choice by
electors vanishing in the stress of partisan excitement. After this
second defeat, the French Minister withdrew, severing diplomatic
relations; and French vessels began to capture American merchantmen, to
impress the country with the serious results of French irritation. The
Washington administration now recalled Monroe and sent C. C. Pinckney
to replace him, but the Directory, while showering compliments upon
Monroe, refused to receive Pinckney at all and virtually expelled him
from the country. In the midst of these annoying events, Washington's
term closed, and the sorely tried man, disgusted with party abuse and
what he felt to be national ingratitude, retired to his Virginia
estates, no longer {174} the president of the whole country, but the
leader of a faction. His Farewell Address showed, under its stately
phrases, his detestation of party controversy and his fears for the
future.

Washington's successor, Adams, was a man of less calmness and
steadiness of soul; independent, but with a somewhat petulant habit of
mind, and nervously afraid of ceasing to be independent; a man of sound
sense, yet of a too great personal vanity. His treatment of the French
situation showed national pride and dignity as well as an adherence to
the traditional Federalist policy of avoiding war. Unfortunately, his
handling of the party leaders was so deficient in tact as to assist in
bringing quick and final defeat upon himself and upon them.

The relations with France rapidly developed into an international
scandal. Adams, supported by his party, determined to send a mission
of three, including Pinckney, in order to restore friendly relations,
as well as to protest against depredations and seizures which the few
French cruisers at sea were now beginning to make. In the spring of
1798, however, the commission reported that its efforts had failed, and
Adams was obliged to lay its correspondence before Congress. This
showed that the great obstacle in the way of carrying on {175}
negotiations with the French had been the persistent demands on the
part of Talleyrand--the French Minister of Foreign Affairs--for a
preliminary money payment, either under the form of a so-called "loan"
or as a bribe outright. Such a revelation of venality struck dumb the
Republican leaders who had kept asserting their distrust of Adams's
sincerity and accusing the administration of injustice toward France.
It took all heart out of the opp