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the war, he undertakes to arm & engage them. When they forbid vessels to be fitted in their ports for cruising on nations with whom they are at peace, he commissions them to fit and cruise. When they forbid an unceded jurisdiction to be exercised within their territory by foreign agents, he undertakes to uphold that exercise, & to avow it openly. The privateers Citoyen Genet & Sans Culottes having been fitted out at Charleston (though without the permission of the government, yet before it was forbidden) the President only required they might leave our ports, & did not interfere with their prizes. Instead, however, of their quitting our ports, the Sans Culottes remains still, strengthening & equipping herself, & the Citoyen Genet went out only to cruise on our coast, & to brave the authority of the country by returning into port again with her prizes.-Tho' in the letter of June 5 the final determination of the President was communicated, that no future armaments in our ports should be permitted, the Vainqueur de la Bastille was afterwards equipped & commissioned in Charleston, the Anti-George in Savannah, the Carmagnole in Delaware, a schooner & a sloop in Boston, & the Polly or Republican was attempted to be equipped in N. York, & was the subject of reclamation by mr. Genet, in a style which certainly did not look like relinquishing the practice. The Little Sarah or Little Democrat was armed, equipped & manned, in the port of Philadelphia, under the very eye of the government, as if meant to insult it. Having fallen down the river, & being evidently on the point of departure for a cruise, mr. Genet was desired in my letter of July 12, on the part of the President, to detain her till some inquiry & determination on the case should be had. Yet within three or four days after, she was sent out by orders from mr. Genet himself, & is, at this time, cruising on our coasts, as appears by the protest of the master of one of our vessels maltreated by her.

The government thus insulted & set at defiance by mr. Genet, committed in it's duties & engagements to others, determined still to see in these proceedings but the character of the individual, & not to believe, & it does not believe, that they are by instructions from his employers. They had assured the British minister here, that the vessels already armed to their ports should be obliged to

leave them, and that no more should be armed in them. Yet more had been armed, & those before armed had either not gone away, or gone only to return with new prizes. They now informed him that the order for departure should be enforced, & the prizes made contrary to it should be restored or compensated. The same thing was notified to mr. Genet in my letter of Aug. 7. and that he might not conclude the promise of compensation to be of no concern to him, & go on in his courses, he was reminded that it would be a fair article of account against his nation.

Mr. Genet, not content with using our force, whether we will of not, in the military line against nations with whom we are at peace, undertakes also to direct the civil government; and particularly for the Executive & Legislative bodies, to pronounce what powers may or may not be exercised by the one or the other. Thus, in his letter of June 8 he promises to respect the political opinions of the President, till the Representatives shall have confirmed or rejected them: as if the President had undertaken to decide what belonged to the decision of congress. In his letter of June 14, he says more openly, that the President ought not to have taken on himself to decide on the subject of the letter, but that it was of importance enough to have consulted Congress thereon; and in that of June 22. he tells the President in direct terms, that Congress ought already to have been occupied on certain questions which he had been too hasty in deciding: thus making himself, & not the President, the judge of the powers ascribed by the constitution to the Executive, & dictating to him the occasion when he should exercise the power of convening Congress at an earlier day than their own act had prescribed. On the following expressions, no commentary shall be made. July 9. "Les principes philosophiques proclamées par le Président." June 22. "Les opinions privées ou publiques de M. le Président, et cette égide ne paroissant, pas suffisante."

June 22. "Le gouvernement fédéral s'est empressé, poussé par je ne scais quelle influence."

June 22. "Je ne puis attribuer, des démarches de cette nature qu'à des impressions étrangères dont le tems et la vérité triompheront."

June 25. 'On poursuit avec acharnement, en vertu des instructions de M. le Président, les armateurs Français."

June 14. "Ce réfus tend à accomplir le système infernal du roi d'Angleterre, et des autres rois ses complices, pour faire pèrir par la famine les Républicains Français avec la liberté."

La lache abandon de ses amis."

June 8. July 25. "En vain le désir de conserver la paix fait-il sacrifier les intérêts de la France à cet intérêt du moment; en vain le soif des richesses l'emportet-elle sur l'honneur dans la balance politique de l'Amérique. Tout ces ménagemens, toute cette condescendance, toute cette humilité n'aboutissent à rien; nos ennemis on rient, et les Français trop confiants sont punis pour avoir cru que la nation Américaine, avoit un pavillon, qu'elle avoit quelque égard pour ses loix, quelque conviction de ses forces, et qu'elle tenoit au sentiment de sa dignité. Il ne m'est pas possible de peindre toute ma sensibilité sur ce scandale qui tend à la diminution de votre commerce, à l'oppression du notre, et à l'abaissement, à l'avilissement des républiques. Si nos concitoyens ont été trompés, si vous n'êtes point en état de soutenir la souveraineté de votre peuple, parlez; nous l'avons garantie quand nous étions esclaves, nous saurons la rendre redoutable étant devenus libres."

