John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, June 22, 1798

22. June 1798.

Since the date of my last I have received your favour of 8. April,
with the pamphlets mentioned in it.— 1 The
communications of the American Commissioners have resounded through every part of
Europe, and produced a very sensible impression in the public opinion with regard to the
characters exposed in them.— An attempt at defence has been made, by a publication in
the official newspaper of the Directory, but which as far as I have heard has only
corroborated and confirmed the suspicions which naturally resulted from the proceedings
developed in the dispatches of the Commissioners.

The paper of which I speak is not signed but has every other
appearance of proceeding from the hand of Talleyrand himself, and is accompanied by
several letters between him and M r: Gerry, and one to him
from Hauteval acknowledging that he is the person designated by the letter Z.— As this
paper will doubtless be public in America before the arrival of this letter, I shall
only mention a few remarks which it suggested to me and which I doubt not will occur to
others and be properly unfolded to the American public. 2

It is throughout in a very angry style of crimination against the
American Government, against the President, against all the three Commissioners, but
intermixed with compliments and flattery for M r: Gerry;
under the bitterness of its invective it seems as if it expected to pass imperceptibly
over the real point of its own defence, for it does not deny
one fact alledged in the reports of the Commissioners.

It charges them with having kept themselves distant from the
Government to which they were sent, and listened, at the same time, to foreign
intriguers who only wished to dupe them.— As if they had not been denied reception— As
if they had not for a long time been informed from Talleyrand that he could not see them
at all.

As to the proposal relative to the purchase of Batavian
inscriptions, he freely acknowledges it; as well as the demand that the President’s
speech of 16. May should be retracted and explained. 3

It appears to be very much disconcerted at the prospect that the
publication of these papers will weaken the effect which Talleyrand meant to produce by
his official communications to the Envoys, where all the
diplomatic skill of France was employed to throw the blame of aggression upon the
American Government, and to improve the dispositions of the french party in America, for
the benefit of the Directory.— It abuses the American Government for not publishing
these Official documents, while it was so anxious to
display the others.— The Bishop-Noble-Emigrant-Citizen Minister, knew very well that on
the 3 d: of April when the published dispatches were
communicated to Congress, his skilful official Letters, could not possibly have been
received in America, and of course could not be published with the rest; but through his
whole publication he appears to think a confusion of dates is a very easy mode of
passing impositions upon the public.

He demands very formally, who W, X, Y, and Z. are of M r: Gerry, who finally gives him the names of X and Y, but
answers that he knows of W. only by hearsay, and Z, names himself. But in truth the only
person whom it could be necessary for Talleyrand to know for his defence upon the
imputation of corruptibility was Y. and why should he ask, M r: Gerry to name him? The papers themselves designated to Talleyrand , who M r: Y. was, as well as M r: Gerry could do, since they detailed a conversation between
these two Ministers at which Y. is stated to have been present, and in which Talleyrand
told M r: Gerry, “that the information Y. had given him was
just and might always be relied on.”— 4 This fact proves that Y. was at that time and for that purpose an agent of Talleyrand,
and as the latter could not but recollect the interview related in the dispatch, he
could have no occasion to enquire of M r: Gerry, who Y.
was.

But it is to be remembered that the American Commissioners had promised X. and Y. that their names should not be
published.— This promise was not obligatory to Talleyrand, whom it would be natural to
expect Y’s conduct if unauthorized had greatly injured and offended, and whom one would
suppose anxious to proclaim him by name in the face of the world, as a cheat and
imposter.— 5 The circumstances indeed
seemed to call for such an exposure.— For after Talleyrand had expressly told M r: Gerry, that he might rely upon Y’s information, and after
numerous other demonstrations that Y. had acted in this business under authority from
Talleyrand, such corrupt proposals as Y. made if without authority were more offensive
and injurious to Talleyrand and the Directory, than to the American Envoys and
Government. Their tendency was only to plunder the latter, but to disgrace the former—to
steal from these, only their purse, but to filch from those, their good name.

