Washington and the American Republic Part 19

[44] _The Life of Thomas Jefferson_, by Henry S. Randall, LL.D., ii, 128.

[45] Sparks's Was.h.i.+ngton, x, 533, 534.

[46] The following is copy of the proclamation:--

"Whereas it appears that a state of war exists between Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Great Britain, and the United Netherlands, on the one part, and France on the other; and the duty and interest of the United States require that they should, with sincerity and good faith, adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers;

"I have therefore thought fit by these presents to declare the disposition of the United States to observe the conduct aforesaid towards those powers respectively; and to exhort and warn the citizens of the United States carefully to avoid all acts and proceedings whatsoever, which may in any manner tend to contravene such disposition.

"And I do hereby also make known, that whosoever of the citizens of the United States shall render himself liable to punishment or forfeiture under the laws of nations, by committing, aiding, or abetting hostilities against any of the said powers, or by carrying to them any of those articles which are deemed contraband by the modern usage of nations, will not receive the protection of the United States against such punishment or forfeiture; and further, that I have given instructions to those officers to whom it belongs, to cause prosecutions to be inst.i.tuted against all persons who shall, within the cognizance of the courts of the United States, violate the law of nations with respect to the powers at war, or any of them.

"In testimony whereof, I have caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand. Done at the city of Philadelphia, the twenty-second day of April, 1793, and of the independence of the United States the seventeenth.

"GEORGE WAs.h.i.+NGTON"

CHAPTER XXI.

GENET'S ARRIVAL AND RECEPTION AT CHARLESTON--HIS OBJECT IN LANDING THERE--HE COMMISSIONS PRIVATEERS--OPERATIONS OF TWO VESSELS--ARRIVAL OF _L'EMBUSCADE_ AT PHILADELPHIA--GENET'S RECEPTION AT PHILADELPHIA--HE PRESENTS HIS CREDENTIALS--A BANQUET IN HIS HONOR--DEMOCRATIC CLUBS--EXTRAVAGANCES--SCENES IN NEW YORK--CONSERVATIVE FEELING TRIUMPHANT--HAMILTON'S VIEWS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION--GENET'S SPEECH ON PRESENTATION TO THE PRESIDENT--JEFFERSON'S SUSPICIONS--HIS UNKIND TREATMENT OF WAs.h.i.+NGTON--GENET'S OFFICIAL LETTER--HIS DEMANDS NOT COMPLIED WITH--ACTION OF THE CABINET CONCERNING HIS PRIVATEERING SCHEMES.

Genet, as we have observed, landed at Charleston, in South Carolina, instead of a port near the seat of the government to which he came accredited. The circ.u.mstance was not regarded of much consequence at the time, as it might have been the result of accident; but the development of his designs, in accordance with secret instructions from his government, soon revealed the fact that he chose that southern port for his destination, because its contiguity to the West Indies would give it peculiar convenience as a resort for privateers, the employment of which was a part of the programme of his diplomatic functions.

Genet came in the French frigate _L'Embuscade_, and was received with most enthusiastic rejoicings by Governor Moultrie and the citizens of Charleston. This reception, acting upon his ardent nature, made him forgetful of his relations to the government to which he was sent; and with a zeal untempered by sound judgment, and a mind mistaking the evanescent demonstrations of personal respect, and the exhibition of popular feeling toward the French republic in that southern city for the settled convictions of the American people, he commenced the performance of his duties under his secret instructions, before he laid his credentials before the United States government, and asked for his reception as the representative of his nation. By these private instructions, a.s.suming that the American executive might not be sufficiently compliant with the wishes of the French government, he was authorized to employ, with the _people_ of the United States, the same policy which had been so successfully used in Europe in producing revolutions.

Genet was provided with blank commissions, both naval and military; and while enjoying the flattering attentions at Charleston for several days, he undertook to authorize the fitting out and arming of vessels in that port as privateers, to depredate upon the commerce of England and other nations at war with France. For this purpose he granted commissions, enlisted men, and, by authority a.s.sumed by him under a decree of the convention, he const.i.tuted all consuls of France the heads of courts of admiralty, to try, condemn, and authorize the sale of all property seized by the privateer cruisers sailing under Genet's _letters of marque_. Two of these privateers, manned chiefly by Americans, soon put to sea under the French flag, cruised along the Carolina coasts, and captured many homeward-bound British vessels and took them into the port of Charleston. The frigate in which Genet came to America became one of these privateers, and proceeded northward toward Philadelphia, plundering the sea on her way.

