"
He had shown by his acts as well as by his words his real friendship
for France, such as a proper sense of gratitude required. As has been
already pointed out, rather than run the risk of seeming to reflect in
the slightest degree upon the government of the French republic, he
had refused even to receive distinguished _emigres_ like Noailles,
Liancourt, and Talleyrand.[1] He was so scrupulous in this respect
that he actually did violence to his own strong desires in not taking
into his house at once the son of Lafayette; and when it became
necessary to choose a successor to Morris, his anxiety was so great
to select some one agreeable to France that he took such an avowed
opponent of his administration as Monroe.
[Footnote 1: See the Letter to the Due de Liancourt explaining the
reasons for his not being received by the President. (Sparks, xi.
161.)]
On the other hand, he had never lost the strong feeling of hostility
toward England which he, above all men, had felt during the
Revolution. The conduct of England, when he was seeking an honorable
peace with her, tried his patience severely. He wrote to Morris in
1795: "I give you these details (and if you should again converse with
Lord Grenville on the subject, you are at liberty, unofficially,
to mention them, or any of them, according to circumstances), as
evidences of the unpolitic conduct (for so it strikes me) of the
British government towards these United States; that it may be
seen how difficult it has been for the executive, under such an
accumulation of irritating circumstances, to maintain the ground of
neutrality which had been taken; and at a time when the remembrance
of the aid we had received from France in the Revolution was fresh in
every mind, and while the partisans of that country were continually
contrasting the affections of _that_ people with the unfriendly
disposition of the _British government_.
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