to Philadelphia, where the French consul condemned her. The English owners of course libelled her; but when the case was tried in the Federal court, the judge declared that the matter was of a political, not a judicial kind, and discharged the libel. Shortly after this Gideon Henfield was brought to the bar. A plainer case of guilt could not have been presented. Much as the judge disliked it, he felt compelled to give a positive charge; but the jury promptly returned a verdict of not guilty. One day in July the Warden of the Port of Philadelphia notified Governor Mifflin that the Little Sarah, a prize sent in by L'Ambuscade, had been renamed Petite Démocrate, and was fast becoming a privateer. As the President had called on all the Governors to do their utmost to prevent privateers leaving the ports of their States, Mifflin despatched Alexander J. Dallas, his Secretary of State, at miduight, to request Genet to keep the Little Sarah in port. Dallas found him discussing politics with his friends, and had scarcely made known the object of his call when Genet flew into a passion, and complained in strong terms and with many angry epithets of the treatment he received. He observed that the President was not the sovereign of the country, and could neither make war nor peace; that Congress was the only body that could interpret the treaty, and that Washington ought to have assembled Congress before venturing to issue a proclamation of neutrality. After running on in this way for a time, Dallas ventured to recall Genet's attention to the object of his visit. But he refused to give any promise, declared he would appeal from the President to the people, and said he hoped no attempt would be made to stop the Little Democrat, as she belonged to the French Republic, must defend the honor of her flag, and would surely repel force by force.

Dallas went back with an account of the interview to Mifflin, who instantly ordered out 120 militiamen, and bade their commander prevent the departure of the privateer. When Jefferson heard what had been said to Dallas, he also called on Genet and begged him to detain the Petite Démocrate for three days, by which time it was hoped Washington would have returned from Mount Vernon. Genet refused to give a promise, but observed that the brig would not be ready

to sail before Wednesday. Jefferson understood this to be a diplomatic way of saying that she would be detained, and on the strength of it persuaded Mifflin, a great admirer of Genet, to recall the troops; whereupon the Petite Démocrate dropped down the Delaware and went to sea. "What," wrote Washington to Jefferson, "is to be done in the case of the Little Sarah? Is the minister of the French Republic to set the acts of this government at defiance with impunity, and then threaten the Executive with an appeal to the people?" The threat of an appeal soon leaked out. Dallas reported it to Hamilton and Knox; they told it to the Chief Justice, John Jay, and to Rufus King, who repeated it to others, who spread it far and wide. That such an insolent speech could have been made seemed so impossible that when Jay and Knox returned to New York they were asked if it were true, and on their positive assurance that it was, the friends of Washington made the story public through the press. The republicans entered a flat denial, and called for the names of the black-hearted Americans and aristocrats who fabricated so base a falsehood. Thereupon Jay and King came forward, and over their signatures assumed all responsibility, said that the story was told them while in Philadelphia, and that they believed every word of it to be true. Many republicans, convinced by the respectability of the names at the foot of the card, began to make excuses for Genet. He was a foreigner, English was not his native tongue, and much allowance must be made for his use of words. He had been angry.

He

came of a high-spirited race, and, excited beyond endurance by the treatment accorded him by the government, he let fall the remark of which his enemies were making so much. By the people he might mean Congress, or those who interpreted the treaty as he did. Excuses were in vain. Genet was his own worst enemy, and, smarting under the indignation of the people over his insult to the President, he sat down and dashed off a letter to Washington. He began by reminding the President that his conduct had always been marked with true republican frankness. "To you alone," said he, "have I complained of the principles you have adopted, and remonstrated against the decisions resulting therefrom.

To you alone have I declared that the Federal government, far from manifesting any regard for our generous conduct towards this country, or for our reiterated demonstrations of our real and disinterested friendship, was sacrificing our interests to those of our enemies by your interpretations of treaties that exist between us. To you have I presented without reserve that this conduct did not appear to correspond with the views of the people of America. Nevertheless, certain persons, actuated by purposes which time will develop, have descended to personal abuse. They have publicly stated that I insulted you, and that I have threatened you with an appeal to the people. It is now necessary to dispel these dark calumnies, and I dare therefore to expect from your candor an explicit declaration that I have never intimated to you an intention of appealing to the people." Three days later he received a cold reply from Jefferson. The Secretary of State reminded him that it was not customary for diplomatic characters residing at Philadelphia to hold direct correspondence with the President; told him that the Secretary of State was the proper channel; and then went on to say that "the President did not conceive it to be within the line of duty to bear evidence against a declaration which, whether made to him or to others, was perhaps immaterial, and declined interposing in the case."

