with the names of American citizens who should raise regiments or naval recruits for the war.

Washington, with the unanimous consent of his cabinet, declared our neutrality toward the European struggle (April 22, 1793), but Genêt's excitable temper was only the more aroused. He criticised the President and scolded the secretary of state. He paid his sarcastic compliments to a "republic" that allowed itself to be governed by an "aristocrat." He used the Republican press to make propaganda for France, indulging in highly colored rhetoric on the ingratitude of a land where French blood had been poured out like water for the cause of freedom. In defiance of the warnings of the government, and in violation of his own implicit promise to Jefferson, he allowed the converted prize the Petite Démocrate to sail away from her moorings at Philadelphia.

Jefferson's conduct in these trying circumstances is acknowledged even by those historians who are quick to condemn his motives to have been most correct. It was a great disappointment to him that the envoy from the nation which he set next to his own in his affections should behave in such a way as to merit rebuke and finally dismissal, but he did not hesitate on that account to do his duty. He delivered a cabinet opinion on May 16, 1793, to the effect that we should forbid France to fit out privateers in our harbors and apologize to Great

Britain for the capture of any of her vessels on the high seas by such privateers. He warned Genêt that French vessels illegally equipped and commanded must leave our waters. He quoted Vattel and other learned authorities on the laws of nations, much to Genêt's disgust, who begged that they might treat like republicans and not "lower" themselves "to the level of ancient politics by diplomatic subtleties." "I do not augur well of the conduct of the new French minister," wrote Jefferson to Monroe on June 28, 1793. "I am doing everything in my power to moderate the impetuosity of his movements and to destroy the dangerous opinions which have been excited in him that the people of the United States will disavow the acts of their government, and that he has an appeal from the Executive to Congress and from both to the people. And a few days later to Madison: "Never in my opinion was so calamitous an appointment made as that of the present minister of F[rance] here. Hotheaded, all imagination, no judgment, passionate, disrespectful, and even indecent to the P[resident]

he renders my position immensely difficult." Finally Genêt's recall was demanded, Jefferson writing to our minister at Paris, Gouverneur Morris, a review of the conduct of the impetuous envoy, and declaring that "if our citizens have not already been shedding each other's blood, it is not owing to the moderation of M. Genêt." Jefferson realized, of

course, that the recall of Genêt, while a relief to himself, would be in the nature of a triumph for the Hamiltonian party, who had warned against the danger of showing any sympathy with the French democrats; but he was not deterred thereby from doing his duty to the President and the laws of the country. Professor McMaster's unjust remark that Jefferson was at all times more French than American" needs no further refutation than the Genêt episode.

Ever since his failure to check the financial centralization of the Hamiltonian programme, and his consequent alienation from the policy of the administration, Jefferson had been anxious to resign from the cabinet. He intended fully to retire at the end of Washington's first term, and wrote to the President from Monticello on September 9, 1792, in reply to the appeal for reconciliation with Hamilton, that he looked "to that period with the longing of a wave-worn mariner who has at length the land in view." At the President's solicitation, he consented to remain, but the vexation of Genêt's conduct and the encroachment of Hamilton on his department by instructing the collectors of customs to be on the lookout for French violations of neutrality and report them to him in secret made the thought of continuing in the cabinet intolerable to him. On July 30, 1793, he again wrote Washington, begging to be relieved of his office "at the close of the pres

ent quarter (September 30)." He alleged his doubtless sincere desire to return to Monticello to repair his estate, but political vexations were probably the chief reason for his request. When Washington called on him in August to persuade him to remain until the end of the year, Jefferson declared that he was obliged in the present cabinet to move exactly in the circles which bore him peculiar hatred: "That is to say, the wealthy aristocrats, the merchants connected loosely with England, the newly created paper fortunes." "Thus surrounded my words are caught, multiplied, misconstrued, and even fabricated and spread abroad to my injury." Jefferson stayed to the end of the year, however, and departed for Monticello with a New Year's letter of hearty commendation from the President: "Since it has been impossible to persuade you to forego any longer the indulgence of your desire for private life, the event, however anxious I am to avert it, must be submitted to. But I cannot suffer you to leave your station without assuring you that the opinion which I had formed of your integrity and talents, and which dictated your original nomination, has been confirmed by the fullest experience; and that both have been eminently displayed in the discharge of your duty. Let a conviction of my most earnest prayers for your happiness accompany you in your retirement." So clear had Jefferson been in his great office that John Marshall could not withhold

a word of tempered praise in declaring that "this gentleman withdrew from political station at a time when he stood particularly high in the esteem of his countrymen.'

1 William E. Curtis in The True Thomas Jefferson, a book teeming with errors, says that Jefferson "used underhand methods and was commonly engaged in intrigue not only against his colleagues in the cabinet but even against Washington"; that his reply of September 9, 1792, to Washington's letter was "insulting and inexcusable"; but that Washington out of respect for Jefferson's ability and patriotism "overlooked the insult and allowed him to remain in the cabinet"; that Jefferson promised to resign in January, 1793, but when the time came reconsidered and held on to his place, much to the President's disappointment; and that, finally, "Jefferson declined to dismiss Freneau and was himself compelled to resign." Every single one of these statements is false. But perhaps nothing better could be expected of a book that is vitiated all the way through by the hypothesis that Jefferson was a demagogue whose "plans of government were acquired from the French revolutionists," who had moved among "the citizen leaders of the Revolution and experienced the bloody and furious scenes in France." Mr. Curtis makes Jefferson bring home to America the Jacobin fury two years before it broke out in France.