OF THOMAS JEFFERSON.

was this, to put to the test the sensibilities of the American people for their brave and beloved ally?

Finally, after a controversy of several months, in the whole course of which, the mingled effusions of arrogance and intemperance, were opposed to a moderation and forbearance which could not be betrayed into a single undignified expression, the American government came to the determination of desiring the recall of Mr. Genet. This delicate duty was executed by Mr. Jefferson, and in a manner which has doubtless united more suffrages in its favor, taking the world at large, than any other diplomatic performance on record. On the 16th of August, 1793, he addressed a letter to Mr. Morris, the Minister of the United States at Paris, containing an epitome of the whole correspondence, on both sides, assigning the reasons which rendered necessary the recall of Mr. Genet, and directing the case to be immediately laid before his government.

This celebrated letter is an essay of sixteen pages, octavo. It were vain to attempt a satisfactory analysis of its contents. To a full and dispassionate review of the transactions of Mr. Genet, and an unanswerable vindication of the principles upon which the administration had conducted itself in the controversy, assurances were added of an unwavering attachment to France, expressed in such terms of unaffected sensibility, as to impress the most callous with the sincerity of the heart from which they flowed. The concluding paragraphs are too remarkable not to require an insertion.

After introducing a series of quotations from Mr. Genet's correspondence, which he deemed too offensive to be translated into English, or to merit a commentary, the author proceeded in the following dignified strain:

"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 do us jus

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 hoped will never stain the history of either. The written proofs, of which Mr. Genet was himself 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 and friendship.

every season in which the warring Powers of the earth have placed them in the predicament of a neutral nation. As a circumstance of some curiosity, if not of some weight, it might be added, that Mr. Jefferson's controversy with Genet, was the first of two transactions only in his political life, which received the open' and avowed approbation of the federalists as a party.

The communications of Genet, on the other hand, were a tissue of inflammatory declamation, and indignity. To the reasonings of Mr. Jefferson on the obligations of the United States, to observe an impartial neutrality towards all the belligerent parties, he applied the epithet of "diplomatic subtelties." And when he sustained the prin- · ciples advanced by him, by quotations from Vattel, and other approved jurisconsults, Genet called them "the aphorisms of Vattel,” &c. "You oppose," said he, "to my complaints, to my just reclamations, upon the footing of right, the private or public opinion of the President of the United States; and this egis not appearing to you sufficient, you bring forward aphorisms of Vattel, to justify or excuse infractions committed on positive treaties." And he added, "do not punish the brave individuals of your nation who arrange themselves under our banner, knowing perfectly well, that no law of the United States gives to the government the sole power of arresting their zeal, by acts of rigor, The Americans are free; they are not attached to the glebe, like the slaves of Russia; they may change their situation when they please, and by accepting at this moment the succor of their arms in the habit of trampling on tyrants, we do not commit the plagiat of which you speak. The true robbery, the true crime would be to enchain the courage of these good citizens, of these sincere friends of the best of causes." At other times he would address himself to the political feelings of Mr. Jefferson himself, whom he had been induced to consider his personal friend, and who, he said, "had initiated him into mysteries which had inflamed his hatred against all those who aspire to an absolute power."

During the whole time, also, Mr. Genet was industriously engaged in disseminating seditious addresses among the people, and attempting, by every means in his power, to inflame their passions. already sufficiently excited, and induce them to arise in arms against the enemies of France. What an ungenerous moment

was this, to put to the test the sensibilities of the American people for their brave and beloved ally?

Finally, after a controversy of several months, in the whole course of which, the mingled effusions of arrogance and intemperance, were opposed to a moderation and forbearance which could not be betrayed into a single undignified expression, the American government came to the determination of desiring the recall of Mr. Genet. This delicate duty was executed by Mr. Jefferson, and in a manner which has doubtless united more suffrages in its favor, taking the world at large, than any other diplomatic performance on record. On the 16th of August, 1793, he addressed a letter to Mr. Morris, the Minister of the United States at Paris, containing an epitome of the whole correspondence, on both sides, assigning the reasons which rendered necessary the recall of Mr. Genet, and directing the case to be immediately laid before his government.

It

To a

This celebrated letter is an essay of sixteen pages, octavo. were vain to attempt a satisfactory analysis of its contents. full and dispassionate review of the transactions of Mr. Genet, and an unanswerable vindication of the principles upon which the administration had conducted itself in the controversy, assurances were added of an unwavering attachment to France, expressed in such terms of unaffected sensibility, as to impress the most callous with the sincerity of the heart from which they flowed. The concluding paragraphs are too remarkable not to require an insertion.

After introducing a series of quotations from Mr. Genet's correspondence, which he deemed too offensive to be translated into English, or to merit a commentary, the author proceeded in the following dignified strain:

"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 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, and to draw on both a reproach, .which it is hoped will never stain the history of either. The written proofs, of which Mr. Genet was himself 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 and friendship.

"Conscious, on our part, of the same friendly and sincere dispositions, we can with truth affirm, both for our nation and 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 way-lay, rob, and murder defenceless merchants and others, who have done us no injury, and who were coming to trade with us in the confidence of our peace and amity. The violation of all the laws of order and 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 and 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 and 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 and flames of civil war, threw themselves on us naked and houseless, without food or friends, money or other means, their faculties lost and 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, though unstipulated in our treaties, and 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 and implements of war; the expressions of attachment to his nation, with which Mr. Genet was welcomed on his arrival and journey from south to north, and our long forbearance under his gross usurpations and outrages of the laws and 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 and 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, and 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 and 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 and 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.

"Lay the case then immediately before his government. Ac company it with assurances, which cannot be stronger than true, that our friendship for the nation is constant and unabating; that faithful to our treaties, we have fulfilled them in every point to the best of our understanding; that if in any thing, however, we have construed them amiss, we are ready to enter into candid explanations, and 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 and 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."

This impressive appeal to the justice and magnanimity of France, was successful. Genet was recalled, and his place supplied by Mr. Fauchet, who arrived in the United States in February, 1794.

On the last day of December, 1793, Mr. Jefferson resigned the office of Secretary of State, and retired from political life. This was not a sudden resolution on his part; nor an unexpected event to his country. The political disagreement between himself and the Secretary of the Treasury, added to his general disinclination to office, was the cause of his retirement. This disagreement, originating in a fundamental difference of opinion, was aggravated by subsequent collisions in the cabinet, was reflected back upon the people, and aggravated, in turn, the agitations and animosities between the republicans and federalists, of which they were respectively the leaders.

On his first introduction upon the political theatre in New York, the general appearance of things, it will be recollected, inspired Mr. Jefferson with distressing presages of the course which the administration would take, and of the result of his connection with it. The pompous levees of the President, forced on him by the high