Everything, in fact, seemed to conspire to make the path of the new policy rough and thorny.  In the excitement of the time a large portion of the population regarded it as a party measure aimed against our beloved allies, while, to make the situation worse, France on one side and England on the other proceeded, as if deliberately, to do everything in their power to render neutrality impossible, and to drive us into war with some one.

The new minister, Genet, could not have been better chosen, if the special errand for which he had been employed had been to make trouble.  Light-headed and vain, with but little ability and a vast store of unintelligent zeal, the whirl of the French revolution flung him on our shores, where he had a glorious chance for mischief.  This opportunity he at once seized.  As soon as he landed he proceeded to arm privateers at Charleston.  Thence he took his way north, and the enthusiastic popular acclaim which everywhere greeted his arrival almost crazed him, and drew forth a series of high-flown and most injudicious speeches.  By the time he reached Philadelphia, and before he had presented his credentials, he had induced enough violations of neutrality, and sown the seeds of enough trouble, to embarrass our government for months to come.

Washington had written to Governor Lee on May 6:  “I foresaw in the moment information of that event (the war) came to me, the necessity for announcing the disposition of this country towards the belligerent powers, and the propriety of restraining, as far as a proclamation would do it, our citizens from taking part in that contest....  The affairs of France would seem to me to be in the highest paroxysm of disorder; not so much from the presence of foreign enemies, for in the cause of liberty this ought to be fuel to the fire of a patriot soldier and to increase his ardor, but because those in whose hands the government is intrusted are ready to tear each other to pieces, and will more than probably prove the worst foes the country has.”

He easily foresaw the moment of trial, when he would be forced to the declaration of his policy, which was so momentous for the United States, and he also understood the condition of affairs at Paris, and the probable tendencies and proximate results of the Revolution.  It was evident that the great social convulsion had brought forth men of genius and force, and had maddened them with the lust of blood and power.  But it was less easy to foresee, what was equally natural, that the revolution would also throw to the surface men who had neither genius nor force, but who were as wild and dangerous as their betters.  No one, surely, could have been prepared to meet in the person of the minister of a great nation such a feather-headed mischief-maker as Genet.