The French minister travelled to Philadelphia by land, and reached that city on the sixteenth of May. His journey was like a continued ovation.

The whole country through which he pa.s.sed, electrified by the French Revolution, appeared alive with excitement; and the honors which the republicans, in their antipathy to aristocracy, had been anxious to withhold from Was.h.i.+ngton because it was man-wors.h.i.+p, were lavished upon the person of the representative of the French republic without stint.

On approaching Philadelphia he was met at Gray's ferry, on the Schuylkill, by a considerable number of persons, who had come to welcome him to the federal capital, and to escort him to his lodgings;[47] and on the following day he received addresses from several societies and from the citizens at large, who waited upon him in a body.

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 Was.h.i.+ngton; 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton an atmosphere of dignity and greatness wholly unexpected, and thoroughly overpowering. He felt his littleness in the presence of that n.o.ble 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Ma.r.s.eilles 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 ma.s.s 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 t.i.tle "citizen" became as common in Philadelphia as in Paris; and in the newspapers it was the fas.h.i.+on to announce marriages as partners.h.i.+ps between "Citizen" Brown, Smith, or Jones, and the "citess," who had been wooed to such an a.s.sociation. 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, p.r.o.nounced 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 _entree_ of Citizen Genet; the red c.o.c.kade; 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 a.s.sumed a formidable aspect--when the press most flagrantly outraged individual rights and domestic peace--when the impugners of the Was.h.i.+ngtonian administration received new weapons, with which to inflict their a.s.saults 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 pa.s.sed, 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 ma.s.ses 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 s.h.i.+pping, 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 cla.s.sics, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, signed by three hundred of the princ.i.p.al 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, Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 cla.s.s 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.

Among those who had wisely interpreted the teachings of the Revolution in France, and deprecated the infatuation of his countrymen who had adopted the doctrines of the Jacobins, was Hamilton. To a friend who had expressed his sorrow because of the aspect of the public feeling at that time, he revealed his views freely--views which were held in common with Was.h.i.+ngton and the great conservative party of which he was the head. "I agree with you," Hamilton said, "in the reflections you make on the tendency of public demonstrations of attachment to the cause of France.

'Tis certainly not wise to expose ourselves to the jealousy and resentment of the rest of the world, by a fruitless display of zeal for that cause. It may do us much harm, and it can do France no good (unless, indeed, we are to embark in the war with her, which n.o.body is so hardy as to avow, though some secretly machinate it). It can not be without danger and inconvenience to our interests, to impress on the nations of Europe an idea that we are actuated by the _same spirit_ which has, for some time past, fatally misguided the measures of those who conduct the affairs of France, and sullied a cause once glorious, and that might have been triumphant. The cause of France is compared with that of America during its late Revolution. Would to Heaven that the comparison were just. Would to Heaven that we could discern in the mirror of French affairs the same decorum, the same gravity, the same order, the same dignity, the same solemnity, which distinguished the cause of the American Revolution. Clouds and darkness would not then rest upon the issue as they now do. I own I do not like the comparison.

When I contemplate the horrid and systematic ma.s.sacres of the second and third of September; when I observe that a Murat and a Robespierre, the notorious prompters of those b.l.o.o.d.y scenes, sit triumphantly in the convention and take a conspicuous part in its measures--that an attempt to bring the a.s.sa.s.sins to justice has been abandoned; when I see an unfortunate prince, whose reign was a continued demonstration of the goodness and benevolence of his heart, of his attachment to the people of whom he was the monarch, who, though educated in the lap of despotism, had given repeated proofs that he was not the enemy of liberty, brought precipitately and ignominiously to the block without any substantial proof of guilt, as yet disclosed--without even an authentic exhibition of motives, in decent regard to the opinions of mankind; when I find the doctrines of atheism openly advanced in the convention, and heard with loud applauses; when I see the sword of fanaticism extended to force a political creed upon citizens who were invited to submit to the arms of France as the harbingers of liberty; when I behold the hand of rapacity outstretched to prostrate and ravish the monuments of religious wors.h.i.+p, erected by those citizens and their ancestors; when I perceive pa.s.sion, tumult, and violence, usurping those seats where reason and cool deliberation ought to preside--I acknowledge that I am glad to believe there is no real resemblance between what was the cause of America and what is the cause of France; that the difference is no less great than that between liberty and licentiousness. I regret whatever has a tendency to confound them, and I feel anxious, as an American, that the ebullitions of inconsiderate men among us may not tend to involve our reputation in the issue."[50]

Genet had scarcely reached the seat of government, before his conduct in authorizing the fitting out of privateers, and the capture of _The Grange_ by _L'Embuscade_, called forth complaints from Mr. Hammond, the British minister at Philadelphia. Genet, in his address to the president on presenting his credentials, had disavowed any wish to involve the United States in the pending war.

