was only intended for purposes
of defence against the pirates that infested the Bermudas. But the
case was already judged. The people laughed at the captain's
declarations; and in a few minutes the "Betsy," a mass of flame, was
drifting across the harbor to the Charlestown beach. There she blazed
away, while the crowd watched the bonfire from the dock, until the
last timbers of the ship fell with a hiss into the black waters, and
all was dark again.

Popular sympathy is at best but an unstable sentiment, and so it
proved with this unreasoning affection of the American people for
France. Firmly the American authorities held to their policy of
neutrality, refusing to be influenced in the slightest degree by the
popular clamor of the people for an alliance with France. Then the
French sympathizers made their fatal error. In the presidential chair
of the United States sat Washington, the hero of the Revolution.
Rashly the French minister and his following began an onslaught upon
this great and wise man, because of his firm determination to keep the
United States neutral. They accused him of being an "aristocrat;" of
wishing to found an hereditary monarchy, with himself at the head. No
epithet was too vile for them to apply to him: "liar" and "traitor"
were terms freely applied to him whom we regard as the veritable
founder of our free Republic. Such intemperate and unreasoning malice
as this had a very different effect from what was intended by the
French sympathizers, or Republicans as the party was then termed. The
party supporting the President gained strength and influence, even
while the actions of Napoleon and the French Chamber of Deputies were
giving American seamen the same grounds of complaint as those which
Great Britain had so long forced upon them.

It was during the last year of the administration of Washington, that
the French Directory issued secret orders to the commanders of all
French men-of-war, directing them to treat neutral vessels in the same
manner as they had suffered the English to treat them. The cunning
intent of this order is apparent by its wording: "Treat American
vessels as they suffer themselves to be treated by the British." What
course does that leave open to the Americans, save to resist the
British, thereby become involved in a war, and so aid France? But
there was one other alternative; and, much to the surprise and chagrin
of the French, the Americans adopted it. And the only effec