The dead-lock which clogged the negotiation, even at the beginning, was now complete. The American plenipotentiaries announced at home that they were driven to quit France, or to find some other terms of adjustment.[194] The latter alternative prevailed, and the negotiation was renewed, with the understanding that the parties put off to another time the discussion of indemnities and the treaties.[195] The other questions furnished no ground of serious controversy; and the conferences proceeded tranquilly, from day to day, till September 30, 1800, resulting in what was entitled a “_Provisional_ Treaty.” The title revealing its temporary character was subsequently changed, at the request of the French plenipotentiaries, to that of “Convention,” which it now bears in the statute-book. The Convention, after declaring in its first article that “there shall be a firm, inviolable, and universal peace, and a true and sincere friendship, between the French Republic and the United States of America,” proceeds to stipulate as follows. “ART. II. The Ministers Plenipotentiary of the two parties not being able to agree at present respecting the Treaty of Alliance of 6th February, 1778, the Treaty of Amity and Commerce of the same date, and the Convention of 14th of November, 1788, nor upon the indemnities mutually due or claimed, the parties will negotiate further on these subjects at a convenient time; and until they may have agreed upon these points, the said treaties and convention shall have no operation, and the relations of the two countries shall be regulated as follows.”[196] Here the disagreement with regard to the early treaties and the indemnities mutually due or claimed is specifically declared, and it is then provided that “_the parties_ will negotiate further on these subjects at a convenient time,”--meaning, of course, that hereafter, at a more auspicious moment, and with other plenipotentiaries, “the parties” will attempt to reconcile this disagreement. The whole subject, with its seven years of controversy and heart-burning, was postponed. Claims and counter-claims were left to sleep, while the spirit of peace descended upon the two countries.