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was nothing disrespectful intended in the words quoted, is shown by what immediately follows; but it is much better shown by the whole tenor of his contemporaneous expressions. All of these are deeply respectful, and friendly towards the President. He had recently entreated the latter to accept a reëlection. He claimed him as substantially agreeing with himself and the Republicans, on what he considered as really the cardinal question between the parties. He had recently received the kindest personal expressions from the President. He had recently triumphed in nearly every Cabinet struggle with Hamilton, by the casting vote of the President. The idea, therefore, that Mr. Jefferson meant to utter anything more than a firm determination to adhere to the course he had already marked out in regard to Freneau, is to suppose him guilty of employing offensive expressions without any motive which we can assign to a reasonable man.

If any one is inclined to decide that Mr. Jefferson erred in etiquette or good taste in retaining Freneau, after his language became offensive to the President, and in refusing under any circumstances to affix a quasi-brand of his official displeasure on the ablest organ of the Republican party, they should at least remember that the breadth of toleration it implied to perfect freedom of speech, was a consistent and life-long one with him. We shall find him just as little disposed to interfere with the freedom of the press-to proscribe free discussion-when the power was all in his own hands, and when not only his measures but himself were the subjects of attack.

On the 12th of March, Mr. Morris was instructed, through the Secretary of State, to respect the de facto government of France, and cultivate the most friendly relations with it.

On the 18th of March, Mr. Jefferson addressed a correspondent whose name is not given,' a letter containing views which should be graven on the memory of every young man in the Republic, who is inclined to turn his thoughts towards official life:

DEAR SIR:

I received your kind favor of the 26th ult., and thank you for its contents as sincerely as if I could engage in what they propose. When I first entered on the stage of public life (now twenty-four years ago), I came to a resolution never

See Works, Congress edition, vol. iii. p. 527.

СНАР. III.]

NEW FRENCH MINISTER TO U. S.

127 to engage while in public office in any kind of enterprise for the improvement of my fortune, nor to wear any other character than that of a farmer. I have never departed from it in a single instance; and I have in multiplied instances found myself happy in being able to decide and to act as a public servant, clear of all interest, in the multiform questions that have arisen, wherein I have seen others embarrassed and biased by having got themselves into a more interested situation. Thus I have thought myself richer in contentment than I should have been with any increase of fortune. Certainly I should have been much wealthier had I remained in that private condition which renders it lawful and even laudable to use proper efforts to better it. However, my public career is now closing, and I will go through on the principle on which I have hitherto acted. But I feel myself under obligations to repeat my thanks for this mark of your attention and friendship.

If Mr. Jefferson would have consented to adopt a different rule, the saddest page in his personal history would not be for us to write!

The French Republic had early in 1793 commissioned Monsieur, or, according to the new nomenclature of the French democracy, Citizen Genet, as its Minister to the United States, in the place of M. de Ternant, recalled. He was a man who had sprung from the upper walks of French society-was considerably versed in public and diplomatic affairs-possessed no mean abilities or address-was frank, brisk, unguarded, and agreeable in his manners-spoke English fluently—was an enthusiastic politician-and was as combustible in his temper as was then considered befitting the fiery republic he represented. This had not, like its American precursor, been the result of slowly operating moral and ethnic causes. The one had been created by what, to borrow a term from geological science, is termed subsidence-a gradual deposit and a gradual recession of old surroundings-prepared, on its emergence, for the reception of vegetation and to become the abode of animated nature. The other had been suddenly cast up from abysmal deeps by volcanic agencies-was a crater of hot scoria yet hissing in the surrounding waters, on which the alarmed mariner gazed in doubt whether each new explosion would increase its bulk and widen its base, or send it toppling back to the bottom of the

ocean.

Genet was, of course, a decided democrat, and his whole programme of foreign policy might be said to be embraced in the famous decree of the French Convention of November 19th, 1792:

"The National Convention declare, in the name of the French nation, that they will grant fraternity and assistance to every people who wish to recover their liberty; and they charge the Executive power to send the necessary orders to the generals to give assistance to such people, and to defend those citizens who may have been or who may be vexed for the cause of liberty."

We have noticed the admission of the most conservative writer of that day, that on the declaration of war between England and republican France, the feeling in the United States in favor of the latter suddenly rose and swept down all partisan opposition, embracing nearly the entire body of the American people.' When, then, an emissary should come from the new republic, surrounded with its prestige-proclaiming such wildly stirring doctrines as those above given-declaring the unbounded affection of his country for the United States-scorning the arts of old diplomacy and mixing freely with the democratic masses-not declining to talk of the important objects of his mission in promiscuous assemblies of plain workingmenexhibiting in his deportment that practical democracy, that fraternity, which men in his position, of English blood, never exhibit is it wonderful that American popular sympathy swelled to a pitch of wild enthusiasm ?