We draw a veil over the sensations which these expressions excite. No words can render them; but they will not escape the sensibility of a friendly & magnanimous nation, who will do us justice. We see in them neither the portrait of ourselves, nor the pencil of our friends; but an attempt to embroil both; to add still another nation to the enemies of his country, & to draw on both a reproach, which it is hoped will never stain the history of either. The written proofs, of which mr. Genet himself was the bearer, were too unequivocal to leave a doubt that the French nation are constant in their friendship to us. The resolves of their National convention, the letters of their Executive council, attest this truth, in terms which render it necessary to seek in some other hypothesis the solution of mr. Genet's machinations against our peace & friendship.

Conscious, on our part, of the same friendly & sincere dispositions, we can with truth affirm, both for our nation & government, that we have never omitted a reasonable occasion of manifesting them. For I will not consider as of that character, opportunities of sallying forth from our ports to waylay, rob & murder defenceless merchants & others, who have done us no injury, and who were coming to trade with us in the confidence of our peace & amity. The violation of all the laws of order & morality which bind mankind together, would be an unacceptable offering to a

just nation. Recurring then only to recent things, after so afflicting a libel, we recollect with satisfaction, that in the course of two years, by unceasing exertions, we paid up seven years' arrearages & instalments of our debt to France, which the inefficiency of our first form of government had suffered to be accumulating; that pressing on still to the entire fulfilment of our engagements, we have facilitated to mr. Genet the effect of the instalments of the present year, to enable him to send relief to his fellow citizens in France, threatened with famine: that in the first moment of the insurrection which threatened the colony of St. Domingo, we stepped forward to their relief with arms & money, taking freely on ourselves the risk of an unauthorized aid, when delay would have been denial that we have received according to our best abilities the wretched fugitives from the catastrophe of the principal town of that colony, who, escaping from the swords & flames of civil war, threw themselves on us naked & houseless, without food or friends, money or other means, their faculties lost & absorbed in the depth of their distresses: that the exclusive admission to sell here the prizes made by France on her enemies, in the present war, tho' unstipulated in our treaties, & unfounded in her own practice, or in that of other nations, as we believe; the spirit manifested by the late grand jury in their proceedings against those who had aided the enemies of France with arms & implements of war, the expressions of attachment to his nation, with which mr. Genet was welcomed on his arrival & journey from south to north, & our long forbearance under his gross usurpations and outrages of the laws & authority of our country, do not bespeak the partialities intimated in his letters. And for these things he rewards us by endeavors to excite discord & distrust between our citizens and those whom they have entrusted with their government, between the different branches of our government, between our nation and his. But none of these things, we hope, will be found in his power. That friendship which dictates to us to bear with his conduct yet a while, lest the interests of his nation here should suffer injury, will hasten them to replace an agent whose dispositions are such a misrepresentation of theirs, and whose continuance here is inconsistent with order, peace, respect, & that friendly correspondence which we hope will ever

subsist between the two nations. His government will see too that the case is pressing. That it is impossible for two sovereign & independent authorities to be going on within our territory at the same time without collision. They will foresee that if mr. Genet perseveres in his proceedings, the consequences would be so hazardous to us, the example so humiliating & pernicious, that we may be forced even to suspend his functions before a successor can arrive to continue them. If our citizens have not already been shedding each other's blood, it is not owing to the moderation of mr. Genet, but to the forbearance of the government. It is well known that if the authority of the laws had been resorted to, to stop the Little Democrat, its officers and agents were to have been resisted by the crew of the vessel, consisting partly of American citizens. Such events are too serious, too possible, to be left to hazard, or to what is worse than hazard, the will of an agent whose designs are so mysterious. Lay the case then immediately before his government. Accompany it with assurances, which cannot be stronger than true, that our friendship for the nation is constant & unabating; that, faithful to our treaties, we have fulfilled them in every point to the best of our understanding; that if in anything, however, we have construed them amiss, we are ready to enter into candid explanations, & to do whatever we can be convinced is right; that in opposing the extravagances of an agent, whose character they seem not sufficiently to have known, we have been urged by motives of duty to ourselves & justice to others, which cannot but be approved by those who are just themselves; and finally, that after independence and self-government, there is nothing we more sincerely wish than perpetual friendship with them.

I have the honor to be, with great respect & esteem, Dr Sir, your most obedient & most humble servant.

TO JAMES MADISON.

MAD. MSS.

Aug. 18. 93.

DEAR SIR-My last was of the 11th since which yours of the 5th & 11th are received. I am mortified at your not having your cypher. I now send the key

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