These communications distressed the president; and on the sixth of August he called upon Mr. Jefferson at his house, a little out of Philadelphia, and expressed himself greatly concerned because of the threatened desertion of those on whom he most relied, in this the hour of greatest perplexity to the government. He did not know where he should look to find suitable characters to fill up the offices. Mere talents, he said, did not suffice for the department of state; for its duties required a person conversant with foreign affairs, and perhaps with foreign courts.
“He expressed great apprehensions,” says Jefferson in his Anas, “at the fermentation which seemed to be working in the mind of the public; that many descriptions of persons, actuated by different causes, appeared to be uniting [alluding to the democratic societies]; what it would end in he knew not; a new Congress was to assemble, more numerous, and perhaps of a different spirit; and the first expression of their sentiments would be important.” He then urged Jefferson to remain until the close of the next session, if no longer.
Jefferson pleaded his repugnance to public life, and especially the uneasiness of the position in which he was placed. He and Hamilton were bitter enemies, and his course, he said, had caused “the wealthy aristocrats, the merchants connected closely with England, the newly-created paper factions,” to bear him peculiar hatred. Thus surrounded, he said, his “words were caught, multiplied, misconstrued, and even fabricated and spread abroad,” to his injury. Disclaiming any knowledge of the views of the republican party at that time, he gave it as his opinion that they would be found strong supporters of the government in all measures for the public welfare; that in the next Congress they would attempt nothing material but to make that body independent; and that though the manœuvres of Mr. Genet might produce some embarrassment, he would be abandoned by the republicans and all true friends of the country the moment they knew the nature and tendency of his conduct.
The want of candor exhibited by Mr. Jefferson in these assurances, recorded by his own pen, must have been plainly visible to Washington. The idea that the secretary, the head and front of the republican party, should be ignorant of their “views,” and that the “party” would desert Genet when they should know “the nature of his conduct,” when that party were his continual backers and supporters, is simply absurd; and it is difficult to believe that Washington on that occasion, as Mr. Jefferson says, actually asserted his belief “in the purity of the motives” of that party.[58]
Jefferson consented to remain longer in the cabinet, and wrote the vigorous and high-toned letter to Gouverneur Morris on the subject of Genet's recall—a letter forming one of the most admirable state papers ever issued from that department. That letter gave Genet great umbrage, and in his comments he bitterly reproached Jefferson because he had allowed himself to be made “an ungenerous instrument” of attack upon him, after having made him believe that he was his friend, and “initiating him into the mysteries which had influenced his hatred against all those who aspired to absolute power.” It seems, from other remarks of Genet, that the tone of Jefferson's private conversations with the minister upon public topics had differed materially from that of his official communications. Genet intimated this when he said that “it was not in his character to speak, as many people do, in one way, and to act in another—to have an official language, and a language confidential.”[59]
While the subject of Genet's recall was pending, the minister proceeded to New York. Already the common sense of the people began to prevail over the nonsense of passion and feeling. Business-men—and the whole population of the country had interests directly associated with business-men—began to reflect upon the tendency of the doctrines of Genet, and clearly perceived that their practical effect would be the involvement of the United States in a war with England, and the sweeping of all their commerce from the ocean. From the moment when these reflections were heeded, there was a pause in the popular expressions of enthusiasm in favor of Genet. The last libations of fulsome adulation were poured out on his arrival in New York in September, while the whole town and surrounding country were wild with excitement. The frigate L'Embuscade, while lying in the harbor of New York, had been challenged to single combat by the British frigate Boston, then cruising off Sandy Hook. L'Embuscade accepted the challenge; a severe battle ensued; Captain Courtenay, commander of the Boston, was killed; and the French vessel returned in triumph to New York. Multitudes of people gathered upon the wharves and greeted her with loud cheers. The excitement was intensified by the arrival, on the same day, of a French fleet from Chesapeake bay, which anchored in the Hudson river. The commander of L'Embuscade, and the officers of the other French vessels, were regarded as almost superhuman by the most enthusiastic sympathizers with the French Revolution; and tri-colored ribbons and cockades were seen on every side, while the streets were made resonant with the Marsellaise Hymn and the Carmagnole.
While this new phase of excitement was at its culmination, the booming of cannon and the merry peal of the bells announced the approach of Citizen Genet. He was at Paulus' Hook (now Jersey City), opposite New York, and thousands of his friends immediately gathered in “The Fields” (now City-hall park) to adopt measures for his reception. A committee of escort was appointed, and Genet entered the city, amid the acclamations of an excited populace, with all the pomp of a conqueror. “Addresses were made to him,” says Mr. Irving, “expressing devoted attachment to the French republic, and abjuring all neutrality in regard to its heroic struggle. 'The cause of France is the cause of America,' cried the enthusiasts; 'it is time to distinguish its friends from its foes.' Genet looked around him. 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. Can we wonder that what little discretion Genet possessed was completely overborne by this tide of seeming popularity?”
Genet had scarcely touched this cup of delight with his lips, when a copy of Jefferson's letter to Morris came to embitter the intoxicating draught. He received the document on the fifteenth of September, with assurances that, out of regard to the interests of France, the president would receive Mr. Genet's communications in writing, and respect him as the representative of his government until his successor should arrive, as long as his deportment should be of the tenor usually observed by embassadors toward independent nations. Genet was stung to the quick; and, three days after the receipt of this letter, he wrote a most angry reply to Jefferson, in which, as we have just noticed, he accused him of playing false to his professions of friendship, and charged the disfavor in which he was held by the government to the machinations of “aristocrats, partisans of monarchy, partisans of England and her constitution and consequently enemies of the principles which all good Frenchmen had imbued with religious enthusiasm;” and who, “instead of a democratic embassador, would prefer a minister of the ancient regimé, very complaisant, very gentle, very disposed to pay court to people in office, to conform blindly to everything which flattered their views and projects; above all, to prefer to the sure and modest society of good farmers, simple citizens, and honest artisans, that of distinguished personages who speculate so patriotically in the public funds, in the lands, and in the paper of government.”
Among the twelve enumerated great grievances of which Genet complained, was, that at his first interview with the president, the latter did not speak to him, specially, but of the friendship of the United States toward France; that he did not, with partisan enthusiasm, announce a single sentiment on the French Revolution, “while all the towns from Charleston to Philadelphia had made the air resound with their most ardent wishes for the French republic.” He complained that the president had admitted to a private audience, before his arrival, “Noailles[60] and Talon, known agents of the French counter-revolutionists;” that the “first magistrate of a free people decorated his parlor with certain medallions” of the murdered king and his family, “which served at Paris as signals of rallying;” that when he applied to the secretary of war to lend his government some cannon and firearms for defensive use in the Windward islands, that functionary had “the front to answer, with an ironical carelessness, that the principles established by the president did not permit him to lend the French “so much as a pistol!” and, lastly, that the president, in spite of the French minister's “respectful insinuations,” had deferred “to convoke Congress immediately in order to take the true sentiments of the people, to fix the political system of the United States, and to decide whether they would break, suspend, or tighten their bonds with France.”
Jefferson, who had become heartily disgusted with Genet, took no notice of this angry and insolent letter, and the speedily-changed tone of public feeling toward the writer justified the silence. His threat of appealing from the president to the people—in other words, to excite an insurrection for the purpose of overthrowing the government—had shocked the national pride, and many considerate republicans, who had been zealous in the cause of the French Revolution, paused while listening to the audacious words of a foreigner, who presumed to dictate a course of conduct for the beloved Washington to pursue.