerce and a port of deposit on the Mississippi. Such a practical demonstration of friendship, he pointed out, would go far toward convincing America that France rather than Great Britain was her friend. Toward opening the channels of negotiation between France and Spain, interrupted by the war in progress, Monroe was a helpful intermediary. He deserves in fact some share of credit for the Spanish treaty of 1795, the chief laurels of which have justly gone to Thomas Pinckney.1

18

18 The Monroe Mission to France, 1794-1796 (Baltimore, 1907), by Beverley W. Bond, Jr., is a very readable account of these important

matters.

The rock of stumbling proved, however, to be the Jay Treaty. Even in advance of its publication, the French surmised that the treaty would violate the alliance of 1778. And Monroe, who rightly suspected that he had been kept in the dark in order the more readily to deceive the French as to the real intent of his government, in his indignation committed the grave indiscretion of promising the French as soon as he himself should receive it and prior to its ratification in America, advance information concerning the treaty and its terms. This was an unwarranted concession to France, for no sovereign nation could concede such a right even to its firmest ally. In private correspondence with Jefferson, Madison, George Logan, Robert Livingston and other party leaders at home, Monroe committed the further indiscretion of attacking the Federalists and their foreign policy. Portions of his letters found their way into the public prints, to the anger and dismay of the State Department, which near the close of Washington's administration had passed from the disingenuous Edmund Randolph 19 to the choleric Timothy Pickering.

As long, however, as there remained a hope that the treaty would not be ratified, and still afterward that the House of Representatives would not vote it into effect, the partiality of the French toward Monroe rendered his recall impracticable. He was retained, much as Prince Lichnowsky was retained at London by the Germans before the World War, as a means of pacifying the French while his own government pursued its special objects. Monroe seems to have understood the situation, and his own motive for remaining in so equivocal a position appears to have been his belief that Jefferson would be the choice for president in 1796, and that with his accession to power, the principles to which Monroe was attached would govern the foreign policy of his country. Meanwhile, whatever the opinion might be at Philadelphia, Monroe conceived of himself as the am

19 It is suggested that the student form his own opinion of the integrity of Randolph. Cf. Conway, Moncure Daniel, Omitted Chapters of History Disclosed in the Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph. (New York, 1888.)

bassador from the American people to the French people. When the fortunes of the ballot designated Adams, and Monroe was at last recalled, France made it clear in her friendly farewell that her attachment was to the American people and their minister, not at all to their government. No intention was manifested of welcoming Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the choice of the Federalists, and the return of Monroe produced an hiatus in FrancoAmerican relations which constitutes a distinct interlude in our diplomatic annals.

Monroe's experience in France suggests that the means pursued by the American government were a bit dubious. A fundamental policy of Washington's administration had nevertheless been achieved, for France stood by while England and the United States were reconciled. Contemporary American opposition to the Jay Treaty was only heightened by the treatment of Monroe and our French ally. Posterity has nevertheless accounted it a master-stroke of diplomacy that our difficulties with England were settled when they were. Monroe is justified in part for a course of action indiscreet, and in his subsequent defense of himself provoking, 20 while Jay emerges from the bonfires lighted by his contemporaries as one of the first of American states

men.

THE TREATY OF SAN LORENZO

The foreign policy of Washington had disposed of two of the chief factors in the American environment, namely the troubles with England and France. With the third, Spain, it was equally successful. The year 1795 witnessed, as we have seen, a sudden reversal of Spanish opposition to American navigation of the Mississippi. The cause of this volte face is highly interesting. The decay of Spain, which had been temporarily arrested under Charles III and his capable minister, Florida Blanca, was resumed under his feeble successor, a sovereign incapable of ruling his own household, not to mention a kingdom in the Old World and

20 For Washington's own views of the mission, see the Ford Edition of his Writings, vol. XIII, pages 452-493.

an empire in the New. The highest decisions of state rested with the Queen's paramour, Manuel Godoy, a young nobleman who in an unprecedentedly short space of time rose from a commission in one of the guard regiments to the rank of Prince, and first minister of State.

Godoy's inexperience and his unfamiliarity with the traditions of Spanish colonial policy were destined to be of service to the aims of America. The reports of Carondelet in 1793 at the time of Genêt's mission had, as we have seen, made Godoy anxious for the fate of Louisiana. And the subsequent negotiations of England with the United States only increased his concern. Fearing a possible combination of the two against Louisiana, in July, 1795, he made peace with France, surrendering to her the Spanish portion of Santo Domingo, but retaining Louisiana. The improved position of France in the West Indies made her the more eager for a colony on the mainland. Fearing the designs of both England and France, Godoy then turned to America as the lesser evil.

In this situation Thomas Pinckney achieved his notable success. After the fashion of American and other ministers in attendance at the Spanish Court, Pinckney's demands had been met by constant evasion and postponement. At the psychological moment, however, when Godoy was most fearful of an Anglo-American alliance and a joint attack on Louisiana which he suspected to have been provided for in a secret clause of the Jay Treaty, Pinckney asked for his passports to England, politely adding that he would feel honored to be the bearer of any dispatches which the Spanish government might care to transmit. Godoy was the more alarmed at this because of his own previous failure to interest Pinckney in an alliance with Spain and France. Moving, therefore, with quite unwonted celerity, on October 27, 1795, only three days after Pinckney's implied ultimatum, Godoy agreed in the Treaty of San Lorenzo to all the American contentions. The Florida boundary was fixed on the line of 31 and American citizens were assured free navigation of the Mississippi from its source to the ocean, with the right of free deposit at New Orleans; a curb was set on

Indian hostilities; and neutral rights at sea were guaranteed under the principle that "free ships make free goods." Godoy's only reward was immunity for Louisiana against any immediate attack by the United States and England. He was thus enabled temporarily to take a firmer stand against the aggressions of France. The gain for America was incalculable. The Treaty of San Lorenzo settled forever the possibility of detaching the Mississippi Valley from the Union. What was conceivable in 1793 when Genêt made his attempt was no longer in the realm of practical politics a decade later when Burr and Wilkinson set on foot their great conspiracy.21

The diplomacy of Washington thus had won extraordinary successes. The Mississippi Valley was insured on both its flanks. The entente with England found expression in the Jay Treaty. The negotiations with Spain had succeeded beyond all expectation. The loyalty of the Westerners was assured. In every respect the situation at the close of Washington's administration was more favorable than it had been in 1789. New problems were nevertheless created by the very solution of the old. France was alienated. France and Spain beheld in America the near ally of England. France felt that control in Louisiana would be the best means of weakening the Anglo-American position. Her experience with the Jay Treaty and the involuntary deception of Monroe prejudiced her against further relations with American ministers. She had no intention of receiving Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. The incoming President, John Adams, inherited, therefore, by no means a clean slate. And if his administration seems less important in its diplomacy than Washington's, the opportunities were less and the difficulties in some respects were greater.

21 Rives, G. L., "Spain and the United States in 1795," in Am. Hist. Rev., IV, 62-79.