It fell to John Adams on the very threshold of his administration to deal with what he euphemistically called the misunderstanding with France. His inaugural address announced unmistakably his intention to preserve neutrality between the belligerents of Europe, and to treat France with impartiality but with a sincere desire for her friendship. Between the lines may be read also an equally sincere desire to placate the opposition and to free himself from all imputation of a bias toward Great Britain and a monarchical system. From the first news of Pinckney's dismissal, President Adams was disposed "to institute a fresh attempt at negotiation": he even approached Jefferson to see if he would not persuade Madison to serve on a special commission, believing that Madison's well-known Gallic sympathies would commend him to the French nation. At the same time he declared stoutly in a message to Congress, in special session on May 15, that France had treated the United States "neither as allies nor as friends nor as a sovereign state." Attempts which had been made to create a rupture between the people of the United States and their Government "ought to be repelled with a decision which shall convince France and the world that we are not a degraded people humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority." While he therefore recommended measures of defense, he asked the Senate to confirm the appointment of three commissioners whom he proposed to send to France. Two of these, Pinckney and John Marshall, were Federalists, but the third was Elbridge Gerry, a Massachusetts Republican, who was the second choice of the President, Dana having declined to serve. While Congress was acting upon the President's recommendations and voting appropriations for fortifications and for the completion of the three frigates which were then on the stocks, disquieting disclosures came from the West. Spain having declared war upon England in the previous fall, British emissaries, it was rumored, were concerting plans for the conquest of New Orleans and West Florida. While expeditions made up of Western frontiersmen and Indians descended upon the Spanish strongholds in the Southwest, a British fleet was to blockade the mouth of the Mississippi. The evidence which President Adams laid before Congress in July implicated Senator Blount, of Tennessee. In common with other land speculators, he had become alarmed at the rumor that France was about to acquire Louisiana, and had agreed to use his influence among the whites and Indians of the Southwest, where he had formerly been governor, to assist the designs of Great Britain. He was expelled from the Senate and impeached. Before his trial could take place, he was elected a member of the legislature of Tennessee, and from that point of vantage he successfully defied the federal authorities.