[22] Reflections on the Revolution in France; ib., i, 489. Jefferson well stated the American radical opinion of Burke: "The Revolution of France does not astonish me so much as the Revolution of Mr. Burke.... How mortifying that this evidence of the rottenness of his mind must oblige us now to ascribe to wicked motives those actions of his life which were the mark of virtue & patriotism." (Jefferson to Vaughan, May 11, 1791; Works: Ford, vi, 260.)
[23] Paine had not yet lost his immense popularity in the United States. While, later, he came to be looked upon with horror by great numbers of people, he enjoyed the regard and admiration of nearly everybody in America at the time his Rights of Man appeared.
[24] Writings: Conway, ii, 272.
[25] Writings: Conway, ii, 406. At this very moment the sympathizers with the French Revolution in America were saying exactly the reverse.
[26] Writings: Conway, ii, 278-79, 407, 408, 413, 910.
[27] Compare with Jefferson's celebrated letter to Mazzei (infra, chap. vii). Jefferson was now, however, in Washington's Cabinet.
[28] Jefferson to Paine, June 19, 1792; Works: Ford, vii, 121-22; and see Hazen, 157-60. Jefferson had, two years before, expressed precisely the views set forth in Paine's Rights of Man. Indeed, he stated them in even more startling terms. (See Jefferson to Madison, Sept. 6, 1789; ib., vi, 1-11.)
[29] Writings, J. Q. A.: Ford, i, 65-110. John Quincy Adams wrote these admirable essays when he was twenty-four years old. Their logic, wit, and style suggest the writer's incomparable mother. Madison, who remarked their quality, wrote to Jefferson: "There is more of method ... in the arguments, and much less of clumsiness & heaviness in the style, than characterizes his [John Adams's] writings." (Madison to Jefferson, July 13, 1791; Writings: Hunt, vi, 56.)
The sagacious industry of Mr. Worthington C. Ford has made these and all the other invaluable papers of the younger Adams accessible, in his Writings of John Quincy Adams now issuing.
[30] Jefferson to Adams, July 17, 1791; Works: Ford, vi, 283, and footnote; also see Jefferson to Washington, May 8, 1791; ib., 255-56.