By such vigorous measures were the rights of these claimants asserted, while the country assumed an attitude of defence. The French Directory became less intolerable, and negotiations were invited again, with assurance that the former rudeness should not be renewed. John Adams was President, and for the sake of peace he seized the opportunity of this overture, by appointing Chief Justice Ellsworth, Patrick Henry, and William Vans Murray as a second plenipotentiary triumvirate to France. As Mr. Henry declined, Mr. Davie, of North Carolina, was substituted in his place. In adjusting the instructions President Adams himself took a personal part, as appears by a letter to the Secretary of State, where he says: “The principal points, _indeed all the points_, of the negotiation were so minutely considered and _approved by me and all the heads of department_ that nothing remains but to put them into form and dress: this service I pray you to perform as promptly as possible.”[138] But “all the points” were three only: 1st, Indemnity for spoliations of American commerce; 2d, The unquestionable wrong of seizing American vessels for want of the paper known to French law as _rôle d’équipage_; 3d, The refusal to renew the treaty guaranty of the French West Indies. Such were the _ultimata_ originally settled by the President and his cabinet on the 11th of March, 1799, and afterwards fully developed in the elaborate instructions of Mr. Pickering, dated 22d October, 1799, which, after announcing that “the conduct of the French Republic would well have justified an immediate declaration of war on the part of the United States,” proceeded to declare, as the first point, that the plenipotentiaries, “_at the opening of the negotiation_, will inform the French ministers that the United States expect from France, _as an indispensable condition of the treaty_, a stipulation to make to the citizens of the United States _full compensation for all losses and damages_ which they shall have sustained by reason of irregular or illegal captures or condemnations of their vessels and other property.” And the instructions end, as they began, by declaring, first among the terms, “that an article be inserted for establishing a board with suitable powers to hear and determine the claims of our citizens, _and binding France to pay or secure payment of the sums which shall be awarded_.”[139] Observe the positiveness of the assertion.