rom fitting out or
employing privateers against nations at peace with the United States.
The exportation of arms and ammunition was prohibited, and the
importation of the same encouraged, by law. The president was also
authorized to call out the militia to the number of eighty thousand, and
to accept of the services of volunteers. A small naval force was also
provided for, and means for extraordinary expenses incident to a state
of war.

Washington had doubts of the success of the new mission. In a letter to
Timothy Pickering, at the close of August, he said: "Candor is not a
more conspicuous trait in the character of governments than it is of
individuals. It is hardly to be expected, then, that the Directory of
France will acknowledge its errors, and tread back its steps
immediately. This would announce at once that there has been
precipitancy and injustice in the measures they have pursued; or that
they were incapable of judging, and had been deceived by false
representations. Pride would be opposed to all these; and I can scarcely
think the Directory will relinquish the hold it has upon those who more
than probably have suggested and promoted the measures they have been
pursuing. I rather suppose that they will lower their tone by degrees,
and, as is usual, place the change to the credit of _French
magnanimity_."

Yet Washington had no fears concerning a war with France. To Pickering
he wrote: "I can say with truth that my mind has never been alarmed by
any fears of a war with France. I always knew that this government had
no desire to go to war with that or any other country; and I as firmly
believed that no power, without a _semblance of justice_, would declare
war against it. That France has stepped far beyond the line of
rectitude, can not be denied; that she has been encouraged to do so by a
party among ourselves is, to my mind, equally certain; and when it is
considered, moreover, that enriching themselves and injuring Great
Britain were the expected consequences of their spoliation's, I could
account, though not on honorable principles in them, for their going to
a certain point; but I never did believe that they would declare an open
war against us, or compel us, if they foresaw that would be the result,
to declare it against them."

In the autumn of 1797, Washington received a letter dated "Warren,
Albemarle county," and signed "John Langhorne," in which the writer
condoled with him on the aspersions of