John Jay and the Genet Affair: Editorial Note
John Jay and the Genet Affair
The storm brewing over Genet’s continued flouting of American neutrality policy came to a head in the second week of July 1793 over the affair of the Little Sarah, a prize taken from the British that Genet had armed and sent to cruise against British shipping in defiance of American policy banning the outfitting of privateers in American ports. Even more troubling than Genet’s defiance of the administration’s prohibition, however, was a report made to Jefferson by Alexander J. Dallas, Secretary to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, who had been sent to the French minister with orders to hold the brig in port. In the course of their conversation, Dallas said, Genet had flown into a “great passion,” and had asserted that, if need be, “he would appeal from the President to the people.”1
Washington read Jefferson’s report of the episode on 11 July 1793, and his reaction was equally passionate: “Is the Minister of the French Republic to set the Acts of this Government at defiance—with impunity? and then threaten the Executive with an appeal to the People. What must the World think of such conduct, and of the Government of the U. States in submitting to it?” Immediately thereafter, Washington decided to ask the Supreme Court Justices to render official opinions on “certain matters of great public concern”—as yet unformulated treaty-related questions raised by Genet and the Henfield case related to the obligations of a neutral power, prizes, privateers, recruitment of Americans by belligerents, and French admiralty courts on American soil.2
During the last two weeks of July, the cabinet considered asking the French government to recall Genet and, on 1 August, it voted unanimously to do so.3 There was, however, serious disagreement about how to manage this. Jefferson favored doing so discreetly, by instructing Gouverneur Morris to submit copies of Genet’s correspondence and an account of his activities to the French government.4 Hamilton and Knox wanted to inform the American people about the decision and give the reasons for it as well. Washington initially agreed that the people should be told but Jefferson, supported by Randolph, argued that publicizing full details about Genet’s defiant behavior would both exacerbate political tensions in the United States and complicate American relations with France, and they convinced Washington to say nothing to the public for a time.5
Word of Genet’s threat had already leaked out, however. On 19 July, William Smith, a former member of the House of Representatives from Maryland, informed his son-in-law, Otho H. Williams, a wartime associate of Hamilton’s and currently customs collector of the port of Baltimore, that there was news from Philadelphia about Genet’s threat to appeal to the people over Washington’s head. His identity disguised, Hamilton began to publish his “No Jacobin” essays in Dunlap’s American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia). In the first essay, which appeared on 31 July, he asserted that it was “publicly rumoured” in Philadelphia that Genet had “threatened to appeal from The President of The United States to the People.” As evidence that the threat was already being acted on, he cited essays by “Juba” and “A Jacobin,” as having “begun the appeal.”6
Washington’s outrage at Genet’s disregard for his dignity and authority was again aroused during the cabinet meeting of 2 August, when Knox presented him with a “Pasquinade lately printed, called the funeral of George W-n and James W-n, king and judge &c. where the President was placed on a Guillotin.” Jefferson reported that Washington was “much inflamed, got into one of those passions when he cannot command himself,” complained about the personal abuse he suffered undeservedly and about Philip Freneau, claimed that he had always acted from the purest of motives, wished he had resigned his office, and stated that he “had rather be in his grave than in his present situation.”7
Jay’s whereabouts during this period cannot be established with certainty. He was in Philadelphia on 17 July to respond to Washington’s summons to the Supreme Court Justices and remained there until at least 20 July.8 It was then, he later said,9 that he and Rufus King10 learned about Genet’s threat to appeal over Washington’s head to the people. Jay was probably back in New York11 by 30 July but returned to Philadelphia before the Supreme Court session of 5 and 6 August, where he remained until at least 8 August.12 While in Philadelphia, he would surely have learned that the cabinet had decided to ask for Genet’s recall and that there was opposition within it to informing the public about the decision and giving reasons for it. Soon thereafter, Jay returned to New York. King was in New York by the beginning of August, where he reported on the Republicans’ preparations for the reception of Genet and helped to organize an endorsement of the Neutrality Proclamation by the New York Chamber of Commerce on 6 August and a public meeting two days later. In his letter to Hamilton of 3 August King does not mention Jay as having been in any way involved in these activities or as having attended the events connected with Genet, nor has any correspondence been found in which Jay is informed about or discusses them.13
Genet planned to leave Philadelphia for New York on 5 August, several days after the French fleet had made port there.14 New York City’s prominent Republicans prepared a warm welcome for him. On 31 July, the Daily Advertiser (New York) carried an announcement that a meeting would be held the next day to allow citizens of New York to express their opinions “on the propriety of addressing him on so interesting an occasion.” On 2 August, the Diary reported that, after lengthy discussion, the meeting unanimously voted in favor of an address. Two men, perhaps deputized by King to attend the meeting,15 had, however, spoken against it. One of them, “Mr. Munroe,” was Peter Jay Munro, Jay’s nephew, and the other, a Mr. Boyd.16 They had argued, “A Flatterer” said, that an address would be improper because Genet had insulted the president and had stated that they were authorized, “by the most undoubted authority,” to declare that “the facts alledged against Mr. Genet” were true. When, however, they were “vociferously called on to give up their authors, they refused.”17 Two other spokesmen, Colonel Hay and Mr. Matlack,18 then argued that it was improper to listen to “a vague declaration of this kind “(for neither gentleman gave any authority for his assertion.)”19
