Volume II Part 30 (1/2)
[607] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 158; Marshall's Journal, Official Copy; MS., Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc., 2. The envoys' dispatches to the Secretary of State were prepared by Marshall, largely, from his Journal. Citations will be from the dispatches except when not including matter set out exclusively in Marshall's Journal.
[608] Marshall's Journal, Oct. 11, 2-4.
[609] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 8-11, and 158. Fulwar Skipwith was consul; but Mountflorence was connected with the office.
[610] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 157. Italics are mine.
CHAPTER VII
FACING TALLEYRAND
Society is divided into two cla.s.ses; the shearers and the shorn.
We should always be with the former against the latter.
(Talleyrand.)
To lend money to a belligerent power is to relinquish our neutrality. (Marshall.)
Diplomatically Marshall and his a.s.sociates found themselves marooned.
Many and long were their discussions of the situation. ”We have had several conversations on the extraordinary silence of the Government concerning our reception,” writes Marshall in his Journal. ”The plunder of our commerce sustains no abatements, the condemnations of our vessels are press'd with ardor ... our reception is postponed in a manner most unusual & contemptuous.
”I urge repeatedly that we ought, in a respectful communication to the Minister [Talleyrand] ... to pray for a suspension of all further proceedings against American vessels until the further order of the Directory....
”We have already permitted much time to pa.s.s away, we could not be charged with precipitation, & I am willing to wait two or three days longer but not more.... The existing state of things is to France the most beneficial & the most desirable, but to America it is ruinous. I therefore urge that in a few days we shall lay this interesting subject before the Minister.”[611]
Marshall tells us that Gerry again opposed action, holding that for the envoys to act would ”irritate the [French] Government.” The Directory ”might take umbrage.”[612] Besides, declared Gerry, France was in a quandary what to do and ”any movement on our part” would relieve her and put the blame on the envoys. ”But,” records Marshall, ”in the address I propose I would say nothing which could give umbrage, & if, as is to be feared, France is determined to be offended, she may quarrel with our answer to any proposition she may make or even with our silence.”
Pinckney agreed with Marshall; but they yielded to Gerry in order to ”preserve unanimity.”[613]
Tidings soon arrived of the crus.h.i.+ng defeat of the Dutch fleet by the British; and on the heels of this came reports that the Directory were ready to negotiate with the Americans.[614] Next morning, and four days after the mysterious intimations to the American envoys from Talleyrand through his confidential secretary, a Parisian business man called on Pinckney and told him that a Mr. Hottenguer,[615] ”a native of Switzerland who had been in America,”[616] and ”a gentleman of considerable credit and reputation,” would call on Pinckney. Pinckney had met Hottenguer on a former occasion, probably at The Hague. That evening this cosmopolitan agent of financiers and foreign offices paid the expected visit. After a while Hottenguer ”whispered ... that he had a message from Talleyrand.” Into the next room went Pinckney and his caller. There Hottenguer told Pinckney that the Directory were ”exceedingly irritated” at President Adams's speech and that ”they should be softened.”
Indeed, the envoys would not be received, said Hottenguer, unless the mellowing process were applied to the wounded and angry Directory. He was perfectly plain as to the method of soothing that sore and sensitive body--”money” for the pockets of its members and the Foreign Minister which would be ”at the disposal of M. Talleyrand.” Also a loan must be made to France. Becoming still more explicit, Hottenguer stated the exact amount of financial salve which must be applied in the first step of the healing treatment required from our envoys--a small bribe of one million two hundred thousand livres [about fifty thousand pounds sterling, or two hundred and fifty thousand dollars].
”It was absolutely required,” reports Marshall, ”that we should ... pay the debts due by contract from France to our citizens ... pay for the spoliations committed on our commerce ... & make a considerable loan....
Besides this, added Mr. Hottenguer, there must be something for the pocket ... for the private use of the Directoire & Minister under the form of satisfying claims which,” says Marshall, ”did not in fact exist.”[617]
Pinckney reported to his colleagues. Again the envoys divided as to the course to pursue. ”I was decidedly of opinion,” runs Marshall's chronicle, ”& so expressed myself, that such a proposition could not be made by a nation from whom any treaty, short of the absolute surrender of the independence of the United States was to be expected, but that if there was a possibility of accommodation, to give any countenance whatever to such a proposition would be certainly to destroy that possibility because it would induce France to demand from us terms to which it was impossible for us to accede. I therefore,” continues Marshall, ”thought we ought, so soon as we could obtain the whole information, to treat the terms as inadmissible and without taking any notice of them to make some remonstrance to the minister on our situation & on that of our countrymen.” Pinckney agreed with Marshall; Gerry dissented and declared that ”the whole negotiation ... would be entirely broken off if such an answer was given as I [Marshall] had hinted & there would be a war between the two nations.” At last it was decided to get Hottenguer's proposition in writing.[618]
When Pinckney so informed Hottenguer, the latter announced that he had not dealt ”immediately with Talleyrand but through another gentleman in whom Talleyrand had great confidence.” Hottenguer had no objection, however, to writing out his ”suggestions,” which he did the next evening.[619] The following morning he advised the envoys that a Mr.
Bellamy, ”the confidential friend of M. Talleyrand,” would call and explain matters in person. Decidedly, the fog was thickening. The envoys debated among themselves as to what should be done.
”I again urg'd the necessity of breaking off this indirect mode of procedure,” testifies Marshall; but ”Mr. Gerry reprobated precipitation, insisted on further explanations as we could not completely understand the scope & object of the propositions & conceiv'd that we ought not abruptly object to them.” Marshall and Pinckney thought ”that they [Talleyrand's demands] were beyond our powers & ... amounted to a surrender of the independence of our country.”[620] But Gerry had his way and the weaving of the spider's web went on.
Two hours after candlelight that evening Hottenguer and Bellamy entered Marshall's room where the three Americans were waiting for them; and Bellamy was introduced as ”the confidential friend of M. Talleyrand,” of whom Hottenguer had told the envoys. Bellamy was, says Marshall, ”a genevan now residing in Hamburg but in Paris on a visit.”[621] He went straight to the point. Talleyrand, he confided to the envoys, was ”a friend of America ... the kindness and civilities he had personally received in America” had touched his heart; and he was burning to ”repay these kindnesses.” But what could this anxious friend of America do when the cruel Directory were so outraged at the American President's address to Congress that they would neither receive the envoys nor authorize ”Talleyrand to have any communications with” them.
Bellamy pointed out that under these circ.u.mstances Talleyrand could not, of course, communicate directly with the envoys; but ”had authorized”
him to deal with them ”and to promise” that the French Foreign Minister would do his best to get the Directory to receive the Americans if the latter agreed to Talleyrand's terms. Nevertheless, Bellamy ”stated explicitly and repeatedly that he was clothed with no authority”--he was not a diplomat, he said, but only the trusted friend of Talleyrand. He then pointed out the pa.s.sages from Adams's address[622] which had so exasperated the French rulers and stated what the envoys must do to make headway.
The American envoys, a.s.serted Bellamy, must make ”a formal disavowal in writing ... that ... the speech of the Citizen President,” Barras, was ”not offensive” to America; must offer ”reparation” for President Adams's address; must affirm that the decree of the Directory,[623]
which Adams had denounced, was not ”contrary to the treaty of 1778”; must state ”in writing” the depredations on American trade ”by the English and French privateers,” and must make ”a formal declaration”