A meeting of the Cabinet on the first of August sealed the fate of Genet. His entire correspondence with the Department of State was reviewed from copies Jefferson furnished. It was decided to send these documents to Morris for presentation to the Executive Council of France, together with a full statement of indiscretions of Genet and a formal demand for his recall. The Secretary of State felt that delicacy of expression was essential; Hamilton, Knox and Randolph recommended “peremptory terms.” Knox found himself alone in asking the President to suspend Genet’s diplomatic and consular powers at once, but Hamilton and Randolph concurred in a proposal that the Minister be duly notified of the demand for his recall. Washington seemed to favor this step in spite of Jefferson’s argument that it would only stir Genet to new outrages. Washington adjourned the discussion until the next morning at nine.
August 2 was a day of disquieting and partisan discourse for Hamilton and Jefferson and one of immeasurable distress for the President. The Secretary of the Treasury opened with a long recital of reasons for public appeal and remonstrance against Genet. Jefferson replied that Hamilton “calculated to make the President assume the station of the head of a party instead of the head of a nation.” Would not Genet answer such an appeal with a blatant one of his own? Washington seemed to incline towards Hamilton’s proposal. Knox, instead of attempting to present a case, exhibited a broadside of “The Funeral Dirge of George Washington and James Wilson, King and Judge,” one of the late pasquinades from the pen of Freneau. The President went suddenly into towering anger, spoke bitterly of the journalistic abuse to which he had been subjected in past months, and defied any critic to indicate one selfish act promulgated by him in office. He would rather be in the grave, he cried, than in his present posture! He would rather be a farmer than emperor of the world, and yet that “rascal Freneau” insinuated that his pretensions were kingly: Not for years had Washington’s temper so completely possessed him. Once the fury had played out, he sank exhausted into despondency. Hamilton’s effort to reintroduce the topic was fruitless. The President dismissed his advisers with a comment that no immediate decision on the proposed appeal seemed necessary. What benefit it might be to Federalists to denounce Genet officially, or what damage it might work on Republicans, the President manifestly did not care. Politics was not his province. Executive rulings would curb the menace of illegal privateering, and soon the unwelcome Minister would be replaced. At least a diplomatic nightmare was over; those decisions as yet unmade could be of secondary significance only.
The Secretary of State had indicated in a formal note of resignation on July 31 that he intended to quit office at the end of September. Hamilton, in late June had similarly expressed an intention to resign as soon as Congress assembled and completed an investigation of his public conduct. Washington was determined to prevent dissolution of the Cabinet, and on August 6 he called at Jefferson’s country house in an agitated mood. The two talked at length. The President emphasized his own longing to retire and complained that Hamilton and Jefferson were about to desert him at the outset of four additional years of obligatory public service. Who could be found to replace them? Finally, the President asked Jefferson to stay until the end of the year. No promise came immediately, but on August 11 the Secretary of State consented.
Compromise was as inescapable as eventual dismemberment of the Cabinet was certain, but, “like a man going to the gallows,” the President was “willing to put it off as long as he could.” If this was indecision, he scarcely could be blamed. Partisan controversy grew less reasonable and more reckless every hour. At least Genet would be gone when Jefferson retired and, as long as the mercurial Frenchman remained, domestic convulsion always was possible. In fact, a convulsion seemed imminent in New York. On August 1 the inhabitants of that city were wildly excited by a sea battle off Sandy Hook. The Embuscade under Bompard routed the British frigate Boston in a dramatic action, and the next day festivities accelerated with the arrival of the entire French West Indies fleet in the roadstead. Genet hastened to New York to welcome the warships. In spite of elaborate preparations by a committee of Republicans, his reception was not extraordinary. Federalists were lively in circulating a story that Genet had maligned the President. By the middle of the month Washington learned the climax of this political drama: Rufus King and John Jay made formal charge that the French Minister had threatened an appeal to the people. Advertisement of Genet’s blunders produced the effect Federalist leaders anticipated. A swell of public indignation engulfed those few Republicans who now chose to stand by Genet. In little more than a week towns and counties in half a dozen States forwarded resolution of their people: We will not suffer our Chief Magistrate to be insulted by a foreign emissary!
