treaty in spite of their
remonstrances, while they dismissed Monroe with great ovations, refused
to receive the new embassador sent in his place, at the same time
issuing decrees and orders highly injurious to American interests.

Almost the first act of Mr. Adams, as President, was to call an extra
session of Congress. Not only was a war with France greatly to be
dreaded and deprecated on account of her great military and naval power,
but still more on account of the very formidable party which, among the
ultra-Republicans, she could muster within the States themselves. Under
these circumstances, the measure resolved upon by Adams and his cabinet
was the appointment of a new and more solemn commission to France,
composed of Pickney and two colleagues, for which purpose the President
appointed John Marshall of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry of
Massachusetts.

Instead of receiving and openly treating with those commissioners,
Talleyrand, lately an exile in America, but now Secretary of Foreign
Affairs to the French Government, entered into intrigue with them,
through several unaccredited and unofficial agents, of which the object
was to induce them to promise a round bribe to the directors and a large
sum of money to fill the exhausted French treasury, by way of purchasing
forbearance. As Pickney and Marshall appeared less pliable than Gerry,
Talleyrand finally obliged them to leave, after which he attempted,
though still without success, to extract money, or at least the promise
of it, from Gerry.

The publication of the dispatches in which these discreditible intrigues
were disclosed, an event on which Talleyrand had not calculated,
produced a great excitement in both America and Europe. Talleyrand
attempted to escape by disavowing his agents, and pretending that the
American ministers had been imposed upon by adventurers. Gerry left
France, and the violation of American commercial and maritime rights was
pushed to new extremes. In America the effect of all of this was to
greatly strengthen the Federal party for the time being.

The grand jury of the federal circuit court for Pennsylvania set the
example of an address to the president, applauding his manly stand for
the rights and dignity of the nation. Philadelphia, which under the lead
of Mifflin and McKean, had gone over to the Republicans, was once more
suddenly converted as during Washington's first term to the support of
the federal government. That city was t