Having reflected on the dilemma, I have concluded that, as it respects myself, I was justifiable in continuing in office during the present year,' on the ground of the sudden innovations in the Administration, which afforded me no opportunity for reflection before the termination of the last session of Congress; that the unsettled state of two of the departments, the removal of the offices to this place, the absence of the President from the seat of Government, and the duty of preserving order in a branch of business which has been committed to my care, were circumstances which should justly dissuade me from an abrupt resignation, while they left me free to exercise my opinion and my rights as an individual upon any question relative to the public policy and interest. To secure myself from the imputation of being concerned in a secret cabal, I have, however, thought it my duty to express my opinions and intentions frankly to my colleagues, in the same manner as I have done to my private correspondents. I am apprised that I shall by some be considered as factious; but the accusation is less offensive than the suspicion of cunning, or subserviency to measures which I seriously disapprove, and to which I should otherwise be opposed."

What the writer of this letter means by saying that he has felt it his duty to express his opinions and "intentions frankly to his colleagues" appears enigmatical. Does any one believe

1 Mr. Wolcott might have adduced high authority:

Iago.

Now, sir, be judge yourself,
Whether I in any just term am affin'd
To love the Moor.

Roderigo. I would not follow him then.
Iago. Oh, sir, content you;

I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,

For naught but provender; and, when he's old, cashier'd;
Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are,

Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,

Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves;

And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,

Do well thrive by them, and, when they have lined their coats,

Do themselves homage: these fellows have some soul;

And such a one do I profess myself,

For, sir,

It is as sure as you are Roderigo,

Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:

In following him, I follow but myself;

Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty

But seeming so, for my peculiar end:

For when my outward action doth demonstrate

The native act and figure of my heart

In compliment extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: 1 am not what I am.

2 Mr. Wolcott again neglected a precedent:
Good, my lord, pardon me;
Though I am bound to every act of duty,

lago.

I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.

Utter my thoughts? Why, say, they are vile and false,-

As where's that palace, whereunto foul things

Sometimes intrude not?

This letter is given entire in Gibbs's Memoirs, etc., vol. ii. p. 416. Mr. Gibbs omits Hamilton's letter of August 3d, to which this is a reply. We take it for granted that it was not in his possession. Hamilton's Works omit Wolcott's answer.

CHAP. XI.]

THE EX-SECRETARIES ASSIST.

557

that he informed Marshall, or Dexter, or Stoddert, or Lee, that he was secretly furnishing materials for an attack on his and their principal, for the purpose of defeating his reëlection?'

In one particular Wolcott was magnanimous. He thought "the publication of particular incidents and conversations, the knowledge of which had resulted from official relations, would, by many good men, be considered improper." There was another material circumstance attending their publication. They could be traced home at once to the "official" informer! He availed' himself, however, throughout his long tissue of subsequent revelations, of facts which were made more familiar and accessible to him than to other men by his official relations, and by Mr. Adams's personal confidence in him. And the only limits he placed on his disclosures were those required to avoid detection."

Pickering and, we regret to add, McHenry, joined in furnishing materials, obtained through their former official relations with the President, for the deadly attack preparing on him.

No one will contend that an official or personal friend has a right, on becoming an enemy, even for good cause, to take advantage of the confidences which grew out of former relations, for the purpose of inflicting a personal injury. Their conduct, however, was excusable compared with Wolcott's. They did not drive this last stab into a confiding victim. They were not yet daily meeting the President in the official and family circle with all that apparent "warm-heartedness and bonhomie" which distinguished Wolcott's manners. Even Pickering's disclosure of a purposed nomination in order to defeat it, lacked the cold-blooded and protracted dissimulation which required months to effect its object.

3

How far a high government official and political leader on

Wolcott could conceive of an equivoke. His letter to Ames at the opening of the sixth Congress contained, it will be remembered, the following passage:

"It was of course necessary to appear to approve of the mission, and yet to express the approbation in such terms as, when critically analyzed, should amount to no approbation at all!"

