It is then under the very same sanction of the French nation, that they have confided their property and persons to the safeguard of the American flag; and on her, they submit the care of causing those rights to be respected.

But if our fellow citizens have been deceived, if you are not in a condition to maintain the sovereignty of your people, speak; we have guaranteed it when slaves, we shall be able to render it formidable, having become freemen." On the day preceding the date of this offensive letter, the secretary of state had answered that of the 9th of July; and, without noticing the unbecoming style in which the decision of the executive was demanded, had avowed and defended the opinion, that "by the general law of nations, the goods of an enemy found in the vessels of a friend are lawful prize." This fresh insult might therefore be passed over in silence.
While a hope remained that the temperate forbearance of the executive, and the unceasing manifestations of its friendly dispositions towards the French republic, might induce the minister of that nation to respect the rights of the United States, and to abstain from violations of their sovereignty, an anxious solicitude not to impair the harmony which he wished to maintain between the two republics, had restrained the President from adopting those measures respecting Mr.
Genet, which the conduct of that gentleman required.

He had seen a foreign minister usurp within the territories of the United States some of the most important rights of sovereignty, and persist, after the prohibition of the government, in the exercise of those rights.

In asserting this extravagant claim, so incompatible with national independence, the spirit in which it originated had been pursued, and the haughty style of a superior had been substituted for the respectful language of diplomacy.

He had seen the same minister undertake to direct the civil government; and to pronounce, in opposition to the decisions of the executive, in what departments of the constitution of the United States had placed certain great national powers.