This correspondence was made public, and everywhere aroused a feeling of intense disgust for Genet. Madison, in a letter to Monroe, declared that "his conduct has been that of a madman. He is abandoned by his votaries, even in Philadelphia. He has ruined the republican interest in that place." In Virginia the feeling was so bitter that Madison attempted to induce the people to discriminate between the French minister and the French cause, and drew up a set of resolutions which he sent to his friends all over the State with the request to have them adopted at public meetings. Governor Moultrie, of South Carolina, wrote to Genet and told him plainly that he had given great offence to many warm friends of France. "Through the medium of northern newspapers," said the Governor, “we in this State have been informed that a dispute has taken place between the President and yourself on some point relating to a prize, and that

you said you would appeal to the people. This has given great offence to many real friends of France, as it insults a character highly respected by his country independent of the station which he fills, and induces me to ask for an exact relation of what did happen in the dispute, if you had any." In place of the exact relation asked for, Governor Moultrie received a long and rambling letter from Genet denouncing the authors of the falsehood, declaring that he should appeal to Congress for an examination of his official acts, expressing his esteem for the American people, and ending with the hope that "the brave General Moultrie would never regret having been the first American to recognize the envoy of the French Republic."

Warnings and expostulations were useless. Genet was bent on ruining himself, and rushed on to destruction. Early in the autumn an English vessel taken within the jurisdiction of the United States by a French privateer, and sent to Boston as a prize, was libelled on the ground of illegal capture, and a United States marshal was sent to serve the writ. It was nine o'clock at night as he clambered up the side of the vessel and found on board but one man, who hailed the French frigate La Concorde, riding at anchor near by, and brought over the prize-master and the lieutenant. When the marshal stated his business the lieutenant laughed at him, denied that a writ could be served after sunset, and went back to La Concorde. The marshal, however, remained, and about an hour later was surprised to see twelve armed French marines board the prize, weigh anchor, and row her to a position under the guns of La Concorde. At midnight Citizen Duplaine, the French vice-consul, visited the ship, and told the marshal that the prizemaster would hold her against all odds, and he did for three days. Then the frigate put to sea, and the marshal, getting assistance from Boston, drew the schooner to the wharf. So defiant an act of interference with the Federal courts richly deserved a signal punishment, and Washington at once revoked the exequatur of Duplaine. Citizen Dannery, the consul, protested; and Genet, burning with anger, proceeded to enlighten Jefferson on the principles of our government. **I have," he wrote, "just received the dismissal of Citizen Duplaine, vice-consul at

Boston, and hasten to declare to you that I do not acknowledge its validity. The Constitution of the United States does not give the President the power to do such an act. Consular powers can only be recalled by the sovereign of the agent, or by the sovereign to which the agent is sent. In governments like ours political affairs can only be judged by political bodies, and if the vice-consul Duplaine has infringed the particular laws of Massachusetts, or the general laws of the Union, to Massachusetts belongs the cognizance of the crime against the majority of the nation, and it is for her officers to announce it to the Federal government, in order that the agent may be punished by his sovereign. I do not recollect what the wormeaten writings of Grotius, Puffendorf, and Vattel say on the subject. I thank God I have forgotten what these hired jurisprudists have written on the rights of nations; but the fundamental points of your liberty and our own are engraved on my memory, and I demand of you, sir, to ask the President to procure an examination by the Legislature of the sovereign people of Massachusetts." But Genet had now run his course; his conduct had long been past all endurance, and in August Jefferson bade our minister to the French Republic request that he be recalled. The letter told the story of his peculiar views of international law, of his many

acts of defiance, of his attempt to separate the government and the people, and of his insolence to the President. A copy was of course sent to Genet, and made him boil with rage. In the note which he now addressed to Jefferson he surpassed every previous effort.

The federalists were vilified, the Secretary was abused, and the President arraigned on eight charges. Washington "had been in a hurry" to proclaim neutrality before knowing what was to be communicated to him on behalf of the French Republic. At the first audience not a word of congratulation on the success of the French revolution, not so much as a compliment had escaped his lips. He "decorated his parlor with certain medallions of Capet and his family which served at Paris as signals of rallying"; he had "taken it on himself to give to the treaties arbitrary interpretations absolutely at variance with their true meaning." What sort of a minister the President wanted was easy to discern. He wanted not a democratic ambassador, but a diplomat of the ancient regimen, who preferred to the society of good farmers and honest artisans that of distinguished persons who speculated in the public funds. Genet continued to trouble Jefferson and the public with his notes, but on the arrival of his successor, in February, 1794, he fell at once from notice.

