l the energy and obstinacy
of his nature, was resolved that the United States should not have so
much as a set-back for the sake of a country whose excesses filled him
with horror, much less run the risk of being sucked into the whirlpool
of Europe; and he watched every move Jefferson made, lest his secret
sympathies commit the country. When, after a triumphal procession
through miles of thoughtless enthusiasts, who remembered only the
services of France, forgot that their friends had been confined entirely
to the royalty and aristocracy that the mob was murdering, and were
intoxicated by the extreme democracy of the famous Secretary of State,
Genet arrived in Philadelphia, inflated and bumptious, his brain half
crazed by the nervous excitement of the past two years, and was received
with frigid politeness by Washington, Hamilton was not long discovering
that Jefferson was in secret sympathy and intercourse with this
dangerous fire-brand. The news had preceded and followed the new
minister that he had been distributing blank commissions to all who
would fit out privateers to prey upon British commerce, opening
headquarters for the enlistment of American sailors into the French
service, and constituting French consuls courts of admiralty for the
trial and condemnation of prizes brought in by French privateers.

As soon as he arrived in Philadelphia he demanded of Hamilton the
arrears of the French debt, which the Secretary had refused to pay until
there was a stable government in France to receive it. Hamilton laughed,
locked the doors of the Treasury, and put the key in his pocket. To
Genet's excited volubility and pertinacity he paid as little attention
as to Jefferson's arguments. Moreover, he reversed all Citizen Genet's
performances in the South; and in course of time, even the captured
British ships, to the wrath and disgust of Jefferson, were returned to
their owners.

Freneau's _Gazette_ supported the Secretary of State with the
desperation of an expiring cause; in this great final battle, were
Jefferson driven from the Cabinet, his faithful organ must scurry to the
limbo of its kind. It assailed the Administration for ingratitude and
meanness, then turned its attention almost exclusively to the Secretary
of the Treasury. It accused him of abstracting the moneys due to France,
of plundering the industrious farmer with the Excise Law, destroying the
morals of the people by Custom House duties; resurrected the old