Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 747 pages of information about Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 3.

Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 747 pages of information about Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 3.
convenient and well understood train of proceeding.  It is the right and duty of the foreign missionary to urge his own constructions, to support them with reasons which may convince, and in terms of decency and respect which may reconcile the government of the country to a concurrence.  It is the duty of that government to listen to his reasonings with attention and candor, and to yield to them when just.  But if it shall still appear to them that reason and right are on their side, it follows of necessity, that exercising the sovereign powers of the country, they have a right to proceed on their own constructions and conclusions as to whatever is to be done within their limits.  The minister then refers the case to his own government, asks new instructions, and, in the mean time, acquiesces in the authority of the country.  His government examines his constructions, abandons them if wrong, insists on them if right, and the case then becomes a matter of negotiation between the two nations.  Mr. Genet, however, assumes a new and bolder line of conduct.  After deciding for himself ultimately, and without respect to the authority of the country, he proceeds to do what even his sovereign could not authorize, to put himself within the country on a line with its government, to act as co-sovereign of the territory; he arms vessels, levies men, gives commissions of war, independently of them, and in direct opposition to their orders and efforts.  When the government forbids their citizens to arm and engage in the war, he undertakes to arm and engage them.  When they forbid vessels to be fitted in their ports for cruising on nations with whom they are at peace, he commissions them to fit and cruise.  When they forbid an unceded jurisdiction to be exercised within their territory by foreign agents, he undertakes to uphold that exercise, and to avow it openly.  The privateers Citoyen Genet and Sans Culottes having been fitted out at Charleston (though without the permission of the government, yet before it was forbidden) the President only required they might leave our ports, and did not interfere with their prizes.  Instead, however, of their quitting our ports, the Sans Culottes remains still, strengthening and equipping herself, and the Citoyen Genet went out only to cruise on our coast, and to brave the authority of the country by returning into port again with her prizes.  Though in the letter of June the 5th, the final determination of the President was communicated, that no future armaments in our ports should be permitted, the Vainqueur de la Bastille was afterwards equipped and commissioned in Charleston, the Anti-George in Savannah, the Carmagnole in Delaware, a schooner and a sloop in Boston, and the Polly or Republican was attempted to be equipped in New York, and was the subject of reclamation by Mr. Genet, in a style which certainly did not look like relinquishing the practice.  The Little Sarah or Little Democrat was armed, equipped, and manned, in the port of Philadelphia, under the
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