Mr. Genet, not content with using our force, whether we will or not, in the military line against nations with whom we are at peace, undertakes also to direct the civil government; and particularly for the executive and legislative bodies, to pronounce what powers may or may not be exercised by the one or the other. Thus, in his letter of June the 8th, he promises to respect the political opinions of the President, till the Representatives shall have confirmed or rejected them; as if the President had undertaken to decide what belonged to the decision of Congress. In his letter of June the 4th, he says more openly, that the President ought not to have taken on himself to decide on the subject of the letter, but that it was of importance enough to have consulted Congress thereon; and in that of June the 22d, he tells the President in direct terms, that Congress ought already to have been occupied on certain questions which he had been too hasty in deciding; thus making himself, and not the President, the judge of the powers ascribed by the Constitution to the executive, and dictating to him the occasion when he should exercise the power of convening Congress at an earlier day than their own act had prescribed.
On the following expressions, no commentary shall be made:
July 9. "Les principes philosophiques proclamées par le Président."
June 22. "Les opinions privées ou publiques de M. le President, et cette égide ne paroissant, pas suffisante."
June 22. "Le gouvernement fédéral s'est empressé, poussé par je ne scais quelle influence."
June 22. "Je ne puis attribuer, des démarches de cette nature qu'à des impressions étrangéres dont le tems et la vérité triompheront."
June 25. "On poursuit avec acharnement, en vertu des instructions de M. le Président, les armateurs Français."
June 14. "Ce réfus tend à accomplir le système infernal du roi d'Angleterre, et des autres rois ses accomplices, pour faire périr par la famine les Républicains Français avec la liberte."
June 8. "La lache abandon de ses amis."
July 25. "En vain le désir de conserver la paix fait-il sacrifier les intérêts de la France à cet intérêt, du moment; en vain le soif des richesses l'emporte-t-elle sur l'honneur dans la balance politique de l'Amerique. Tous ces ménagemens, toute cette condescendance, toute cette humilité n'aboutissent à rien; nos ennemis on rient, et les Français trop confiants sont punis pour avoir cru que la nation Americaine, avoit un pavillon, qu'elle avoit quelque égard pour ses loix, quelque conviction de ses forces, et qu'elle tenoit au sentiment de sa dignité. Il ne m'est pas possible de peindre toute ma sensibilité sur ce scandale qui tend à la diminution de votre commerce, à l'oppression du notre, et à l'abaissement, à l'avilissement des republiques. Si nos concitoyens ont été trompés, si vous n'êtes point en état de soutenir la souveraineté de votre peuple, parlez; nous l'avons garantié quand nous étions esclaves, nous saurons la rendre redoubtable étant devenus libres."
We draw a veil over the sensations which these expressions excite. No words can render them; but they will not escape the sensibility of a friendly and magnanimous nation, who will do us justice. We see in them neither the portrait of ourselves, nor the pencil of our friends; but an attempt to embroil both; to add still another nation to the enemies of his country, and to draw on both a reproach, which it is hoped will never stain the history of either. The written proofs, of which Mr. Genet himself was the bearer, were too unequivocal to leave a doubt that the French nation are constant in their friendship to us. The resolves of their National Convention, the letters of their Executive Council, attest this truth, in terms which render it necessary to seek in some other hypothesis the solution of Mr. Genet's machinations against our peace and friendship.
