ing applied to the destined purpose; and that, if he shall be of opinion that no judiciary process will be sufficient to prevent such application of the vessel to the hostile purpose intended, that then the Governor be desired to detain her by force till the further advice of the General Government can be taken.

The President having also required the same opinion on the memorial of the British Minister of the 11th inst., on the subject of the British brigantine Catharine, captured by the French frigate, the Embuscade, within the limits of the protection of the United States, as is said, and carried into the harbor of New York, they are of opinion unanimously, that the Governor of New York be desired to seize the said vessel in the first instance, and then deliver her over to the civil power, and that the Attorney of the United States for the District of New York be instructed to institute proceedings at law in the proper court, for deciding whether the said capture was made within the limits of the protection of the United States, and for delivering her up to her owners, if it be so decided; but that if it shall be found that no court may take cognizance of the said question, then the said vessel to be detained by the Governor, until the further orders of the General Government can be had thereon.

We give, next, Mr. Genet's official demand for restitution, which for once observed a show of respectfulness. We suppose that he had been apprised of the energetic advice given. to the President by his Cabinet: (1 Am. State Papers, 152.)

"The Citizen Genet, Minister of the Republic of France, to Mr. Jefferson, Secretary of State.

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"PHILADELPHIA, June 14, 1793.

"SIR, You will see by the papers hereto annexed, that, in contempt of the treaties which unite the French and Americans, that, in contempt of the law of nations, civil and judiciary officers of the United States have permitted themselves to stop, at Philadelphia, the sale of vessels taken by an armed French galliot, and, at New York, have opposed the sailing of a French vessel [The Republic] commissioned by the Executive Council of the Republic of France. I request you Sir, to inform the President of the United States of these facts; to let him know that they have used his name in committing those infractions of the laws and treaties of the United States; and engage

him to develope, in the present circumstances, all the authority which the people of the United States have confided to him to enforce the execution of the laws and treaties.

"Not doubting, Sir, the purity of the President's sentiments, I hope to obtain immediately, from the aid of his good offices and energy, restitution, with damages and interest, of the French prizes arrested and seized at Philadelphia, by an incompetent judge, under an order which I ought to believe not genuine; and the like restitution, with damages and interest, of the vessels stopped and seized at New York.

"It is through the intervention of the public ministers, that affairs of the nature which produce my present complaints and reclamations, ought to be treated. As the representative of a people, generous and confident in their friends, I have already given proofs of the sentiments with which they are animated, in causing to be restored, without examination, on the requisition of the Federal Government, the English ship Grange, taken by a vessel of the Republic. I shall, in all my conduct, show an equal deference; but at the same time, Sir, I should expect from your Government, all the support, which I at present stand in need of, to defend, in the bosom of the United States, the interests, the rights, and the dignity of the French nation, which persons, on whom time will do us justice, are laboring secretly to misrep"GENET."

resent.

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To this Mr. Jefferson replied, three days later, in one of his most emphatic and memorable letters. Considering the circumstances under which this reply was made, that it was written by the acknowledged head of the French party in our political divisions, and the former representative of the American Confederation to the court of Louis XVI, that it was written to favor the British with whom we had so shortly before been at war, and to thwart and oppose the French who had so recently sided with us in the struggle for Independence, but, more especially, that it was written to throw down the gauntlet of defiance to one of the great powers of Europe, at a time when we had not a sailor nor a ship to back up our pretensions, we submit that it is one of the most creditable specimens of national assertion of an honest neutrality on record. Certainly it is quite in contrast with the balancing of the pros and cons which belong to the Attorney-General's statement of reasons for admitting the Georgia: (1 Am. State Papers, 154.)

"Mr. Jefferson, Secretary of State, to M. Genet, Minister Plenipotentiary of France.

'PHILADELPHIA, June 17, 1793. "SIR, - I shall now have the honor of answering your letter of the 8th instant, and so much of that of the 14th (both of which have been laid before the President) as relates to a vessel armed in the port of New York, and about to depart from thence, but stopped by order of the Government. And here beg leave to premise, that the case supposed in your letter, of a vessel arming merely for her own defence, and to repel unjust aggressions, is not that in question, nor that on which I mean to answer; because not having yet happened, as far as is known to the Government, I have no instructions on the subject. The case in question, is that of a vessel armed, equipped, and manned, in a port of the United States, for the purpose of committing hostilities on nations at peace with the United States.