Genet landed at Charleston on the 8th of April, and was received by Governor Moultrie and the citizens with marks of unbounded respect, which did not abate in fervor during his stay of several days. Admiring crowds followed his steps; civic and social demonstrations in his honor followed each other in rapid succession; and both himself and his mission were the themes of rapturous admiration. He here commissioned two privateers to cruise against British vessels, and assumed to grant powers to the Consuls of France in the United States to try and condemn prizes. He then proceeded slowly by land to Philadelphia, and sent the French frigate l'Embuscade, which had brought him from France, to the same place. On her way she captured the British ship Grange, and carried the prize into Philadelphia. Mr. Jefferson wrote Mr. Madison, April 28th:

"Cases are now arising which will embarrass us a little till the line of neutrality be fairly understood by ourselves and the belligerent parties. A French privateer is now bringing here, as we are told, prizes, which left this but two or three days before. Shall we permit her to sell them? The treaty does not say we shall, and

1 See quotation from Marshall, ante, p. 121-note.

CHAP. III.]

HIS RECEPTION.

129

it says we shall not permit the like to England. Shall we permit France to fit out privateers here? The treaty does not stipulate that we shall, though it says we shall not permit England to do it. I fear that fair neutrality will prove a disagreeable pill to our friends, though necessary to keep us out of the calamities of war." i

1

He had written the American Minister in England a week earlier :

"You may, on every occasion, give assurances which cannot go beyond the real desires of this country, to preserve a fair neutrality in the present war, on condition that the rights of neutral nations are respected in us, as they have been settled in modern times, either by the express declarations of the powers of Europe, or their adoption of them on particular occasions."

The popular feeling expressed in Philadelphia on the arrival of the Embuscade and her prize-as well as the feelings of one or two members of the Cabinet on the same occasion-are thus mentioned in a letter from Jefferson to Monroe (May 5th):

"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 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 wharfs. Never before was 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. In the meantime, H.2 is panic-struck, if we refuse our breech to every kick which Great Britain may choose to give it. He is for proclaiming at once the most abject principles, such as would invite and merit babitual insults; and indeed every inch of ground must be fought in our councils to desperation, in order to hold up the face of even a sneaking neutrality, for our votes are generally two and a half against one and a half. Some propositions have come from him which would astonish Mr. Pitt himself with their boldness. If we preserve even a sneaking neutrality we shall be indebted for it to the President, and not to his counsellors."

The last remark, that "if we preserve even a sneaking neutrality, we shall be indebted for it to the President," perfectly solves the preceding one, that the votes in the Cabinet "are generally two and a half against one and a half." It meant that Hamilton and Knox voted uniformly against Jef

This is a part of a longer quotation not given in either of the editions of Jefferson's Works, but which we find in Tucker's Jefferson, vol. i. p. 422. Mr. Madison probably furnished it to Professor Tucker.

* Hamilton is undoubtedly here meant.

VOL. II.-9

ferson, that Randolph was divided half-and-half between them, and that therefore it took the President's vote (or voice) with his own to preserve "even a sneaking neutrality." A week afterwards, Jefferson was still more severe on the AttorneyGeneral. He wrote, in a letter to Madison, that "everything hung upon the opinion of a single person, and that the most indecisive one he had ever had to do business with." In other words, if Randolph gave his whole vote either way, it turned the scale, the President and Jefferson being on one side, and Hamilton and Knox on the other.

The Secretary of State had occasion to address official communications to the American Ministers in England and France, and to the ministers of those powers at our Government, before the "peals of exultation" from the Philadelphia "yeomanry," at witnessing the dishonor of the flag of England, had yet died away in his ears; and while the popular enthusiasm for France continued bursting out in every conceivable form of demonstration. One is curious to know how far the Secretary evinced, by some flushed sentences or words, in these communications or in their original drafts, that he had been reached by this contagious excitement. The search for such a sentence or word is made in vain.

He did not, however, cease to feel, or express in private, the mortified opinion that we were, on several points, proffering concessions to England, which she had not even condescended to ask, and which ought not to be made except in exchange for some decent concessions on her side. In the letter to Monroe, already quoted, he said:

"Great Britain has as yet not condescended to notice us in any way. No wish expressed of our neutrality, no answer of any kind to a single complaint for the daily violations committed on our sailors and ships. Indeed, we promise beforehand so fast that she has not time to ask anything."

On the 4th of May, the Secretary of the Treasury forwarded to the President the draft of a circular, prepared, it would seem, entirely at his own instance, to be addressed by himself to the United States Collectors, directing them to report to him all infractions of the neutrality laws, or movements apparently

The word "our" is printed "her" in the Congress edition. The letter is not given in Randolph's edition. But the mistake is obvious, and we have therefore corrected it in the text. * See Hamilton to Washington, May 4, 1793. Hamilton's Works, vol. iv. p. 392.

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