Alexander Hamilton (92 page)

What most roused Washington’s and Hamilton’s ire was that Genêt’s satchel bulged with some blank “letters of marque.” These documents were to be distributed to private vessels, converting them into privateers. The marauding vessels could then capture unarmed British merchant ships as “prizes,” providing money for the captors and military benefits for France. Genêt wanted to recruit American and French seamen. Once settled in South Carolina, he chartered privateers to prey on British shipping from American ports and also assembled a sixteen-hundred-man army to invade St. Augustine, Florida. In Philadelphia, Hamilton condemned this mischief as “the height of arrogance” and divined its true intent: “Genêt came to this country with the affectation of not desiring to embark us in the war and yet he did all in his power by indirect means to drag us into it.”
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Hamilton was convinced that, far from acting alone, Genêt was executing official policy. His suspicions were to be vindicated.

Ten days after his arrival, Citizen Genêt began a prolonged journey north to Philadelphia to present his credentials to Washington. Acting more like a political candidate than a foreign diplomat, he was cheered at banquets, and his six-week tour acquired major political overtones. In many cities, Genêt’s presence spawned “Republican” or “Democratic�� societies whose members greeted and embraced each other as “citizens.” These groups feared that once the European powers had overthrown the French Revolution, they would crush its American counterpart. Jittery Federalists worried that the new societies would mimic the radical Jacobin “clubs” that had provoked mayhem in Paris. As these groups forged links with one another, Hamilton thought they might replicate the methods of the Sons of Liberty chapters that helped spark the American Revolution. As a precaution, he advised his customs collectors to inform him of any merchant ships in their ports being pierced with loopholes for guns—a sign they were being converted into privateers.

With each day of his northward journey, the uproar over Genêt’s activities mounted, and Federalist resentment vied with Republican adulation. While Genêt traveled, the
Embuscade
pounced upon the British ship
Grange
in American waters and hauled this prize to Philadelphia. George Hammond, the British minister, protested hotly to Thomas Jefferson, noting that such actions mocked Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation. The secretary of state privately applauded these violations of U.S. law. When the
Grange
arrived in Philadelphia, Jefferson could not contain his joy. “Upon her coming into sight, thousands and thousands…crowded and covered the wharves,” he told James Monroe. “Never before was such a crowd seen there and when the British colours were seen
reversed
and the French flag flying above them, they burst into peals of exultation.”
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Enchanted by Genêt, Jefferson informed Madison that he had “offered everything and asks nothing…. It is impossible for anything to be more affectionate, more magnanimous than the purport of his mission.”
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This was all preamble to Citizen Genêt’s triumphant landing at Philadelphia on May 16, 1793, when he was welcomed by Governor Thomas Mifflin amid repeated volleys of artillery fire. Republicans hoped that an outpouring of affection for Genêt would cement Franco-American relations, and the two countries’ flags flew side by side across the city. French sympathizers rented Philadelphia’s biggest banquet hall for an “elegant civic repast,” passed around “liberty caps,” and roared out “The Marseillaise.” The new ambassador even joined a Jacobin club in Philadelphia. Jefferson was jubilant. “The war has kindled and brought forward the two parties with an ardour which our own interests merely could never excite,” he told Madison.
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One Federalist writer could not believe the adoration heaped on Genêt: “It is beyond the power of figures or words to express the hugs and kisses [they] lavished on him…. [V]ery few parts, if any, of the Citizen’s body, escaped a salute.”
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Where others saw camaraderie and high spirits, Hamilton detected an embryonic plot to subvert American foreign policy. The organizers of Genêt’s reception “were the same men who have been uniformly the enemies and the disturbers of the government of the U[nited] States.”
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Philadelphia was a stronghold of Republican sentiment, and leading figures flaunted their pro-French feelings. John Adams was appalled by daily toasts drunk to Marat and Robespierre, and he recalled one given by Governor Mifflin: “The ruling powers in France. May the United States of America, in alliance with them, declare war against England.”
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At times, Francophile passion was so unbridled that Adams feared violence against Federalists. “You certainly never felt the terrorism excited by Genêt in 1793,” Adams chided Jefferson years later, “when ten thousand people in the streets of Philadelphia, day after day,
threatened to drag Washington out of his house
and effect a revolution in the government or compel it to declare war in favor of the French Revolution and against England.”
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Though vice president, Adams felt so vulnerable to attack that he had a cache of arms smuggled through back lanes from the war office to his home so that he could defend his family, friends, and servants. The new republic remained an unsettled place, rife with fears of foreign plots, civil war, chaos, and disunion.

