Washington set the new machine of government in motion.  He formed his cabinet of recognized leaders of the adverse parties.  Hamilton and Knox of the Federal party were balanced by Jefferson and Randolph of the adverse party.  “Washington took part with neither, but held the balance between them with the scrupulous justice which marked his lofty nature.”  On the 25th of April, 1793, he announced the neutrality of the United States between the belligerents, and his decision, without winning the respect of either, exasperated both.  Each invaded our national rights more flagrantly than before, and excused the injustice by the plea of necessary retaliation against its adversary, and each found willing apologists in a sympathizing faction in our own country.

Commercial and political relations were to be established between the United States and the European Powers in this season of conflict.  Ministers were needed who could maintain and vindicate abroad the same impartiality practised by Washington at home.  There was one citizen eminently qualified for such a trust in such a conjuncture.  Need I say that citizen was the younger Adams, and that Washington had the sagacity to discover him?

John Quincy Adams successively completed missions at the Hague and at Berlin, in the period intervening between 1794 and 1801, with such advantage and success, that in 1802 he was honored by his native commonwealth with a seat as her representative in the Senate of the United States.  The insults offered to our country by the belligerents increased in aggravation as the contest between them became more violent and convulsive.  France, in 1804, laid aside even the name and forms of a Republic, and the first consul, dropping the emblems of popular power, placed the long-coveted diadem upon his brow, where its jewels sparkled among the laurels he had won in the conquest of Italy.  Washington’s administration had passed away, leaving the American people in sullen discontent.  John Adams had succeeded, and had atoned by the loss of power for the offence he had given by causing a just but unavailing war to be declared against France.  Jefferson was at the head of the Government; he thought the belligerents might be reduced to forbearance by depriving them of our commercial contributions of supplies, and recommended, first an embargo, and then non-intercourse.  Britain was an insular and France a continental power.  The effects of these measures would therefore be more severe on the former than on the latter, and, unhappily, they were more severe on our own country than on either of the offenders.