The Life of John Marshall Volume II Part 36

At the long last, the interminable Gerry finished his review of Marshall's reply to Talleyrand and made a lengthy and unctuous speech to his colleagues on the righteousness of his own motives. Pinckney, intolerably bored and disgusted, told Gerry what he thought of him. The New Englander peevishly charged Marshall and Pinckney with concealing their motives.

"It is false, sir," shouted Pinckney. Gerry, he said, was the one who had concealed from his colleagues, not only his purposes, but his clandestine appointments with Talleyrand. Pinckney rode Gerry hard, "and insisted in plain terms on the duplicity which had been practiced [by Gerry] upon us both." The latter ridiculously explained, evaded, and, in general, acted according to the expectation of those who warned Adams against his appointment. Finally, however, Marshall's reply was signed by all three and sent to Talleyrand.[732]

The calmness, dignity, and conclusiveness of Marshall's rejoinder can be appreciated only by reading the entire doc.u.ment. Marshall begins his final statement of the American case and refutation of the French claims by declaring what he had stated before, that the American envoys "are ready to consider and to compensate the injury, if the American Government has given just cause of complaint to that of France"; and points out that the negotiations which the American envoys had sought fruitlessly for six months, if taken up even now, would "demonstrate the sincerity of this declaration."[733] This offer Marshall repeats again and again.

Before taking up Talleyrand's complaints in detail, he states that if the envoys cannot convince Talleyrand that the American Government is not in the wrong on a single point Talleyrand mentions, the envoys will prove their good faith; and thus, with an offer to compensate France for any wrong, "a base for an accommodation" is established. Every grievance Talleyrand had made is then answered minutely and at great length.

History, reason, evidence, march through these pages like infantry, cavalry, and artillery going to battle. Marshall's paper was irresistible. Talleyrand never escaped from it.

In the course of it there is a pa.s.sage peculiarly applicable to the present day. Answering Talleyrand's complaints about newspapers, Marshall says:--

"The genius of the Const.i.tution, and the opinions of the people of the United States, cannot be overruled by those who administer the Government. Among those principles deemed sacred in America, ... there is no one ... more deeply impressed on the public mind, than the liberty of the press. That this liberty is often carried to excess, that it has sometimes degenerated into licentiousness, is seen and lamented; but the remedy has not been discovered. Perhaps it is an evil inseparable from the good with which it is allied; perhaps it is a shoot which cannot be stripped from the stalk, without wounding vitally the plant from which it is torn."

At any rate, declares Marshall, there is, in America, no redress for "the calumnies and invectives" of the press except "legal prosecution in courts which are alike open to all who consider themselves as injured.

Without doubt this abuse of a valuable privilege is [a] matter of peculiar regret when it is extended to the Government of a foreign nation." It never is so extended "with the approbation of the Government of the United States." But, he goes on to say, this is unavoidable "especially on points respecting the rights and interests of America, ... in a nation where public measures are the results of public opinion."

This practice of unrestricted criticism was not directed toward France alone, Marshall a.s.sures Talleyrand; "it has been lavished still more profusely on its [France's] enemies and has even been bestowed, with an unsparing hand, on the Federal [American] Government itself. Nothing can be more notorious than the calumnies and invectives with which the wisest measures and most virtuous characters of the United States have been pursued and traduced [by American newspapers]." It is plain, therefore, that the American Government cannot influence the American press, the excesses of which are, declares Marshall, "a calamity incident to the nature of liberty."

He reminds Talleyrand that "the same complaint might be urged on the part of the United States. You must well know what degrading and unworthy calumnies against their Government, its principles, and its officers, have been published to the world by French journalists and in French pamphlets." Yet America had not complained of "these calumnies, atrocious as they are.... Had not other causes, infinitely more serious and weighty, interrupted the harmony of the two republics, it would still have remained unimpaired and the mission of the undersigned would never have been rendered necessary."[734]

Marshall again briefly sums up in broad outline the injuries which the then French Government had inflicted upon Americans and American property, and finally declares: "It requires no a.s.surance to convince, that every real American must wish sincerely to extricate his country from the ills it suffers, and from the greater ills with which it is threatened; but all who love liberty must admit that it does not exist in a nation which cannot exercise the right of maintaining its neutrality."

Referring to Talleyrand's desire that Gerry remain and conduct the negotiations, Marshall remarks that the request "is not accompanied by any a.s.surances of receding from those demands of money heretofore made the consideration on which alone the cessation of hostility on American commerce could be obtained." No one of the three American envoys had power to act alone, he maintains. In spite of neglect and insult Marshall still hopes that negotiations may begin; but if that is impossible, he asks for pa.s.sports and safe-conduct.

Marshall made his final preparations for sailing, in order, he says, "that I might be in readiness to depart so soon as the will of the government should be signified to me." He was so hurried, he declares, that "I could not even lay in a moderate stock of wine or send my foul linen to be washed."[735] The now inescapable Beaumarchais saw Marshall again and told him that Talleyrand said that "I [Marshall] was no foreign minister; that I was to be considered as a private American citizen, to obtain my pa.s.sport in the manner pursued by all others through the Consul ... I must give my name, stature, age, complexion, &c., to our Consul."

Marshall answered with much heat. Beaumarchais conferred with Talleyrand, taking Marshall's side. Talleyrand was obdurate and said that "he was mistaken in me [Marshall]; that I prevented all negotiation and that so soon as I was gone the negotiation would be carried on; that in America I belonged to the English faction, which universally hated and opposed the French faction; that all I sought for was to produce a rupture in such a manner as to throw the whole blame on France."

