In early 1800, hoping to bring an end to the Quasi-War (1798-1800) with France, President John Adams sent three peace commissioners--Oliver Ellsworth, William Richardson Davie, and William Vans Murray--to Paris to negotiate a settlement. The commissioners found that conditions had changed in France and that with the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, a settlement was possible. After several delays and months of negotiations, the two countries agreed to the Convention of 1800, which is sometimes referred to as the Treaty of Mortefontaine.

The agreement had four main provisions. First and foremost, it established "a firm, inviolable, and universal peace, and a true and sincere Friendship between the French Republic, and the United States of America," ending more than two years of naval warfare between the two countries. Second, the treaty declared that since the United States and France could not agree on the status and meaning of the treaties of 1778, which had created a military alliance and close commercial relations, both countries consented to delay a final resolution on the interpretation of these treaties until "a convenient time" for further negotiations; the Convention stipulated that until "that convenient time," the treaties "shall have no operation." Third, since France and the United States could also not agree on indemnities for the hundreds of merchant ships seized and condemned by France before and during the Quasi-War, the issue of compensation for the ship owners would also be left open for future negotiations at "a convenient time." More immediately, however, France and the United States agreed to return any ships that had been captured and not yet condemned. Finally, the Convention clarified commercial relations between the two countries, providing most-favored-nation trading status for their merchant vessels, defining war contraband narrowly, and asserting the ideal that "free ships shall give a freedom to goods."

The Convention of 1800 was not a diplomatic triumph since all it did was end the war and did not address the seizure of millions of dollars worth of U.S. shipping. Recognizing this problem, in February 1801 a Senate dominated by the Federalist Party initially refused to ratify the treaty without a proviso, insisting that the issue of indemnity could be put off for only eight years. Napoleon refused to accept this change, and the result was that a final version of the treaty dropped any call for indemnity and any provision to reconsider the military alliance. Content to swap the demand for indemnity for ending the French alliance, a newly elected Senate controlled by the Democratic-Republican Party ratified the treaty in December 1801.

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