some irritation at being referred to treatises on international law when he was resting his case on a treaty the validity of which Jefferson acknowledged.  “Let us not lower ourselves,” he wrote, “to the level of ancient politics by diplomatic subtleties.  Let us be frank in our overtures, in our declarations, as our two nations are in their affections, and, by this plain and sincere conduct, arrive at the object by the shortest way.”

Logically Jefferson’s position was that of maintaining the validity of the treaty while opposing the fulfillment of its obligations.  At the same time he had to carry on a correspondence with Hammond, the British Minister, who was making complaints of the use of American ports for French depredations on British commerce, and to him Jefferson pleaded entire willingness to discharge in good faith the obligations of a neutral Power.  It may seem as if Jefferson was attempting the impossible feat of trying to ride at one time two horses going in opposite directions, but such was his dexterity that in appearance he was largely successful.  Meanwhile he contrived to throw on Hamilton and his adherents the blame for the feebleness and inconsistency of national policy.  In letters to his Congressional lieutenants, Monroe in the Senate and Madison in the House, he lamented “the anglophobia, secret antigallomany” that have “decided the complexion of our dispositions.”  He spoke scornfully of Randolph, whom he regarded as so irresolute that the votes in the Cabinet were “generally two and a half against one and a half,” by which he meant that Hamilton and Knox stood together against Jefferson, while Randolph divided his influence between the two actions.

So inflamed was the state of public opinion that a rising against the Government seemed possible.  In a letter written twenty years later, John Adams described “the terrorism excited by Genet, in 1793, when ten thousand people in the streets of Philadelphia, day after day, threatened to drag Washington out of his house, and effect a revolution in the Government, or compel it to declare war in favor of the French Revolution and against England.”  Adams related that he “judged it prudent and necessary to order chests of arms from the War Office” to be brought into his house to defend it from attack, and he had it from “the coolest and firmest minds” that nothing but the outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia that summer “could have saved the United States from a fatal revolution of government.”  On the other hand, letters written by Hamilton during the time of all this excitement show that he thought little of it, although he more than anyone else was its target.  In May, 1793, he wrote that the number of persons who went to meet Genet “would be stated high at a hundred,” and he did not believe that a tenth part of the city participated in the meetings and addresses of Genet’s sympathizers.  “A crowd will always draw a crowd, whatever be the purpose.  Curiosity will