Thus spoke Jefferson, the party man, and he made no mystery of his sentiments either in his conversations or in his private letters. The Secretary of State, however, could not easily afford to adopt publicly the same attitude. Early in February Colonel W. S. Smith had brought the intelligence that the French Minister Ternant, whose royalist opinions shocked the French sympathizers in Philadelphia, would be recalled and Citizen Genet would be sent in his place by the Republic. It was already known that Genet would bring very advantageous propositions to the United States, for he would come
with full powers to give us all the privileges we can desire in their countries, and particularly in the West Indies; that they even contemplate to set them free the next summer; that they proposed to emancipate South America, and will send forty-five ships of the line there next spring, and Miranda at the head of the expedition; that they desire our debt to be paid them in provisions, and have authorized him to negotiate this.[287]
On the other hand it was to be feared that Genet would remind the American Government of the existence of the Treaty of 1778, by which the United States agreed to give distinct advantages to French privateers and to guarantee the integrity of the French West Indies. It was not until April that it was known war had been declared between France and England. Were the United States going to be dragged into the European convulsions and would they have to side openly with their former ally? Acting on the information received from Colonel Smith, Jefferson quickly wrote to Carmichael and Short, asking them to refrain from mentioning the Louisiana question to Spain, and chiefly to be very careful not to "bind us to guarantee any of the Spanish colonies against their own independence, nor indeed against any other nation." Jefferson believed that there was a possibility of seeing France encourage the Spanish colonies to revolt and would not have objected "to the receiving those on the east side into our confederation." This was an eventuality not to be lightly dismissed, and once more Jefferson's uppermost preoccupation was not to please the French Revolutionists but to further the interests of his country.[288] But before deciding upon any course of action it was advisable to temporize and to find out from what quarter the wind was about to blow. The only thing to do for the present was to wait and to avoid any unpleasant complications with the powers at war; and first of all to see to it that the United States should enjoy the rights and privileges of a complete neutrality. Jefferson began sending instructions to that effect to Samuel Shaw, consul at Canton, China.[289] Two days later he wrote even more explicitly to Dumas: "We wish not to meddle with the internal affairs of any country, nor with the general affairs of Europe. Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with all nations are our objects. It will be necessary for all our public agents to exert themselves with vigilance for securing to our vessels all the rights of neutrality, and from preventing the vessels of other nations from usurping our flags."[290]