King told Hamilton that the planning meeting for the reception was attended by two to three hundred “generally antifederal” people whose leaders held that “in respect to the rumour of Mr. Genest’s appeal to the People from the Decision of the Executive the people are competent Judges of their own Interest & obligations, that there can be no Danger to them from the free exercise of their Judgment on so great & interesting an Occasion.” The people’s decisions, the Republican leaders stated, might “displease men in high Authority, but that will not prove their Judgment to have been erroneous.” The committee would “not be stopped by Trifles,” King added, and it affirmed that the “Cause of France is that of america.”20
Genet arrived at New York at noon on 7 August. Bells were rung and cannons fired to celebrate.21 The welcoming committee of prominent Republicans, Melancton Smith, David Gelston, Samuel Osgood, Brockholst Livingston, James Nicholson, and William Pitt Smith22 met him at the battery and accompanied him to the Coffee House, where the address was presented to him, and then to his lodgings in Maiden Lane.23 The Federalists published essays and organized a well-attended counterdemonstration on 8 August to support Washington and his proclamation. Jefferson reported to Madison on 11 August that, while Genet was in New York, “the vote of a full meeting of all classes was 9. out of 10. against him, i.e. for the Proclamation.”24
The Republican counterattack to the charges raised by Munro and Boyd at the planning meeting came on 10 August, when “A Mechanic” addressed Jay and King in their official capacities as chief justice of the Supreme Court and as senator from New York,25 identified them as the “original propagators” of the charges against Genet, and then asked them either to admit or disavow their “agency” in the matter. On that same day, King wrote Hamilton asking him for a full statement of the facts related to Genet’s threat.26 On 12 August, Jay and King published a very brief “Card,” signed as private individuals, in which, in a very few chosen words, they denied being the “original propagators,” affirmed that the report was accurate, and admitted that they had mentioned the charges against Genet to others and authorized them to say so.27
Munro’s refusal to identify the source of his information during the meeting indicates, as he later said, that Jay did not wish to lead or be identified with an anti-Genet campaign.28 The “Card’s” minimalist approach, to which Jay would have been constrained by what he had almost certainly learned during his most recent trip to Philadelphia about the cabinet’s reluctance to publish its decision to recall Genet, did not pass unnoticed.29 The very next day, “Impartial” criticized Jay and King for “having cautiously kept out of view every circumstance of TIME, PLACE, MANNER, and OCCASION,” thereby making it impossible for Genet’s friends to disprove the charges against him. The “Card,” the author said, did not indicate whether the report was “a fact within their own knowledge” or a “meer recital” of what they had previously said and not “what they now affirm to be true.”30 Several days later, “A Citizen” acknowledged that, of the many unsubstantiated rumors detrimental to Genet, only the report about his threat to appeal to the people seemed to have any foundation. Jay and King, the “Citizen” continued, were “willing to stand fathers” of it. As had “Impartial,” he criticized the “Card’s” lack of specificity. Which of Washington’s decisions, he asked, did Genet intend to contest? Where and why did he make the statement, and how had Jay and King gotten their information about it? While Jay and King were respectable men, he continued, their word alone was not sufficient to “fix” the charge against Genet. Who were the “People,” he wanted to know—Congress or the people in general? Had Washington authorized them to spread the report? If not, he stated, the president should be displeased and consider them “the greatest enemy to his dignity.”31 Jay and King should know, he concluded, that the people firmly supported the president, the French nation, and America’s treaties with it.32
The next major challenge to Jay’s and King’s claim that they had merely affirmed the accuracy of a report already circulating in New York came from “An Anti-Gallican Federalist,” who mounted a sophisticated attack on their persons and raised every issue they preferred not to discuss. This attack was quickly followed by another from “One of the People,” which chastised the two men for presuming to make a response that was proper only for the President.33
Ever his own worst enemy, on 13 August, Genet wrote, and soon published, a letter to Washington. In it, he accused the government of ingratitude toward France and stated that judicial decisions and jury verdicts proved that Washington’s conduct “did not appear to correspond with the views of the people of America,” who wanted to faithfully observe their public engagements and who regarded the cause of liberty with affection. He complained that “certain people,” hoping to deprive him of the public’s esteem for him as France’s official representative, claimed he had insulted Washington and threatened him with an appeal to the people, a calumny he had to dissipate by truth and publicity. He then demanded that Washington publish an explicit declaration that that he had never disrespected the president or threatened to appeal to the people. This, Genet said, would be his only reply to “those party men.” Three days later, Jefferson informed Genet that it was not customary for foreign ministers to communicate directly with the president and that the president did not consider it either proper or a matter of duty for him to interfere in the matter. On 23 August, the cabinet gave final approval to Jefferson’s letter asking for Genet’s recall and, unwilling to trust to the regular packet, instructed Hamilton to hire or purchase a vessel to take the dispatch express to France.34
