CHAPTER had set up in excuse, that the session of the House was XII. suspended at the time, and that expulsion, therefore, 1798. would be too severe a punishment. Though a good deal ashamed of Lyon's conduct, the opposition, in the close division of parties, were very unwilling to suffer even the temporary loss of a single vote. An attempt was made to substitute a reprimand for expulsion; but this Feb. 12. motion was lost, forty-four to fifty-two, the same number of votes presently given for the original resolution. But as a two thirds vote was necessary to expel, this resolution, though sustained by a majority, was lost. To this very discreditable decision, and to the prece dent thus established, may in a great measure be ascribed those personal affrays on the floor of the House by which that body has from time to time been disgraced. Indeed this action, or rather non-action, very speedily produced its natural fruits. As the House refused to avenge him or itself, Griswold took the matter into his own hands. For two or three days after the decision, Lyon kept out of the way. The first time that he made Feb. 15. his appearance in the hall, prayers having been read, and many of the members being in their seats, but the House not yet called to order, Griswold walked up to him as he was reading in his seat, and commenced beating him over the head with a cane. Lyon also had a cane, but, in his confusion, instead of seizing it, he attempted to close with Griswold, who retired slowly before him, keeping him at arms' length, and still beating him. When, at length, they had cleared the seats, Lyon rushed to the fire-place and seized a pair of tongs, with which he approached Griswold, who now struck him a blow in the face which blackened his eye, closed with him, threw him, fell upon him, and still continued to pommel him over the head, till the discomfited Democrat was finally GRISWOLD'S REVENGE. 191 XII. relieved by some of his political friends, who seized Gris- CHAPTER wold by the legs and dragged him off; after which the speaker, who had looked calmly on all the while, as- 1798. sumed his seat and called the House to order. Just as that was done, Lyon, having been provided with a cane, approached Griswold, whose cane had slipped from his hand when he was dragged off of Lyon, and who at this moment was unarmed. Lyon made a feeble blow, which Griswold avoided by drawing back, when the call to or der put an end to this discreditable scene. That portion of the opposition who had voted for expelling Lyon now called loudly for the expulsion both of Lyon and Griswold, and a resolution to that effect was offered and referred to the committee on privileges, notwithstanding the opposition of some of the Federalists, who remarked, with some malice, that it seemed very hard to include Lyon in this motion, since he had only been guilty of very quietly taking a severe beating. The committee reported against the resolution, and their re- Feb. 23 port was sustained, seventy-three to twenty-one. An at tempt was then made to obtain a vote of censure, but this was also lost by a small majority. Pending this affair, in a message covering certain doc- Feb. 8 uments transmitted by Charles Pinckney, governor of South Carolina, setting forth the violation of the neutrality of the United States by a French privateer, which had captured and burned a British vessel within the waters of Charleston harbor, the president had attempted to stimulate Congress to some measures for the protection of commerce. The privilege affair having been disposed of, and the House having resumed the discussion of the Foreign Intercourse Bill, the president sent another message giving information of the arrival of the first dispatches from the envoys in France. All these CHAPTER dispatches except the latest, dated January 8th, which XII. gave notice of the impending decree for the forfeiture of 1798. all vessels having English merchandise on board, were March 5. in cipher, and it would take some time to get at their contents, as to which, however, it was briefly mentioned in this last dispatch that no hope existed of the reception of the envoys by the French government, or of their being able, in any way, to accomplish the object of their mission-statements so important that the president judged it expedient to lay them at once before the House. As soon as the other dispatches were decipherMarch 19 ed, the president sent another message, informing Con gress of the result to which he had arrived from a care zens,' This message, as might naturally be expected, pro POLICY OF JEFFERSON AND THE OPPOSITION. 193 XIL duced a great excitement. It was the policy of the op- CHAPTER position, as developed in Jefferson's private correspondence, by keeping the country unarmed, to compel the 1798. acceptance of such terms as France might choose to dictate. To any humiliation on that score, the opposition leaders appeared perfectly insensible. Such humiliation would fall, according to their view, not on them who had always opposed the policy of the Federal government toward France, nor on the country, but on the administration alone; and the more the administration was humbled. and mortified, the more surely would the road to power be open to the opposition. Jefferson, in a confidential March 21 letter to Madison, denounced the president's message as identical with war, in favor of which he could find no reason, "resulting from views either of interest or honor, plausible enough to impose even on the weakest mind." He could only explain "so extraordinary a degree of impetuosity" by reference to "the views so well known to have been entertained at Annapolis, and afterward at the grand Convention by a particular set of men"meaning, doubtless, the establishment of a monarchy"or, perhaps, instead of what was then in contemplation, a separation of the states, which has been so much the topic of late at the eastward"-a reference to a recent series of articles in the Hartford Courant newspa per, under the signature of "Pelham." The president's former message respecting protection to commerce he had described as "inflammatory;" the present message he denounced as "insane." But while thus suspicious and lenunciatory as to the measures and intentions of his own government, Jefferson seems to have relied with a girl-like confidence, equal to that of Monroe himself, un the good faith and fair intentions of Talleyrand and the Directory. He proposed to meet the withdrawal of the CHAPTER executive prohibition of the arming of private vessels by XII. enacting a legislative one; and "as to do nothing and to 1798. gain time was every thing," that Congress should ad journ and go home to consult their constituents. "Besides gaining time enough by this to allow the descent upon England to have its effect here as well as there"this was Bonaparte's famous descent, threatened but never made "it will be a means of exciting the whole body of the people from the state of inattention in which they are; it will require every member to call for the sense of his district, either by petition or instruction; it will show the people with which side of the House their safety as well as their rights rest, by showing them which is for war and which for peace, and their representatives will return here invigorated by the avowed support of the American people." Jefferson had complained in a former letter that Dayton, the speaker, had gone completely over to the Federal side, enticed, as he said, by hopes of being appointed Secretary of War. The wavering conduct of "other changelings and apostates," as he called them, was also very unsatisfactory. But, with his nat urally sanguine temperament, he still hoped that the opposition might continue to command in the House a majority of at least one or two over "the war-hawks." The Federalists, conscious of their weakness in the House, had hitherto kept very quiet. Indeed, the larger part had continued to flatter themselves that the extraordinary envoys might yet succeed in bringing about a satisfactory arrangement. The news of the proposed decrce authorizing the capture of all vessels of whatever nation having goods of British origin on board—a decree totally inconsistent with neutral rights-and the simultaneous news from the West Indies of the fitting out of French privateers to cruise against all American vessels |