the people had thrown an armour theretofore deemed sacred, and for directly criminating the conduct of the President himself. It was only by opposing passions to passions, by bringing the feeling in favour of France, into conflict with those in favour of the chief magistrate, that the enemies of his administration could hope to obtain the victory.

For a short time, the opponents of this measure treated it with some degree of delicacy. The opposition prints occasionally glanced at the executive; considered all governments, including that of the United States, as naturally hostile to the liberty of the people; and ascribed to this disposition, the combination of European governments against France, and the apathy with which this combination was contemplated by the executive. At the same time, the most vehement declamations were published, for the purpose of inflaming the resentments of the people against Britain; of enhancing the obligations of America to France; of confirming the opinions, that the coalition of European monarchs was directed, not less against the United States, than against that power to which its hostility was avowed, and that those who did not avow this sentiment were the friends of that coalition, and equally the enemies of America and France.

These publications, in the first instance, sufficiently bitter, quickly assumed a highly increased degree of acrimony.

As soon as the commotions which succeeded the deposition of Louis XVI. had, in some degree, subsided, the attention of the French government was directed to the United States, and the resolution was taken to recall the minister who had been appointed by the king; and to replace him with one who might be expected to enter, with more enthusiasm, into the views of the republic.*

The citizen Genet, a gentleman of considerable talents, and of an ardent temper, was selected for this purpose.

The letters he brought to the executive of the United States, and his instructions, which he occasionally communicated, were, in a high degree, flattering to the nation, and decently respectful to its government. But Mr. Genet was also furnished with private instructions, which the course of subsequent events tempted him to publish. These indicate that, if the American executive should not be found sufficiently compliant with the views of France, the resolution had been taken to employ with the people of the United States the same policy which was so successfully used with those of Europe; and thus to effect an object which legitimate negotiations might fail to accomplish.

Mr. Genet possessed many qualities which were peculiarly adapted to

* See note, No. X. at the end of the volume.

the objects of his mission; but he seems to have been betrayed by the flattering reception which was given him, and by the universal fervour expressed for his republic, into a too speedy disclosure of his intentions.

On the eighth of April he arrived, not at Philadelphia, but at Charleston, in South Carolina, a port whose contiguity to the West Indies would give it peculiar convenience as a resort for privateers. He was received by the governor of that state, and by its citizens, with an en thusiasm well calculated to dissipate every doubt he might previously have entertained, concerning the dispositions on which he was to operate. At this place he continued for several days, receiving extravagant marks of public attachment, during which time, he undertook to authorize the fitting and arming of vessels in that port, enlisting men, and giving commissions to cruise and commit hostilities on nations with whom the United States were at peace. The captures made by these cruisers were brought into port, and the consuls of France were assuming, under the authority of Mr. Genet, to hold courts of admiralty on them, to try, condemn, and authorize their sale.

From Charleston, Mr. Genet proceeded by land to Philadelphia, receiving on his journey, at the different towns through which he passed, such marks of enthusiastic attachment as had never before been lavished on a foreign minister. On the 16th of May, he arrived at the seat of government, preceded by the intelligence of his transactions in South Carolina. This information did not diminish the extravagant transports of joy with which he was welcomed by the great body of the inhabitants. Means had been taken to render his entry pompous and triumphal; and the opposition papers exultingly stated that he was met at Gray's ferry by "crowds who flocked from every avenue of the city, to meet the republican ambassador of an allied nation."

The day succeeding his arrival, he received addresses of congratulation from particular societies, and from the citizens of Philadelphia, who waited on him in a body, in which they expressed their fervent gratitude for the "zealous and disinterested aids," which the French people had furnished to America, unbounded exultation at the success with which their arms had been crowned, and a positive conviction that the safety of the United States depended on the establishment of the republic. The answers to these addresses were well calculated to preserve the idea of a complete fraternity between the two nations; and that their interests were identified.

The day after being thus accredited by the citizens of Philadelphia, he was presented to the President, by whom he was received with frank. ness, and with expressions of a sincere and cordial regard for his na

tion. In the conversation which took place on this occasion, Mr. Genet gave the most explicit assurances that, in consequence of the distance of the United States from the theatre of action, and of other circumstances, France did not wish to engage them in the war, but would willingly leave them to pursue their happiness and prosperity in peace. The more ready faith was given to these declarations, because it was believed that France might derive advantages from the neutrality of America, which would be a full equivalent for any services which she could render as a belligerent.

Before the ambassador of the republic had reached the seat of government, a long catalogue of complaints, partly founded on his proceedings in Charleston, had been made by the British minister to the American executive.

This catalogue was composed of the assumptions of sovereignty already mentioned;-assumptions calculated to render America an instrument of hostility to be wielded by France against those powers with which she might be at war.