The President had yet to approve the letter which would request Genet’s recall. In Cabinet session on August 15 Jefferson read his first draft. Five days later the paper was studied, corrected by paragraphs and approved. A meeting of August 23 determined that the letter should bear the date of the last document to accompany it. Jefferson had produced a masterpiece of eight thousand words which drew careful distinction between Genet and the French Republic. Sharp indictment was made of the errant envoy, but the “constant and unabating” good will of the United States for the people of France was guaranteed. At last Washington could feel a measure of relief, and if satisfaction accompanied it, there was reason. He had guided his nation through a storm of diplomacy, and the tempests of national politics had not turned his course.
The first six months of his second administration had taxed Washington beyond anything he had known in the Presidency. Expressions against the government more and more were directed against the man at its head. As attacks focused on him, the invectives gained in unruly strength and ugly spirit. The protests of an orderly and reasonable people fast were approaching the meaningless fury of a disorderly mob. Then quite suddenly all Philadelphians found themselves distracted by an impersonal, impartial and even more merciless foe.
On August 28 those who saw the General Advertiser read of the presence of yellow fever in Philadelphia, but it was not news, certainly not to Washington. By that time the disease was widespread and alarming in its manifestations. An epidemic beset the city. The newspaper article, carefully and thoughtfully prepared by a committee from the College of Physicians and printed at the instance of Mayor Matthew Clarkson, turned alarm into panic. Fear spread. Inhabitants frantically left the city. Government as well as private business was abandoned; few public offices remained open. Even the term of the Supreme Court was interrupted, and the Pennsylvania General Assembly adjourned September 5 after only eight days in session.
The President watched with concern the progress of the defiant disease, but evidently he had no personal fear of its contagion. He was disturbed over the possibility that Hamilton might be in first stages of the malady but did not withhold an invitation on September 6 to the Secretary of the Treasury and Mrs. Hamilton to dine at the President’s house that afternoon. Two days later diagnosis of the Secretary’s illness as yellow fever was known. Distress over Hamilton’s sickness was reason for Washington’s wish to delay departure for Mount Vernon, but Martha was unwilling to go without him, and there seemed no choice but to remove his family from the hazardous surroundings. The President had little hope of continuing business for the nation and made ready to leave on September 10.
If, as he rode south Washington’s thoughts were of conditions he would find at Mount Vernon, this was no reason for release or relief. Plantation affairs never had obtruded more persistently than in the weeks since Whiting’s death. The careful letters that went each week to Howell Lewis, his temporary manager at the Potomac estate, showed no lessening of consideration, though the boy had not taken hold readily and appeared to be disposed to procrastinate. Fanny Washington still was dependent on his counsel, and her needs seemed always to be most urgent when Washington was busy with public matters of prime importance. The overseer, James Butler, was a perennial nuisanc
e and in Washington’s opinion, scarcely could be exceeded in neglect of duty.
On the brighter side, Washington was pleased to hear that the Potomac Company prospered. Most gratifying was the prospect of obtaining a suitable plantation manager. The application of William Pearce held promise and Washington had written him on August 26. Pearce replied promptly in acceptance of the offer of one hundred guineas a year. When Pearce came to Mount Vernon September 23, Washington prepared articles of agreement between himself and the new manager which described in detail the proprietor’s ideal for development of the plantation and its dependencies. A contract for one year was entered upon and Pearce was scheduled to begin his service January 1, 1794.
