On the subject of the treaty I confess that I feel extreme solicitude, and for a special reason which can be communicated to you only in person. I entreat, therefore, that you will return with all convenient speed to the seat of government. In the meanwhile, for the reason above referred to, I pray you to decide on no important political measure in whatever form it may be presented to you. Mr. Wolcott and I, Mr. Bradford concurring, waited on Mr. Randolph and urged his writing to request your return. He wrote in our presence, but we concluded a letter from one of us also expedient.
Washington made up his mind to start to Philadelphia without further delay. Early on August 6 he said good-bye to his family and ordered the coach away. At Georgetown he attended the meeting of the Potomac Company and conferred briefly with the commissioners of the Federal City. The condition of the roads worsened as he proceeded, and it was noon on August 11 before the President finally alighted in Philadelphia.
Anxious to know what had prompted Pickering’s letter, Washington sent to ask the Secretary of War to call at his earliest convenience. Pickering came during the dinner hour and found Washington and Randolph at table and in cheerful conversation. The President rose and, taking a glass of wine, indicated to Pickering alone to step into the next room. As soon as the door closed behind them, Washington asked, “What is the cause of your writing me such a letter?” Pickering pointed at the door and replied, “That man is a traitor!”
Pickering explained his charge. Shortly after the President had gone to Mount Vernon, he said, the British Minister received from London intercepted despatches which had been sent the previous year by Fauchet to his superiors at Paris. Hammond invited Wolcott to his house on July 26 and read to him, in English, several passages from one of these, Despatch No. 10 of October 31, 1794. It appeared from this, said Pickering, that Randolph had asked Fauchet for money and had intimated that American policy could be influenced by it! Information of “such magnitude,” Wolcott told Hammond, ought not to remain exclusively with one Cabinet officer; but allegations could not be communicated further unless the original of Fauchet’s letter was in hand to substantiate them. Hammond agreed to deliver the document. Accordingly, on July 28, he gave Wolcott the original and a certified copy of Despatch No. 10. Wolcott then presented Fauchet’s letter to Pickering, who made a rough translation with the aid of a French grammar, and together they visited Attorney General Bradford on the twenty-ninth. These three vowed the strictest secrecy until the President returned to Philadelphia and decided he should be called back immediately. On July 31 Pickering and Wolcott, giving a fictitious reason, asked Randolph to write the necessary letter. The Secretary of State complied unwittingly, and Pickering also wrote. When the President had studied Fauchet’s despatch, Pickering said, he could judge for himself how far Randolph was implicated in treason. Wolcott would bring him the document that evening. The President accepted Pickering’s terrible report in silence. “Let us return to the other room,” he said at last, “to prevent any suspicion of the cause of our withdrawing.”
Alone in his study that evening Washington read Fauchet’s incrimination of the Secretary of State. Midway in the opening paragraph of the long despatch Randolph’s name appeared. Fauchet had written: “Besides, the precious confessions of Mr. Randolph alone throw a satisfactory light upon everything that comes to pass.” The implication was unmistakable—Randolph had given away state secrets! The President read on rapidly. One passage after another yielded nothing but Fauchet’s denunciation of the excise tax and observations on the insurrection in western Pennsylvania. Then, in the fourteenth paragraph, Randolph was said to have declared “that under pretext of giving energy to the government, it was intended to introduce absolute power and to mislead the President in paths which would conduct him to unpopularity.” Fauchet commented in the next paragraph that “the influence of Mr. Randolph over the mind of the President” was paramount, and that this had determined the Executive to send commissioners to placate the insurgent counties. The sixteenth paragraph named Mifflin and Dallas as ardent Pennsylvania Republicans, then gave the confirmation of Pickering’s spoken words that Washington dreaded but could not discount:
. . . these men, with others unknown to me, all having without doubt Randolph at their head, were balancing to decide on their party. Two or three days before the proclamation [of August 7, 1794] was published, and of course before the Cabinet had resolved on its measures, Mr. Randolph came to see me with a countenance expressive of much anxiety, and made to me the overtures of which I have given you an account in my No. 6. Thus with some thousands of dollars the [French] Republic would have decided on civil war or on peace! Thus the consciences of the pretended patriots of America have already their scale of prices! . . . What will be the old age of this government, if it is thus early decrepit! Such, Citizen, is the evident consequence of the system of finances conceived by Mr. Hamilton. He has made of a whole nation a stock-jobbing, speculating, selfish people. Riches alone here fix consideration. . . . they are universally sought after.
