Note 47 — Chapter XXI

The number of people who met and welcomed Genet at Gray's ferry was greatly exaggerated, as usual on such occasions, by the friends of the movement. It was called “a great concourse of citizens,” but Hamilton, who was then in Philadelphia, and whose truthfulness has never been questioned, placed the number at an insignificant figure. In a letter to a friend, he said, “It is seldom easy to speak with absolute certainty in such cases, but from all I could observe, or have been able to learn, I believe the number would be stated high at a hundred persons.” Of a meeting convened at evening to receive Mr. Genet, Hamilton said, “From forty to one hundred persons give you the extremes of the number present.” On the ensuing evening a much greater number attended. Altogether the demonstration, in numbers, was a failure.