the French possessions in America; and by a treaty of commerce executed
at the same time, French privateers and prizes were entitled to shelter
in the American ports, while those of the enemies of France should be
excluded.

There was now a wide-spreading sentiment in favor of an active
participation with France, on the part of the United States, in her
struggles against armed Europe; and many, in the wild enthusiasm of the
moment, would not have hesitated an instant in precipitating our country
into a war. Indeed, for a while, the universal sentiment was a cheer for
republican France, whose Convention had declared, in the name of the
French nation, that they would grant fraternity and assistance to every
people who wished to recover their liberty; and they charged the
executive power to send the necessary orders to the generals "to give
assistance to such people, and to defend those citizens who may have
been, or who may be, vexed for the cause of liberty."

Filled with the spirit of this declaration, and charged with the
performance of political functions seldom exercised by _diplomats_,
Edmund Charles Genet--"Citizen Genet," as he was termed in the new
nomenclature of the French republic--came to America at this time, as
the representative of that republic, to supersede the more conservative
M. Ternant. Genet was a man of culture, spoke the English language
fluently, possessed a pleasing address, was lively, frank, and
unguarded, and as fiery as the most intense Jacobins could wish. He
arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, on the eighth of April, five days
after the news of the French declaration of war reached New York. His
presence intensified the enthusiasm with which the country was then
glowing; and for a moment, until sober reason assumed the sceptre, all
opposition to the revolutionary sentiment was swept away by the tide of
popular zeal for a cause that seemed identical with that which secured
independence to the United States. "Is it wonderful," says the latest
biographer of Jefferson, "that American popular sympathy swelled to a
pitch of wild enthusiasm, when an emissary came from the new republic,
surrounded with its prestige; proclaiming wild, stirring doctrines;
declaring the unbounded affection of his country for the United States;
scorning the arts of old diplomacy, and mixing freely with the
democratic masses; not declining to talk of the important objects of his
mission in promiscuous assemblies of