What could all this mean except that the Secretary of State had asked Fauchet for money? The French Minister said no more of “overtures” than that they were described in an earlier dispatch, No. 6, the content of which Washington did not know. But here before his eye in No. 10 a damning inference glared. “Overtures” and “some thousands of dollars,” used as they were in this sequence, conveyed a single idea and stamped an awful impression: Randolph was corrupt! Remaining passages in Fauchet’s letter carried smaller connotations of guilt, but added little to the ugly image of “precious confessions” and “overtures.” The President could not question the genuineness of this intercepted dispatch; nor could he simply dismiss Fauchet’s words as contrived or exaggerated. However much Washington may have wished to avoid them, conclusions were inescapable. He had to acknowledge that his most intimate associate might be faithless and venal, might be even what Pickering called him—a traitor.
Not since an autumn day in 1780, when the first fragmentary hints of Benedict Arnold’s defection came to him, had Washington faced this kind of thing. He was loath then to believe the worst of Arnold, but that subordinate soon evidenced his treason. Would Randolph’s conduct likewise indicate a real guilt? If the Secretary’s financial harassments were severe enough a year ago to lead him into collusion with the French Minister, he might be in the pay of France at this very moment! If so, would he not make efforts at this time to delay ratification of the treaty with England in the hope of finally preventing it altogether? For a month the President’s intention had been firm: Great Britain should be notified, by way of a memorial to Hammond, that the treaty would be signed as soon as the offensive “provision order” was rescinded. This resolve he had reached in sole collaboration with the Secretary of State. If Randolph’s tactic was to postpone ratification indefinitely, the President was playing into his hands!
Washington summoned the Cabinet to his office the next morning. His colleagues greeted Randolph civilly if coolly, and nothing in the President’s demeanor betrayed his state of mind. The draft of the memorial to Hammond, which had been approved tentatively at Mount Vernon and returned to Randolph, was in the Secretary’s pocket; he expected now to submit it for minor revision. The President called instead for comments on the advisability of immediate ratification. Wolcott and Pickering argued in favor of such action. Randolph gave a statement of his view that Britain must be made to abandon the “provision order” before the President assented to the treaty. This order, he said, was totally incompatible with a spirit of diplomatic accord and with the principle of freedom of the seas; the government would emasculate its protests against British naval arrogance by acquiescing in the order; and surely the United States risked the justifiable wrath of France by combining with England to starve her. To the consternation of the Secretary of State, Washington seemed suddenly oblivious to this reasoning. Wolcott and Pickering renewed their polemics, and Bradford inclined to their side. Finally the Presid
ent arose and declared, “I will ratify the treaty.” Hammond should be so notified and a memorial delivered to him in course, without the stipulation Randolph desired. Instructions must be hurried to the American agent who now was to proceed with the formal exchange of ratifications in London.
If Washington later chose to explain his decision, he may have advanced the multiplying arguments of other Federalists that only an immediate ratification could counter the dangerous tide of opposition to both the treaty and the Government—and indeed this seemed the case. Addresses and resolutions were arriving from every corner of the land; a swell of diatribe threatened to obliterate public appreciation of every good feature of the treaty and erode the cement of the Union. Certain addresses were, in Washington’s opinion, so unreasonable, so abusive as to merit no acknowledgment at all. “Tenor indecent—no answer returned,” he wrote across the paper from Petersburg, Virginia. Others would have to be noticed. Accordingly, the President directed Randolph to release the reply to the Boston Selectmen and prepare similar answers for Portsmouth, Charleston, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, Trenton, Baltimore and Wilmington, Delaware. All these were posted in the next two days.
