e national protection.
Immediately after this "cockade proclamation" was issued, that token of
attachment to the French republic abounded. It was worn by many
Americans as well as Frenchmen, and it became the badge of party
distinction for several years.

Adet followed up his proclamation by another missile, sent
simultaneously to the state department and the _Aurora_, demanding "the
execution of that contract [treaty of 1778] which assured to the United
States their existence, and which France regarded as the pledge of the
most sacred union between two people, the freest upon earth." He assumed
that his government was "terrible to its enemies, but generous to its
allies," and prefaced his summary of alleged violations of the
international compact, by a flourish of rhetoric intended to impress the
American people.

"When Europe rose up against the republic, at its birth," he said, "and
menaced it with all the horrors of famine; when on every side France
could not calculate on any but enemies, their thoughts turned toward
America, and a sweet sentiment then mingled itself with those proud
feelings which the presence of danger, and the desire of repelling it,
produced in their hearts. In Americans they saw friends. Those who went
to brave tempests and death upon the ocean, forgot all dangers in order
to indulge the hope of visiting that American continent where, for the
first time, the French colors had been displayed in favor of liberty.
Under the guaranty of the law of nations, under the protecting shade of
a solemn treaty, they expected to find in the ports of the United States
an asylum as sure as at home; they thought, if I may use the expression,
there to find a second country. The French government thought as they
did. O hope worthy of a faithful people, how hast thou been deceived!
So far from offering the French the succors which friendship might have
given without compromising itself, the American government, in this
respect, violated the obligations of treaties."

This exordium was followed by a summary of instances of bad faith on the
part of the United States, beginning, as he said, with the president's
"insidious proclamation of neutrality," and aggravated by the late
treaty with Great Britain. Adet announced the fact that the French
Directory, as an expression of their dissatisfaction with what they
considered equivalent to a treaty of alliance between the United States
and Great Britain, had given him o