A few days afterwards, on the 3d April, the President sent to Congress the famous X.Y.Z. despatches, which set the country in a flame, and for a time swept away all effective resistance to the war policy. These despatches were discussed by the House in secret session, and there are no letters or memoranda of Mr. Gallatin which reflect his feelings in regard to them. His policy, however, is clearly foreshadowed by his course before, as it was consistently carried out by his course after, the excitement. Believing, as he did, that America had nothing to fear but foreign war, he preferred enduring almost any injuries rather than resort to that measure. His conviction that war was the most dangerous possible course which the United States could adopt was founded on sound reason, and was in reality shared by a vast majority of his fellow-citizens, who were divided in principle rather by the question whether war could be avoided and whether resistance was not the means best calculated to prevent it. He took clear ground on this subject in a speech made on April 19 in the discussion on war measures: "The committee is told by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Harper) that if we do not resist, France will go on step by step in her course of aggressions against this country. This is mere matter of speculation. It is possible France may go on in this way. If she goes on to make war upon us, then let our vessels be used in their full power. Let us not, however, act on speculative grounds, but examine our present situation, and, if better than war, let us keep it. The committee has been told that this doctrine is a doctrine of submission. The gentleman calls war by the name of resistance, and they give the appellation of abject submission to a continuance of forbearance under our present losses and captures. I affix a different idea to the word submission. I would call it submission to purchase peace with money. I would call it submission to accept of ignominious terms of peace. I would call it submission to make any acknowledgments unworthy of an independent country. I would call it submission to give up by treaty any right which we possess. I would call it submission to recognize by treaty any claim contrary to the laws of nations. But there is a great difference between surrendering by treaty our rights and independence as a nation, and saying, 'We have met with captures and losses from the present European war; but, as it is coming to a close, it is not our interest to enter into it, but rather to go on as we have done.' This I think would be a wise course, and extremely different from a state of submission."