of their cargoes had brought ruin upon many
American citizens; nor did he neglect to demand redress. But he seemed
absolutely incapable of understanding that if there were anything to
choose between the insults and wrongs which America was compelled to
submit to from England and France, it was only in the greater ability of
England to inflict them. English ships swept the ocean, and pretexts
were never wanting for overhauling American vessels, stripping them of
some of their men, or confiscating both ships and cargoes. France had as
many pretexts, and quite as good a will to enforce them; but she had
fewer ships, and for that reason, and that only, did rather less damage.

But however earnest Monroe was in insisting upon the rights of neutrals,
in urging upon the French ministry the strict observance of treaty
obligations, and in complaining of the constant injuries done in their
despite, there was another thing about which he was far more earnest.
He was as anxious to aid the French to baffle, if possible, Jay's
negotiations in London as if he were uncovering a plot against his own
government. When the ratification of the treaty was made known in Paris,
the indignation of the Directory was hardly kept within bounds. The
minister of foreign affairs notified Monroe that the Directory
considered the stipulations of the treaty of 1778 as altered and
suspended in their most essential parts by this treaty with England.
Under any circumstances the French would, no doubt, have resented the
establishment of friendly relations between the United States and the
old enemy of France, with whom she at that moment was engaged in a war
arousing more than the bitter inherited enmity of the two peoples. But
the course Monroe had seen fit to pursue had done much to assure the
French that the strong party in the United States, which he represented,
would never permit the virgin republic to be delivered, as it was
assumed the treaty did deliver her, bound and gagged, into the hands of
the power which Jefferson loved to call "the harlot England." The first
enthusiasm of the Revolution was fast growing into cant in both
countries, and the language of devotion to liberty, equality, and
fraternity was beginning to lose all meaning. But it was easy to be
deceived by the assurances, more significant in actions than in words,
of an official representative, that the American people, save an
Anglicized and decreasing minority, were the friends, and