VI. CHAPTER else, and that their failure to recover their debts by course of law must be ascribed either to the insolvency of the 1793. debtors, or to the preference of the creditors to look elsewhere for payment. This document had remained unanswered for two years, though the propriety of a rejoinder had once or twice been hinted to Hammond, who had sent it home for instructions. Jefferson seemed to think it unanswerable. The British ministry thought, perhaps, that it exhibited too little candor to invite to a continuation of the correspondence; or they might have. been waiting the operation of a suggestion contained in it, that, if the alleged obstacles did exist, they would be of no avail in the federal courts. Dec. 16. Still another document from the pen of Jefferson was given to Congress and the public just at the moment of his resignation—a report prepared in obedience to an old order of the House of Representatives on the privileges and restrictions of the commerce of the United States with foreign countries-strongly tending to promote the opinion, which at that moment hardly needed any stimulus, that the United States were hardly dealt with by Great Britain. It professed to represent things as they stood previous to the breaking out of the late war in Europe, and the great object of it was to show, contrary to the prevailing opinion among merchants, that the regulations of France, even prior to her recent relaxations, were much more favorable to American commerce than those of England. By way of compelling Great Britain to put us on a more equal footing, since she declined to do so by treaty arrangements, it was proposed to adopt, as against her, a system of discriminating duties the same policy, in fact, which Madison had insisted upon so strenuously in the first Congress, but which Jefferson now proposed in a more systematic and extended form. VI. In quitting the cabinet, Jefferson had the satisfaction CHAPTER to carry with him Washington's testimonial of continued belief in his integrity, almost extorted by a somewhat 1793. bold assertion, in Jefferson's leave-taking letter, of a "thorough disdain of all means which were not as open and honorable as their object was pure." He retired to his patrimonial estate of Monticello, as he said, to withdraw from politics after twenty-four years of public service, and to devote himself to the pleasures of rural life; but in fact, like the spider, drawn into a corner, yet still sensitively feeling every thread of his wide-extended net, to play, no less assiduously at Monticello than he had done at Philadelphia, the part of a watchful, zealous, untiring party leader. According to Jefferson's theory of politics, to aspire to office was a breach of that equality without which liberty could not exist. What right had any man to desire to be elevated over the heads of his countrymen? Ambition was the political sin which he charged upon Adams and upon Hamilton. Could the idea be tolerated that the same evil disposition lurked even in his pure soul? With most men, especially those of an enthusiastic turn of mind, it is still easier to deceive themselves than to deceive others; and while, in his nominal retirement, he was exercising all the prerogatives of the acknowledged head of a party, issuing his mandates in every direction, couched, indeed, under the gentler form of suggestions and advice, Jefferson seems to have actually persuaded himself of what he so constantly repeated to others, that he was altogether engrossed with his lucerne, potatoes, and tobacco, and no more interested in politics than any other planter. The great instrument of influence which he employed was a constant correspondence with his adherents in different parts of the country, every letter beginning with protes CHAPTER tations of his disgust at politics and total forgetfulness of VI. public affairs, but as constantly ending in hints, sugges 1793. tions, and recommendations as to the best method of carrying on the campaign. He had retired from Philadelphia with feelings excited to the highest degree against the political opponents whom he left behind. By his patronage of Freneau's Gazette, universally regarded as his organ, and which had scattered abroad, with such reckless profusion, charges of political and pecuniary corruption and anti-republican tendencies, he had made himself an object of peculiar hatred to that very circle in which his position, no less than his refined tastes and fondness for society, had called upon him to move. They had looked upon him as a snake in the grass; and that love of approbation, so marked a feature of his character, had made him conscious of their hatred, as he himself energetically expressed it, even in those moments of conviviality when the heart wishes most to open itself to the offices of friendship and confidence. Every cabinet consultation had been a torment, obliged as he had been "to descend daily into the arena like a gladiator, to suffer martyrdom in every conflict." In his attempts to destroy Washington's confidence in Hamilton he had been most signally defeated; and, considering the multiplied embarrassments and mortifications to which he had exposed himself, in his double character of cabinet minister and head of the opposition, there is no need to wonder at the exceedingly bitter and aggravated feelings with which he always looked back to that part of his career. Freneau's Gazette had expired before his resignation. It stopped, like most of the other Philadelphia papers, during the height of the yellow fever, and, though promises were made of its reappearance, it never revived again. But in Bache's Advertiser, soon known as the Aurora, VI. the party continued to find an organ not less uncompro- CHAPTER mising and still more virulent. He ap With the retirement of Jefferson, Washington seems 1793. to have abandoned the plausible but not very practicable idea of a balance of parties in the cabinet. pointed Randolph to be Secretary of State, of whom Jefferson complained, in his private letters to Madison, that he gave his principles to one side and his practice to the other the shells to him and the oyster to Hamilton. The office of Attorney General, vacated by Randolph, was given to William Bradford, of Pennsylvania, a rising lawyer, whose premature death soon disappointed the hopes that had been formed of his ultimate eminence. Among other communications made to Congress was one respecting new dangers to commerce from the Algerine cruisers. No treaty with that piratical community had as yet been formed. Prior to the adoption of the Constitution, two American vessels had fallen into. their hands, and the crews, to the number of twenty-one persons, had been held, as their custom was, for ransom. The dey demanded $60,000; but as this rate of redemption might serve as precedent for the future, the American government had been unwilling to pay it. Attempts had been made to procure the release of the captives through the agency of a French religious order devoted to that humane service; but this scheme had been defeated by the dissolution of the monastic orders consequent upon the French Revolution. The Senate having been consulted on the subject, had 1792. agreed to a payment to the extent of $40,000 for the May 8. thirteen surviving captives. They had agreed, also, to the purchase of a peace of the Algerines, could it be procured for $25,000 down, and the like sum in annual payment the inducement being the trade of the Medi CHAPTER terranean, a profitable branch of traffic before the RevVI. olution, but from which American vessels were now ex1793. cluded through fear of these Algerine pirates. John Paul Jones, the famous naval adventurer, then at Paris, and in a state of destitution, had been appointed consul to Algiers, to negotiate a treaty; but he died before setting out on his mission. Barclay, the late consul at Paris, who had negotiated the treaty with Morocco, was then appointed; but he also died; when the business was committed to Humphreys, the minister to Portugal. In consequence of difficulties between the Portuguese and the Algerines, a blockade of the Straits of Gibraltar had been maintained of late by a Portuguese fleet, and the Algerine cruisers had thus been kept within the Mediterranean. But before Humphreys had time to act under his commission, a peace had been made between Portugal and Algiers; and, on the withdrawal of the blockading fleet, eight Algerine cruisers had issued into the Atlantic, to the great danger of American vessels. This state of affairs, communicated to the House in a Dec. 23. confidential message, was considered with closed doors, not without some opposition from Nicholas and others, who denied that the House ought to have any secrets. The great questions were whether a squadron should be fitted out and sent to the Mediterranean, to keep the Algerines, with their brother pirates of Tunis and Tripoli, in awe, or whether a peace should be purchased, and, if so, how much money the House would appropriate for that purpose. It was finally agreed to adopt both measures 1794. to vote money to purchase a treaty, and also to proJan. 2. vide a naval force. A committee appointed to report the amount of force required, by an amendment, carried forty-six to forty-four, was authorized to report, also, the |