Wherever Washington was, there was the seat of government. A change from public to private affairs would have been welcome diversion, but more than fleeting shift from the nation’s perplexities was out of the question. Scarcely had the President rested from his homeward journey than he took the road for the relatively brief ride to the Federal City. It was September 18, the date for laying the cornerstone of the Capitol. The President found the splendor of music and drums, of flying colors, of many Masons in their symbolic regalia, of happy spectators generally. It was a memorable affair for the Masonic Order, magnified by Washington’s participation as a member. When the assemblage dispersed to the echo of a final fusillade, Washington carried with him, besides memories, more tangible evidence of the occasion. In his pocket was a certificate of purchase for four lots in the Federal City which he had negotiated at the sale that day.
There was a measure of reassurance in the addresses and resolves that arrived almost daily from different parts of the Union. Washington was grateful for this “testimony of unanimity,” but it was not reassuring that resolutions adopted in certain parts of his own Virginia were worded with restraint—if indeed they did not imply reproof of the President by the pallor of their praise. Seldom did the post fail to bring news of Genet’s continuing defiance, unabashed ambitions and endless activities. These communications usually were from Jefferson, though Governor Clinton advised the President of the Frenchman’s exploits in New York Harbor. If official notification of his requested recall had dampened Genet’s ardor, there was no evidence of it. His pronouncements against the President were more reckless and cunning than ever. Coupled with these unhappy memoranda was another defiance that disturbed the President profoundly—the Democratic Societies more and more vigorously were protesting that the cause of France should be the concern of America. In the rise of “popular” societies Washington saw the spread of Genet’s influence into the wider rank of extreme partisanship. The aim of these clubs, he told Gov. Henry Lee, was “nothing short of the Government of these States, even at the expense of plunging this country in the horrors of a disastrous war.”
With this in mind, the President instructed the Cabinet to meet him in Germantown on November 1. In Philadelphia fear was giving way to a sort of mild optimism as disease lessened. By the middle of October it was cold enough for an overcoat, and a thick frost fell on the city before the month ended. Washington could rejoice at the recovery of his Secretary of the Treasury, but there were many to be mourned. Perhaps his deepest personal grief was in the loss of Samuel Powel, whose companionship and that of his wife long had been cherished by the President and Mrs. Washington. Between the first of August and early November, death had claimed more than four thousand Philadelphians, sometimes at the rate of a hundred a day.
On the last stretch of the familiar journey north Washington was glad to have the company of Jefferson, who had come as far as Baltimore by stage. Late on November 1 they entered Germantown in a rainstorm to find hundreds of Philadelphians plodding through deep mud, still too fearful of the plague to return to their homes in the city. So scarce were accommodations that Jefferson thought himself fortunate to find an empty bed in a corner of the dining room of the King of Prussia Tavern. The President unpacked in quarters leased for him by Randolph and, next morning, opened his office for work. By the second week of November the fever appeared almost at an end and thousands were flocking back to their homes, but it was decided to continue the President’s office at Germantown until December 1 as a rallying point.
Washington’s thoughts went often these days to imminent crisis in the Northwest. As early as the first week of September he had definite knowledge that negotiation with the hostile Indians had broken down. After a tedious delay native chieftains had finally visited the camp of the American commissioners on July 31—but only to demand recession of the frontier to the Ohio River in accordance with the Fort Stanwix agreement of 1768. The commissioners remained two weeks more, unable to gain another direct contact with the Indians but still hopeful that some basis for peace other than the old boundary would be proposed. When no word came except a written ultimatum for the Ohio River line, the delegation left for home in disgust. Doubtless Canadian officials were plying their influence to create trouble in the borderland. Little else should have been expected, for certainly Great Britain wished to see Americans restricted as far to the south as possible. One course was left—that of open war. Major General Wayne, in cantonment near Cincinnati, had been restive all summer. On news of the collapse of the negotiation, the General put the three thousand men of his “Legion” under march on October 7. Wayne’s troops within a week approached the southwest branch of the Maumee. Here he decided to pass the winter and erected a stockade which he called Fort Greeneville. Washington considered the expedition a climactic effort; the government could do no more for its pioneers north of the Ohio. Those who appreciated Wayne’s talents were sure his cannon and cavalry would restore peace, and the President hoped it soon would be done.