These were still further aggravated by the commission of actual hostilities within the territories of the United States. The ship Grange, a British vessel which had been cleared out from Philadelphia, was capfured by the French frigate L'Ambuscade within the capes of the Delaware, while on her way to the ocean.

The prizes thus unwarrantably made, being brought within the power of the American government, Mr. Hammond, among other things, demanded a restitution of them.

On many of the points suggested by the conduct of Mr. Genet, and by the memorials of the British minister, it would seem impossible that any difference of opinion could exist among intelligent men, not under the dominion of a blind infatuation. Accordingly it was agreed in the cabinet, without a dissenting voice, 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 a 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.

It was also agreed that the efficacy of the laws should be tried against those citizens of the United States who had joined in perpetrating the offence.

The question of restitution, except as to the Grange, was more dubiThe secretary of state and the attorney general contended that, if the commissions granted by Mr. Genet were invalid, the captures were

ous.

totally void, and the courts would adjudge the property to remain in the former owners. In this point of view, therefore, there being a regular remedy at law, it would be irregular for the government to interpose.

If, on the contrary, the commissions were good, then, the captures having been made on the high seas, under a valid commission from a power at war with Great Britain, the original right of the British owner was, by the laws of war, transferred to the captor.

The legal right being in the captor, it could only be taken from him by an act of force, that is to say, of reprisal for the offence committed against the United States in the port of Charleston. Reprisal is a very serious thing, ought always to be preceded by a demand and refusal of satisfaction, is generally considered as an act of war, and never yet failed to produce it in the case of a nation able to make war.

Admitting the case to be of sufficient importance to require reprisal, and to be ripe for that step, the power of taking it was vested by the constitution in congress, not in the executive department of the govern

ment.

Of the reparation for the offence committed against the United States, they were themselves the judges, and could not be required by a foreign nation, to demand more than was satisfactory to themselves. By disavowing the act, by taking measures to prevent its repetition, by prosccuting the American citizens who were engaged in it, the United States ought to stand justified with Great Britain; and a demand of further reparation by that power would be a wrong on her part.

The circumstances under which these equipments had been made, in the first moments of the war, before the government could have time to take precautions against them, and its immediate disapprobation of those equipments, must rescue it from every imputation of being accessary to them, and had placed it with the offended, not the offending party.

Those gentlemen were therefore of opinion, that the vessels which had been captured on the high seas, and brought into the United States, by privateers fitted out and commissioned in their ports, ought not to be restored.

The secretaries of the treasury, and of war, were of a different opinion. They urged that a neutral, permitting itself to be made an instrument of hostility by one belligerent against another, became thereby an associate in the war. If land or naval armaments might be formed by France within the United States, for the purpose of carrying on expeditions against her enemy, and might return with the spoils they had taken, and prepare new enterprises, it was apparent that a state of war would exist

between America and those enemies, of the worst kind for them: since, while the resources of the country were employed in annoying them, the instruments of this annoyance would be occasionally protected from pursuit, by the privileges of an ostensible neutrality It was easy to see that such a state of things could not be tolerated longer than until it should be perceived.

It being confessedly contrary to the duty of the United States, as a neutral nation, to suffer privateers to be fitted in their ports to annoy the British trade, it seemed to follow that it would comport with their duty, to remedy the injury which may have been sustained, when it is in their power so to do.

That the fact had been committed before the government could provide against it might be an excuse, but not a justification. Every government is responsible for the conduct of all parts of the community over which it presides, and is supposed to possess, at all times, the means of preventing infractions of its duty to foreign nations. In the presen. instance, the magistracy of the place ought to have prevented them. However valid this excuse might have been, had the privateers expedited from Charleston been sent to the French dominions, there to operate out of the reach of the United States, it could be of no avail when their prizes were brought into the American ports, and the government, thereby, completely enabled to administer a specific remedy for the injury.

Although the commissions, and the captures made under them, were valid as between the parties at war, they were not so as to the United States. For the violation of their rights, they had a claim to reparation, and might reasonably demand, as the reparation to which they were entitled, restitution of the property taken, with or without an apology for the infringement of their sovereignty. This they had a right to demand as a species of reparation consonant with the nature of the injury, and enabling them to do justice to the party in injuring whom they had been made instrumental. It could be no just cause of complaint on the part of the captors that they were required to surrender a property, the means of acquiring which took their origin in a violation of the rights of the United States.

On the other hand, there was a claim on the American government to arrest the effects of the injury or annoyance to which it had been made accessary. To insist therefore on the restitution of the property taken, would be to enforce a right, in order to the performance of a duty.

These commissions, though void as to the United States, being valid as between the partics, the case was not proper for the decision of the