Conscious, on our part, of the same friendly and sincere dispositions, we can with truth affirm, both for our nation and government, that we have never omitted a reasonable occasion of manifesting them. For I will not consider as of that character, opportunities of sallying forth from our ports to waylay, rob and murder defenceless merchants and others, who have done us no injury, and who were coming to trade with us in the confidence of our peace and amity. The violation of all the laws of order and morality which bind mankind together, would be an unacceptable offering to a just nation. Recurring then only to recent things, after so afflicting a libel, we recollect with satisfaction, that in the course of two years, by unceasing exertions, we paid up seven years' arrearages and instalments of our debt to France, which the inefficiency of our first form of government had suffered to be accumulating; that pressing on still to the entire fulfilment of our engagements, we have facilitated to Mr. Genet the effect of the instalments of the present year, to enable him to send relief to his fellow citizens in France, threatened with famine; that in the first moment of the insurrection which threatened the colony of St. Domingo, we stepped forward to their relief with arms and money, taking freely on ourselves the risk of an unauthorized aid, when delay would have been denial; that we have received according to our best abilities the wretched fugitives from the catastrophe of the principal town of that colony, who, escaping from the swords and flames of civil war, threw themselves on us naked and houseless, without food or friends, money or other means, their faculties lost and absorbed in the depth of their distresses; that the exclusive admission to sell here the prizes made by France on her enemies, in the present war, though unstipulated in our treaties, and unfounded in her own practice, or in that of other nations, as we believe; the spirit manifested by the late grand jury in their proceedings against those who had aided the enemies of France with arms and implements of war, the expressions of attachment to his nation, with which Mr. Genet was welcomed on his arrival and journey from south to north, and our long forbearance under his gross usurpations and outrages of the laws and authority of our country, do not bespeak the partialities intimated in his letters. And for these things he rewards us by endeavors to excite discord and distrust between our citizens and those whom they have entrusted with their government, between the different branches of our government, between our nation and his. But none of these things, we hope, will be found in his power. That friendship which dictates to us to bear with his conduct yet a while, lest the interests of his nation here should suffer injury, will hasten them to replace an agent whose dispositions are such a misrepresentation of theirs, and whose continuance here is inconsistent with order, peace, respect, and that friendly correspondence which we hope will ever subsist between the two nations. His government will see too that the case is pressing. That it is impossible for two sovereign and independent authorities to be going on within our territory at the same time without collision. They will foresee that if Mr. Genet perseveres in his proceedings, the consequences would be so hazardous to us, the example so humiliating and pernicious, that we may be forced even to suspend his functions before a successor can arrive to continue them. If our citizens have not already been shedding each other's blood, it is not owing to the moderation of Mr. Genet, but to the forbearance of the government. It is well known that if the authority of the laws had been resorted to, to stop the Little Democrat, its officers and agents were to have been resisted by the crew of the vessel, consisting partly of American citizens. Such events are too serious, too possible, to be left to hazard, or to what is more than hazard, the will of an agent whose designs are so mysterious.
Lay the case then immediately before his government. Accompany it with assurances, which cannot be stronger than true, that our friendship for the nation is constant and unabating; that, faithful to our treaties, we have fulfilled them in every point to the best of our understanding; that if in anything, however, we have construed them amiss, we are ready to enter into candid explanations, and to do whatever we can be convinced is right; that in opposing the extravagances of an agent, whose character they seem not sufficiently to have known, we have been urged by motives of duty to ourselves and justice to others, which cannot but be approved by those who are just themselves; and finally, that after independence and self-government, there is nothing we more sincerely wish than perpetual friendship with them.
I have the honor to be, with great respect and esteem, Dear Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.1
TO DUKE AND CO
Philadelphia, August 21, 1793.Gentlemen,Complaint having been made to the government of the United States of some instances of unjustifiable vexation and spoliation committed on our merchant vessels by the privateers of the powers at war, and it being possible that other instances may have happened of which no information has been given to the government, I have it in charge from the President to assure the merchants of the United States concerned in foreign commerce or navigation, that due attention will be paid to any injuries they may suffer on the high seas, or in foreign countries, contrary to the law of nations, or to existing treaties, and that on the forwarding hither well-authenticated evidence of the same, proper proceedings will be adopted for their relief. The just and friendly dispositions of the several belligerent powers afford well-founded expectation that they will not hesitate to take effectual measures for restraining their armed vessels from committing aggressions and vexations on our citizens or their property.
There being no particular portion or description of the mercantile body pointed out by the law for receiving communications of this nature, I take the liberty of addressing it to the merchants of Savannah for the State of Georgia, and of requesting that through them it may be made known to all those of their State whom it may concern. Information will be freely received either from the individuals aggrieved or from any associations of merchants who will be pleased to take the trouble of giving it in a case so interesting to themselves and their country.
I have the honor to be, with great respect, Gentlemen, your most obedient servant.
