having thus offended against the laws. Mr. Genet demanded their
release in the following extraordinary terms:

"I have this moment been informed that two officers in the service of
the republic of France, citizen Gideon Henfield and John Singletary,
have been arrested on board the privateer of the French republic, the
Citizen Genet, and conducted to prison. The crime laid to their
charge--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.

"Being ignorant of any positive law or treaty which deprives Americans
of this privilege, and authorizes officers of police arbitrarily to
take mariners in the service of France from on board their vessels, I
call upon your intervention, sir, and that of the President of the
United States, in order to obtain the immediate releasement of the
above mentioned officers, who have acquired, by the sentiments
animating them, and by the act of their engagement, anterior to every
act to the contrary, the right of French citizens, if they have lost
that of American citizens."

This lofty offensive style could not fail to make a deep impression on
a mind penetrated with a just sense of those obligations by which the
chief magistrate is bound to guard the dignity of his government, and
to take care that his nation be not degraded in his person. Yet, in no
single instance, did the administration, in its communications with
Mr. Genet, permit itself to be betrayed into the use of one
intemperate expression. The firmness with which the extravagant
pretensions of that gentleman were resisted, proceeding entirely from
a sense of duty and conviction of right, was unaccompanied with any