By calling upon M r: Gerry for the
names, M r: Talleyrand probably expected that he would give
those of X and Y, only upon condition that they should not be made public; a condition
which would have been readily complied with and might have relieved the french Minister
from some embarrassment, by furnishing him with an apology for keeping them secret.—
M r: Gerry was aware of this and therefore in his answer
besides intimating to Talleyrand that he knew as well as himself who Y. was, he only
stipulates that the names shall not be published as coming from
him ; and thereby leaves Talleyrand at full liberty to publish them, from his own
knowledge.

This however he has not done; he tells the world that they are
foreigners, and have quitted the territories of the Republic. That X had no acquaintance
with him, and that Y. had been recommended to him but never had his confidence—and he
intimates the necessary condition of every Minister holding his department, which
obliges him to see and listen to many persons with whom he has no connection.

In reply to this, it is not necessary to enquire how Y. became
acquainted with all the proposals which Talleyrand intended officially to make to the
Commissioners, and was the first to announce them; or how he became possessed of copies
of his official letters, before they were sent— More direct proof renders presumptive
evidence needless. In the interview between Talleyrand, M r: Gerry, and Y. on the 17 th: of December, M r: Gerry tells us that “he observed to M r: Talleyrand, in English; slowly, that M. Y. had stated to him that morning
some propositions as coming from M r Talleyrand respecting which M r: Gerry could give no opinion.”— It is
in answer to this that M r: Talleyrand tells M r: Gerry that “Y’s information was just and might always be
relied on.”

M r: Gerry certifies indeed that X and Y
never produced any authority for negotiating, and that fact was already clearly and
unequivocally established by the dispatches themselves— Yet Talleyrand lays as much
stress upon this admission, as if the imputation he was called upon to repel had really
been a charge of official proposals for corruption.— This
extreme anxiety to disprove what was never asserted, leaves the real ground of suspicion
undisputed, and adds a strong presumption that it was not susceptible of refutation.

Indeed the extreme caution in keeping the appearances of official
purity, is apparent through all the transactions, and is peculiarly evident in an
incident related in the account of the above-mentioned interview on the 17 th: of December— M r: Gerry told
Talleyrand that upon his propositions made through M. Y, that
morning , he could give no opinion.— Now one of these
propositions not only regarded the £50,000 gratuity, but even suggested a mode whereby
they might be raised.— Talleyrand answers that Y’s information then and always might be
relied upon as just: “but that he would reduce to writing his propositions; which he
accordingly did.”— In this writing, not a syllable was said about the £50,000. but the
other proposition made that morning by Y was formally made in it.— This writing
Talleyrand shewed to M r: Gerry and then immediately burnt
it.— The object in writing it therefore is easily devined. M r: Talleyrand wished M r Gerry, to give full credit
to Y’s propositions, and therefore verbally confirmed them generally. But at the same
time the possible necessity of a future disavowal might occur, especially as M r: Gerry said he could give no opinion upon the proposals— The
writing therefore contained only that which might officially be maintained, and all the
appearances of official decorum were preserved against the effects which might proceed
from the general confirmation verbally made of Y’s proposals.

The demand for £50,000, gratuity was very often repeated, and once
stated by Y, as coming from Talleyrand himself; and Talleyrand had told M r: Gerry that the difficulty with regard to the President’s
speech, might be removed by the offer of money; but that if it should, an application
for a loan would nevertheless be made.

It is certainly possible that Y. had no authority from Talleyrand
to make the proposals to pay money for purposes of corruption; but if this were the
case, would Talleyrand now pretend in contradiction to his own words, in
contradiction to a long series of irresistible proofs, that Y. had none of his confidence, that he was merely an intriguing
foreigner with whom he had scarcely any acquaintance, and that the American Envoys, in
listening to him at all, had only shewn , Start deletion, tokens of , End, their deplorable credulity ?— Would he now accuse the
American Commissioners of keeping themselves distant from a Government, which had
refused to receive them? would he shrink from the investigation of the real suspicions
rising against him, and endeavour to drown them in a flood of invective against the
Commissioners, against the American Government, against the President, against the
british Government?— Would he have taken refuge in odious insinuations, or have hoped to
find a shield in calumniating speculative opinions?— No! he would have boldly named the
man whose conduct had disgraced and betrayed his confidence. He would have acknowledged
the authority and agency that he did really give him to confer with the American
Commissioners informally, and denied ever having hinted to him any thing like the
proposals for private hush-money.