E

VER since Leonardo da Vinci first recognized the true character of fos sils, there had been here and there a man who realized that the earth's rocky crust is one gigantic mausoleum. Here and there a dilettante had filled his cabinets with relics from this monster crypt; here and there a philosopher had pondered over them-questioning whether perchance they once had been alive, or whether they were not mere abortive souvenirs of that time when the fertile matrix of the earth was supposed to have "teemed at a birth

Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
Limbed and full-grown."

Some few of these philosophers-as Robert Hooke and Steno in the seventeenth century, and Moro, Leibnitz, Buffon, Whitehurst, Werner, Hutton, and others in the eighteenth-had vaguely conceived the importance of fossils as records of the earth's ancient history, but the wisest of them no more suspected the full import of the story written in the rocks than the average stroller in a modern museum suspects the meaning of the hieroglyphs inscribed on the case of a mummy.

It was not that the rudiments of this story are so very hard to decipherthough in truth they are hard enoughbut rather that the men who made the attempt had all along viewed the subject through an atmosphere of preconception, which gave a distorted image. Before this image could be corrected it was necessary that a man should appear who could see without prejudice, and apply sound common sense to what he saw. And such a man did appear toward the close of the century in the person of Wil· liam Smith, the English surveyor. was a self-taught man, and perhaps the more independent for that, and he had the gift, besides his sharp eyes and receptive mind, of a most tenacious memory. By exercising these faculties, rare as they are homely, be led the way to a science which was destined, in its later develop ments, to shake the structure of established thought to its foundations.

He

Little enough did William Smith suspect, however, that any such dire consequences were to come of his act when he

first began noticing the fossil shells that here and there are to be found in the stratified rocks and soils of the regions over which his surveyor's duties led him. Nor, indeed, was there anything of such apparent revolutionary character in the facts which he unearthed: yet in their implications these facts were the most disconcerting of any that had been revealed since the day of Copernicus and Galileo. In its bald essence Smith's discovery was simply this: that the fossils in the rocks, instead of being scattered haphazard, are arranged in regular systems, so that any given stratum of rock is labelled by its fossil population; and that the order of succession of such groups of fossils is always the same in any vertical series of strata in which they occur. That is to say, if fossil A underlies fossil B in any given region, it never overlies it in any other series; though a kind of fossils found in one set of strata may be quite omitted in another. Moreover, a fossil once having disappeared never reappears in any later stratum.

From these novel facts Smith drew the common sense inference that the earth had had successive populations of creatures, each of which in its turn had become extinct. He partially verified this inference by comparing the fossil shells with existing species of similar orders, and found that such as occur in older strata of the rocks had no counterparts among living species. But on the whole, being eminently a practical man, Smith troubled himself but little about the inferences that might be drawn from his facts. was chiefly concerned in using the key he had discovered as an aid to the construction of the first geological map of England ever attempted, and he left to others the untangling of any snarls of thought that might seem to arise from his discovery of the succession of varying forms of life on the globe.

He

He disseminated his views far and wide, however, in the course of his journeyings quite disregarding the fact that peripatetics went out of fashion when the printing press came in-and by the beginning of our century he had begun to have a following among the geologists of England. It must not for a moment be sup

posed, however, that his contention regarding the succession of strata met with immediate or general acceptance. On the contrary, it was most bitterly antago nized. For a long generation after the discovery was made, the generality of men, prone as always to strain at gnats and swallow camels, preferred to believe that the fossils, instead of being deposited in successive ages, had been swept all at once into their present positions by the current of a mighty flood-and that flood, needless to say, the Noachian deluge. Just how the numberless successive strata could have been laid down in orderly sequence to the depth of several miles in one such fell cataclysm was indeed puzzling, especially after it came to be admitted that the heaviest fossils were not found always at the bottom; but to doubt that this had been done in some way was rank heresy in the early days of our century.

VOL. XCIV.-No. 563.-75

II.

But once discovered, William Smith's unique facts as to the succession of forms in the rocks would not down. There was one most vital point, however, regarding which the inferences that seem to follow from these facts needed verification-the question, namely, whether the disappearance of a fauna from the register in the rocks really implies the extinction of that fauna. Everything really depended upon the answer to that question, and none but an accomplished naturalist could answer it with authority. Fortunately the most authoritative naturalist of the time, Georges Cuvier, took the question in hand

not, indeed, with the idea of verifying any suggestion of Smith's, but in the course of his own original studies at the very beginning of the century, when Smith's views were first attracting general

attention.