al government; has so long presided over our councils and
directed the public administration, and in the most advantageous manner
settled all national differences, and who can leave the administration
when nothing but our folly and internal discord can render the country
otherwise than happy."

The federalists and republicans now marshalled their forces for the
election. Their respective chiefs were brought forward. John Adams,
whose official station placed him in the line of promotion, and whose
public services, ability, and sterling integrity were well known to the
nation, was the choice of the federalists for the presidency, and Thomas
Pinckney, the accomplished diplomat, for the vice-presidency. The
republican party chose Mr. Jefferson, to use a modern political phrase,
as their standard-bearer. With these names as watchwords, the party
leaders went into the contest for presidential electors in November.
That contest was warm in every doubtful state. The parties seemed
equally balanced, and the final result of the action of the electoral
college, unlike the operations of the canvass in our day, could not be
determined beforehand.

While the canvass was in progress, Adet, the French minister, imitating
Genet, attempted to influence the political action of the American
people. The British treaty, the recall of Monroe, and the appointment of
Pinckney as his successor at Paris, offended him, and a few weeks after
the departure of Pinckney, he made a formal communication of the decree
of his government, already mentioned, which evinced a spirit of
hostility. In his accompanying letter he entered into an elaborate
defence of the decree, and renewed complaints which he had before urged,
that British ships-of-war were allowed to recruit their crews by
pressing into their service sailors from American vessels. Further
imitating Genet, by appealing to the people, Adet sent his communication
to be printed in the _Aurora_, at the same time that it was forwarded to
the state department. This was followed, in the course of a few days, by
a proclamation, signed by Adet, calling upon all Frenchmen residing in
America, in the name of the French Directory, to wear the tri-colored
cockade, which he termed "the symbol of a liberty the fruit of eight
years' toil and five years' victories;" and assured those he addressed,
that any Frenchman who should hesitate to comply, should not be allowed
the aid of French consular chanceries, or th