AMONG the means employed by the anarchi­cal Assemblies of France, in the propagation of their detestable principles, that of corruption may be re­garded as one of the most powerful, and, accordingly, it has ever shared a principal part of their attention. If we take a survey of their confiscations, proscrip­tions and assassinations, from the seizure of the pro­perty of the ecclesiastics, by the Constituent Assem­bly, down to the horrid butcheries of Carrier, we shall find that this has often been a leading motive for perpetrating of those deeds, which will blacken the French name as long as honesty and humanity shall be esteemed amongst men. It is, at least, an object of which they have never lost fight, and which they have spared nothing to accomplish. They have ransacked the coffers of the rich, stripped poverty of its very rags, robbed the infant of its birth-right, wrenched the crutch from the hand of tottering old age, and, joining sacrilege to burglary, have plun­dered even the altars of God, in order to possess themselves of the means of corrupting degenerate foreigners.

That their plans of seduction have been but two successful they themselves avow. Like the gang of highwaymen in the subterraneous cave, each mounts [Page 6] the polluted tribune in his turn, and tells his tale of corruption. According to their own acknowledge­ments, they have expended millions upon millions in this commerce of consciences, since they have called their country a republic; and, which is well worthy of remark, these immense sums have all been expended, with a trifling exception, in the republi­can states that have condescended to fraternize with them. The patriots of Geneva and Holland, of Ge­noa and Switzerland, have been bought with the treasures extorted from the unhappy French. The two former states are, in every political point of view, annihilated, and the two latter exist as a proof, that states as well as individuals may sometimes triumph in successful baseness and venality.

The people of the United States of America had not the mortification to see their country included in the dark catalogue; and, though it was evident to every discerning man, that some such influence began to prevail, in different parts of the Union, soon after the arrival of Citizen Genet; though it was impossible to account for the foundation of the Democratic Clubs, and for the countenance they received from many persons of weight and authority [particularly in the State of Pennsylvania, where the secretary of the state was at the head of the Mo­ther Club] upon any other principle; though peo­ple were daily seen acting in direct opposition to their apparant interests; and though the partizans of France did not hesitate openly to declare their en­mity to the President of the United States and to the government he had been chosen to administer; not­withstanding all these striking and well-known facts, the great body of the people would have regarded any one as a slanderer of their national character, who should have insinuated, that the secrets of their government, and their most important interests, were the price of that sudden exaltation that every [Page 7] where appeared among the persons devoted to the will of the French minister. The people might have re­mained in this delusive confidence, 'till their con­stitution had been subverted, and 'till they had been plunged into a calamitous foreign war, or driven to the dire necessity of shedding each other's blood, had it not been for the accidental interception of the letter, that has led to the Vindication on which I have here undertaken to make a few observations.

Before I enter on the Vindication itself, two cir­cumstances present themselves as subjects of prelimi­nary observation: the time, and the manner, of its being introduced to the public.

Mr. Randolph informs us, that he gave in his resignation on the 19th of August, in consequence of his having been interrogated on the contents of an intercepted letter of the French minister, Ci­tizen Fauchet; and we all know, that his Vindica­tion, if vindication it must be, did not appear 'till the 18th of December; a space of exactly four months, wanting one day. When he had given in his resignation, he did not remain at Philadelphia to court the inquiry that he talks so much of, but flew away to Rhode Island, in order to overtake Mr. Fauchet, by whose very letter he stood accused, and to obtain from him a certificate of his innocence and morality. We shall see by and by how he was em­ployed during his stay at Rhode Island; at present we must follow him back to Philadelphia, where we find him arrived on the 21st of September, thirty three days after his departure, and writing to the President of the United States, to inform him, that he is preparing his Vindication with all imaginable dispatch; and of this he had taken care to inform the public several days before. After this notifica­tion, it was impossible that the people should not hourly expect to see, in the public papers, an elucida­tion of the whole affair. What then must be their [Page 8] astonishment, when, after having waited with the utmost impatience for three long weeks, they were given to understand, that the boasting Vindicator could not close his laborious performance, without having access to certain other papers of a confiden­tial nature! The request for these papers, all eva­sive and malicious as it was, was at once granted by the President. This pretended obstacle being remo­ved, one would have imagined that shame would have prevented him from framing further delays; but, alas! shame has but little power, when honour has deserted the breast.

Two months longer was the publication put off, and we now find it to contain no more original mat­ter than any man, accustomed to writing, would have prepared for the press in the space six or seven days at most. That the Vindicator has not amused himself in polishing his style, every one will allow that reads him. Besides, a man, whose reputation is suspended, and who is conscious of his innocence, does not waste his precious time in the pointing of a thought, or the rounding of a period. Truth needs no embellishment.

The Vindicator's motives for this delay are not difficult to be divined. He wanted time to spread reports to the prejudice of the President, and to prepare the minds of the people in his own favour: hence the idle tales of a British faction, and hence the pitiful pleadings of the Calm Observer. It was probable, too, that, by delaying the publication till after the meeting of congress, it might be brought out at a moment when some decision of that body, respecting the Treaty, might irritate the feelings of the people against the president's conduct; and, by directing their attention to that part of the Vindica­tion intended to criminate him, might turn the shaft of their censure from the Vindicator himself. Be­sides, Mr. Randolph had not been so assiduous a stu­dier [Page 9] of the temper of the multitude (for the multi­tude was all he could hope to deceive) to be igno­rant, that their minds, after being kept so long on the stretch, would begin to relax; and that indiffer­ence would succeed to curiosity. In short, inde­pendent of every other consideration, to gain time, we may well suppose, was with him a capital object. To this he was led by the motive common to all men in his situation: every one endeavours to put off the evil hour; and he justly regarded the hour of the appearance of his Vindication, as that in which he would be swung off into eternal ignominy.

However, whether any or all of these motives, were the real cause of the procrastination, or not, is a matter of great indifference; I defy any one to account for it in a way compatible with his honour. He knew that he stood accused of a most heinous offence against his country, and had he been con­fident, nay had he hoped, that he was in possession of the testimony of his innocence, he never would have witheld it so long.

Nor shall we find, that the manner of his intro­ducing his Vindication to the public speaks more in his favour.

In his letter of resignation, he says to the Presi­dent: ‘I am satisfied, Sir, that you will acknow­ledge one piece of justice on this occasion, which is, that until an inquiry can be made, the affair shall continue in secrecy under your injunction.’ But, after his return from Rhode-Island, knowing that the President could not lay an injunction for the time past, and knowing also, that a copy of the dreadful dispatch was in the hands of Mr. Bond, on whom the President could lay no injunction at all, he suspected the affair had got abroad, which was, indeed, the case; it was then, and not be­fore, that, making a virtue of necessity, he inform­ed [Page 10] the public, by publishing a letter he had written to the President, that he would prepare a Vindica­tion of his conduct.

After this he suffered the matter to rest for some time, and then published an extract from another letter to the President, dated the 8th of October, in the following words: ‘You must be sensible, Sir, that I am inevitably driven into the discussion of many confidential and delicate points. I could with safety immediately appeal to the people of the United States, who can be of no party. But I shall wait for your answer to this letter, so far as it res­pects the paper desired, before I forward to you my general letter, which is delayed for no other cause. I shall also rely that you will consent to the whole of this affair, howsoever confidential and delicate, being exhibited to the world.— At the same time I prescribe to myself this condi­tion, not to mingle any thing which I do not sin­cerely conceive to belong to the subject.’

By this stroke our Vindicator imagined, he had reduced the President to a dilemma, from which he would be unable to extricate himself. He thought that the President's circumspect disposition would lead him to refuse the communication of the paper demanded; and, in that case, he would have im­pressed on the public mind an idea of its containing something, at once capable of acquitting himself, and of criminating the President. And, should the paper be granted, he hoped that he should be able to make such comments on it, as would, at least, render the chief of the executive as odious as himself.

The President did not balance a moment on the course he should take. "It is not difficult," says he in his answer, ‘to perceive what your objects are; but that you may have no cause to complain of the withholding any paper (however private and [Page 11] confidential), which you shall think necessary in a case of so serious a nature, I have directed that you should have the inspection of my letter of the 22d of July, agreeably to your request: and you are at full liberty to publish, without reserve, any and every private and confidential letter I ever wrote you; nay more, every word I ever uttered to, or in your presence, from whence you can derive any advantage in your justification.’

I am sorry that the bounds, within which I pro­pose to confine myself, do not permit me to give the reader the whole of this noble letter; here, howe­ver, is sufficient to prove the generous deportment of the writer. These extracts most eminently de­pict the minds of the parties: in one we hear the bold, the undaunted language of conscious integri­ty, and, in the other, the faultering accents of guilt.

Baffled in this project of recrimination, the Vin­dicator had recourse to others, if possible, still more unmanly. A paragraph appeared in the public pa­pers, as extracted from a Carolina gazette, telling us a shocking tale about Mr. Randolph having been ill-treated by the President, who had been worked up by a wicked British faction to accuse him (from something that had been discovered by an intercept­ed letter of Mr. Fauchet) of having his price, and that, in consequence, poor Mr. Randolph had been sacrificed, merely, because he had advised the Presi­dent not to sign the treaty with Great Britain. This simpleton of a story concluded with some patriotic reflections on the formidableness of the British fac­tion, and the great danger of acting contrary to their will and pleasure.

After an infinity of other subterfuges and precau­tions, the Vindication itself comes forth; not in the face of day, like the honest innocent man from [Page 12] his peaceful dwelling; but like the thief from his hiding place, preceded by his skulking precursors. These numerous tricks and artifices have, however, all failed: the public has had the candour to pre­judge nothing: the thunder has been reserved for the day of judgment.

Should the Vindicator be able to find some quib­ble to excuse these preliminary manoeuvres, how will he justify the sale of his pretended Vindication? If it be not necessary to the justification of his con­duct, while in the service of the public, why is it published? and, if it be, how dares he attempt to make them pay for it? He every where boasts of his pure republicanism, and fawningly courts the fa­vour of the people, by calling on them to judge be­tween him and his patron, the President. He pre­tends to have held his office from them, though eve­ry one knows that he held it from the President, at whose pleasure he was removeable, and to whom a­lone he was, in this case, accountable, But, allow him to hold his office from the people, it is to them he owes an account of his behaviour therein, and that gratis, too.

It has been asserted, by him, or by his printer (it is of little consequence which), that he is to de­rive no pecuniary advantage from the sale. But, what is this to the purchaser? If he is obliged to pay two shillings and nine pence three farthings for the Vindication, where is the difference to him, whe­ther Mr. Randolph or Mr. Smith pockets the mo­ney. Should it appear, at last, that the Vindicator is to share in the profits of the work, he will have the honour of introducing an improvement into the art of vindicating: men have often been known to barter their reputations; but to derive profit from a public sale of the proofs of their having done so, is as yet without an instance on the annals of corrup­tion. I will not, however, profess to believe that [Page 13] this is the case: many reasons render it improbable. No; his grand object here, as every where else, was to narrow the circulation of the evidence against him. He has so managed it as not only to make the public pay for what they had a right to demand information of without payment, but, by confining the copy-right to his friend Smith, he has reserved to himself the power of limiting the number of co­pies; and, it is very probable, that the Vindication may be out of print in less than a month. Special care has been taken to place at the head of the book the instrument by which all others are forbidden to print it, and an extract from the act of congress, made ‘for the encouragement of learning, by se­curing the copies, &c.’ This is a fair menace; as if he had said: Here is my vindication; but if any one dares to re-publish it, I will prosecute him according to law.—God of republicanism! if there be such a deity, could it ever be imagined, that a law, made in a country that seems to be the receptacle of all the patriots upon the face of the earth, for the express pur­pose of encouraging learning, and enlightening the people, would have been made a handle of to keep them in darkness and ignorance, concerning crimes of the most momentous nature, imputed to those who pretend to glory in being called public ser­vants!