There can be no doubt, however, that next to the "suspicion of cunning" in himself, the Secretary of the Treasury despised cunning in other men. He wrote McHenry, August 26th, 1800:

Stoddert's pain in the side continues to be troublesome. I think our removal here [to Washington] has made it worse. His case is pretty well understood, even by our new colleagues, to be miserable. Cunning, like murder, will out." (See Gibbs's Memoirs, etc., vol. ii. p. 410.)

One of Wolcott's revelations to Hamilton strikes us as amusing; namely, that at New Haven the President had said to a person of great respectability, that this country could not get along without a hereditary chief. "What necessity," exclaims the Secretary," of saying these things if he thought so.' (See Gibbs's Memoirs, etc., vol. ii. pp. 417, 419.)

This is Mr. Gibbs's description of them.

the same side, who had never been in the President's Cabinet -nay, how far a private gentleman, whether a political friend or foe of the President-had a right in morality and honor to instigate such a treachery, and deliberately avail himself of its fruits, we leave others to decide.

The plot went on; and the correspondence between the widening circle of confederates presents a curious historical study. Wolcott, all treacled over with "warm-heartedness and bonhomie," wrote Hamilton that "certain Federalists were in danger of losing character in the delicate point of sincerity." Ames, while conjuring Hamilton to avoid an exposure of his personal agency-lamenting the " awkward and embarrassing "constraints" under which they were acting-exclaimed, through his tears, "but sincerity will do much to extricate us !"" Cabot felt the "apparent absurdity" of their "dilemma," in pretending to support a man whom "they knew to be unworthy of trust," but he contented himself with laying it all at the door of the "proceedings [Federal nominating caucus] at Philadelphia," or to the "mode of election." Goodhue wrote the Chief that "he abominated the hypocritical part they had been necessitated to act." Stockton thought there was no doubt Mr. Pinckney would be the first choice of the New Jersey Federal electors if chosen, but he thought it would not do to "drop and oppose "Mr. Adams. He believed it would lead to the defeat

4

of those electors. He said:

"It is natural that this should be our condition; the majority of the Legislature are men to whom confidential communications cannot be made; you have seen and know the description of men we have in these stations. They have looked up to a few men to direct them in federal politics. These men [the Federal leaders] have for four years been holding up Mr. A. [Adams] as one of the wisest and firmest men in the United States. What reason could be given for so sudden a change of sentiment? Is there any other reason which could be avowed to such men, of a public nature, but the removal of Mr. P. [Pickering]? It would never be believed but that this [the French] Treaty formed the true objection; that the Federalists, wishing war with France, opposed him, because he had made peace with that nation on honorable terms." 5

1 Hamilton's Works, vol. vi. p. 475.

. . .

* Ib. p. 464.

3 He said, "perhaps it is a natural result of the mode of election, and could not have been avoided!" He thought, however, Mr. Adams could not be discarded as a candidate at so late a period, without "total derangement and defeat in this [Massachusetts] quarter." But his letter shows, nevertheless, that he was quite willing to see Mr. Adams reduced to the second place, and that he approved of Hamilton's preparing exposé. (See Hamilton's Works, vol. vi. p. 460, et seq.)

4 Ibid. p. 478.

Gibbs's Memoirs, etc.. vol. ii. p. 375.

CHAP. XI.]

ATTACK PUBLISHED-BURR'S AGENCY.

559

But it was reserved for the weak hand of McHenry, when he was carried back by a paroxysm of excitement to the better feelings of days which had preceded the tutorings of the Wolcotts and Pickerings, to draw a picture of his fellow-Hamiltonians and their occupations at this period, which in vigor of delineation and coloring has never been equalled:

"Have our party shown that they possess the necessary skill and courage to deserve to be continued to govern? What have they done? They did not (with a few exceptions), knowing the disease, the man and his nature, meet it, when it first appeared, like wise and resolute patriots; they tampered with it, and thought of palliations down to the last day of the late session of Congress. Nay, their conduct even now, notwithstanding the consequences full in their view (should the present chief be elected), in most, if not in all of the States, is tremulous, timid, feeble, deceptive, and cowardly. They write private letters. To whom? To each other. But they do nothing to give a proper direction to the public mind. They observe, even in their conversation, a discreet circumspection generally, ill calculated to diffuse information, or prepare the mass of the people for the result. They meditate in private. Can good come out of such a system? If the party recovers its pristine energy and splendor, shall I ascribe it to such cunning, paltry, indecisive, back-door conduct ?"

