--TO JAMES MADISON, February 26, 1799
TO JAMES MADISON.
Philadelphia, February 26, 1799.
Dear Sir,
My last to you was of the 19th; it acknowledged yours of the 8th. In
mine I informed you of the nomination of Murray. There is evidence that
the letter of Talleyrand was known to one of the Secretaries, therefore
probably to all; the nomination, however, is declared by one of them to
have been kept secret from them all. He added, that he was glad of it,
as, had they been consulted, the advice would have been against making
the nomination. To the rest of the party, however, the whole was a
secret till the nomination was announced. Never did a party show a
stronger mortification, and consequently, that war had been their
object. Dana declared in debate (as I have from those who were present)
that we had done every thing which might provoke France to war; that we
had given her insults which no nation ought to have borne; and yet she
would not declare war. The conjecture as to the executive is, that they
received Talleyrand's letter before or about the meeting of Congress:
that not meaning to meet the overture effectually, they kept it secret,
and let all the war measures go on; but that just before the separation
of the Senate, the President, not thinking he could justify the
concealing such an overture, nor indeed that it could be concealed, made
a nomination, hoping that his friends in the Senate would take on their
own shoulders the odium of rejecting it; but they did not choose it.
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