CABINET OPINION—HAMILTON AND KNOX

REASONS FOR THE OPINION OF the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary at War, respecting the Brigantine “Sarah”1

July 8, 1793.

• I.—Because there can be no doubt, either upon principle or authority, that the permitting or suffering, or what is equivalent, the not taking effectual measures to prevent, when known, the fitting out of privateers in our ports by one of the belligerent powers to cruise against any of the others, is an unequivocal breach of neutrality.
• II.—Because the President, in conformity with a unanimous opinion of the heads of the departments, and the Attorney-General, founded upon the above principle, has caused his disapprobation of the practice to be signified to the Ministers both of Great Britain and France, accompanied with an express assurance to the former, thateffectual measures would be taken to prevent a repetition of the practice.
• III.—Because consequently not to take such measures in the present instance would be to depart from the declaration of neutrality, and to contravene the positive assurance given to the Minister of Great Britain; an omission as dishonorable as it must be dangerous to the government, implying either a want of ability, or a want of consistency and good faith. And as it will indubitably furnish a just cause for complaint against the United States, so it is natural to expect that it may involve them in war. It becomes the more serious in consequence of the non-surrender of the prizes which werebrought into our ports by the privateers “Sans Culottes” and“Citizen Genet,” fitted out at Charleston.
• IV.—Because the fitting out of this privateer is a transaction involving on the part of the agents of France a gross outrage upon, and undisguised contempt of, the government of the United States. It is aggravated by the circumstances of having been done under the immediate eye of the government, after an explicit and serious communication of its disapprobation—and after an expectation given that no similar attempt would be repeated. The Secretary of State reported to the President as the result of a conversation with the French Minister, on the subject of the twoprivateers before mentioned, what was equivalent to an apology for having done it, and to at least a tacit promise to forbear a repetition. Yet it is still done, and is even attempted to be justified.
• V.—Because it is impossible to interpret such conduct into any thing else than a regular plan to force the United States into the war. Its tendency to produce that effect cannot be misunderstood by the agents of France. The direct advantage of the measure to her is obviously too inconsiderable to induce the persisting in it contrary to the remonstrances of the government, if it were not with a view to the more important end just mentioned; a conduct the more exceptionable, because it is accompanied with the fallacious disavowal of an intention to engage us in the war.
• VI.—Because there is every evidence of a regular system in the pursuit of that object, to endeavor to control the government itself by creating, if possible, a schism between it and the people, and enlisting them on the side of France in opposition to their own constitutional authorities. This is deducible not only from a great variety of collateral incidents, but from direct written and verbal declarations of the French Minister.The memorial lately pre