Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3.

by Benson John Lossing

Meanwhile, L'Embuscade had arrived at Philadelphia with a British vessel, called The Grange, as a prize; and intelligence of Genet's unwarrantable proceedings at Charleston in authorizing privateers had been received. Yet so wild and unthinking was the popular enthusiasm that appeared on the surface of society, that scarcely a word in condemnation of his conduct was offered. On the contrary, these things appeared to increase the zeal of his political sympathizers, and made Genet's reception, in some respects, more flattering to his personal and national pride. In a letter to Madison at this time, Jefferson, influenced by the exultation of the movement, and in apparent forgetfulness of the serious offence which the ardent Genet had committed against the dignity of the United States and the courtesy of nations, wrote:—

“The war between France and England seems to be producing an effect not contemplated. All the old spirit of 1776, rekindling the newspapers from Boston to Charleston, proves this; and even the monocrat papers are obliged to publish the most furious philippics against England. A French frigate took a British prize (the Grange) off the capes of Delaware, the other day, and sent her up here. Upon her coming into sight, thousands and thousands of the yeomanry of the city crowded and covered the wharves. Never was there such a crowd seen there; and when the British colors were seen reversed, and the French flying above them, they burst into peals of exultation. I wish we may be able to repress the spirit of the people within the limits of a fair neutrality.... We expect Genet daily.”

So eager were the republicans of Philadelphia to do honor to Genet, that, before he had presented his credentials to the president, he was invited to an evening feast. Indeed, preparations for his reception and the “republican dinner” had been made several days before, and this invitation was only a part of the programme. Genet was delighted by this demonstration—a demonstration (arranged chiefly by the labors of Peter S. Duponceau, who came to America originally as the secretary of Baron Steuben, and who was now secretary of a secret society of Frenchmen, which met at Barney M'Shane's, sign of the bunch of grapes, number twenty-three North Third street) that should strike with terror the “cowardly, conservative, Anglo-men, and monarchists,” led by President Washington; and his joy was heightened by reading an approving history of the proceedings in Freneau's paper, the organ of the secretary of state. He even seemed for a moment to doubt the expediency of presenting his credentials at all, because Washington was evidently not ready to comply with all his wishes, and he believed that the whole American people were friends of France, and the enemies of all her opponents.

Genet, however, did present his credentials on the nineteenth of May, and was officially accredited. In that ceremony his pride was touched and his enthusiasm was abated. He found in the presence of Washington an atmosphere of dignity and greatness wholly unexpected, and thoroughly overpowering. He felt his littleness in the presence of that noble representative of the best men and the soundest principles of the American republic, and he returned from the audience abashed and subdued; for the genuine courtesy exhibited by the president, and the words of sincere friendship for the French nation which he uttered, had touched Genet's sensibilities; while the severe simplicity and dignity of manner, and the absence of that effervescent enthusiasm in the midst of which he had been cast since his arrival, administered rebuke alike to the adulators in public places, and his own pretentious aspirations. He had come with secret instructions to foment war between the United States and England for the benefit of France, but that single interview with Washington made him feel, for the time, that his efforts must result in failure; for the word of the chief magistrate was yet almost as omnipotent as law with the greater portion of his countrymen.

Genet was relieved of the chill by the evening banquet, where all was enthusiasm and boisterous mirth. It was given at Oeller's hotel, and quite a large number of republicans were at the board. A patriotic ode written in French, by Duponceau, and translated into English by Freneau, was sung; and the Marseilles hymn was chanted by Genet and the company, the minister adding two stanzas composed by himself, and having special reference to the navy. This followed the reception of a deputation of sailors from the frigate L'Embuscade, who, when they entered the room, were received by the guests with a “fraternal embrace.” The table was decorated with the tree of liberty and the French and American flags; and after the last regular toast of the evening was given, the bonnet rouge, or red cap of liberty, was placed first upon the head of Genet, and then upon each one present in turn, the recipient being expected, under the inspiration of the emblem of freedom, to utter a patriotic sentiment. The national flags were finally delivered to the French sailors, who “swore to defend till death these tokens of liberty, and of American and French fraternity.”

