Complaint of the French Minister (1793)

BY CITOYEN MINISTRE EDMOND CHARLES GENET

NEW YORK, September 18, 1793, 2d year of the French republic, one and indivisible.

SIR:

PERSUADED that the sovereignty of the United States resides essentially in the People, and its representation in the Congress; persuaded that the Executive power is the only one which has been confided to the President of the United States; persuaded that this magistrate has not the right to decide questions, the discussion of which, the constitution reserves particularly to the Congress; persuaded that he has not the power to bend existing treaties to circumstances, and to change their sense; persuaded that the league formed by all the tyrants to annihilate republican principles, founded on the rights of man, will be the object of the most serious deliberations of Congress; I had deferred, in the sole view of maintaiuing good harmony between the free people of America and France, communicating to my Government, before the epoch at which the Representatives of the People were to assemble, the original correspondence which has taken place, in writing, between you and myself, on the political rights of France in particular; on the interests of general liberty; and on the acts, proclamations, and decisions of the President of the United States, relative to objects which require, from their nature, the sanction of the legislative body. However, informed that the gentlemen who have been painted to me so often as aristocrats, partisans of monarchy, partisans of England, of her constitution, and consequently enemies of the principles which all good Frenchmen have embraced with a religious enthusiasm, alarmed at the popularity which was reflected on the minister of France, by the affection of the American People for the French republic, and for the glorious cause which it defends, alarmed equally at my unshaken and incorruptible attachment to the severe maxims of democracy, were laboring to ruin me in my country, after having re-united all their efforts to calumniate me in the view of their fellow-citizens, I was going to begin to collect these afflicting materials, and I was taking measures to transmit them to France with my reports, when the denunciation which those same men have excited the President to exhibit against me, through Mr. Morris, came to my hands. Strong in the principles which have directed my conduct, sheltered from every well founded reproach, I expected, nevertheless, to have found in it some serious allegations; but what has been my astonishment on finding that the American People were more outraged in it than myself; that it was supposed that I exercised over them a sovereign influence; that it was pretended that I was making them take a part in the war of liberty, for the defence of their brethren, of their allies, again[s]t the intention of their Government; that judgments favorable to our interests, rendered in the midst of the acclamations of the citizens of Philadelphia, by juries, and by independent tribunals, have not been the expression of a severe justice; in short, that I was a power within another power. Such strange accusations, proving only that the American People loves and supports our principles and our cause, in spite of its numerous enemies, and that the power which they do me the honor to attribute to me, is only that of gratitude struggling against ingratitude, of truth combating error, I will send no other justification of my conduet. . . .

It is in the name of the French People, that I am sent to their brethren — to free and sovereign men: it is then for the representatives of the American People, and not for a single man, to exhibit against me an act of accusation, if I have merited it. . . . I pray you then, sir, to place under the eyes of the President of the United States, the demand which I make in the name of equity, to lay before Congress for their discussion, at the epoch when they shall be assembled by the law, if the great events which occupy the universe do not appear yet sufficient to hasten their convocation, 1st. All the questions relative to the political rights of France and the United States. 2d. The different cases resulting from our state of war with the Powers of whose acts of aggression I have informed you. 3d. The heads of accusation which the minister of the United States with the French republic is charged to exhibit against me, and against the consuls whose character is compromitted and outraged in the most scandalous manner, for having obeyed superior orders, which it was neither in their power nor in mine to revoke. In this expectation, sir, I do not consider the dignity of the French nation as compromitted by the extraordinary position in which I find myself, as well as the consuls, and I have to complain only of the forms you have employed. . . .

