TO GOVERNOR CLINTON.
Washington, December 31, 1803.
Dear Sir,—I received last night your favor of the 22d, written on the occasion of the libellous pamphlet lately published with you. I began to read it, but the dulness of the first page made me give up the reading for a dip into here and there a passage, till I came to what respected myself. The falsehood of that gave me a test for the rest of the work, and considering it always useless to read lies, I threw it by. As to yourself, be assured no contradiction was necessary. The uniform tenor of a man's life furnishes better evidence of what he has said or done on any particular occasion than the word of an enemy, and of an enemy too who shows that he prefers the use of falsehoods which suit him to truths which do not. Little squibs in certain papers had long ago apprized me of a design to sow tares between particular republican characters, but to divide those by lying tales whom truths cannot divide, is the hackneyed policy of the gossips of every society. Our business is to march straight forward to the object which has occupied us for eight and twenty years, without either turning to the right or left. My opinion is that two or three years more will bring back to the fold of republicanism all our wandering brethren whom the cry of "wolf" scattered in 1798. Till that is done, let every man stand to his post, and hazard nothing by change. And when that is done, you and I may retire to the tranquillity which our years begin to call for, and revise with satisfaction the efforts of the age we happened to be born in, crowned with complete success. In the hour of death we shall have the consolation to see established in the land of our fathers the most wonderful work of wisdom and disinterested patriotism that has ever yet appeared on the globe.
In confidence that you will not be weary in well doing, I tender my wishes that your future days may be as happy as your past ones have been useful, and pray you to accept my friendly salutations and assurances of high consideration and respect.