fforts of that department to preserve that station in
which the various treaties in existence had placed the nation, were
incessantly calumniated[8] as infractions of those treaties, and
ungrateful attempts to force the United States into the war against
France.

[Footnote 8: See note No. IV. at the end of the volume.]

The judgment of the President was never hastily formed; but, once made
up, it was seldom to be shaken. Before the last letter of Mr. Genet
was communicated to him, he seems to have determined to take decisive
measures respecting that minister.

[Sidenote: Rules laid down by the executive in relation to the powers
at war within the ports of the United States.]

That the course to be pursued might be well considered, the secretary
of state was requested to collect all the correspondence with him, to
be laid before a cabinet council about to be held for the purpose of
adjusting a complete system of rules to be observed by the
belligerents in the ports of the United States. These rules were
discussed at several meetings, and finally, on the third of August,
received the unanimous approbation of the cabinet. They[9] evidence
the settled purpose of the executive, faithfully to observe all the
national engagements, and honestly to perform the duties of that
neutrality in which the war found them, and in which those engagements
left them free to remain.

[Footnote 9: See note No. V. at the end of the volume.]

[Sidenote: The president requests the recall of Genet.]

In the case of the minister of the French republic, it was unanimously
agreed that a letter should be written to Mr. Morris, the minister of
the United States at Paris, stating the conduct of Mr. Genet, resuming
the points of difference which had arisen between the government and
that gentleman, assigning the reasons for the opinion of the former,
desiring the recall of the latter, and directing that this letter,
with those which had passed between Mr. Genet and the secretary of
state, should be laid before the executive of the French government.

To a full view of the transactions of the executive with Mr. Genet,
and an ample justification of its measures, this able diplomatic
performance adds assurances of unvarying attachment to France,
expressed in such terms of unaffected sensibility, as to render
it impossible to suspect the sincerity of the concluding
sentiment--"that, after independence and self-government, there was
nothi