And yet, for a while, each party seems to have practised a certain reserve. Genet stormed, but the Government at home was tranquil. The “guaranty” was suspended, even in discussion. France forbore to press it, and the United States were happy to avoid the over-shadowing question. The Secretary of State, in instructions to Mr. Monroe, dated June 10, 1794, while “insisting upon compensation for the captures and spoliations of our property and injuries to the persons of our citizens by French cruisers,” was careful to add: “If the execution of the _guaranty_ of the French islands by force of arms should be propounded, you will refer the Republic of France to this side of the water.”[166] Mr. Monroe, in his correspondence, under date of September 15, 1794, says: “This Republic had declined calling on us to execute the guaranty, from a spirit of magnanimity, and strong attachment to our welfare”; but he reveals his anxiety lest an attempt to press our case “might give birth to sentiments of a different kind, and _create a disposition to call on us to execute that of the Treaty of Alliance_.”[167] In another letter, dated November 7, 1794, describing an interview with the very able Diplomatic Committee, our plenipotentiary confesses the embarrassment he encountered, when M. Merlin three times asked, “Do you insist upon _our_ executing the treaty?” and he gives his reply, that he “was not instructed by the President to insist on it, nor did he insist on it”; and he avows that in his opinion such insistence would have been impolitic, as “exciting a disposition to press us on other points, _upon which it were better to avoid any discussion_.”[168] There is other testimony of this nature, unnecessary to produce. Suffice it to say, that for some time there was a lull, soon to be followed by a storm.