CHAPTER VIII.

G. Washington again unanimously elected President.-War between Great Britain and France.—Queries of the President respecting the conduct to be adopted by the American government.-Proclamation of neutrality.-Arrival of Mr. Genet as minister from France. His conduct.-Illegal proceedings of the French cruisers.-Opinions of the cabinet.-State of parties.-Democratic societies.-Genet calculates upon the partialities of the American people for France, and openly insults their government.-Rules laid down by the executive to be observed in the ports of the United States in relation to the powers at war.-The President requests the recall of Genet.-British order of 8th of June, 1793.-Decree of the national convention relative to neutral commerce.

1793.

THE term for which the President and Vice President had been elected being to expire on the third of March, the attention of the public had been directed to the choice of persons who should fill those high offices for the ensuing four years. Respecting the President, but one opinion prevailed. From various motives, all parties concurred in desiring that the present chief magistrate would continue to afford his services to his country. Yielding to the weight of the representations made to him from various quarters, General Washington had been prevailed upon to withhold a declaration, he had at one time purposed to make, of his determination to retire from political life.

Respecting the person who should fill the office of Vice President, the public was divided. The profound statesman who had been called to the duties of that station, had drawn upon himself a great degree of obloquy, by some political tracts, in which he had laboured to maintain the proposition that a balance in government was essential to the preservation of liberty. In these disquisitions, he was supposed by his opponents to have discovered sentiments in favour of distinct orders in society; and, although he had spoken highly of the constitution of the United States, it was imagined that his balance could be maintained only by hereditary classes. He was also understood to be friendly to the system of finance which had been adopted; and was believed to be among the few who questioned the durability of the French republic. His great services, and acknowledged virtues, were therefore disregarded; and a competitor was sought for among those who had distinguished themselves in the opposition. The choice was directed from Mr. Jefferson by a constitutional restriction on the power of the electors, which would necessarily deprive him of the vote to be given by Virginia. It being necessary to designate some other opponent to Mr. Adams,

George Clinton, the governor of New York, was selected for this pur

pose.

Throughout the war of the revolution, this gentleman had filled the office of chief magistrate of his native state; and, under circumstances of real difficulty, had discharged its duties with a courage, and an energy, which secured the esteem of the Commander-in-chief, and gave him a fair claim to the favour of his country. Embracing afterwards with ardour the system of state supremacy, he had contributed greatly to the rejection of the resolutions for investing congress with the power of collecting an impost on imported goods, and had been conspicuous for his determined hostility to the constitution of the United States. His sentiments respecting the measures of the government were known to concur with those of the minority in congress.

Both parties seemed confident in their strength; and both made the utmost exertions to insure success. On opening the ballots in the senate chamber, it appeared that the unanimous suffrage of his country had been once more conferred on General Washington, and that Mr. Adams had received a plurality of the votes.

The unceasing endeavours of the executive to terminate the Indian war by a treaty, had at length succeeded with the savages of the Wabash; and, through the intervention of the Six Nations, those of the Miamis had also been induced to consent to a conference to be held in the course of the ensuing spring. Though probability was against the success of this attempt to restore peace, all offensive operations, on the part of the United States, were still farther suspended. The Indians did not entirely abstain from hostilities; and the discontents of the western people were in no small degree increased by this temporary prohibition of all incursions into the country of their enemy. In Georgia, where a desire to commence hostilities against the southern Indians had been unequivocally manifested, this restraint increased the irritation against the administration.

The Indian war was becoming an object of secondary magnitude. The critical and irritable state of things in France began so materially to affect the United States, as to require an exertion of all the prudence, and all the firmness, of the government. The 10th of August 1792, was succeeded in that nation by such a state of anarchy, and by scenes of so much blood and horror; the nation was understood to be so divided with respect to its future course; and the republican party was threatened by such a formidable external force; that there was much reason to

*The day on which the palace of the Thuilleries was stormed and the royal government subverted.

doubt whether the fallen monarch would be finally deposed, or re-instated with a greater degree of splendour and power than the constitution just laid in ruins, had assigned to him. That, in the latter event, any partialities which might be manifested towards the intermediate possessors of authority, would be recollected with indignation, could not be questioned by an attentive observer of the vindictive spirit of parties;-a spirit which the deeply tragic scenes lately exhibited, could not fail to work up to its highest possible pitch. The American minister at Paris, finding himself in a situation not expected by his government, sought to pursue a circumspect line of conduct, which should in no respect compromise the United States. The executive council of France, disappointed at the coldness which that system required, communicated their dissatisfaction to their minister at Philadelphia. At the same time, Mr. Morris made full representations of every transaction to his government, and requested explicit instructions for the regulation of his future conduct.

