ify certain formal methods used in the transactions
between sovereign states.

In the more limited, as well as in the larger sense of the term, without
knowing what the etiquette is, it is impossible to determine whether it
is a vain and captious punctilio, or a form necessary to preserve
decorum in character and order in business. I readily admit that nothing
tends to facilitate the issue of all public transactions more than a
mutual disposition in the parties treating to waive all ceremony. But
the use of this temporary suspension of the recognized modes of respect
consists in its being mutual, and in the spirit of conciliation in which
all ceremony is laid aside. On the contrary, when one of the parties to
a treaty intrenches himself up to the chin in these ceremonies, and will
not on his side abate a single punctilio, and that all the concessions
are upon one side only, the party so conceding does by this act place
himself in a relation of inferiority, and thereby fundamentally subverts
that equality which is of the very essence of all treaty.

After this formal act of degradation, it was but a matter of course that
gross insult should be offered to our ambassador, and that he should
tamely submit to it. He found himself provoked to complain of the
atrocious libels against his public character and his person which
appeared in a paper under the avowed patronage of that government. The
Regicide Directory, on this complaint, did not recognize the paper: and
that was all. They did not punish, they did not dismiss, they did not
even reprimand the writer. As to our ambassador, this total want of
reparation for the injury was passed by under the pretence of despising
it.

In this but too serious business, it is not possible here to avoid a
smile. Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a
calm and equal mind, but no man by lifting his head high can pretend
that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down upon him from
above. All these sudden complaints of injury, and all these deliberate
submissions to it, are the inevitable consequences of the situation in
which we had placed ourselves: a situation wherein the insults were such
as Nature would not enable us to bear, and circumstances would not
permit us to resent.

It was not long, however, after this contempt of contempt upon the part
of our ambassador, (who by the way represented his sovereign,) that a
new object was furnished for displa