Washington and his chief advisers believed that the United States ought to remain neutral as between the two belligerents.

But neutrality was difficult.

In spite of their horror at the French Revolution, the memory of our debt to France during our own Revolution made a very strong bond of sympathy, whereas our long record of hostility to England during our Colony days, and since the Declaration of Independence, kept alive a traditional hatred for Great Britain.

While it was easy, therefore, to preach neutrality, it was very difficult to enforce it.

An occurrence which could not have been foreseen further added to the difficulty of neutrality.
In the spring of 1793 the French Republic appointed Edmond Charles Genet, familiarly called "Citizen Genet," Minister to the United States.