That comic body, Congress, was convened to look into the French conundrums. Of course they talked so much that they forgot what they came together for; and no one was any wiser when the speaker’s gavel fell and sent them home. The puzzled President despatched three commissioners to get a new statement of the riddle. The Directory told these gentlemen—as legislative bodies now reply to applicants for relief—that they could only see them through gold-mounted spectacles. Such a spectacle the American people were not prepared to become. Knowing the sympathy of the anti-Federal party in America with their principles, the French Directory slammed the door abruptly in the face of the two commissioners with Federal leanings, and held the envoy with Republican tendencies, like another Joseph, by his skirts. In spite of party feeling, however, American indignation now rose to the gorge. A small standing army was raised. The keel of our navy was laid, and a Navy Department created, over which was placed Benjamin Stodart. The alien law, authorizing the President to elbow out of the country disagreeable foreigners, and the sedition act, to fine and imprison any one writing too freely against the government,—measures which marked the distance of Americans of that day from the political millennium,—were first passed by Congress, and afterwards passed, without any fear, by everybody else. The wise old General at Mount Vernon was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the army; and there was a fair chance that the American Captain might yet be obliged to cut the comb of that strutting French cock, which had lately scratched and crowed on so many Italian dung-hills that he fancied himself a full-fledged eagle.