Approaching Storm.

The French government, angry over Jay's Treaty, ordered the seizure of all neutral ships bound for British ports starting on 1 July 1796. On 7 December the French foreign minister refused to meet with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the new U.S. minister to France. Newly elected president John Adams, who had narrowly defeated the Republican candidate Thomas Jefferson, was determined to maintain an independent foreign policy that would favor neither France nor Britain. He was also determined to follow George Washington's example of trying to remain above party politics. In May 1797 Adams asked Congress to appoint a peace mission to France and authorize a series of defense measures. Congress appointed peace commissioners and appropriated money for a navy and a system of harbor fortifications, but Republicans defeated proposals for enlarging the army. Then, in April 1798, Adams released diplomatic dispatches...