VI. vention and the former authorities of the island, whom CHAPTER the commissioners accused of royalism and anti-Republican ideas. The re Of the extent of the operations intrusted to Genet's charge, an idea may be formed from a letter, in which he again pressed for authority to draw upon the installments of the debt due to France for the years 1794 and 1795. "Two thousand seamen and soldiers whom I support are now on the eve of wanting bread. pairs of our vessels are at a stand. The indispensable expeditions of subsistence for our colonies and France are suspended." But to this appeal the Secretary of the Treasury replied that, according to his view of the state of the account, the installments for 1794 were already anticipated. The means of meeting drafts upon the installments of 1795 must entirely depend upon the success of loans to be negotiated in Europe-a result, in the present state of political affairs, not to be relied on. The acceptance of such drafts might therefore endanger a failure of payment ruinous to the credit of the United States. It may indeed be supposed that Hamilton was very little inclined to supply money to be employed, as there was too much reason to suspect it might be, in setting the neutral policy of the United States at defiance. So insolent, indeed, continued to be the whole tone of Genet's correspondence, and so open his attempts to stir up the people, the state governments, and the new Congress about to assemble against the executive, that Washington proposed to the cabinet to discontinue his functions and to order him away. He was himself strongly inclined to this course, and Hamilton and Knox were of the same opinion; but this step, like that of publishing the dispatches, was defeated by Jefferson and Randolph, against whose united opinion Washington did not choose 1793. CHAPTER to act. They suggested that Genet would not obey the VI. order, and that such a step might revive his popularity, 1793. and give him a majority in the new Congress soon to assemble. Besides, the measure was a very harsh one, and might expose the United States to a declaration of war on the part of France, the only nation on earth sincerely their friend. While the government was thus struggling against the domineering violence of Genet, the enthusiasm of his partisans being sustained in a degree by a general feeling of partiality for France, the difficulty of preserving peace was not a little increased by the course adopted by Great Britain, in pursuance of what she claimed to be her belligerent rights. A rich commerce had presented itself to American shipping in consequence of the decree of the French Convention allowing to neutrals the privileges of French ships. But not only did the British cruisers claim the right to seize French property on board American vessels-thus giving the finishing stroke to the misery and destitution of many refugees from St. Domingo, flying to the United States with the remnant of their property—a proceeding with respect to which Genet addressed to the American government several insolent dispatches; they also refused to recognize as neutral that trade between France and her West India colonies which nothing but the pressure of war had caused to be opened to other than French vessels. This was the rule of the war of 1756, so called because first brought into practice on that occasion. In the late American war, the attempted enforcement of this rule. had produced the armed neutrality; but the same practice, greatly to the dissatisfaction of the American merchants, was now again revived. Still more questionable June 8. was another earlier instruction issued to the British VI. cruisers, by which they were directed to seize and bring CHAPTER in all vessels loaded with bread-stuffs and bound for France, even though both vessel and cargo should be 1793. neutral property. This was in pursuance of a project for starving out the French Revolution, the intention being to aggravate the famine that prevailed by cutting off all foreign supplies. The ships and cargoes thus seized were not, however, subject to forfeiture. On proof that they were neutral property, the cargoes were paid for, or were released, upon bonds being given to land them in countries at peace with Great Britain. The British government attempted to justify these proceedings on the strength of certain ancient precedents, according to which provisions were contraband. But modern usage was entirely the other way. It was urged, with more plausibility, that as the greater part of these cargoes had been specially contracted for by the French government, the trade could not be regarded as a mere private speculation. It was insisted, also, that the French government had set the example by issuing a similar order a month May 9. earlier an order which they had justified against Morris's remonstrances as a "painful necessity," to which they had been driven by their "implacable and ferocious enemies," who had avowed the intention of adding starvation to the horrors of war. There was, however, one important difference between the conduct of the two nations. Both promised to pay, but only the British did So. The French government did not even pay for the cargoes shipped on contracts entered into by their authorized agents; and the distress thus occasioned was aggravated by an embargo laid on at Bordeaux, under which many American vessels which had carried provisions to France were long detained in that harbor. Of the conduct of the colonial prize courts of both the CHAPTER belligerents there were very great grounds of complaint. VI. Every British governor of a petty West India island was 1793. also an admiralty judge, a duty to which he was very seldom competent. These judges were generally paid by fees; and, in order to encourage the privateers and to increase their own business, many of them seem to have made it a rule to condemn every vessel brought before them, and, after condemnation, to put every obstacle in the way of appeal. The island of Bermuda soon grew particularly infamous in this respect. Even the bench of the British Court of Appeal was not at that moment adequately filled, and the agent who was presently appointed to look after the American cases found great difficulty in bringing them to a decision. in case of release the losses were often large, by reason of depreciation, costs, and delay. It was true that the great increase in the rates of freight growing out of the war, and the increased demand for American products, especially provisions, a great deal more than made up for all these losses. But this consideration went but very little way to stop the clamor of the individual losers. Even As respected the British, there existed another and still more serious ground of complaint. The commanders of British ships of war claimed the right to make up any deficiency in their crews by pressing into their service. British-born seamen found any where not within the immediate jurisdiction of some foreign state. Many British seamen were employed on board of American merchant vessels, which, under the operation of this rule, were liable to be stopped at sea and to be crippled in their crews, sometimes to the manifest danger of the vessels, by having their seamen taken from them. Nor was this all, nor the worst. To distinguish between British and American seamen was not easy; and many British one. VI. captains, eager to fill up their crews, were careless whom CHAPTER they impressed. Native-born Americans were not unfrequently dragged by violence from on board their own 1793. vessels, and condemned to a life of slavery as seamen in British ships of war. The resemblance between British and American sailors was unlucky in more respects than Citizen Deforgues, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, in apologizing to Morris for the outrages sometimes committed by French cruisers upon American vessels, alleged the difficulty of distinguishing American allies from British enemies, and of restraining within just limits the natural indignation of the French patriots against a people having, in language and habits, so close a resemblance to the free Americans. While these new dangers to the peace of the country were springing up on the seaboard and the ocean, affairs on the Indian frontier still continued in an unsettled state. The commissioners appointed to negotiate with the hostile Northwestern tribes, accompanied by the missionary Heckewelder and by a deputation of Quakers, as the Indians had desired, on arriving at Fort Niagara, had May 17. been kindly received by Colonel Simcoe, commander, during the Revolutionary war, of a famous partisan corps in the British army, and just appointed governor of the newly-erected province of Upper Canada. Embarking July 2 at Fort Erie, they landed presently at the entrance of the River Detroit, where they were met by a deputation from a preliminary council of the confederate Indians, then in session at the Maumee Rapids. These deputies desired to know if their brothers the Bostonians," for so they designated the commissioners, were empowered to consent to the Ohio as a boundary. The commissioners replied that this was impossible, as settlements had been commenced north of the Ohio, which could not be aban |