Washington [511]
In the aftermath of the Jay Treaty, the diatribes against Washington reached a new pitch of savagery as his foes were emboldened to disparage his presidency and blacken his wartime reputation. In the Aurora, Benjamin Franklin Bache dredged up moldy British forgeries from the war, purporting to show that Washington had pocketed bribes from the enemy and was a double agent for the Crown. Washington was not the only family member crestfallen over these vicious attacks. The British minister’s wife noted that Abigail Adams “has spirit enough to laugh at [Bache’s] abuse of her husband, which poor Mrs. Washington could not.”20 Such was the bitter discord that many Republicans stopped drinking toasts to the president’s health after dinner.
With the Jay Treaty, Washington had made good on his solemn oath to maintain peace and prosperity during his presidency. British evacuation of the northwestern posts triggered new settlements in the Ohio Country, including Cleveland, Day-ton, and Youngstown. The skies darkened considerably on the diplomatic front, however, as rumors filtered back to Washington that the French government, incensed over the treaty, contemplated sending a fleet to American waters to seize ships bound for Great Britain. In time France would make good on the threats, launching the Quasi-War against the United States during the presidency of John Adams. Washington would privately castigate Republicans for instigating France, which was “endeavoring with all her arts to lead” the United States into war on her side.21 To Hamilton, Washington issued a ringing manifesto of his foreign policy creed: “We will not be dictated to by the politics of any nation under heaven farther than treaties require of us . . . If we are to be told by a foreign power . . . what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have independence yet to seek.”22
Another casualty of the treaty fracas was Washington’s relationship with James Monroe, who had fought with him at Trenton. “He has in every instance,” Washington then declared, “maintained the reputation of a brave, active, and sensible officer.”23 In appointing Monroe as minister to France in 1794, Washington aimed to reduce tensions between Federalists and Republicans. As a protégé of Jefferson and Madison, however, Monroe threw aside any pretense of neutrality, showed blatant favoritism toward the French, and allowed himself to be embraced by leading French politicians. According to Washington, Monroe had also tried to pry loose advance details of the Jay Treaty to give the French an unauthorized preview and, instead of allaying French anger over the treaty, actively incited it. When Monroe published in the Aurora an anonymous piece critical of Washington, entitled “From a Gentleman in Paris to His Friend in the City,” Washington quickly figured out its author. (Wolcott and Pickering had somehow obtained a copy of the original letter.) In July 1796 he recalled Monroe and replaced him with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, leaving Monroe mortified at such treatment .24
Back in Philadelphia, still seething over his recall, Monroe published a 473-page indictment of Washington’s handling of the incident called A View of the Conduct of the Executive in the Foreign Affairs of the United States. Jefferson, who coached Monroe on this diatribe, was delighted by the result. “Monroe’s book is considered masterly by all those who are not opposed in principle, and it is deemed unanswerable,” he informed Madison.25 When Washington pored over the book, he not only snorted with rage but scrawled in its margins sixty-six pages of sardonic comments. These dense notes afford a rare glimpse of Washington in the grip of uncensored anger. Responding to one comment by Monroe, he scoffed, “Self importance appears here.”26 In another aside, he wrote, “Insanity in the extreme!”27 Another time, he mocked Monroe’s statement as “curious and laughable.”28 The gist of many of Washington’s remarks was that French actions toward America