Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/192

166 posterity, it is an interesting picture of the Father of the Country, affords a pleasant view of the writer and is no mean tribute to Freneau.

The President, he tells us, brought up the subject of Freneau's attack on him, declaring that there had never been an act of the government that the editor had not abused.

"He was evidently sore and warm," he goes on, "and I took his intention to be that I should interpose in some way with Freneau, perhaps withdraw his appointment of translating clerk to my office. But I will not do it. His paper has saved our Constitution, which was galloping fast into monarchy, and has been checked by no one means so powerfully as by that paper. It is well and universally known, that it has been that paper which has checked the career of the rrionocrats; and the President, not sensible to the designs of the party, has not with his usual good sense and sangfroid, 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."

To answer Genet's appeal to the people against the government, and the Republican editors who were supporting him, Hamilton took up his pen and addressed the public in the papers, signed "No Jacobin," which appeared first in the Daily Advertiser and were reprinted by Fenno. No matter how strong the S)mipathy of the people for France, or how great their gratitude, they realized the justice of Hamilton's statement in his initial paper that the minister of a foreign country has no right to appeal over the head of the President. The government tolerated Genet's impudence as long as possible and then demanded his recall, the attitude of Washington and