at war of a
wide and far-reaching kind could not be long put off. In March, 1793,
Washington wrote: "All our late accounts from Europe hold up the
expectation of a general war in that quarter. For the sake of
humanity, I hope such an event will not take place. But if it should,
I trust that we shall have too just a sense of our own interest to
originate any cause that may involve us in it."

Even while he wrote, the general war that he anticipated, the war
between France and England, had come. The news reached him at Mount
Vernon, and in the letter to Jefferson announcing his immediate
departure for Philadelphia he said: "War having actually commenced
between France and Great Britain, it behooves the government of this
country to use every means in its power to prevent the citizens
thereof from embroiling us with either of those powers, by endeavoring
to maintain a strict neutrality. I therefore require that you will
give the subject mature consideration, that such measures as shall be
deemed most likely to effect this desirable purpose may be adopted
without delay." These instructions were written on April 12, and on
the 18th Washington was in Philadelphia, and had sent out a series
of questions to be considered by his cabinet and answered on the
following day. After much discussion, it was unanimously agreed
to issue a proclamation of neutrality, to receive the new French
minister, and not to convene Congress in extra session. The remaining
questions were put over for further consideration.

Hamilton framed the questions, say the historians; Randolph drafted
the proclamation, says his biographer, in a very instructive and fresh
discussion of the relations between the Secretary of State and the
Attorney-General. It is interesting to know what share the President's
advisers took when he consulted them on this momentous question, but
the leading idea was his own. When the moment came, the policy long
meditated and matured was put in force. The world was told that a new
power had come into being, which meant to hold aloof from Europe,
and which took no interest in the balance of power or the fate of
dynasties, but looked only to the welfare of its own people and to the
conquest and mastery of a continent as its allotted tasks. The policy
declared by the proclamation was purely American in its conception,
and severed the colonial tradition at a stroke. In the din then
prevailing among civilized men, it was but little hee