204 JEFFERSON BECOMES UNEASY, gave himself of braving American law by arming a privateer in the very port of Philadelphia, under the eyes of government, his threats to appeal from the President to the people should he dare to oppose him, revolted the pride and good sense of the nation. Hamilton and his policy again found a rallying point in public opinion. Jefferson, in a state of alarm, tried ineffectually to restrain the inconvenient ally which he had given himself: Never, in my opinion, was so calamitous an appointment made as that of the present minister of France here. Hot-headed, all imagination, no judgement, passionate, disrespectful, and even indecent towards the President, in his written as well as his verbal communications before Congress, or the public, they will excite indignation. He renders my position immensely difficult; he does me justice personally; and *The conduct of citizen Genet could not, in fact, be defended, even by Robespierre; and to relieve the Jacobins from being identified with this extravagant abettor of revolution, he denounced him to the National Convention as a tool of the Girondists. A man,' he said, 'named Genet, sent by Lebrun and Brissot to Philadelphia in the capacity of plenipotentiary-agent, has faithfully carried out the views and instructions of the faction which selected him. He has employed the most extraordinary means to irritate the American Government against us; he has given himself the airs of addressing it, without any pretence whatever, in a tone of menace, and to make proposals to it equally adverse to the interests of both nations. He has done his best to make our principles suspected or alarming, by travestying them in a way to make them practically ridiculous. With a remarkable inconsistency, while those who sent him were, in Paris, persecuting popular societies, or denouncing as anarchists republicans courageously contending against anarchy, Genet, at Philadelphia, was making himself the leader of a club, and never ceasing to make or instigate motions as insulting as they were disquieting to the Government. Thus the same faction which in France wished to reduce all the poor to the condition of helots, and to sub AND DETERMINES TO RESIGN. 205 giving him time to vent himself, and become more cool, I am on a footing to advise him freely, and he respects it; but he will break out again on the very first occasion, so that he is incapable of correcting himself.' * The democratic press was scarcely less unmanageable; the Secretary of State could neither control nor go with it in its excesses, and though ceasing to obey him, it did not any the more for this cease to compromise him. His friends drew down upon him the censure of all respectable people, by siding openly with M. Genet; his duties compelled him to support the whole burden of the struggle against the factious diplomatist. He found himself thus responsible both for the acts of the opposition and the government. His nerves gave way, and in spite of the solicitations of Madison, who advised him to wait for some opportunity of leaving office of a 'nature to justify his retiring in the eyes of all good citizens,' he handed in his resignation to the President. This was to desert on the very eve of the battle, and so the President made his secretary understand. To get over the crisis which was impending, he had need of Jefferson's name. The recall of Genet was about to be demanded of the Convention, a step acknowledged to be necessary by the Secretary of State, but which, occurring simultaneously with his retiring, would mit the people to the aristocracy of wealth, was willing instantaneously to emancipate and arm the negroes for the destruction of our colonies.' -Report made to the National Convention, in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, by citizen Robespierre, on the political state of the Republic, Brumaire 22, Year II. of the Republic. * Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. p. 444; Jefferson to Madison, July 8, 1793. Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. p. 445. Jefferson's Works, vol. iv. p. 26; Letter to the President, July 31, 1793. 206 THE RESIGNATION TEMPORARILY WITHDRAWN. inevitably assume an appearance of hostility to France, and be an object of suspicion to her partisans. A new Congress was about to assemble, more numerous and less well-disposed than its predecessor. It was of consequence that at the outset of the session the republicans should not be entirely left to themselves. Washington insisted, therefore, on his minister's not leaving him before the end of the year. After mature reflection, Jefferson consented. His position, in fact, was more disagreeable than dangerous. Opinion had shifted; he might shift with it without running the risk of losing his followers. Democrats rarely persist in braving the public. The state of the country rendered a change of position necessary. The Republican party would readily see this. Some of the most hot-headed might fall off for an instant from their leader, but they would return to him. On the very day when Jefferson officially withdrew his resignation, eleven days after he had tendered it, he sent the following order of the day to Madison : 'I believe it will be true wisdom in the Republican party to approve unequivocally of a state of neutrality; to avoid little cavils about who should declare it; to abandon Genet entirely, with expressions of strong friendship and adherence to his nation, and confidence that he has acted against their sense. In this way we shall keep the people on our side, by keeping ourselves in the right.' † He immediately ordered the minister of the United States, in Paris, to demand the recall of Genet, and as the latter, exasperated at this proceeding against him, * Jefferson's Works, vol. ix. pp. 165-169, for a conversation between Washington and Jefferson, August 6, 1793. Tucker's Life of Jefferson, vol. i. P. 446. Jefferson's Works, vol. iv. p. 31; Letter to Gouverneur Morris, August 16, 1793. HE AT LENGTH RETIRES (?) TRIUMPHANT. 207 redoubled his insolence, Jefferson openly attacked him with superb disdain. His friends looked on approvingly; his enemies were silent; Washington was obliged to him for the vigour with which he had sustained the American government. By a most lucky turn of the wheel, the vexatious acts of Great Britain with respect to the impressment of seamen, and the provisioning of France by neutral vessels, occurred just in time to place the advocates of the English alliance in a situation similar to that in which M. Genet had recently put the friends of France. Jefferson recovered a real ascendancy in the council. In almost all the deliberations his advice prevailed, and when the term arrived which he had previously fixed for retiring, he did so triumphantly, carrying with him the confidence of the nation and its chief, and bequeathing to his party a voluminous report in favour of a system of reprisals against Great Britain by means of commercial regulations, one of the favourite schemes of the Republican party.* *December 31, 1793. CHAPTER VIII. 1794-1801. JEFFERSON PROFESSES AND BELIEVES HIMSELF TO BE DISGUSTED CHOSEN PRESIDENT. ON arriving at Monticello, Jefferson felt himself really relieved and happy; he was tired of sharing power with his adversaries, of passing his life in their society |