The situation of foreign relations was changed. The First Consul received the American envoys cordially, and a commercial convention was made but secured ratification by the Senate only after the elimination of an article and a limitation of its duration to eight years. While the bill was pending in the Senate, Mr. Samuel Smith moved to continue the act to suspend commercial intercourse with France. Mr. Gallatin opposed this motion; at the last session he had voted for this bill because there was only the appearance of a treaty. Now that the precise state of negotiation was known, why should the House longer leave this matter to the discretion of the President? The House decided to reject the indiscreet bill by a vote of 59 to 37. An effort was also made to repeal a part of the Sedition Law, and continue the rest in force, but the House refused to order the engrossing of the bill, taking wise counsel of Dawson, who said that, supported by the justice and policy of their measures, the approaching administration would not need the aid of either the alien, sedition, or common law. The opponents of the bill would not consent to any modification. The last scenes of the session were of exciting interest. Freed from the menace of immediate war, the people of plain common sense recognized that the friendship of Great Britain was more dangerous than the enmity of France. They dreaded the fixed power of an organized aristocracy far more than the ephemeral anarchy of an ill-ordered democracy; they were more averse to class distinctions protected by law than even to military despotism which destroyed all distinctions, and they preferred, as man always has preferred and always will prefer, personal to political equality. The Alien and Sedition laws had borne their legitimate fruit. The foreign-born population held the balance of power; a general vote would have shown a large Republican or, it is more correct to say, anti-Federalist majority. But the popular will could not be thus expressed. Under the old system each elector in the electoral college cast his ballot for president and vice-president without designation of his preference as to who should fill the first place. New England was solid for Adams, who, however, had little strength beyond the limits of this Federal stronghold. New York and the Southern States with inconsiderable exceptions were Republican. Pennsylvania was so divided in the legislature that her entire vote would have been lost but for a compromise which gave to the Republicans one vote more than to the Federalists. Adams being out of the question, the election to the first place lay between Jefferson and Burr, both Republicans. The Federalists, therefore, had their option between the two Republican candidates, and the result was within the reach of that most detestable of combinations, a political bargain. Mr. Gallatin's position in this condition of affairs was controlling. His loyalty to Jefferson was unquestioned,