Monroe reached Paris in the summer of 1794.  He was publicly received by the Convention, made an undignified and florid speech, received the national embrace from the president of the Convention, and then effected an exchange of flags with more embracings and addresses.  But when he came to ask redress for the wrongs committed against our merchants, he got no satisfaction.  So far as he was concerned, this appears to have been a matter of indifference, for he at once occupied himself with the French proposition that we should lend France five millions of dollars, and France in return was to see to it that we obtained control of the Spanish possessions in North America.  Monroe fell in with this precious scheme to make the United States a dependency of France, and received as a reward vast promises as to what the great republic would do for us.  Meantime he regarded with suspicion Jay’s movements in England, and endeavored to obtain information, if not control, of that negotiation.  In this he completely failed; but he led the French government to believe, first, that the English treaty would not be made, then that it would not be ratified, and finally that the House would not make the appropriations necessary to carry it into effect; and all the time he was compromising his own government by his absurd efforts to involve it in an offensive alliance with France.  The upshot of it all was that he was disowned at home, discredited in France, and brought our relations with that nation into a state of dangerous complication, without obtaining any redress for our injuries.

Washington at first, little as he liked the theatrical performances with which Monroe opened his mission, wrote about him with great moderation to Jay, who was naturally much annoyed by the manner in which Monroe had tried to interfere with his negotiations.  Six months later, however, Washington saw only too plainly that he had been mistaken in his minister to France.  He wrote to Randolph on July 24, 1795:  “The conduct of Mr. Monroe is of a piece with that of the other; and one can scarcely forbear thinking that these acts are part of a premeditated system to embarrass the executive government.”  When it became clear that Monroe had omitted to explain properly our reasons for treating with England, that he had held out hopes to the French government which were totally unauthorized, that he had brought on a renewal of the hostilities of that government, and that he had placed us in all ways in the most unenviable light, Washington recalled him, and appointed Charles Cotesworth Pinckney in his place.  By this time too he was thoroughly disgusted with Monroe’s performances, and in his letter to Pinckney, on July 8, 1796, offering him the appointment to Paris, he said:  “It is a fact too notorious to be denied that the greatest embarrassments under which the administration of this government labors proceed from the counter-action of people among ourselves, who are more disposed to promote the views of another