718 EVASIVE ASSURANCES OF GENET-HIS INSOLENT CONDUCT TO GOVERNMENT. [1793. filled with high-spirited patriots, and they will | termination to Genet; but, in defiance of it, unquestionably resist. And there is no occa- the vessel sailed on her cruise. sion, for I tell you she will not be ready to depart for some time." Jefferson was accordingly impressed with the belief that the privateer would remain in the river until the President should decide on her case, and, on communicating this conviction to the Governor, the latter ordered the militia to be dismissed. Hamilton and Knox, on the other hand, were distrustful, and proposed the immediate erection of a battery on Mud Island, with guns mounted to fire at the vessel, and even to sink her, if she attempted to pass. Jefferson, however, refusing to concur in the measure, it was not adopted. The vessel, at that time, was at Gloucester Point, but soon fell down to Chester. It must have been a severe trial of Washington's spirit to see his authority thus braved and insulted, and to find that the people, notwithstanding the indignity thus offered to their chief magistrate, sided with the aggressors, and exulted in their open defiance of his neutral policy. About this time a society was formed under the auspices of the French minister, and in imitation of the Jacobin clubs of Paris. It was called the Democratic Society, and soon gave rise to others throughout the Union; all taking the French side in the present questions. The term democrat, thenceforward, began to designate an ultra-republican. Fresh mortifications awaited Washington, from the distempered state of public sentiment. The trial came on of Gideon Henfield, an Amer Washington arrived at Philadelphia on the 11th of July; when papers requiring "instant attention," were put into his hands. They re-ican citizen, prosecuted under the advice of lated to the case of the Little Sarah, and were from Jefferson, who, being ill with fever, had retired to his seat in the country. Nothing could exceed the displeasure of Washington when he examined these papers. the Attorney-General, for having enlisted, at Charleston, on board of a French privateer which had brought prizes into the port of Philadelphia. The populace took part with Henfield. He had enlisted before the proclamation of neutrality had been published, and even if he had In a letter written to Jefferson, on the spur of the moment, he puts these indignant que-enlisted at a later date, was he to be punished ries: "What is to be done in the case of the Little Sarah, now at Chester? Is the minister of the French republic to set the acts of this government at defiance with impunity? And then threaten the executive with an appeal to the people! What must the world think of such conduct, and of the government of the United States in submitting to it? "These are serious questions. Circumstances press for decision, and, as you have had time to consider them (upon me they come unexpectedly), I wish to know your opinion upon them, even before to-morrow, for the vessel may then be gone." Mr. Jefferson, in a reply of the same date, informed the President of his having received assurance, that day, from Mr. Genet, that the vessel would not be gone before his (the President's) decision. In consequence of this assurance of the French minister, no immediate measures of a coercive nature were taken with regard to the vessel; but, in a cabinet council held the next day, it was determined to detain in port all privateers which had been equipped within the United States by any of the belligerent powers. No time was lost in communicating this de for engaging with their ancient ally, France, in the cause of liberty against the royal despots of Europe? His acquittal exposed Washington to the obloquy of having attempted a measure which the laws would not justify. It showed him, moreover, the futility of attempts at punishment for infractions of the rules proclaimed for the preservation of neutrality; while the clamorous rejoicing by which the acquittal of Henfield had been celebrated, evinced the popular disposition to thwart the line of policy which he considered most calculated to promote the public good. Nothing, however, could induce him to swerve from that policy. "I have consolation within," said he, "that no earthly effort can deprive me of, and that is, that neither ambitious nor interested motives have influenced my conduct. The arrows of malevolence, therefore, however barbed and wellpointed, can never reach the most vulnerable part of me; though, whilst I am set up as a mark, they will be continually aimed." * Hitherto Washington had exercised great forbearance toward the French minister, notwithstanding the little respect shown by the Lettor to Governor Lee. Sparks, x. 359. ET. 61.] THE RECALL OF GENET DEMANDED-JEFFERSON'S INTENDED RETIREMENT. 719 latter to the rights of the United States; but the official communications of Genet were becoming too offensive and insulting to be longer tolerated. Meetings of the heads of departments and the Attorney-General were held at the President's on the 1st and 2d of August, in which the whole of the official correspondence and conduct of Genet was passed in review; and it was agreed that his recall should be desired. Jefferson recommended that the desire should be expressed with great delicacy; the others were for peremptory terms. Knox was for sending him off at once, but this proposition was generally scouted. In the end it was agreed that a letter should be written to Gouverneur Morris, giving a statement of the case, with accompanying documents, that he might lay the whole before the executive council of France, and explain the reason for desiring the recall of Mr. Genet. that was every moment since. In the agony of his heart he declared that he had rather be in his grave than in his present situation; that he had rather be on his farm than to be made emperor of the world-and yet, he said, indignantly, they are charging me with wanting to be a king! "All were silent during this burst of feeling —a pause ensued-it was difficult to resume the question. Washington, however, who had recovered his equanimity, put an end to the difficulty. There was no necessity, he said, for deciding the matter at present; the propositions agreed to, respecting the letter to Mr. Morris, might be put into a train of execution, and, perhaps, events would show whether the appeal would be necessary or not."