Pierre-Auguste, chevalier Adet (17 May 1763 – 19 March 1834) was a French scientist, politician, and diplomat. He worked with Lavoisier on a new chemical notation system, and was secretary to the scientific periodical Annales de chimie, founded in 1789.[citation needed]
He proved that glacial acetic acid and vinegar acetic acid were the same substance.[1]
In 1796, Adet was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.[2] He was secretary to the Minister of the Navy and the Colonies, Jean Dalbarade. He was commissioner to Saint-Domingue. He later became French ambassador to the United States, He sent Victor Collot on a reconnaissance of the Ohio River, and Mississippi River.[3][4] In 1803, he was Prefect of the Nièvre département. In 1809, he was a member of the Corps législatif.
1796 presidential election
As French minister (ambassador) to the United States, Adet openly supported the Democratic-Republican Party and its presidential nominee, Thomas Jefferson, while attacking the Federalist Party and its presidential nominee, John Adams.[5]
Adet claimed that Adams was an enemy of France, which was accurate, and was a friend of England – which was an exaggeration. Adet encouraged American friends of France to vote for Jefferson; Federalists responded by attacking Adet for interfering in American politics. The French First Republic responded with a decree announcing seizures of American ships in the West Indies, and that American sailors in British service would be treated as pirates. In effect, a limited maritime war against American commerce began a few days before Adams was inaugurated in 1797. Adams responded by calling a special session of Congress, asking it to enact defense measures to prepare for war. However, he also sent a special mission to France to resolve the dispute. The mission proved to be a disaster called the XYZ Affair. It led to an undeclared war called the Quasi-War.[6]
The foreign intrigue France perpetrated was unsuccessful, as Adams won the election with an electoral vote count of 71–68. A significant factor in thwarting the French efforts was George Washington’s Farewell Address, which condemned foreign meddling in America.[5]
See also
References
- ^ Priestley 1797.
- ^ “APS Member History”. search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-03-31.
- ^
Tom Eblen (2017-03-19). “Kentucky invasion? Rare spy map shows French plans for frontier America”. Kentucky Herald-Leader. Maysville, Kentucky. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
In 1796, Pierre-Auguste Adet, the French ambassador to the United States, assigned Collot, an expert mapmaker and former governor of Guadeloupe, to make a frontier reconnaissance mission to assess whether a land-grab might be possible.
- ^ Collot, Georges-Henri-Victor, 1750-1805 (2014). “American Journeys: Collot Expedition of 1796”. Wisconsin Historical Society. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ a b Dawson, Matthew. Partisanship and the Birth of America’s Second Party, 1796–1800: Stop the Wheels of Government, pp. 38–39 (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000).
- ^ DeConde 1963, pp. 66-67
Sources
- DeConde, Alexander (1963), A History of American Foreign Policy, New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- Priestley, Joseph (1797). Considerations on the Doctrine of Phlogiston, and the Decomposition of Water. Vol. 2. Philadelphia: Printed by Thomas Dobson. Retrieved 2026-04-07.
External links
Further reading
- McDonald, E. (1970). “Adet, Pierre-August”. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. pp. 64–65. ISBN 0-684-10114-9.
- Conlin M. F. (2000). “The American mission of citizen Pierre-Auguste Adet: Revolutionary chemistry and diplomacy in the early republic”. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. 124 (4): 489–520.
