As the cabinet met only one month later (April 18) at the request of Washington to discuss the proclamation of neutrality, it is not without importance to call attention to the date and the text of that letter. Winning Jefferson over to the position finally adopted by the American Government could not present insuperable difficulties since he had already outlined the same policy even before consulting with the President, and on his own initiative had sent instructions to the agents. When the Cabinet met to consider the emergency, and the several secretaries were invited by Washington to submit their opinions in writing, the course to be followed was officially agreed upon and Washington issued the famous Proclamation of Neutrality on April 22,--the very same day the new minister from France landed at Charleston. Jefferson did not lose any time notifying the American agents abroad of the policy of the United States, repeating substantially the instructions already sent to Dumas one month before.[291] At the same time Ternant was officially notified that credits opened in favor of the West Indies had to be stopped;[292] as the emergency had passed and a regular government had been established in France, money could be appropriated from the regular installments paid on the debt. [Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON _From the portrait by Rembrandt Peale_] According to a letter written to Monroe,[293] Jefferson saw with a secret pleasure, the monocrat papers publish the most furious philippics against England, and the old spirit of 1776 rekindled from Charleston to Boston. He expressed the pious wish that "we may be able to repress the spirit of the people within the limits of fair neutrality." But he revolted against what he considered a subservient attitude to England on the part of Hamilton. It is one of the few occasions in which he departed in a letter (I do not count the "Anas") from his judicial attitude: "In the meantime," he said, "Hamilton is panick struck, if we refuse our breech to every kick which Great Britain may choose to give it. In order to preserve even a sneaking neutrality a fight is necessary in every council for our votes are generally two and a half against one and a half." Jefferson's private opinion might have favored the French Revolution, as it undoubtedly did. I do not see, however, that in any important circumstance he departed from the strict line of neutrality which he had traced for the country.