James Monroe, not a friend to Jay, also discussed the “Card” in his first “Agricola” essay (4 September). Jay and King had, he said, “certified the indiscretion charged on the minister, & handed it to the publick printers.” Monroe elaborated more subtly on the arguments offered by Genet in his letter to Washington. Genet’s threat, he suggested, was merely an intimation that “the general sentiment of the people” was more favorable to the French cause than the cabinet was, and that he would appeal to this sentiment.” He also asked to and by whom Genet’s declaration had been made and stated that it had never been shown that Genet ever intended it to be carried into effect. The only fact that had been established, Monroe asserted, was that Genet sometime and somewhere, made the declaration, which had been certified “with great pomp and solemnity” by Chief Justice Jay and Senator King. A month later Monroe criticized them for “officiously thrusting themselves beyond the line of their duty, into the secrets of the Executive department, and afterwards divulging with equal indelicacy and disrespect to all parties, what they had heard of a disagreement between that department, and the French minister.”35
Throughout this period, Hamilton continued to publish details of Genet’s misbehavior in his “No Jacobin” essays. In the fifth, published on 14 August, Hamilton mentioned Genet’s “intemperate and menacing declarations” that had become “the subject of general conversation.36 On 23 August, Hamilton informed King that the cabinet had still not “finally determined” whether or not to publish the reasons for the decision to ask for Genet’s recall, but said he thought publication of Genet’s letter to Washington and Jefferson’s reply made it indispensable to tell the whole story. He then told King not to mention to whom Dallas had reported the conversation with Genet unless it seemed essential—if so, he said, it could be done, and he and Knox would attest to it.37 On 1 September, Jefferson wrote Madison to say that Genet still had a few defenders in Freneau’s & Greenleaf’s papers. Who they were, he continued, he did not know, since “even Hutcheson & Dallas give him up.” He then remarked that Madison would see much said about Genet’s threat to appeal to the people, and concluded: “I can assure you it is a fact.”38
On 7 September, the cabinet approved Jefferson’s letter to Genet in which, with as much restraint as possible, Jefferson conveyed the news that Washington had asked for his recall. In a lengthy, very angry reply to what he labeled a “violent diatribe,” Genet insisted that his actions were consistent with the American people’s support for the French cause, evidenced by jury verdicts, by the essays of “Veritas” and “Helvetius,” and by the numerous addresses the people had presented to him. He then asked Jefferson to present a complete record of his conduct to Congress, and promised that he himself would publish his instructions and all his correspondence with Jefferson so that the American people could judge whether or not he was worthy of the fraternal support it had offered him.39
From mid-August until November, Philadelphia was in the grips of a major outbreak of yellow fever that brought the government, newspaper publications, and ordinary life to a virtual halt.40 In September, Hamilton suffered a bout of the fever and wrote no more “No Jacobin” essays. Republicans struggled to separate indignation against Genet from support for the cause of France in the popular mind.41 On 15 October Genet published a reply to South Carolina Governor William Moultrie’s inquiry about his threat to appeal to the people. In it he announced that he would ask Congress to closely examine all his official measures that were “supposed to have been an attempt upon the established authority of the American Republic.”42 On 19 October, Gouverneur Morris, American minister to France, wrote to notify Washington that he had presented the request for Genet’s recall to the French ministry, and that it had been favorably received.43
Firm in his conviction that he was fulfilling his government’s instructions with the approval of the American people and undeterred by the fact that his recall had been requested, Genet continued to violate American neutrality policy. Washington thought Genet’s attempts to raise the people, the state governments, and the Congress against the executive “of so extraordinary a nature” that he asked the cabinet to consider whether to withdraw recognition and order him to leave the country. Genet, meanwhile, was determined to establish once and for all that he had not threatened to appeal over Washington’s head to the American people. In a letter of 14 November, he complained to Randolph that what Jay and King had “certified to the public,” was “utterly and totally false,” and asked him to publicly prosecute them for libel. On this same day, in a letter to Jefferson he asserted that, since his previous attempts to compel Jay and King to prove their assertion had failed, he had no alternative except judicial inquiry to confound his traducers. Randolph replied on 19 November with an offer of a personal interview to discuss the matter when Genet returned to Philadelphia. Determined as ever to use the newspapers to rally support for his cause, Genet arranged to have this correspondence published.44
Once again publicly challenged, Jay and King felt compelled to respond. On 23 November, they announced in the Diary that they would soon provide a statement of the evidence and circumstances on which their “Card” was founded.45 By 26 November, they had completed work on a “manuscript address” to the public which they sent under cover of a jointly signed letter to Hamilton and Knox for their review. They also asked the two men, as their original source of information, to provide them a “certificate” to attest to it.46
