CHAPTER houses, lands, and other real property, which it was XIII. hoped thus to dispose of at a generous price. But his 1798. friends, by whom this lottery was got up, having made

use of language in their call upon the public in itself indictable, Haswell, the printer of the Vermont Gazette, in which that call appeared, was himself indicted, and after a twelvemonths' delay was sentenced to a fine of $200 and two months' imprisonment. In conformity with Mason's suggestion a southern subscription was raised for the discharge of Lyon's fine; but of this money, according to Lyon's account, a part was abstracted before it reached Vermont; while most of the remainder was employed in paying Haswell's fine and the expenses of his trial, and also a fine of equal amount, inflicted under the Sedition Law, upon Holt of the New London Bee. While Lyon was still a prisoner, a new election took place in his district, and he had the satisfaction of being re-chosen to Congress by a very decided majoritya strong proof of the sympathy excited for him, and a bad omen of the effects to be expected from prosecutions under the Sedition Law.

The Maryland election, which shortly followed that Oct. 4 of Vermont, was very vehemently contested. Smith was re-elected in the Baltimore District by two hundred majority, and throughout the state the Federalists did little more than to hold their own. They succeeded, however, at the ensuing session of the Legislature, in electing Benjamin Ogle as governor.

While these various events were occurring in America, Gerry, alone at Paris, found himself in a somewhat April 10. awkward situation. Four days after Marshall's departure, not having heard any thing further from Talley. rand, he reminded him by a note that nothing but

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threats of an immediate rupture, to be prevented only CHAPTER by his remaining at Paris, had prevented his departure at the same time with his colleagues. Although he did 1798. not feel authorized to continue the negotiation in character of minister plenipotentiary, as Talleyrand had proposed, he was, however, ready and desirous to receive from the French government, and to communicate to his own, a statement of the terms on which the differences between the two nations might be accommodated-terms, he doubted not, corresponding to the justice and magnanimity of a great nation. Such a communication, he hoped, would be promptly made, and a stop be put to further depredations on American commerce till an answer could be obtained from America, a course which would at once extinguish all feelings of hostility. He hoped, at all events, not to be long detained; the state of his private affairs demanded his speedy return, and the residence at Paris of the American consul general would answer every political purpose.

In consequence of this note, Gerry had several interviews with Talleyrand, who declined to propose any terms of ar rangement, alleging that he did not know what the views of the United States were. Gerry thereupon explained, what Talleyrand perfectly well understood before, the nature of the American claims and complaints. Some conversation was afterward had about sending a French minister to the United States, and finally, Talleyrand promised to furnish Gerry with the project of a treaty. Pending these conversations, a special messenger ar- May 12 rived at Paris with a letter from Pickering, written just before the publication of the X, Y, Z dispatches, directing the ministers, if they had not already been admitted to a formal negotiation, to leave France forthwith. The same letter contained positive and precise instructions not to

XIII.

CHAPTER Consent to any loan or douceur, or purchase of peace with money, and a hint that the dispatches on this subject 1798. were about to be published. As that publication might endanger the safety of the ministers were they still in France, in order to insure them timely notice, this letter had been sent by a special dispatch boat.

May 26.

In consideration of "the new state of affairs," such was his own phraseology, Gerry seems to have held himself not bound to any implicit obedience of the instruc tions thus received. He resolved, indeed, to return in the dispatch boat, and took the opportunity to notify Talleyrand that it was necessary to make haste with his project of a treaty; but, rather than fail to obtain it, he determined to detain the vessel for such time as might seem expedient.

Talleyrand excused his delays by pleading other and pressing engagements. Several interviews took place between Gerry and Talleyrand's secretary, who disavowed any desire on the part of the French government to break up the British treaty, their demand simply being that France should be placed on equal ground with Great Britain. As to payments for spoliations, they must be made in the first place by the United States, to be reimbursed by France; but this, Gerry told him, was inadmissible.

Gerry presently had an interview with Talleyrand himself, who told him that the Directory no longer had any thoughts of war. The results in America of the bullying system, of which the first advices began now to be received, would seem to have led to a change of tactics. Talleyrand even promised to propose to the Directory to send a minister to the United States.

So stood matters when the first news of the published dispatches reached the Directory. This was a stroke

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which Talleyrand had not anticipated. He had hoped, chapter indeed, as we have seen already, himself to make the first appeal to the American people, by publishing in 1798 the Aurora-the joint organ of the French government and of the American opposition-his reply to the me morial of the envoys.

Gerry's first notice that the public dispatches had reached France, was a call upon him, by one of the Paris newspapers, to deny their authenticity. "Having reason to suppose," such is his own statement, "that the May 2 result of this new embarrassment, if not pacific, would be very violent," he prepared himself for the worst by securing his papers. He might well be alarmed, for it was only a short time before that, on the occurrence of ruptures with Portugal and the pope, the Portuguese and Roman embassadors, instead of being furnished with passports, had been seized and thrown into prison. Soon after came a note from Talleyrand, inclosing a May 30 London Gazette, in which the dispatches were printed at length, "a very strange publication," so Talleyrand wrote. "It is," he added, "with surprise I observe that intriguers have taken advantage of the insulated condition in which the envoys of the United States have kept themselves, to make proposals and to hold conversations of which the object evidently was to deceive you." The letter then proceeded to demand the names represented by the letters W, X, Y, and Z; W having been used to designate the merchant by whom Hottinguer (X) had been introduced to the envoys. "I must rely upon your eagerness," so the letter concluded, "to enable the government to fathom these practices, of which I felicitate you on not having been the dupe, and which you must wish to see cleared up."

After having been frightened by threats of instant war

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CHAPTER into remaining in France against his own better judg ment, and coaxed by the phantom of a promised project 1798. of a treaty into remaining still longer in defiance of the express orders of his government and at the risk of his personal safety, Gerry was now called upon to assist in discrediting his own dispatches-a procedure of which the coolness cannot but be admired, considering that Talleyrand himself had personally assured Gerry that full confidence might be placed in whatever Bellamy, the principal of the alleged intriguers, might state; and that both Hottinguer and Bellamy had been present at dinner parties in company with Talleyrand and Gerry, got up for the very purpose of forwarding the negotiation. Writhing not a little under this infliction, Gerry attempted to get off by admitting that the persons in question did not produce any credentials of any kind, and that three of them were foreigners, while the fourth acted only as a messenger and linguist. Being further June 4 pressed, however, he consented to give up the names, under an express assurance that they should not be pub lished upon his authority; and he also stated, in reply to Talleyrand's request, that none of the persons em ployed in that minister's office had ever said a word hav ing the least reference to the "shocking proposition," as Talleyrand called it, to pay any sum whatever by way of gratuity to the directors. That, indeed, was the only suggestion of the secret agents' which it was possible to disavow; for the attempt to frighten the envoys into buying peace with a loan had been repeatedly made by Talleyrand himself as well as by those agents, whose names, pretending not to know them, he had so formally demanded of Gerry.

June 7.

There appeared shortly after, in the Paris Redacteur, the special organ of Talleyrand, a labored defense of that