strong, was not to be viewed in any other light than as executing the task assigned by that body.

"After these remarks, which are never to be interpreted into any dereliction of the French cause, I must observe to you that they are made principally to recommend caution, lest we should be obliged at some time or other to explain away or disavow an excess of fervor, so as to reduce it down to the cool system of neutrality. You have it still in charge to cultivate the French Republic with zeal, but without any unnecessary éclat; because the dictates of sincerity do not demand that we should render notorious all our feelings in favor of that nation."

A little later Randolph took a more conciliatory tone, and Monroe believed that he would never have spoken so severely if all the dispatches had reached him in due order.

Early in his residence the American minister was involved in a discussion with respect to Mr. Morris's passports, of so delicate a character that the story was privately communicated by Monroe to Washington. This letter illustrates the delays of correspondence, for it is dated November 18, and acknowledges Washington's of June 25, "which would have been answered sooner if any safe opportunity had offered for Bordeaux, from whence vessels most 1 Gouverneur MSS.

frequently sail for America." Such delays had a significant bearing upon the continuous misunderstandings between the administration and its distant representative.1 Monroe was also engaged in a complex correspondence with reference to the release of Lafayette from imprisonment at Olmütz, and concerning pecuniary assistance to Madame Lafayette, in whose release he was instrumental. Many of our vessels had been seized and condemned with their cargoes, and hundreds of our citizens were then in Paris and the seaports of France, many of them imprisoned, and all treated like enemies. This involved the American minister in weighty responsibilities, and employed his utmost energy. His effort to secure the release of Thomas Paine from imprisonment was another noteworthy transaction, to which frequent reference was made in subsequent days, both by friends and opponents. "Mr. Paine," he wrote, September 15, 1795, "has lived in my house for about ten months past. He was, upon my arrival, confined in the Luxembourg, and released on my application; after which, being sick, he has remained with me. .. The

1 On February 15, 1795, the Secretary of State acknowledges Monroe's last date, September 15, 1794, which had been received November 27. Monroe's dispatches of August 11 and 25 were received between December 2 and 5.

symptoms have become worse, and the prospect now is that he will not be able to hold out more than a month or two at the farthest. I shall certainly pay the utmost attention to this gentleman, as he is one of those whose merits in our Revolution were most distinguished."

It was not long before Monroe became entangled in a much more serious complication. A treaty with Great Britain had been negotiated by Jay; so much as this was positively known in Paris near the close of 1794, and more was inferred in respect to it. Citizen Merlin de Douai (the one who gave Monroe the accolade a few months before) and four of his associates in the Committee of Public Safety demanded a copy of the treaty. This was their letter (December 27, 1794):

"We are informed, Citizen, that there was lately concluded at London a treaty of alliance and commerce between the British government and Citizen Jay, Envoy Extraordinary of the United States.

"A vague report spreads itself abroad that in this treaty the Citizen Jay has forgotten those things which our treaties with the American people, and the sacrifices which the French people made to render them free, gave us a right to expect, on the part of a minister of a nation which we have so many motives to consider as friendly.

"It is important that we know positively in what

light we are to hold this affair. There ought not to subsist between two free peoples the dissimulation which belongs to courts; and it gives us pleasure to declare that we consider you as much opposed, personally, to that kind of policy as we are ourselves.

"We invite you, then, to communicate to us as soon as possible the treaty whereof there is question. It is the only means whereby you can enable the French nation justly to appreciate those reports so injurious to the American government, and to which that treaty gave birth."

In reply to this and other demands for exact information Monroe pleaded ignorance, and he refused to receive from Jay confidential and informal statements in respect to the treaty. He contented himself with general expressions in reference to the purport of the English mission, and with strenuous efforts to allay the French excitement. When the treaty reached him he wrote to Judge Jones, "Jay's treaty surpasses all that I feared, great as my fears were of his mission. Indeed, it is the most shameful transaction I have ever known of the kind."1

The language in which he reported to the authorities at home, a few months before, the condition of affairs, is this (January 13, 1795):

"After my late communications to the Committee of Public Safety, in which were exposed freely the

1 Gouverneur MSS.

object of Mr. Jay's mission to England, and the real situation of the United States with Britain and Spain, I had reason to believe that all apprehension on those points was done away, and that the utmost cordiality had now likewise taken place in that body towards us. I considered the report above recited, and upon which the decree was founded, as the unequivocal proof of that change of sentiment, and flattered myself that, in every respect, we had now the best prospect of the most perfect and permanent harmony between the two republics. I am very sorry, however, to add, that latterly this prospect has been somewhat clouded by accounts from England, that Mr. Jay had not only adjusted the points in controversy, but concluded a treaty of commerce with that government. Some of those accounts state that he had also concluded a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive. As I knew the baneful effect which these reports would produce, I deemed it my duty, by repeating what I had said before of his powers, to use my utmost endeavors, informally, to discredit them. This, however, did not arrest the progress of the report, nor remove the disquietude it had created, for I was finally applied to, directly, by the committee, in a letter, which stated what had been heard, and requested information of what I knew in regard to it. As I had just before received one from Mr. Jay, announcing that he had concluded a treaty, and which contained a declaration that our previous treaties should not be affected by it, I thought fit to make this letter the basis of my reply. And as it is neces