Had Mr. Randolph been sincere in his desire to appeal to the people, he would have endeavoured to make that appeal as general as possible; and what, I ask, would have presented itself to him as the most likely mean of effecting this? Would he not have sent a copy of it to a printer of a gazette, re­questing at the same time all the other printers of gazettes, in the United States, to re-publish it? This was the method practised with respect to the British depredations, and all the other little spiteful stories of the same sort, and we know that it has ever met [Page 14] with the wished-for success. Why was it not, then, adopted on the present occasion? Mr. Randolph's friends say (for, astonishing as it may seem, friends he has) that, by a newspaper publication, it would have appeared in a mutilated, incomplete state. To this I reply; that, had he sent his copy to his ga­zetteer, Mr. Brown, we should have had every line of it in the Philadelphia Gazette at one time; or, at least, we should have had a right to expect it; for, the trial of Hardy, which my old friend Brown published about a year ago, to prove to us that the British government was just that minute going to pieces like an old crazy hulk, contained much more matter than the work of our Vindicator. It is very true, that Mr. Brown might not have imagined that his customers were so nearly interested in the precious confessions of the ex-secretary of state, as in the fate of a seditious cobler at London; more espe­cially as the former might not be thought extremely honourable to republicanism: yet, there can be but little doubt but he would have complied; for, as to the reputation of his paper it could be in no dan­ger even from the insertion of the vindication, af­ter the nonsense, the falshoods, the blasphemies, and the bawdry, of which it has so long been the vehicle. By only sending it, then, to the press of this industrious, vulgar, and voluminous quid nunc, two or three thousand copies of it would have been distributed through the dark lanes and alleys of Philadelphia in the space of forty-eight hours: we should have met with it in every direction, and in every shape that inanimate nature can assume: not a garret, not a reeking stove-hole, would have been without a copy: the windows of Paddy's filthy cab­bin, and even the crannies of citizen Pompey's hovel, might have exhibited as clear and undenia­ble proofs of Mr. Randolph's innocence as the French archives.

[Page 15]This would have been the way for the vindica­tor to throw himself on the sovereign people in­deed. But, instead of this, what has he done? He has barricaded himself in by an act of Congress, and forbidden his sovereigns to approach him without money in their hands. Ye gods! is he ever to have his price! is he ever to be purchased? And yet this is the man who pretends to be the friend of pure republicanism, and the advocate for the sovereignty of the people! ‘Without fur [...]her enumeration," says he, "of reasons for an ap­peal to the people, to whom else ought I to ap­peal? If the stories which have been propagated be true, it is their honour which has been wound­ed.’ By the bye, I do not believe this last as­sertion, and I should be glad to hear how he makes it out; how he has contrived to shift the dishonour from himself to the people: but, if it be so, why not appeal to them? Why hide his precious confessions from their sight? Why attempt to keep them in the dark by imposing a tax on their curiosity and inquiries? Civilians have long been divided as to the precise import of the word people; this question is now resolved by the rules of arithmetic, and that to a fraction, as far at least as relates to the United States: the people are, all those who are able and willing to give Mr. Randolph, or his printer, two shillings and nine pence three farthings, good and lawful money of Pennsylvania! O Respub­lica! O Mores!

Having dismissed these circumstances, which, though but trifles, if compared with many others that we shall meet with, were too glaring to pass unnoticed, I now come to the Vindication itself.

Mr. Randolph begins by a "statement of facts," and in this I shall imitate him; but as to the man­ner of doing this we shall differ widely. He has endeavoured to lose us in a maze of letters and [Page 16] answers, and extracts and conversations, and notes, and memorials, and certificates; but, as it is not my intention to render what I have to say unin­telligible, nor weary my reader's patience with a round about story, I shall endeavour to be as con­cise as possible, consistent with perspicuity.

On the 31st of October, 1794, Citizen Fauchet, the then French minister at Philadelphia, dispatch­ed a letter to a committee of the government in France, informing them among other things, of the rise and progress of the insurrection in the West­ern counties of Pennsylvania. This letter was put on board the Jean Bart, a French corvette, which sailed directly afterwards for France, and, on her passage, took an English merchant vessel. When the corvette arrived in the British Channel, she was brought to by a frigate of the enemy. As soon as the commander of the former saw that it was im­possible to escape, he brought the dispatches, and Ci­tizen Fauchet's letter among the rest, upon the deck and threw them over board. But unfortunately for Mr. Randolph, and some other patriots that we shall see mentioned by-and-by, there was a man on board who had the presence of mind and the cou­rage to jump into the sea and save them. The reader will not be astonished at this heroic act, at this proof of unfeigned and unbought patriotism, when I tell him that the man was no sans-culotte citizen, but a British Tar. It was, indeed, no other than the captain of the English vessel that the cor­vette had taken on her passage. This good fellow and the dispatches he had so gallantly preserved, were taken up by the frigate's boat: the dispatches were, of course, sent to the British government, by whom Citizen Fauchet's letter was, through Mr. Hammond, communicated to the President of the United States. The President showed it to Mr. Randolph, desiring him to make such explanations [Page 17] as he chose; and Mr. Randolph tells us, that it was in consequence of what passed at this interview that he gave in the resignation, of which he has since published a Vindication.

Although this extraordinary performance is cal­led ‘A Vindication of Mr. Randolph's Resigna­tion,’ people naturally look upon it as an attempt to vindicate his conduct, previous to that resigna­tion. Few persons, I will take it upon me to say, thought an apology for quitting his post necessary. Those who had read his bungling correspondencies, never imagined him to be the Atlas of the state. It was not, then, his resignation that excited public anxiety or public curiosity, but a certain something between him and Citizen Fauchet. The people had heard about corruption, about thousands of dollars, and about the pretended patriots of Ame­rica having their prices; these were the points the people wanted to see cleared up. They could not conceive that exposing to the whole world, and consequently to the enemies of this country, their President's private letters of July, 1795, relative to the treaty, could possibly tend to invalidate the charges of treason, contained in the French mini­ster's letter, written in the month of October, 1794. But Mr. Randolph, it appears, saw the matter in another light. He has thought proper to attempt to balance the crime laid to his charge, against another supposed crime, which he imputes to the President, concerning the ratification of the treaty.

Hence it follows, that the Vindicator labours at two principal objects: to wash away the stain on his own reputation, and to represent the President of the United States as ratifying the treaty under the influence of a British faction. That the latter of these can, as I have already observed, have no sort of relation to the great and important point, to­wards [Page 18] which the public mind has been so long di­rected, is very manifest; nevertheless, since it has been forced upon us, it would look like flinching from the inquiry to pass it over in silence. I shall, therefore, after having observed on that part of the Vindication which comprehends what ought to have been its only object, endeavour to place in as fair a light as possible the indirect charge that is brought against the President.

From Citizen Fauchet's intercepted letter it ap­pears, that Mr. Randolph did betray to him the secrets of the American government, and make him overtures for money, to be applied to some purpose relative to the insurrection in the Western counties of Pennsylvania.

The first of these is fully set forth in the very first paragraph of the letter, which runs thus: ‘The measures which prudence prescribes to me to take, with respect to my colleagues, have still presided in the digesting of the dispatches signed by them, which treat of the insurrection of the Western counties, and of the repressive means adopted by the government. I have allowed them to be confined to the giving of a faithful, but naked recital of events, the reflections therein contain­ed scarcely exceed the conclusions easily deduci­ble from the character assumed by the public prints. I have reserved myself to give you as far as I am able, a key to the facts detailed in our reports. When it comes in question to explain either by conjectures or by certain data, the se­cret views of a foreign government, it would be imprudent to run the risk of indiscretions, and to give oneself up to men, whose known partiality for that government, and similitude of passions and in­terests with its chiefs, might lead to confidences, the issue of which are incalculable. Besides the precious confessions of Mr. Randolph alone [Page 19] throw a satisfactory light on every thing that comes to pass. These I have not yet communi­cated to my colleagues. The motives already mentioned lead to this reserve, and still less per­mit me to open myself to them at the present moment. I shall then endeavour, citizen, to give you a clue to all the measures, of which the common dispatches give you an account, and to discover the true causes of the explosion, which it is obstinately resolved to repress with great means, although the state of things has no long­er any thing alarming.’ Notwithstanding the unequivocal expressions contained in this paragraph, the Vindicator has endeavoured at a satisfactory ex­planation of it; and so confident does he pretend to be of having succeeded, that he says: ‘I hesi­tate not to pronounce, that he who feels a due abhorrence of party manoeuvres, will form a conclusion honourable to myself.’ Let us see, then, how he has extricated himself; what proof, or what argument, he has produced, to wipe away the stigma, and to warrant the confidence with which he expresses himself of the people's forming a conclusion to his honour.

The phrase of the first paragraph of Citizen Fau­chet's letter, which more immediately attracts our attention, is, ‘the precious confessions of Mr. Ran­dolph.’ These words the Vindicator has taken a deal of pains to explain away, and with his usual success. He begins by saying, that, ‘this obser­vation upon the precious confessions of Mr. Ran­dolph, involves the judicious management of the of­fice. It implies no deliberate impropriety, and cannot be particularly answered, until particular instances are cited.’ I see nothing here from which we are to form a conclusion to his honour; nor did he, it seems; for he immediately throws [Page 20] the task on Citizen Fauchet's certificate. This extra diplomatic instrument was obtained by the famous journey to Rhode Island, under what circumstances we shall see by-and-by; at present let us hear what Citizen Fauchet says in it. ‘As to the commu­nications which he [Mr. Randolph] has made to me at different times, they were only of opinions, the greater part, if not the whole of which I have heard circulated as opinions.—I will observe here, that none of his conversations with me conclu­ded without his giving me the idea, that the Presi­dent was a man of integrity, and a sincere friend to France. This explains in part [well put in] what I meant by the terms his precious confessions. —When I speak in the same paragraph in these words: "Besides the precious confessions of Mr. Randolph alone cast upon all which happens a satisfactory light," I have still in view only the explanations of which I have spoken above; and I must confess that very often I have taken for confessions, what he might have communicated to me by virtue of a secret authority. And many things which I had, at the first instant, considered as confessions, were the subject of public conver­sation!’

