Good day citizens and welcome to What Would Jefferson do, our weekly opportunity to discuss

current American events with President Thomas Jefferson, who is seated across for

me now.

Good day to you, Mr. Jefferson.

Good day to you, Citizen.

Mr. Jefferson, I wanted to speak to you about foreign nationals who may have committed crimes against the United States.

There's an incident right now involving such a situation, and I wondered if there was any time during your time as president if something like that occurred.

Not during my time as president, but I do remember that during the French Revolution, the French sent an envoy to the United States by the name of

Edmund Jeunet, and Jeunet thought that the American people were 100% behind the French Revolution and that we would side

with the French who had been our ally during the war, essentially no matter what.

And he landed in South Carolina where he was given a

heroes welcome he made his way almost like a foreign prince up to Philadelphia

to meet President Washington.

And he made a nuisance of himself, and he actually then violated American law.

He was fitting out privateers in American ports and privateer is a vessel which is

commercial in nature private in nature which is then turned into a war machine, a war vessel, by a country or by an administration.

And he was fitting out privateers in American waters, which was a direct violation of the neutrality proclamation

that George Washington had made.

At one point he actually urged the American people to either go over the head of George Washington to insist on a pro-French

policy during this war or to commit revolution in the streets to show its distaste for the neutrality that the Washington administration was showing.

So in the end, I, as Secretary of State, had to make a formal complaint to the French directory and I had to insist that they

recall Citizen-Gene because he had in fact violated a question of fundamental sovereignty.

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