I will answer more in detail, sir, at a proper time, to your violent diatribe; but it contains one fact on which I must now give you explanations. You are made to reproach me with having indiscreetly given to my official proceedings a tone of color, which has induced a belief, that they did not know, in France, either my character or my manners. I will tell you the reason, sir: it is that a pure and warm blood runs with rapidity in my veins; that I love passionately my country; that I adore the cause of liberty; that I am always ready to sacrifice my life to it; that to me, it appears inconceivable, that all the enemies of tyranny, that all virtuous men, do not march with us to the combat; and that, when I find an injustice is done to my fellow citizens, that their interests are not espoused with the zeal which they merit, no consideration in the world would hinder either my pen or my tongue from tracing, from expressing my pain. I will tell you then without ceremony, that I have been extremely wounded, sir, 1st, that the President of the United States was in a hurry, before knowing what I had to transmit to him, on the part of the French republic, to proclaim sentiments, on which decency and friendship should at least have drawn a veil. 2d. That he did not speak to me at my first audience, but of the friendship of the United States towards France, without saying a word to me, without enouncing a single sentiment on our revolution; while all the towns, from Charleston to Philadelphia, had made the air resound with their most ardent wishes for the French republic. 3d. That he had received and admitted to a private audience, before my arrival, Noailles and Talon, known agents of the French counter-revolutionists, who have since had intimate relations with two members of the Federal Government. 4th. That this first magistrate of a free People, decorated his parlor with certain medallions of Capet and his family, which served at Paris as signals of rallying. 5th. That the first complaints which were made to my predecessor on the armaments and prizes which took place at Charleston on my arrival, were, in fact, but a paraphrase of the notes of the English minister. 6th. That the Secretary of War, to whom I communicated the wish of our governments of the Windward Islands, to receive promptly some firearms and some cannon, which might put into a state of defence possessions guarantied by the United States, had the front to answer me with an ironical carelessness, that the principles established by the President, did not permit him to lend us so much as a pistol. 7th. That the Secretary of the Treasury, with whom I had a conversation on the proposition which I had made to convert almost the whole American debt, by means of an operation of finance authorized by the law, into flour, rice, grain, salted provisions, and other objects of which France had the most pressing need, added to the refusal which he had already made officially of favoring this arrangement, the positive declaration, that, even if it were practicable, the United States could not consent to it, because England would not fail to consider this extraordinary reimbursement furnished to a nation with which she is at war, as an act of hostility. 8th. That, by instructions from the President of the United States, the American citizens who ranged themselves under the banners of France, have been prosecuted and arrested; a crime against liberty unheard of, of which a virtuous and popular jury avenged with eclat the defenders of the best of causes. 9th. That incompetent tribunals were suffered to take cognizance of facts relative to prizes which treaties interdict them expressly from doing; that, on their acknowledgment of their incompetency, this property, acquired by the right of war, was taken from us, that it was thought ill of, that our consuls protested against these arbitrary acts, and that, as a reward for his devotion to his duty, the one at Boston was imprisoned as a malefactor. 10th. That the President of the United States took on himself to give to our treaties arbitrary interpretations, absolutely contrary to their true sense, and that, by a series of decisions which they would have us receive as laws, he left no other indemnification to France for the blood she spilt, for the treasure she dissipated in fighting for the independence of the United States, but the illusory advantage of bringing into their ports the prizes made on their enemies, without being able to sell them. 11th. That no answer is yet given to the notification of the decree of the National Convention for opening our ports in the two worlds to the American citizens, and granting the same favors to them, as to the French citizens — advantages which will cease if there be a continuance to treat us with the same injustice. 12th. That he has deferred, in spite of my respectful insinuations, to convoke Congress immediately, in order to take the true sentiments of the people, to fix the political system of the United States, and to decide whether they will break, suspend, or tighten their bands with France — an honest measure, which would have avoided to the Federal Government much contradiction and subterfuge, to me much pain and disgust, to the local governments, embarrassments so much the greater, as they found themselves placed between treaties, which are laws, and decisions of the Federal Government, which are not: in fine, to the tribunals, duties so much the more painful to fulfil, as they have been often under the necessity of giving judgments contrary to the intentions of the Government.

. . . I have done strictly my duty; I have defended my ground; and I will suffer no precedent against any of the rights of the French People while there remains to me a breath of life; while our two republics shall not have changed the basis of their political and commercial relations; while they shall not have persuaded the American People that it is more advantageous for them to become insensibly the slaves of England, the passive tributaries of their commerce, the sport of their politics, than to remain the allies of the only Power who may be interested to defend their sovereignty and their independence; to open to them their colonies, and to their riches those markets which double their value. If it be to this that tend all the machinations set in motion against the French republicans, and against their friends in the United States; if it be to attain this more conveniently, that they wish to have here, instead of a democrat ambassador, a minister of the ancient regimen, complaisant, very mild, well disposed to pay his court to people in place, to conform himself blindly to whatsoever may flatter their views and their projects, and to prefer, above all, to the modest and sure society of good farmers, plain citizens, honest artisans, that of distinguished personages, who speculate so patriotically on the public funds, on the lands and paper of the State, I know not if the French republic can find for you at this day such a man in their bosom; but in all events, sir, I can assure you, that I will press very strongly its government to sacrifice me without hesitation, if this injustice offers the least utility.

Accept my respect.

GENET.

(edited by Walter Lowrie and Matthew St. Clair Clarke, Washington, 1832), I, 172–174 passim.