Genet was expected daily at Philadelphia, but no official word had come from him. Rumor and speculation had to satisfy Washington’s curiosity as to what detained this diplomat so long at Charleston, or why he had put ashore there in the first place. News arrived in the last week of April that a French ship had seized several British vessels off the capes of Delaware Bay and was proceeding towards Philadelphia with prizemasters in charge of the captures. Probably this warship was the Embuscade, the heavy frigate which had carried Genet to Charleston. The prizes must be admitted to the port of Philadelphia, by terms of the Treaty of Commerce, but Jefferson was uneasy. “We shall be a little embarrassed occasionally,” he wrote, “till we feel ourselves firmly seated in the saddle of neutrality.”
On May 2 the Embuscade under Captain Bompard hove in sight off the Market Street wharf with two British merchantmen in her wake. Jefferson reported that the “yeomanry” of Philadelphia flocked to the wharf by “thousands and thousands” and “rented the air with peals of exultation” as they saw the reversed position of the British colors on the halyards of the captured ships. His own delight was dampened later in the day as a sharp complaint from the British Minister crossed the Secretary’s desk. Hammond claimed that Bompard had taken the British Grange, within Delaware Bay. Was not this belligerent act inside the territorial waters of the United States an “infringement on its neutrality”? Manifestly it was, if the charges of the British Minister proved substantial.
Jefferson submitted on May 4 dispatches from Morris, among them a report that Genet was carrying some three hundred blank commissions for privateers to be outfitted in America. This was unwelcome confirmation of suspicions that had been general since Genet’s disembarkation at Charles ton; some step was in order to enforce the declared neutrality of the nation. Hamilton was prompt with a plan: Instruct custom-house officials to report to the Collector of the Revenue any infringement of the President’s Proclamation, together with any evidence of intended violation—such as construction of a vessel pierced for guns. Tench Coxe then could refer violations to his superior, the Secretary of the Treasury, and indictment and prosecution would follow under the Attorney General. Such a program would impose on the Department of the Treasury almost exclusive responsibility for maintenance of neutrality. The President and the Attorney General decided that port collectors might exercise the function Hamilton had outlined but their information should be communicated to Federal attorneys rather than to the Department of Treasury. In Cabinet on May 7 the Secretary of the Treasury approved the sensible alteration. Jefferson, who did not perceive the hand of the Chief Executive, was convinced Randolph had surrendered to Hamilton.
The next day Hammond delivered a second demand for release of the Grange, with three new complaints of even more import. While he could exhibit no “precise proof,” the British Minister had reason to believe that “a considerable quantity of arms and military accoutrements” soon would be shipped to France from New York. Further, he had information that Mangourit, the French consul at Charleston, had committed a “Judicial act” by erecting a court of admiralty and condemning for sale two British brigantines brought into that port by the Embuscade. Finally, two privateers fitted under French commissions at Charleston now were at sea with Americans in their crews and already had captured an English ship. Could not Great Britain expect immediate restitution? Doubtless Washington was exasperated as the implication of this last memorial became clear to him—Genet had been busy indeed since his arrival in the United States! On May 9 Ternant notified Jefferson that France would consider the Grange fairly taken. The President directed that the case be submitted for the Attorney General’s prompt consideration and that Hammond’s charges be explored in Cabinet session.
Out of a meeting of the Cabinet May 15 came the draft of a letter to Hammond which the President sanctioned the same day. The British Minister was assured that the Grange would be restored to her owner with cargo intact and crew liberated. Further, while the American Government could not restrict the freedom of her citizens to “make, vend and export arms,” the Proclamation of the Executive had stressed that exportation of contraband to belligerents was fraught with perils of confiscation and financial loss. Assumption of admiralty powers by the French consul was entirely without basis—the United States would permit no repetition of this. Hostile activity at sea by American citizens had been condemned “in the highest degree”—Great Britain might be certain all means would be employed to prevent such breaches of neutrality. The outfitting of French privateers in American ports likewise was “entirely disapproved.”
One point in Hammond’s memorials remained unanswered: Would the ship seized by the Charleston privateers be restored? The ship was the Little Sarah, taken on the open sea off the Virginia capes and now in the custody of her captor at Philadelphia. Contrary inclinations of Jefferson and Hamilton now occasioned another clash. The Secretary of State was determined to manifest no undue sympathy for England; his adversary remained equally adamant that France should gain not the smallest benefit from illegal privateering. Written opinions of Washington’s advisers would have to be weighed and these were delivered to the President on the sixteenth. Opinions of the Cabinet deadlocked; the choice on restitution must be the President’s alone. As he studied the statements before him, word came that Genet had arrived in Philadelphia.
The Minister’s presence outside Philadelphia had been proclaimed May 16 by three salvos from the Embuscade. A body of citizens set forth to meet him at Gray’s Ferry but somehow failed to find him, and Genet entered Philadelphia without large ovation. That evening a group of important Republicans met to prepare informal congratulations and draw up a proper address. Their report was adopted by an assemblage of enthusiastic citizens the following afternoon. A crowd gathered in City Tavern and its yard heard the congratulatory address and informal remarks by Genet and responded with “shouts and salutations.”
