s, had they been consulted, the advice would have been against making
the nomination. To the rest of the party, however, the whole was a
secret till the nomination was announced. Never did a party show a
stronger mortification, and consequently, that war had been their
object. Dana declared in debate (as I have from those who were present)
that we had done every thing which might provoke France to war; that we
had given her insults which no nation ought to have borne; and yet she
would not declare war. The conjecture as to the executive is, that they
received Talleyrand's letter before or about the meeting of Congress:
that not meaning to meet the overture effectually, they kept it secret,
and let all the war measures go on; but that just before the separation
of the Senate, the President, not thinking he could justify the
concealing such an overture, nor indeed that it could be concealed, made
a nomination, hoping that his friends in the Senate would take on their
own shoulders the odium of rejecting it; but they did not choose it.
The Hamiltonians would not, and the others could not, alone. The
whole artillery of the phalanx, therefore, was played secretly on the
President, and he was obliged himself to take a step which should parry
the overture while it wears the face of acceding to it. (Mark that I
state this as conjecture; but founded on workings and indications which
have been under our eyes.) Yesterday, therefore, he sent in a nomination
of Oliver Ellsworth, Patrick Henry, and William Vans Murray, Envoys
Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary to the French Republic, but
declaring the two former should not leave this country till they
should receive from the French Directory assurances that they should be
received with the respect due by the law of nations to their character,
&c. This, if not impossible, must at least keep off the day, so hateful
and so fatal to them, of reconciliation, and leave more time for new
projects of provocation. Yesterday witnessed a scandalous scene in the
House of Representatives. It was the day for taking up the report of
their committee against the alien and sedition laws, &.c. They held a
caucus and determined that not a word should be spoken on their side, in
answer to any thing which should be said on the other. Gallatin took up
the alien, and Nicholas the sedition law; but after a little while of
common silence, they began to enter into loud conversations, laugh,
cough, &c.,