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CHAPTER had been paraded through the streets, followed by four carts drawn by twenty-four horses, and containing six1793. teen hundred loaves of bread and two hogsheads of punch. While these viands were distributed among an immense erowd collected in State Street (formerly King Street), a select party of three hundred persons sat down in Faneuil Hall to a civic feast, over which presided the venerable Samuel Adams, then lieutenant governor of the state, assisted by the French consul. The children from all the schools, marshalled in State Street, were each presented with a cake stamped with the words "Liberty and Equality." A subscription was raised, and the pris oners confined in jail for debt were liberated. Two balloons, then a new invention, were let off, and in the evening bonfires were kindled, and the State House and other buildings were splendidly illuminated. Similar celebra

Feb. 6. tions took place in several other places.

In Philadelphia,

the anniversary of the French alliance was commemorated by a public dinner, at which Governor Mifflin presided. At the head of the table a pike was fixed, bearing the cap of Liberty, with the French and American flags intertwined, the whole surmounted by a dove and olive branch.

The execution of the unfortunate Louis excited a degree of sympathy on behalf of that amiable sovereign; but neither that nor any other of the violences of the Convention served hardly to check the glow of enthusiastic zeal, for the French republic-a sentiment soon kindled April 9. into new fervor by the arrival at Charleston of Citizen Genet, appointed to supersede Ternant as embassador from France. News of the French declaration of war against England, which Genet brought with him to Charleston, had reached New York five days earlier by the British packet. It could not but excite the deep,

VI.

́est anxiety in the minds of Washington and his cabinet. CHAPTER By the treaty of commerce, French privateers and prizes. were entitled to shelter in the American ports a shelter 1793. not to be extended to the enemies of France. By the treaty of alliance, the United States were bound, in express terms, to guarantee the French possessions in America. As soon as the news reached Washington, then at Mount Vernon, he hastened to Philadelphia, and, imme- April 18. diately after his arrival, sent to the cabinet officers a series of questions, suggested, probably, by Hamilton, on which their opinions were to be given at a council the next day. Should a proclamation issue to prevent interferences, by citizens of the United States, in the war? Should it contain a declaration of neutrality, or what? Should a minister from the French republic be received? If so, should the reception be absolute or qualified? Were the United States bound to consider the treaties with France as applying to the present state of the parties; or might they be renounced or suspended? pose the treaties binding, what was the effect of the guarantee? Did it apply in case of an offensive war? Was the present war offensive or defensive on the part of France? Did the treaty with France require the exclusion of English ships of war, other than privateers, from the ports of the United States? Was it advisable to call an extra session of Congress?

Sup

Upon an elaborate discussion of these questions, it was unanimously agreed that a proclamation of neutrality should issue; that the new French minister should be received; and that a special session of Congress was not expedient. Upon other points there were differences of opinion. Hamilton, with whom Knox concurred, thought that the reception of Genet should be with an express reserve of the question as to the binding force of

CHAPTER the treaties. They admitted the right of France to VI. change her government, but they questioned her right,

1793. after such a change, to hold the United States to treaties made with a view to a totally different state of things, and which, if now carried out, might impose obligations on the United States, and expose them to dangers never dreamed of when the treaties were made. As to the effect of the guarantee, supposing the treaties binding, they held that it did not apply to an offensive war on the part of France, which the present war must be taken to be, as she had made the first declaration of it; pending, therefore, the present war, the guarantee must be considered as suspended.

Jefferson, whom Randolph inclined to support, thought the treaties as binding in case of the republic as in case of the king. As to the effect or operation of the guarantee they declined to give any opinion, it not being at present necessary. Yet, by agreeing to the proclamation of neutrality, they concurred in putting a limit to the binding force of that guarantee, rather difficult to reconcile with its existence at all. Hamilton's views had at least the advantage of consistency; and the course which he advised, of explicitly declaring the obligation of the guarantee suspended, would have found ample justification in the course adopted by the French Convention itself. Before news reached France of WashMay 17. ington's proclamation of neutrality, orders had been issued there, in direct repugnance to the treaty of com merce with the United States, for the capture and forfeiture of enemy's goods on board neutral vessels; whereas the treaty provided that free ships should make free goods. On the representation of Morris, this order was suspended for a few days as to American vessels, but this suspension was soon recalled, and the treaty in that respect, as

VI,

afterward in others, quite disregarded. The excuse was CHAPTER the peculiar position in which France was placed, in substance the same argument on which Hamilton relied. 1793. The course actually adopted had this disadvantage in it: by seeming to recognize the treaties as in full binding force, guarantee and all, it gave France an opportunity, of which afterward she amply availed herself, to set up claims upon the United States quite inconsistent with their independent neutrality.

The proclamation, as issued, announced the disposition April 22. of the United States to pursue a friendly and impartial > conduct toward all the belligerent powers, a course alike required by their duty and their interest.

It exhorted

and warned the citizens to avoid all acts not in accordance with such a disposition; and declared the resolu tion of the government not only not to interfere on behalf of those who might expose themselves to punishment or forfeiture under the law of nations by aiding or abetting either of the belligerents, but to cause all such acts done within the jurisdiction of the United States to be prosecuted in the proper courts.

Whether the state of the public feeling would have admitted, on the part of the American government, any position less ambiguous than the one actually taken— such, for instance, as a suspension of the guarantee— may well admit of a doubt. Not only did enthusiasm run very high on behalf of the French republic, but that feeling was seconded and inflamed by all the hatred of Great Britain treasured up during the Revolutionary

war.

Genet, the new French embassador, knew very well how to take advantage of both these sentiments. Placed, according to his own account, at the age of twelve years, in the bureau of foreign affairs, he had translated, under his father's direction, into the French language,

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CHAPTER the new American Constitutions and many political es says, "thus contributing to penetrate the French with 1793. the spirit of '76." After being seven years head of the bureau at Versailles, under the direction of Vergennes, he had passed one year at London in a diplomatic capacity, two at Vienna, one at Berlin, and five in Russia, whence he had recently been expelled by the Empress. Catharine. Having been lately employed in revolutionizing Geneva and annexing it to the French republic, he had been selected by the Girondins, then in power, as a fit person to be sent to America, the object of his mission being, in fact, as appeared from his instructions afterward published, to draw the United States, as far as possible, into making common cause with France. By no means deficient in abilities, nor without experience as a diplomatist, he was completely filled with that terrible fanaticism, setting all ordinary rules of prudence, and, indeed, of morals at defiance, hitherto, in the history of the world, connected, mostly with religious ideas, but passing at this era into politics, and seeming to concentrate in the hearts of the popular leaders, and in an active mass of the people themselves, all the hatred, rage, and revenge which cénturies of oppression had served to accumulate; an enthusiasm aggravated to the highest pitch by the union of the kings and aristocracies of Europe against the French republic; and potent enough to drive even wise men into madness.

His reception at Charleston, on the part of Governor Moultrie and the citizens, had been most enthusiastic. Being provided with blank commissions, both naval and military, he caused to be fitted out two privateers, manned mostly with Americans, which put to sea under the French flag, and, cruising along the coast, soon made numerous captures of homeward-bound British vessels.