Life and Times of Washington, Volume 2 / Revised, Enlarged, and Enriched

by John Frederick Schroeder; Benson John Lossing

"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."

In answer to this letter, Jefferson stated the assurances which had on that day been given to him by Genet, that the vessel Would not sail before the President's decision respecting her should be made. In consequence of this information, immediate coercive measures were suspended, and in the council of the succeeding day it was determined to retain in port all privateers which had been equipped by any of the belligerent powers within the United States. Genet was informed of this determination, but in contempt of it, the Little Democrat proceeded on her cruise. This proceeding furnished a subject of exultation to the opponents of the government, as did also the acquittal by a Charleston jury of Gideon Henfield, who had been arrested for shipping on board a French privateer, he being an American citizen.

While the correspondence between Genet and Jefferson concerning this affair was still going on, the former obtained cause of complaint on his part, and urged that the British were in the habit of taking French property out of American vessels, in contravention of the principles of neutrality avowed by the rest of Europe. His letters to Jefferson on this subject were still more insulting than those which had preceded them. On the 9th of July (1793), he wrote to Jefferson, demanding an instant answer to the question—What measures the President had taken, or would take, to cause the American flag to be respected? Receiving no answer, toward the end of July he again addressed the Secretary of State on the subject. In this extraordinary letter, after complaining of the insults offered to the American flag by seizing the property of Frenchmen confided to its protection, he added: "Your political rights are counted for nothing. In vain do the principles of neutrality establish that friendly vessels make friendly goods; in vain, sir, does the President of the United States endeavor, by his proclamation, to reclaim the observation of this maxim; in vain does the desire of preserving peace lead to sacrifice the interests of France to that of the moment; in vain does the thirst of riches preponderate over honor in the political balance of America—all this management, all this condescension, all this humility, end in nothing; our enemies laugh at it; and the French, too confident, are punished for having believed that the American nation had a flag, that they had some respect for their laws, some conviction of their strength, and entertained some sentiment of their dignity. It is not possible for me, sir, to paint to you all my sensibility at this scandal, which tends to the diminution of your commerce, to the oppression of ours, and to the debasement and vilification of republics. It is for the Americans to make known their generous indignation at this outrage, and I must confine myself to demand of you, a second time, to inform me of the measures which you have taken in order to obtain restitution of the property plundered from my fellow-citizens under the protection of your flag. It is from our government they have learned that the Americans were our allies, that the American nation was sovereign, and that they knew how to make themselves respected. It is then under the very same sanction of the French nation that they have confided their property and persons to the safeguard of the American flag, and on her they submit the care of causing those rights to be respected. But if our fellow-citizens have been deceived, if you are not in a condition to maintain the sovereignty of your people, speak; we have guaranteed it when slaves, we shall be able to render it formidable, having become freemen."

On the day preceding the date of this offensive letter, Jefferson had answered that of the 9th of July, and, without noticing the unbecoming style in which the decision of the executive was demanded, had avowed and defended the opinion that, "by the general law of nations, the goods of an enemy found in the vessels of a friend, are lawful prize." This fresh insult might therefore be passed over in silence.

While a hope remained that the temperate forbearance of the President, and the unceasing manifestations of his friendly dispositions toward the French republic might induce the minister of that nation to respect the rights of the United States, and to abstain from violations of their sovereignty, an anxious solicitude not to impair the harmony which he wished to maintain between the two republics had restrained him from adopting those measures respecting Genet which his conduct required. He had seen a foreign minister usurp, within the territories of the United States, some of the most important rights of sovereignty, and persist, after the prohibition of the government in the exercise of those rights. In asserting this extravagant claim, so incompatible with national independence, the spirit in which it originated had been pursued, and the haughty style of a superior had been substituted for the respectful language of diplomacy. He had seen the same minister undertake to direct the civil government, and to pronounce, in opposition to the decisions of the executive, in what departments the constitution of the United States had placed certain great national powers. To render this state of things more peculiarly critical and embarrassing, the person most instrumental in producing it had, from his arrival, thrown himself into the arms of the people, stretched out to receive him, and was emboldened by their favor to indulge the hope of succeeding in his endeavors, either to overthrow their government, or to bend it to his will. But the' full experiment had now been made, and the result was a conviction not to be resisted, that moderation would only invite additional injuries, and that the present insufferable state of things could be terminated only by procuring the removal of the French minister, or by submitting to become, in his hands, the servile instrument of hostility against the enemies of his nation. Information was continually received from every quarter of fresh aggressions on the principles established by the government, and, while the executive was thus openly disregarded and contemned, the members of the administration were reproached, in all the papers of an active and restless opposition, as the violators of the national faith, the partisans of monarchy, and the enemies of liberty and of France.

The unwearied efforts to preserve that station in which the various treaties in existence had placed the nation were incessantly calumniated as infractions of those treaties, and ungrateful attempts to force the United States into a war against France.

The judgment of Washington was never hastily formed, but, once made up, it was seldom to be shaken. Before the last letter of Genet was communicated to him he had decided to terminate future intercourse with him.

In a Cabinet council the whole matter was carefully reviewed, and it was unanimously agreed that Gouverneur Morris, the American minister at Paris, should present the whole case to the French government and request Genet's recall. The faction by whom he had been originally sent out having passed out of power, this was easily effected.

At the same time the Cabinet, under Washington's direction, drew up a system of rules to be observed by the belligerents in the ports of the United States. These rules evidence the settled purpose of the executive faithfully to observe all the national engagements and honestly to perform the duties of that neutrality in which the war found them and in which those engagements left them free to remain.

Neutrality between belligerents is a difficult and delicate part to sustain. It was not France alone that advanced extraordinary pretensions. The British government issued orders for stopping all neutral ships, laden with provisions, bound for the ports of France, thus declaring that country in a state of blockade. The National Convention of France had, indeed, set the example of this by an act of the same tendency, doubly rash, because impotent. But this, however strong a plea for retaliating upon France, was none for making America suffer. Corn, indeed, formed the chief export of the United States, and to prohibit them from shipping it at all—for the new regulation amounted in fact to this—was a grievance which the most pacific neutral could scarcely submit to. Another continually recurring source of complaint on the part of the United States against England was the pressing of their seamen, which the difficulty of distinguishing between natives of the two countries rendered of frequent occurrence and tardy rectification. These causes came to swell the tide of faction in America as the enemies of England and of authoritative institutions took advantage of them to raise their cry, whilst the anti-gallican, on the other hand, were as indignant against the arrogance of the French and of their envoy.