despatched Marshall and Gerry and ordered C.C.  Pinckney to join them.  Talleyrand refused them official reception, and sent to them, in secret, nameless minions—­known officially, later on, as X.Y.Z.—­who made shameful proposals, largely consisting of inordinate demand for tribute.  Marshall and Pinckney threw up the commission in disgust.  The Opposition in Congress demanded the correspondence; and Adams, with his grimmest smile, sent it to the Senate.  It was a terrible blow to the Jacobins, not only the manner in which France had prejudiced her interests in this country; some of the disclosures were extremely painful to ponder upon.  “Perhaps,” one of the backstairs ambassadors had remarked, “you believe that, in returning and exposing to your countrymen the unreasonableness of the demands of this Government, you will unite them in resistance to those demands.  You are mistaken.  You ought to know that the diplomatic skill of France, and the means she possesses in your country, are sufficient to enable her, with the French party in America, to throw the blame, which will attend the rupture, on the Federalists, as you term yourselves, but the British party, as France terms you; and you may assure yourselves this will be done.”  Jefferson retired to weep alone.  Several of the faction resigned from Congress.  Hamilton published his pamphlets, “The Stand,” “France,” and “The Answer,” and the whole country burst into a roar of vengeance, echoing Pinckney’s parting shot:  “Millions for defence, not a cent for tribute!” “Hail Columbia” was composed, and inflamed the popular excitement.  Federalist clubs paraded, wearing a black cockade, and one street riot followed another.  Brockholst Livingston had his nose pulled, and killed his man.  With the exception of the extreme Jacobins, who never swerved from their devotion to France and the principles she had promulgated with the guillotine, the country was for war to a man, and the President inundated with letters and memorials of encouragement.  The immediate result was the augmentation of the Federalist party, and the decline of Jacobinism.

For a long while past, Hamilton had been urging naval and military preparations.  A bold front, he thought, would be more effective than diplomacy; and the sequel proved his wisdom.  When the crisis came a bill for a Provisional Army was passed at once, another for the increase of the Navy, and liberal appropriations were made.  The proposed alliance with Great Britain, Hamilton effectually opposed, for he was almost as exasperated with England as with France; in her fear that the French party in the United States would triumph and declare war upon her, she had renewed her depredations upon our commerce.