* CHAPTER XXII. It was proposed that a publication of the whole correspondence, and a statement of the proceedings, should be made by way of appeal WASHINGTON had hitherto been annoyed and to the people. This produced animated debates. perplexed by having to manage a divided cabiHamilton spoke with great warmth in favor of net; he was now threatened with that cabinet's an appeal. Jefferson opposed it. "Genet," dissolution. Mr. Hamilton had informed him said he, "will appeal also; it will become a contest between the President and Genet. had determined him to retire from office towards by letter, that private as well as public reasons Anonymous writers will take it up. There will the close of the next session; probably with a be the same difference of opinion in public as view to give Congress an opportunity to exin our cabinet-there will be the same differ-amine into his conduct. Now came a letter from ence in Congress, for it must be laid before them. It would work, therefore, very unpleasantly at home. How would it work abroad? Washington, already weary and impatient, under the incessant dissensions of his cabinet, was stung by the suggession that he might be held up as in conflict with Genet, and subjected, as he had been, to the ribaldry of the press. At this unlucky moment Knox blundered forth with a specimen of the scandalous libels already in circulation; a pasquinade lately printed, called the Funeral of George Washington, wherein the President was represented as placed upon the guillotine, a horrible parody on the late decapitation of the French King. "The President," writes Jefferson, "now burst forth into one of those transports of passion beyond his control; inveighed against the personal abuse which had been bestowed upon him, and defied any man on earth to produce a single act of his since he had been in the government that had not been done on the purest motives. "He had never repented but once the having slipped the moment of resigning his office, and Mr. Jefferson, dated July 31st, in which he re- rassed by this notification. Full of concern, he * Jefferson's Works, ix. 164. 720 INTERVIEW BETWEEN WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON-A NAVAL CHALLENGE. [1793. his chagrin, again expressed his repentance that | from the monarchical party, that our governhe himself had not resigned as he had once meditated. The public mind, he went on to observe, was in an alarming state of ferment; political combinations of various kinds were forming; where all this would end he knew not. A new Congress was to assemble, more numerous than the last, perhaps of a different spirit; the first expressions of its sentiments would be important, and it would relieve him considerably if Jefferson would remain in office, if it were only until the end of the session. Jefferson, in reply, pleaded an excessive repugnance to public life; and, what seems to have influenced him more sensibly, the actual uneasiness of his position. He was obliged, he said, to move in exactly the circle which he knew to bear him peculiar hatred; "the wealthy aristocrats, the merchants connected closely with England; the newly-created paper fortunes." Thus surrounded, his words were caught, multiplied, misconstrued, and even fabricated, and spread abroad to his injury. Mr. Jefferson pleaded, moreover, that the opposition of views between Mr. Hamilton and himself was peculiarly unpleasant, and destructive of the necessary harmony. With regard to the republican party he was sure it had not a view which went to the frame of the government; he believed the next Congress would attempt nothing material but to render their own body independent; the manoeuvres of Mr. Genet might produce some little embarrassment, but the republicans would abandon that functionary the moment they knew the nature of his conduct. Washington replied, that he believed the views of the republican party to be perfectly pure: "but when men put a machine into motion," said he, "it is impossible for them to stop it exactly where they would choose, or to say where it will stop. The constitution we have is an excellent one, if we can keep it where it is." He again adverted to Jefferson's constant suspicion that there was a party disposed to change the constitution into a monarchical form, declaring that there was not a man in the United States who would set his face more decidedly against such a change than himself. "No rational man in the United States suspects you of any other disposition," cried Jefferson; "but there does not pass a week in which we cannot prove declarations dropping ment is good for nothing; is a milk-and-water thing which cannot support itself; that we must knock it down and set up something with more energy." "If that is the case," rejoined Washington, "it is a proof of their insanity, for the republican spirit of the Union is so manifest and so solid that it is astonishing how any one can expect to move it." We have only Jefferson's account of this and other interesting interviews of a confidential