Marshall replied that Talleyrand "endeavored to make our situation more unpleasant than his orders required, in order to gratify his personal feelings," and he flatly refused to leave until ordered to go.[736]

Finally Marshall and Pinckney received their pa.s.sports. Pinckney, whose daughter was ill and could leave France at that time only at the risk of her life, had serious difficulty in getting permission to stay in the south of France. On April 24, Marshall sailed for home. It is characteristic of the man that, notwithstanding his humiliating experiences and the failure of the mission, he was neither sour nor depressed. He had made many personal friends in Paris; and on taking ship at Bordeaux he does not forget to send them greetings, singling out Madame de Villette for a gay message of farewell. "Present me to my friends in Paris," he writes the American Consul-General at the French Capital, "& have the goodness to say to Madam Vilette in my name & in the handsomest manner, every thing which respectful friendship can dictate. When you have done that You will have rendered not quite half justice to my sentiments."[737]

Gerry, to whom Pinckney and Marshall did not even bid farewell,[738]

remained in Paris, "extremely miserable."[739] Infinitely disgusted, Pinckney writes King that Gerry, "as I suspected, is resolved to remain here," notwithstanding Pinckney's "warm remonstrances with him on the bad consequences ... of such conduct and on the impropriety of" his secret "correspondence with Talleyrand under injunction not to communicate it to his colleagues." Pinckney says: "I have made great sacrifices of my feelings to preserve union; but in vain. I never met with a man of less candour and so much duplicity as Mr. Gerry. General Marshall is a man of extensive ability, of manly candour, and an honest heart."[740]

FOOTNOTES:

[658] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 167. This lady was "understood to be Madame de Villette, the celebrated Belle and Bonne of Voltaire."

(Lyman: _Diplomacy of the United States_, ii, footnote to 336.) Lyman says that "as to the lady an intimation is given that that part of the affair was not much to the credit of the Americans." (And see Austin: _Gerry_, ii, footnote to 202.) Madame de Villette was the widow of a Royalist colonel. Her brother, an officer in the King's service, was killed while defending Marie Antoinette. Robespierre proscribed Madame de Villette and she was one of a group confined in prison awaiting the guillotine, of whom only a few escaped. (_Ib._)

[659] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 167.

[660] Beaumarchais was one of the most picturesque figures of that theatrical period. He is generally known to-day only as the author of the operas, _The Barber of Seville_ and the _Marriage of Figaro_. His suit was to recover a debt for supplies furnished the Americans during the Revolution. Silas Deane, for our Government, made the original contract with Beaumarchais. In addition to the contest before the courts, in which Marshall was Beaumarchais's attorney, the matter was before Congress three times during the claimant's life and, through his heirs, twice after his death. In 1835 the case was settled for 800,000 francs, which was nearly 2,500,000 francs less than Alexander Hamilton, in an investigation, ordered by Congress, found to be due the Frenchman; and 3,500,000 livres less than Silas Deane reported that America owed Beaumarchais.

Arthur Lee, Beaumarchais's enemy, to whom Congress in 1787 left the adjustment, had declared that the Frenchman owed the United States two million francs. This prejudiced report was the cause of almost a half-century of dispute, and of gross injustice. (See Lomenie: _Beaumarchais et son temps_; also, Channing, iii, 283, and references in the footnote; and Perkins: _France in the American Revolution_. Also see Henry to Beaumarchais, Jan. 8, 1785; Henry, iii, 264, in which Henry says: "I therefore feel myself gratified in seeing, as I think, ground for hope that yourself, and those worthy and suffering of ours in your nation, who in so friendly a manner advanced their money and goods when we were in want, will be satisfied that nothing has been omitted which lay in our power towards paying them.")

[661] Marshall's Journal, ii, Dec. 17, 36.

[662] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 167; Marshall's Journal, Dec. 17, 36-37.

[663] Marshall's Journal, Dec. 17, 38. The "_Role d'equipage_" was a form of ship's papers required by the French Government which it was practically impossible for American masters to furnish; yet, without it, their vessels were liable to capture by French ships under one of the many offensive decrees of the French Government.

[664] Marshall's Journal, Dec. 17, 38.

[665] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 168.

[666] This account in the dispatches is puzzling, for Talleyrand spoke English perfectly.

[667] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 230.

[668] King to Secretary of State (in cipher) London, Dec. 23, 1797; King, ii, 261. King to Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry, Dec. 23, 1797; _ib._, 263.

[669] King to Pinckney (in cipher) London, Dec. 24, 1797; King, ii, 263-64.

[670] Pinckney to King, Dec. 27, 1797; King, ii, 266-67.

[671] Marshall's Journal, Dec. 18, 1797, 38.

[672] _Ib._, Jan. 2, 1798, 39.

[673] Marshall's Journal, Jan. 2 and 10, 39.

[674] _Ib._, Jan. 22, 40.

[675] _Ib._, 40.

[676] _Ib._, Jan. 31.

[677] The Ellsworth mission. (See _infra_, chap. XII.)

[678] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 169.

[679] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 169-70.

[680] _Ib._, 170.

[681] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 170.

[682] Marshall's Journal, 39; also see Austin: _Gerry_, ii, chap. VI.

[683] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 170-71.

[684] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 172.

[685] _Ib._, 173.

[686] _Ib._

[687] _Ib._