When the production which had cost so much labor and correspondence between Hamilton and his followers was completed, he had it printed for private distribution under the caption of "The public conduct and character of John Adams, Esq., President of the United States."

It had scarcely appeared, before Aaron Burr--the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate-had a copy of it in his hands. His biographer and eidolon in political morality, Mr. Davis, admits this, and his own complicity in getting it printed in part in a distant paper (the New London Bee); but he does not descend to particulars. When a fraud was to be boasted of, this was remarkable, and tends strongly to the suspicion that somebody had been the proximate actor in securing a copy of the paper, to whom silence had been stipulated under very stringent conditions. The fact that the substance of Hamilton's letter to Jay (in regard to reconvening the Legislature of New York) appeared in the Aurora before the letter was sent, is a link in this same chain of mystery.

Aaron Burr was the perfect master of petty intrigue; and

This letter is dated July 22, 1800. (See Gibbs's Memoirs, etc., vol. ii. p. 384.) McHenry states in this letter that "Mr. Harper is now clearly of opinion that General Pinckney ought to be preferred."

2 Memoirs of Aaron Burr by Matthew L. Davis, vol. ii. p. 65.

always had in his interest a motley band of scouts and spies (male and female), many of whom would not have probably hesitated to purloin an exposed political paper; and Hamilton was adapted by a variety of circumstances, to be made his easy and frequent victim. With some curious filaments of unwritten history (traditions of New York city) floating in our memory, connected with the facts above named, we have been inclined to suspect that more of Hamilton's secrets than any one has ever dreamed of, were in possession of Burr, fully as soon as they were in that of his own most intimate friends.

The parts of Hamilton's paper which appeared in the Bee, required the publication of the remainder; so that the whole production came before the world."

This is not the place for either a synopsis or review of this long document. It claimed weighty provocations for its preparation that the "author had been assured from respectable authorities Mr. Adams had repeatedly indulged himself in virulent, indecent abuse of him "-" had denominated him a man destitute of every moral principle" "2" had stigmatized him as the leader of a British faction," etc.

In respect to the last charge, Hamilton declared it "shocking to an ingenuous mind to have to combat a slander so vile " -that "he was able to show that his conduct had uniformly given the lie to it!"

He then uttered this unqualified assertion:

"I never advised any connection with Great Britain other than a commercial one; and in this I never advocated the giving to her any privilege or advantage which was not to be imparted to other nations. With regard to her pretensions as a belligerent power in relation to neutrals, my opinions while in the Administration, to the best of my recollection, coincided with those of Mr. Jefferson," etc."

The paper was either dated or published October 22d, we forget which.

2 Mr. Adams was a much better Puritan in his morals than his religious creed, and had no scruples of delicacy about carrying the war against this enemy into Africa, on grounds of personal morality. We suppose that it is true that, before or after Hamilton's attack, he repeatedly alluded with stinging severity to a matter made the subject of an extraordinary pamphlet, published that year under the following caption:

"Observations on certain documents contained in Nos. 5 and 6 of the History of the United States, for the year 1796, in which the charge of speculation against Alexander Hamilton, late Secretary of the Treasury, is fully refuted, written by himself. Philadel phia. Printed pro bono publico, 1800."

It is perhaps worth mentioning that we have failed to observe the most remote allusion to this pamphlet, or the subject-matter of it, in any part of Mr. Jefferson's writings. Those who lived under the same roof with him for upwards of twenty years, and who often heard him discuss Hamilton's public and personal character (even with Colonel Monroe !), never heard the faintest allusion of the kind.

See Hamilton's Works, vol. vii. p. 722. The tone of the entire paragraph deserves attention, but we have not room for it.