King and Jay each also wrote to ask Hamilton to secure the president’s permission to use all relevant evidence from State Department records, the critical piece of which was, of course, Jefferson’s report to the president on 10 July. Jay, who had been pilloried in the press for leveling charges against Genet based on hearsay, justified his appeal on grounds of honor, his own and Jefferson’s. With his own reputation as a person of integrity and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at stake, he argued that all men were obliged to support the cause of truth even when doing so was politically difficult. King stated that he had no idea how Washington viewed the matter or what Jefferson’s conduct might be. Anticipating that they would be unwilling to supply the evidence, “notwithstanding,” he said, he would “lay it before the public.”47
Jay’s and King’s statement, dated 26 November, appeared first in the Daily Advertiser (New York) on 2 December and was reprinted many times. After a preamble that discussed the pernicious effects of foreign influence, the seriousness of which could not be overstated, they then recapitulated the manner in which they had learned about Genet’s remark and explained that they had not originally mentioned it since they had no “Desire or Intention” to be Genet’s prosecutors, and since Genet had not, until recently, denied having made the declaration. As “free citizens of a sovereign and independent nation,” they said, they claimed the right to speak their “sentiments,” and then to leave it to the government to take whatever action it deemed appropriate. As had many other commentators on the situation, they noted that Genet’s subsequent correspondence with Washington and with William Moultrie had provided ample proof of the charge, whether or not he had made his threat directly to Washington.48
The “certificate” Jay and King had asked Hamilton and Knox to provide was published on 3 December. It provoked an immediate response from Dallas, who wrote Jefferson the next day to say that he did not recall Genet’s having said that he would appeal from the president to the people and to ask Jefferson whether or not he had authorized Hamilton’s and Knox’s publication.49 Dallas then announced that he would be responding to the publications by Jay and King and Hamilton and Knox. His statement left no doubt that Genet had been inflammatory, that he had stated that Congress, not the president, was empowered to interpret the treaty with France and to declare peace or war. Dallas “solemnly” asserted, however, that Genet “never did … declare ‘that he would appeal from the President to the People’ or that he would make any other appeal, which conveyed, … the idea of exciting insurrection and tumult.”50
On 9 December, the day Dallas’s statement appeared, King sent Jay a copy of it and an extract from Washington’s message to Congress of 5 December. He did not yet know how Hamilton and Knox would react to Dallas’s denial, he said, but noted that he had been given to understand, mistakenly, that Washington would not object to the publication of Jefferson’s report. Jay had already written King to say that Jefferson’s report should be, and perhaps was, among the papers Washington had submitted to Congress. On 10 December, Genet left New York abruptly and headed to Philadelphia, where, King reported to Jay, he met with Randolph, who told the French minister that he did not consider that there was sufficient cause to prosecute Jay and King for libel and indicated that he would not do so.51 Later in his letter, King also mentioned that Washington had not included Jefferson’s report of 10 July among the documents submitted to Congress since it contained “other Matter” not proper to publish. He added, however, that an extract of it would soon appear in a publication and promised to send him a copy.52
The anonymous piece, Hamilton’s and King’s response to Dallas’s declaration, carried in the American Daily Advertiser on 17 December, began with a guarantee from the printers that the information came from an “authentic source” with the permission to make the source known to any “concerned party” who desired it. Appearing in quotation marks but without naming the document, were key passages of Jefferson’s report of 10 July, the existence of which Dallas’s declaration had revealed to the public. The manner in which the evidence was presented was ambiguous enough to suggest that the “source” was Mifflin and Jefferson. The very next day, however, a concerned party identified the “source” as Hamilton and Knox and described the notice as merely a “verbal amplification” of Jay’s and King’s statement.53
Displeased with his conversation with Randolph, Genet wrote him on 16 December to insist that Jay, King, and others who had calumniated him should be prosecuted before the Supreme Court, and he demanded a written reply. He also wrote Jefferson to ask him to present his request for government prosecution and a copy of his letter to Randolph to Washington.54 Jefferson did as Genet requested. On Washington’s directive, Jefferson informed the attorney general that, keeping in mind that the present occasion concerned “a public character peculiarly entitled to the protection of the laws,” and since “our citizens ought not to be vexed with groundless prosecutions,” he should use his judgment on the case, fulfill the duties of his office, and proceed “according to the laws of the land and the privileges of the parties concerned.” Randolph suggested that Genet might find private attorneys to conduct his suit.55 This infuriated Jay and King.56
No extant document explains why Washington was determined not to release the key piece of evidence that Jay and King sought, Jefferson’s report to Washington of 10 July. Jefferson evidently expected to release it. He drafted a public statement, never used, as a preface to the report which, he noted, he had written “with more minuteness than usual” while the event was fresh in his mind, to give Washington a complete account of what he had a right to know, never imagining that there would be such a disagreeable altercation about it. He had done this, he said, “with a sacred regard to truth.” Although it contained details that were never expected to be made public, Jefferson stated, he felt that the report should be presented in its entirety to avoid suspicion about what had been omitted. His preface, “contemplatd. to have been put in papers,” never was.57
