dinary, as to place us in the most distressing dilemma, between our regard for his nation, which is constant and sincere, and a regard for our laws, the authority of which must be maintained; for the peace of our country which the executive magistrate is charged to preserve; for its honour, offended in the person of that magistrate; and for its character, grossly traduced in the conversations and letters of this gentleman. In the course of these transactions, it has been a great comfort to us to believe, that none of them were within the intentions or expectations of his employers. These had been too recently expressed in acts which nothing could discolour; in the acts of the executive council; in the letters and decrees of the National Assembly; and in the general demeanour of the nation towards us, to ascribe to them things of so contrary a character. Our first duty, therefore, was to draw a strong line between their intentions and the proceedings of their minister; our second, to lay those proceedings faithfully before them."

A full detail of all which had taken place between Mr. Genet and the government was then given; and the attention of Mr. Morris was particularly called to all the offensive and indecorous language which Genet had used in his correspondence, on which the secretary remarks, "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 and magnanimous nation, who will not do injustice. 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, and to draw on both a reproach, which, it is to be hoped, will never stain the history of either. His immediate recall is, therefore, requested, as his continuance is inconsistent with order, peace, respect, and that friendly correspondence which we hope will ever subsist between the two nations."

This letter, a copy of which was sent to Mr. Genet, was replied to by him at great length on the 18th of September, in his usual tone of offensive declamation, but as by an accidental miscarriage, his letter was not received until the 2nd of Decem

ber, it is unnecessary further to notice its contents, except that in addition to a long catalogue of injuries which he states to have received from the president, he indulges in reproaches against Mr. Jefferson himself, whose official course he affects to regard as inconsistent with his first professions of friendship.

From the time that Mr. Genet's recall was requested until December, when Mr. Jefferson resigned, their correspondence was kept up on various occasions of business; but if part of it exhibited some of the same extraordinary features as that which preceded it, it was less arrogant and offensive, except that on some objection being made to the commission of a French consul, because it was not addressed to the President of the United States, Mr. Genet undertook to question the propriety of the objection. He was however told that no foreign agent could be allowed to question that whatever the president officially communicates, "expresses the will of the nation," that no discussion could be entered into with him on this subject; and that, as he had questioned the authority of the president, and had not addressed to him certain consular commissions, they were returned to him, and that no exequatur would be issued so long as the requisite form was not strictly complied with.

The whole of Mr. Genet's conduct, during the few months he acted as the minister of France, was characterized by the same vehement zeal in behalf of the cause of the revolution; the same contempt of the forms of diplomatic intercourse; the same fervid appeals to the popular enthusiasm; and the same manifest disposition to flatter the people of the United States, and to insult its government. If a part of the extravagance into which he was betrayed is to be placed to the account of his own irritable temper, a part also must be ascribed to the spirit of the times, which courted innovation in government, religion, morals, and manners; and in its aspirations after a new and improved order of things, regarded and spoke of ancient usages and forms with sovereign contempt. It is likely that many of the expressions that appear to us as the grossest violations of the courtesy of civilized nations, and which the self-respect of no independent people would tolerate, seemed to his distempered mind as mere

ly the language of republican frankness, stript of aristocratic varnish; and the asperities of which he could not have softened without incurring the reproach of the courtly sins of servility and dissimulation. He was, without doubt, farther induced by the very cordial reception he met with from the nation at large, and the tone of the most popular journals, to believe that he would be supported by public opinion, in his controversy with the government; and, consequently, that he would ultimately triumph either in involving the United States in a war with Great Britain, or in making their neutrality still more advantageous to the cause of France.

To conclude the episode of Mr. Genet's diplomacy-the representations of the American government respecting the minister, produced their intended effect in France. His conduct was there unhesitatingly condemned; and it appears, on the authority of Mr. Gouverneur Morris, that a plan was immediately formed to despatch four commissioners to the United States, who, besides repairing the breach which the minister had made in the good understanding between the two governments, were to send him home a prisoner, to receive the punishment due to his misconduct. But in the sudden vicissitudes of parties, which at that time succeeded each other like the actors of a play, this plan was forgotten, or disregarded, and Mr. Genet remained, and permanently settled in the United States.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

State of parties as to the French Revolution. The Proclamation of Neutrality-how viewed by the two parties-by Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Madison. Mr. Jefferson's letters to Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe. Cabinet consultations concerning Genet. The order of the British government relative to neutrals-the correspondence relative to it— Impressment of American seamen. French decrees relative to neutrals. Discussions in the cabinet-Proclamation of neutrality— Fortifications-Military Academy. Communications to Congress on the foreign relations of the United States. Mr. Jefferson's report on commercial restrictions. His resignation and return to Monticello.

1793.

IT may well be supposed that Mr. Genet, after full allowance is made for his own defects of temper and judgment, would not have ventured thus to insult the chief magistrate of the country, and such a chief magistrate too, if he had not received the countenance of many American citizens. The journalists of the day, which, though commonly exhibiting public opinion under exaggerated forms, are still its best mirrors, show that however the supporters of the administration and the more sober-minded of all parties may have been offended by the tone of disrespect and defiance manifested in his official communications, the enthusiastic favour then felt for his nation made not a small portion of the American people view his conduct with indulgence, and even approbation. Considering France as the party aggrieved, they regarded the haughty and insulting expressions of her minister as just retaliations for the wrongs which had provoked them; and although impartial history must

unhesitatingly pass a sentence of condemnation on Mr. Genet and his apologists, yet we cannot correctly appreciate the conduct of the latter without carrying ourselves back to those times of passion and moral frenzy, and viewing things in the aspects under which they then presented themselves to the living ac

tors.

The warm friends of civil liberty in every country saw in the French revolution an enlightened, refined, brave and powerful nation, struggling to add the blessings of free government to its other advantages, and they naturally wished it success. But the American votary of freedom had a further cause for his good wishes. France had assisted the United States in achieving their independence, and it was in affording that very assistance, as all believed, that she had caught the contagious love of liberty which now pervaded all ranks of her people. His zeal then, in behalf of France, received a new impulse from the sentiments of gratitude and national pride.

The subsequent course of events contributed still further to increase this interest; for the enthusiasm with which the doctrines of the natural liberty and equality of man had been received in France, having spread, by the force of sympathy, over the greater part of Europe, its most powerful princes, alarmed for the stability of their power, determined to carry on a crusade against the French republic, and to re-establish the monarchy by force. And though France, in her avowed principles of proselytism, was as obnoxious, perhaps, as her enemies to the reproach of intermeddling in the concerns of other nations, yet after the struggle had begun, the American people regarded it as a contest between tyranny and the right of selfgovernment, in which it did not become them to be passive. spectators; and the bolder and more sanguine portion of the party wished their country, in support of its most cherished principles, to exchange a cold and heartless neutrality for a zealous and efficient co-operation. If we now admit, as well we may, and as then appeared to the more considerate of all parties, that by making common cause with France, we should have injured ourselves far more than we could benefit our ally,