"We wish you to do nothing," he said, "but what is for your own good, and we will do all in our power to promote it. Cherish your own peace and prosperity. You have expressed a willingness to enter into a more liberal commerce with us; I bring full powers to form such a treaty, and a preliminary decree of the National Convention to lay open our country and its colonies to you, for every purpose of utility, without your partic.i.p.ating in the burden of maintaining and defending them. We see in you the only person on earth who can love us sincerely, and merit to be so loved."

This was uttered while the secret instructions in his pocket authorized him to foment discord between the United States and Great Britain; to set the government of our republic at defiance, if necessary; and in the face of his open insult to the government by his acts at Charleston. And yet Mr. Jefferson, apparently blinding his eyes to pa.s.sing events in Genet's brief career here, said in a letter to Madison, in reference to the French minister's speech, "It was impossible for anything to be more affectionate, more magnanimous, than the purport of Genet's mission.... He offers everything and asks nothing."

"Yet I know," Jefferson added, "that the offers will be opposed, and suspect they will not be accepted. In short, my dear sir, it is impossible for you to conceive what is pa.s.sing in our conclave; and it is evident that _one or two_ [meaning Hamilton and Knox] at least, under pretence of avoiding war on the one side, have no great antipathy to run foul of it on the other, and to make a part in the confederacy of princes against human liberty." Thus, on all occasions, the secretary of state ungenerously charged those of his official a.s.sociates who could not lovingly embrace the b.l.o.o.d.y French Jacobins as brothers, with monarchical principles, and designs to subvert the government of the United States. To Was.h.i.+ngton he expressed the same suspicions; and, from his own record in his _Anas_, he appears to have been rebuked by the president, and to have persisted in a most unfriendly course. "He [the president] observed," he said, "that if anybody wanted to change the form of our government into a monarchy, he was sure it was only a few individuals, and that no man in the United States would set himself against it more than himself; but that this was not what he was afraid of--his fears were from another quarter--_that there was more danger of anarchy being introduced_."

Was.h.i.+ngton, according to the same record, then spoke with great warmth concerning the hostility of Freneau as manifested in his newspaper. He despised all personal attacks upon himself; but, he said, not a solitary act of the government had escaped the slanderer's a.s.saults. He adverted to the fact that Freneau (evidently for the impudent purpose of insulting Was.h.i.+ngton) sent him three of his papers every day; and Mr.

Jefferson records these facts in a way that shows the enjoyment he seemed to derive from such evidences of great annoyance displayed by the president. "He was evidently sore and worn," wrote Mr. Jefferson, "and I took his intention to be, that I should interpose in some way with Freneau--perhaps withdraw his appointment of translating clerk in my office. But I will not do it."

"It appears to us," says Mr. Irving,[51] "rather an ungracious determination on the part of Jefferson to keep this barking cur in his employ, when he found him so annoying to the chief, whom he professed, and we believe with sincerity, to revere.[52] Neither are his reasons for so doing satisfactory, savoring as they do of those strong political suspicions already noticed. 'His [Freneau's] paper,' observed he, 'has saved our const.i.tution, which was galloping fast into monarchy, and has been checked by no means so powerfully as by that paper. It is well and universally known that it has been that paper which checked the career of the monocrats. The president, not sensible of the designs of the party, has not, with his usual good sense and _sang froid_, looked on the efforts and effects of this free press, and seen that though some bad things have pa.s.sed through it to the public, yet the good have preponderated immensely.'"

On the day succeeding his presentation to the president, Genet addressed an official letter to Mr. Jefferson, announcing his mission, as follows:--

"Single, against innumerable hordes of tyrants and slaves who menace her rising liberty, the French nation would have a right to reclaim the obligations imposed on the United States by the treaties she has contracted with them, and which she has cemented with her blood; but strong in the greatness of her means, and of the power of her principles, not less redoubtable to her enemies than the virtuous arm which she opposes to their rage, she comes, in the very time when the emissaries of our common enemies are making useless efforts to neutralize the grat.i.tude, to damp the zeal, to weaken or cloud the view of your fellow-citizens; she comes, I say, that generous nation, that faithful friend, to labor still to increase the prosperity and add to the happiness which she is pleased to see them enjoy.