Genet continued his flagrant violations of American neutrality policy to a degree that led Washington to consider dismissing him as minister from France before official news that the French government had recalled him arrived in late January. Although it could not be foreseen by Jay and King, the arrival of the new minister brought an end to Genet’s suit, if not to his presence in the United States.58
Jay did not let the matter rest. He drafted a letter dated 27 January, in his name and King’s complaining about how Washington, Jefferson, and Randolph had treated them with regard to Genet’s attempt to prosecute them for libel. The letter led to a meeting of the three men during which Jay and King protested that their letter was private, not official, and that it was not intended to offend Washington or wound his feelings, which it obviously had. Washington mentioned “his difficult situation” and the “intrinsic embarrassments of the last summer.” The end result was Washington’s agreement to provide Jay and King an extract of the relevant passage from Jefferson’s report on condition that it would never be published during his presidency unless with his permission. On 1 Mar. 1794, Washington gave King a paper in his own handwriting “justifying his conduct.” After King read it, it was “put into the fire” along with Jay’s draft letter of 27 Jan. Two days later, King received the “certified extract from Jefferson’s Report.”59
What can be said about whether or not Jay was actively involved in the Federalist effort to persuade the public to repudiate Genet, or, as Monroe charged in his “Agricola” essay of 4 Sept., that he was an enemy of the French Revolution? Although frequently regarded as hostile to France because of his previous resistance to French attempts to treat the United States as a client state, Jay had shown no hostility to the French Revolution. He had urged moderation and expressed skepticism about the results of the revolution, but insisted that France, like other nations, had the right to choose its own government. In opposition to Hamilton, he had argued that it in no way altered the force of the Franco-American treaties and that the United States was bound to receive any minister the revolutionary government chose to send to the United States. While he could not have approved Genet’s course of action after he arrived at Charleston, he had never met him and had no personal animus toward him. In his first statement about Washington’s proposed neutrality proclamation, his letter to Hamilton of 11 April (above), Jay had recommended that his “fellow Citizens” should omit public discussions
Edmond Charles Genet, by Jean Fouquet and Gilles-Louis Chrétien, n.d. (Albany Institute of History & Art, u1978.584.3)
1. The Federal Gazette and Philadelphia Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 9 July 1793, carried a notice of a “very numerous meeting” of merchants concerned about the arming of the Little Sarah and the likelihood she would be sent to cruise against powers at war with France. This, the merchants noted, appeared to be breaching the neutrality of the United States and contravening Washington’s proclamation. A committee met not only with Governor Mifflin, but also with Washington’s cabinet. TJ told the committee, its report indicated, that he had reason to believe that the brig would not sail until after GW had returned to Philadelphia; and that Mifflin said that Genet had given orders to the brig to repel by force “any obstruction it might meet with.” The committee then voted to raise a $6,000 subscription for the defense of the port. This article was reprinted in Dunlap’s American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 10 July; the Diary (New York), 11 July; Daily Advertiser (New York), 12 July; the Independent Gazetteer (Philadelphia), 13 July; the American Apollo (Boston), 14 July; the Windham Herald (Windham, Conn.), 20 July; and the Salem Gazette, 23 July. Neither Mifflin nor TJ, however, revealed the full content of their conversations with Dallas and Genet, on which see , 26: 463–67, 476–77, 481–82. On Genet’s previous violations of American neutrality policy, see the editorial note “John Jay and the Issue of Neutrality,” above. On the Little Sarah, see , 26: 446–51, 456–59.
2. See TJ to the Justices of the Supreme Court, 12 July, and Questions to be Submitted to the Supreme Court, 18 July, above; and , 78–82.
3. See , 26: 598; and 470–74. Genet was not notified of the decision for over a month.
4. For the process by which TJ’s letter to Gouverneur Morris, instructing him to ask the French government to recall Genet, was created and revised; for TJ’s decision to drop a passage that discussed Genet’s determination to “correct the decisions of the President by what he calls the will of the people”; and for his letter to Morris of 16 Aug., see , 26: 685–715.
5. TJ described the polarization within the cabinet in a letter to JM of 11 Aug. in which he stated that AH, in three speeches, each forty-five minutes long, had “pressed” an appeal to the people with an eagerness he had never before observed because he believed that Genet was feeding misinformation to the people to incite them to “overset the governmt.” TJ countered by arguing that AH’s intention was to “dismount” GW “from being the head of the nation,” making him instead the head of a party that would declare war against the Republican party. In the midst of this controversy, TJ notified GW that he intended to resign at the end of the month. For the suggestion that GW agreed not to publicize the reasons for Genet’s recall in exchange for TJ continuing in office until the end of the year, see , 363.
6. See , 15: 145–51, 242. No reprints of this essay have been found. “Juba,” in the National Gazette (Philadelphia), 10 July, questioned GW’s detention of the Petite Democrate, expressed the wish that Genet would act “with firmness and with spirit,” and advised him he would have “nothing to apprehend for as yet the people are the sovereign of the United States.” “A Jacobin” which had appeared in the General Advertiser on Friday, 13 July 1793, charged that GW intended to regard the Franco-American treaties as “nullities.”