TO J. MADISON
August 25, 1793.Sir,You will perceive by the enclosed papers that Genet has thrown down the gauntlet to the President by the publication of his letter and my answer, and is himself forcing that appeal to the people, and risking that disgust which I had so much wished should have been avoided. The indications from different parts of the continent are already sufficient to show that the mass of the republican interest has no hesitation to disapprove of this intermeddling by a foreigner, and the more readily as his object was evidently, contrary to his professions, to force us into the war. I am not certain whether some of the more furious republicans may not schismatize with him.
TO J. MADISON
September 1, 1793.Sir,My last was of the 25th, since that I have received yours of the 20th, and Col. M's of the 21st. Nothing further has passed with Mr. Genet, but one of his consuls has committed a pretty serious deed at Boston, by going with an armed force taken from a French frigate in the harbor, and rescuing a vessel out of the hands of the marshal who had arrested her by process from a court of justice; in another instance he kept off the marshal by an armed force from serving a process on a vessel. He is ordered, consequently, to be arrested himself, prosecuted and punished for the rescue, and his exequatur will be revoked. You will see in the newspapers the attack made on our commerce by the British king in his additional instruction of June 8. Though we have only newspaper information of it, provisional instructions are going to Mr. Pinckney to require a revocation of them, and indemnification for all losses which individuals may sustain by them in the meantime. Of the revocation I have not the least expectation. I shall therefore be for laying the whole business (respecting both nations) before Congress. While I think it impossible they should not approve of what has been done disagreeable to the friendly nation, it will be in their power to soothe them by strong commercial retaliation against the hostile one. Pinching their commerce will be just against themselves, advantageous to us, and conciliatory towards our friends of the hard necessities into which their agent has drawn us. His conduct has given room for the enemies of liberty and of France, to come forward in a state of acrimony against that nation, which they never would have dared to have done. The disapprobation of the agent mingles with the reprehension of his nation, and gives a toleration to that which it never had before. He has still some defenders in Freneau, and Greenlief's paper, and who they are I know not: for even Hutcheson and Dallas give him up. I enclose you a Boston paper, which will give you a specimen of what all the papers are now filled with. You will recognize Mr. A under the signature of Camillus. He writes in every week's paper, and generally under different names. This is the first in which he has omitted some furious incartade against me. Hutcheson says that Genet has totally overturned the republican interest in Philadelphia. However, the people going right themselves, if they always see their republican advocates with them, an accidental meeting with the monocrats will not be a coalescence. You will see much said, and again said, about G.'s threat to appeal to the people. I can assure you it is a fact. I received yesterday the MS. you mentioned to me from Fn. I have only got a dozen pages into it, and never was more charmed with anything. Profound arguments presented in the simplest point of view entitle him really to his ancient signature. In the papers received from you, I have seen nothing which ought to be changed, except a part of one sentence not necessary for its object, and running foul of something of which you were not apprized. A malignant fever has been generated in the filth of Water street, which gives great alarm. About 70 people had died of it two days ago, and as many more were ill of it. It has now got into most parts of the city, and is considerably infectious. At first 3 out of 4 died, now about 1 out of 3. It comes on with a pain in the head, sick stomach, then a little chill, fever, black vomiting and stools, and death from the 2d to the 8th day. Everybody who can, is flying from the city, and the panic of the country people is likely to add famine to disease. Though becoming less mortal, it is still spreading, and the heat of the weather is very unpropitious. I have withdrawn my daughter from the city, but am obliged to go to it every day myself. My threshing machine has arrived at New York. Mr. Pinckney writes me word that the original from which this model is copied, threshes 150 bushels of wheat in 8 hours, with 6 horses and 5 men. It may be moved either by water or horses. Fortunately the workman who made it (a millwright) is come in the same vessel to settle in America. I have written to persuade him to go on immediately to Richmond, offering him the use of my model to exhibit, and to give him letters to get him into immediate employ in making them. I expect an answer before I write to you again. I understand that the model is made mostly in brass, and in the simple form in which it was first ordered, to be worked by horses. It was to have cost 5 guineas, but Mr. Pinckney having afterwards directed it to be accommodated to water movement also, it has made it more complicated, and costs 13 guineas. It will thresh any grain from the Windsor bean down to the smallest. Adieu.