ded, and even at
home it was almost totally misunderstood; yet nevertheless it did
its work. For twenty-five years afterward the American people slowly
advanced toward the ground then taken, until the ideas of the
neutrality proclamation received their final acceptance and extension
at the hands of the younger Adams, in the promulgation of the Monroe
doctrine. The shaping of this policy which was then launched was
a great work of far-sighted and native statesmanship, and it was
preeminently the work of the President himself.

Moreover, it did not stop here. A circular to the officers of the
customs provided for securing notice of infractions of the law, and
the task of enforcing the principles laid down in the proclamation
began. As it happened, the theory of neutrality was destined at once
to receive rude tests of its soundness in practice. The new French
minister was landing on our shores, and beginning his brief career in
this country, while the proclamation was going from town to town and
telling the people, in sharp and unaccustomed tones, that they were
Americans and not colonists, and must govern themselves accordingly.

Everything, in fact, seemed to conspire to make the path of the new
policy rough and thorny. In the excitement of the time a large portion
of the population regarded it as a party measure aimed against our
beloved allies, while, to make the situation worse, France on one
side and England on the other proceeded, as if deliberately, to do
everything in their power to render neutrality impossible, and to
drive us into war with some one.

The new minister, Genet, could not have been better chosen, if the
special errand for which he had been employed had been to make
trouble. Light-headed and vain, with but little ability and a vast
store of unintelligent zeal, the whirl of the French revolution flung
him on our shores, where he had a glorious chance for mischief. This
opportunity he at once seized. As soon as he landed he proceeded to
arm privateers at Charleston. Thence he took his way north, and the
enthusiastic popular acclaim which everywhere greeted his arrival
almost crazed him, and drew forth a series of high-flown and most
injudicious speeches. By the time he reached Philadelphia, and before
he had presented his credentials, he had induced enough violations of
neutrality, and sown the seeds of enough trouble, to embarrass our
government for months to come.

Washington had written to Gove