er effort for peace by sending
Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry as a special commission. The history of
that commission is one of the best known episodes in our history. Our
envoys were insulted, asked for bribes, and browbeaten, until the two
who retained a proper sense of their own and their country's dignity
took their passports and departed. The publication of the famous X, Y,
Z letters, which displayed the conduct of France, roused a storm of
righteous indignation from one end of the United States to the other.
The party of France and of the opposition bent before the storm, and
the Federalists were at last all-powerful. A cry for war went up from
every corner, and Congress provided rapidly for the formation of an
army and the beginning of a navy.

Then the whole country turned, as a matter of course, to one man to
stand at the head of the national forces of the United States,
and Adams wrote to Washington, urging him to take command of the
provisional army. To any other appeal to come forward Washington would
have been deaf, but he could never refuse a call to arms. He wrote to
Adams on July 4, 1798: "In case of _actual invasion_ by a formidable
force, I certainly should not intrench myself under the cover of age
or retirement, if my services should be required by my country to
assist in repelling it." He agreed, therefore, to take command of the
army, provided that he should not be called into active service
except in the case of actual hostilities, and that he should have the
appointment of the general's staff. To these terms Adams of course
acceded. But out of the apparently simple condition relating to the
appointment of officers there grew a very serious trouble. There were
to be three major-generals, the first of them to have also the rank of
inspector-general, and to be the virtual commander-in-chief until the
army was actually called into the field. For these places, Washington
after much reflection selected Hamilton, Pinckney, and Knox, in the
order named, and in doing so he very wisely went on the general
principle that the army was to be organized _de novo_, without
reference to prior service. Apart from personal and political
jealousies, nothing could have been more proper and more sound than
this arrangement; but at this point the President's dislike of
Hamilton got beyond control, and he made up his mind to reverse the
order, and send in Knox's name first. The Federalist leaders were of
course utterly