On the twenty-fourth of April, in a letter to his friend, Philip Mazzei,[99] then in Florence—a letter which afterward drew down upon the author the most severe comments—he said, “The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left us. In place of that noble love of liberty and republican government which carried us triumphantly through the war, an Anglican monarchical and aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is, to draw over us the substance, as they have already done the form, of the British government. The main body of our citizens, however, remain true to their republican principles; the whole landed interest is republican, and so is a great mass of talent. Against us are the executive; the judiciary; two out of three branches of the legislature; all the officers of the government; all who want to be officers; all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty; British merchants, and Americans trading on British capital; speculators and holders in the banks and public funds, a contrivance invented for the purposes of corruption, and for assimilating us in all things to the rotten as well as the sound parts of the British model. It would give you a fever were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies; men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England. In short, we are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained, only by unremitting labors and perils. But we shall preserve it; and our mass of weight and wealth on the good side is so great, as to leave no danger that force will ever be attempted against us. We have only to awake and snap the Lilliputian cords with which they have been entangling us during the first sleep which succeeded our labors.”[100]
A little later, when the government had triumphed in the matter of the treaty, and the public acquiesced, Mr. Jefferson wrote to Monroe, in Paris; “You will have seen, by their proceedings, the truth of what I have always observed to you, that one man outweighs them all in influence over the people, who have supported his judgment against their own, and that of their representatives. Republicanism must lie on its oars, resign the vessel to its pilot, and themselves to the course he thinks best for them.” In this manner the professedly retired statesman, deceived by demagogues, taking Bache's abusive and unscrupulous “Aurora” as his compass in current politics, and with his judgment sadly warped by his prejudices, he threw out, in various directions, ungenerous insinuations against Washington, who, at that moment, was confiding implicitly in Jefferson's integrity, justice, sincerity, and personal friendship. He would not allow himself to be even suspicious of any duplicity or dishonor on the part of his late secretary, even when that gentleman himself supposed Washington had reason to suspect him.
In Bache's “Aurora,” on the ninth of June, were disclosed, by an anonymous writer, a series of questions submitted by Washington, in strict confidence, to the cabinet in 1793, concerning the reception of Genet, and the force of the treaty with France. These were published with the evident design to prejudice the executive in the public mind. This startled Jefferson, and he thought it necessary to put in an immediate disclaimer of all participation in the matter. He wrote to Washington on the nineteenth of June, saying, in reference to the document, “It having been confided to but few hands, makes it truly wonderful how it should have got there. I can not be satisfied as to my own part, till I relieve my mind by declaring—and I attest everything sacred and honorable to the declaration—that it has got them, neither through me nor the paper confided to me. This has never been from under my own lock and key, or out of my own hands. No mortal ever knew from me that these questions had been proposed.” Mr. Jefferson then expressed his belief, that one who had been their mutual friend “thought it worth while to sow tares” between the president and himself, and denounced him as an “intriguer, dirtily employed in sifting the conversations of his table, where, alone, he could hear him.”[101] The person here alluded to was General Henry Lee, of Virginia, who had lately become attached to the federal party, and incurred the political enmity of Jefferson.
This letter drew from Washington a most noble reply. On the sixth of July he wrote: “If I had entertained any suspicions before, that the queries, which have been published in Bache's paper, proceeded from you, the assurances you have given of the contrary would have removed them; but the truth is, I harbored none. I am at no loss to conjecture from what source they flowed, through what channel they were conveyed, and for what purpose they and similar publications appear. They were known to be in the hands of Mr. Parker in the early part of the last session of Congress. They were shown about by Mr. Giles during the session, and they made their public exhibition about the close of it.
“Perceiving and, probably, hearing, that no abuse in the gazettes would induce me to take notice of anonymous publications against me, those who were disposed to do me such friendly offices, have embraced, without restraint, every opportunity to weaken the confidence of the people; and, by having the whole game in their hands, they have not scrupled to publish things that do not, as well as those which do exist, and to mutilate the latter, so as to make them subserve the purposes which they have in view.
“As you have mentioned the subject yourself, it would not be frank, candid, or friendly, to conceal, that your conduct has been represented as derogating from that opinion I had conceived you entertained of me; that, to your particular friends and connections you have described, and they have denounced, me as a person under a dangerous influence; and that, if I would listen more to some other opinions, all would be well. My answer invariably has been, that I had never discovered anything in the conduct of Mr. Jefferson to raise suspicion in my mind of his insincerity; that, if he would retrace my public conduct while he was in the administration, abundant proofs would occur to him, that truth and right decisions were the sole objects of my pursuit; that there were as many instances, within his own knowledge, of my having decided against, as in favor, of the opinions of the persons evidently alluded to; and, moreover, that I was no believer in the infallibility of the politics or measures of any man living. In short, that I was no party man myself, and the first wish of my heart was, if parties did exist, to reconcile them.”
This portion of Washington's letter must have been felt by Mr. Jefferson as a severe rebuke of his real insincerity, in throwing out precisely such insinuations as Washington here alludes to. Washington continued:—
“To this I may say, and very truly, that, until within the last year or two, I had no conception that parties would, or even could, go the length I have been witness to; nor did I really believe, until lately, that it was within the bounds of probability, hardly within those of possibility, that, while I was using my utmost exertions to establish a national character of our own, independent, as far as our obligations and justice would permit, of every nation of the earth, and wished, by steering a steady course, to preserve this country from the horrors of a desolating war, I should be accused of being the enemy of one nation, and subject to the influence of another; and, to prove it, that every act of my administration would be tortured, and the grossest and most insidious misrepresentations of these be made, by giving one side only of a subject, and that, too, in such exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero, a notorious defaulter, or even to a common pickpocket. But enough of this, I have already gone further in the expression of my feelings than I intended.”[102]
When Congress had disposed of the treaty by voting appropriations for the purpose of executing it, nothing remained to complete the business but the appointment of the several officers to carry out its provisions. These were immediately made. David Howell, of Rhode Island, was made commissioner for ascertaining the true river St. Croix; Messrs. Fitzsimons and Innes (the latter soon succeeded by Mr. Sitgreaves) were appointed commissioners on the subject of British debts; and Messrs. Gore and Pinckney commissioners for settling claims for British spoliations.
Some diplomatic changes were made at about this time; Rufus King was appointed minister to England, in place of Thomas Pinckney, who wished to return home; Colonel Humphreys was appointed minister to Spain, in place of Mr. Carmichael, deceased; John Quincy Adams, son of the vice-president, left the Hague, to which he had been accredited, and succeeded Humphreys at Lisbon; and Mr. Murray took Adam's place in Holland. The president was authorized to appoint two or more agents, one to reside in Great Britain, the others at such points as the executive might choose, to investigate and report concerning all impressments of American seamen by British cruisers.