To the superficial observer, the great mass of the people seemed carried away with a monomaniac frenzy. Democratic societies were founded in imitation of Jacobin clubs; everything that was respectable in society was denounced as aristocratic; politeness was looked upon as a sort of lese republicanisme; the common forms of expression in use by the sans culottes were adopted by their American disciples; the title “citizen” became as common in Philadelphia as in Paris; and in the newspapers it was the fashion to announce marriages as partnerships between “Citizen” Brown, Smith, or Jones, and the “citess,” who had been wooed to such an association. Entering the house of the president, Citizen Genet was astonished and indignant at perceiving in the vestibule a bust of Louis XVI, whom his friends had beheaded, and he complained of this “insult to France.” At a dinner, at which Governor Mifflin was present, a roasted pig received the name of the murdered king, and the head, severed from the body, was carried round to each of the guests, who, after placing the liberty cap on his own head, pronounced the word “Tyrant!” and proceeded to mangle with his knife that of the luckless creature doomed to be served for so unworthy a company! One of the democratic taverns displayed as a sign a revolting picture of the mutilated and bloody corpse of Marie Antoinette.[48]

Nor was this enthusiasm confined to Philadelphia. In his admirable daguerreotype of old New York, the venerable Doctor Francis has given a vivid picture, from memory, of the effect of Genet's arrival and sojourn in the country. Speaking of the arrival of L'Embuscade, he says: “The notoriety of the event and its consequences enables me to bring to feeble recollection many of the scenes which transpired in this city at that time: the popular excitement and bustle; the liberty cap; the entrée of Citizen Genet; the red cockade; the song of the Carmagnole, in which with childish ambition I united; the rencontre with the Boston frigate, and the commotion arising from Jay's treaty. Though I can not speak earnestly from actual knowledge, we must all concede that these were the times when political strife assumed a formidable aspect—when the press most flagrantly outraged individual rights and domestic peace—when the impugners of the Washingtonian administration received new weapons, with which to inflict their assaults upon tried patriotism, by every arrival from abroad announcing France in her progress. The federalists and the anti-federalists now became the federal and the republican party; the Carmagnole sung every hour of every day in the streets, and on stated days at the Belvidere Club-house, fanned the embers and enkindled that zeal which caused the overthrow of many of the soundest principles of American freedom. Even the yellow fever, which, from its novelty and its malignity, struck terror into every bosom, and was rendered more lurid by the absurd preventive means of burning tar and tar-barrels in almost every street, afforded no mitigation of party animosity; and Greenleaf with his Argus, Freneau with his Time-Piece, and Cobbett with his Porcupine Gazette, increased the consternation, which only added to the inquietude of the peaceable citizen, who had often reasoned within himself that a seven-years' carnage, through which he had passed, had been enough for one life.”

“Much I saw—much has been told me by the old inhabitants now departed,” says Doctor Francis. “When the entire American nation, nay, when the civilized world at large, seemed electrified by the outbreak of the Revolution in France, it necessarily followed, as the shadow does the substance, that the American soul, never derelict, could not but enkindle with patriotic warmth at the cause of that people whose loftiest desire was freedom—of that people who themselves had, with profuse appropriation, enabled that very bosom, in the moment of hardest trial, to inhale the air of liberty. Successive events had now dethroned the monarchy of France, and the democratic spirit was now evolved in its fullest element. It was not surprising that the experienced and the sober champions who had effected the great revolution of the colonies should now make the cause of struggling France their own; and as victors already in one desperate crisis, they seemed ready to enter into a new contest for the rights of man. The masses coalesced and co-operated. Cheering prospects of sympathy and of support were held out in the prospective to their former friends and benefactors abroad. Jealousy of Britain—affection for France—was now the prevailing impulse, and the business of the day was often interrupted by tumultuous noises in the streets. Groups of sailors might be seen collected on the docks and at the shipping, ready to embark on a voyage of plunder; merchants and traders, in detached bodies, might be seen discussing the hazards of commerce; the schools liberated from their prescribed hours of study, because of some fresh report of L'Embuscade or of Genet; the schoolmaster uttering in his dismissal a new reason for the study of the classics, by expounding with oracular dignity to his scholars, Vivat Respublica, broadly printed as the caption of the playbill or the pamphlet just issued.”[49]

But, fortunately for the United States, there were many strong, sober, and patriotic men, who had looked calmly upon the storms of the French Revolution, and wisely interpreted its portents. On the same day when Genet was received by the president and feasted by the republicans, an address was presented to Washington, signed by three hundred of the principal merchants and other “solid men” of Philadelphia, declaring their high sense of the wisdom and goodness which dictated his late proclamation of neutrality; and that the signers, believing that nothing was necessary to the happiness of the United States but a continuance of peace, not only would heed that proclamation themselves, but discountenance, in the most pointed manner, any contrary disposition in others. In his reply, Washington, with his usual dignity and discretion, expressed a hope that, in the critical juncture of public affairs, the people would evince as much freedom in pursuing peace, as they had previously displayed valor in vindicating their just rights.

The conservative class to whom we have alluded was composed of the best materials of American society. They were firm, consistent, and quiet; and while the noise that attended the demonstrations in favor of the French Revolution appeared to the shallow and timid as the voice of the nation, a very large majority of the people doubtless sympathized with the restraining measures of the president.