There followed dull times for the privateersmen.  Most of them returned to their ordinary avocations of sea or shore—­became peaceful sailors, or fishermen, or ship-builders, or farmers once again.  But in so great a body of men who had lived sword in hand for years, and had fattened on the spoils of the commerce of a great nation, it was inevitable that there should be many utterly unable to return to the humdrum life of honest industry.  Many drifted down to that region of romance and outlawry, dear to the heart of the romantic boy, the Spanish Main, and there, as pirates in a small way and as buccaneers, pursued the predatory life.  For a time the war which sprung up between England and France seemed to promise these turbulent spirits congenial and lawful occupation.  France, it will be remembered, sent the Citizen Genet over to the United States to take advantage of the supposed gratitude of the American people for aid during the Revolution to fit out privateers and to make our ports bases of operation against the British.  It must be admitted that Genet would have had an easy task, had he had but the people to reckon with.  He found privateering veterans by the thousand eager to take up that manner of life once more.  In all the seacoast towns were merchants quite as ready for profitable ventures in privateering under the French flag as under their own, provided they could be assured of immunity from governmental prosecution.  And, finally, he found the masses of the people fired with enthusiasm for the principles of the French Revolution, and eager to show sympathy for a people who, like themselves, had thrown off the yoke of kings.  The few privateers that Minister Genet fitted out before President Washington became aroused to his infraction of the principles of neutrality were quickly manned, and began sending in prizes almost before they were out of sight of the American shore.  The crisis came, however, when one of these ships actually captured a British merchantman in Delaware Bay.  Then the administration made a vigorous protest, demanded the release of the vessels taken, arrested two American sailors who had shipped on the privateer, and broke up at once the whole project of the Frenchman.  It was a critical moment in our national history, for, between France and England abroad, the Federalist and Republican at home, the President had to steer a course beset with reefs.  The maritime community was not greatly in sympathy with his suppression of the French minister’s plans, and with some reason, for British privateers had been molesting our vessels all along our coasts and distant waters.  It was a time when no merchant could tell whether the stout ship he had sent out was even then discharging her cargo at her destination, or tied up as a prize in some British port.  We Americans are apt to regard with some pride Washington’s stout adherence to the most rigid letter of the law of neutrality in those troublous times, and our historians have been