When the government forbids their citizens to
arm and engage in the war, he undertakes to arm and engage them. When
they forbid vessels to be fitted in their ports for cruising on nations
with whom they are at peace, he commissions them to fit and cruise.
When they forbid an unceded jurisdiction to be exercised within their
territory by foreign agents, he undertakes to uphold that exercise, and
to avow it openly. The privateers Citoyen Genet and Sans Culottes having
been fitted out at Charleston (though without the permission of the
government, yet before it was forbidden) the President only required
they might leave our ports, and did not interfere with their prizes.
Instead, however, of their quitting our ports, the Sans Culottes remains
still, strengthening and equipping herself, and the Citoyen Genet went
out only to cruise on our coast, and to brave the authority of the
country by returning into port again with her prizes. Though in the
letter of June the 5th, the final determination of the President was
communicated, that no future armaments in our ports should be permitted,
the Vainqueur de la Bastille was afterwards equipped and commissioned in
Charleston, the Anti-George in Savannah, the Carmagnole in Delaware,
a schooner and a sloop in Boston, and the Polly or Republican was
attempted to be equipped in New York, and was the subject of reclamation
by Mr.
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