The first great test of American diplomacy after the War of Independence occurred towards the end of the 1790s, when the infant United States squared up to Revolutionary France in what became known as the Quasi-War. In November 1794 the U.S. government had agreed a treaty with Britain (known as Jay’s Treaty after its chief negotiator on the American side, John Jay) dealing with a number of issues, relating to debt, British forts and the boundary between the United States and Canada, which had remained unresolved after the Revolutionary War. Britain was at this time at war with France; although the U.S. remained formally neutral, the increase in trade with Britain as a result of Jay’s Treaty – as well as the U.S. government’s refusal to honor debts to France that had been contracted under the ancien régime – prompted the French navy to begin a campaign against American merchant shipping. The United States at this time did not have a navy of its own, and, deprived of the British protection of old, hundreds of American ships were intercepted and seized.

This letter was written in June 1798 by John Jay, by now governor of New York, to William North, one of the two New York senators. By this time Congress had voted to arm American merchant ships, but there had been no declaration of war. Jay discusses the problems in Franco-American relations and accuses the French of duplicity, since they "persuade their deluded followers that the [U.S.] Government is chargeable not only with precipitation [of hostilities] but with a desire to prevent an accommodation… notwithstanding the treatment of our envoys."

These envoys – Charles Pinckney, John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry – were the subject of what became known as the 'XYZ Affair'. Having gone to France in the summer of 1797 to try to negotiate a settlement, they were denied official access to the foreign minister, Charles de Talleyrand. They were, however, assured unofficially by three emissaries that the payment of a bribe and guarantees of a $10 million loan to the French government would open Talleyrand’s door. When the American government revealed these demands (naming the emissaries only as 'X', 'Y' and 'Z'), popular agitation for war soared, and on 7 July 1798, Congress annulled the 1778 treaty which made the U.S. and France allies and authorized attacks on French warships. During the following months the hastily formed U.S. navy succeeded in forcing French ships out of American waters. Yet President John Adams, determined to adhere to George Washington’s policy of keeping the United States neutral in European conflicts and aware of the size and prowess of France’s armed forces, refused to countenance outright war. The Quasi-War persisted until September 1800, when a new treaty wrote off the value of the seized U.S. ships in return for a formal termination of the Franco-American alliance.