and the more he exerted himself to appear above his vexations, the more he exposed himself to ridicule.
General Turreau, with grim amusement, reported faithfully what he saw and heard. At one moment Jefferson, trying to discover some plan for checking British authority, broached to the minister of Napoleon a scheme for uniting all Christian Powers in a novel alliance against each other's aggressions.
- "Your Excellency will of course understand," wrote the sardonic Turreau to the saturnine Talleyrand,[1] "that it is not a system of armed neutrality which Mr. Jefferson would like to see established. Everything which tends to war is too far removed from his philanthropic principles, as it is from the interests of his country and the predominant opinion. The guaranty of neutrals would repose on the inert force of all the Powers against the one that should violate the neutral compact, and whose vessels would then find all foreign ports shut to them."
Turreau was amused by the incongruity of inviting Napoleon Bonaparte not only to protect neutral rights, but to do so by peaceful methods, and to join with Great Britain in a Christian confederation which should have for its main object the protection of American commerce, in order to save President Jefferson the expense of protecting it himself; but the humor of the scheme was not to be compared with its rashness. Had Jefferson foreseen the future, he
- ↑ Turreau to Talleyrand, Jan. 15, 1806; Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
