esh insult might therefore be passed over in
silence.

While a hope remained that the temperate forbearance of the executive,
and the unceasing manifestations of its friendly dispositions towards
the French republic, might induce the minister of that nation to
respect the rights of the United States, and to abstain from
violations of their sovereignty, an anxious solicitude not to impair
the harmony which he wished to maintain between the two republics, had
restrained the President from adopting those measures respecting Mr.
Genet, which the conduct of that gentleman required. He had seen a
foreign minister usurp within the territories of the United States
some of the most important rights of sovereignty, and persist, after
the prohibition of the government, in the exercise of those rights. In
asserting this extravagant claim, so incompatible with national
independence, the spirit in which it originated had been pursued, and
the haughty style of a superior had been substituted for the
respectful language of diplomacy. He had seen the same minister
undertake to direct the civil government; and to pronounce, in
opposition to the decisions of the executive, in what departments of
the constitution of the United States had placed certain great
national powers. To render this state of things more peculiarly
critical and embarrassing, the person most instrumental in producing
it, had, from his arrival, thrown himself into the arms of the people,
stretched out to receive him; and was emboldened by their favour, to
indulge the hope of succeeding in his endeavours, either to overthrow
their government, or to bend it to his will. But the full experiment
had now been made; and the result was a conviction not to be resisted,
that moderation would only invite additional injuries, and that the
present insufferable state of things could be terminated only by
procuring the removal of the French minister, or by submitting to
become, in his hands, the servile instrument of hostility against the
enemies of his nation. Information was continually received from every
quarter, of fresh aggressions on the principles established by the
government; and, while the executive was thus openly disregarded and
contemned, the members of the administration were reproached in all
the papers of an active and restless opposition, as the violators of
the national faith, the partisans of monarchy, and the enemies of
liberty and of France.

The unwearied e