7. See , 26: 598, 601–3. Somewhat more in control of himself the next day, before the Supreme Court notified him that it could not properly render opinions on the questions submitted to it, GW asked the cabinet whether, given the recent verdict in the Henfield case, the decision to request Genet’s recall, and the “general complexion of public matters, “it would be proper to convene Congress before the date when it was scheduled by law to meet. Only TJ favored an early call. Congress met at the regularly scheduled time in December. See , 26: 608, 611, 615, 627.
8. See TJ to JJ, 12 and 18 July; and the Justices of the Supreme Court to GW, and to TJ, both 20 July, all above.
9. See JJ and RK, “To the Public” 26 Nov. 1793, below.
10. King, a senator from New York, was also a director of the Bank of the United States (, 15: 43–44), and may have gone to Philadelphia on bank business.
11. New York newspapers had carried the report that Genet had threatened to repel force with force if needed to clear the way for the Petite Democrate to begin cruising in mid-July. See note 1, above.
12. JJ’s letter to John Cleves Symmes, 30 July 1793, ALS, MHi (EJ: 04762), has a New York dateline, as does JJ to Cushing, 6 Aug. 1793, ALS, MHi (EJ: 04763). The latter dateline, at least, is in error, as the Minutes of the Supreme Court, 5–6 Aug., above, indicate that JJ was present at Philadelphia on those days, and his letter to Cushing describes actions taken by the Court that day. In the letter datelined “Philadelphia 8 Augt 1793,” above, he informed GW that the justices had decided that the Constitution did not allow them to give extrajudicial opinions on the questions that had been referred to them. Travel between New York and Philadelphia took approximately two days.
13. See , 15: 172–72, and below at notes 15 and 16.
14. See , 13: 338. A day before the French fleet arrived carrying refugees from Santo Domingo, the Embuscade had battled the British ship Boston for over two hours off Sandy Hook. The combat was observed by many New Yorkers. Although both ships were heavily damaged, the Embuscade was considered the victor, and was celebrated by partisans of France in the city. See , 354–55. Accounts of the encounter and its preamble appeared immediately in the New York and Philadelphia press.
15. No evidence has been found to establish whether or not JJ was in New York City at the time, knew of or had participated in the decision to have PJM take an active role in the meeting, or whether the authorization to use his name to support the accuracy of the report had been intended to apply to a public meeting attended by “mechanics” who were probably unaware of the rumors about Genet’s threat.
16. “Cato” indicated that “a near relation of the Chief Justice” had circulated a report about Genet’s threat to appeal to the people during the meeting to insure that New York, “the centre of British and Treasury politics,” did not accord him the same “plaudits” that he had received elsewhere. The young gentlemen, “Cato” continued, “could only offer his charge as a report, without being able to vouch for the fact as it did not lay within his own knowledge.” See “Cato,” Daily Advertiser (New York), 7 Dec. 1793. “Cato” was a pseudonym sometimes used by RRL. See , 358.
The Diary reported that Boyd (probably Robert Boyd, who represented New York County in the New York State legislature, 1793–94) had agreed to be chairman of the meeting “but declined upon hearing of this insult.”
17. See “A Flatterer” in the New-York Journal, 31 Aug. 1793. In his essay of 27 Aug. in the same paper, “A Flatterer” claimed to have supported JJ in the 1792 gubernatorial election, on which see the editorial note “The Disputed Election of 1792,” above.
18. Colonel Udney Hay had served as deputy quartermaster of the Middle Department and then as a supply agent during the revolutionary war. See , 1: 89. A correspondent of AH’s described White Matlack as “one of our first Ale Brewers” in New York City. He was also a member of the New-York Manumission Society. See , 3: 597; 8: 166.
19. See “Messrs. Printers,” the Diary (New York), 2 Aug. 1793.
20. See , 15: 172–4.
21. See the report in the Daily Advertiser (New York), 8 Aug. 1793; , 354–58; and Alexander Anderson, “Diarium Commentarium Vitae: Ann. 1793,” NNC, entries for 3 and 7 Aug. Anderson had been asked to make a copy of the address to Genet by his Columbia College professor, Dr. William Pitt Smith, a member of the planning committee.
22. David Gelston, a merchant, and Melancton Smith were prominent members of the New York City Democratic Society; Samuel Osgood had served in the Continental Congress and as Postmaster General; Henry Brockholst Livingston, JJ’s estranged brother-in-law, later served as one of Genet’s counsels in his libel suit against JJ and RK. James Nicholson was a senior naval officer during the revolutionary war.
23. The committee’s address, signed by James Nicholson and White Matlack, and Genet’s reply were published in the Federal Gazette (Philadelphia) on 9 Aug. 1793. Genet’s reply had appeared in the Diary (New York) the day before. Although there were claims that Genet had been greeted by enthusiastic crowds, several days later, TJ reported to JM that “the cortege which was collected to recieve him … consisted only of boys & negroes.” “All the towns Northwardly”, he added, were “about to express their adherence to the proclamation and chiefly with a view to manifest their disapprobation of G’s conduct. Philadelphia, so enthusiastic for him, before his proceedings were known, is going over from him entirely, and if it’s popular leaders have not the good sense to go over with them, they will go without them, and be thus transferred to the other party.” See , 26: 651.
