The Life of John Marshall Volume II Part 40

Marshall was on tenter-hooks for fear that Gerry would not leave France before the Directory got wind "of the present temper" of the American people, and would hint to Gerry "insidious propositions ... not with real pacific views but for the purpose of dividing the people of this country and separating them from their government."[836] The peppery Secretary of State grew more and more intolerant of Gerry. He tells Marshall that "Gerry's correspondence with Talleyrand about W.[837] X.

Y. and Z: ... is the finishing stroke to his conduct in France, by which he has dishonoured and injured his country and sealed his own indelible disgrace."[838]

Marshall was disgusted with the Gerry-Talleyrand correspondence about the names of "X. Y. Z.," and wrote Pickering of Gerry's dinner to Talleyrand at which Hottenguer, Bellamy, and Hauteval were present and of their corrupt proposition to Gerry in Talleyrand's presence.[839]

Pickering urged Marshall to write "a short history of the mission of the envoys extraordinary," and asked permission to show Marshall's journal to President Adams.[840]

Marshall is "unwilling," he says, "that my hasty journal, which I had never even read over until I received it from you, should be shown to him. This unwillingness proceeds from a repugnance to give him the vexation which I am persuaded it would give him." Nevertheless, Adams did read Marshall's Journal, it appears; for Cabot believed that "the reading of Marshall's journal has compelled the P[resident] to ...

acquiesce in the unqualified condemnation of Gerry."[841]

On his return to America, Gerry writes a turgid letter defending himself and exculpating Talleyrand and the Directory. The Secretary of State sends Gerry's letter to Marshall, declaring that Gerry "ought to be impeached."[842] It "astonishes me," replies Marshall; and while he wishes to avoid altercation, he thinks "it is proper for me to notice this letter," and encloses a communication to Gerry, together with a "certificate," stating the facts of Gerry's now notorious dinner to Talleyrand.[843]

Marshall is especially anxious to avoid any personal controversy at the particular moment; for, as will presently appear, he is again running for office. He tells Pickering that the Virginia Republicans are "perfectly prepared" to use Gerry in any way "which can be applied to their purposes"; and are ready "to receive him into their bosoms or to drop him entirely as he may be French or American." He is so exasperated, however, that he contemplates publishing the whole truth about Gerry, but adds: "I have been restrained from doing so by my having as a punishment for some unknown sins, consented to be nam'd a candidate for the ensuing election to Congress."[844]

Finding himself so violently attacked in the press, Marshall says: "To protect myself from the vexation of these newspaper altercations ... I wish if it be possible to avoid appearing in print myself." Also he makes the excuse that the courts are in session, and that "my absence has plac'd my business in such a situation as scarcely to leave a moment which I can command for other purposes."[845]

A week later Marshall is very anxious as to what course Gerry intends to take, for, writes Marshall, publications to mollify public opinion toward France and to irritate it against England "and to diminish the repugnance to pay money to the French republic are appearing every day."[846]

The indefatigable Republican chieftain had been busily inspiring attacks upon the conduct of the mission and particularly upon Marshall. "You know what a wicked use has been made of the ... X. Y. Z. dish cooked up by Marshall, where the swindlers are made to appear as the French government," wrote Jefferson to Pendleton. "Art and industry combined have certainly wrought out of this business a wonderful effect on the people." But "now that Gerry comes out clearing the French government of that turpitude, ... the people will be disposed to suspect they have been duped."

Because Marshall's dispatches "are too voluminous for them [the people]

and beyond their reach" Jefferson begs Pendleton to write a pamphlet "recapitulating the whole story ... short, simple & levelled to every capacity." It must be "so concise as omitting nothing material, yet may be printed in handbills." Jefferson proposes to "print & disperse 10.

or 20,000 copies"[847] free of postage under the franks of Republican Congressmen.

Pickering having referred scathingly to the Gerry-Talleyrand dinner, Gerry writes the President, to deny Marshall's account of that function.

Marshall replies in a personal letter to Gerry, which, considering Marshall's placid and unresentful nature, is a very whiplash of rebuke; it closes, however, with the hope that Gerry "will think justly of this subject and will thereby save us both the pain of an altercation I do so wish to avoid."[848]

A few months later Marshall, while even more fixed than ever in his contempt for Gerry, is mellower in expressing it. "I am grieved rather than surprised at Mr. Gerry's letter," he writes.[849] So ended the only incident in Marshall's life where he ever wrote severely of any man.

Although the unfriendliness between Jefferson and himself grew through the years into unrelenting hatred on both sides, Marshall did not express the intensity of his feeling. While his courage, physical and moral, was perfect, he had no stomach for verbal encounters. He could fight to the death with arms or arguments; but personal warfare by tongue or pen was beyond or beneath him. Marshall simply could not scold or browbeat. He was incapable of partic.i.p.ating in a brawl.

Soon after reaching Richmond, the domestic Marshall again shines out sunnily in a letter to his wife at Winchester, over the Blue Ridge. He tells his "dearest Polly" that although a week has pa.s.sed he has "scarcely had time to look into any business yet, there are so many persons calling every hour to see me.... The hot and disagreeable ride"

to Richmond had been too much for him, but "if I could only learn that you were entirely restored I should be happy. Your Mama & friends are in good health & your Mama is as cheerful as usual except when some particular conversation discomposes her.

"Your sweet little Mary is one of the most fascinating little creatures I ever beheld. She has improved very much since I saw her & I cannot help agreeing that she is a subst.i.tute for her lovely sister. She talks in a way not easily to be understood tho she comprehends very well everything that is said to her & is the most coquettish little prude & the most prudish little coquet I ever saw. I wish she was with you as I think she would entertain you more than all the rest of your children put together.

