Washington, according to the same record, then spoke with great warmth concerning the hostility of Freneau as manifested in his newspaper. He despised all personal attacks upon himself; but, he said, not a solitary act of the government had escaped the slanderer's assaults. He adverted to the fact that Freneau (evidently for the impudent purpose of insulting Washington) sent him three of his papers every day; and Mr. Jefferson records these facts in a way that shows the enjoyment he seemed to derive from such evidences of great annoyance displayed by the president. "He was evidently sore and worn," wrote Mr. Jefferson, "and I took his intention to be, that I should interpose in some way with Freneau--perhaps withdraw his appointment of translating clerk in my office. But I will not do it."
"It appears to us," says Mr. Irving,[51] "rather an ungracious determination on the part of Jefferson to keep this barking cur in his employ, when he found him so annoying to the chief, whom he professed, and we believe with sincerity, to revere.[52] Neither are his reasons for so doing satisfactory, savoring as they do of those strong political suspicions already noticed. 'His [Freneau's] paper,' observed he, 'has saved our constitution, which was galloping fast into monarchy, and has been checked by no means so powerfully as by that paper. It is well and universally known that it has been that paper which checked the career of the monocrats. The president, not sensible of the designs of the party, has not, with his usual good sense and _sang froid_, looked on the efforts and effects of this free press, and seen that though some bad things have passed through it to the public, yet the good have preponderated immensely.'"
On the day succeeding his presentation to the president, Genet addressed an official letter to Mr. Jefferson, announcing his mission, as follows:--
"Single, against innumerable hordes of tyrants and slaves who menace her rising liberty, the French nation would have a right to reclaim the obligations imposed on the United States by the treaties she has contracted with them, and which she has cemented with her blood; but strong in the greatness of her means, and of the power of her principles, not less redoubtable to her enemies than the virtuous arm which she opposes to their rage, she comes, in the very time when the emissaries of our common enemies are making useless efforts to neutralize the gratitude, to damp the zeal, to weaken or cloud the view of your fellow-citizens; she comes, I say, that generous nation, that faithful friend, to labor still to increase the prosperity and add to the happiness which she is pleased to see them enjoy.