24. For Federalist press pieces, see the notes to “One of the People”, 21 Aug., below. The Federalist meeting was organized by New York merchant Nicholas Cruger, in whose office AH had once worked. Its object, Robert Troup reported, was to “express warm approbation of the proclamation of neutrality & our determination to support peace.” Troup claimed that the Federalists had “effected a complete consolidation of parties in favor of the great object of neutrality,” a judgment supported by TJ’s comments noted above. For Troup’s letter to AH of 8 Aug., see , 15: 208–9.
25. Subsequent polemicists continued referring to JJ and RK in their official capacities. See, for example, “An Anti-Gallican Federalist,” 17 Aug., below; and Monroe’s “Agricola” essays of 4 Sept, and 8 Oct., , 2: 641, 650. For a defense of their right to “speak their sentiments, as private citizens,” and a criticism of “Agricola,” see “A Political essay on the impropriety of parties” in Baltimore Daily Advertiser, 15 Nov. 1793. For the allegation that ER refused to prosecute JJ and RK because they were in “high official stations,” see “Impartial” in the General Advertiser (Philadelphia), 30 Dec. 1793.
26. See “A Mechanic”, 10 Aug., below. RK’s letter has not been found, but, for AH’s reply of 13 Aug., see , 15: 239–42.
27. JJ and RK, “For the Diary,” 12 Aug., below. One of RK’s correspondents later described the “Card” as “an indirect Measure of the govt to authenticate a charge of so important a nature, the truth of which had been rendered problematical by the positive denial of the Minister’s partisans.” See , 1: 494–95.
28. When the issue was raised again at year’s end, JJ and RK claimed that their reticence in providing details about Genet’s threat arose from their having “no desire or intention to come forward as the prosecutors of the French Minister, before the tribunal of the Public.” See JJ and RK “To the Public,” 26 Nov., below. RK’s hasty request to AH on 10 Aug. for specific information on the facts related to Genet’s conversations with Dallas and TJ (not found), and AH’s reply of 13 Aug. (, 15: 239–42), suggest that RK may not have anticipated the reaction to PJM’s and Boyd’s remarks and was not prepared to respond.
29. JJ had warned about partisanship and urged the public to exercise restraint in discussing issues likely to inflame passion in his draft neutrality proclamation. See JJ to AH, 11 Apr. (above).
30. See “Impartial” in the Diary (New York), 13 Aug. 1793.
31. The Staunton resolutions, organized by JM and Monroe, also criticized JJ’s and RK’s involvement in the Genet affair, which they described as “the ill judged interference of our own citizens (not in the executive department).” See , 15: 77.
32. See “A Citizen” in the Federal Gazette (Philadelphia), 15 Aug. 1793.
33. See “An Anti-Gallican Federalist,” 17 Aug., and “One of the People,” 21 Aug., both to JJ and RK, below.
34. Both Genet’s letter and TJ’s response were published in the Diary on 21 Aug. See , 13: 436–38, 530–31. In a letter to JM of 25 Aug., TJ remarked that Genet had “thrown down the gauntlet to the President by the publication of his letter & my answer and is himself forcing that appeal to the people, and risking that disgust, which I had so much wished should have been avoided.” See , 15: 74–75.
35. The first essay was published in the Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser (Richmond) on 4 Sept. 1793. In the essay published on 13 Nov. 1793, Monroe argued that Genet could not be considered guilty of any impropriety until he had committed an act that was culpable and then censured JJ and RK for endangering the future amity and lasting welfare of France and America. See , 2: 636, 641–43, 650, 660.
36. In his sixth essay, AH asserted that, if a foreign minister undertook to “carry into practice, by overt acts, his own opinions of the rights of his country, within the jurisdiction of the nation, with which he resides, and in defiance of the known sense and will of its government, he abuses the character with which he is invested, he insults and offends the government to which he has been sent, he makes himself a disturber of the public peace, dangerous in proportion as he is privileged, and richly merits to be dismissed for his temerity.” In his seventh, AH criticized Genet for “placing himself at the head of a political club.” In the final essay, published on 28 Aug., AH remarked on Genet’s letter to GW, and TJ’s reply to it, and asserted that it did not matter whether or not Genet’s threat had been made directly to GW. See , 15: 243–46, 249–50, 268–70, 281–84, and 304–6.
