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
WASHINGTON--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 circumstance 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, assuming 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 assumed by him under a decree of the
convention, he constituted 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 passed, 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 Washington because it was man-worship, 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
Washington; 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 Washington 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 Washington an
atmosphere of dignity and greatness wholly unexpected, and thoroughly
overpowering. He felt his littleness in the presence of that noble
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 friendship 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 Washington 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 Marseilles 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 mass 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 title
"citizen" became as common in Philadelphia as in Paris; and in the
newspapers it was the fashion to announce marriages as partnerships
between "Citizen" Brown, Smith, or Jones, and the "citess," who had been
wooed to such an association. 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,
pronounced 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 bloody 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
_entrée_ of Citizen Genet; the red cockade; 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 assumed a
formidable aspect--when the press most flagrantly outraged individual
rights and domestic peace--when the impugners of the Washingtonian
administration received new weapons, with which to inflict their
assaults 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 passed, 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 masses 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 shipping, 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
classics, 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 Washington, signed by three hundred of the
principal 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, Washington, 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 class 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
Washington 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 nobody 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 massacres of the second and
third of September; when I observe that a Murat and a Robespierre, the
notorious prompters of those bloody scenes, sit triumphantly in the
convention and take a conspicuous part in its measures--that an attempt
to bring the assassins 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 worship, erected by those citizens and their
ancestors; when I perceive passion, 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
participating 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 passing 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 passing 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 associates who could
not lovingly embrace the bloody French Jacobins as brothers, with
monarchical principles, and designs to subvert the government of the
United States. To Washington 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_."
Washington, 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 assaults. He adverted
to the fact that Freneau (evidently for the impudent purpose of
insulting Washington) 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 constitution, 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 passed 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 gratitude, 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 participate 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 anticipation, 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 shipped 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 assurance 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 anticipating 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 anticipation 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 assignments
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 restitution, 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, assuming, 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 restitution to be made.[54]
Washington 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 repetition 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.
[50] Hamilton's Works, v. 566.
[51] Life of Washington, v. 164.
[52] A little later, Jefferson wrote to Madison: "The president is not
well; little lingering fevers have been hanging about him for a week or
ten days, and affect his looks most remarkably. He is also extremely
affected by the attacks made and kept up on him in the public papers. I
think he feels these things more than any other person I ever yet met
with. I am sincerely sorry to see them." How utterly insincere appears
the last clause of this paragraph, compared with the one next preceding
it! The most scurrilous of the attacks alluded to proceeded from
Freneau, a clerk in Mr. Jefferson's office!
[53] _Letter to Mr. Jefferson, Secretary of State_, dated "Philadelphia,
May 23d, 1793, second year of the republic."
[54] "During these proceedings," says Chief-Justice Jay, "the circuit
court was held at Richmond by the chief justice, who in his charge to
the grand jury explained the obligations of the United States as a
neutral nation, and directed the jury to present all persons within
their district guilty of violating the laws of nations with respect to
any of the belligerent powers. The charge was well calculated to
strengthen the government, by letting the public perceive that the
supreme court would fearlessly discharge its duty, in punishing acts
forbidden by the neutral position of the nation."--_Life and Writings of
John Jay_, i. 302.