Without admitting, even for a single moment, the validity of the evidence of this certificate, we may be permitted to admire its effrontery. Precious confessions are here explained to signify opinions, and opinions, too, that were the subject of public conver­sation! Oh! monstrous! Oh! front of tenfold brass! Were we to give credit to what Citizen Fau­chet has ende [...]oured to palm upon us in this cer­tificate, we must conclude him to be either drunk or mad at the time of writing the paragraph which he thus explains, and the rest of his letter by no means authorizes such a conclusion. What idea do the words precious confessions convey to our minds? [Page 21] What is a confession?—An acknowledgement which some one is prevailed on to make. And in what sense do we ever apply the epithet precious, but in that of valuable, rare, costly, or dear Would any man, that knows the meaning of these words, ap­ply them to designate the common chat of a town, mere news-paper topics? We say, for instance, precious stones; but do we mean by these the rocks that we see cover the lands, or the flints and pebbles that we kick along the road? If some im­pudent quack were to tell us, that the pavement of Philadelphia is composed of precious stones, should we not hurl them at his head; should we not lapi­date him?

But, let us see in what sense Citizen Fauchet employs the same word precious, in another place, even in the very certificate where he endeavours to explain it to mean nothing.—After speaking of the secret machinations of Mr. Hammond, the con­spirations of the English, and their being at the bottom of the Western insurrection, he comes to the means that Mr. Randolph had proposed to get at their secrets, and says: ‘I was astonished that the government itself did not procure for itself information so precious.’ Here, then, pre­cious signifies secret. This information so precious was rare information; information not to be come at with­out a bribe. This phrase, fallen from the pen of Citizen Fauchet, while his invention was upon the rack to explain away another charge against the moral Mr. Randolph, fully proves in what sense he had ever used the word precious.

However, we should be very far from doing jus­tice to these "precious confessions of Mr. Randolph" by considering them in their naked independent sense. It is very rarely that the true meaning of any phrase, or even of a complete sentence is to be come at without taking in the context. That these preci­ous [Page 22] confessions were neither so trifling nor of so pub­lick a nature, as the citizen would make us believe, is clear from the tenor of the whole first paragraph above transcribed, which Mr. Randolph forgot to beg his friend to explain. After having mentioned the precious confessions of Mr. Randolph, "these," says he, ‘I have not yet communicated to my col­leagues. And why?—Because, adds he, " the motives, already mentioned, lead to this reserve, and still less permit me to open myself to them at the present moment.’ How is this, then? Why was this cautious reserve necessary, even towards his col­leagues of the legation, if there was nothing to com­municate but mere "opinions," that were ‘the sub­ject of public conversation?’ What an over-and-above close man this must have been! Would to God Mr. Randolph had been as close! But what were these "motives already mentioned?" We must consult the paragraph again here. The Citi­zen, after stating that he allowed the dispatches, signed by his colleagues, to be confined to a naked recital of events, scarcely exceeding what might be gathered from the news-papers, observes, that he has reserved to himself the task of giving a key to these joint reports, and adds: ‘when it comes in question to explain the secret views of a foreign government, it would be imprudent to give oneself up to men, whose known partiality for that govern­ment, and similitude of passions and interests with its chiefs, might lead to confidencies, the issue of which is incalculable.’—Here we have the mo­tives that prevented Citizen Fauchet from commu­nicating the precious confessions to his colleagues. Ordinary information, hardly exceeding what was to be learnt from the gazettes, he suffered them to par­ticipate; but as to the secret views of the govern­ment, and the precious confessions of Mr. Randolph, he kept them in his own breast; because his col­leagues [Page 23] were men ‘who had a known partiality for the government, and a similitude of passions and interests with its chiefs!’ This reason for not trusting the colleagues of Citizen Fauchet is corro­borated by a sentence of Mr. Randolph himself, who certainly forgot what he was about when he wrote it. ‘Two persons, says he, were in commission with Mr. Fauchet, and it was sus­pected, from a quarter in which I confided, that these persons were in a political intimacy with members of our government, not friendly to me.’ I am sure the reader will agree with me, that this was a rea­son, and a substantial one too, for not communicating to them the precious confessions of Mr. Randolph, if those confessions went to expose the secret views of the government; but, if, on the contrary, they went no further than "opinions," that were ‘the subject of public conversation,’ the precaution was per­fectly ridiculous. It was like the secret of the ideot, who, whispering a by-stander, told him the sun shined, but begged him to let it go no further.

In short, all the parts of this account correspond so exactly, that they only want to amount to a proof of innocence instead of guilt to render them a sub­ject of pleasing contemplation. Citizen Fauchet re­ceives certain precious confessions from Mr. Randolph, which he keeps from his colleagues, because they have a partiality for the government, and because, from their intimacy with some of the members of it, they might make dangerous discoveries. The inevitable conclusion, then, is, that these precious confessions were not of opinions, that were the subject of public conversation, and that they were of a nature hostile to the government; and whether this be ‘a conclusion honourable’ to Mr. Randolph, or not, I leave the reader to determine.

Citizen Fauchet, in that part of his certificate which I have above quoted, makes an indirect at­tempt [Page 24] to establish a belief, that Mr. Randolph, in his confessions, never uttered any thing to the pre­judice of the character of the President of the Uni­ted States. This is his aim, when he says that ‘none of his conversations concluded without giv­ing the idea, that the President was a man of in­tegrity.’ But, we are to observe, that the cer­tificate was originally intended for the perusal of the President. Who could tell how far such a declara­tion, if it should be believed, might go towards making Mr. Randolph's peace? It has never yet ap­peared, that he was in earnest about a public Vindi­cation, 'till after his return from Rhode Island; that is, 'till he saw that it was absolutely impossible to smother the affair. To have brought this declara­tion into the certificate with any other view than that of softening the President, would have been pure folly. The President being a man of incor­ruptible integrity was surely no precious confession; on the contrary, I am mistaken if it was not among the most disagreeable information that Citizen Fau­chet ever received from his friend, the Secretary. If this certificate had, then, been intended for the public, to what purpose was the declaration con­cerning the President thrusted into it? Did the fra­mer, or rather framers, of it imagine; nay, could they possibly imagine, that Mr. Randolph would acquire favour with the people for having declared that the man he now attempts to blacken, the man he now represents as under the guidance of a Bri­tish faction, is a man of incorruptible integrity? The President's character stood in no need of the eu­logy of Mr. Randolph, or the certificate of a mush­roon French minister. The people of the United States knew General Washington to be a man of integrity, long before Citizen Fauchet was called from among a troop of itinerant play-actors, to [Page 25] strut on the diplomatic stage of the new-fangled Re­public. ^*

The desperate Vindicator makes one struggle more. He endeavours to back the evidence of Ci­tizen Fauchet's certificate with a protestation of his own, in which he denies ever having received a far­thing for the communication of state-secrets; says that he never communicated any such secrets; that he never uttered a syllable which violated the duties of office; all which, adds he, ‘I assert, and to the assertion, I am ready to superadd the most so­lemn sanction.’ I shall not throw away my time in attempting to invalidate this kind of testimony. There was a time when the solemn sanction, or even bare assertion, of Mr. Randolph, might have been formidable; but that time is, alas! no more.

We now come to the overtures for money, to be applied to some purpose relative to the insurrection in the Western counties of Pennsylvania.

Citizen Fauchet, in the 15th paragraph of the fatal letter, had been speaking of the assembling of the insurgents in Braddock's Field, and of the preparations of the Federal government to reduce them to order and obedience. Then, in the 16th paragraph, he comes to speak of the conduct of certain persons in power, at this momentous crisis. ‘In the mean time, says he, although there was a certainty of having an army, yet it was necessary to assure themselves of co-operators a­mong the men whose patriotic reputation might [Page 26] influence their party, and whose lukewarmness or want of energy in the existing conjunctures might compromit the success of the plans. Of all the governors whose duty it was to appear at the head of the requisitions, the governor of Penn­sylvania alone enjoyed the name of republican; his opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury, and of his systems, was known to be unfavourable. The Secretary of this State possessed great influence in the popular society of Philadelphia, which in its turn influenced those of other States; of course he merited attention. It appears therefore that these men, with others unknown to me, all hav­ing without doubt Randolph at their head, were balancing to decide on their party. Two or three days before the proclamation was published, and of course before the cabinet had resolved on its measures, Mr. Randolph came to me with an air of great eagerness, and made me the overtures of which I have given you an account in No. 6. Thus, with some thousands of dollars, the Repub­lic could have decided on civil war or on peace! Thus, the consciences of the pretended patriots of America have already their prices! It is very true that the certainty of these conclusions, pain­ful to be drawn, will forever exist in our archives! What will be the old age of this government, if it is thus early decrepid!’

From this paragraph we learn, that certain men of weight and influence were balancing as to the side they should take at the time of the insurrection; that two or three days before the issuing of the proclama­tion for the assembling of a military force to march a­gainst the insurg [...]nts, Mr. Randolph went to Citizen Fauchet, and made to him certaine vertures; and that, from the nature of th [...]se overtures, Citizen Fauchet concluded, that, if he had had some thousands of dollars at his disposal, he could have decided on ci­vil [Page 27] war, or on peace. From this latter circumstance, it is evident that the overtures were for money, to be applied to some purpose relative to the insurrec­tion; and, therefore, our inquiries (if, indeed, in­quiries are at all necessary), are naturally confined to two questions: who was to receive this money? and for what purpose?

The shortest way of determining the first of these questions, is, to resort to the fair and unequivocal meaning of the paragraph itself. Suppose the fol­lowing passage of it alone had come to light: ‘ these men, with others unknown to me, all having without doubt Randolph at their head, were ba­lancing to decide on their party. Two or three days before the proclamation was published, Mr. Randolph came to me with an air of great eager­ness, and made to me the overtures of which I have given you an account in my No. 6. Thus, with some thousands of dollars, the Republic could have determined on civil war or on peace.’ Suppose, I say, that of all the letter, this passage a­lone had been found; what should we have wanted to know further?—Why, certainly, who these men were. This is what we should have cursed our stars for having kept from us.—Randolph, we should have said, is at the head of them; but who are these men? To whom do these important words re­fer?—Luckily, Citizen Fauchet's letter leaves us nothing to wish for on this head: these words are relative to "the governor of Pennsylvania," the "Se­cretary of this State ^*", and other persons unknown to the writer. These men, according to Citizen Fau­chet's [Page 28] letter, were, with Randolph at their head, balancing to decide on their party; and, while they were thus balancing, Mr. Randolph, being the leader, went to Citizen Fauchet, and made him such overtures as would have enabled him, had he had "some thousands of dollars," to decide on ci­vil war or on peace.

I shall not amuse myself with drawing conclusions here, as I am fully persuaded, that no one, who shall do me the honour of reading these sheets, will find any difficulty in doing it for himself. It is, however, necessary to notice what has been advanced with an intention of doing away the impression, that this part of Citizen Fauchet's letter must inevitably leave on our minds, with respect to the persons in whose behalf the money overtures were made.

The reader has observed that Citizen Fauchet mentions a dispatch, which he calls his No. 6. and to which he refers his government for the particulars of Mr. Randolph's overtures. An extract from this No. 6. the Vindicator has obtained from Citi­zen Ade [...], the present French minister, which he has published in his Vindication, and which I here insert. ‘Scarce was the commotion known, when the Secretary of State came to my house. All his countenance was grief. He requested of me a private conversation. It is all over, he said to me. A civil war is about to ravage our unhappy country. Four men, by their talents, their influence and their energy, may save it. But, debtors of English merchants, they will be deprived of their liberty, if they take the smallest step. Could you lend them instantaneously funds, sufficient to shelter them from English persecution? This in­quiry astonished me much. It was impossible for me to make a satisfactory answer. You know my want of power, and my defect of pecuniary means. I shall draw myself off from the affair by some [Page 29] common-place remarks, and by throwing myself on the pure and unalterable principles of the Re­public.’—God of Heaven! what must be the situ­ation of a man, who publishes such a piece as this in order to weaken the evidence against him!

