The rumor of Genet's threat first went abroad in August, and met him, while on a visit to New York, in the form of a statement in one of the public papers. His partisans denied the truth of the statement, when Chief-Justice Jay and Rufus King (the latter a leading member of Congress) assumed the responsibility of it in a published note dated the twelfth of August. The fact was thus established, notwithstanding the violent assaults made by Genet's partisans upon the integrity of Messrs. Jay and King; and on the very day when, as we have observed, he was received in New York in the midst of pealing bells and roaring cannon, a public meeting was held, in which his insolence was rebuked, and the policy of Washington's proclamation of neutrality strongly commended. Similar meetings were held throughout the Union, and there soon appeared a demonstration of public sentiment, the existence of which was not suspected by the partisans of Genet. His more violent friends attempted to check the counter-current, but in vain. When they could no longer deny the fact of his menace, they unwisely advocated his right to appeal from the president to the people. But this advocacy, and Genet's own intemperate conduct, damaged his interests past recovery. The tide of his popularity began rapidly to ebb, and in the public mind there was commenced a strong and irresistible reaction in favor of the federal government.
During the summer of 1793, a malignant fever, with slow but sure steps, invaded the city of Philadelphia. One after another of the inhabitants fell before its pestilential breath, until at length physicians and the voice of daily experience pronounced it infectious. It was, in truth, the deadly yellow fever that had fastened its fangs upon the doomed city. With the conviction of imminent peril, the population began to move. Those whose circumstances permitted them to leave fled to the country; and as August, with its hot days and cool, moist nights, drew to a close, its intensity fearfully increased. It respected neither age nor class. Early in September, Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury, was prostrated by it, but recovered; and on the ninth, Washington with his family left for Mount Vernon, leaving directions about his household with General Knox, who resolved to remain, contrary to the advice of the president.
“I think it would not be prudent,” said Washington, “either for you or the clerks in your office, or the office itself, to be too much exposed to the malignant fever, which, by well-authenticated report, is spreading through the city.... I sincerely wish and pray that you and yours may escape untouched, and when we meet again, that it may be under circumstances more pleasing than the present.”
Washington would have remained longer, but Mrs. Washington, alarmed for the safety of the whole family (the house in which they lived being in a manner blockaded by the disorder), prevailed on him to leave. The fever continued to rage with great violence until late in October, when frost checked its progress. Before it ceased, between three and four thousand of the inhabitants of Philadelphia perished. There was mourning in almost every family; and during the ensuing session of Congress, there was very little gayety in the federal capital. Some of the physicians fled like cowards from the field of battle, while others remained and assumed the two-fold functions of physicians and nurses, during those dark days of the autumn of 1793. Among the latter was the eminent Doctor Rush, whose courage and philanthropy are matters of history.[61]
The progress of the disease in Philadelphia was watched by the president at Mount Vernon with great solicitude, as the autumn wore away, for it was near the time for the assembling of a new Congress, and public affairs demanded their earliest and most serious attention. September passed away, and much of October had gone, before the fever abated. Meanwhile, he proposed to call the Congress together at Germantown, or some other place near Philadelphia, at a safe distance from the pestilence. He had some doubt concerning his power to change the place of meeting, or to call them together at all, and asked the opinion of Mr. Randolph, the attorney-general. That gentleman expressed his belief that the president had not the power, and suggested the propriety of the Congress assembling at some place within the limits of Philadelphia, and then adjourning to some more remote and safe position. In the event of their not so assembling at the proper time, the “extraordinary occasion” contemplated by the constitution would occur, and the president then, clearly, had the right to call them together at the most suitable place. He also asked the opinions of other members of his cabinet on the subject; but the abatement of the disease rendered any change unnecessary.
At the close of October Washington set out for Philadelphia with his family, and there, on the second of December, the new Congress assembled.
FOOTNOTES:
[58] In a letter to Richard Henry Lee, written at Mount Vernon a few weeks later, Washington said: “On fair ground it would be difficult to assign reasons for the conduct of those [the republican party] who are arraigning, and, so far as they are able, constantly embarrassing, the measures of government with respect to its pacific disposition towards the belligerent powers in the convulsive dispute which agitates them. But their motives are too obvious to those who have the means of information, and have viewed the different grounds which they have taken, to mistake their object. It is not the cause of France, nor I believe of liberty, which they regard; for, could they involve this country in war (no matter with whom) and disgrace, they would be among the first and loudest of the clamorous against the expense and impolicy of the measure.”
[59] Genet's Letter to Jefferson, September 18, 1793.
[60] De Noailles was a young French nobleman, who married a sister of Madame Lafayette, and served with distinction at the siege of Yorktown, in 1781. Like his brother-in-law, the marquis, he had engaged warmly in the French Revolution, in its earlier stages, but, like him, found himself in a proscribed party, and obliged to fly for safety. He came to the United States by way of England, and early in May he was in Philadelphia with his friend Talon, seeking an audience with Washington. The latter, with his usual circumspection, declined any direct communication with him until the object of his visit should be known. In a note to Hamilton, Washington remarked, “I pray you intimate to him [Viscount de Noailles], gently and delicately, that if the letters or papers which he has to present are, knowingly to him, of a nature which relates to public matters, and not particularly addressed to me, or if he has any verbal communications to make of a similar kind, I had rather they should come through a proper channel. Add thereto, generally, that the peculiar situation of European affairs at this moment, my good wishes for his nation aggregately, my regard for those of it, in particular, with whom I have had the honor of an acquaintance, my anxious desire to keep this country in peace, and the delicacy of my situation, render a circumspect conduct indispensably necessary on my part. I do not, however, mean by this that I am to withhold from him such civilities as are common to others. Those more marked, notwithstanding our former acquaintance, would excite speculations, which had better be avoided.”