Americans were not of one mind—and not even all Philadelphians. Considerable resentment had been displayed on the death of Louis XVI; on May 17, the day of the address to Genet, a body of merchants and traders gathered at the Coffee House to wait on the President. Their address spoke approval of the Proclamation of Neutrality and voiced firm belief that peace must prevail if prosperity and happiness were to continue.
Sometime in the course of that busy Friday Genet conversed with Jefferson and arranged for his official presentation to the President the following day. Upon introduction by the Secretary of State, the Minister stepped forward to present to Washington his credentials, his general instructions, and a memorial from the National Convention of France to the American people. The President received them and acknowledged Genet Minister Plenipotentiary from the Republic of France to the United States, but no warm word of welcome accompanied the gesture. Genet found this formal reception in sharp contrast to popular ovations that had been tendered him again and again since his arrival in Charleston. It was as though the American Executive wore the gloomy garb of the Proclamation itself for this occasion.
Just a few hours later the evening witnessed a celebration to eclipse all previous performances in honor of Genet, a feast at Oeller’s Hotel that grew in gaiety with the night and with the flow of wine. After a sumptuous fare, nineteen toasts were drunk “to the glory of America and the French Republic,” with the pulsing accompaniment of artillery fire out-of-doors.
If this display represented the highest pitch of partisan enthusiasm in Philadelphia since the Revolution, Washington was too busy in the next week to ponder it at length. The matter of restitution of illegal prizes remained to be settled. Of the written opinions on his desk, two were in favor of restitution and two against it. The President was most impressed by the paper of Randolph. The Attorney General sided with Jefferson against restitution of the Little Sarah to her British owners. Randolph reasoned that it did not matter that the French privateer which made the capture had been commissioned at Charleston. The core of Jefferson’s argument
was that the United States owed no special consideration to Britain and would offend France by a vindictive gesture. Randolph suggested that Americans who had enlisted in the crew of the privateer be prosecuted as violators of their nation’s neutral status. This much was due the powers at war with France; even an unsuccessful prosecution would “vindicate the sincerity of our neutrality.” Washington recognized at once the justice and value of this proposal. The next day he and Randolph reached what was substantially a compromise between the views of Jefferson and Hamilton on the perplexities of restitution. The Little Sarah would not be restored or ordered to leave Philadelphia, but the privateer which brought her there and the other French corsairs outfitted illegally at Charleston would be denied the sanctuary of American ports.
On the twenty-fourth Jefferson came to the President’s house with memorials from Genet in hand. The Minister was emphasizing that his Republic had right to certain privileges under the treaties of 1778 but that power of her principles and love for the United States inclined France to overlook these stipulations. Instead, Genet had authority to negotiate a new compact with deeper, finer union of spirit and sentiments as its basis. Further, the National Convention had taken steps towards achievement of an understanding by its decree of February 19, now enclosed, which threw open French West Indian ports to American trade and suspended the regulation of 1791 against construction and sale of American vessels in France. Genet appended proposals for liquidation of the debt of the United States which bore similarity to the scheme advanced by Colonel Smith several months before. Washington would, he said, be obliged to study most carefully Genet’s letter and enclosures; the Secretary of State was requested to furnish translations.
Three days later Jefferson forwarded translated copies of Genet’s memorials. The President saw readily that France entertained two paramount objectives. The American Government was asked to be responsible for “the greatest part of the sustenance and stores necessary for the armies, fleets and colonies of the French Republic.” If the debt were liquidated ahead of schedule and in direct payments to Genet, he could make purchases in various states and so diffuse the blessings of a large and important trade. France seemed to expect establishment of a “national pact” on a “liberal and fraternal basis.” Washington pondered the two propositions. Should the United States be willing to discharge at once the entire residue of her debts, some $12,500,000, where only one-fifth of this amount was payable in 1793? Finance was the province of the Department of the Treasury; Washington gladly passed Genet’s request to Hamilton for an opinion. The more general representation of the Minister had hidden implications. Clearly Genet was not going to call for defence of the French West Indies, an obligation laid down by the Treaty of Alliance—but did he intend to accept the American interpretation of Article 22 of the Treaty of Commerce and thereby repudiate his own conduct in outfitting privateers at Charleston? The possibility here was remote. Was Genet, on the other hand, actually projecting a new commercial treaty—with Article 22 transposed and rephrased to allow himself unprecedented latitude in the commissioning of French corsairs? Such an agreement would harness the United States inevitably to the French Revolution, and war with England might be precipitated. The idea was absurdity.
Most critical among the problems of the moment was one that involved directly neither France nor England but had ultimate connection with the struggles of revolutionary armies against the monarchies of Europe. For months the Indian situation on the Georgia frontier had reflected every French military failure across the Atlantic. Now that Spain enjoyed positive alliance with Great Britain, Carondolet could be expected to incite the Indians to depredations of greater magnitude and horror. At the same time Spanish Commissioners Viar and Jaudenes at Philadelphia doubtless would assume new arrogance in their representations to the Department of State, and progress in the vexatious Mississippi navigation dispute no longer was likely. Washington continued to hope that Carmichael and Short might effect the object of their negotiations with Spain, but it seemed the day of settlement must be interminably postponed.