We should certainly be at full liberty to reject the testimony contained in this extract; not on ac­count of the person who signs it (though his not being a Christian might, with some weak minded people, be a weighty objection), but on account of its being but a part of the No. 6. referred to. I do not, however, wish to derive any advantage from this circumstance: I admit the validity of the testimony contained in the extract; and well I may; for, the greatest enemy of Mr. Randolph, and of those who are involved with him, could wish for no better confirmation of the 16th paragraph of Citi­zen Fauchet's letter.

The only circumstance in which the extract from No. 6. appears to differ from the letter, is, that, in the extract, mention is made of four men, and, in the letter, of only three. But, let it be observ­ed, that though only three persons are named in the letter, yet Citizen Fauchet adds to them, ‘others unknown to me.’

The next piece of exculpatory evidence produ­ced, is the certificate of Citizen Fauchet. But, be­fore we quote this paper again, it is necessary to see how it was obtained.

When Citizen Fauchet's letter was first shewn to Mr. Randolph, in the council-chamber, and he was asked to explain it, he hesitated; desired time to commit his remarks to writing; went to his office, locked up his own appartment there, and gave the key to the messenger; then went home, from whence he wrote to the President, requesting a co­py of the letter, and informing him that, if Citi­zen Fauchet had not quitted the continent, he would [Page 30] go after him, to prepare himself for an inquiry.— Was this the behaviour of a man grossly calumnia­ted? Such a man would have said: I see, Sir, by this letter, that I am charged with crimes which my heart abhors; I declare the writer to be an in­famous slanderer; but, as appearances are against me, here are the keys of my office, and even of my private papers: examine them all, and I will re­main here till the examination is ended. Send also for Citizen Fauchet, if he be yet in the country: bring him here, and let him avow this to my face if he dares.—I appeal to the reader's breast, whe­ther there is any thing that a man, strong in his in­tegrity, would have so ardently desired, as to be confronted with his accuser; or any thing he would have so obstinately refused as to be the messenger to seek him? Allowing, however, that a man, falsly accused of such heinous crimes, had, in a paroxysm of rage, quitted the Council-chamber to pursue the assassin of his reputation; would he not have in­stantly departed? Would he have closed his eyes till he came up with him? Would any mortal means of conveyance have been swift enough for his pur­suit? And, once arrived, would he not have rush­ed into his presence? Would not the sight of the perfidious miscreant have almost driven him to mad­ness? Had he found him in the arms of his harlot, or grovelling at the altar of his pagan gods, would he not have dragged him forth to chastisement? The heart that swells with injured innocence, is deaf to the voice of discretion!

How different from all this was the cool, and gentle and genteel deportment of the Vindicator! He stays, very quietly, two days at Philadelphia, before his de­parture for Rhode-Island, and loiters away no less than ten days in performing a journey that the common stages perform in five. When he arrives, he goes and [Page 31] has a tête-à-tête with Citizen Fauchet, and so mild and so complaisant is he, and so little malice does he bear on account of the wound given to his ho­nour, that he afterwards writes the Citizen a note, in which he styles himself his humble servant. In consequence of this tête-à-tête, in which the Citizen and Secretary re-examined the fatal letter, and re­freshed each other's memories, a certificate was made out by the former; but not delivered into Mr. Randolph's hands, for fear we should believe that he had penned it as well as furnished the hints for it, till after his return to Philadelphia, when it was sent to him by Citizen Adet. This tête-à-tête on the unfortunate letter resembles the consultation of a couple of physicians over a patient gasping in a desperate disease: they at last prescribe a remedy, and, physician like, leave it to be administered by their Apothecary.

I pass by the certificates of a tipstaff and a pilot, which are brought in as auxiliaries to that of Citi­zen Fauchet, and come to the questions that were to be put, but which were not put, to Citizen Fau­chet, before Mr. Marchant, a judge of the district of Rhode-Island, and Mr. Malbone, a member of the House of Representatives. This play at ques­tion and answer must have been fine sport for Messrs. Marchant and Malbone, who would have had the dramatis personae before their eyes; but, when com­mitted to paper, a perusal of it would have been quite flat and insipid to us. No question, I am po­sitive, would, on this occasion, have drawn truth from the lips of Citizen Fauchet; except, perhaps, the question formerly employed in the Inquisition: for, as to oaths upon the Holy Evangelists, what power could they have had upon the conscience of a man whose creed declares the Bible to be a lie, [Page 32] and who alternately adores, the goat, the hog, the dog, the cat, and the jack-ass ^*?

After these remarks on the manner in which this certificate, which we are called upon to give credit to, was procured, we may venture to quote it, without running the risk of being misled by its pro­testations. Let us, then, hear what it says with respect to the persons in whose behalf the overtures for money were made. ‘About the month of Ju­ly or August, in the last year, he [Mr. Randolph] came to see me [Citizen Fauchet], at my house. We had a private conversation of about twenty minutes. His countenance bespoke distress. He said to me that he was afraid a civil war would soon ravage America. I enquired of him what new information was procured. He said that he began to believe that in fact the English were fo­menting the insurrection, and that he did not doubt, that Mr. Hammond and his Congress would push some measures with respect to the in­surrection, with an intention of giving embarrass­ment to the United States. He demanded of me, if, as my Republic was itself interested in these manoeuvres, I could not by the means of some cor­respondents procure some information of what [Page 33] was passing. I answered him that I believed I could. He replied upon this, that having formed many connections by the means of flour contracts, three or four persons, among the different con­tractors, might, by talents, energy, and some in­fluence, procure the necessary information and save America from a civil war, by proving that England interfered in the troubles of the West.’ After this, the certificate says, that Mr. Randolph stated a doubt as to the pecuniary affairs of these contractors, and observed that those whom Citizen Fauchet ‘ might be able to employ, might perhaps be debtors of English merchants; and that, in that case, might perhaps be exposed to be harrassed and arrested; and, therefore, he asked if the payment of the sums, due them by virtue of the existing contracts, would not be sufficiently early to ren­der them independent of British persecution.’

So! here are all ‘ these men who were balancing to decide on their party; these men, who by their talents, influence, and energy might save the coun­try;’ these men, who could have decided on civil war or on peace, are, by this barefaced certificate, turned into industrious peaceable flour-merchants! This explanation exceeds even the impudence of Lord Peter, who swore that the words gold-lace meant a broom-stick.

It would now be necessary to turn to Mr. Ran­dolph's own explanation of what passed between him and Citizen Fauchet, on this occasion, if his account did not perfectly agree with the one here given, with such trifling variation of phraseology excepted as was requisite to encourage the belief, that both were not the work of the same hand. It does, indeed, appear, that Mr. Randolph imagined in good earnest, that we should yield an implicit confidence to what Citizen Fauchet has said in his [Page 34] certificate; for, he seems to have been anxious a­bout nothing but consuming it with his own pro­testations, without attempting to do away the charge contained in the intercepted letter. Our inquiries, however, are not thus to be diverted. We are not thus to be fobbed off with an ex-post-facto certificate, and the commentaries thereon. How came Mr. Randolph to be of opinion that flour-merchants would, above all others, be the persons to unravel the intrigues of Mr. Hammond. He is the first states­man, I believe, that ever thought of employing men of this profession to dive into the secrets of foreign ministers. And why should he suppose, that the flour merchants of Citizen Fauchet were in the con­fidence of the English faction, and that the very ones whom he should choose from amongst them, were debtors, and debtors, too, to British mer­chants? Poor fellows! he would have broken his heart, if they had been "harrassed and arrested," in consequence of their zeal! It was something ex­traordinary also, that he did not know the law of this country better than to fear that they might be kept in prison for debt. He will make but a poor solicitor in the courts of Virginia, if he does not know how to keep a fradulent debtor out of jail; and it is very probable, that this little slip of the pen may hurt him more, in the opinion of his present neigh­bours, than his precious confessions, or even than his overtures for money.

Mr. Randolph pretends that, so far from having made overtures for himself and Co. he rejects with horror the idea of giving a pair of gloves even to these honest flour-men. Citizen Fauchet, it is true, did understand Mr. Randolph as advising him to ob­tain intelligence, by assisting with loans those who had contracted with him for flour; but now, cal­ling to mind all the circumstances, he has an inti­mate conviction, that he was mistaken in the proposi­tions [Page 35] of Mr. Randolph, who only asked if these good people could not be accommodated with the ‘sums due them on their contracts!’ Hence, then, they wish to infer, that all was fair and honest; that no such thing as corruption was ever dreamt of. Ad­mit them this, for a moment, and then let them ac­count for the following expressions, which come im­mediately after the money overtures, mentioned in the dispatch, No. 6. ‘This inquiry astonished me much. It was impossible for me to make a satisfac­tory answer. You know my want of power, and my defect of pecuniary means. I shall draw myself off from the affair by some common-place remarks, and by throwing myself on the pure and unalte­rable principles of the Republic.’ Now, why pure? Why throw himself on the pure principles of his Republic? How could the pure principles of his Republic forbid him to yield to a proposal that had nothing impure in it? And, why does he talk of his want of power and of pecuniary means? Would it not be the height of stupidity for a man to talk this way, if he was required to do nothing but to pay three or four flour-men the ‘sums due them on their contracts?’

Nor was such a trifling proposal better calculated to awaken in Citizen Fauchet these reflections: ‘Thus with some thousands of dollars, the Repub­lic could have decided on civil war, or on peace! Thus, the consciencies of the pretended patriots of America have already their prices! It is very true that the certainty of these conclusions, pain­ful to be drawn, will for ever exist in our archives! What will be the old age of the government, if it is thus early decrepid!’—Would any man, ex­cept a madman or a fool, have made these reflec­tions on a proposal to pay certain merchants ‘ sums due them,’ and particularly when those sums were [Page 36] to enable them to serve their country, by exploring the secret machinations of an hostile power? Mr. Randolph's proposing to come at the secrets of the English minister by prevailing on Citizen Fauchet to pay the sums due to his contractors, would cer­tainly have excited a laugh in Fauchet: and, if he had thought such a silly proposition worth a men­tion in his dispatches, he would naturally have said: what a loggerheaded fellow they have chosen for Secretary of State here! Would you imagine that he has proposed to me, to pay my flour-contractors what I owe them, as a mean of inducing them to penetrate into the designs of the English govern­ment! The man must certainly be out of his wits, or he never would be foolish enough to suppose, that these people, in gratitude for having received no more than their due from me, would be induced to undertake a dangerous and expensive service for him. However, the poor man, though a little crack-brained, is a good patriot, and has no other motive in all this than to serve his country.— These would have been the remarks of Citizen Fau­chet, had the overtures been of the nature he now pretends they were. He would have had all the reason in the world to accuse the Secretary of folly, but none to accuse him of guilt; none to author­ize those bitter reflections on the saleableness of the consciences of the pretended patriots of America, or on the decrepitude of the government.

