that an appeal from his decisions must be
considered criminal? or are the people in such a state of monarchical
degradation, that to speak of consulting them is an offence as great,
as if America groaned under a dominion equally tyrannical with the old
monarchy of France?

It was soon ascertained that Mr. Dallas, to whom this threat of
appealing to the people had been delivered, did not admit that the
precise words had been used. Mr. Genet then, in the coarsest terms,
averred the falsehood of the certificate which had been published, and
demanded from the attorney general, and from the government, that Mr.
Jay and Mr. King should be indicted for a libel upon himself and his
nation. That officer accompanied his refusal to institute this
information with the declaration that any other gentleman of the
profession, who might approve and advise the attempt, could be at no
loss to point out a mode which would not require his intervention.

While the minister of the French republic thus loudly complained of
the unparalleled injury he received from being charged with employing
a particular exceptionable phrase, he seized every fair occasion to
carry into full execution the threat which he denied having made. His
letters, written for the purpose of publication, and actually
published by himself, accused the executive, before the tribunal of
the people, on those specific points, from its decisions respecting
which he was said to have threatened the appeal. As if the offence
lay, not in perpetrating the act, but in avowing an intention to
perpetrate it, this demonstration of his designs did not render his
advocates the less vehement in his support, nor the less acrimonious
in reproaching the administration, as well as Mr. Jay and Mr. King.

Whilst insult was thus added to insult, the utmost vigilance of the
executive officers was scarcely sufficient to maintain an observance
of the rules which had been established for preserving neutrality in
the American ports. Mr. Genet persisted in refusing to acquiesce in
those rules; and fresh instances of attempts to violate them were
continually recurring. Among these, was an outrage committed in
Boston, too flagrant to be overlooked.

A schooner, brought as a prize into the port of Boston by a French
privateer, was claimed by the British owner; who instituted
proceedings at law against her, for the purpose of obtaining a
decision on the validity of her capture. She was rescued from the