Knox appeared at the President’s house on May 25 with correspondence which presented a distressing view of the hostile temper of the Creeks. On Monday Jefferson presented a memorial from the Spanish Commissioners which contrasted the “judicious” behavior of Carondolet with alleged inflammatory proceedings on the part of Governor Blount of the Southwest Territory. Viar and Jaudenes inferred that punitive action by the United States would be disagreeable to Spain, especially when diplomatic conversations were under way in Madrid. Did Spain propose that the American government watch a slaughter of her pioneers while negotiations at Madrid approached a standstill? If Washington felt a flush of anger on May 27, he had every justification. A meeting of the Cabinet was called for the next morning.
Hamilton’s absence prevented full discussion in the session of the twenty-eighth, but the following day measures were proposed to meet the crisis in Georgia. No offensive expedition against the Indians could be authorized at present; an additional force of one hundred cavalry and a like number of infantry were to be stationed in Georgia for purely defensive purposes; Congress would be called in event of “a serious invasion . . . by large bodies of Indians.” On May 30 Knox brought a letter from Governor Telfair describing recent “horrid depredations” and setting forth a peremptory view that “open war must be entered into”—zeal for vengeance by the citizens of Georgia no longer could be restrained. Washington realized the Federal Government could not engage in punitive operations on the southwestern frontier; Spanish regiments at New Orleans, Natchez and Nogales might be awaiting just such a move. The President could do no more than direct Federal agents in Georgia to renew peaceful overtures to the Creeks. If these finally availed nothing, he might encourage South Carolina militiamen to go to the defence of their beleaguered neighbors.
Washington had not been well for a week. June 1 found him so indisposed with fever as to be unable to attend a meeting of the Cabinet called to consider the fate of another of Genet’s Charleston privateers, the Sans Culotte, which recently had appeared at Baltimore with a British prize in tow. The President took consolation in the knowledge that American policy had been defined—the privateer certainly would be ordered away—but the hauteur of the French Minister seemed to redouble each day. Genet now demanded immediate release of Gideon Henfield and John Singletary, two Americans who had sailed from Charleston on the corsair Citoyen Genet and been arrested in Philadelphia on May 30. In reply Jefferson enclosed a copy of Randolph’s opinion favoring indictment for breach of the national peace and informed the Frenchman in gentle language that the accused would be fairly tried by a civil magistrate “over whose proceedings the Executive has no control.”
By the end of the first week in June unseasonably cold weather, pressures of office and intensifying personal assault in the columns of the National Gazette combined to affect markedly the President’s health and appearance. “Little lingering fevers have been hanging about him,” Jefferson noticed, and added that Washington seemed to feel newspaper chastisements “more than any person I ever yet met with. I am sincerely sorry to see them.” The Secretary of State knew that Washington blamed him in some measure for perpetuation of the National Gazette, and he had good cause now to regret the excesses of his protégé. Freneau was content no longer merely to snipe at the Proclamation; a series by “Veritas” challenged the discretion and even the integrity of the man over whose signature neutrality had been declared. Washington endured Freneau’s continuing barrage of painful fire because his belief remained firm that the presidential office demanded granite dignity which no volley should pierce.
On June 6 Hamilton submitted in draft a negative response to Genet’s request for advances on the debt, but Washington found the paper “too dry and abrupt” and sent it to Jefferson for comment. Specific reasons should support a refusal, the Secretary of State argued; so curt a denial would jeopardize Franco-American amity. Again, Hamilton’s
proposal for negotiation of a new Dutch loan of three million florins was met unenthusiastically by Jefferson and Randolph, who together induced the President to ask for explicit details. Even when they generated friction among his advisers or bore some connection to foreign affairs, questions of finance stood small at present against the enigma of neutrality. After contriving to irritate Jefferson with persistent notes, British Minister Hammond now evidenced sharp dissatisfaction over the answer sent on June 5 to his demand for restitution of prizes. Nor was Genet silent for long. As word came on June 8 of an “informal” application for supply of public arms to France “in such a way as to give an appearance of their being forwarded by individuals,” Washington must have wondered if Genet consciously sought new pinnacles of absurdity. The Cabinet agreed at once that Knox should decline the extraordinary requests as politely as possible. The Minister’s official communication to Jefferson that day brought fresh astonishment. Was there no propriety to stay this man’s impertinence? France, Genet protested, could see no justice in the American regulation against the commissioning of privateers. Out of a desire to sustain harmony between the two republics, he was willing to restrict the activities of his consuls and defer to the President’s “political opinions” until Congress had assembled to confirm or reject them! The coup de grâce came with vehemence: Let the Federal government respond to the call of the people whose “fraternal voice has resounded from every quarter around me!” Let the United States redeem “the cowardly abandonment of their friends in the moment when danger menaces them!”
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