n their side, it follows of necessity,
that exercising the sovereign powers of the country, they have a right
to proceed on their own constructions and conclusions as to whatever is
to be done within their limits. The minister then refers the case to his
own government, asks new instructions, and, in the mean time,
acquiesces in the authority of the country. His government examines his
constructions, abandons them if wrong, insists on them if right, and the
case then becomes a matter of negotiation between the two nations. Mr.
Genet, however, assumes a new and bolder line of conduct. After deciding
for himself ultimately, and without respect to the authority of the
country, he proceeds to do what even his sovereign could not authorize,
to put himself within the country on a line with its government, to act
as co-sovereign of the territory; he arms vessels, levies men, gives
commissions of war, independently of them, and in direct opposition to
their orders and efforts. When the government forbids their citizens to
arm and engage in the war, he undertakes to arm and engage them. When
they forbid vessels to be fitted in their ports for cruising on nations
with whom they are at peace, he commissions them to fit and cruise.
When they forbid an unceded jurisdiction to be exercised within their
territory by foreign agents, he undertakes to uphold that exercise, and
to avow it openly. The privateers Citoyen Genet and Sans Culottes having
been fitted out at Charleston (though without the permission of the
government, yet before it was forbidden) the President only required
they might leave our ports, and did not interfere with their prizes.
Instead, however, of their quitting our ports, the Sans Culottes remains
still, strengthening and equipping herself, and the Citoyen Genet went
out only to cruise on our coast, and to brave the authority of the
country by returning into port again with her prizes. Though in the
letter of June the 5th, the final determination of the President was
communicated, that no future armaments in our ports should be permitted,
the Vainqueur de la Bastille was afterwards equipped and commissioned in
Charleston, the Anti-George in Savannah, the Carmagnole in Delaware,
a schooner and a sloop in Boston, and the Polly or Republican was
attempted to be equipped in New York, and was the subject of reclamation
by Mr. Genet, in a style which certainly did not look like relinquishing
the practice. The Little Sara