ABSTRACT
Jefferson had become, on the level of diplomacy, a skilled and seasoned professional negotiator who could match wits with the best emissaries the European nations sent and with the men who sat and pulled the policy strings in the European capitals. Jefferson as a diplomat did not make the mistake of confusing his own ideological sympathies with the American national interest. Jefferson's diplomatic objectives had a strong and disarming simplicity about them. One of the products of Jefferson's basic foreign policy approach was not to come to fruition until 1795, after he had resigned as secretary of state. It was Pinckney's treaty with Spain, by which the United States gained free navigation of the Mississippi and a clear boundary demarcation and a settlement of other outstanding disputes. Jefferson was bitter at what he considered a humiliating surrender to the British.
