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questions at once arose under our treaties with France. The French people
thought that we were in honor bound to assist them in their struggle
against Great Britain, as they had assisted us; and they sent over as
minister "Citizen" Genet, in the frigate L'Embuscade. The frigate,
carrying forty guns and three hundred men, sailed into the harbor of
Charleston, April 8, 1793, with a liberty-cap for her figure-head, and a
British prize in her wake. Citizen Genet, even for a Frenchman, was a most
indiscreet and hot-headed person, and before he had been a week on shore
he had issued commissions to privateers manned by American citizens.
L'Embuscade then proceeded to Philadelphia, where, as in Charleston,
Citizen Genet was welcomed with the utmost enthusiasm. His coming was
hailed by the Republicans generally with rapture; and their cry was for
war. "I wish," wrote Jefferson, in a confidential letter to Monroe, "that
we may be able to repress the people within the limits of a fair
neutrality."

This was the position taken also by Washington and the whole cabinet; and
it is a striking example of Jefferson's wisdom, justice, and firmness,
that, although the bulk of the Republicans were carried off their feet by
sympathy with France and with Genet, he, the very person in the United
States who most loved the French and best understood the causes and
motives of the French Revolution, withstood the storm, and kept his eye
fixed upon the interests of his own country. England, contrary to the
treaty which closed the Revolutionary War, still retained her military
posts in the west; and she was the undisputed mistress of the sea. War
with her would therefore have been suicidal for the United States. The
time for that had not yet come. Moreover, if the United States had taken
sides with France, a war with Spain also would inevitably have followed;
and Spain then held Florida and the mouth of the Mississippi.

Nevertheless, there were different ways of preserving neutrality: there
were the offensive way and the friendly way. Hamilton, whose extreme bias
toward England made him bitter against France, was always for the one;
Jefferson for the other. A single example will suffice as an illustration.
M. Genet asked as a favor that the United States should advance an
installment of its debt to France. Hamilton advised that the request be
refused without a word of explanation. Jefferson's opinion was that the
request should be granted, if th