SUSPECTED INTRIGUES. 215 XII. ting with external enemies. Alarm on this score was CHAPTER by no means entirely groundless. Talleyrand was believed to have acted during the latter part of his resi- 1798. dence in the United States as a spy for the French government, and others of the exiled French were objects of a similar suspicion. The late attempts to set on foot French expeditions in Georgia and the West were not forgotten. Davis, the representative from Kentucky, stated that the commissions issued on that occasion were yet in existence, and that a certain Frenchman, resident in Kentucky, through whose hands they had passed, was still very busy in alienating the affection of the people from the United States. Indeed, it was strongly suspected, and probably not without reason, that Volney had not been engaged in exploring the Western country solely with scientific views. Like Micheaux, the botanist, a few years before, he had, perhaps, been employed as a French government agent to obtain information; and possibly too in forming connections of which advantage might be taken in case of a rupture with the United States, to procure a dismemberment from the Union of the trans-Alleghany settlements, and their junction with Louisiana, which it was believed that France already had or soon would re-acquire. Along with the late wide additions to her European borders, might not France wish again to re-establish her American empire? thus finally carrying out those projects of French dominion in America indulged in for a century or more preceding the treaty of 1763, but of which the fortune of war had compelled an abandonment. On this subject of aliens three bills were passed. The first was an amendment of the Naturalization Act, extending the necessary previous residence to fourteen years, and requiring five years previous declaration of intention XII. CHAPTER to become a citizen, instead of the former and present requirements of five years in the one case and three 1798. years in the other. Alien enemies could not become citizens at all. A register was to be kept of all aliens resident in the country, who were to report themselves under certain penalties; and in case of application to be naturalized, the certificate of an entry in this register was to be the only proof of residence whenever that residence commenced after the date of this act. A second act, of which the continuance was limited to two years, gave the president authority to order out of the country all such aliens as he might judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, or suspect to be concerned in any treasonable or secret machinations. By a third act, in case of war declared, or an invasion of the United States, all resident aliens, natives or citizens of the hostile nation, might, upon a proclamation to that effect, to be issued at the president's discretion, be apprehended and secured, or removed. To the first and third of these acts no concerted opposition seems to have been made. The second, which became familiarly known as the Alien Act, was vigorously opposed as an unconstitutional interference with the right secured to the existing states to admit, prior to 1808, the importation or emigration of any such persons as they might think proper; and also as an unconstitutional interference with the right of trial by jury. But, notwithstanding this opposition, the bill passed the House forty-six to forty. Neither this act nor the other respecting alien enemies was ever actually carried into effect, the president seeing no occasion to exercise the discretion intrusted to him. But several Frenchmen took the hint, Volney among the MARSHALL'S RETURN. 217 XII. rest, and two or three ship-loads of them speedily left CHAPTER the country. Before the final passage of either of these acts, another step had been taken toward an open rupture by an act suspending all commercial intercourse with France and her dependencies. He 1798. June 12. Simultaneously with the passage of this act, Marshall June 16. landed at New York on his return from France. proceeded at once to Philadelphia, where he was received with great eclât. The Secretary of State and many private carriages, escorted by the city cavalry, went out to meet him. On his reaching the city, the bells rang, and an immense procession collected to escort him through the streets. Shortly after, he was entertained by the Federal members of Congress at a public dinner. A message June 2i. from the president communicated to Congress the return of Marshall, also Talleyrand's letter to Gerry requesting him to renew the negotiation, Gerry's refusal to do so, his official letter to the State Department, stating his intention to remain at Paris, and the letters of recall instantly dispatched to him; and it concluded with the following emphatic declaration: "I will never send another minister to France without assurances that he will be received, respected, and honored as the representative of a great, free, independent, and powerful nation." By a usage, now introduced for the first time, ten thousand extra copies of these dispatches, and of the papers before communicated, including the instructions to the ministers and their whole correspondence, were ordered to be printed for distribution among the people. For this innovation there was, however, a particular reason. Talleyrand's letter to the envoys, in reply to their long memorial on the wrongs of the United States-that letter in which he assumed for France the place of the CHAPTER injured party, and offered to treat with that one of the XII. envoys supposed to be most favorable to the French re1798. public-had been transmitted to the United States, and had actually appeared in print in Bache's Aurora before a copy of it or of the envoys' reply to it had been received by the American government. The publication in America of the previous dispatches, giving an account of the unofficial intercourse with Talleyrand's private agents, Hottinguer and Bellamy, seems not to have been at all anticipated in France; and the project in forwarding Talleyrand's letter to the Aurora evidently was to preoccupy the public ear by an appeal to the American people, in continuation of those already made by Genet and Adet, and in Monroe's lately published book, against the obstinacy, ingratitude, and hostility toward France of the American government, and of two, at least, of the three envoys. In the publication of this dispatch, and the circumstances attending it, the Federalists saw fresh proof, not only that Bache and his paper, the most accredited organ of the opposition, were mere tools-perhaps purchased tools-of France, but also of a secret correspondence and intercourse between the French Directory and a faction in the United States, relied upon by the French as a means of forcing the American government to submit to their exactions. Another incident which happened about this time gave new force to those suspicions. Dr. Logan, of Philadelphia, grandson of the famous Secretary Logan, who had been the friend and confidential agent of Penn, a Quaker, a benevolent visionary, an enthusiastic admirer of the French republic, whose zeal, influence, and large inherited city property had contributed not a little to carry Philadelphia over to the opposition, departed suddenly and mysteriously for France. He seems to have LOGAN'S VISIT TO FRANCE. 219 XIL gone pretty much on his own suggestion, under the idea CHAPTER that he might somehow contribute to the preservation of peace; but as he chose to take letters of introduction 1798. from Jefferson instead of passports from the Department of State, and as he affected a deal of secresy and mystery, strong suspicions arose that he had gone to France not merely on his own responsibility, but as the authorized envoy of the leaders of the opposition, perhaps to solicit a French force to aid in overturning the existing government, and in placing authority in the hands of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Burr, Gallatin, and the rest of the patriots. Very small matters at such times of excitement are sufficient to produce a great effect; and still another alarm was created by the discovery, or alleged discovery, of a lodge of United Irishmen in Philadelphia, the object of whose secret machinations was imagined to be the overthrow of the government of the United States. Patient and quiet submission to what they deemed injuries and injustice were virtues of which the opposition had made but a faint exhibition whenever the conduct of Great Britain or of their own government had been in question. Hence the exceeding meekness of spirit which they displayed in submitting to the aggressions of France seemed to the Federalists not very explicable on any theory consistent with their patriotism or even with their integrity. But for us, who coolly view matters at a distance, it is sufficiently easy to explain the conduct of the opposition without any such derogatory suppositions. That hatred of Great Britain, the fundamental principle of the Republican party, and a natural horror of any intimate connection with her, such as was almost sure to result from a war with France; the mistaken idea, very much cherished among the opposition, |