rrying and vexatious that I ever encountered; and the
more so, as the causes lay in the unsteadiness, the follies, the
perverseness, and the defections among our friends, more than in the
strength, or dexterity, or malice of our opponents."

Though the Jay treaty was not--as was said on a previous page--such an
one as the United States would have acceded to in latter times, the
result proved it to be a wise and timely measure. Notwithstanding the
disturbed condition of affairs in Europe, its influence upon the United
States, and the increasing violence of faction here, the increase for
the next ten or twelve years of the commerce, and the consequent growth
and prosperity, of the country were greater than the most sanguine
supporters of the treaty had dared to hope for. Their immediate
expectations that it might be possible to establish better relations
with England, without disturbing essentially those existing with France,
were, however, signally disappointed. Their opponents were wiser; for
they not only measured accurately the indignation of the French by their
own, but they took good care that it should not languish for want of
encouragement. The French Directory might have been reconciled to the
situation had it been plain to them that there was neither an
"Anglicized" party nor a French party in the United States, but that the
people were united in the determination to maintain, for their own
protection, whatever their personal sympathies might be, an absolute
neutrality between the belligerent powers. But as they were assured that
their friends in America meant also to be their effectual allies, so
they believed that those who professed neutrality used it only as a mask
for friendship to England.

James Monroe had been received in Paris as American minister, literally
as well as morally, with open arms, in that memorable scene when, in the
presence and amid the cheers of the National Convention, the president,
Merlin de Douai, imprinted upon his cheeks, in the name of France, the
kiss of fraternity. Till he was recalled in the latter days of
Washington's administration, Monroe was the representative not so much
of the government to which he owed allegiance as of the faction to which
he belonged at home. He was not, it is true, unmindful of the hundreds
of outrages perpetrated by French naval vessels and privateers upon
American merchantmen; that their crews were thrown into French prisons,
and that the detention