There is no evidence that the corrupt propositions were known to
any member of the Directory.— But it is somewhat surprizing that they should have deemed
such a defence as Talleyrand has published a sufficient justification, so as to continue
him in the Department of foreign affairs. 6

It may further be remarked, that the mode of proceeding with regard
to the American Envoys, was extraordinary, and must be supposed to be founded upon some
motive.— The Directory had previously refused to receive one of them, and ordered him to
quit the territories of the Republic. The reason then alledged by their writers was that
his powers were not sufficiently extensive.— They now permitted the Commissioners to
come to Paris and furnished them with cards of hospitality. But they would not receive
them, and for a long time the Minister of foreign relations refused to have any direct
intercourse with them.— Their consent to the several payments of money, was made a
preliminary to their reception.— What other motive could occasion this conduct than the
desire of extorting money from the personal considerations of the Commissioners?— Two of
them very decidedly declared themselves against this demand of tribute— The third
appeared more disposed to comply with it, and he of course has been treated with less
indignity than the others— He was permitted to remain unacknowledged while the others
were ordered to depart.

The demand that the United States should purchase the 16 millions
(florins) of Batavian Rescriptions is now openly avowed, and one of the reproaches to
our Commissioners made by Talleyrand is, that they had not the will to comply with it—
“France lent money to the United States— Why should not they in return lend money to
France”— 7 This he says would have been
repeated to the Envoys, from one end of France to the other— The answer to this argument
made by the Commissioners he does not notice— That when France lent money, the act was
perfectly voluntary, an option of her own, which she was at liberty to refuse, and that
her demand now is made as an indispensible preliminary to negotiation and made in the
midst of accumulating hostilities and depredations upon those from whom she would thus
borrow— The Envoys might have added that when France lent money, it was during a War in
which she and the United States were making a common cause. That she was under no
obligations of neutrality forbidding the loan, as the United States are now— That the
loan was made upon fair and equal conditions, upon a well founded expectation that she
would be repaid— That she had the obligation of the United States for repayment, and
knew by her own superiority of force that she should possess if necessary the means of
compelling it.— That the consideration was equal and reciprocal as she gave no more than
she would receive with good interest— But in selling the Batavian Rescriptions, she
contracted no obligation for their payment— She insisted upon their purchase at par,
when they were confessedly depreciated to half their nominal value— So That under the
name of a loan she exacted a real gift of one half its amount and meant to be under no
sort of obligation for the repayment of the remainder.— That the whole amount of the
sums lent by France (not more, I think than half a million sterling) was to a Nation of
her wealth and population, an object scarcely perceptible, while the sums she now
demanded, if granted would bear upon the United States as a burthen altogether
intolerable— That with twenty-five millions of people and thirty millions sterling of
revenue she had lent us about half a million, and now asked of us, with one fifth of
those numbers, and less than one fifteenth of that revenue, to lend her nearly three
times as much, and in truth to give her more than the whole of what she had ever
loaned.

The Citizen Talleyrand says that the publication of the dispatches
from the Commissioners was a deplorable provocation, on the part of the American
Government.— 8 I hope indeed the time
will come when the People of the United States will be
thoroughly convinced that their Executive Government ought to be fully entrusted with
all their foreign negotiations, and that such publications, must necessarily be
extremely dangerous to their interests— But as long as the Legislature of the Union will
insist upon knowing every thing, and the spirit of the People supports them in this
pretension, there is no remedy; the evil is inevitable— The publication is a necessary
consequence of the communication— We saw, three years ago, that an injunction of secrecy
was ineffectual even in so small a body as the Senate, when its members are divided in
their political opinions and inflamed by the Spirit of party— 9 How much more certainly must this occur, when
the secret is divulged to yet another body three or four times as numerous.