This is not all. If the overtures for money were in behalf of Citizen Fauchet's flour-men, there re­mains a very important passage of his intercepted letter, which both he and the Vindicator have left unexplained. It is this. ‘ As soon as it was de­cided that the French Republic purchased no men to do their duty, there were to be seen individuals, about whose conduct the government could at least form uneasy conjectures, giving themselves [Page 37] up with a scandalous ostentation to its views, and even seconding its declarations. The Popular Socie­ties soon emitted resolutions stamped with the same spirit, and who, although they may have been advised by love of order, might nevertheless have omitted, or uttered them with less solemni­ty. Then were seen coming from the very men whom we had been accustomed to regard as having little friendship for the system of the Treasurer, har­rangues without end, in order to give a new di­rection to the public mind. The militia, howe­ver, manifest some repugnance, particularly in Pennsylvania; at last by excursions or harrangues, incomplete requisitions are obtained. How much more interesting than the changeable men I have painted above, were those plain citizens, &c.’

That Citizen Fauchet understood the money over­tures to be made on the part of these changeable men, is evident; for the passage here transcribed follows immediately after the paragraph in which those overtures are mentioned. And, the passage itself is too unequivocal to be misunderstood. All this scandalous ostentation, he says, these second­hand declarations, and harrangues without end, in favour of the government, took place, among these changeable men, as soon as it was known (and not before) that the French Republic purchased no men to do their duty. Now, then, let Mr. Ran­dolph, or any one of these changeable men, twist this passage till it applies to his flour-merchants, if he can. What! did the flour-merchants give them­selves up to the views of the government with a scan­dalous ostentation? What harrangues did these poor devils ever make, I wonder, to disguise their past views, and give a new direction to the public mind? We all know that the Democratic Societies and the good Governor of Pennsylvania issued declarations seconding that of the government; but the flour-merchants [Page 38] never issued any, or, at least, that I know of. And yet the Citizen tells us that all these harrangues and declarations took place as soon as it was decided, that the French Republic purchased no men to do their duty. How, then, in the name of all that is vile and corrupt, could the money over­tures be made in behalf of three or four flour-mer­chants?

But, I must not let these harranguers go off so. ‘ Then, says Citizen Fauchet, were seen coming from the very men whom we had been accustomed to regard as having little friendship for the system of the Treasurer, harrangues without end.’ Who, then, were the persons that Citizen Fauchet had been accustomed to regard as having little friendship for the system of the Treasurer▪ ‘Of all the govern­ors,’ says Citizen Fauchet, in the 16th paragraph, already quoted, ‘of all the governors whose duty it was to appear at the head of the requisitions, the governor of Pennsylvania alone enjoyed the name of republican: his opinion of the Secretary of the Trea­sury and of his systems was known to be unfavourable.’ In another part of the letter, when speaking about the behaviour of several of the general officers on the Western expedition, he says: ‘ the governor of Pennsylvania, of whom it never would have been suspected, lived intimately and publicly with Hamilton.’ As to the fact concerning the har­rangues without end, those of my readers whose memories are not very faithful, have only to open the Philadelphia newspapers for the months of Au­gust and September, 1794.—Let the reader, parti­cularly if he be a Pennsylvanian, treasure up all these things in his mind.

I have but one more observation to add here, and that does not arise from any thing said in the Vindi­cation: but from a paragraph which appeared in Mr. Bache's gazette of the 22d December, signed, [Page 39] A. J. Dallas, and which contained the following words: ‘The publication of Mr. Fauchet's inter­cepted letter, renders any remark unnecessary on my part, or on the part of the governor, upon the villainous insinuations of the libeller [meaning Mr. Wilcocks, who had said that it was reported, that Citizen Fauchet's letter charged the governor of Pennsylvania, Mr. Randolph, and Valerius (by which name Mr. Dallas looks upon himself as desig­nated) of bribery and corruption] in relation to the contents of that letter; but we may expect to derive a perfect triumph on the occasion, from the candour of those, who have incautiously circula­ted injurious conjectures; and from the mortifi­cation of those who have, wilfully, fabricated iniquitous falshoods.’

It seems, that this A. J. Dallas is the self same "Secretary of this State," and that this governor is the same "governor of Pennsylvania," of whom Ci­tizen Fauchet has made such honourable mention, and of whom we have been talking all this time: for my part, I do not know the men, nor either of them; nor have I any ambition to know them; but, if they can see any thing in Citizen Fau­chet's intercepted letter, from which they ‘ex­pect to derive a perfect triumph,’ I congratulate them on their penetration with all my heart. Should they triumph, their triumph will be "perfect," in­deed; for, conscious I am, that it will be attended with this singular and happy circumstance, that it will excite envy in no living soul ^*.

[Page 40]As I am pretty confident that no further remark is necessary with respect to the persons who were to receive the product of Mr. Randolph's overtures, I shall now speak to the second question: for what purpose were they to receive it?

I believe, few people have read the intercepted letter, without being fully convinced, that the mo­ney, if obtained, was to be so employed as to ena­ble the receivers openly to espouse the cause of the Western insurgents, and overturn the Federal go­vernment; or, at least, counteract its measures so far as to oblige those at the head of it, to abandon it to the direction of those corrupt and profligate men, who wished to prevent any accomodation's taking place with Great Britain, and to plunge their devoted country into a war on the side of France. The passage of the letter, where the o­vertures are mentioned, authorizes this conclusion; and, when we come to examine the other para­graphs, together with the extract from the dispatch, No. 6. and to compare the whole of Citizen Fau­chet's account with the well known conduct of those [Page 41] who are clearly designated, as the persons in whose behalf the money overtures were made, the evidence becomes irresistible.

To weaken this evidence nothing has been ad­vanced, that does not, if possible, add to its force, by showing to what more than miserable shifts and subterfuges the Vindicator has been driven. Ne­vertheless, as we profess to make observations on the Vindication, all that it contains, however false and absurd, claims some share of our attention; and, therefore, we must now take a view of what has been said concerning the application of the mo­ney to be obtained by the overtures of Mr. Ran­dolph, beginning, as before, with the certificate of Citizen Fauchet.

After telling us that he had frequently had con­versations with Mr. Randolph about the insurrec­tion, and that he himself suspected the English of fomenting and supporting it, he says: ‘I commu­nicated my suspicions to Mr. Randolph. I had already communicated to him a Congress, which at this time was holden at New-York. I had communicated to him my fears, that this Con­gress would have for its object, some manoeuvres against the Republic of France, and to render unpopular some virtuous men, who were at the head of affairs; to destroy the confidence which existed on one hand, between General Clinton [late governor of New-York] and his fel­low-citizens, and on the other, that which united Mr. Randolph to the President.’ He then tells us the old story about the flour-merchants.

Now comes Mr. Randolph's turn. ‘Our dis­course, says he, turned upon the insurrection, and upon the expected machinations of Mr. Ham­mond and others at New-York, against the French Republic, Governor Clinton, and myself. —Fresh [Page 42] as the intelligence was upon my mind, that the British were fomenting the insurrection, I was strongly inclined to believe, that Mr. Hammond's Congress, would not forego the opportunity of furnishing, to the utmost of their abilities, em­ployment to the United States, and of detaching their attention and power from the European war. I own, therefore, that I was extremely de­sirous of learning what was passing at New-York. I certainly thought, that those men, who were on an intimate footing with Mr. Fauchet, and had some access to British connections, were the best fitted for obtaining this intelligence.’ And for this reason he recommended the flour-men ^*. Oh master Randolph! master Randolph Oh!

Here, then, this worthy statesman was endea­vouring to render a most important service to his country. His only object being to dive into the machinations, that the English minister and his Congress were hatching against the United States. A very laudable pursuit.—This story has something in it so flattering to human nature, that it is a pity it should be the most abominable falshood that ever issued from the procreant brain of a petty fogging politician.

In the first place, nobody sincerely believed, that [Page 43] English had even the slightest correspondence or [...]ction with the insurgents; nor did any body [...] from first to last, pretend to avow such a be­ [...] I know of, except Mr. Randolph and a [...] Governor. These two gentlemen endea­ [...]d to impress the idea of such a connection as [...] on the mind of the President as on that of the [...]lic; but neither of these yielded to the insidious [...]tion. Both very naturally demanded proofs, [...] proofs were not to be found; unless the insur­gents' howling out liberty and equality, their plant­ing liberty trees, and their wearing cockades à la tri­color, were proofs of their attachment to the English. No one circumstance that has yet come to light is a stronger proof of a deep-laid plot against the Federal government than the efforts of these men to give this false direction to the public mind. While they were making overtures to the French minister; while they were endeavouring to feed the insurrection from that source, they threw out, in order to disguise their views, insinuations that another nation was at the bottom of it.

And, what was this pretended Congress of Mr. Hammond at New-York, that it should so alarm our Vindicator, and make his friend Fauchet fear, that something would be attempted by it to the pre­judice of Mr. Randolph and the " virtuous" father-in-law of Citizen Genet? Who composed this Con­gress? Why, Mr. Hammond was the President, and his wife, a sick child, and a nurse, were the members! A pretty Congress this to form machina­tions against the government of the country, and to stir up a rebellion in a quarter four or five hun­dred miles distant! This Congress, too, was assem­bled at New-York, or rather on Long Island, where I do not believe that Citizen Fauchet had three or four, nor even one, flour-contractor; and, if so, [Page 44] how came the wise Mr. Randolph to imagine that the contractors would have made a journey from Virginia, were the greatest part of them were, or e­ven from this city, to New-York, in order to dive into Mrs. Hammond's and her maid's secrets? The fellows must necessarily have remained some time there to effect the object of their mission; they must have went skulking about incognito like other spies, and must, of course, have run the risk of kickings and rib-roastings in abundance; and all this for what? why truely, for nothing! for it would have been for nothing, if they were to receive no more than what was " due them on their contracts," and both our certificate makers declare that they were not to have another farthing.

If the overtures had been for money to be em­ployed in the procuring of intelligence of what the English minister was about, is it not natural to sup­pose, that Citizen Fauchet would have mentioned this circumstance in his very confidential letter? Yet, we see, that he has not let fall a word about it, either in his letter or in his dispatch, No. 6. Again, what would his reflections on such overtures have been? He would probably have exclaimed: Thus, with some thousands of dollars, the Republic could have dived into all the machinations of the English! In­stead of: ‘Thus with some thousands of dollars, the Republic could have decided on civil war or on peace! Thus the consciences of the pretended patri­ots of America have already their prices!’—And, let me repeat, what could induce him to talk, in his dispatch, No. 6. of throwing himself on the pure principles of his Republic, if nothing was in con­templation but the unravelling of the treacherous designs of the English?