In private talks with George Hammond, Hamilton promised that he would vigorously contest efforts to lure America into war alongside France. He also predicted that the United States would extend no large advances to the revolutionary government, and he delayed debt payments owed to France. In a dispatch to London, Hammond noted that Hamilton would defend American neutrality because “any event which might endanger the
external
tranquillity of the United States would be as fatal to the systems he has formed for the benefit of his country as to his…personal reputation and…his…ambition.”
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If Hamilton’s unofficial meetings with Hammond showed gross disloyalty to Jefferson, the latter repaid the favor. Soon after arriving in Philadelphia, Genêt told his superiors in Paris of his candid talks with the secretary of state. “Jefferson…gave me useful notions of men in office and did not at all conceal from me that Senator [Robert] Morris and Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton, attached to the interests of England, had the greatest influence over the president’s mind and that it was only with difficulty that he counter-balanced their efforts.”
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Dubious about both the outcome and the legitimacy of the French Revolution, Hamilton recommended that Genêt be accorded a lesser diplomatic status. Washington overruled him and instructed Jefferson to receive the ambassador civilly, but with no real warmth, a reservation Jefferson interpreted as “a small sacrifice” by Washington to Hamilton’s opinion.
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When Genêt first arrived, Jefferson had resisted efforts to expel privateers in Charleston that Genêt had equipped with weapons. Everybody else in the cabinet—Washington, Hamilton, Knox, Randolph—regarded these actions as an affront to American sovereignty and sought to banish the ships. On June 5, Jefferson had to tell Genêt to stop outfitting privateers and dragooning American citizens to serve on them. At this point, Genêt again showed his inimitable cheek. Only ten days after Jefferson’s warning, he began to transform a captured British merchant ship, the
Little Sarah,
into an armed privateer renamed
La Petite démocrate.
What made this additionally infuriating was that Genêt defied American orders in Philadelphia, “under the immediate eye of the Government,” as Hamilton put it.
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Hamilton and Knox wanted the ship returned to Britain or ordered from American shores; Washington adopted this latter course over Jefferson’s dissent.

Amid this imbroglio, Hamilton wrote to Washington on June 21 that he wished to resign when the next congressional session ended in June 1794. He wanted enough time to enact the programs he had initiated and to clear his name in the ongoing inquiry led by William Branch Giles, but he was chafing under the restraints of office. He kept scribbling tirades against the French Revolution and then stashing them in the drawer.

The day after Hamilton drafted his letter to Washington, Citizen Genêt informed Jefferson that France had the right to outfit ships in American ports—and, what was more, the American people agreed with him. Hamilton, taken aback by this effrontery, termed the letter “the most offensive paper perhaps that ever was offered by a foreign minister to a friendly power with which he resided.”
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A few days later, Hamilton had a tense exchange with Genêt, telling him that France was the aggressor in the European war and that this freed America from any need to comply with their old defense treaty. When Hamilton defended Washington’s right to declare neutrality, Genêt retorted that this misuse of executive power usurped congressional prerogatives. The scene had decided elements of farce: Citizen Genêt was lecturing the chief author of
The Federalist Papers
on the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.

