avor of the
administration was beginning, and men, indignant at the proceeding,
carried the news to Governor Mifflin, and also to the Secretary
of State. Great disturbance of mind thereupon ensued to these two
gentlemen, who were both much interested in France and the rights of
man. The brig would not sail before the arrival of the President, said
the Secretary of State. Still the arming went on apace, and then came
movements on the part of the governor. Dallas, Secretary of State for
Pennsylvania, went at midnight to expostulate with Genet, who burst
into a passion, and declared that the vessel should sail. This
defiance roused the governor, and a company of militia marched to
the vessel and took possession. Greatly excited, Jefferson went next
morning to Genet, who very honestly declined to promise to detain the
vessel, but said that she would not be ready to sail until Wednesday.
This announcement, which was distinctly not a promise, the Secretary
of State chose to accept as such, and as he was very far from being
a fool, he did so either from timidity, or from a very unworthy
political preference for another nation's interests to the dignity of
his own country. At all events, he had the troops withdrawn, and the
Little Sarah, now rejoicing in the name of the Petit Democrat,
dropped down to Chester. Hamilton and Knox, being neither afraid nor
un-American, were for putting a battery on Mud Island and sinking
the privateer if she attempted to go by. Great saving of trouble and
bloodshed would have been accomplished by the setting up of this
battery and the sinking of this vessel, for it would have informed the
world that though the United States were weak and young, they were
ready nevertheless to fight as a nation, a fact which we subsequently
were obliged to prove by a three years' war.

Jefferson, however, opposed decisive measures, and while the cabinet
wrangled, Washington, hurrying back from Mount Vernon, reached
Philadelphia. He was full of just anger at what had been done and left
undone. Jefferson, feeling uneasy, had gone to the country, where he
was fond of making a retreat at unpleasant moments, and Washington at
once wrote him a letter, which could not have been very agreeable
to the discoverer of diplomatic promises in a refusal to give any.
"What," said the President, "is to be done in the case of the Little
Sarah, now at Chester? Is the minister of the French Republic to set
the acts of this government