But, I do not rest upon this negative evidence to disprove all that the certificate makers have at­tempted to impose on us, on this subject. Citizen Fau­chet [Page 45] has let fall a sentence in his intercepted let­ter that proves, that he did not look upon the mo­ney overtures as being made with an intention of coming at the secrets of the English; that he never thought the English at all concerned in fomenting the insurrection; that he was well persuaded that the insurgents never looked for support from them; and that he was fully convinced of the meanness and baseness of all those who attempted to propa­gate such an opinion. "But," says he in the 15th paragraph of the letter, ‘But, in order to obtain something on the public opinion, it was necessary to magnify the danger, to disfigure the views of those people [insurgents], to attribute to them the design of uniting themselves with England.—This step suc­ceeded, an army is raised, &c. &c.’ ^* Here, [Page 46] then, he unequivocally gives the lye to every word that he has said on the subject in his certificate, and to every word that Mr. Randolph has been awkward enough to repeat after him. If he was so well in­formed that all these malicious tales about the inte­ference of the English, were invented and propaga­ted merely in order to obtain something on the public opinion, by magnifying the danger and disfiguring the views of the insurgents, all which, it is clear, he learnt from the precious confessions of Mr. Ran­dolph; if he was so thoroughly convinced of all this, at the time of writing his letter, in October, 1794, how comes he to recollect, in the month of August, 1795, that both he and Mr. Randolph did ‘ really suspect, that the English were foment­ing the insurrection?’ No; they never suspect­ed any such thing, and they, and all others who pretended to suspect it, have only discovered to what pitiful tricks, what political quackery, they were reduced.

One closing observation on this subject. If mo­ney had been wanted to obtain intelligence concern­ing the pretended Congress of Mr. Hammond; if this object was so near Mr. Randolph's heart as he hypocritically declares it was; whom ought he to have applied to? Whom would he naturally have applied to for the necessary sums? Whom but the [Page 47] President of the United States, under whose autho­rity alone he could have acted in so delicate a con­juncture? He would have laid before him his suspi­cions of the dreadful Congress, and proposed to him the means the most likely of unveiling its machinations; and, if money had been necessary, it would, of course, have been granted. But, in­stead of this, away he runs to a foreign minister, and unbosoms himself to him, as if the secret was of too much importance to be deposited in the breast of the President, or as if the French had more in­terest in quelling the insurrection than the United States had. He appears to have looked upon Citi­zen Joseph Fauchet as his Father Confessor, and for that reason it was, I suppose, he reserved for his ear, like a pious and faithful penitent, those pre­cious secrets that he kept hidden from all the world besides. In the Council-chamber at Phila­delphia he was troubled with a locked jaw; but the instant he entered the confessional on the banks of the Schuylkill, to which the Citizen seems to have retired on purpose, the complaint was removed, and he said more in "twenty minutes," than he will be able to unsay in twenty years.

[Page 48]It is a great pity we are obliged to quit this de­lightful theme, to return to the dry mercenary o­vertures of Mr. Randolph.

As it appears that he cannot persuade us, that the money was to be employed for the purpose of coming at the machinations of the English, let us now see to what purpose it is much more likely it was to have been applied.

From the intercepted letter we learn, that, the complying with the overtures would have enabled the French Republic to decide, for this country, on civil war or on peace; and, we are told, in the extract No. 6. which has been intruded on us pur­posely to give a favourable turn to this passage of the letter, that the money, if obtained, would have put it in the power of four men to save the country. Mr. Randolph, in handling these two pas­sages, has gone rather beyond his usual degree of assurance. He has taken a phrase from one and a phrase from the other, and tacked them together to suit himself. This done, he boldly asks: ‘What were to be the functions of these men?’ And then comes out his triumphant answer: ‘To save the country from a civil war.’ This is Lord Pe­ter again with his totidem verbis. By running ove [...] the two papers, or either of them, this way; cu [...] ling a phrase here and a phrase there, he may mal [...] them say any thing he pleases; and he may d [...] the same thing with any other writing. In th [...] manner he may make even the New Year's Gift sa [...] that he is an upright, worthy, incorruptible ma [...] and God knows how far that is from the sentime [...] of the author. Is this phrase, which he compou [...] ded of ingredients taken from two differe [...] places, to be found in any part of Citizen Fauche [...] dispatches? Has this tattling Father Confessor a [...] where said, that the overtures were for money save the country from a civil war? Has he said a [...] [Page 49] thing that will countenance such an interference? No; his dispatches, in every rational construction they will bear, clearly lead to a contrary con­clusion.

He could have decided on civil war or on peace. If we are to understand by civil war, a successful opposition to the Federal government, the whole of his letter, from one end to the other, proves that no­thing was so near his heart. He every where ex­claims against the ambitious views of the govern­ment, and defends the cause of the insurgents. He speaks of them as an oppressed people, and of the laws which they were armed to oppose, as harsh and unnecessary. The anarchical assembly in the neighbourhood of Pittsburgh, those outrageous villains who insulted the officers of justice, plunder­ed the mail, drove peaceable and orderly people from their dwellings, dragged others forth to in­dure every other cruelty short of death, and who, in a word, were daily committing robbery and murder; this assembly of ruffians he calls, ‘the very pacific union of the counties in Braddock's Field! a union which could not justify the rais­ing of so great a force as fifteen thousand men.— Besides," adds he, " the principles uttered in the declarations of these people, rather announced ardent minds to be calmed than anarchists to be sub­dued.’ When he comes to speak of those who wished to enforce the excise law, he gives way to the most bitter invectives, and almost curses the of­ficers of government, who counselled the marching of the troops. But, at last, he is compelled to give an account of the triumph of the Federal army; and here we plainly perceive, by the chagrin he ex­presses at that event, what he would have desired. He laments that the government will acquire stabi­lity from it, "for one complete session at least," the [Page 50] discredit it will throw on ‘the insurgent principles of the patriots,’ and concludes with this, to him, melancholy reflection: ‘Who knows what will be the limits of this triumph? Perhaps advantage will be taken by it to obtain some laws for strength­ening the government, and still more precipitating the propensity, already visible, that it has towards aristocracy!’

Who, then, can be stupid enough to believe, that if this man had had ‘some thousands of dol­lars’ to advance, he would have advanced them to aid the government, either directly or indirectly, against the insurgents, and to save the country from a civil war? And yet, this we must believe, before we believe, that Mr. Randolph, who was in all his secrets, would have made him overtures for that purpose.

As to the words, in the dispatch No. 6. which are allowed to signify, save the country, they must not be thus disjointed from what precedes them. The passage is this: ‘ Scarce was the commotion known, when the Secretary of State came to my house. All his countenance was grief. He re­quested of me a private conversation. It is all over, said he to me. A civil war is about to ravage our unhappy country. Four men by their talents, their influence, and their energy, may save it.’— Save it from what? Not from a civil war; it was, it seems, too late to do that; for it was all over. A civil war was to take place, that was a settled point, though the commotion was scarcely known; but four men, with the help of Citizen Fauchet's dollars, might save the country. That is, bring it out of that civil war, refined and regenerated, and unclogged with the Federal government, or, at least, with those men who thwarted the views of Citizen Fauchet and his nation.

[Page 51]Of all the expressions to be found in the Babylo­nish vocabulary of the French Revolution, there is not one, the value of which is so precisely fixed as that before us; to save the country. When their first Assembly, the fathers of all the miseries of their country, violating the powers with which they were invested, reduced their king to an automaton, laid their crooked fingers on the property of sixty or seventy thousand innocent persons, drove the faith­ful pastors from their flocks, and replaced them by a herd of vile apostates, they had the impudence to declare, that they had saved their country! When their worthy successors hurled this degraded mon­arch from his throne, and, after a series of injus­tices, insults and cruelties, as unmerited as unheard­of, put an end to his sufferings on a scaffold, they, too, had saved their country! They have saved it, alas! again and again! Every signal act of their fol­ly and tyranny, every one of their massacres, has ended with a declaration of their having saved their country. Even when they exchanged the Chris­tian Religion, the words of eternal life, for the impious and illiterate systems of a Paine and a Vol­ney; when they declared the God of Heaven to be an impostor, and forbade his worship on pain of death; even then they pretended they had saved their country!—If Mr. Randolph meant to save his country in this way, he is welcome, for me, to the exclusive possession of the honour due to his zeal. He might surely venture to make overtures to Citi­zen Fauchet for operating a salvation of this kind, without the least fear of a rebuff. But, stopping short of French salvation, he might wish to save it from the excise; from the Treasurer's plans of fi­nance; from a treaty with England; and, above all, from that ‘ strengthening the government, which had so visible a propensity to aristocracy.’ Be­sides, [Page 52] when a man comes to ask for a bribe, he must have some excuse; for, base as he may be, and lost to shame, and well as he may be convinced, that the person whom he addresses, is as base as himself; yet, there is a something about the human form, though disfigured with a tricolor cockade, which reminds the wretch, that he has a soul.

As a convincing proof that the overtures men­tioned by Citizen Fauchet ought to be understood, as made to obtain money for supporting, in some way or other, the insurrection in the West, and that the whole letter inevitably conveys this meaning, we need no other proof than that furnished by Mr. Randolph himself. It will certainly be supposed, that he, above all others, would read this essay on bribery and corruption with an anxious and scruti­nizing eye? We may fairly presume, that he con­ned it over with more attention than ever school­boy did his lesson, or monk his breviary; and that, from the moment he was in his penitential weeds, he repeated the some-thousand-dollar sen­tence as often as a devotee catholic repeats her Ave-Maria. Yet, notwithstanding all this; not­withstanding the interest he had in finding some o­ther meaning for it; notwithstanding even his ta­lent at warping and twisting and turning every thing that falls in his way, we find him, on the 19th of August; writing to the President thus: ‘For I here most solemnly deny, that any overture e­ver came from me, which was to produce money to me [and not to flour-merchants], or any others for me; and that in any manner directly or indi­rectly, was a shilling ever received by me; nor was it ever contemplated by me, that one shilling should be applied by Mr. Fauchet to any purpose, relative to the insurrection.’—He understood, then, the letter to mean, that money was to be received by him, and that it was to be applied to some pur­pose [Page 53] relative to the insurrection. This was the charge that he at first thought the letter contained against him. And when did he begin to think o­therwise?—After he had been to see Citizen Fau­chet at Rhode Island, and not a moment before. It was after this edifying tête-à—tête with his old Fa­ther Joseph, that he began to recollect all about the flour-merchants and Mr. Hammond's Congress; and so, with his memory thus refreshed, he comes back, and tells us in his Vindication. ‘Mr. Fau­chet's letter, indeed, made me suppose, that No. 6. possibly alluded to some actual or proffered loan or expenditure, for the nourishment of the insur­rection: and, therefore, I thought it necessary to deny, in my letter of the 19th of August, that one shilling was contemplated by me to be appli­ed by Mr. Fauchet relative to the insurrection.’

Citizen Fauchet's memory, too, was, it seems, furbished up by this tête-à-tète; for he tells us, in his certificate, that, ‘ now calling to mind all the circumstances, to which the questions of Mr. Ran­dolph call my attention, I have an intimate con­viction that I was mistaken in the propositions, which I supposed to have been made to me.’—So, here is a pretty story for you: Mr. Randolph forget all about the flour merchants, till he talks to Citizen Fauchet, and Citizen Fauchet forgets all about them, till he talks to Mr. Randolph! Their me­mories, like a flint and steel, could bring forth no light but by friction with each other. If this do not prove a close connection, I do not know what does. Even "their minds," as the poet says, ‘in wed­lock's bands were join'd.’

