From these delicate and popular truths, it was inferred, that the doctrine that the sovereignty of the nation resided in the departments of government was incompatible with the principles of liberty; and that, if Mr. Genet dissented from the interpretation given by the President to existing treaties, he might rightfully appeal to the real sovereign whose agent the President was, and to whom he was responsible for his conduct. Is the President, it was asked, a consecrated character, that an appeal from his decisions must be considered criminal? or are the people in such a state of monarchical degradation, that to speak of consulting them is an offence as great, as if America groaned under a dominion equally tyrannical with the old monarchy of France?

It was soon ascertained that Mr. Dallas, to whom this threat of appealing to the people had been delivered, did not admit that the precise words had been used. Mr. Genet then, in the coarsest terms, averred the falsehood of the certificate which had been published, and demanded from the attorney general, and from the government, that Mr. Jay and Mr. King should be indicted for a libel upon himself and his nation. That officer accompanied his refusal to institute this information with the declaration that any other gentleman of the profession, who might approve and advise the attempt, could be at no loss to point out a mode which would not require his intervention.

While the minister of the French republic thus loudly complained of the unparalleled injury he received from being charged with employing a particular exceptionable phrase, he seized every fair occasion to carry into full execution the threat which he denied having made. His letters, written for the purpose of publication, and actually published by himself, accused the executive, before the tribunal of the people, on those specific points, from its decisions respecting which he was said to have threatened the appeal. As if the offence lay, not in perpetrating the act, but in avowing an intention to perpetrate it, this demonstration of his designs did not render his advocates the less vehement in his support, nor the less acrimonious in reproaching the administration, as well as Mr. Jay and Mr. King.

Whilst insult was thus added to insult, the utmost vigilance of the executive officers was scarcely sufficient to maintain an observance of the rules which had been established for preserving neutrality in the American ports. Mr. Genet persisted in refusing to acquiesce in those rules; and fresh instances of attempts to violate them were continually recurring. Among these, was an outrage committed in Boston, too flagrant to be overlooked.

A schooner, brought as a prize into the port of Boston by a French

privateer, was claimed by the British owner; who instituted proceedings at law against her, for the purpose of obtaining a decision on the validity of her capture. She was rescued from the possession of the marshal, by an armed force acting under the authority of Mr. Duplaine, the French consul, which was detached from a frigate then lying in port. Until the frigate sailed, she was guarded by a part of the crew; and, notwithstanding the determination of the American government that the consular courts should not exercise a prize jurisdiction within the territories of the United States, Mr. Duplaine declared his purpose to take cognizance of the case.

To this act of open defiance, it was impossible for the President to submit. The facts being well attested, the exequatur which had been granted to Mr. Duplaine was revoked, and he was forbidden further to exercise the consular functions. It will excite surprise that even this necessary measure could not escape censure. The self proclaimed champions of liberty discovered in it a violation of the constitution, and a new indignity to France.

Mr. Genet did not confine his attempts to employ the force of America against the enemies of his country to maritime enterprises. On his first arrival, he is understood to have planned an expedition against the Floridas, to be carried on from Georgia; and another against Louisiana, to be carried on from the western parts of the United States. Intelligence was received that the principal officers were engaged; and the temper of the people inhabiting the western country was such as to furnish some ground for the apprehension, that the restraints which the executive was capable of imposing, would be found too feeble to prevent the execution of this plan. The remonstrances of the Spanish commissioners on this subject, however, were answered with explicit assurances that the government would effectually interpose to defeat any expedition from the territories of the United States against those of Spain; and the governor of Kentucky was requested to co-operate in frustrating this improper application of the military resources of his state.

It was not by the machinations of the French minister alone that the neutrality of the United States was endangered. The party which, under different pretexts, urged measures the inevitable tendency of which was war, derived considerable aid, in their exertions to influence the passions of the people, from the conduct of others of the belligerent powers. The course pursued both by Britain and Spain rendered the task of the executive still more arduous, by furnishing weapons to the enemies of neutrality, capable of being wielded with great effect.

The resentment excited by the rigour with which the maritime powers

of Europe retained the monopoly of their colonial commerce, had, without the aid of those powerful causes which had lately been brought into operation, been directed peculiarly against Great Britain. These resentments had been greatly increased. That nation had not mitigated the vexations and inconveniencies which war necessarily inflicts on neutral trade, by any relaxations in her colonial policy.

To this rigid and repulsive system, that of France presented a perfect contrast. Either influenced by the politics of the moment, or suspecting that, in a contest with the great maritime nations of Europe, her commerce must search for security in other bottoms than her own, she opened the ports of her colonies to every neutral flag, and offered to the United States a new treaty, in which it was understood that every mercantile distinction between Americans and Frenchmen should be totally abolished.

