To Thomas Jefferson from Edmond Charles Genet, 15 June 1793
From Edmond Charles Genet
A Philadelphie le 15. Juin 1793. l’an 2e. de la Républ.
Monsieur
Le Citoyen Hauterive Consul de la République à New-York vient de m’informer qu’il s’est élevé entre lui et le Gouvernement de l’Etat dans lequel il réside à l’occasion de la Frégate l’Embuscade,1 une discussion sur un point de droit.2 Il s’agit de savoir si dans un port neutre un vaisseau armé doit laisser une trêve de 24. heures aux batimens ennemis3 pour en sortir. Le Citoyen Hauterive reçût a ce sujet, relativement au départ du Paquebot Anglais, une requisition formelle du Gouverneur, qui, sans lui dire d’une maniere positive4 que le Gouvernement local avoit le droit d’empêcher la Fregate de5 sortir avant l’expiration de la trêve de 24. heures et qu’il useroit de ce droit, le lui donnoit à entendre et paroissoit croire6 qu’il étoit universel.
Le Citoyen Hauterive, Monsieur, s’est borné à me référer ce fait et à me demander à ce sujet des instructions pour lui et pour le capitaine de la Frégate. Je joins ici une copie de celles que je viens de lui faire passer: Je ne les ai rédigées qu’après le plus mur examen de la question et quoique mon opinion diffère éssentiellement de celle du Gouverneur de New-York je suis persuade que Mr. Le President7 des Etats Unis, après avoir pris en considération les autorités et les raisonnemens qui m’ont guide pour tracer8 au Consul de la Republique la marche qu’il devoit suivre fera9 passer au Gouverneur de New-York des10 ordres11 dignes de sa justice12 et de son impartialité.
Genet
PrC of Tr (DLC); in a clerk’s hand; at head of text: “Le Citoyen Genet, Ministre de la République française a Mr. Jefferson Secrétaire d’Etat des Etats Unis.” Dft (DLC: Genet Papers); only the most significant emendations are recorded below. Tr (NNC: Gouverneur Morris Papers). PrC of another Tr (PRO: FO 97/1); in the hand of George Taylor, Jr. Tr (DNA: RG 46, Senate Records, 3d Cong., 1st sess.); in English. Recorded in SJL as received 15 June 1793. Enclosure: Genet to Alexandre Maurice d’Hauterive, 15 June 1793, stating that according to various European treaties a belligerent armed vessel in a neutral port was not obliged to allow a twenty-four hour truce to an enemy vessel desiring to leave the port; that Governor Clinton’s effort to subject French warships to an indefinite truce in such situations contravened the letter and the spirit of French treaties with the United States; that the United States could only require France to commit no hostilities against her enemies on American territory or in American territorial waters; and that Hauterive should energetically oppose any additional restrictions on French warships (PrC of Tr in DLC, in French, with attestation by Genet, in a clerk’s hand; Tr in NNC: Gouverneur Morris Papers, in French; PrC of another Tr in PRO: FO 97/1, in French, in Taylor’s hand; Tr in DNA: RG 46, Senate Records, 3d Cong., 1st sess., in English). Letter and enclosure with translations printed in , 13–14 (App.), 36–8; translations printed in , Foreign Relations, i, 157–8. Letter and enclosure enclosed in TJ to Gouverneur Morris, 16 Aug. 1793.
TJ read this letter to the President on 15 June 1793, at which time Washington instructed him to submit it to a Cabinet meeting to be held two days later (, 178). At that time the question of whether a belligerent armed vessel in an American port had to observe the European custom of a twenty-four hour truce with respect to an enemy vessel leaving the same port was apparently one of the points which, according to the President’s journal, the Cabinet “referred for further consideration.” This subject, which was obviously of great importance to the success of French privateering efforts against the British, is not mentioned in the official Cabinet minutes of that day or in TJ’s subsequent correspondence with Genet, though it was one of the neutrality issues on which the Washington administration unsuccessfully solicited the opinion of the United States Supreme Court in July 1793 (same, 181; Cabinet Opinion on French Privateers, 17 June 1793; Questions for the Supreme Court, [18 July 1793], Document IV of a group of documents on the referral of neutrality questions to the Supreme Court, at 18 July 1793). The administration did not resolve this matter until six months after TJ left office when, in response to George Hammond’s insistence that it clarify its position on this controverted issue, Secretary of State Edmund Randolph informed the British minister in a letter of 18 June 1794 that the United States government would observe a somewhat ambiguous variant of the twenty-four hour rule discussed by Genet. Henceforth, he announced on the President’s behalf, belligerent warships and privateers would have to wait twenty-four hours before they could pursue enemy warships or enemy merchant ships crossing “beyond the jurisdictional line of the United States on the ocean” and not simply leaving American ports. At the same time, he added, the government would take unspecified measures to nullify any prizes “brought within the power of the United States” that were captured in contravention of this rule (, 68–70). For European precedents for the twenty-four hour rule, see same, 71–2.
1. Preceding eight words written in the margin in Dft.
2. In Dft Genet here canceled “public relativement à la frégatte l’Embuscade qui se trouve à New york.”
3. In Dft Genet wrote “batiments marchands énnemis.”
4. Preceding four words written in the margin in Dft.
5. In Dft Genet here first wrote “d’empêcher les Vaisseaux de guerre de” and then altered the text to read as above.
6. Remainder of sentence interlined in Dft in place of “à l’éxistence et à l’universalité de cette loi qu’il regardait comme une disposition generale du droit des gens.”
7. Preceding three words interlined in Dft in place of “le gouvernement.”
8. In Dft Genet first wrote “les faits et les raisonnements d’après les quels J’ai tracé” and then altered it to read as above.
9. Word interlined in Dft in place of “voudra bien faire.”
10. In Dft Genet here canceled “Instructions.”
11. In Dft Genet here canceled a heavily emended passage that in its final state appears to read “Conformes à nos traités et même aux principes qu’il a lui même recommandé aux Citoyens des Etats unis d’observer.”
12. Remainder of sentence interlined in Dft in place of “éclairée et de sa fidelité à défendre les droits de tous et particulierement ceux des amis et des alliés des Etats unis.”