dealing out of treasury secrets among his friends in what time and measure he pleases, and who never slips an occasion of making friends with his means, that such an one I say would have brought forward a charge against me for having appointed the poet Freneau translating clerk to my office with a salary of 250 dollars a year." After explaining precisely what he did when the office became vacant Jefferson adds that, when Freneau's paper was started, he had looked forward to the chastisement of aristocratic and monarchical writers and not to criticisms of the government. But he did not think there was any harm in the Government having a critic in Freneau's paper as well as a flatterer in Fenno's. But was not the dignity and even the decency of government committed when one of its principal ministers enlisted himself as an anonymous writer or paragraphist? It is a pity that the sentences which follow are not even at this day better understood: "No government ought to be without censors, and where the press is free none ever will. If virtuous, it need not fear the fair operation of attack and defence. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting out the truth either in religion, laws, or politics." In a concluding paragraph Jefferson rejoiced that Washington had agreed to be nominated for a second term; but his own resolution to retire was unchanged, and he looked forward to it "with the longing of a wave worn mariner who has at length the land in view." Until that day arrived he would not disturb the government by newspaper controversy; but on becoming again a private citizen "if my own justification, or the interests of the republic shall require it, I reserve to myself the right of then appealing to my country, subscribing my name to whatever I write, and using with freedom and truth the facts and names necessary to place the cause in its just form before that tribunal." Hamilton's reply to the President expressed an “anxious wish to smooth the path of his administration," and praised the President for trying to restore harmony in the Cabinet. But his own contribution to harmony was to be a continuation of 'American' under the new pseudonym of 'Catullus.' Evidently he had contracted with Fenno to keep the pot boiling; for, as he puts it to Washington: "I cannot conceal from you that I have had some instrumentality of late in the retaliations which have fallen upon certain public characters, and that I find myself placed in a situation not to be able to recede for the present." Even the purple patches and tit-bits of 'Catullus' are not particularly good. The invective lacks finish, as when he pretends to have stripped the garb of quaker simplicity from the concealed voluptuary; or in the following: "Mr. Jefferson has hitherto been distinguished as the quiet, modest, retiring philosopher and the plain, simple, unambitious Republican. He shall now for the first time be regarded as the intriguing incendiary, the aspiring turbulent competitor." 1 Though Jefferson never condescended to answer Hamilton in the press, he wrote one public letter which may perhaps have served a purpose at the time and might serve another now: TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Philadelphia, January 2, 1793. SIR, According to the Resolution of the House of Representatives, of the 31st of December, delivered to me yesterday, I have the honour to lay 1 See the third article of 'Catullus' which appeared September 29, 1792. before you a list of the several persons employed in my office, with the salaries allowed to each, as follows: George Taylor, jr. (of New York), chief clerk, his salary fixed by law Jacob Blackwell (of New York), clerk George Pfeiffer (of Pennsylvania), clerk. Dollars. 800 500 500 250 Philip Freneau (of New York), clerk for foreign languages The act of Congress of June the 4th, 1790, c. 18, allowed me an additional clerk with the same salary as the chief clerk. After the retirement of the person first appointed, whose services had been particularly desirable, because of his long and intimate acquaintance with the papers of the office, it did not appear necessary to make further use of the indulgence of that law. No new appointment, therefore, has been made. The clerk for foreign languages has but half the usual salary. I found his clerkship on this establishment when I came into office, and made no change in it, except that, in the time of his predecessor, when translations were required from any language with which he was unacquainted, they were sent to a special translator, and paid for by the public. The present clerk is required to defray this expense himself. I have the honour to be, with the most perfect respect, Sir, Your most obedient and most humble servant, TH. JEFFERSON. Such was the staff with which Jefferson conducted the principal department of government in a manner which on his retirement evoked the applause even of the Federalists. Mr. Gladstone himself could not have asked for a more perfect union of economy and efficiency. At the end of September, 1792, Jefferson started from Monticello for Philadelphia, stopping for a night at Mount Vernon, where the President, after a long talk about the Monarchists, the Treasury, and the Funding system, again exhorted him not to retire. The Ana and Washington's own letters show how earnestly the President sought to mediate between his two secretaries and to bring about an accommodation. Having consented to stand for a second time he was chosen by a unanimous vote of the Electoral College. John Adams was re-elected to the Vice Presidency, receiving seventy-seven votes, a majority of twenty-seven over George Clinton of New York, the republican candidate. CHAPTER III PUBLIC CREDIT AND WAR DEBTS "It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright." HE first Congress under the new Constitution of the T By the end of September, when it adjourned, it had enacted a tariff and had thus provided the Government with means of restoring public credit. The war had been financed partly by paper money, partly by loans, foreign and domestic. On the domestic loans Congress had defaulted, and their value had fallen very low. Hearing of Hamilton's intentions speculators began to buy up debt certificates at rapidly rising prices during the summer and autumn of 1789. Hamilton admitted that many holders of the domestic debt had bought it at a fourth or a fifth of its face value. But his report on the Public Credit (January, 1790) insisted that all holders alike of the foreign and domestic debt should receive the face value of their certificates plus accrued interest; and his view prevailed over the opposition of Madison, who wished to discriminate against speculators in favour of the original holders. Madison and his party in the House of Representatives were really champions of the soldiers and farmers who had parted with their certificates in ignorance of what was coming, while the Hamiltonian party stood for the mercantile and financial interests which now owned the great |