When Jefferson remained in town after leaving his office, he spent more and more time in the library of the Philosophical Society, at the home of Dr. Rush talking books more than politics, or he went to the welcome shade of ‘Stenton,’ where he was always sure of a cordial greeting from Dr. Logan and that incomparable Quakeress who was his wife. To Madison he opened his heart in the lament that he found ‘even the rare hours of relaxation sacrificed to the society of persons ... of whose hatreds I am conscious even in those moments of conviviality when the heart wishes most to open itself to the effusions of friendship and confidence, cut off from my family and friends ... in short giving everything I love in exchange for everything I hate.’[835] The attacks on Washington, which society ascribed to the influence of Jefferson, made his position all the more unpleasant. Articles signed ‘Democrat’, or ‘Veritas’ foully assailing the President appeared in Federalists papers. The worst of these, Jefferson thought, were written by his enemies for the purpose of embittering decent men against his party. It was even whispered about that he was the author of the ‘Veritas’ letters, for Genêt, in an attempt to impress his Government with his own power, hinted that Jefferson had written them. The latter talked it over with Tobias Lear, the President’s secretary, and made an investigation of his own, concluding that the author was William Irvine, a clerk in the Comptroller’s office. ‘I have long suspected this detestible game was playing by the fiscal party to place the President on their side,’ Jefferson wrote.[836] It was manifestly absurd, but society preferred to believe it.
Unpleasant as was the attitude of the fashionable circles, it was not so offensive to Jefferson as the constant quarreling and intriguing in official circles. He complained that he and Hamilton were always against each other like cocks in a pit. He was never fond of futile disputation. His own views were fixed, as were those of his opponent. He was too much the philosopher to enjoy argumentation that accomplished nothing. Long before that summer he had wanted to retire, and, as we have seen, had only been dissuaded by the importunities of Washington, but he was now intolerably tired of it all. Acknowledging a letter from a friend in Paris, he had written, in reference to the ‘oppressive scenes of business,’ that ‘never was mortal more tired of these than I am.’[837] Three months earlier, he had promised his daughter Martha that the next year they would ‘sow [their] cabbages together.’
By July the situation was becoming unendurable. It was about this time, when he was writing his notes to Hammond, the British Minister, who was an intimate friend of Hamilton’s, that Oliver Wolcott, the mere shadow of his chief, was bitterly complaining of Jefferson’s ‘duplicity of character’ in treating Hammond harshly.[838] These were the notes to which John Marshall gave the highest praise in his ‘Life of Washington,’ but the observation of Wolcott reflected the tone of society.
On July 31st, the philosopher-politician seated under his plane trees might have read an attack upon himself in Fenno’s paper charging him with crimes against his country committed in such a way as ‘to keep him out of reach of the law.’[839] That very day he sat down at his desk to write his resignation. Six days later, Washington drove out to Jefferson’s country place, and out on the lawn sought again to dissuade his Secretary of State from his purpose. But he had had enough. With some bitterness, he told the President that ‘the laws of society oblige me always to move exactly in the circle which I know to bear me peculiar hatred ... and thus surrounded, my words are caught up, multiplied, misconstrued, and even fabricated and spread abroad to my injury.’[840] Convinced that Jefferson was unshakable, Washington discussed, with him, a possible successor. He favored Madison, but feared he would not accept, and then asked Jefferson’s opinion of Jay and Smith, both rabid Hamiltonians. Jefferson asked him if he had ever thought of Chancellor Livingston. He had—but Hamilton was from New York. What did Jefferson know about Wolcott? ‘I have heard him characterized as a very cunning man,’ was the dry reply. It was finally agreed that Jefferson should remain on until January.[841]
XIII
