war from three of the greatest Powers of Europe. By what resources of skill or character President Jefferson was to restrain this disorder from becoming chaos, only a prophet could foretell. If ever the Federalist "crisis" seemed close at hand, it was in December, 1805. Some energetic impulse could alone save the country from drifting into faction at home and violence abroad.
All might go well if England, France, and Spain could be obliged to respect law. To restrain these three governments was Jefferson's most urgent need. The three envoys waited to see what act of energy he would devise to break through the net which had been drawn about him. Turreau enjoyed most of his confidence; and soon after the meeting of Congress, at the time when Jefferson was publicly using "strong language toward Spain," meant to produce an effect at the Tuileries, Turreau wrote interesting accounts of his private conversation for the guidance of Talleyrand and Napoleon:[1]—
- "One may perhaps draw some inferences in regard to the true sense of the Message from some words which escaped the President in a private conversation with me. 'I see with pain,' he said, 'that our people have a tendency toward commerce which no other kind of interest will be able to balance; we should be essentially agricultural, and yet agriculture will never be more than a secondary interest here.' . . . In a preceding interview
- ↑ Turreau to Talleyrand, Jan. 20, 1806; Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
