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Their thoughts were again, soon after, attracted to the author, by a third series of essays, published in November, 1793, in the Columbian Centinel, under the signature of Columbus, in which he entered the lists in defence of the constituted authorities of the United States, exposing and reprobating the language and conduct of Genet, the minister from the French republic, whose repeated insults upon the first magistrate of the American Union, and upon the national government, had been as public and as shameless as they had been unprecedented.
The intrigues of Genêt emphasized the fact that a party had arisen and was not afraid to speak openly against President Washington.
The polecat had certainly saved her young, or thought she had, although I cannot swear that the female genet had really meant them harm; but she did not look as if she had saved much else. However, she held the field of battle, and the foe had fled, and that is supposed to be the sign of victory; but that had been done by her "gassing" methods, so to speak, not by fighting alone.
This correspondence was published, and the mass of the people were at last aroused, and turned from Genet in disgust. The leaders tried vainly to separate the minister from his country, and Genet himself frothed and foamed, demanded that Randolph should sue Jay and King for libel, and declared that America was no longer free. This sad statement had little effect.
Certainly, there seems to be no longer, and narrower, and lower, and more sinuous little beast on this earth than the genet. The male genet took the problem upon himself as his own special province to find entrance into places; and the female, her suspicions of him oozing away more and more every minute, "kept cave."
Here he crossed, and then rode on until he reached a village, where he resolved to stop the night, being now off the main roads, and therefore fairly safe from pursuit, even should Genet be able to satisfy his captors that a mistake had been made, and that those who captured him had in fact been aiding a fugitive to escape from justice.
No sympathy was expressed with Genet or with the efforts undertaken by the Western allies of the French Minister to organize a force for the conquest of Louisiana; and the Tennessee settlers generally took the side of law and order in the earlier disturbances in which the Federal Government was concerned.
"The crime laid to their charge," said Genet in a letter to Jefferson on the first of June "the crime which my mind can not conceive, and which my pen almost refuses to state, is the serving of France, and defending with her children the common glorious cause of liberty.
Notwithstanding the demands of the French sympathisers that the United States should anticipate the payments due on the French debt, should allow French privateers to be fitted out in American ports and prizes to be brought in and sold, and regardless of the insolent demands of the French Minister, Genet, and the haughty tone of the Republic he represented, President Washington issued the proclamation, April 22, 1793, warning the citizens of the United States to take no part in the war.
Never did a party find, ready made and close at hand, so many elements of popularity; and these being appealed to as Genet appealed to them, it was easy to set the country in a blaze.
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