they not been as ignorant of the law of nations as of the laws of politeness and decency. Citizen Genet, when he opened the negotiation, promised that every farthing of the debt, if liquidated, should be expended in the country, and, for once, I believe, contrary to the German proverb, the Frenchman kept his word; for, except what was retained for the unavoidable daily hire of Poor Richard, and some few other items, I believe every single sous of it went among the Flour Merchants. What think you, Mr. Dallas? Come now, d—n it, tell the truth for once in your life. Be frank with your countrymen, and we’ll make up all old grievances.—Well, you may be as sulky as you please; I believe it; or your friend Fauchet never would have stood, like a bilked cully, with his pocket turned inside out, when he could have purchased a delicious civil war with a few thousand dollars.
But, to return to my subject; whether this liquidation were a breach of neutrality, in a rigorous sense, or not, every real friend of America must rejoice at its being effected. It was one effort towards shaking off a dependence that yet hangs about our necks like a millstone. One of our poets has called a dun “a horrid monster, hated of gods and men.” Exactly such was Genet, when he first arrived, and such would have been his successors, had not the clamorous creditors (or rather claimants) been silenced by a discharge of the debt. This the Government undoubtedly foresaw, and therefore wisely resolved to relieve us from their importunities. But there is another debt of enormous magnitude, that still remains; I mean the debt of gratitude due from this country to the regenerated French. This we shall never liquidate, while there is a Frenchman left to ask, or an American to give. It is incalculable in its amount, and eternal in its duration; we will therefore leave it to pass down the stream of time along with the insidious neutrality.
“3. The Government, by its chicaneries, abandoned French privateers to its courts of justice.”
This is, I tremblingly presume, the “terrible” style, and is therefore looked upon as sufferable in a minister from a “terrible nation;” but I am pretty confident, it would be suffered with impunity in no other. Some writer on the belles lettres, I believe it is Burke, observes, that terror is a property of the sublime, and I am sure that insolence is a property of the terrible. I know not precisely what punishment the law of nations has awarded for such language, but I should imagine it can be nothing short of breaking of bones. A good Irish sheeleley or Devonshire quarter-staff seems much better calculated for answering a charge like this than a pen.—The chicaneries of the Government!—Abandoning privateers to courts of justice!—If this does not deserve a rib-roasting, I do not know what does. If this goes off so, then I say there is no such thing as justice on this side the grave.
Does the general Government of America then act by chicane? Does General Washington, whose integrity, whose inflexible firmness and whose undaunted bravery have been acknowledged and admired as far as his name has reached, merit to be put on a level with a miserable petti-fogger? And is a cause abandoned, because it is submitted to an American court of judicature? Are both judges and juries in this country so very, very corrupt, that no justice can be expected from their decisions? Are we so nearly like Sodom and Gomorrah that twelve honest men are not to be found among us?
An accusation may be so completely absurd and impudent, that no one can attempt to refute it, without sinking, in some degree, towards a level with the accuser; and as I have no inclination to do this, I leave the present one to be answered by the indignation of the reader.
“4. The Government eluded the amicable mediation of the French Republic for breaking the chains of the American citizens in Algiers.”
Every one who recollects the anxiety which the President has ever expressed on the subject of a treaty with Algiers, the innumerable obstacles he had to surmount, and the enormous expense by means of which it was at last effected, need not be told that this charge is as ill-founded as the preceding ones. But as it is intended to bring forward to the people a proof of the friendship of France, at the moment her hatred and hostility are evident to every eye, in this point of view it may be worth while to hear what the citizen has to say in support of it.
He tells us that—
“the French government, zealous of giving to the United States proofs of its attachment, had commenced negotiations with the regency of Algiers, in order to put an end to the war which that power was making on the commerce of the United States:”
That the Minister for Foreign Affairs instructed Fauchet (the very Fauchet who expressed his regret that the Western rebellion did not succeed) to communicate to the Federal government the steps which that of France had taken in this respect, which he did in the following terms, on the 4th of June 1794:—
“I have already had the pleasure, air, to inform you, verbally, of the interest which the committee of public safety of the National Convention had early taken in the truly unhappy situation of your commerce in the Mediterranean.
I now fulfil the duty imposed on me by the Government, by calling to your recollection in writing, the steps which are to be taken by our agent with the Dey of Algiers, for repressing this new manœuvre of the British administration, which has put the finishing stroke to its proofs of malevolence towards free people. The dispatch of the Minister communicating this measure to me, is dated the 5th January 1794, and did not come to my hands till fifteen days ago; I do not yet know by what route; I could have wished it had been less tardy in coming to me, that I might sooner have fulfilled the agreeable task of proving to you by facts, the protestations of friendship of which I have so often spoken in the name of the Republic of France.
The information which I shall receive from Europe in a little time, will doubtless possess me of the success of those negotiations which were to have been opened in January last. If the situation of your affairs is yet such with respect to that barbarous regency, as that our intervention may be of some utility, I pray you to invite the President to cause to be communicated to me the means that he will join to those of the committee of public safety, for the greatest success of the measures already taken. It is in virtue of the express request of the Minister that I solicit of the President some communication on this subject; I shall be satisfied to be able to transmit it by a very early conveyance which I am now preparing for France.”
The Secretary of State replied to him on the 6th June 1794, by a letter of which the following is an extract:—
“Your other letter of the 4th of June, is a powerful demonstration of the interest which the Republic of France takes in our welfare. I will frankly communicate to you our measures and expectations with regard to Algiers; but as you will so soon receive the detail of those measures, which your Government has pursued in our behalf, it will be better perhaps to postpone our interview on this matter, until the intelligence which you further expect shall arrive.”
First, observe here, that Adet tells the people that somebody in France, no matter who, had actually commenced negotiations with the regency of Algiers in behalf of their countrymen. To prove this, he quotes a letter of Fauchet, in which this latter begs to call to the recollection of the Federal Government “the steps which are to be taken,” and not the steps which are taken. Afterwards Fauchet, presuming on what has been done since his latest instructions came away, talks in the very same letter, about measures already taken; but is unable to say any thing about the nature or success of them, until he receives further information from Europe, which he makes no doubt is upon the point of arriving.—Now, is it not very surprising that this further information never came to hand, from that day to this? And is it not still more surprising, that no traces of this friendly mediation, of these steps that were to be taken, and those measures that were already taken, should ever be discovered by the American Envoy to Algiers? When the French do what they can possibly construe into an act of generosity, they are not very apt to keep it hidden from the world, or to suffer the obliged party to remain unreminded of it.
But, let us hear how Master Adet accounts for his worthy predecessor’s receiving no
