Without noticing a want of decorum in some CHAP. VI. of the expressions which Mr. Genet had employed, 1793. he was informed that the subjects on which his letter treated had, from respect to him, been reconsidered by the executive, but that no cause was perceived for changing the system which had been adopted. He was further informed that, in the opinion of the president, the United States owed it to themselves and to the nations in their friendship, to expect, as a reparation for the offence of infringing their sovereignty, that the vessels thus illegally equipped would depart from their ports. In these decisions, Mr. Genet did not seem disposed to aquiesce. Adhering to his own construction of the existing treaty, he affected to consider the measures of the American government as infractions of it, which no power in the nation had a right to make, unless the United States in congress assembled should determine that their solemn engagements should no longer be performed. Intoxicated with the sentiments which were expressed by a great portion of the people, and unacquainted with the firm character of the executive, he seems to have expected that the popularity of his nation would enable him to overthrow that department, or to render it subservient to his views. It is difficult otherwise to account for his persisting to disregard its decisions, and for passages with which his letters abound, such as the following. "Every obstruction by the government of the United States to the arming of French vessels 1793. CHAP. VI. must be an attempt on the rights of man, upon which repose the independence and laws of the United States; a violation of the ties which unite the people of France and America; and even a manifest contradiction of the system of neutrality of the president; for, in fact, if our merchant vessels, or others, are not allowed to arm themselves, when the French alone are resisting the league of all the tyrants against the liberty of the people, they will be exposed to inevitable ruin in going out of the ports of the United States, which is certainly not the intention of the people of America. Their fraternal voice has resounded from every quarter around me, and their accents are not equivocal. They are pure as the hearts of those by whom they are expressed, and the more they have touched my sensibility, the more they must interest in the happiness of America the nation I represent ;...the more I wish, sir, that the federal government should observe, as far as in their power, the public engagements contracted by both nations; and that, by this generous and prudent conduct, they will give at least to the world, the example of a true neutrality, which does not consist in the cowardly abandonment of their friends in the moment when danger menaces them, but in adhering strictly, if they can do no better, to the obligations they have contracted with them. It is by such proceedings that they * The regulation alluded to as was stated by Mr. Jefferson in reply, did not relate to vessels arming for defence, but to cruisers against the enemies of France. will render themselves respectable to all the CHAP. VI. powers; that they will preserve their friends and 1793. deserve to augment their numbers." A few days previous to the letter of which the above is an extract, two citizens of the United States, who had been engaged by Mr. Genet in Charleston to cruise in the service of France, were arrested by the civil magistrate, in pursuance of the determination formed by the executive for the prosecution of persons having thus offended against the laws, Mr. Genet demanded their release in the following extraordinary terms. "I have this moment been informed that two officers in the service of the republic of France, citizen Gideon Henfield and John Singletary, have been arrested on board the privateer of the French republic, the citizen Genet, and conducted to prison. The crime laid to their charge...the crime which my mind cannot conceive, and which my pen almost refuses to state,...is the serving of France, and defending with her children the common glorious cause of liberty. "Being ignorant of any positive law or treaty which deprives Americans of this privilege, and authorizes officers of police arbitrarily to take mariners in the service of France from on board their vessels, I call upon your intervention, sir, and that of the president of the United States, in order to obtain the immediate releasement of the above mentioned officers, who have acquired by the sentiments animating them, and by the act of their engagement, anterior to every act to the contrary, CHAP. VI. the right of French citizens, if they have lost that of American citizens." 1793. State of parties. This lofty offensive style could not fail to make a deep impression on a mind penetrated with a just sense of those obligations which bind the chief magistrate to guard the dignity of his gov. ernment, and imperiously require that he will not permit his nation to be degraded in his person. Yet, in no single instance, did the administration, in its communications with Mr. Genet, permit itself to be betrayed into the use of one intemperate expression. The firmness with which the extravagant pretensions of that gentleman were resisted, proceeding entirely from a sense of duty and conviction of right, was unaccompanied with any marks of that resentment which his language and his conduct were alike calculated to inspire. A high respect and affection for his nation, with an earnest desire to promote its interests, so far as might be compatible with the situation of the United States, continued to be invariably manifested by the American executive. From acquiescing in a line of conduct thus deliberately adopted and prudently pursued, Mr. Genet appears to have been prevented by a belief that the sentiments of the people were in direct opposition to the measures of their government. So excessive and so general were the demonstrations which they made of enthusiastic devotion to France; so open were their expressions of outrage and hostility towards all the powers at war with that republic; so thin was the veil which covered the chief magistrate from that stream of malignant opprobrium directed against every measure which CHAP. VI. thwarted the views of Mr. Genet; that a person 1793. less sanguine than that minister might have cherished the hope of being able ultimately to triumph over the opposition he experienced. Civic festivals, and other public assemblages of people, at which the ensigns of France were displayed in union with those of America; at which the red cap, as a symbol of French liberty and fraternity, triumphantly passed from head to head; at which toasts were given expressive of a desire to identify the people of America with those of France; and under the imposing guise of adhering to principles not to men, containing allusions to the influence of the president which could not be mistaken; appeared to Mr. Genet to indicate a temper extremely favourable to his hopes, and very different from that which would be required for the preservation of an honest neutrality. Through the medium of the press, these sentiments were communicated to the public, and were represented as flowing from the hearts of the great body of the people. In various other modes, that important engine contributed its powerful aid to the extension of opinions calculated essentially to vary the situation of the United States. The proclamation of neutrality, which was treated as a royal edict, was not only considered as assuming powers not belonging to the executive, and, as evidencing the monarchical tendencies of that department, but as demonstrating the disposition of the government to break its connexions with France, and to dissolve the friendship which united the people |