The mutual coquetry which characterized the two Governments during the mission of Mr. Monroe gave way to mutual recrimination and repulsion, where France took the lead. M. Adet was recalled from Philadelphia. Mr. Pinckney was sent away from Paris. Besides the earlier decree, announcing that the Republic would treat all neutrals in the same manner as they suffered the English to treat them, other fatal blows were now dealt at our commerce, letting loose a new brood of spoliations destined to swell the catalogue of our claims, by a decree pronouncing the stipulations of the treaty of 1778 which concerned the neutrality of the flags altered and suspended in their most essential points by the treaty with England, greatly enlarging the list of contraband, declaring Americans in the service of England pirates, and authorizing the seizure of all American vessels without a _rôle d’équipage_, which, notoriously, no American vessel ever carried, so that practically our flag was delivered over to the depredations of every French cruiser.[177] Then came that plenipotentiary triumvirate, Messrs. Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry, who were particularly instructed by our Government, while urging the multiplied claims of our citizens, already valued at “more than twenty millions of dollars,” to propose “a substitute for the reciprocal guaranty,” or, “if France insists on the mutual guaranty, to aim at some modification of it,”--“instead of troops or ships of war, to stipulate for a moderate sum of money or quantity of provisions, at the option of France: the provisions to be delivered at our own ports, in any future _defensive_ wars; the sum of money, or its value in provisions, not to exceed two hundred thousand dollars a year, during any such wars.”[178] Here was recognition of the “guaranty,” and a sum offered for release from its requirements. But the French Republic, drunk with triumph and maddened with anger, was in no mood for negotiation. It met our plenipotentiaries with an intrigue already mentioned as unparalleled in diplomacy, and, after tolerating their presence for a while at Paris, without conceding an official reception, sent them away, disappointed and dishonored. Even in the informal relations which were permitted, Talleyrand, in the name of the Republic, advanced and vindicated the counter-claims of France. Without dwelling at length on his argument, it is enough to quote certain words in a letter to Mr. Gerry, of June 10, 1798: “_The French Republic desires to be restored to the rights which its treaties with your Republic confer upon it, and through those means it desires to assure yours. You claim indemnities; it equally demands them_; and this disposition, being as sincere on the part of the Government of the United States as it is on its part, will speedily remove all the difficulties.”[179] Thus plainly was the case stated. It was not denied that indemnities were due to the United States, but it was insisted