The old irritating questions of impressment and blockade and the exclusion of the United States from the West Indies trade remained.
In July Mr.Gallatin parted from Mr.Baring and his London friends on his homeward journey.

From New York, on September 4, he wrote Madison, thanking him for the appointment of minister to France as an "evidence of undiminished attachment and of public satisfaction for his services;" but he still held his acceptance in abeyance.

To Jefferson, two days later, he had also the satisfaction to say with justice, that the character of the United States stood as "high as ever it did on the European continents, and higher than ever it did in Great Britain;" and that the United States was considered "as the nation designed to check the naval despotism of England." To Jefferson he naturally spoke of that France from which they had drawn some of their inspirations and their doctrines.
He thus describes the condition of the people:-- "The revolution (the political change of 1789) has not, however, been altogether useless.

There is a visible improvement in the agriculture of the country and the situation of the peasantry.

The new generation belonging to that class, freed from the petty despotism of nobles and priests, and made more easy in their circumstances by the abolition of tithes, and the equalization of taxes, have acquired an independent spirit, and are far superior to their fathers in intellect and information; they are not republicans and are still too much dazzled by military glory; but I think that no monarch or ex-nobles can hereafter oppress them long with impunity." And again, "Exhausted, degraded, and oppressed as France now is, I do not despair of her ultimate success in establishing her independence and a free form of government." But it was not till half a century later that Gambetta, the Mirabeau of the Republic, led France to the full possession of her material forces, and reestablished in their original vigor the principles of 1789.