In 1789, George Washington took office as the first American president — just as the French Revolution was about to erupt. In 1794, he sent James Monroe to serve as the first international ambassador to Paris, which was still reeling from the Reign of Terror. Monroe was resourceful in getting his bearings in the shifting social and political sands. He had major accomplishments, including protecting U.S. trade from French attacks and achieving the release of patriot Thomas Paine and Adrienne de Lafayette, the wife of the Marquis de Lafayette, from French jails. But the French Revolution led to war between Britain and France in 1793, and after Monroe arrived in France the U.S. and Great Britain concluded the Jay Treaty. The treaty outraged the French because it appeared to favor Britain. Monroe had not been fully briefed on the treaty but he was tasked with repairing the rift it caused. Indeed, he achieved some success in what was probably an impossible task. Washington recalled Monroe from his post in November 1796 and he returned to the United States. Monroe’s letters provide our best window into his thinking and that of his correspondents, the prevailing atmosphere in that turbulent era, and the efforts he made to perform his duty in good faith.

Hill contends that French officials in the postwar decade had already perceived a deep-rooted Amer. indifference, even hostility, to a number of vital French nat. interests. The author examines the harsh disappointments & frustrations these officials experienced in their dealings with Amer. in the 1780s, whether on the high seas, or in U.S. courts & customs houses, in the halls of Congress, or in their encounters with Amer. attitudes. These essays add to what is already known about France's difficulties with the U.S. in this era. Not so well known, however, are: how French officials perceived these problems; what solutions they sought; or how keenly frustrated they became when, despite Amer. protestations of gratitude for French assistance during the war for independence, they found self-interested Amer. unwilling to heed the least claims of an erstwhile ally.

"This work examines James Monroe's efforts to build, dismantle-and then later rebuild-a system of political parties in the early American republic"--