In the present instance there was certainly no provocation on the
part of the President, for he gave a caution against the publication at the time when he
sent the papers— Yet the french Minister, with all the diplomatic skill of his Country
vents his resentment against the President, by slanderous insinuations and false
assertions calculated to foment the prejudices, and inflame the jealousies of the
American People against their chief-magistrate.— In doing this he is very careful to
pursue the track of the party in the United States supposed to be devoted to France, and
opposed to the measures of the President.— His performance in this part is almost a
repetition of a speech made last Winter by a member of the house of representatives upon
the foreign intercourse bill; which speech was the only one upon that occasion that has
appeared translated in the Paris Newspapers. 10

, Start deletion, I am ever faithfully
your’s. , End,

At the close of this sort of Manifesto, full as it is of the most
determined though insidious hostility against the American Government and its President;
there is a declaration that the french Directory ardently and sincerely desires to be at
Peace with America— But there is also evidence contained in it, that they begin to
perceive that in case of a War, America would not be so impotent and despicable an enemy
as they have long affected to consider her— They appear sensible how dependent their
Colonies are upon the United States, and are willing to debase
themselves to a calculation of the consequences which a war would produce to
France, at this time — Nothing can more forcibly prove that
if they saw firmness and Union on the part of America, they would shrink from their extravagant demands, and cease at least some part of their excessive and unjust depredations. All
their efforts therefore are, while they continue their hostilities, to weaken and divide us. , Start deletion, They pursued this game (my heart bleeds to acknowledge it)
but too successfully with the Commissioners one of whom will I fear never justify to
his Country his abandonment of his Colleagues, under an impression of terror and under
a menace of rupture, which he could have no reasonable hope of preventing— , End, The
same artifice is eminently conspicuous through the whole of the publication of which I
now speak.— Its weakness of argument; its disregard or inaccuracy of fact, has been
amply exposed above— As a defence of Talleyrand against
strong presumptive evidence of corruptibility, it is nothing—less than nothing.— But as
an artful and insidious declamation, provoking War amidst professions of Peace, courting
every Passion, enlisting every prejudice to set the Americans at opposition with their
own Government, and at enmity among themselves, it is written with great ability— It is
no less than might be expected from the bosom friend of, Mirabeau, one of the ablest and
most corrupt of men.

You wish to live at Peace with America— And in answer to her
complaints of violence and rapine, after rejecting her Ministers of Peace, you tell the
Americans that the men in their highest offices, are the blind and servile tools of
Great Britain— That they wish to make them adopt the British Constitution, and are
rushing into War to force it upon the People— 11 Is this language pacific? is it friendly towards
the American Government?— Could inveteracy tho most deadly say more?— But your
friendship is for the People,—not, for the Government— Have not all your injuries, all
your depredations been committed upon the People? Have the Government even complained of any personal injury done to them however great
their occasion? Have the long series of executive arretés and legislative decrees
contrary to the solemn stipulations of your Treaties; contrary to the universally
recognized laws of Nations; contrary to the common principles of humanity, have the
numberless depredations committed without any arrêté or decree, but under colour of your
authority, and to a representation of which you refuse to listen, have not all these
been acts of hostility to the People— Are you now more ready to redress these wrongs?
have you repealed those arrêtés or decrees? have you even ceased to execute them?— If on
the contrary they are all continued and increasing, what is your declaration of peace
and friendship, but a smile upon the face while you plunge the stiletto to the
heart?

Such it appears to me would be the natural and just reply of every
true American— If however the Directory really feel any disposition of peace or
friendship towards us, I most ardently desire that every such disposition may be met
with a similar spirit of conciliation—not by base and degrading submission to injustice
unrepaired, and un-removed;—not by humiliating and oppressive contributions under the
name of loans— Not by bribes through channels formal or informal, through native
frenchmen or foreign intriguers, but by an unaltered and unalterable system of truth and
Justice, and an honest determination even after all that has happened to do for the
friendship of France, every thing consistent with the duties of a neutral, and the
rights and honour of a free and independent Nation.

, Start deletion, I remain ever faithfully
your’s. , End,