In the spring of 1792, Morris received his credentials as minister to France. There had been determined opposition in the Senate to the confirmation of his appointment, which was finally carried only by a vote of sixteen to eleven, mainly through the exertions of Rufus King. His opponents urged the failure of the British negotiations, the evidences repeatedly given of his proud, impatient spirit, and above all his hostility to the French Revolution, as reasons why he should not be made minister. Washington, however, as well as Hamilton, King, and the other federalists, shared most of Morris's views with regard to the Revolution, and insisted upon his appointment.
But the president, as good and wise a friend as Morris had, thought it best to send him a word of warning, coupling with the statement of his own unfaltering trust and regard, the reasons why the new diplomat should observe more circumspection than his enemies thought him capable of showing. For his opponents asserted that his brilliant, lively imagination always inclined him to act so promptly as to leave no time for cool judgment, and was, wrote Washington, "the primary cause of those sallies which too often offend, and of that ridicule of character which begets enmity not easy to be forgotten, but which might easily be avoided if it were under the control of caution and prudence.... By reciting [their objections] I give you a proof of my friendship, if I give none of my policy."
Morris took his friend's advice in good part, and profited by it as far as lay in his nature. He knew that he had a task of stupendous difficulty before him; as it would be almost impossible for a minister to steer clear of the quarrels springing from the ferocious hatred born to each other by the royalists and the various republican factions. To stand well with all parties he knew was impossible: but he thought it possible, and merely so, to stand _well_ with the best people in each, without greatly offending the others; and in order to do this, he had to make up his mind to mingle with the worst as well as the best, to listen unmoved to falsehoods so foul and calumnies so senseless as to seem the ravings of insanity; and meanwhile to wear a front so firm and yet so courteous as to ward off insult from his country and injury from himself during the days when the whole people went crazy with the blood-lust, when his friends were butchered by scores around him, and when the rulers had fulfiled Mirabeau's terrible prophecy, and had "paved the streets with their bodies."