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XYZ Affair By:Scottie Semen Matt Jagodzinski and Kayla Rodriguez media type="custom" key="7561199" align="right"
 * What Was the XYZ Affair?[[image:http://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/magnify-clip.png width="15" height="11" align="right" link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Property_protected_%C3%A0_la_fran%C3%A7oise.jpg"]]**

The XYZ Affair was a diplomatic incident that almost led to war between the United States and France. The scandal inflamed U.S. public opinion and led to the passage of the ALIEN AND SEDITION ACTS of 1798 (1 Stat. 570, 596). Though the affair caused an unofficial naval war, the two countries were able to negotiate their differences and end their conflict in 1800.The XYZ Affair, name usually given to an incident (1797-98) in Franco-American diplomatic relations.


 * What Lead to The XYZ Affair?**

The United States had in 1778 entered into an alliance with France, but after the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars,America was both unable and unwilling to lend aid. The anti-French Federalists gained the upper hand in the United States, and there was considerable antagonism toward France, particularly after the Genet affair. The conclusion of Jay's Treaty with England, which partially vitiated the agreements with France, aroused French anger. Numerous American ships were seized by French privateers, and the countries drifted into a mutually hostile attitude.


 * What Happened During The XYZ Affair?**

President Washington sent Charles Cotesworth Pinckney as minister to France, but the French government refused to receive him. Shortly afterward John Adams, the new President, sent (1797) John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry to join Pinckney on a peace mission to France. This three-man commission was immediately confronted by the refusal of French foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand to receive it officially. Indirect suggestions of loans and bribes to France were made to the commissioners through Mme de Villette, a friend of Talleyrand. Negotiations were carried on through her with Jean Conrad Hottinguer and Lucien Hauteval, both Swiss, and a Mr. Bellamy, an American banker in Hamburg; the three were designated X, Y, and Z in the mission's dispatches to the United States. The proposal that the Americans pay Talleyrand about $250,000 before the French government would even deal with them created an uproar when it was released in the United States, where the pro-British party welcomed the chance to worsen Franco-American relations.


 * What Was The Result of The XYZ Affair?**

The U.S. representatives made no progress and the mission broke up, Marshall coming home, Pinckney taking a sick daughter to S. France, and Gerry, a Republican and Francophile, remaining in France temporarily. Meanwhile, an undeclared naval war ensued between France and the United States. Both Talleyrand and President Adams wished to avoid a declaration of war. In 1799 Adams, to the intense disgust of the Federalist leader, Alexander Hamilton, named William Vans Murray the U.S. minister to France and assigned Oliver Ellsworth and William Richardson Davie to accompany him. The result was the Treaty of Mortefontaine (Sept. 30, 1800), known as the Convention of 1800, a commercial agreement that improved relations between the two nations. The XYZ Affair contributed to American patriotic legend in the reply Pinckney is supposed to have made to a French request for money, "Millions for defense, sir, but not one cent for tribute." This reply was certainly not made, but a better case can be made for the alternate version, "No, no, not a sixpence."


 * How Does The XYZ Affair Relate To The Science Fair Theme?**

The XYZ affair relates to the theme because it was a failure to maintain peace with France. This is because France thought the Americans were unhelpful when France needed the the united states to help them during their French Revolutionary wars, after in which The Americans made an alliance with them previously. The French were angered by this ,and almost started a naval war. this dispute wasnt solved because of the frence ambassdors who asked the united states diplomats to for a bribe to stop attacking our naval ships.The united states diplomats who were Charles Pickney,John Marshall, Elbridge Gerry, demanded that the french would treat america with respect and take this new country as a joke. when the americans got word of how disrespectufully the french had treated our diplomats, many wanted to go to war, Geroge Washington was willing to come out of retirenment to lead the arny in another war. President Adams wanted further nagotiation with france so they didn't have to fight aother war which would make our newly formed country indebt and in a war.This showed to the world that America wanted to be treated with respect.

Bibliography: []"xyz affair ." //Teacher Tube//. Web. 22 Nov 2010. . "XYZ Affair." //Libary of Congress//. Web. 22 Nov 2010. [].

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