There is another singularity worth notice here. Citizen Fauchet's intercepted letter was written on the 31st of October, 1794; and, at that time (though it was just after the overtures were made), he did not recollect a word about the flour-men, nor about [Page 54] the machinations of the English: but, on the 27th of September, 1795, that is to say, ten months and twenty-seven days afterwards, he has an intimate conviction of the whole matter; and tells as good a tough story about it, as one can in conscience ex­pect from a being that kneels down at the shrine of a Jack-Ass. Mr. Randolph, also, recollected nothing about it on the 19th of August, but, in some thir­ty days after, it all came as pat into his head, as if it had but that moment happened.—Rhode-Island must be like the cave of the Dervise, where every one that entered saw, written in large characters; all the actions of his past life. If so, no wonder our Adventurers made such haste to quit it.

I cannot dismiss this subject, without begging the reader once more to call to mind the sarcasms that Citizen Fauchet pours out on the changeable men, who seconded the views of the government with the most scandalous ostentation, who uttered resolu­tions and harrangues without end, and who made excursions to collect troops, ‘as soon as it was de­cided that the French Republic purchased no men to do their duty.’ Mr. Randolph lays hold of this word duty, too, as a drowning man would of a straw, and to just as much purpose; for, if, by this word, Citizen Fauchet meant the real duty of these harranguers, they were here in the performance of it. Their duty, their allegiance to the United States, required them to speak forcible to the peo­ple, to second the declarations of the general go­vernment, and, if ordered, to make excursions to collect troops; and yet, he tells us, or rather he tells the French government, that they did all this; ‘as soon as it was decided that the French Repub­lic purchased no men to do their duty.’ Hence it is a clear case, that what he conceived to be their duty, and what he would have paid them to per­form, if he had had money, was exactly the contrary [Page 55] of all this; and exactly the contrary of this would have been, an opposition to the general govern­ment, it is probable defeat, and consequent destruc­tion.

After all, to fix the blackest guilt on the conspi­rators, it is not necessary to prove what their pre­cise intentions were. It is sufficient, that we have the clearest evidence, that, in consideration of some thousands of dollars, they would have enabled a fo­reign nation to decide on civil war or on peace for this country. After having, then, satisfied our­selves with respect to who they are, this is the crime we have to lay to their charge. All their assevera­tions, all their windings and subterfuges are vain: they will never wash away the stain, as long as words shall retain their meaning, and as long as virtue shall hold her seat in our hearts and reason in our minds.

I have already trespassed on the reader's patience much longer than I intended, and, I fear, longer than he will excuse; but, as I have promised to take some notice of the Vindicator's attempt at recrimi­nation, I must be as good as my word.

He has exerted his labyrinthian faculties to the utmost, in order to make it believed, that the Pre­sident of the United States ratified the Treaty with Great Britain, under the influence of what he mo­destly terms, a British faction. With this object in view, he says, as addressing himself to the Presi­dent: ‘By my advice the United States would have been masters of all contingences at the end of the campaign. To my unutterable astonish­ment, I soon discovered that you were receding from your determination. You had been reflect­ing upon your course from the 26th of June to the 16th of July; on the latter day you decided on it; a communication was made to the British mi­nister in conformity with it; letters were addressed [Page 56] to our own ministers a conformity to it; they were in [...]pected by you, before you rescinded your purpose; no imperious circumstances had arisen, except the strength of the popular voice, which would, according to ordinary calculation, corro­borate, not reverse, your former resolution; you assigned no new reasons for the new measures; and you disregarded the answer to Boston, al­though it had committed you upon a special fact, namely, a determination not to ratify during the existence of the provision-order. While I was searching for the cause of this singular revolution; and could not but remember, that another opi­nion, which was always weighty with you, had advised you not to exchange ratifications, until the provision-order should be abolished, or the American minister should receive further in­structions, if it were not abolished; after duty had dictated to me an acquiescence in your va­ried sentiments, and I had prepared a memorial to Mr. Hammond adapted to them; after you had signed the ratification on the 18th of August; Mr. Fauchet's letter brought forth a solution of the whole affair; thence it was that you were per­suaded to lay aside all fear of a check from the friends of France; thence it was that myself and the French cause were instantaneously abandoned.’

This appears to be the sum of Mr. Randolph's statement, the correctness of which is, at least, ve­ry doubtful; but, not to tire the reader with a dis­cussion of little importance as to the main point, and in which I might possibly err, I shall take it for granted, that all that he has said and insinuated here is strictly true; and then his charge amounts to this: that the President, even after the decision of the Senate with respect to the Treaty was known, hesitated, from the 26th of June to the 13th of July, as to what course he should pursue in regard [Page 57] to the ratification; that, on the day last mention­ed, he came to a resolution not to ratify, until the orde [...] [...]f His Britannic Majesty, for seizing provi­sions destined from this country to France, should be withdrawn; and that, notwithstanding this re­solution, he did afterwards ratify, leaving the or­der in force, and that he was induced to this change of conduct from the discovery made by Citizen Fauchet's intercepted letter.

Now, admitting all this to be so, it requires▪ greater degree of penetration than I am master of, to perceive how it proves the President to have ra­tified the Treaty under the influence of a British faction, or any faction at all.

It would seem, that the Vindicator imagines, that, when a man has once taken a resolution, he can never change it, without incurring the censure of acting under some undue influence. How far such a maxim is from being founded in truth the expe­rience of every day will prove. A voluntary reso­lution must ever be supposed to be formed upon ex­isting circumstances; and, of course, if any thing arises that totally alters those circumstances, it would be mere obstinacy to adhere to the resolution. If, for instance, a man determines on giving up a part of his income to a friend, and the next day finds that friend plotting against his life, must he, not­withstanding the discovery, put his determination in practice, or be subjected to the charge of acting under some undue influence? To maintain such a position appears to have been reserved for Mr. Ran­dolph alone. The true question, therefore, is this: Was the discovery, made by Citizen Fauchet's in­tercepted letter, sufficient to justify the President's altering his resolution, or not?

The only objection that it is pretended the Presi­dent ever had to ratify the Treaty, as advised by the [Page 58] Senate, was, the existence of the order of the King of Great Britain for seizing provisions destined from this country to France; because, he was given to understand that ratifying while this order re­mained in [...]e, might look like acknowledging the legality [...] the seizure, and might embroil the United States with the French Republic. That this was the suggestion of Mr. Randolph he now avows; and he even owns; nay, boasts, that he never would have given his advice in favour of the ratification at all, if he had not remembered, ‘that if the people were adverse to the Treaty, it was the constitutional right of the House of Represen­tatives to refuse, upon original grounds, unfettered by the Senate and President, to pass the laws ne­cessary for its execution.’ He has been tempted to make this avowal in order to ingratiate himself with the Opposition; and the need they have of a man, able and willing to expose every secret of the Exe­cutive, may, perhaps, insure him a momentary success; but the avowal furnishes, at the same time, an irresistible proof of his double dealing. We plainly perceive from this, as well as from all the documents he has brought forward, on the subject, that he was the great, if not the only cause, of the delaying of the ratification. First he starts objec­tions; then proposes conferences between himself and the English minister; then he drafts memori­als; in short, he was taking his measures for un­doing all that had been done, or, as Mr. Pickering well termed it, for ‘throwing the whole up in the wind.’

The situation of the President was, at this time, truely critical. On the one hand, he saw an instru­ment ready for his signature, which completed the long-desired object, an amicable termination of all differences with Great Britain; an object that twen­ty long years of war and disputation had not been [Page 59] able to accomplish: on the other hand, he was haunted with the feigned, but terrific forebodings of an artful Secretary of State, who lost no oppor­tunity of representing the consummation of the act as a just cause of offence to France, the faithful ally of the United States and the favourite of the people. At this embarrassing moment arrives the intercepted letter of Citizen Fauchet. The charm, that held him in suspence, is at once dissolved. Here he sees that the hypocrite in whom he had confided, who first awakened doubts in his mind, who had been the cause of all the procrastination, and who had hitherto withheld his hand; here he sees him at the head of a faction opposed to his government, unveiling all its most secret views to a foreign mi­nister, and even making overtures for money, which, if acceded to, would have enabled that minister to decide on civil war or on peace for this country. Was it not natural to imagine, that he should now see the advice of this "pretended patriot" as a lure to lead him into a snare, to render the Treaty abor­tive, and eventually plunge the United States into a war with Great Britain? And was it not, then, I ask, as natural, that he should turn from it with indignation and horror? "Hence it was," says the Vindicator, ‘that myself and the French cause were instantaneously abandoned.’ And, upon my soul, I think it was high time.

In this letter the President saw also, what it was he had to expect from the friendship of the regenera­ted French. Here he finds a foreign minister writ­ing a letter that breathes, from the first syllable of it to the last, the most treacherous hostility to the Federal government. He finds him caballing with some of the leading men in the state; reviling his administration; representing him as the head of an Aristocracy; approving of an open rebellion; re­gretting [Page 60] its want of success, and that he had not the means of nourishing it. And all this he sees ad­dressed to the rulers of a nation professing the sin­cerest friendship for himself and the people of Ame­rica. Was it possible that he should see any thing here to induce him to delay the ratification of an instrument, calculated to insure peace and uninter­rupted prosperity to his country, merely for the take of obtaining an advantage for that nation? "Hence," says the Ex-Secretary, in his plaintive style, ‘Hence it was that he was persuaded to lay aside all fear of a check from the friends of France.’ And well he might; for, what more had he to fear from them? Open war with such people is as much preferable to their intrigues, as a drawn sword is preferable to a poisoned repast.

The Vindicator, pursuing his plan for opening to himself a welcome from the adverie (and might say perverse) party, insiduously brings forward the re­monstrances against the Treaty as a reason that ought to have prevented its ratification. Few peo­ple, who consider how these remonstrances were obtained, ever looked upon them as a reason of any weight: but, whatever attention they might merit before the discovery made by the intercepted letter, they merited none at all afterwards; for, there was, and there is, all the reason in the world to believe, that they originated from the same all-powerful cause as did the suggestions, difficulties and delays of the Vindicator. He would fain persuade us, indeed, that no money overtures ever passed between him and Citizen Fauchet, after the little affair of the flour-merchants; but the method he takes of doing this is rather calculated to produce admiration at his effrontery than conviction of his repentance. Ad­dressing himself to the President he says: ‘Do you believe, Sir, that if money was pursued by the Secretary of State, he would have been rebuffed [Page 61] by an answer, which implied no refusal; and would not have renewed the proposition; which, how­ever, Mr. Fauchet confesses, he never heard of again?’—I do not know what the President might believe of the Secretary of State; but one would imagine that even such a rebuff as the Vindicator met with would have prevented any man from re­turning to the charge; however, I shall not contra­dict him here, as he must understand these things better than I, or, perhaps, any other man living. I haste to the declaration he quotes from Citizen Fauchet's dispatch, No. 6. Yes, it is very true that the Citizen says in that dispatch: ‘I have ne­ver since heard of propositions of this nature.’ But when was this dispatch written?—Before the 31st of October, 1794, and, consequently, before the intercepted letter; and Mr. Randolph has the conscience to make this declaration apply to the month of November, 1795. This is another of those little twists for which our Vindicator is so renowned.

