Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, At the Behest of President Washington and Secretary of State Jefferson, Takes Steps to Ensure the Safety of Neutral Vessels As War in Europe Erupts

Following the execution of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in January 1793, the French revolutionary government found itself at war with Spain, the Netherlands and Great Britain. It dispatched Edmond Charles Genêt as minister to the United States, for the purpose of enlisting American assistance to the fullest extent possible. Genêt arrived in Charleston, South Carolina on April 8, 1793 – calling himself “Citizen Genêt” to emphasize the revolutionary title. He received a warm welcome and immediately began to issue privateering commissions that authorized the bearers, regardless of their country of origin, to seize British merchant ships and their cargo for personal profit, all with the approval and protection of the French Government. President Washington saw this as a dangerous attempt to draw the new United States into a European war, and on April 22 issued his Proclamation of Neutrality, declaring the U.S. a neutral nation in the conflict and threatening legal proceedings against any American providing assistance to the warring countries. Genet then proceeded to the capital at Philadelphia and was met with acclaim and jubilation everywhere he went, as many Americans supported the French Revolution’s goals of liberty, equality, fraternity. He was officially received by Washington on the afternoon of May 18th, but Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson soon informed him that the United States considered the outfitting of French privateers in American ports to be a violation of the U.S. policy of neutrality. Genet ignored this warning, and in fact threatened to take his case directly to the American people, bypassing official government opposition. Genêt was thus willing to challenge Washington and risk being seen as a foreign meddler in American domestic affairs.

Article 25 of the Franco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce of 1778 provided “that in case either of the Parties hereto should be engaged in War, the Ships and Vessels belonging to the Subjects or People of the other Ally must be furnished with Sea Letters or Passports expressing the name, Property and Bulk of the Ship as also the name and Place of habitation of the Master or Commander of the said Ship, that it may appear thereby, that the Ship really & truely belongs to the Subjects of one of the Parties.…

On May 8, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson wrote to Hamilton, “The President having now decided that the French passport may also be issued, it is at this time in the press, & the whole instrument compleat with the two passports, sea-letters, & certificates in its final form, will be ready for signature tomorrow. It has therefore now become necessary to determine on the ultimate channel of distributing them. I am not the judge whether the task of distribution might interfere too much with the other duties of the collectors of the customs. If it would not, their position seems best accomodated to that distribution. I took the liberty therefore to-day of proposing to the President that, if you should think there would be no inconvenience in charging them with the distribution, the blanks might be lodged with them; of which he approved: and I have now the honor of submitting that question to you. If you find no inconvenience in it, I will send 300 blanks, as soon as they shall be signed, either to your office or to that of the Commissioner of the revenue, whichever you shall prefer, to be forwarded to the collectors of the different ports; & from time to time afterwards will keep up a supply.”

Hamilton accepted.

Letter signed, Treasury Department letterhead, May 16, 1793, to Stephen Smith, collector at Machias, Maine.  “Sir, two copies of sea letters are herewith sent you.  If there should be a probability of your wanting more, you will lose no time in notifying it to the Collector of Boston, who will be furnished with large parcels and instructed from this office to distribute them among the several collectors of your state as circumstances may require.

“A great number would accompany this than do were the prepared, but this is not the case. Great delay in getting them ready for transmission is unavoidable.”