PEACE TREATY OF MORTEFONTAINE. - Law ordering the promulgati - Lot 58

PEACE TREATY OF MORTEFONTAINE. - Law ordering the promulgation of the convention concluded on 8 vendémiaire, an IX [September 30, 1800], between the French Republic and the United States of America. 15 frimaire, an X [6 decembre 1801]. In Bulletin des lois de la République, n° 139. À Paris, de l'Imprimerie de la République, [1801]. Small in-8, 16 pp. numbered 517 to 532. Text of the treaty itself, negotiated by Joseph Bonaparte on one side and Oliver Ellsworth, United States Minister Plenipotentiary in France on the other, accompanied here by the ratifications, one by President John Adams (in English with French translation) and the other by First Consul Bonaparte. Bound to the United States since 1778 by a treaty of military alliance, France had constituted itself as a Republic in 1792, and in 1793 found itself pitted against a coalition of European monarchies. The United States, however, not only remained neutral, but also delayed repayment of its debt, claiming that the new regime was no longer the royal France with which it had dealt. In his memoirs, Talleyrand even wrote that George Washington did not forgive the French Republic for "its excesses towards Louis XVI, whom he regarded as the liberator and friend of his country". Following a series of blunders, French ambassador Edmond Genêt was recalled, and the Americans drew closer to the English, signing a trade treaty with them in 1794. Talleyrand, the Directoire's Minister of Foreign Affairs, negotiated relatively flexibly on the points essential to improving relations between France and the United States, but attached conditions that were difficult to accept: financial facilities to be granted to France and a bribe to be paid to him personally ("douceur"). President John Adams refused to comply: Americans and French began boarding ships, and some military engagements even took place at sea in the West Indies. This state of "quasi-war", because it did not lead to open belligerence, lasted three years until the Treaty of Mortefontaine was signed under the Consulate: the old treaty of alliance of 1778 was annulled, but peace was finally restored.