nature which he had with the President, and we give them generally almost in his own words, through which, partial as they may have been, we discern Washington's constant, efforts to moderate the growing antipathies between the eminent men whom he had sought to assist him in conducting the government. He continued to have the highest opinion of Jefferson's abilities, his knowledge of foreign affairs, his thorough patriotism; and it was his earnest desire to retain him in his cabinet through the whole of the ensuing session of Congress; before the close of which he trusted the affairs of the country relating to foreign powers, Indian disturbances, and internal policy, would have taken a more decisive, and it was to be hoped agreeable form than they then had. A compromise was eventually made, according to which Jefferson was to be allowed a temporary absence in the autumn, and on his return was to continue in office until January. In the mean time Genet had proceeded to New York, which very excitable city was just then in a great agitation. The frigate Ambuscade, while anchored in the harbor, had been challenged to single combat by the British frigate Boston, Captain Courtney, which was cruising off the Hook. The challenge was accepted; a severe action ensued; Courtney was killed; and the Boston, much damaged, was obliged to stand for Halifax. The Ambuscade returned triumphant to New York, and entered the port amid the enthusiastic cheers of the populace. On the same day, a French fleet of fifteen sail arrived from the Chesapeake and anchored in the Hudson river. The officers and crews were objects of unbounded favor with all who inclined to the French cause. Bompard, the commander of the Ambuscade, was the hero of the day. Tri-colored cockades, and tri-colored ribbons were to be seen on every side, and rude attempts to chant the Marseilles Hymn and the Carmagnole resounded through the streets. ET. 61.] RECEPTION OF GENET IN NEW YORK-GRIEVANCES OF GENET. 721 In the midst of this excitement, the ringing | attachment to the severe maxims of democracy, of bells and the firing of cannon announced were striving to ruin him in his own country, that Citizen Genet was arrived at Powles Hook after having united all their efforts to calumFerry, directly opposite the city. There was niate him in the minds of their fellow-citizens." an immediate assemblage of the republican "These people," observes he, "instead of a party in the fields now called the Park. A democratic ambassador, would prefer a minister committee was appointed to escort Genet into of the ancient regime, very complaisant, very the city. He entered it amid the almost frantic gentle, very disposed to pay court to people in cheerings of the populace. Addresses were office, to conform blindly to every thing which made to him expressing devoted attachment to flattered their views and projects; above all, the French republic, and abjuring all neutrality to prefer to the sure and modest society of in regard to its heroic struggle. "The cause good farmers, simple citizens, and honest artiof France is the cause of America," cried the sans, that of distinguished personages who enthusiasts, "it is time to distinguish its friends speculate so patriotically in the public funds, from its foes." Genet looked around him. in the lands, and the paper of government." The tri-colored cockade figured in the hats of the shouting multitude; tri-colored ribbons fluttered from the dresses of females in the windows; the French flag was hoisted on the top of the Tontine Coffee House (the City Exchange), surmounted by the cap of liberty."may be the result of the exploit of which you Can we wonder that what little discretion Genet possessed, was completely overborne by this tide of seeming popularity? In the midst of his self-gratulation and complacency, however, he received a letter from Mr. Jefferson (Sept. 15th), acquainting him with the measures taken to procure his recall, and enclosing a copy of the letter written for that purpose to the American minister at Paris. It was added that, out of anxious regard lest the interests of France might suffer, the Executive would, in the mean time, receive his (M. Genet's) communications in writing, and admit the continuance of his functions so long as they should be restrained within the law as theretofore announced to him, and should be of the tenor usually observed towards independent nations, by the representative of a friendly power residing with them. The letter of the Secretary of State threw Genet into a violent passion, and produced a reply (Sept. 18th), written while he was still in a great heat. In this he attributed his disfavor with the American government to the machinations of "those gentlemen who had so often been represented to him as aristocrats, partisans of monarchy, partisans of England and her constitution, and consequently enemies of the principles which all good Frenchmen had embraced with religious enthusiasm." "These persons," he said, "alarmed by the popularity which the zeal of the American people for the cause of France had shed upon her minister; alarmed also by his inflexible and incorruptible In his heat, Genet resented the part Mr. Jefferson had taken, notwithstanding their cordial intimacy, in the present matter, although this part had merely been the discharge of an official duty. "Whatever, Sir," writes Genet, have rendered yourself the generous instrument, after having made me believe that you were my friend, after having initiated me in the mysteries which have influenced my hatred against all those who aspire to absolute power, there is an act of justice which the American people, which the French people, which all free people are interested in demanding; it