The week which followed the Cabinet meeting of August 12 must have been a torturing time for Washington. He met often with Randolph. Yet, because the Secretary’s part was essential in the ratification, the President thought it necessary to keep from his friend all knowledge of Fauchet’s incriminating despatch. If he exhibited the letter to Randolph or hinted its content, a storm would break over the Cabinet and its thunder would echo through the remotest town in the nation. The treaty would be irretrievably lost; the government would be shaken to its roots. Washington was convinced that the interest of the United States required an immediate ratification of the treaty. The guilt or innocence of the Secretary of State must not be brought to question until the treaty was safe.
A private interview with Randolph on the thirteenth must have tapped the deepest resources of Washington’s control. Randolph submitted for his inspection three diplomatic letters which had gone abroad in the last month and each of which announced unequivocally that there would be no ratification while the “provision order” remained operative. One, a circular to American envoys, was dated July 21; the others were to Monroe in Paris and bore dates of July 14 and 29. The last of these arrested Washington’s attention—here was a critique, a sharp one, of the Secretary’s most recent impressions of the departed Fauchet. Randolph had written:
Most thoroughly I am now persuaded that Mr. Fauchet has wrapped himself round with intrigue from the first moment of his career in the United States. He found me in no manner turned towards Britain, but warm towards France. He affected a confidence in me . . . He has more than once asserted his conviction that Mr. [Laforest, the French consul-general]—was perfidious and confederated with the enemies of France. He expressed his disgust and suspicions against Genet, endeavoring to inculcate an opinion that they were irreconcilable. He pretended great attachment to the President. The reverse of all this is now fixed upon my mind. His chief associates have been enemies of the Government and of the administration. His conversation has been steadily hostile to the Executive. I believe he has been instrumental in many of the printed attacks upon its reputation; that he has been in close league with Genet; that he has been plotting how to embroil this country with France; and that he has insidiously covered, with charges against the fidelity of [Laforest],—a bait to procure information from members of the Executive to whom he resorted. I was not one of them. . . .
There was more, much more. When the Secretary had gone, Washington read the letter again and made a précis. It could have been at this moment that the last vestige of his faith in Edmund Randolph was destroyed. Why, he may have asked himself, did Randolph attempt to connect other “members of the Executive” with Fauchet, and who could these have been? Of the officers of the Cabinet during Fauchet’s sixteen months at Philadelphia, Randolph alone was sympathetic in some degree to France. Was the Secretary afraid now that Fauchet would speak to Monroe in Paris and disclose a confidence he had obtained in America? Was Randolph trying to obscure the fact that he had conversed too freely with the French Minister? Did Randolph’s own letter bear out the allegation of “precious confessions” in Fauchet’s intercepted despatch? If questions like these arose in Washington’s mind, his sole conclusion could have been that Edmund Randolph had done something very wrong.
On August 14 the President visited Randolph at the Secretary’s house. They discussed the memorial for Hammond which had been reworded to exclude Randolph’s declaration that the treaty would go unsigned until the “provision order” was rescinded. The paper now stated that the President would ratify subject to the excision of Article XII as stipulated by the Senate and asserted a mild formal objection to the interpretation of contraband upon which the British admiralty based its orders-in-council. Since Hammond was leaving for New York the next morning, the Secretary was instructed to deliver the memorial that day. Before he left, the President had Randolph’s countersignature on the form of the ratification.
Every mail to Philadelphia brought new resolutions against the treaty. This popular movement, Pickering wrote Jay, could be halted only by a proclamation of the President’s intention to accept the treaty. He hoped Washington would issue “a solemn declaration . . . of the principles of his administration,” which might explain “the purity and patriotism of his conduct on the present occasion” by “his appealing to the train of actions which have marked his whole life.” Jay did not agree; nor did Washington, if the idea was presented to him. The treaty would be signed in two or three days; that action would speak for itself. On Saturday August 15 the President entertained a group of friends at dinner, among them Randolph. A note from Pickering awaited Washington Monday morning: the Secretary of War had completed his own draft of the ratification form, “somewhat different” from Randolph’s, and immediately would consult Wolcott and Bradford on this paper and the instructions to be sent to the American agent in London. All seemed in readiness. On August 18 the President signed the treaty.
