He has been tempted to make this avowal in order to ingratiate himself with the opposition; and the need they have of a man, able and willing to expose every secret of the Executive, may, perhaps, ensure him a momentary success; but the avowal furnishes, at the same time, an irresistible proof of his double dealing. We plainly perceive from this, as well as from all the documents he has brought forward on the subject, that he was the great, if not the only cause, of the delaying of the ratification. First, he starts objections; then proposes conferences between himself and the English Minister; then he drafts memorials; in short, he was taking his measures for undoing all that had been done, or, as Mr. Pickering well termed it, for “throwing the whole up in the wind.”
The situation of the President was, at this time, truly critical. On the one hand, he saw an instrument ready for his signature, which completed the long-desired object, an amicable termination of all differences with Great Britain; an object that twenty long years of war and disputation had not been able to accomplish: on the other hand, he was haunted with the feigned, but terrific forebodings of an artful Secretary of State, who lost no opportunity of representing the consummation of the act as a just cause of offence to France, the faithful ally of the United States, and the favourite of the people. At this embarrassing moment arrives the intercepted letter of citizen Fauchet. The charm, that held him in suspense, is at once dissolved. Here he sees that the hypocrite in whom he had confided, who first awakened doubts in his mind, who had been the cause of all the procrastination, and who had hitherto withheld his hand; here he sees him at the head of a faction opposed to his government, unveiling all its most secret views to a foreign minister, and even making overtures for money, which, if acceded to, would have enabled that minister to decide on civil war or on peace for this country. Was it not natural to imagine, that he should now see the advice of this “pretended patriot” as a lure to lead him into a snare, to render the treaty abortive, and eventually plunge the United States into a war with Great Britain? And was it not, then, I ask, as natural, that he should turn from it with indignation and horror? “Hence it was,” says the Vindicator, “that myself and the French cause were instantaneously abandoned.” And, upon my soul, I think it was high time.
In this letter the President saw also, what it was he had to expect from the friendship of the regenerated French. Here he finds a foreign minister writing a letter that breathes, from the first syllable of it to the last, the most treacherous hostility to the Federal government. He finds him caballing with some of the leading men in the state, reviling his administration; representing him as the head of an aristocracy; approving of an open rebellion; regretting its want of success, and that he had not the means of nourishing it. All this he sees addressed to the rulers of a nation professing the sincerest friendship for himself and the people of America. Was it possible that he should see any thing here to induce him to delay the ratification of an instrument, calculated to ensure peace and uninterrupted prosperity to his country, merely for the sake of obtaining an advantage for that nation? “Hence,” says the Ex-Secretary, in his plaintive style, “hence it was that he was persuaded to lay aside all fear of a check from the friends of France.” And well he might; for, what more had he to fear from them? Open war with such people is as much preferable to their intrigues, as a drawn sword is preferable to a poisoned repast.
The Vindicator, pursuing his plan for opening to himself a welcome from the adverse party, insidiously brings forward the remonstrances against the Treaty as a reason that ought to have prevented its ratification. Few people, who consider how these remonstrances were obtained, ever looked upon them as a reason of any weight: but, whatever attention they might merit before the discovery made by the intercepted letter, they merited none at all afterwards; for, there was, and there is, all the reason in the world to believe, that they originated from the same all-powerful cause as did the suggestions, difficulties, and delays of the Vindicator. He would fain persuade us, indeed, that no money-overtures ever passed between him and citizen Fauchet, after the little affair of the flour-merchants; but the method he takes of doing this is rather calculated to produce admiration at his effrontery, than conviction of his repentance. Addressing himself to the President he says—
“Do you believe, Sir, that if money was pursued by the Secretary of State, he would have been rebuffed by an answer, which implied no refusal; and would not have renewed the proposition: which, however, Mr. Fauchet confesses, he never heard of again?”
I do not know what the President might believe of the Secretary of State; but one would imagine that even such a rebuff as the Vindicator met with would have prevented any man from returning to the charge; however, I shall not contradict him here, as he must understand these things better than I, or, perhaps, any other man living.
After this, it is diverting to hear citizen Fauchet solemnly declare [in his certificate, mind that], “that the morals of his nation, and the candour of his government, severely forbid the use of money in any circumstances, which could not be publicly avowed.”
Consummate impudence! The morals of a nation that do not now so much as know the meaning of the word! The morals of a nation that, one day in the year, have hemp for their God! And the candour of his government, too! A pretty sort of candour, truly, to profess the tenderest affection for the President and Congress, while they were preparing to blow them all up. While they were endeavouring to foster a nest of conspirators, who would have sent them all to the guillotine, like the magistrates of Geneva, or swung them up in the embraces of their elastic god: From the morals and candour of such people, God defend us!
When citizen Fauchet informed the Convention of the great bargains that were offered him here, when they found at what a low rate “the consciences of the pretended patrons of America” were selling off, it would be to contradict every maxim of trade, to suppose that the purity of their principles, and the morals of their nation, would prevent them from enabling him to make a purchase; and particularly at the important moment, when the Treaty with Great Britain was to be ratified or rejected. There was, indeed, one difficulty; and that was, the Treasury of the Convention was nearly as empty as father Joseph’s purse, or the pouch of his mendicant pilgrim. And, as to assignats, besides their being a tell-tale currency, they never would, as we have no guillotine in the country, have been convertible into food and raiment; so that, of course, they would have been as despicable and despised waste paper, as the Aurora of Philadelphia, the Argus of New-York, or Chronicle of Boston. This difficulty, however, formidable as it was, appeared as nothing in competition with the object in view. We may well suppose that their indefatigable financiers would make a last effort; would give the nation another squeeze, to come at the means of defeating the Treaty. They have a greater variety of imposts than Mr. Hamilton or even Mr. Pitt; and in a pressing occasion like the one before us, they had only to set the national razor Ref 058 at work for two or three days, upon the heads of the bankers and merchants, to collect the sum required: or, if these should be grown scarce, a drowning of four or five thousand women might bring them in ear-bobs and other trinkets Ref 059 sufficient to stir up fifty town-meetings, and to cause two-thirds of the Federal Senators to be roasted in effigy.
Let any one look at the conduct of the leaders in this opposition to the treaty, and believe, if he can, that they were not actuated by some powerful motive which they dared not openly to avow. They began to emit their anathemas against it, long before it was even laid before the Senate. Mr. Randolph protests, that he never divulged its contents to any one. How he came to imagine this unasked-for declaration necessary in his Vindication, I know not; but this I know, that almost every article of it was attacked in the democratic papers, immediately after it was received by the President, and that too with such a confidence of its being what it