It is hardly necessary to inform any one who has followed the fortunes of Hamilton as far as this that he purposed to command an army of aggression as well as defence.  A war with France unrolled infinite possibilities.  Louisiana and the Floridas should be seized as soon as war was declared, and he lent a kindly ear to Miranda, who was for overthrowing the inhuman rule of Spain in South America.  “To arrest the progress of the revolutionary doctrines France was then propagating in those regions, and to unite the American hemisphere in one great society of common interests and common principles against the corruption, the vices, the new theories of Europe,” was an alluring prospect to a man who had given the broadest possible interpretation to the Constitution, and whose every conception had borne the stamp of an imperialistic boldness and amplitude.

But these last of his dreams ended in national humiliation.  This time he had sacrificed his private interests, his vital forces, for worse than nothing.  One enemy worked his own ruin, and Louisiana was to add to the laurels of Jefferson.

Talleyrand, astonished and irritated by these warlike preparations and the enthusiasm of the infant country, wisely determined to withdraw with grace while there was yet time.  He sent a circuitous hint to President Adams that an envoy from the United States would be received with proper respect.  For months Adams had been tormented with the vision of Hamilton borne on the shoulders of a triumphant army straight to the Presidential chair.  His Cabinet were bitterly and uncompromisingly for war; Hamilton had with difficulty restrained them in the past.  Adams, without giving them an inkling of his intention, sent to the Senate the name of William Vans Murray, minister resident at The Hague, to confirm as envoy extraordinary to France.

For a moment the country was stupefied, so firm and uncompromising had been the President’s attitude hitherto.  Then it arose in wrath, and his popularity was gone for ever.  As for the Federalist party, it divided into two hostile factions, and neither had ever faced the Republicans more bitterly.  A third of the party supported the President; the rest were for defeating him in the Senate, and humiliating him in every possible way, as he had humiliated the country by kissing the contemptuous hand of France the moment it was half extended.

Hamilton was furious.  He had been in mighty tempers in his life, but this undignified and mortifying act of the President strained his statesmanship to the utmost.  It stood the strain, however; he warned the Federalist leaders that the step taken was beyond recall and known to all the world.  There was nothing to do but to support the President.  He still had an opportunity for revenge while openly protecting the honour of the Nation.  Did Murray, a man of insufficient calibre and prestige, go alone, he must fail; Adams would be disgraced; war inevitable, with