"Poor little John[850] is cutting teeth & of course is sick. He appeared to know me as soon as he saw me. He would not come to me, but he kept his eyes fixed on me as on a person he had some imperfect recollection of. I expect he has been taught to look at the picture & had some confused idea of a likeness. He is small & weakly but by no means an ugly child. If as I hope we have the happiness to raise him I trust he will do as well as the rest. Poor little fellow, the present hot weather is hard on him cutting teeth, but great care is taken of him & I hope he will do well.

"I hear nothing from you my dearest Polly but I will cherish the hope that you are getting better & will indulge myself with expecting the happiness of seeing you in October quite yourself. Remember my love to give me this pleasure you have only to take the cold bath, to use a great deal of exercise, to sleep tranquilly & to stay in cheerful company. I am sure you will do everything which can contribute to give you back to yourself & me. This hot weather must be very distressing to you--it is to everybody--but it will soon be colder. Let me know in time everything relative to your coming down. Farewell my dearest Polly. I am your ever affectionate

"J. MARSHALL."[851]

On taking up his private business, Marshall found himself hard-pressed for money. Payments for the Fairfax estate were overdue and he had no other resources with which to meet them but the money due him upon his French mission. "The disarrangement," he writes to the Secretary of State, "produc'd by my absence and the dispersion of my family oblige me to make either sales which I do not wish or to delay payments of money which I ought not to delay, unless I can receive from the treasury. This state of things obliges me to apply to you and to ask whether you can furnish me either with an order from the Secretary of the Treasury on Colo. Carrington or with your request to him to advance money to me. The one or the other will be sufficient."[852]

Pickering writes Marshall that Carrington can safely advance him the needed cash. "I will lose no time to place the balance in your hands,"[853] says Pickering, upon the receipt of Marshall's statement of his account with the Government.

The total amount paid Marshall for his eleven months' absence upon the French mission was $19,963.97,[854] which, allowing five thousand dollars for his expenses--a generous estimate--was considerably more than three times as much as Marshall's annual income from his law practice. It was an immense sum, considering the compensation of public officials at that period--not much less than the annual salaries of the President and his entire Cabinet; more than the total amount annually paid to the justices of the Supreme Court. Thus, for the time being, the Fairfax estate was saved.

It was still necessary, however, if he, his brother, and brother-in-law, were to discharge the remaining payments, that Marshall should give himself to the business of making money--to work much harder than ever he had done before and than his natural inclinations prompted.

Therefore, no more of unremunerative public life for him--no more waste of time in the Legislature. There never could, of course, come another such "G.o.d-send," to use Marshall's phrase as reported by Jefferson,[855]

as the French mission; and few public offices, National or State, yielded so much as he could make in the practice of his profession. Thus financial necessity and his own desire settled Marshall in the resolve, which he believed nothing ever could shake, to give the remainder of his days to his personal and private business. But Fate had her own plans for John Marshall and again overruled what he believed to be his fixed and unalterable purpose.

FOOTNOTES:

[741] See summary in McMaster, ii, 374.

[742] Six copies of the dispatches of the American envoys to the Secretary of State were sent by as many ships, so that at least one of them might reach its destination.

[743] Jefferson to Madison, Jan. 25, 1798; _Works_: Ford, viii, 259.

[744] Jefferson to Madison, Feb. 15, 1798; _Works_: Ford, viii, 368.

[745] Skipwith to Jefferson, Paris, March 17, 1798; Gibbs, ii, 160.

[746] _Am. St. Prs., For. Rel._, ii, 152, 157, 159, 161, 166.

[747] _Ib._ The President at this time communicated only the first dispatch, which was not in cipher. It merely stated that there was no hope that the envoys would be received and that a new decree directed the capture of all neutral ships carrying any British goods whatever.

(_Ib._, 157.)

[748] _Ib._, 152; Richardson, i, 264; and _Works_: Adams, ix, 156.

[749] Jefferson to Madison, March 21, 1798; _Works_: Ford, viii, 386.

[750] Jefferson to Monroe, March 21, 1798; _ib._, 388-89.

[751] Jefferson to Madison, March 29, 1798; _ib._, 392.

[752] Jefferson to Pendleton, April 2, 1798; _ib._, 394-97.

[753] _Aurora_, April 3, 1798.

[754] Otis to Mason, March 22, 1798; Morison, i, 90.

[755] Jonathan Mason to Otis, March 30, 1798; _ib._, 93. And see the valuable New England Federalist correspondence of the time in _ib._

[756] _Aurora_, April 7, 1798. A week later, under the caption, "The Catastrophe," the _Aurora_ began the publication of a series of ably written articles excusing the conduct of the French officials and condemning that of Marshall and Pinckney.

[757] Troup to King, June 3, 1798; King, ii, 329. Ten thousand copies of the dispatches were ordered printed and distributed at public expense.

Eighteen hundred were sent to Virginia alone. (Pickering to Marshall, July 24, 1798; Pickering MSS., Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc.) This was the beginning of the printing and distributing of public doc.u.ments by the National Government. (Hildreth, ii, 217.)

[758] Pickering's statement, April 3, 1798; _Am. St. Prs._, ii, 157.

[759] Jefferson to Madison, April 5, 1798; _Works_: Ford, viii, 398.

[760] _Ib._

[761] Pickering to Jay, April 9, 1798; _Jay_: Johnston, iv, 236.

[762] Jefferson to Madison, April 26, 1798; _Works_: Ford, viii, 411.

Among the Republicans who deserted their posts Jefferson names Giles, Nicholas, and Clopton.