XYZ Affair - Background

Background

In the wake of the 1789 French Revolution, relations between the new French Republic and the United States became somewhat strained. In 1792 France and the rest of Europe went to war, a conflict in which President George Washington sought to keep the United States neutral. However, both France and Great Britain, the major naval powers in the war, seized ships of neutral powers (including those of the United States) that traded with their enemies. With the Jay Treaty, ratified in 1796, the United States reached an agreement on the matter with Britain that angered members of the Directory that governed France. The French Navy consequently stepped up its efforts to interdict American trade with Britain. By the time John Adams assumed the presidency in early 1797, the matter was reaching crisis proportions. In March 1797, not long after assuming office, President Adams learned that Charles Cotesworth Pinckney had been refused as U. S. ambassador, and that American ships had been seized in the Caribbean.