with clouds of vain incense and visions of future greatness through which Mr. Jefferson's election could not but ap pear as previous and instrumental to his own elevation, and it conformed apparently with that rural seclusion which the artless philosopher loved as dearly as he did his friend Col. Burr, and was as willing to forsake.

These advantages of the maneuver were not counterbalanced by a single inconvenience. There was not the slightest chance of Mr. Madison's superseding him; for besides that he was a man of personal modesty and of comparatively mild ambition, Mr. Jefferson was entitled by preoccupancy to the head of the opposition; to precedence, by superior age, and the high diplomatic and executive stations he had filled, to the duties of which Mr. Madison was yet a stranger. Had it been in his wish therefore to put himself before Mr. Jefferson, it would not have been in his power. Mr. Madison's situation and character at the time, in short, render it a moral certainty, that Mr. Jefferson's professing a wish to see his election, was simply an expedient to promote his own.

In tracing his correspondence up to the 19th of June, 1796, when he wrote the letter in vulgar abuse of Gen. Lee, and cruel humbug of Gen. Washington, I shall not stop to notice those in which he exasperates the zeal of Mr. Giles's opposition; encourages and counsels that of Mr. Madison; hails the appearance of an inconsiderable demagogue in Pennsylvania as "an acquisition upon which he congratulates republicanism;" caricatures by a most invidious criticism one of the President's messages to Congress, and by lecturing Mr. Rutledge of Carolina, on the debt of public service he had left unpaid to the nation by his retirement from political life, endeavors to provoke a reciprocation of that grateful reproach.

These I shall pass by, as subordinate stratagems in his

grand design, at once exposed by and exposing it, in order to examine his strictures on the next in succession and importance of President Washington's measures-the treaty of amity, commerce and navigation, concluded with the government of Great Britain, on the 19th of November, 1794, by our envoy Mr. Jay.

A sketch has already been attempted of our political parties, from their rise to the period at which Mr. Jefferson took his place at the head of Gen. Washington's cabinet. And it was then observed that occasions very soon presented themselves for such differences of opinion as were likely to be discovered by sects so oppositely constituted. But in the nature of our new relations with Great Britain, causes of peculiar excitement and discussion were found.

Washington and the great body of his political friends readily passed from real war to genuine peace, in conformity with the solemn assurance given to the world in the Decla ration of Independence, that the citizens of the United States would thenceforth hold the British nation like the rest of mankind, "enemies in war, in peace friends." This promise they could well afford to fulfill, having signalized both their opposition to England, and love for their own country, their impatience of tyranny and devotion to freedom in the painful marches and bloody conflicts of a seven years' war. With the return of peace, to the minds of such men returned the sentiments belonging to it-justice, moderation, amity, good faith, and all those fair dispositions that lead to the mutual advantage of nations.

When, therefore, from the unavoidable delay which occurred on our part in executing that article of the treaty of peace which stipulated for the payment by our citizens of a description of debts due to the subjects of Great Britain, that government refused to surrender, in conformity with conditions in the same treaty, certain military posts on

the southern margin of the great lakes, they used their utmost exertions to have our side of the covenant strictly performed, in order to secure the right dependent on it. In the same temper they endeavored to preserve an exact neutrality in the war between France and England, and preferred negotiation with both belligerents, as long as it could be honorably maintained, to war against either, as the means of repairing the actual, and preventing the fnture injury, to which our commerce was exposed by their collision.

As the opposite party had not expended their animosity in the generous trade of war, much of it remained on the conclusion of peace; and as they had not been able to demonstrate their zeal in the Revolution by such bold and patriotic evidences as Gen. Washington and his followers had exhibited, they sought now to display it by an unseasonable hostility toward Great Britain. In this spirit they insinuated that the endeavors of the administration to execute faithfully the treaty of peace, and to establish a commercial intercourse with England, manifested, with other of their measures, a monarchial tendency in their counsels, if not a design to replace us under the dominion of the British crown To color these imputations they alleged that our resistance to the encroachments of France evinced a secret partiality for England-inconsistent with the gratitude due to her rival, and the sympathy which one republic ought to feel for another.

Those against whom these accusations were directed, did not fail, in repelling them, to assert that they proceeded from politicians unduly partial to France, dishonorably insensible to the rights and dignity of their own country, and willing to gratify their lust of power at the expense of her character and interest.

It thus occurred that a habit was engrafted on the public

mind of regarding the measures of government less as they affected our own prosperity, than as they seemed likely to bear upon one or other of these antagonist nations, a habit, which, by the machinations and predominance of Mr. Jefferson, among other consequences, couraged that fond injustice and affectionate inferiority, with which, in a more or less insolent shape, we have been since regarded by the successive governments of France.

en

This being the dispositions of the ins and outs—the one determined to condemn any connection with Great Britain which did not secure, not only all our rights but all our pretensions, and not only all that we pretended to, but every thing that we wished for-the other compelled to choose between the calamity of a war, and the convenience of the best agreement, which, under existing circumstances they could negotiate; it is not surprising that the ratification of Jay's treaty, in which the concessions and advantages of the contracting powers were pretty equally balanced, gave occasion to much discontent and violent censure.

In inflaming this discontent and exacerbating this censure, no one took more pains than Mr. Jefferson. In a letter to Mann Page, (Vol. III. p. 314,) declining attendance at the exhibition of a village academy, he digresses to the subject of the treaty, and takes occasion from it to sneer most indecently at the President. In a letter to Mr. Madison on the next page, (21st Sept. 1795,) urging him to answer a piece which Hamilton had published in explanation of the advantages of the treaty, he states his opinion of it in the following words-" It certainly is an attempt of a party, who find they have lost their majority in one branch of the legislature, to make a law by the aid of the other branch, and of the Executive, under color of a treaty which shall bind up the hands of the adverse branch, from ever restraining the commerce of their patron nation.'

This objection implies, not that any right of the United States had been sacrificed or interest neglected, but that the commerce of Great Britain was not to be restrained. As to the word ever, the violence of its misapplication can be conceived only by reflecting that the treaty, in its principal articles, was limited expressly to ten years.

In the same letter he tells Mr. Madison that a number of Hamilton's pieces had been sent to him, with an answer by a Mr. Beckley; and that he gave these, "the poison and the antidote, to honest, sound-hearted men of common understanding," by way of experiment. Finding that Hamilton's pieces, in spite of Beckley's answer, produced conviction on the minds of these honest, common-sense citizens, he adds with rare simplicity, "I have ceased therefore to give them"- showing that this advocate for the diffusion of knowledge, for "leaving reason free to combat error of opinion," had no scruple in suppressing arguments however clear and convincing, if at variance with his own interested views. It does not appear that Mr. Madison could be induced to enter the lists in this controversy, finding it probably more easy to join Mr. Jefferson in reprobating the treaty, than to oppose Hamilton's logic in its defense.

No. XVII.

JEFFERSON'S CELEBRATED LETTER TO MAZZEI.

THE course of Mr. Jefferson's correspondence next leads us to his famous letter to Mazzei, which, in a futile attempt to explain it, he denominates (Vol. IV. p. 40ì,) “a pre