August was a dreadful month in Philadelphia, a dry, deadening heat making the days and nights unbearable. Any one walking near Water Street was sickened by the fetid smells from the stinking wharves. Politically conditions were as depressing. The bitter party struggle went on. Even the heat and smells could not give it pause. Bache’s paper published a letter describing Viscount de Noailles as ‘a man who was employed by the late King of France to bribe the members of the Convention ... and afterwards ran off with the money’; and the next day the nobleman, swords and pistols in his eyes, appeared to demand that the editor publish a denial and furnish the name of the author of the article. Thinking discretion the better part of valor, Bache gave ‘Mr. Pascal, the Secretary of Genêt,’ as the author and society expected a French duel—to be disappointed.[842] Genêt was hurrying off to New York to accept an ovation and the Hamiltonians began to lose faith in Washington, because he sat ‘with folded arms’ and let the Government ‘be carried on by town meetings.’ The Federalists were concluding that town meetings were a vicious influence. Meetings of Chambers of Commerce were different.[843] But it was reserved for Boston to give the Federalists their greatest shock when at the masthead of the French frigate La Concorde, appeared the names of eleven staid men of the city placarded as ‘aristocrats,’ and unfriendly to the French Republic. The charge was true, but here was something that smacked of the Terror in Paris. With the town seething with righteous wrath, a committee boarded the vessel and demanded the removal of the placard. The officers expressed surprise that it was there, apologized, removed it. But the opportunity was too good to be lost. ‘I wish to know what is to be their [the eleven citizens’] punishment, and who is to execute it,’ wrote ‘A Free American’ in the ‘Centinel.’ ‘Are they to suffer by the lamp post or by the guillotine here, or are they to be sent in irons to Paris to suffer there?’[844] Viewing the scene, as became a Cabot, from the vantage-point of aristocratic aloofness, George Cabot was alarmed. He wrote King of his ‘amazement’ at ‘the rapid growth of Jacobin feeling.’ Why had not the truth concerning France been told the people? Had she not ‘obstructed our commercial views?’[845] Had Cabot unbent to the reading of the ‘Independent Chronicle’ of his city he might have understood the cause of the ‘growth of Jacobin feeling.’ It fairly teemed with the French and their Revolution. ‘In case of distress whence is our succor to arise?’ it demanded. ‘Is there one among the combined powers contending against France on whose cordiality we could depend?’[846] Ask the soldier of our Revolution who helped win American independence. ‘Who were the men who marched in columns to the capture of Cornwallis—or whose navy thundered the music of that defeat?’[847]
Then, with September, the reaper of Death stalked through the streets of Philadelphia.
XIV
It began with the filth and sickening smells of Water Street and spread like the deadly gas of modern battle-fields over the city. The poor of the congested quarters near the water-front fell like flies in winter. Soon it spread to the best residential sections. The evident inability of the physicians to cope with the disease increased the terror. Washington was ordered out of the city and hastened to Mount Vernon, and Knox took to precipitate flight.[848] Soon all the great houses were closed, and every one who could afford it abandoned his business and fled from the stricken city. Soon half the houses were abandoned, and they who remained locked their doors, closed the windows, and lived in complete isolation as far as possible.[849]
Day and night the death-carts rumbled through the town and a covered wagon was kept busy conveying the sick to Bush Hill Hospital in the country—a dismal wagon with a bed, drawn by a weary horse.[850] With half the stores closed, the upward bound in the cost of provisions intensified the distress of the poor.[851] The streets were as those of a dead city, no one caring to brush against the black robe of the grim reaper that was taking such an appalling harvest. One observer looking down the street one day could not see a single soul.[852] Terror seized upon every one. Lifelong friends evaded one another like guilty creatures. Even the families of the stricken fled, leaving the suffering to die in barbarous neglect.[853] One man determined to remain in the city, but passing twelve corpses in the streets, he summoned a carriage and fled in horror.[854] Only the negroes seemed immune, and ‘much to their honor, they ... zealously contributed all in their power.’[855] And to accentuate the horror, the rumble of the death-cart, the cries of the dying, the groans of the abandoned, were mingled with the bold footsteps of the robbers making their way from one deserted mansion to another.’[856] Panic everywhere. A toothache, and the victim was on the verge of collapse from fright—it was the fever.[857] Timothy Pickering had a twinge, and off he hastened to the doctor to be bled, put on a starvation diet, and sent on long horseback rides into the country ‘for pure air.’ Many died literally from fear, and the horror of the scenes and sounds.[858]