Washington conversed that evening with Randolph, who was again his guest at table, but still he said nothing of Fauchet’s despatch and gave not the smallest clue that the Secretary was suspect. Now that the treaty was beyond danger the President could have taken this occasion to exhibit the letter to Randolph and interrogate him privately. He might have done so, except that his faith in his friend was failing by the hour. Sometime in the last six days, probably before the eighteenth, Washington had delivered a confidential memorandum to Pickering and Wolcott. The questions in it and the language of those questions were indicative. They showed the President was sure Randolph could not exculpate himself and that his removal was contemplated and its justification before the public planned. Washington retained no copy of this paper or of the replies of Pickering and Wolcott, if indeed these were in writing. Whether written or oral, their advice set a stage for the scene which followed on August 19.
Randolph was expected at the President’s office at nine o’clock for routine business, but word was sent that he should delay his call until half past ten. Meanwhile Washington met with Pickering and Wolcott to determine the manner in which the intercepted letter should be presented to the Secretary of State. Apparently on the ground that a request might be considered improper and be refused—the President and his counsellors decided not to apply to Fauchet’s successor for extracts of Despatches No. 3 and No. 6. Instead, they thought, a close observation of Randolph’s reactions would furnish “the best means of discovering his true situation and of duly estimating the defence he might make.” Accordingly the President decided that Pickering and Wolcott should be present when Despatch No. 10 was shown to Randolph and asked them to study Randolph’s countenance as he read the letter.
When he arrived at 10:30 the Secretary of State learned from the doorkeeper that Pickering and Wolcott were already in the President’s office a
nd had been there for some time. He went up immediately, thinking that perhaps Washington’s messenger had misinformed him and he was late for a meeting of the Cabinet. The President greeted Randolph with unusual formality, and Pickering and Wolcott followed his example. After a few words Washington drew a paper from his pocket. It was the original of Fauchet’s Despatch No. 10. “Mr. Randolph,” he said, “here is a letter which I desire you to read, and make such explanations as you choose.” Randolph took the document and read it through in silence; his composure was perfect, except for a slight flush at the very beginning. When he had finished, Randolph remarked that the letter must be an intercepted one; Washington nodded his head. “I will explain what I know,” the Secretary said; but, he added, his recollection might not be accurate on so spontaneous a call. He began his explanation, paragraph by paragraph, and was not interrupted; but the comments impressed Wolcott as profuse, “desultory” and contrived to produce time in which to concoct some justification for the incriminating passages. Of “precious confessions” Randolph said only that he could remember no improper communication to the French Minister—and that the words might be elucidated by that section of Despatch No. 3 to which Fauchet referred. When he came to “overtures” and “prices” in the sixteenth paragraph, he declared simply that he could not be sure, without access to Despatch No. 6, what was connoted by this language. Never, he declared positively, had he asked or received money from Fauchet; but he did recall that the French Minister once complained that Hammond was conspiring with certain New Yorkers to destroy him, Governor Clinton and other acknowledged Republicans, Randolph among them. He had answered this by suggesting that such machinations might be countered effectively by several able Americans whom Fauchet knew well, men with whom he had contracted for the purchase of flour. By way of conclusion, Randolph said he would be glad to throw all his ideas on paper if he were permitted to retain the letter. “Very well,” replied the President, “retain it.” Washington then asked Pickering and Wolcott if they cared to interrogate their colleague. This “style of proceeding” nettled Randolph. Pickering had no query, but Wolcott wished to know exactly what was meant by the observation that Hammond sought to “destroy” Fauchet, Clinton, Randolph and others. Obviously, Randolph replied, this meant that Hammond was attempting to destroy the influence and popularity of the men named. He turned to the President and asked if indeed there had not been a rumor in 1794 that Hammond was so engaged. Randolph then received a retort that shocked and chagrined him. He for one, Washington announced, certainly was not trying to conceal anything!
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