at larger number among Americans who
are always ready to hurrah for anything or anybody that has caught the
popular fancy. Madison watched his progress with great interest, and
apparently with some misgivings. Writing again a few days later to
Jefferson, he says that "the fiscal party in Alexandria was an overmatch
for those who wished to testify the American sentiment." Indeed, he
thinks it certain, he says in the same letter, "that Genet will be
misled if he takes either the fashionable cant of the cities or the cold
caution of the government for the sense of the public,"--falling
himself, before he reaches the end of the sentence, into the cant of
assuming neutrality in the government to be only a "mask" behind which
to hide its "secret Anglomany." But he was quite mistaken in supposing
that Genet was likely to be misled, or led at all, by anybody. He was
almost capable, as General Knox said, of declaring the United States a
department of France, and of levying troops here to reduce the Americans
to obedience. The man's conduct, if it had not been so outrageous, would
have been ludicrous in its assumption of power, its disregard of the
laws of the country, and its defiance of the government. Within three
months of his arrival Jefferson himself was constrained to acknowledge
that he had developed "a character and conduct so unexpected and so
extraordinary as to place us in the most distressing dilemma, between
our regard for his nation, which is constant and sincere, and a regard
for our laws, the authority of which must be maintained; for the peace
of our country, which the executive magistrate is charged to preserve;
for its honor, offended in the person of that magistrate; and for its
character, grossly traduced in the conversations and letters of this
gentleman." Though this was in an official letter, it gave, no doubt,
Jefferson's real opinion; for no man had more reason than he for
resenting the conduct of the irrepressible Frenchman. Jefferson has been
accused of too much familiarity with the French minister in private, and
of tardiness in the discharge of his own duty as secretary where it was
likely to clash with the other's schemes. Genet himself complained that
he was thrown over by Jefferson after receiving from him every
encouragement. This is, of course, true, but not in the least
discreditable to Jefferson. When Genet arrived in Philadelphia, he was,
although he had already committed some illegal acts in