They[9] evidence the settled purpose of the executive, faithfully to observe all the national engagements, and honestly to perform the duties of that neutrality in which the war found them, and in which those engagements left them free to remain.
[Footnote 9: See note No.

V.at the end of the volume.] [Sidenote: The president requests the recall of Genet.] In the case of the minister of the French republic, it was unanimously agreed that a letter should be written to Mr.Morris, the minister of the United States at Paris, stating the conduct of Mr.Genet, resuming the points of difference which had arisen between the government and that gentleman, assigning the reasons for the opinion of the former, desiring the recall of the latter, and directing that this letter, with those which had passed between Mr.Genet and the secretary of state, should be laid before the executive of the French government.
To a full view of the transactions of the executive with Mr.Genet, and an ample justification of its measures, this able diplomatic performance adds assurances of unvarying attachment to France, expressed in such terms of unaffected sensibility, as to render it impossible to suspect the sincerity of the concluding sentiment--"that, after independence and self-government, there was nothing America more sincerely wished than perpetual friendship with them." An adequate idea of the passion it excited in Mr.Genet, who received the communication in September, at New York, can be produced only by a perusal of his letter addressed, on that occasion, to the secretary of state.

The asperity of his language was not confined to the President, whom he still set at defiance, whom he charged with transcending the limits prescribed by the constitution, and of whose accusation before congress he spoke as an act of justice "which the American people, which the French people, which all free people were interested to reclaim:" nor to those "gentlemen who had been painted to him so often as aristocrats, partisans of monarchy, partisans of England, and consequently enemies of the principles which all good Frenchmen had embraced with a religious enthusiasm." Its bitterness was also extended to the secretary of state himself, whom he had been induced to consider as his personal friend, and who had, he said, "initiated him into mysteries which had inflamed his hatred against all those who aspire to an absolute power." During these deliberations, Mr.Genet was received in New York with the same remarks of partiality to his nation, and of flattering regard to himself, which had been exhibited in the more southern states.

At this place too, he manifested the same desire to encourage discontent at the conduct of the government, and to embark America in the quarrel, by impressing an opinion that the existence of liberty depended on the success of the French republic, which he had uniformly avowed.

In answer to an address from the republican citizens of New York, who had spoken of the proclamation of neutrality as relating only to acts of open hostility, not to the feelings of the heart; and who had declared that they would "exultingly sacrifice a liberal portion of their dearest interests could there result, on behalf of the French republic, an adequate advantage;" he said--"in this respect I can not but interpret as you have done the declaration of your government.