Everything about The Xyz Affair totally explained
The
XYZ Affair was a
1798 diplomatic episode that worsened
relations between
France and the
United States and led to the
undeclared Quasi-War of
1798.
John Jay's
Treaty of
1795 angered France, which was at
war with
Great Britain and interpreted the
treaty as evidence of an
Anglo-American alliance.
U.S. President John Adams and his
Federalist Party had also been critical of the
tyranny and
extreme radicalism of the
French Revolution, further souring relations between France and the States.
Summary
The French seized nearly three hundred American
ships bound for British
ports in the
Atlantic Ocean and
Mediterranean and
Caribbean Seas. Federalist leaders such as
Alexander Hamilton called for war, but President Adams sent a diplomatic
delegation (
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney,
John Marshall, and
Elbridge Gerry) to
Paris in 1797 to
negotiate peace. Three French agents, Jean Conrad Hottinguer, Pierre Bellamy, and Lucien Hauteval, demanded a large cash
bribe for the delegation to speak to French
foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, a huge
loan to help fund the French wars as a condition for continuing negotiations, and a formal apology for comments made by Adams. The Americans broke off negotiations and went home.
Thomas Jefferson's
Democratic-Republican Party, sensing that the American delegates were to blame for the failure, demanded to see the key documents. Adams released the delegation's report—with the names of the French agents changed to X,Y,Z, hence the popular name of both the affair and the correspondence—setting off a firestorm of anti-French sentiment as Americans blamed the French.
France's refusal to negotiate with the
accredited U.S. representatives, let alone receive them, without bribes for its leading members and a loan for its
military incursions in
Europe seemed an extreme insult to Americans. The
public learned that the American delegates had rejected the demands. "The answer is no! No, not a
sixpence!" was their response (translated by
newspaper editors as "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!") .
The U.S. had offered France many of the same provisions found in Jay's Treaty with Britain, but France reacted by sending Marshall and Pinckney home. Gerry remained in France, thinking he could prevent a
declaration of war, but didn't officially negotiate any further.
The
Quasi-War erupted (1798-
1800), with American and French
warships and
merchants ships fighting in actual combat in the Caribbean and off the
east American coast. (It was called "quasi" because there was no formal war declaration.) The Americans
abrogated the
Franco-American Alliance. Adams began to build up the
navy, and a new army was raised. Full-scale war seemed at hand, but Adams appointed new diplomats led by
William Murray. They negotiated an end to hostilities through the 1800
Treaty of Mortefontaine. The XYZ Affair significantly weakened the affection Americans had for France.
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