is, that a particular inquiry should be made, in the approaching Congress, into the motives which have induced the chief of the executive power of the United States to take upon himself to demand the recall of a public minister, whom the sovereign people of the United States have received fraternally and recognized, before the diplomatic forms had been fulfilled in respect to him at Philadelphia." The wrongs of which Genet considered himself entitled to complain against the executive, commenced before his introduction to that functionary. It was the proclamation of neutrality which first grieved his spirit. "I was extremely wounded," writes he, "that the President of the United States should haste, before knowing what I had to transmit on the part of the French republic, to proclaim sentiments over which decency and friendship should at least have thrown a veil." He was grieved, moreover, that on his first audience, the President had spoken only of the friendship of the United States for France, without uttering a word or expressing a single sentiment in regard to its revolution, although all the towns, all the villages from Charleston 722 NEUTRALITY ENDANGERED BY GREAT BRITAIN. [1793. to Philadelphia, had made the air resound with | of corn, flour, or meal, take them into port, their ardent voices for the French republic. And what further grieved his spirit was, to observe "that this first magistrate of a free people had decorated his saloon with certain medallions of Capet [meaning Louis XVI.] and his family, which served in Paris for rallying signs." We forbear to cite further this angry and ill-monstrance from the government, as being a judged letter. Unfortunately for Genet's ephemeral popularity, a rumor got abroad that he had expressed a determination to appeal from the President to the people. This at first was contradicted, but was ultimately established by a certificate of Chief Justice Jay, and Mr. Rufus King, of the United States Senate, which was published in the papers. unload them, purchase the cargoes, make a proper allowance for the freight, and then release the vessels; or to allow the masters of them, on a stipulated security, to dispose of their cargoes in a port in amity with England. This measure gave umbrage to all parties in the United States, and brought out an earnest re The spirit of audacity thus manifested by a foreign minister, shocked the national pride. Meetings were held in every part of the Union to express the public feeling in the matter. In these meetings the proclamation of neutrality and the system of measures flowing from it, were sustained, partly from a conviction of their wisdom and justice, but more from an undiminished affection for the person and character of Washington; for many who did not espouse his views, were ready to support him in the exercise of his constitutional functions. The warm partisans of Genet, however, were the more vehement in his support from the temporary ascendency of the other party. They advocated his right to appeal from the President to the people. The President, they argued, was invested with no sanctity to make such an act criminal. In a republican country the people were the real sovereigns. CHAPTER XXIII. WHILE the neutrality of the United States, so jealously guarded by Washington, was endangered by the intrigues of the French minister, it was put to imminent hazard by ill-advised measures of the British cabinet. There was such a scarcity in France, in consequence of the failure of the crops, that a famine was apprehended. England, availing herself of her naval ascendency, determined to increase the distress of her rival by cutting off all her supplies from abroad. In June, 1798, therefore, her cruisers were instructed to detain all vessels bound to France with cargoes violation of the law of neutrals, and indefensible on any proper construction of the law of nations. Another grievance which helped to swell the tide of resentment against Great Britain, was the frequent impressment of American seamen, a wrong to which they were particularly exposed from national similarity. To these may be added the persistence of Great Britain in holding the posts to the south of the lakes, which, according to treaty stipnlations, ought to have been given up. Washington did not feel himself in a position to press our rights under the treaty, with the vigorous hand that some would urge; questions having risen in some of the State courts, to obstruct the fulfilment of our part of it, which regarded the payment of British debts contracted before the war. The violent partisans of France thought nothing of these shortcomings on our own part; and would have had the forts seized at once; but Washington considered a scrupulous discharge of our own obligations the necessary preliminary, should so violent a measure be deemed advisable. His prudent and conscientious conduct in this particular, so in unison with the impartial justice which governed all his actions, was cited by partisan writers, as indicative of his preference of England to our ancient ally." The hostilities of the Indians north of the Ohio, by many attributed to British wiles, still continued. The attempts at an amicable negotiation had proved as fruitless as Washington had anticipated. The troops under Wayne had, therefore, taken the field to act offensively; but from the lateness of the season, had formed a winter camp near the site of the present city of Cincinnati, whence Wayne was to open his campaign in the ensuing spring, Congress assembled on the 2d of December (1793), with various causes of exasperation at work; the intrigues of Genet and the aggres sions of England, uniting to aggravate to a degree of infatuation the partiality for France, |