most
ardent wishes for the French republic." He complained that the president
had admitted to a private audience, before his arrival, "Noailles[60] and
Talon, known agents of the French counter-revolutionists;" that the
"first magistrate of a free people decorated his parlor with certain
medallions" of the murdered king and his family, "which served at Paris
as signals of rallying;" that when he applied to the secretary of war to
lend his government some cannon and firearms for defensive use in the
Windward islands, that functionary had "the front to answer, with an
ironical carelessness, that the principles established by the president
did not permit him to lend the French so much as a pistol!" and,
lastly, that the president, in spite of the French minister's
"respectful insinuations," had deferred "to convoke Congress immediately
in order to take the true sentiments of the people, to fix the political
system of the United States, and to decide whether they would break,
suspend, or tighten their bonds with France."

Jefferson, who had become heartily disgusted with Genet, took no notice
of this angry and insolent letter, and the speedily-changed tone of
public feeling toward the writer justified the silence. His threat of
appealing from the president to the people--in other words, to excite an
insurrection for the purpose of overthrowing the government--had shocked
the national pride, and many considerate republicans, who had been
zealous in the cause of the French Revolution, paused while listening to
the audacious words of a foreigner, who presumed to dictate a course of
conduct for the beloved Washington to pursue.

The rumor of Genet's threat first went abroad in August, and met him,
while on a visit to New York, in the form of a statement in one of the
public papers. His partisans denied the truth of the statement, when
Chief-Justice Jay and Rufus King (the latter a leading member of
Congress) assumed the responsibility of it in a published note dated the
twelfth of August. The fact was thus established, notwithstanding the
violent assaults made by Genet's partisans upon the integrity of Messrs.
Jay and King; and on the very day when, as we have observed, he was
received in New York in the midst of pealing bells and roaring cannon, a
public meeting was held, in which his insolence was rebuked, and the
policy of Washington's proclamation of neutrality strongly commended.
Similar meetings were held throughout the