214 The Winning of the West 



hold themselves in readiness for any action he might 

 direct. At the same time the Administration wrote 

 to Shelby telling him what was on foot, and request- 

 ing him to see that no expedition of the kind was 

 allowed to march against the domains of a friendly 

 power. Shelby, in response, entered into a long 

 argument to show that he could not interfere with 

 the expedition, and that he doubted his constitutional 

 power to do anything in the matter ; his reasons be- 

 ing of the familiar kind usually advanced in such 

 cases, where a government officer, from timidity or 

 any other cause, refuses to do his duty. If his con- 

 tention as to his own powers and the powers of the 

 General Government had been sound, it would log- 

 ically have followed that there was no power any- 

 where to back up the law. Innes, the Federal Judge, 

 showed himself equally lukewarm in obeying the 

 Federal authorities. 8 



Blount, the Governor of the Southwestern Terri- 

 tory, acted as vigorously and patriotically as St. 

 Clair and Wayne, and his conduct showed in marked 

 contrast to Shelby's. He possessed far too much 

 political good sense not to be disgusted with the 

 conduct of Genet, which he denounced in unmeas- 

 ured terms. He expressed great pleasure when 

 Washington summarily rebuked the blatant French 

 envoy. He explained to the Tennesseeans that Genet 

 had as his chief backers the disappointed office-hunt- 

 ers and other unsavory characters in New York and 



8 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I, pp. 454, 460; 

 Marshall, II, 93. 



