760 Chapter XXXI
fighting that old bugbear of Americans, King George III. News of this develop-
ment came almost simultaneously with the arrival of the first minister of the
French Republic, Edmond Genet, who disembarked at Charleston, South Caro-
lina, on April 8, 1793.^17
Genet had spent several years in Russia, where he had formed a low opinion of
those who raged against the French Revolution while crushing the new order in
Poland. He had found signs of potential revolutionary disturbance even in Russia.
He had been present in Paris when English- speaking delegations, including the
American Joel Barlow, came to offer greetings to the Convention. Late in 1792 he
had been to Geneva, and he had worked in Paris with Dutch revolutionaries who
urged the French to invade and liberate their country. Genet, from experience,
sensed an international struggle of momentous scope. He was prepared to see the
American critics of France as another species of the same old aristocrats, and
American democrats as another branch of the forces of world liberation. He would
have enjoyed the toast made at Oeller’s Hotel in Philadelphia, in 1795, long after
his departure: to the emancipation of Holland and the revival of Poland—“may
the Russian she- bear [Catherine II] be made to dance to the tune of Ça Ira!”^18
Genet received a series of ovations on his long journey from Charleston to Phil-
adelphia. He was told that in America relations were strained between government
and people. He went about his business, counting on the United States as an ally
under the treaty of 1778, devising expeditions against the British and Spanish pos-
sessions, issuing French military commissions to Americans, seeking accelerated
payment on the debt, arranging to get shipments to France through the British
blockade, and using American seaports as bases for French privateering. President
Washington meanwhile issued his Proclamation of Neutrality. That the United
States should remain neutral, or uninvolved in actual hostilities, was agreed to by
everyone in the government, including Jefferson as Secretary of State; and indeed
Genet himself, and his home government, believed that the United States could be
more useful to France if technically neutral. It was the proclamation that caused
trouble, since sentiment in the country was not neutral at all. To announce neutral-
ity in formal terms seemed, to the opposition, to be an insult to an ally, a rejection
of a sister republic, and an unnecessary concession to arbitrary demands by the
British. As for the British, now at war with France, they began to strengthen their
alliances with Indians in the West, to stop American vessels bound for Europe,
and to impress American seamen into the British fleet.
Genet plunged also into American politics. He sponsored the political clubs
that were forming quite independently of his arrival. He mixed familiarly with the
opposition, by which he was feted and lionized. Many Americans thought that
Genet and the French represented their interests better than their own govern-
ment. They thus resembled many Dutch, Irish, and others. There was a widespread
feeling, especially in the West, where the operations of men like Simcoe had their
17 On Genet see above, pp. 421–22, 440, 480–81; W. Blackwell, “Citizen Genet and the Revolu-
tion in Russia, 1789–92,” in French Historical Studies, III (1963), 72–92; M. Minnigerode, Jefferson,
Friend of France 1793: The Career of Edmond Charles Genet (New York, 1928); E. P. Link, Democratic-
Republican Societies (New York, 1942); and works cited in the preceding note.
18 M. Haiman, The Fall of Poland in Contemporary American Opinion (Chicago, 1935), 215.