The important fact to be noted
at this time is that the movement of the people across the continent
went on steadily, whatever might be the aspect of affairs on the
Atlantic coast.
The foreign relations of the United States were rapidly coming to a
point which would terminate the predominance of European influence on
American political parties. The struggle of the French people for
liberty, which had appealed so powerfully to Jefferson and his
followers, was now lost in the ambitions of Napoleon. "I had hoped,"
said Jefferson at a later time, "that he would have seen the difference
between the example of a Cromwell and a Washington." Ten years before,
Jefferson would willingly have seen his countrymen fighting side by
side with the French patriots against monarchical England; but to be
allied with Napoleon meant to further the ends of Napoleon. With the
single exception of the Louisiana transaction, Jefferson's diplomatic
administration is a story of European intrigue and imposition upon an
impotent and helpless neutral. American commercial rights were lost
sight of in the world-struggle between Napoleon and his enemies.
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