firmament was dark with
the portentous clouds of war. Washington yet viewed them with calmness,
for he fully believed that they would pass by and leave his country
unscathed by the lightning and the hail. Already they had begun to
break, and let the sunlight through. But these promises were discerned
by few, while they were clear and full to the mental eye of the
commander-in-chief and other sagacious men. They perceived that the
military preparations made so vigorously by the United States had
already begun to produce an effect upon the belligerent feelings of the
French Directory. The appointment of Washington to the chief command of
the American armies had filled the boastful leaders in France with
alarm; and the wily Talleyrand, with a sagacity possessed by few of his
compeers, had already turned his thoughts toward reconciliation, and
made indirect exertions to induce the United States to offer amicable
overtures. He at length wrote to the French secretary of legation at the
Hague, intimating that any minister plenipotentiary which the American
government might be pleased to send to France, to negotiate for the
settlement of existing difficulties between the two countries, would
undoubtedly be received with all due respect. A copy of this letter was
immediately communicated by the secretary to William Vans Murray, the
United States minister at the Hague, who transmitted it to his
government.

Mr. Murray's despatch gave President Adams much joy. He had been greatly
perplexed by the belligerent attitude assumed by the United States and
France toward each other. He now perceived an open door of escape from
the whole difficulty; and, apparently without considering the
impropriety, under the circumstances, of making any overtures to the
French republic, he laid the whole matter before the senate on the
eighteenth of February, at the same time nominating Mr. Murray to be
minister plenipotentiary to that republic. The president pledged himself
that Mr. Murray should not enter France without having first received
direct and unequivocal assurances from Talleyrand that he should be
received as full minister, and be treated with by an officer of equal
grade.

This nomination took the country by surprise. Much as Washington desired
peace, he was unwilling to obtain it by a sacrifice of national dignity.
To Timothy Pickering he wrote on the third of March, saying: "The
unexpectedness of the event communicated in your letter