The suggestion that the President should be given discretionary authority in the matter of procuring ships of the line contemplated the possibility of obtaining them by transfer from England, not through formal alliance but as an incident of a cooeperation to be arranged by negotiation, whose objects would also include aid in placing a loan and permission for American ships to join British convoys.

This feature of McHenry's recommendations could not be curried out Pickering soon informed Hamilton that the old animosities were still so active "in some breasts" that the plan of cooperation was impracticable.
Meanwhile the composite mission had accomplished nothing except to make clear the actual character of French policy.

When the envoys arrived in France, the Directory had found in Napoleon Bonaparte an instrument of power that was stunning Europe by its tremendous blows.

That instrument had not yet turned to the reorganization of France herself, and at the time it served the rapacious designs of the Directory.

Europe was looted wherever the arms of France prevailed, and the levying of tribute both on public and on private account was the order of the day.