e, and after his usual fashion left no one
in any doubt as to his views. So far as the President was concerned,
the struggle ended here; but it was continued for some time longer in
the House, where the debate went on for a fortnight, with the hostile
majority surely and steadily declining. The current out-doors ran more
and more strongly every day in favor of the administration, until
at last the contest ended with Ames's great speech, and then the
resolution to carry out the treaty prevailed. Washington's policy had
triumphed, and was accepted by the country.

The Jay treaty and its ratification had, however, other results
than mere domestic conflicts. Spain, acting under French influence,
threatened to rescind the Pinckney treaty which had just been made
so advantageously to the United States; but, like most Spanish
performances at that time, these threats evaporated in words, and the
Mississippi remained open. With France, however, the case was very
different. Our demand for the recall of Genet had been met by a
counter-demand for the recall of Morris, to which, of course, we were
obliged to accede, and the question as to the latter's successor was
a difficult and important one. Washington himself had been perfectly
satisfied with the conduct of Morris, but he was also aware that the
known dislike of that brilliant diplomatist to the revolutionary
methods then dominant in Paris had seriously complicated our relations
with France. He wished by all fair means to keep France in good humor,
and he therefore determined that Morris's successor should be a man
whose friendship toward the French republic was well known. His first
choice was Madison, which would have answered admirably, for Madison
was preeminently a safe man. Very unluckily, however, Madison either
could not or would not go, and the President's final choice was by no
means equally good.

It was, of course, most desirable that the new minister should be
_persona grata_ to the republic, but it was vastly more important that
he should be in cordial sympathy with the administration at home,
for no administration ought ever to select for a foreign mission,
especially at a critical moment, any one outside the ranks of its own
supporters. This was the mistake which Washington, from the best of
motives, now committed by appointing James Monroe to be minister to
France. It is one of the puzzles of our history to reconcile the
respectable and common-place gentleman