Consuls of France were assuming to hold courts of admiralty
on them, to try, condemn, and authorize their sale
as legal prize, and all this before Mr. Genet had
presented himself or his credentials to the President,
before he was received by him, without his consent
or consultation, and directly in contravention of the
state of peace existing, and declared to exist in
the President’s proclamation, and incumbent
on him to preserve till the constitutional authority
should otherwise declare. These proceedings became
immediately, as was naturally to be expected, the
subject of complaint by the representative here of
that power against whom they would chiefly operate.
The British minister presented several memorials thereon,
to which we gave the answer of May the 15th, heretofore
enclosed to you, corresponding in substance with a
letter of the same date written to Mr. Ternant, the
Minister of France then residing here, a copy of which
I send herewith. On the next day Mr. Genet reached
this place, about five or six weeks after he had arrived
at Charleston, and might have been at Philadelphia,
if he had steered for it directly. He was immediately
presented to the President, and received by him as
the Minister of the Republic; and as the conduct before
stated seemed to bespeak a design of forcing us into
the war without allowing us the exercise of any free
will in the case, nothing could be more assuaging
than his assurance to the President at his reception,
which he repeated to me afterwards in conversation,
and in public to the citizens of Philadelphia in answer
to an address from them, that on account of our remote
situation and other circumstances, France did not
expect that we should become a party to the war, but
wished to see us pursue our prosperity and happiness
in peace. In a conversation a few days after,
Mr. Genet told me that M. de Ternant had delivered
him my letter of May the 15th. He spoke something
of the case of the Grange, and then of the armament
at Charleston, explained the circumstances which had
led him to it before he had been received by the government
and had consulted its will, expressed a hope that the
President had not so absolutely decided against the
measure but that he would hear what was to be said
in support of it, that he would write me a letter
on the subject, in which he thought he could justify
it under our treaty; but that if the President should
finally determine otherwise, he must submit; for that
assuredly his instructions were to do what would be
agreeable to us. He accordingly wrote the letter
of May the 27th. The President took the case
again into consideration, and found nothing in that
letter which could shake the grounds of his former
decision. My letter of June the 5th notifying
this to him, his of June the 8th and 14th, mine of
the 17th, and his again of the 22nd, will show what
further passed on this subject, and that he was far
from retaining his disposition to acquiesce in the
ultimate will of the President.