han Washington had been. Fear of another outbreak of yellow
fever accelerated the work of Congress, and the extra session lasted only
a little over three weeks.

Such was the slowness of communication in those days that, when Congress
reassembled at the regular session in November, no decisive news had
arrived of the fate of the special mission. Adams with proper prudence
thought it would be wise to consider what should be done in case of
failure. On January 24, 1798, he addressed to the members of his Cabinet a
letter requesting their views. No record is preserved of the replies of
the Secretaries of State and of the Treasury. Lee, the Attorney-General,
recommended a declaration of war. McHenry, the Secretary of War, offered a
series of seven propositions to be recommended to Congress: 1. Permission
to merchant ships to arm; 2. The construction of twenty sloops of war; 3.
The completion of frigates already authorized; 4. Grant to the President
of authority to provide ships of the line, not exceeding ten, "by such
means as he may judge best." 5. Suspension of the treaties with France; 6.
An army of sixteen thousand men, with provision for twenty thousand more
should occasion demand; 7. A loan and an adequate system of taxation.

These recommendations are substantially identical with those made by
Hamilton in a letter to Pickering, and the presumption is strong that
McHenry's paper is a product of Hamilton's influence, and that it had the
concurrence of Pickering and Wolcott. The suggestion that the President
should be given discretionary authority in the matter of procuring ships
of the line contemplated the possibility of obtaining them by transfer
from England, not through formal alliance but as an incident of a
cooeperation to be arranged by negotiation, whose objects would also
include aid in placing a loan and permission for American ships to join
British convoys. This feature of McHenry's recommendations could not be
curried out Pickering soon informed Hamilton that the old animosities were
still so active "in some breasts" that the plan of cooperation was
impracticable.

Meanwhile the composite mission had accomplished nothing except to make
clear the actual character of French policy. When the envoys arrived in
France, the Directory had found in Napoleon Bonaparte an instrument of
power that was stunning Europe by its tremendous blows. That instrument
had not yet turned to the reorganization of France herself,