In the midst of the warlike preparations, when the two republics seemed determined to test the patience of each other; when the Jeffersonians were bound hand and foot by the war craze; when Hamilton awaited the word which would at last league his country with England against French fanaticism and would also bring a realisation of his dream of a military command--in the midst of all this, President Adams, in February, suddenly sent to the Senate the nomination of the American Minister at The Hague to be an envoy to France! The Federalists were dumfounded at his change of position. If negotiations were renewed, peace might follow. Peace with France would mean hostility with England, if not a revival of the danger of absorption by French intrigue. Proud in their strength, the Federalists had assembled only to be undone and their warlike preparations made into an idle show by the actions of this headstrong John Adams, who insisted upon being the President of his own administration, and who would not take seasonable advice from his party. He had done what the members of his Cabinet had feared, although they now pretended to be surprised. For three months past he had invited suggestions for envoys in case France should yield, had drawn up a form of proposed treaty, and had ridiculed the idea of a French invasion of the United States. "There is no more prospect of seeing a French army here than in heaven," he said. Enforced by Hamilton, who "chanced to be present," the members of his Cabinet had wrestled with him for hours in a private conference at Trenton to turn him from his purpose of conciliation rather than war. He informed them, as he later informed Congress, that he had received assurance from Talleyrand that if another representative should be sent to France from the United States he would undoubtedly be received with the respect due to the representative of a free, independent, and powerful nation, thus using almost the precise words of Adams.
By the time the new envoys, whose appointment the Federalists did not dare openly to oppose, reached France, the Directory had fallen and Napoleon was First Consul. He saw the usefulness of the United States to his plans as a friend rather than an enemy, and was ready to bury all grievances in a treaty. The three envoys, Murray, Ellsworth, and Davie, had no difficulty in getting the United States relieved from the treaty obligation of 1778 and in arranging compensation for the damages inflicted on American commerce. Thus was closed by the Treaty of 1800 the series of events which came so near involving in war the two nations, the allies of a few years before.