Having the best reason to suppose that the hostility of the southern Indians was excited by the agents of Spain, the President had directed the American commissioners at Madrid to make the proper representations on the subject, and to propose that each nation should, with good faith, promote the peace of the other with their savage neighbours.
About the same time, the Spanish government entertained, or affected to entertain, corresponding suspicions of like hostile excitements by the agents of the United States, to disturb their peace with the same nations. The representations which were induced by these real or affected suspicions, were accompanied with pretensions, and made in a style, to which the American executive could not be inattentive. His Catholic Majesty asserted these claims as a patron and protector of those Indians. He assumed a right to mediate between them and the United States, and to interfere in the establishment of their boundaries. At length, in the very moment when those savages were committing daily inroads on the American frontier, at the instigation of Spain, as was believed, the representatives of that power, complaining of the aggressions of American citizens on the Indians, declared "that the continuation of the peace, good harmony, and perfect friendship of the two nations, was very problematical for the future, unless the United States should take more convenient measures, and of greater energy than those adopted for a long time past."
Notwithstanding the zeal and enthusiasm with which the pretensions of the French republic, as asserted by their minister, continued to be supported out of doors, they found no open advocate in either branch of the legislature. That this circumstance is, in a great measure, to be ascribed to the temperate conduct of the executive, and to the convincing arguments with which its decisions were supported, ought not to be doubted. But when it is recollected that the odium which these decisions excited, sustained no diminution; that the accusation of hostility to France and to liberty, which originated in them, was not retracted; that, when afterwards many of the controverted claims were renewed by France, her former advocates still adhered to her; it is not unreasonable to suppose that other considerations mingled themselves with the conviction which the correspondence laid before the legislature was calculated to produce.
An attack on the administration could be placed on no ground more disadvantageous than on its controversy with Mr. Genet. The conduct and language of that minister were offensive to reflecting men of all parties. The President had himself taken so decisive a part in favour of the measures which had been adopted, that they must be ascribed to him, not to his cabinet; and, of consequence, the whole weight of his personal character must be directly encountered, in an attempt to censure those measures. From this censure it would have been difficult to extricate the person who was contemplated by the party in opposition as its chief; for the secretary of state had urged the arguments of the administration with a degree of ability and earnestness, which ought to have silenced the suspicion that he might not feel their force.
The expression of a legislative opinion, in favour of the points insisted on by the French minister, would probably have involved the nation in a calamitous war, the whole responsibility for which would rest on them.
To these considerations was added another which could not be disregarded. The party in France, to which Mr. Genet owed his appointment, had lost its power; and his fall was the inevitable consequence of the fall of his patrons. That he would probably be recalled was known in America; and that his conduct had been disapproved by his government was generally believed. The future system of the French republic, with regard to the United States, could not be foreseen; and it would be committing something to hazard, not to wait its development.
These objections did not exist to an indulgence of the partialities and prejudices of the nation towards the belligerent powers, in measures suggested by its resentment against Great Britain. But, independent of these considerations, it is scarcely possible to doubt that congress really approved the conduct of the executive with regard to France, and was also convinced that a course of hostility had been pursued by Great Britain, which the national interest and the national honour required them to repel. In the irritable state of the public temper, it was not difficult to produce this opinion.
In addition to the causes of dissatisfaction with Great Britain which have already been suggested, others soon occurred. Under her auspices, a truce for one year had been lately negotiated between Portugal and the Regency of Algiers, which, by withdrawing a small squadron stationed during the war, by the former power, in the Streights, opened a passage into the Atlantic to the cruisers of the latter. The capture of American merchantmen, which was the immediate consequence of this measure, was believed, in the United States, to have been its motive. Not admitting the possibility that a desire to extricate Portugal from a war unproductive of any advantages, and to leave her maritime force free to act elsewhere, could have induced this interposition of England, the Americans ascribed it, exclusively, to that enmity to their commerce, and to that jealousy of its prosperity, which had, as they conceived, long marked the conduct of those who administered the affairs of that nation.
This transaction was afterwards explained by England, and was ascribed to her desire to serve an ally, and to enable that ally to act more efficaciously in a common cause.