With that hasty credulity which, obedient to the wishes, can not await the sober and deliberate decisions of the judgment, the Americans ascribed this change, and these propositions, to the liberal genius of freedom; and expected the new commercial and political systems to be equally durable. As if, in the term REPUBLIC, the avaricious spirit of commercial monopoly would lose its influence over men; as if the passions were to withdraw from the management of human affairs, and leave the helm to the guidance of reason, and of disinterested philanthropy; a vast proportion of the American people believed this novel system to be the genuine offspring of new-born liberty; and consequently expected that, from the success of the republican arms, a flood of untried good was to rush upon the world.

The avidity with which the neutral merchants pressed forward to reap the rich and tempting harvest offered to them by the regulations and the wants of France, presented a harvest not less rich and tempting to the cruisers of her enemies. Captures to a great extent were made, some with, others without, justifiable cause; and the irritations inseparable from disappointment in gathering the fruits of a gainful traffic, were extensively communicated to the agricultural part of society.

The vexations on the ocean to which neutrals are commonly exposed during war, were aggravated by a measure of the British cabinet, which war was not admitted to justify.

The vast military exertions of the French republic had carried many hands from their usual occupations, to the field; and the measures of government, added to the internal commotions, had discouraged labour by rendering its profits insecure. These causes, aided perhaps by unfavourable seasons, had produced a scarcity which threatened famine.

This state of things suggested to their enemies the policy of increasing the internal distress, by cutting off the external supply. In execution of this plan, the British cruisers were instructed "to stop all vessels loaded wholly or in part with corn, flour, or meal, bound to any port in France, or any port occupied by the armies of France, and to send them to such ports as shall be most convenient, in order that such corn, meal, or flour, may be purchased on behalf of his majesty's government, and the ships be relieved after such purchase, and after a due allowance for freight; or that the masters of such ships on giving due security, to be approved by the court of admiralty, be permitted to proceed to dispose of their cargoes of corn, meal, or flour, in the ports of any country in amity with his majesty."

In the particular character of the war, and in the general expressions of some approved modern writers on the law of nations, the British government sought a justification of this strong measure. But by neutrals generally, it was deemed an unwarrantable invasion of their rights; and the remonstrances made against it by the American government in particular, were serious and earnest. This attempt to make a principle, which was understood to be applicable only to blockaded places, subservient to the impracticable plan of starving an immense agricultural nation, was resisted with great strength of reasoning by the administration; and added, not inconsiderably, to the resentment felt by the body of the people.*

Hostilities on the ocean disclosed still another source of irritation, which added its copious stream to the impetuous torrent which threatened to sweep America into the war that desolated Europe.

The British government had long been accustomed to resort to the practice of manning their fleet by impressment. The exercise of this prerogative had not been confined to the land. Merchantmen in their ports, and even at sea, were visited, and mariners were taken out of them, to be employed in the royal navy. The profits of trade enabling neutral merchants to give high wages, British sailors were tempted, in great numbers, to enter their service; but the neutral ship furnished no protection. Disregarding the bottom in which they sailed, the officers of the navy impressed them wherever found, often leaving scarcely hands enough to navigate the vessel into port.

The Americans were peculiarly exposed to the abuse to which such usages are liable. Descended from the same ancestors, and speaking the same language, the distinction between them and the English, though in general sufficiently marked, was not always so visible as to prevent * See note, No. XIV. at the end of the volume.

unintentional error; nor were the captains of ships of war, at all times, very solicitous to avoid mistake. Native Americans, therefore, were frequently impressed, and compelled to serve against the French republic.

The British cabinet disclaimed all pretensions to the impressment of real American citizens, and declared officially a willingness to discharge them, on the establishment of their citizenship. But time was necessary to procure the requisite testimonials; and those officers who had notoriously offended in this respect, were not so discountenanced by their government as to be deterred from a repetition of the offence. There was too, one class of citizens, concerning whose rights a difference of opinion prevailed, which has not even yet been adjusted. These were British subjects who had migrated to, and been adopted by, the United States.

The continuance of the Indian war added still another item to this catalogue of discontents.

The efforts of the United States to make a treaty with the savages of the Miamis had proved abortive. The Indians insisted on the Ohio as the boundary between them and the whites; and, although the American commissioners expressed a willingness to relinquish some of the lands purchased at the treaty of fort Harmar, and pressed them to propose some line between the boundary established by that treaty and the Ohio, they adhered inflexibly to their original demand.

It was extensively believed in America, and information collected from the Indians countenanced the opinion, that they were encouraged by the government of Canada to persevere in this claim, and that the treaty was defeated by British influence. The conviction was universal that this influence would continue so long as the posts south of the lakes should be occupied by British troops; and the uneasiness which the detention of those posts created, daily acquired strength. Unfortunately, the original pretext for detaining them was not yet removed. The courts of the United States had not yet declared that British debts contracted before the war, were recoverable. In one of the circuits, a decision had been recently made, partly favourable, and partly unfavourable, to the claim of the creditor. To this decision writs of error had been brought, and the case was depending before the supreme court. The motives therefore originally assigned for holding the posts on the lakes still remained; and, as it was a maxim with the executive " to place an adversary clearly in the wrong," and it was expected that the existing impediments to the fulfilment of the treaty on the part of the United States would soon be done away, it was thought unaḍviseable, had the military