on the part of the governor.  Dallas, Secretary of State for Pennsylvania, went at midnight to expostulate with Genet, who burst into a passion, and declared that the vessel should sail.  This defiance roused the governor, and a company of militia marched to the vessel and took possession.  Greatly excited, Jefferson went next morning to Genet, who very honestly declined to promise to detain the vessel, but said that she would not be ready to sail until Wednesday.  This announcement, which was distinctly not a promise, the Secretary of State chose to accept as such, and as he was very far from being a fool, he did so either from timidity, or from a very unworthy political preference for another nation’s interests to the dignity of his own country.  At all events, he had the troops withdrawn, and the Little Sarah, now rejoicing in the name of the Petit Democrat, dropped down to Chester.  Hamilton and Knox, being neither afraid nor un-American, were for putting a battery on Mud Island and sinking the privateer if she attempted to go by.  Great saving of trouble and bloodshed would have been accomplished by the setting up of this battery and the sinking of this vessel, for it would have informed the world that though the United States were weak and young, they were ready nevertheless to fight as a nation, a fact which we subsequently were obliged to prove by a three years’ war.

Jefferson, however, opposed decisive measures, and while the cabinet wrangled, Washington, hurrying back from Mount Vernon, reached Philadelphia.  He was full of just anger at what had been done and left undone.  Jefferson, feeling uneasy, had gone to the country, where he was fond of making a retreat at unpleasant moments, and Washington at once wrote him a letter, which could not have been very agreeable to the discoverer of diplomatic promises in a refusal to give any.  “What,” said the President, “is to be done in the case of the Little Sarah, now at Chester?  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 United States in submitting to it?” Then came a demand for an immediate opinion.

To the tender feelings of the Secretary of State, who had not been considering the affair from an American standpoint, this must have seemed a violent and almost a coarse way of treating the “great republic,” and he replied that the French minister had assured him that the vessel would not sail until the President reached a decision.  Having got the vessel to Chester, however, by telling the truth, Genet now changed his tack.  He lied about detaining her, and she went to sea.  This performance filled the cup of Washington’s disgust almost to overflowing, for he had what Jefferson seems to have totally lost at this juncture—­a keen national feeling, and it was touched to the quick.  The truth was,