There was great plenty of time for the Citizen to receive a reinforcement from France, before the Treaty made its appearance on this side of the Ocean; and the regret he expresses at his ‘ want of pecuni­ary means,’ when the first overtures were made to him, seems to be a tolerable good reason for pre­suming that he would strain every nerve to be able to give a more "satisfactory answer" another time, than that concerning "the pure principles of his Re­public." I leave any one to guess at the low ebb to which he must be reduced, when he was obliged to throw himself on the purity of the French nation, for want of a little of the ready to purchase the " consciences of the pretended patriots of America," which were just going off as cheap as neck-beef, or damaged goods at vendue! What must be the mor­tification of this speculator in consciences, when he [Page 62] had not one single dollar to give ‘those changeable men,’ to prevent them from harranguing and issu­ing declarations to ‘second the views of the govern­ment!’ Indeed, when the Citizen is upon this subject he seems to be quite unmanned. His situa­tion was like that of a prodigal, who, after having squandered his last sou on his bawds and parasites, sees himself deserted and despised by them.— ‘And the popular societies too,’ says he, giving way to all the anguish of his soul, ‘And the Popular So­cieties too, emitted resolutions stamped with the same spirit!’ The poor Citizen's grief at this un­grateful defection of his darling Club, puts one in mind of the lamentation of King James, when he heard that his favourite daughter had quitted his pa­lace to join the invader. ‘God help me, said he, I am deserted by my very children!’—This was not the case with Citizen Genet: his purse was ever full, and he had ever a troop of Democrats at his heels. He made his court like Jupiter of old, in a golden shower, and, like Jupiter, he succeeded. Then was the time for trade: then a patriot's con­science was as good to him as a little estate: he was not then obliged to hawk it about from door to door, like stinking fish or rotten peaches.

That Citizen Fauchet would press the necessity of a supply there can be no reason to doubt, at least from any thing that he has said to the contrary; for, it was the ‘want of power and defect of pecu­niary means,’ that prevented him from yielding to the overtures that were made him; and not his want of inclination to nourish the insurrection in the West. ‘I shall draw myself off, says he, by some common place remarks, and by throwing myself on the pure principles of the Republic.’ He says this with a laugh, that very well indicates what he thought of that purity. But, we are not reduced to the necessity of forming an opinion on any thing [Page 63] that he says on this subject. We know what the pure principles of his Republic are. We have seen from a report, made in the Convention, that, at Genoa, these pure principles had made sure of a party, who engaged to open the gates of the City to the French army, and that this plan, after having cost some millions, failed of success. In Switzerland, the Con­vention declares they have spent more money in bribes, than would have maintained an army of a hundred thousand men in the field; but, point d'argent point de Suisse, according to their own pro­verb. In Denmark they expended such immense sums in consequence of their pure principles, to the wife of one, and the whore of another, and the laquay of another, and all this under the pretence of purchasing corn, that the reporter declares, that those who eat the bread made of the corn coming from that country, might be said to swallow pure gold ^*. Consciences were high there; and yet the expenditure in Denmark is estimated at no more than a thirtieth part of what was expended among the republics. It was at Geneva that the success of their pure principles was complete. Their minister at that place adhered to them so rigid­ly, that, in the space of a few months, that de­voted City became a little Paris. The constitu­tion was destroyed, the sans-culottes let loose upon the rich; confiscations, banishment and death [Page 64] followed ^*.—After this, it is diverting to hear Ci­tizen Fauchet ‘solemnly declare [in his certificate, mind that], that the morals of his nation, and the candour of his government, severely forbid the use of money in any circumstances, which could not be publicly avowed.’—Consummate impudence! The morals of a nation that do not now so much as know the meaning of the word! The morals of a nation that, one day in the year, have Hemp for their god!—And the candour of his government, too! A pretty sort of candour, truely, to profess the tenderest affection for the President and Con­gress, while they were preparing to blow them all up. While they were endeavouring to foster a nest of conspirators, who would have sent them all to the guillotine, like the magistrates of Geneva, or swung them up in the embraces of their elastic god! [Page 65] From the morals and candour of such people, God defend us!

When Citizen Fauchet informed the Convention of the great bargains that were offered him here, when they found at what a low rate ‘the consciences of the pretended patriots of America’ were sell­ing off, it would be to contradict every maxim of trade, to suppose that the purity of their principles and the morals of their nation would prevent them from enabling him to make a purchase; and par­ticularly at the important moment, when the Trea­ty with Great Britain was to be ratified or rejected. There was, indeed, one difficulty; and that was, the Treasury of the Convention was nearly as emp­ty as Father Joseph's purse or the pouch of his men­dicant pilgrim. And, as to assignats, besides their being a tell-tale currency, they never would, as we have no guillotine in the country, have been con­vertible into food and raiment; so that, of course, they would have been as despicable and despised waste-paper, as the Aurora of Philadelphia, the Argus of New-York, or Chronicle of Boston. This difficulty, however, formidable as it was, appear­ed as nothing in competition with the object in view. We may well suppose that their indefatigable finan­ciers would make a last effort; would give the na­tion another squeeze, to come at the means of de­feating the Treaty. They have a greater variety of imposts than Mr. Hamilton or even Mr. Pitt: and in a pressing occasion like the one before us, they had only to set the national razor at work for two or three days, upon the heads of the bankers and merchants, to collect the sum required: or, if these should be grown scarce, a drowning of four or five thousand women might bring them in ear-bobs and [Page 66] other trinkets ^* sufficient to stir up fifty town-meet­ings, and to cause two thirds of the Federal Sena­tors to be roasted in effigy. I would by no means insinuate, that the citizens, in general, who were assembled on these occasions, participated in any donation whatever, foreign or domestic, for I have never heard of any thing of the kind; except, in­deed, at Philadelphia, where, after having hollow­ed like lusty fellows to "damn the Treaty," they were taken and regaled with grog and muddy por­ter, at a tavern belonging to Patriot Plato. ^§ Dona­tions, [Page 67] or "loans," of this sort, seldom extend further than the chairman, orators, and committee-men: the multitude, when their vociferations are finished, are generally suffered to retire to their cabins, their minds inflated with the ideas of their sovereignty, but their bellies as gaunt as those of fasting wolves.

Let any one look at the conduct of the leaders in this opposition to the treaty, and believe, if he can, that they were not actuated by some powerful mo­tive which they dared not openly to avow. They began to emit their anathemas against it, long be­fore it was even laid before the Senate. Mr. Ran­dolph protests, that he never divulged its contents to any one. How he came to imagine this un-ask­ed for declaration necessary in his Vindication, I know not; but this I know, that almost every arti­cle of it was attacked in the Democratic papers, im­mediately after it was received by the President, and that too, with such a confidence of its being what it has since appeared to be, that it requires some­thing [Page 68] more than the protestation of Mr. Randolph, to persuade me that it was not divulged before its appearance from Mr. Bache's press. I will go fur­ther, and say, that I am well convinced, that the Letters of Franklin, which were the first pieces that appeared on the subject, and to which I more parti­cularly allude here, were originally the work of a Frenchman ^*. Father Joseph, believe me, did not bury himself alive on the banks of the Schuylkill purely and simply to have leisure to say his Angelus and tell his beads. His retirement was not so much the effect of piety as of politics.

And who has forgotten the diligence of the op­posers, the moment the treaty was published? Did they give it time to circulate? Did they let it come before the people as public acts in general do, and leave them to form a fair and unprejudiced opinion on it? On the contrary, was not every spring put in motion to prepossess them; to fix in their minds a hatred to the measure, that truth would not be a­ble to remove? How can we account for indivi­dual's [Page 69] quitting their homes, neglecting their business, and sacrificing, to appearance, their interests, to car­ry this instrument to the extremities of the Union, and there form combinations against it, in order to intimidate the President from a ratification? How can we possibly account for the French flag being hoisted at the town-meetings as a signal of opposi­tion to the treaty ^*? What can solve this mystery, unless it be Citizen Fauchet's intercepted letter?

We all remember the hue and cry that was rais­ed by the adverse party, their alarm, when the old Father Confessor and his dispatches were like to be taken by the English ship, the Africa. They trem­bled, and not without reason. If his nine (I be­lieve there were nine of them) cartons had fallen into the hands of the President, we should then, indeed, have seen real machinations unravelled. Then might we have examined the whole account, run over all the items of corruption, known the price current of consciences, and the exact value of every individual patriot. We should then have seen, perhaps, how much it cost the French Re­public to have a stone hurled at the head of Mr. Hamilton ^†; how much she pays for an essay from Valerius, an harrangue from the Garçon-fendu, and a sentence of "damnation" from the President of the Democratic Society ^‡. Then, too, might we have discovered, what sum is necessary, to make one judge quit his awful functions, to head a tu­multuous populace, and another, make a silly, vul­gar, butcher-like proposal for "seizing Great Bri­tain by the throat and strangling her." And then might we have seen, what could induce the versa­tile "Pennsylvania Farmer," to forget the meek, the humble, the peaceful principles of his society, utter a phillipic of sublimated nonsense, breathing [Page 70] nothing but rancour and opposition, and accept of the burning of the Senators of Delaware before his door, as a sacrifice to his patriotic zeal.

Unfortunately these cartons were not intercepted; but all the proceedings of the opposers were such, that, when explained by the intercepted letter, there could remain little or no doubt with respect to their real views; and no one, except a willing dupe, could any longer hesitate to declare, with the Se­cretary of War, ‘that the struggle to defeat the Treaty was the act of a detestable and nefarious conspiracy.’

Will any one believe, then, that the President, with this conviction on his mind, stood in need of British influence to determine on a ratification? What other determination could he possibly take? Was he, though he saw the pit open before his eyes, to plunge headlong into it? Was he, after having discovered the conspiracy, tamely to yield to its ma­chinations, and assist in the ruin of his country? There was but one course for him to pursue to make the government respected, and blast all the hopes of the conspirators, and that was to ratify the Trea­ty. By this act he preserved to us the inesti­mable blessings of peace, gave stability to the Constitution, not only for one, but for many sessions, by a legal and manly exercise of the pow­ers it has vested in him, convinced the French that the interests of the Union are not to be sa­crificed to her vengeance or caprice, and showed to the whole world, that we wish to live in friend­ship with all nations, but that we are determined to be the slaves of none. And yet this act, Mr. Ran­dolph would persuade us, was the work of a British faction!

Thus has the Vindicator failed in all his attempts. On the article of corruption, of which we before doubted, we now doubt no longer; and as to his [Page 71] indirect accusation against the President, it only serves to show that one who, with unblushing front, can ask a bribe, will never be ashamed to publish his ingratitude and apostacy.

I will not, like him, conclude by calling on the people to judge between him and the President of the United States. Their respect for the latter would not, I trust, for a moment endure the com­petition; for, in spite of all the desperate efforts of a disappointed faction, their confidence in Ge­neral WASHINGTON is, and will remain, unshaken. His name will be handed down to their children's children, and ever accompanied with gratitude, love, and admiration. It will be the ornament of the historian's page, while that of Randolph, should it be so unfortunate as not to sink into oblivion, will be thrown into some dark corner, among the "changeable men" and "pretended patriots of America."