Edmond-Charles Genet--"Citizen Genet"--served as the French minister to the United States in 1793. During his short tenure as minister, Genet managed to antagonize President George Washington and members of his cabinet, including Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who sympathized with the French Revolution (1789-99). Thus, Genet added to a crisis in Franco-American relations as U.S. leaders were trying to maintain neutrality in the war between Great Britain and France.

Genet was born at Versailles on January 8, 1763. A prodigy, he learned to read English, Swedish, Italian, and Latin by the time he was 12 years old. Previous to his mission in the United States, he served as secretary of legation and charge d'affaires to Russia. A full convert to the revolutionary cause, Genet was appointed minister to the United States in late 1792 and set sail for North America in February 1793.

The French government instructed Genet to negotiate a new treaty with the United States that would expand on the treaty of 1778 (see French alliance). He was to use debt payments received from the United States to fund his mission and purchase supplies for French forces in the region. In essence, the government wanted Genet to use the United States as a base for French operations. In addition, he was instructed to undertake "all measures which comported with his position" to foment rebellion in Spanish Louisiana and Florida and in British Canada.

Genet landed in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 8, 1793. Upon his arrival, he commissioned four French privateers and established procedures for condemning the British prizes they captured. He then traveled by land to Philadelphia. Almost at every stop, local residents feted Genet and the French Revolution, causing him to believe that the people of the United States fully supported his cause. Simultaneously, President Washington's cabinet debated how the United States should treat the French Revolution, the new French minister, and the expanding war between France and Great Britain. Genet became an issue in this increasingly partisan dispute between Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and Secretary of State Jefferson. By the time Genet arrived in Philadelphia in May, Washington had settled the debate and issued his Neutrality Proclamation asserting that the United States would favor neither belligerent in their war.

Frustrated by this position, and believing that the people of the United States really wanted to help France, Genet made a direct appeal to the public and ignored the official policy of the Washington administration. He sought to raise an army under George Rogers Clark to invade Spanish Louisiana and commissioned additional privateers. The issue that precipitated a diplomatic crisis was the Little Sarah affair. In June and July 1793, Genet oversaw the conversion of the captured British ship Little Sarah into the privateer La Petite Democrate (the Little Democrat) in Philadelphia harbor. Upon learning of Genet's activities, Jefferson demanded the ship remain in port. However, Genet ordered the ship to sea and consequently alienated his one ally within Washington's administration. Washington was deeply offended by Genet's actions, and in August the United States requested Genet's recall.

Because the government in France had changed, Genet could not go home without endangering his life. In 1794, at the age of 31, he married a daughter of Governor George Clinton of New York and settled into the life of a gentleman farmer in New York. He died on his farm on July 14, 1834.

Bibliography:

Henry Ammon, The Genet Mission (New York: Norton, 1973).

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