37. See , 15: 267–68.
38. See , 15: 88–89.
39. See , 27: 52–53, 126–34; and 463–88.
40. See , 14: 355–57.
41. See Ibid., 52–54; , 15: 92–95.
42. Moultrie’s letter of 5 Sept. and Genet’s reply were both published in the Diary (New York), on 22 Oct., and in the New-York Journal, 23 Oct. 1793. TJ commented that Genet’s “inveteracy” against GW was leading him to “meditate the embroiling him with Congress.” He subsequently remarked that “Genet by more & more denials of powers to the President and ascribing them to Congress, is evidently endeavoring to sow tares between them, & at any event to curry favor with the latter to whom he means to turn his appeal, finding it was not likely to be well received with the people.” See , 15: 376–78; , 14: 315–17; and , 15: 134; and 27: 297–98, 395–96. In essays published on 31 Oct. and 2 Nov. in the Daily Advertiser (New York), William Willcocks criticized Genet for appealing to the people by attempting to persuade Congress to assume authority over ambassadors and warning that this would be destructive to the separation of powers prescribed by the Constitution.
43. For Morris’s letter, see , 14: 233–35. In a letter of 15 Nov., the French provisional executive council notified GW that it had taken into account the complaints against Genet, and had resolved to give complete satisfaction by formally disavowing Genet’s conduct and replacing him with Citizen Joseph Fauchet. See ibid., 14: 375–77.
44. Genet subsequently published his letters to TJ and ER and ER’s reply in the New-York Journal on 27 Nov.
The cabinet agreed that Congress had to be informed about the pending dismissal of Genet in GW’s address to the session that was about to convene. It agreed, however, not to include copies of Genet’s letter to GW of 13 Aug., TJ to Genet of 16 Aug. (both of which Genet had previously published), and Genet’s letters of 14 Nov. to ER and to TJ because it considered that “discussion of the fact certified by Jay and King had better be left to the channel of the newspapers, and in the private hands in which it now is than for the Presidt. to meddle in it, or give room to a discussion of it in Congress.” See , 27: 399, 453. Genet arranged publication in the Diary (New York), 22 Nov., of his letter to ER of 14 Nov., and ER’s reply of 19 Nov.; along with a request that printers who had carried JJ’s and RK’s “Card” would publish these three items. The 27 Nov. 1793 issues of the New-York Journal and the Federal Gazette (Philadelphia) carried Genet’s letter to TJ of 14 Nov. For GW’s message of 5 Dec., see , 14: 474–77. For the documents submitted with it, see , 1: 142–88; and , no. 26334.
45. This announcement was subsequently published in other newspapers.
46. See JJ and RK to AH and Knox, and JJ to AH, both 26 Nov., below. The certificate, dated 29 Nov. and signed by AH and Knox, first appeared in the Daily Advertiser (New York), on 2 Dec., and thereafter in many of the papers that carried JJ’s and RK’s address to the public. See , 15: 413–14, 416.
47. Permission was not forthcoming.
48. See JJ and RK to the Public, 26 Nov., below.
49. See , 27: 481. In a letter of this same day, Monroe predicted to TJ that Dallas would deny he had ever said what the certificate claimed. He then stated that he had just heard that AH and Knox could not get Mifflin to corroborate their account. This being the case, he said, the “fact” would be disproved against them unless TJ supported them. He continued: “If they procure from the President your report to him, will not this transfer the business from them to him.” See , 27: 484–85.
50. See American Daily Adviser (Philadelphia), 9 Dec. 1793.
51. Genet seems to have blamed TJ for ER’s decision. See , 27: 592.
52. See RK to JJ, 9 and 15[–16] Dec., and JJ to RK, 12 Dec., all below.
53. See the anonymous piece in American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 17 Dec.; and “To the Public” in the Federal Gazette (Philadelphia), 18 Dec. 1793. For JJ’s reaction to it, see JJ to RK, 22 Dec., below.
54. Enclosed in his letter to TJ was a copy of his letter to ER. See , 27, 527–28 and ff. For JJ’s criticism of AH’s and Knox’s decision to reveal their identity to the printer but not to the public, see JJ to RK, 22 Dec., below.
55. See , 27: 587–88. Genet sought legal counsel from Peter S. DuPonceau, Joseph Thomas, Edward Livingston, and Henry Brockholst Livingston. See 740 n. 43; and , 358–59.
56. For JJ’s expectation that TJ would demonstrate “every Mark of that Sensibility and love of Truth and Justice” on the occasion and that TJ would be magnanimous enough not to be influenced by political considerations to suppress truth, see his letter to AH, 26 Nov., below.
57. Proposed Public Statement on Edmund Charles Genet, [c. 16 Dec. 1793], , 27: 529–32.
58. On Genet’s marriage to Cornelia Clinton, the daughter of the governor of New York, see , 360–61.
59. For details about JJ’s and RK’s confrontation with GW, see JJ to RK, 25 Feb., and RK to JJ, 2 Mar. 1794, below; , 476–80; , 15: 233–34, 319–20; and , 27: 587–88; 28: 568–69.
60. See Justices of the Supreme Court to GW, 8 Aug., above.
61. Previous scholarship on the “Card” generally misses the fact that it was a reply to a public challenge from “A Mechanic,” not an unprovoked news bulletin announcing Genet’s threat. See , 202–3; Frank Monaghan, John Jay: Defender of Liberty (New York and Indianapolis, 1935), 356; , 286–87; 729, 730, 731; , 15: 233; , 15: 74–75; and , 306.