3429. GENET, Recall of.—[further continued].
It is with extreme concern
I have to inform you that the proceedings
of the person, whom the [French government]
have unfortunately appointed their Minister
Plenipotentiary here, have breathed nothing of
the friendly spirit of the nation which sent
him. Their tendency, on the contrary, has
been to involve us in a war abroad, and discord
and anarchy at home. So far as his acts,
or those of his agents, have threatened our
immediate commitment in the war, or flagrant
insult to the authority of the laws, their effect
has been counteracted by the ordinary cognizance
of the laws, and by an exertion of the
powers confided to me. Where their danger
was not imminent, they have been borne with,
from sentiments of regard to his nation, and
from a sense of their friendship towards us,
from a conviction that they would not suffer
us to remain long exposed to the action of a
person who has so little respected our mutual
dispositions, and, I will add, from a firm reliance
on the firmness of my fellow citizens in
their principles of peace and order.—
Draft of President's Message.
Ford ed., vi, 457.
(Nov. 1793)