Whatever the extent of the activities of the King’s agents in Canada, his naval officers in the Atlantic had by this time given ample reason for the gravest apprehension. Late in August the President had received an alarming report from England—the British government was said to have issued an order by which naval commanders were to seize and confiscate any cargo of corn, flour or meal bound for France in a neutral vessel! Agreement had been unanimous in the Cabinet that this interpretation of contraband was preposterous. Jefferson had instructed Pinckney to demand revocation of any decree which so abridged the rights of free neutral commerce and threatened to an extreme the advancement of agriculture in the United States. Now, two months later, it was painfully evident that England did not mean to lay aside so effective a weapon in her program to reduce France to surrender by starvation. A dispatch from Pinckney verified this, and copies of his recent correspondence with Lord Grenville confirmed Washington’s fear that depredations on the high seas would increase and American ships and crews often might be held indefinitely in British ports. This circumstance gave rise to dread possibility that His Majesty’s navy would choose to accelerate the notorious practice of impressment of American merchant seamen. Letters in the first week of November substantiated the President’s fear of impressment. It was hard to foresee any but dire consequences of Britain’s new policy, and old difficulties with that nation seemed as distant from settlement as ever. Ten years after the Definitive Treaty of Peace had pledged their prompt evacuation, frontier posts remained in the occupancy of British troops. Hammond still protested that no instruction had come from London which would enable him to renew conversation on the matter.
As yet no answer had come from France to the demand for recall of Genet. While Genet’s present activities were nebulous, there was reason to believe that the man’s influence was spreading. The Spanish commissioners had delivered an excited complaint: four French agents were en route to Kentucky! This seemed to confirm reports that George Rogers Clark, the Revolutionary hero of the West, meant to lead an army of disgruntled frontiersmen against Spanish garrisons in Louisiana. France would welcome such a blow. Since the support Clark would have to have for even a small freebooting expedition was in Genet’s power alone to supply, it appeared certain that the French envoy was invol
ved in a scheme which, if executed, would wreck the neutrality of the United States! Any hostile gesture by Americans against Spanish Louisiana would signal disaster; it would bring immediate war with Spain, and more than likely ultimate war with England. The Secretary of State sent urgent warning to Gov. Isaac Shelby of Kentucky, and Knox wrote to authorize the use of military force if necessary.
Rumors circulated, as well, of French recruiting in South Carolina, and Genet’s presumptions and utterances were more noxious than ever. Washington was angry. He was convinced, he told his Cabinet on November 8, that the troublemaker should be ordered to leave the United States at once. Hamilton and Knox agreed. Jefferson sat silent, but Randolph held that diplomatic propriety made it necessary to allow France to recall Genet. Washington restated his argument for peremptory dismissal, but in the end was sufficiently impressed with the reasoning of the Attorney General to let the matter rest.
Washington wrote late in November: “I am occupied in collecting and arranging the materials for my communications to Congress.” Never before had an Annual Address been so tedious in preparation. How to explain, how to justify the Proclamation of Neutrality was the real difficulty. A session of the Cabinet on November 18 brought from Jefferson and Randolph opinion that the President must not declare anything further on the question of war or peace; Hamilton argued that the Chief Executive must compromise no part of the power to make such declarations. When, on the twenty-first, Hamilton and Randolph suggested in writing just how the Proclamation should be explained, debate flared, but the President remained uncommitted. Two days later the Attorney General was directed to prepare the address on the Proclamation and draft special messages on relations with France, Great Britain, Spain, and the Barbary Powers. When these papers were presented to the Cabinet on November 28, Hamilton insisted that England had been contrasted unfavorably with France and urged that certain documents relative to British depredations be withheld from Congress for the moment. Knox seconded this and Randolph seemed inclined to agree. The President took Jefferson’s side with vehemence and declared that all pertinent papers must be laid before the legislators.
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