On July 6, Citizen Genêt committed a colossal blunder that dwarfed all previous gaffes. With Washington at Mount Vernon, Genêt took advantage of his absence to inform Alexander J. Dallas, the secretary of Pennsylvania, that he rejected the notion of American neutrality. He said that he planned to go above Washington’s head and appeal directly to the American people, asking their assistance to rig French privateers in American ports. Genêt was doing more than just flouting previous warnings; he was clumsily insulting the U.S. government and slapping the face of the one man who could not be slapped: George Washington. Dallas related the story to Governor Mifflin, who passed it on to Hamilton and Knox, who passed it on to Washington. Suddenly, Jefferson’s enchantment with Genêt disappeared. “Never, in my opinion, was so calamitous an appointment made as that of the present minister of France here,” he protested to Madison. “Hotheaded, all imagination, no judgment, passionate, disrespectful, and even indecent toward the P[resident] in his written as well as verbal communications…. He renders my position immensely difficult.”
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Hamilton was outraged, while also mindful that Genêt had handed him a blunt weapon to wield against France. On July 8, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Knox conferred at the State House to figure out what to do with
La Petite démocrate.
The absent Washington had already ruled that privateers armed in American ports should be stopped or forcibly seized. Hamilton and Knox wanted to post a militia and guns at a strategic spot called Mud Island, a few miles down the Delaware River, preventing the ship from escaping. Jefferson favored the milder course of dealing with American crew members rather than the ship itself. While not making promises, Genêt told Jefferson that the vessel wouldn’t sail from Philadelphia before Washington returned. Hamilton, who did not trust Genêt, wanted forcible action to prevent
La Petite démocrate
from getting away. In a memo, he wrote, “It is a truth the best founded and of the last importance
that nothing is so dangerous to a government as to be wanting either in self confidence or self-respect.
”
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But Hamilton could not prevail upon his colleagues to use force.

Washington returned to Philadelphia on July 11.
La Petite démocrate
managed to slip away and sail past Mud Island on July 12. On the spot, Hamilton proposed that the French government be asked to recall Genêt. Even Jefferson registered no protest. A few days, later
La Petite démocrate
was at sea.

As he watched Genêt’s boorish behavior, Hamilton longed to broadcast his views to the public. He was not born to be a silent spectator of events. By late June, Hamilton could contain himself no longer and rushed into print. On June 29, 1793, a writer billing himself as “Pacificus” inaugurated the first of seven essays in the
Gazette of the United States
that defended the Neutrality Proclamation. Throughout July, Hamilton’s articles ran twice weekly, their impact enhanced by Citizen Genêt’s intolerable antics.

In the first essay, Hamilton dealt with the objection that only Congress could issue a neutrality proclamation, since it alone had the power to declare war. Hamilton pointed out that if “the legislature have a right to make war, on the one hand, it is, on the other, the duty of the executive to preserve peace till war is declared.”
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Once again, Hamilton broadened the authority of the executive branch in diplomacy, especially during emergencies. He also speculated that the real reason behind the brouhaha over neutrality was the opposition’s desire to weaken or remove Washington from office. In the second essay, he disputed that the Neutrality Proclamation violated the defensive alliance with France. That treaty, Hamilton noted, did not apply to offensive wars, and France had declared war against other European powers. In the third essay, Hamilton evoked the devastation that might result if America was dragged into war on France’s side. Great Britain and Spain could instigate “numerous Indian tribes” under their influence to attack the United States from the interior. Meanwhile, “with a long extended sea coast, with no fortifications whatever and with a population not exceeding four millions,” the United States would find itself in an unequal contest.
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In subsequent installments, Pacificus presented Louis XVI as a benevolent man and a true friend of America: “I am much misinformed if repeated declarations of the venerable Franklin did not attest this fact.”
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French support for the American Revolution, he argued, had emanated from the king and high government circles, not the masses: “If there was any kindness in the decision [to support America], demanding a return of kindness from us, it was the kindness of Louis the XVI. His heart was the depository of the sentiment.”
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It took courage for Hamilton, stigmatized as a cryptomonarchist, to express sympathy for a dead king. In the last “Pacificus” essay, he defended American neutrality on the grounds that a country “without armies, without fleets” was too immature to prosecute war.
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To amplify his views, Hamilton organized rallies to demonstrate popular approval of the Neutrality Proclamation.