XYZ Affair

A diplomatic incident in 1798 between the United States and France during a period when French privateers were regularly seizing U.S. merchant ships and the U.S. government was contemplating a naval war. President John Adams dispatched envoys to negotiate with France's foreign minister, who refused to meet them but instead had his own envoys approach the Americans, inviting them to pay tribute and extend a loan to France in order to stop the privateering. This offer was refused; the anonymous French agents, referred to as X, Y, and Z in Adams' report to Congress, were vilified, and public outcry led to the Congress authorizing 1, 000 privateers to capture or repel French vessels.

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Xyz Affair of 1797–1798 led to an undeclared naval war between France and the United States. This diplomatic crisis had its beginnings in 1778, when the United States entered into a military alliance with the French; however, when the French were unable to completely fulfill the terms of the alliance, anti-French sentiments erupted in the United States. The 1794 Jay'S Treaty, concluded between the United States and Britain, angered the French, who retaliated by seizing American ships at sea. In 1796, President George Washington attempted to replace the American minister to France, James Monroe, who had been friendly to the causes of the French Revolution, with Charles Pinckney, whom the French refused to accept. As a result, in 1797 Pinckney returned to France accompanied by John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry, to try to repair relations and to negotiate a new treaty. Bolstered by military victories, the French government asked for a $250,000 loan from the United States before agreeing to meet with the American representatives. Conveyed through three negotiators, a Swiss banker, Jean Hottinguer, known as "Mr. X" in correspondence from John Adams; an American banker in Hamburg, Germany, Mr. Bellamy, "Mr. Y"; and Lucien Hauteval, also Swiss, "Mr. Z," these requests met with outrage in the United States. Consequently, the mission failed, and the undeclared naval war ensued until the Convention of 1800 improved commercial relations between France and the United States.

Bibliography

Smith, Mark A. "Crisis, Unity, and Partisanship: The Road to the Sedition Act." Ph.D diss., University of Virginia, 1998.

Stinchcombe, William. The XYZ Affair. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980.

France and England had been at war for four years when John Adams took office in 1797. Both nations stopped American ships at sea and seized cargoes they believed were destined for their enemies. Jay's Treaty (1795) had produced a level of understanding between the United States and Great Britain. Adams sent a team of diplomats in the summer of 1797 to negotiate an agreement with France. However, French foreign minister Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord refused to meet with the Americans. Instead, he sent three aides and several demands, including a $250,000 payment by the United States to begin the negotiations.

Adams learned of the demands by dispatch. Some member of his cabinet urged war against France and an alliance with England. Adams decided to prepare for war but to continue negotiations. Congress pressed Adams to make public the French demands. He did so, but referred to the three French envoys as X, Y, and Z. The American public was outraged at French conduct, and war fever swept the country. An unofficial conflict ensued on the seas between France and the United States called the Quasi War (1798-1800). Meanwhile, Adams was able to use the XYZ Affair to win support from Congress for expanding the army and creating a separate naval force.

A diplomatic scandal involving France and the United States in 1797- 1798.

The XYZ Affair was a diplomatic incident that almost led to war between the United States and France. The scandal inflamed U.S. public opinion and led to the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 (1 Stat. 570, 596). Though the affair caused an unofficial naval war, the two countries were able to negotiate their differences and end their conflict in 1800.

The affair took place during one of the Napoleonic wars between France and Great Britain. The French regarded the United States as a hostile nation, particularly after the signing of Jay's Treaty in 1794. This treaty settled some of the problems that continued to cause friction between the United States and Great Britain after the peace treaty of 1783 that granted the colonies independence. Consequently, President John Adams appointed Charles Pinckney minister to France in 1796 in an attempt to ease French-U.S. relations.

After Charles Talleyrand, the French foreign minister, refused to recognize Pinckney, Adams appointed a commission to France, consisting of Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry. Before official negotiations on a treaty to establish peaceful relations and normalize trade could occur, Talleyrand sent three French agents to meet with the commission members. The agents suggested that Talleyrand would agree to the treaty if he received from the United States a $250,000 bribe and France received a $10 million loan. The commission refused, with Pinckney quoted as saying, "No! No! Not a sixpence!"

Outraged, the commission sent a report to Adams, who inserted the letters X, Y and Z in place of the agents' names and forwarded the report to Congress. Congress and the public were angered at the attempted blackmail. An undeclared naval war took place between the two nations between 1798 and 1800. Anticipating a declared war with France, Congress enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts. These internal security laws were aimed at French and Irish immigrants, who were thought to be supportive of France. The acts lengthened the period of naturalization for aliens, authorized the president to expel any alien considered dangerous, permitted the detention of subjects of an enemy nation, and limited freedom of the press.

Talleyrand, unwilling to risk a declared war with the United States, sought an end to the dispute. The next U.S. delegation sent to France was treated with appropriate respect, and the Treaty of Morfontaine, which restored normal relations between France and the United States, was signed in 1800.

Y

See: Virginia and Kentucky Resolves.

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