"The obstacles raised with intentions hostile to liberty, by the perfidious ministers of despotism--the obstacles whose object was to stop the rapid progress of the commerce of the Americans and the extension of their principles, exist no more. The French republic, seeing in them but brothers, has opened to them, by the decrees now enclosed, all her ports in the two worlds; has granted them all the favors which her own citizens enjoy in her vast possessions; has invited them to partic.i.p.ate the benefits of her navigation, in granting to their vessels the same rights as her own; and has charged me to propose to your government to establish, in a truly family compact--that is, in a national compact--the liberal and fraternal basis on which she wishes to see raised the commercial and political system of two people, all whose interests are blended. I am invested, sir, with the powers necessary to undertake this important negotiation, of which the sad annals of humanity offer no example before the brilliant era at length opening on it."[53]

Notwithstanding the boast, in this letter, of his country being "strong in the greatness of her means," Genet had opened his diplomatic correspondence by a request for immediate payment, by antic.i.p.ation, of the remaining installments of the debt due France by the United States, amounting to two millions, three hundred thousand dollars, and offered, as an inducement, to invest the amount in provisions and other American products, to be s.h.i.+pped partly to the St. Domingo, and partly to France.

But neither his propositions for an alliance nor his application for money were received with favor. The United States government well knew that his a.s.surance that the offered relaxation of commercial restrictions, as a boon of pure good will toward the Americans, was only a convenient plan for obtaining needed supplies. The request for money was met by a candid statement by the secretary of the treasury, that his government had no means of antic.i.p.ating the payment of the French debt, except by borrowing money in Europe, which could not be done then on reasonable terms. Hamilton also told Genet that, even were there no other obstacle, the antic.i.p.ation of payment at that time might be regarded by Great Britain as a breach of neutrality.

This reply greatly offended the French minister, and he threatened to make the debt to France available for his purpose, by giving a.s.signments of it in payment for provisions and other supplies. Hamilton calmly replied that his government would decidedly object to that procedure, and expressed a hope that, in a matter of mutual concern, nothing would be done but by mutual consent.

While the British minister, in view of the dereliction of duty on the part of his government, manifested in its omission to comply with some of the stipulations of the treaty of 1783, should have been comparatively silent, the grounds of some of his complaints were too obviously just, not to be seriously considered. Cabinet meetings were accordingly held, and the subject was fully discussed. The capture of _The Grange_ within American waters (in Delaware bay), and the demand, not only for its rest.i.tution, but of all others captured on the high seas by the privateers authorized by Genet, made by the British minister, was the chief topic. It was unanimously agreed that _The Grange_ should be restored, but there was a difference of opinion respecting the others. Hamilton and Knox, a.s.suming, as a basis for argument, that it is the duty of a neutral nation to remedy every injury sustained by armaments fitted out in its ports, were of opinion that the government should interpose to restore the prizes. Jefferson and Randolph contended that the case should be left to the decision of courts of justice; arguing, that if the courts should decide the commissions given by Genet to be invalid, they would, as a matter of course, order rest.i.tution to be made.[54]

Was.h.i.+ngton reserved his decision upon this point, and took time to deliberate. The cabinet had agreed unanimously that the jurisdiction of every independent nation, within the limits of its own territory, being of a nature to exclude the exercise of any authority therein by any foreign power, the proceedings complained of, not being warranted by any treaty, were usurpations of national sovereignty and violations of neutral rights, a repet.i.tion of which it was the duty of the government to prevent. Also, that the efficacy of the laws should be tried against those citizens of the United States who had joined in perpetrating the offence. These principles being considered as settled, the president directed the secretary of state to communicate the fact to the ministers of France and Great Britain. Circular letters, also, were addressed to the governors of several states requiring their co-operation, with military force if necessary, to carry out the principles and rules agreed upon.

FOOTNOTES:

[47] The number of people who met and welcomed Genet at Gray's ferry was greatly exaggerated, as usual on such occasions, by the friends of the movement. It was called "a great concourse of citizens," but Hamilton, who was then in Philadelphia, and whose truthfulness has never been questioned, placed the number at an insignificant figure. In a letter to a friend, he said, "It is seldom easy to speak with absolute certainty in such cases, but from all I could observe, or have been able to learn, I believe the number would be stated high at a hundred persons." Of a meeting convened at evening to receive Mr. Genet, Hamilton said, "From forty to one hundred persons give you the extremes of the number present." On the ensuing evening a much greater number attended.

Altogether the demonstration, in _numbers_, was a failure.

[48] Griswold's _Republican Court_, page 350.

[49] _Old New York, or Reminiscences of the past Sixty Years_, pages 115-119, inclusive.