"The specimens you have seen,"
he wrote, "of Mr. Genet's sentiments and conduct in the gazettes form
a small part only of the aggregate. But you can judge from them to
what test the temper of the executive has been put in its various
transactions with this gentleman. It is probable that the whole will
be exhibited to public view in the course of the next session of
Congress. Delicacy towards his nation has restrained the doing of
it hitherto. The best that can be said of this agent is, that he is
entirely unfit for the mission on which he is employed; unless (which
I hope is not the case), contrary to the express and unequivocal
declaration of his country made through himself, it is meant to
involve ours in all the horrors of a European war."
But there was another side to the neutrality question even more full
of difficulties and unpopularity, which began to open just as the
worst of the contests with Genet was being brought to a successful
close. Genet had not confined his efforts to the seaboard, nor been
content with civic banquets, privateers, rioting, and insolent notes
to the government. He had fitted out ships, and he intended also to
levy armies. With this end in view he had sent his agents through the
south and west to raise men in order to invade the Floridas on the
one hand and seize New Orleans on the other. To conceive of such a
performance by a foreign minister on the soil of the United States,
requires an effort of the imagination to-day almost equal to that
which would be necessary for an acceptance of the reality of the
Arabian nights.
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