[From _The Medley_ (Lexington, Ky., July, 1803)]
When Citizen Genet, the ex-minister of the Robesperian fanaticism,
appeared in America, he attempted to impose his new philosophy of
light and liberty upon the government. He had nothing to boast of, on
the score of superior diplomatic skill. His communications to the
secretary of state, were evidently of the tampering kind. They were
impressed with all the marks of that enthusiastic insanity, which
regulated the councils of the faction; and which, were calculated to
mistake their object, by disgusting their intended victims. The mind
of Mr. Jefferson, discovered itself, in an early period of his
correspondence with the French minister. The communications of Genet
were decorated with all the flowers of eloquence, without the force
and conviction of rhetorical energy. Accustomed to diplomatic
calculation, and intimately combining cause with effect, Mr. Jefferson
apprehended the subject, with strength and precision; considered
it--developed it--viewed it on all sides--listened to every appeal,
and attended to every charge--and in every communication, burst forth
with a strength of refutation, that at once detected and embarrassed,
the disappointed minister of a wily and fanatic faction.
It is, in most instances, useless to oppose enthusiasm with the
deliberate coolness of reason and argument. They are the antipodes of
each other; and of that imperious nature, which mutually solicit
triumph and disdain reconciliation. The tyranny of the Robesperian
principles, were calculated to inveigle within the vortex of European
politics, the American government and people. The coolness and
sagacity of the secretary of state, composed their defence and
protection. The appeal was mutually made to the government; and it is
a fortunate circumstance, that there existed this tribunal to
approbate the measures of the secretary, and to silence forever, the
declamatory oracle of an insidious faction. Checked and defeated on
all sides, his doctrines stripped of their visionary principles, and
himself betrayed into the labyrinth of diplomatic mystery, their
ex-divinity, shrank into the silence of contempt; declaring with his
last breath, that Mr. Jefferson was the only man in America, whose
talents he highly respected.