John Adams

by David McCullough

AT THE END of the first week in November, Adams’s long wait for news from France ended. The mission had succeeded. A treaty with France, the Convention of Mortefontaine, had been signed on October 3, 1800, at a château north of Paris. At a grand fete celebrating the event, Bonaparte declared that the differences between France and the United States had been no more than a family quarrel. Gifts were presented to the American envoys, toasts raised to perpetual peace between the two nations. The first report appeared in a Baltimore paper on November 7. Another month would pass before the official copy of the Convention arrived in Washington, at which point it would be submitted to the Senate for approval. The news had come too late to affect the election, but peace had truly been achieved. Though Adams could say nothing of it yet, the Quasi-War was over, and for Adams it was an immense victory.