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edge of the existing temper and sensibility of our country, and will thus be taught to vindicate our rights with firmness, and to cultivate peace with sincerity."

The nomination was approved by a majority of ten Senators. By this sudden and decisive measure Washington sought to stay the precipitate impulses of public passion; to give time to put the country into a complete state of defence, and to provide such other measures as might be necessary if negotiation, in a reasonable time, should prove unsuccessful.*

Notwithstanding the nomination of the envoy, the resolution to cut off all intercourse with Great Britain passed the House of Representatives, and was only lost in the Senate by the casting vote of the Vice President, which was given, according to general belief, "not from a disinclination to the ulterior expedience of the measure, but from a desire," previously, "to try the effect of negotiation."†

While Washington was thus endeavoring to steer the vessel of State, amid the surges and blasts which were threatening on every side, Jefferson, who had hauled out of the storm, writes serenely from his retirement at Monticello, to his friend Tench Coxe at Paris :

"Your letters give a comfortable view of French affairs, and later events seem to confirm it. Over the foreign powers, I am convinced they will triumph completely, and I cannot but hope that that triumph, and the consequent disgrace of the invading tyrants, is destined, in order of events, to kindle the wrath of Europe against those who have dared to embroil them in such

* Letter to Edmund Randolph. Writings, x. 403.
Washington to Tobias Lear, Writings, x. 401.

1794.]

JEFFERSON ON EUROPEAN MISRULE.

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wickedness, and to bring, at length, kings, nobles, and priests, to the scaffolds which they have been so long deluging with human blood. I am still warm whenever I think of these scoundrels, though I do it as seldom as I can, preferring infinitely to contemplate the tranquil growth of my lucerne and potatoes. I have so completely withdrawn myself from these spectacles of usurpation and misrule, that I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month; and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it."*

* Works, iv. 104.

CHAPTER XXV.

JAMES MONROE APPOINTED MINISTER TO FRANCE IN PLACE OF GOUVERNEUR MORRIS RECALLED-HIS RECEPTION-PENNSYLVANIA INSURRECTION-PROCLAMATION OF WASHINGTON-PERSEVERANCE OF THE INSURGENTS-SECOND PROCLAMATION-THE PRESIDENT PROCEEDS AGAINST THEM-GENERAL MOR→ GAN-LAWRENCE LEWIS-WASHINGTON ARRANGES A PLAN OF MILITARY OPERATIONS-RETURNS TO PHILADELPHIA, LEAVING LEE IN COMMAND— SUBMISSION OF THE INSURGENTS-THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER ON THE SUBJECT TO JAY, MINISTER AT LONDON.

THE French government having so promptly complied with the wishes of the American government in recalling citizen Genet, requested, as an act of reciprocity, the recall of Gouverneur Morris, whose political sympathies were considered highly aristocratical. The request was granted accordingly, but Washington, in a letter to Morris, notifying him of his being superseded, assured him of his own undiminished confidence and friendship.

James Monroe, who was appointed in his place, arrived at Paris in a moment of great reaction. Robespierre had terminated his bloody career on the scaffold, and the reign of terror was at an end. The new minister from the United States was received in public by the Convention. The sentiments expressed by Monroe on delivering his credentials, were so completely in

1794.]

MONROE'S RECEPTION AT PARIS.

197

unison with the feelings of the moment, that the President of the Convention embraced him with emotion, and it was decreed that the American and French flags should be entwined and hung up in the hall of the Convention, in sign of the union and friendship of the two republics.

Chiming in with the popular impulse, Monroe presented the American flag to the Convention, on the part of his country. It was received with enthusiasm, and a decree was passed, that the national flag of France should be transmitted in return, to the government of the United States.

Washington, in the mean time, was becoming painfully aware that censorious eyes at home were keeping a watch upon his administration, and censorious tongues and pens were ready to cavil at every measure. "The affairs of this country cannot go wrong," writes he ironically to Gouverneur Morris; "there are so many watchful guardians of them, and such infallible guides, that no one is at a loss for a director at every turn.”

This is almost the only instance of irony to be found in his usually plain, direct correspondence, and to us is mournfully suggestive of that soreness and weariness of heart with which he saw his conscientious policy misunderstood or misrepresented, and himself becoming an object of party hostility.

Within three weeks after the date of this letter, an insurrection broke out in the western part of Pennsylvania on account of the excise law. We have already mentioned the riotous opposition this law had experienced. Bills of indictment had been found against some of the rioters. The marshal, when on the way to serve the processes issued by the court, was fired upon by armed men, and narrowly escaped with his life. He was subsequently seized and compelled to renounce the exercise of his official duties.

The house of General Nevil, inspector of the revenue, was assail ed, but the assailants were repulsed. They assembled in greater numbers; the magistrates and militia officers shrank from interfering, lest it should provoke a general insurrection; a few regular soldiers were obtained from the garrison at Fort Pitt. There was a parley. The insurgents demanded that the inspector and his papers should be given up; and the soldiers march out of the house and ground their arms. The demand being refused, the house was attacked, the outhouses set on fire, and the garrison was compelled to surrender. The marshal and inspector finally escaped out of the country; descended the Ohio, and, by a circuitous route, found their way to the seat of government; bringing a lamentable tale of their misadventures.

Washington deprecated the result of these outrageous proceedings. "If the laws are to be so trampled upon with impunity,” said he, “and a minority, a small one too, is to dictate to the majority, there is an end put, at one stroke, to republican government."

It was intimated that the insurgent district could bring seven thousand men into the field. Delay would only swell the growing disaffection. On the 7th of August Washington issued a proclamation, warning the insurgents to disperse, and declaring that if tranquillity were not restored before the 1st of September, force would be employed to compel submission to the laws. To show that this was not an empty threat, he, on the same day, made a requisition on the governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, for militia to compose an army of twelve thousand men; afterwards augmented to fifteen thou sand.

In a letter to the Governor of Virginia (Light-Horse Harry

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