Marshall, After the Humiliation of Treatment During XYZ Affair, Leaves France to Report Home

In 1795, the U.S. and Great Britain signed the Jay Treaty, which sought to settle issues unresolved after the Revolutionary War, among them the rights of the U.S. as a neutral, and the British practice of seizing American vessels and impressing their sailors. The French, at war with Britain, viewed this treaty with dismay. In the U.S., the newly developing political party system was dividing the country based on sympathies with the warring nations in Europe, with some, among them Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists, favoring closer relations with Britain and others, among them Thomas Jefferson, siding with France.

By 1796, French were themselves attacking American ships regularly, and this stirred anti-French sentiments in the U.S., where many beat the drum for war. President John Adams called a special session of Congress, and on May 16, 1797, he sent a message to Congress supporting a military buildup. However, Adams also decided to send a delegation to France hoping to improve relations. Elbridge Gerry and John Marshall would meet Timothy Pinckney in Paris. The men were instructed to treat with France but not to do anything detrimental to the treaty with Britain.

From the start, this mission was met with resistance. In 1797, a more conservative French government took power and it was even less inclined to deal with the Federalist-dominated U.S. than the previous government. The ministers from America were not formally recognized by the government, and instead were forced to negotiate with secret agents identified as X, Y and Z, who worked for French foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand. What made matters worse, the French government, through these informal discussions, demanded an apology and a large payment from the Americans before even sitting down officially at the negotiating table.

The American ministers rejected this outright. Marshall wrote a long dispatch revealing this attempted bribe on November 8, and this would be leaked to the press in the U.S., enflaming public opinion. The American political divisions were well-known in France. Pinckney and Marshall were Federalists and the French government treated them in a hostile manner, feeling they were acting with British interests in mind. Gerry, though a moderate, was considered somewhat in the French camp. Many times, Talleyrand agreed to meet with Gerry privately and even offered to negotiate only with him, a proposition that all three Americans rejected. In March of 1798, the French Directory decided to issue passports for Marshall and Pinckney, sending them home to get them out of the way, while retaining Gerry. When the French attempted to send Marshall and Pinckney home, Marshall responded by saying that he served at the wishes of his government and not the French, and that he would stay. Talleyrand, exasperated, wrote that it did not matter whether Marshall stayed or left, but that he would send for Gerry to negotiate only with him. Now, angry at his treatment and sensing in the French an unwillingness to treat with any except her partisans, he himself determined to leave. However, the roads were dangerous, he was concerned for his safety, and the French were slow to offer him the required papers. On April 4, 1798, Gerry wrote to Talleyrand expressing his displeasure at the Americans’ treatment and refusing to treat officially with him were his colleagues to leave. He also pressed the French to provide the papers that Marshall was awaiting.

On April 13 these papers arrived and Marshall set about leaving as quickly as possible. Gerry would stay, which would cause accusations of duplicitous conduct by Pinckney; however, Marshall refused to criticize Gerry. On April 16, he left Paris. The challenge now was to find a vessel to take him home. On April 18 he was in Tours, and wrote to a friend discussing his plans via the US consulate in Nantes.

Autograph Letter Signed, Tours, April 18, 1798, to James H. Hooe, care of the American Consul in France, with address leaf also in Marshall’s hand. Hooe was a prominent Virginia landowner and a Washington family acquaintance. “I had intended to take Nantes in my way to Bordeaux and to sail from that place if I could obtain a vessel – if I could not, proceed to Bordeaux. But I have been told that the road from Nantes to Bordeaux is bad and dangerous, and as your letter leaves me scarcely any hope that there is still a vessel at Nantes about to sail for the United States, I finally decided to go immediately to Bordeaux. I was apprehensive that by taking too much time at one place I might, after being disappointed there, lose my passage at the other. I shall not then have the pleasure of seeing you. I wish a great deal of happiness and am with much esteem, J. Marshall.”

Marshall would arrive in Bordeaux and secure passage on the brig Alexander Hamilton, arriving at home to the publication of news that the French had demanded money for negotiation. He received a hero’s welcome and would use this popularity to run for Congress. In 1801, he would be named Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.