“The ‘Gazette’ of yesterday contains the mode pursued for reanimating confidence in the pledge of the British government given by Mr. Erskine in his arrangement with this government. The puzzle created by the Order of April struck every one. Erskine assures us that his Government was under such impressions as to the views of this, that not the slightest expectation existed of our fairly meeting its overtures, and that the last order was considered as a seasonable mitigation of the tendency of a failure of the experiment. This explanation seems as extraordinary as the alternative it shows. The fresh declarations of Mr. Erskine seem to have quieted the distrust which was becoming very strong, but has not destroyed the effect of the ill grace stamped on the British retreat, and of the commercial rigor evinced by the new and insidious duties stated in the newspapers. It may be expected, I think, that the British government will fulfil what its minister has stipulated; and that if it means to be trickish, it will frustrate the proposed negotiation, and then say their orders were not permanently repealed but only withdrawn in the mean time.” Madison had chosen to precipitate a decision, with a view to profiting in either case, whether England consented or refused to have her hands thus forced. Indeed, if he had not himself been old in the ways of diplomacy, Turreau was on the spot to warn him, and lost no chance of lecturing the Administration on the folly of trusting Erskine’s word. Meanwhile Turreau so far lost his temper as to address to Secretary Smith a long letter complaining of the persistently unfriendly attitude of the United States government toward France. So strong was the language of the letter that Turreau was obliged to withdraw it.[68] Robert Smith attempted to pacify him by assurances that the new Administration would respect the Spanish possessions more strictly than the old one had done. “The Secretary of State did not deny that there might have been some attempt in that direction,” reported Turreau, June 14,[69] “but at the same time, while himself alluding to the affair of Miranda, he attributed these events to causes independent of the actual Administration and anterior to its existence, and especially to the weakness and the indiscretions of Mr. Jefferson; that he [Smith] was then in the Cabinet, and knew better than any one how much the want of vigor (_mollesse_), the uncertainty, and absence of plan in the Executive head had contributed to the false steps of the Federal government.” The new Administration meant to show vigor. Every act and expression implied that its path was to be direct to its ends. The President and Congress waited with composure for the outcome of Erskine’s strange conduct.