"As soon as it was perceived that such enterprises would be attempted, orders to prevent them were despatched to all the States and ports of the Union. In consequence of these, the Governor of New York, receiving information that a sloop called the Republican, was fitting out, arming and manning in the port of New York, for the express and sole purpose of cruising against certain nations with whom we are at peace, that she had taken her guns and ammunition aboard, and was on the point of departure, seized the vessel. That the Governor was not mistaken in the previous indications of her object, appears by the subsequent avowal of Citizen Hauterive, consul of France. at that port, who in a letter to the Governor reclaims her as a vessel-armed for war, &c., [in the terms above given].

"This transaction being reported to the President, orders were immediately sent to deliver over the vessel and the persons concerned in the enterprise, to the tribunals of the country; that if the act was of those forbidden by the law, it might be punished; if it was not forbidden, it might be so declared; and all persons apprised of what they might or might not do.

"This, we have reason to believe, is the true state of the case, and it is a repetition of that which was the subject of my letter of the 5th instant, which animadverted not merely on the single fact of the granting commissions of war by one nation within the territory of another, but on the aggregate of facts; for it states the opinion of the President to be, that "The arming and equipping vessels in the ports of the United States, to cruise against nations with whom they are at peace, was incompatible with the sovereignty of the United States; that it made

them instrumental to the annoyance of those nations, and thereby tended to commit their peace." And this opinion is still conceived to be not contrary to the principles of natural law, the usage of nations, the engagements which unite the two people, nor the proclamation of the President, as you seem to think. ... You think, Sir, that this opinion is also contrary to the law of nature and usage of nations. We are of opinion, it is dictated by that law and usage; and this had been very maturely inquired into before it was adopted as a principle of conduct. But we will not assume the exclusive right of saying what that law and usage is. Let us appeal to enlightened and disinterested judges. None is more so than Yattel. He says, &c, The testimony of these and others writers on the law and usage of nations, with your own just reflections on them, will satisfy you that the United States, in prohibiting all the belligerent Powers from equipping, arming, and manning vessels of war in their ports, have exercised a right and a duty, with justice and with great moderation. By our treaties with several of the belligerent powers, which are a part of the laws of our land, we have established a style of peace with them. But without appealing to treaties, we are at peace with them all by the law of nature; for, by nature's law, man is at peace with man, till some aggression is committed, which, by the same law, authorizes one to destroy another, as his enemy. For our citizens, then, to commit murders and depredations on the members of nations at peace with us, or to combine to do it, appeared to the Executive and those whom they consulted, as much against the laws of the land, as to murder or rob, or combine to murder or rob, its own citizens; and as much to require punishment, if done within their limits, where they have a territorial jurisdiction, or on the high seas where they have a personal jurisdiction, that is to say, one which reaches their own citizens only; this being an appropriate part of each nation, or an element where all have a common jurisdiction.

"So say our laws, as we understand them, ourselves. To them the appeal is made; and whether we have construed them well or ill, the constitutional judges will decide. Till that decision shall be obtained, the Government of the United States must pursue what they think right, as is their duty.

"On the first attempt that was made, the President was desirous of involving in the censures of the law, as few as might be. Such of the individuals only, therefore, as were citizens of the United States, were singled out for prosecution. But this second attempt being after . full knowledge of what was done on the first, and indicating a disposi

tion to go on in opposition to the laws, they are to take their course against all persons concerned, whether citizens or aliens; the latter, while within our jurisdiction, and enjoying the protection of the laws, being bound to obedience, and to them to avoid distubances of our peace within, or acts which would commit it without, equally as our citizens are. "I have the honor to be, &c.,

“TH. JEFFERSON."

We next give an extract from the British Minister, Mr. Hammond, thanking the Federal Government for their firmness in this matter. It is contained in a letter from him to Mr. Jefferson, under date of June 14, 1793. We copy from unpublished documents in the State department at Washington, to which access is permitted to the public at large, as stated above:

"I beg to acknowledge my sense of the very dignified conduct of the Governor of the State of New York, in the transaction which you have been so obliging as to communicate to me [the seizure of the Republican], and from which I derive the firmest confidence that the measures taken by the Executive Government of the United States to prevent a repetition of enterprises similar to that which has thus been pressed at New York, will be equally efficacious in other ports of the Union.

GEORGE HAMMOND."

The final termination of this seizure of the Republican, was, that she was discharged from custody on the fifth of July 1794, upwards of a year after her arrest; "the object of that arrest" (stated to be the prevention of her cruising against friendly powers) - "having been attained" (probably by dismantling), and upon the condition of the owners discharging their suit against the Governor of New York. (Opinions of Attorney-Generals, vol. 1, p. 48.)

The next precedent which we shall cite, relates to the general principle underlying both the cases of the Georgia and the Alabama, that no neutral nation has a right to make its ports a base of hostile operations against a belligerent. If, by chance, the Georgia, instead of being dismantled should happen to renew her warlike equipment in the port of Liverpool, and