The administration entertained no doubt of the propriety of recognising the existing authority of France, whatever form it might assume. That every nation possessed a right to govern itself according to its own will, to change its institutions at discretion, and to transact its business through whatever agents it might think proper, were stated to Mr. Morris to be principles on which the American government itself was founded, and the application of which could be denied to no other people. The payment of the debt, so far as it was to be made in Europe, might be suspended only until the national convention should authorize some power to sign acquittances for the monies received; and the sums required for St. Domingo would be immediately furnished. These payments would exceed the instalments which had fallen due; and the utmost punctuality would be observed in future. These instructions were accompanied with assurances that the government would omit no opportunity of convincing the French people of its cordial wish to serve them; and with a declaration that all circumstances seemed to destine the two nations for the most intimate connexion with each other. It was also pressed upon Mr. Morris to seize every occasion of conciliating the affections of France to the United States, and of placing the commerce between the two countries on the best possible footing.*

* With this letter were addressed two others to the ministers at London and Paris respectively, stating the interest taken by the President and people of the United States in the fate of the Marquis de Lafayette. This gentleman was declared a traitor by France, and was imprisoned by Prussia. The ministers of the United States were to avail themselves of every opportunity of sounding the way towards his liberation, which they were to endeavour to obtain by informal solicitations; but, if formal ones

The feelings of the President were in perfect unison with the sentiments expressed in this letter. His attachment to the French nation was as strong, as consisted with a due regard to the interest of his own; and his wishes for its happiness were as ardent, as was compatible with the duties of a chief magistrate to the state over which he presided. Devoted to the principles of real liberty, and approving unequivocally the republican form of government, he hoped for a favourable result from the efforts which were making to establish that form, by the great ally of the United States; but was not so transported by those efforts, as to involve his country in their issue; or totally to forget that those aids which constituted the basis of these partial feelings, were furnished by the family whose fall was the source of triumph to a large portion of his fellow citizens.

He therefore still preserved the fixed purpose of maintaining the neutrality of the United States, however general the war might be in Europe; and his zeal for the revolution did not assume so ferocious a character as to silence the dictates of humanity, or of friendship.

Not much time elapsed before the firmness of this resolution was put to the test.

Early in April, the declaration of war made by France against Great Britain and Holland reached the United States. This event restored full vivacity to a flame, which a peace of ten years had not been able to extinguish. A great majority of the American people deemed it criminal to remain unconcerned spectators of a conflict between their ancient enemy and republican France. The feeling upon this occasion was almost universal. Men of all parties partook of it. Disregarding totally the circumstances which led to the rupture, except the order which had been given to the French minister to leave London, and disregarding equally the fact that actual hostilities were first commenced by France, the war was confidently and generally pronounced a war of aggression on the part of Great Britain, undertaken with the sole purpose of imposing a monarchical government on the French people. The few who did not embrace these opinions, and they were certainly very few, were held up as objects of public detestation; and were calumniated as the tools of Britain, and the satellites of despotism.

Yet the disposition to engage in the war, was far from being general. The inclination of the public led to a full indulgence of the most extravagant partiality; but not many were willing to encounter the conseshould be necessary, they were to watch the moment when they might be urged with the best prospect of success. This letter was written at the sole instance of the President.

quences which that indulgence would infallibly produce. The situation of America was precisely that, in which the wisdom and foresight of a prudent and enlightened government, was indispensably necessary to prevent the nation from inconsiderately precipitating itself into calamities, which its reflecting judgment would avoid.

As soon as intelligence of the rupture between France and Britain was received in the United States, indications were given in some of the seaports, of a disposition to engage in the unlawful business of privateering on the commerce of the belligerent powers. The President was firmly determined to suppress these practices, and immediately requested the attention of the heads of departments to this interesting subject.

As the new and difficult situation in which the United States were placed suggested many delicate inquiries, he addressed a circular letter to the cabinet ministers, inclosing for their consideration a well digested series of questions, the answers to which would form a complete system by which to regulate the conduct of the executive in the arduous situations which were approaching.*

These queries, with some of the answers of them, though submitted only to the cabinet, found their way to the leading members of the opposition; and were among the unacknowledged but operating pieces of testimony, on which the charge against the administration, of cherishing dispositions unfriendly to the French republic, was founded. In taking a view of the whole ground, points certainly occurred, and were submitted to the consideration of the cabinet, on which neither the chief magistrate nor his ministers felt any doubt. But the introduction of questions relative to these points, among others with which they were intimately connected, would present a more full view of the subject, and was incapable of producing any mischievous effect, while they were confined to those for whom alone they were intended.

In the meeting of the heads of departments and the attorney general, which was held in consequence of this letter, it was unanimously agreed, that a proclamation ought to issue, forbidding the citizens of the United States to take part in any hostilities on the seas, with, or against, any of the belligerent powers; warning them against carrying to any of those powers articles deemed contraband according to the modern usages of nations; and enjoining them from all acts inconsistent with the duties of a friendly nation towards those at war.

With the same unanimity, the President was advised to receive a min. ister from the republic of France; but, on the question respecting a qualification to his reception, a division was perceived. The secretary *See note, No. IX. at the end of the volume. 17

VOL. II.