In a letter to the President the same day he writes: "Your confidence in me, sir, has been unlimited, and I can truly affirm unabused. My sensations, then, cannot be concealed, when I find that confidence so suddenly withdrawn, without a word or distant hint being previously dropped to me. This, sir, as I mentioned in your room, is a situation in which I cannot hold my present office, and therefore I hereby resign it.

"It will not, however, be concluded from hence that I mean to relinquish the inquiry. No, sir; very far from it. I will also meet any inquiry; and to prepare for it, if I learn there is a chance of overtaking Mr. Fauchet before he sails, I will go to him immediately.

"I have to beg the favor of you to permit me to be furnished with a copy of the letter, and I will prepare an answer to it; which I perceive that I cannot do as I wish, merely upon the few hasty memoranda which I took with my pencil.

“I am satisfied, sir, that you will acknowledge one piece of justice to be due on the occasion: which is, that, until an inquiry can be made, the affair shall continue in secrecy under your injunction. For, after pledging myself for a more specific investigation of all the suggestions, I here most solemnly deny that any overture came from me, which was to produce money to me 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."

Washington, in a reply on the following day, in which he accepted his resignation, observes: "Whilst you are in pursuit of means to remove the strong suspicions arising from this letter, no disclosure of its contents will be made by me; and I will enjoin the same on the public officers who are acquainted with the purport of it, unless something will appear to render an explanation necessary on the part of the government, and of which I will be the judge."

And on a subsequent occasion he writes; "No man would rejoice more than I to find that the suspicions which have resulted from the intercepted letter were unequivocally and honorably removed."

Mr. Fauchet, in the mean time, having learnt previous to embarkation, that his dispatch had been intercepted, wrote a declaration, denying that Mr. Randolph had ever indicated a willingness to receive money for personal objects, and affirming that he had had no intention to say anything in his letter to his government, to the disadvantage of Mr. Randolph's character. 1

Mr. Randolph now set to work to prepare a pamphlet in explanation of his conduct, intimating to his friends, that in the course of his vindication, he would bring things to view which would affect Washington more than anything which had yet appeared. 2

While thus occupied he addressed several notes to Washington, requiring information on various

1 Sparks' Writings of Washington, xi. 90

2 Writings, xi. 89.

points, and received concise answers to all his queries.

On one occasion, where he had required a particular paper, he published in the "Gazette" an extract from his note to Washington; as if fearing the request might be denied, lest the paper in question should lay open many confidential and delicate matters.

In reply, Washington writes: "That you may have no cause to complain of the withholding of any paper, however private and 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 to you; nay, more, every word I ever uttered to you or in your hearing, from whence you can derive any advantage in your vindication. I grant this per.. mission, inasmuch as the extract alluded to manifestly tends to impress on the public an opinion, that something was passed between us, which you should disclose with reluctance, from motives of delicacy with respect to me. That public will judge, when it comes to see your vindica. tion, how far and how proper it has been for you to publish private and confidential communications which oftentimes have been written in a hurry, and sometimes without even copies being taken; and it will, I hope, appreciate my motives, even if it should condemn my prudence, in allowing you the unlimited license herein contained."

The merit of this unlimited license will be prop erly understood when it is known that at this time, Washington was becoming more and more the object of the malignant attacks of the press. The ratification of the treaty had opened the vials of party wrath against him. "His military and political character," we are told, "was attacked with equal violence, and it was averred that he was totally destitute of merit, either as a soldier or a statesman. He was charged with having violated the Constitution, in negotiating a treaty without the previous advice of the Senate, and that he had embraced within that treaty subjects belonging exclusively to the legislature, for which an impeachment was publicly suggested. Nay more, it was asserted that he had drawn from the treasury, for his private use, more than the salary annexed to his office." 1

This last charge, so incompatible with the whole character and conduct of Washington, was fully refuted by the late Secretary of the Treasury, who explained that the President never himself touched any part of the compensation attached to his office, but that the whole was received and disbursed by the gentleman who superintended the expenses of his household. That the expenses

at some times exceeded, and at other times fell short of the quarter's allowance; but that the aggregate fell within the allowance for the year.

At this time the General Assembly of Maryland made a unanimous resolution to the following effect that " observing with deep concern, a 1 See Marshall's Washington, vol. ii. p. 370.

series of efforts, by indirect insinuation or open invective, to detach from the first magistrate of the Union, the well-earned confidence of his fellow-citizens; they think it their duty to declare, and they do hereby declare, their unabated reliance on the integrity, judgment, and patriotism of the President of the United States."

In a reply to the Governor of Maryland, Washington observed: "At any time the expression of such a sentiment would have been considered as highly honorable and flattering. At the present, when the voice of malignancy is so high-toned, and no attempts are left unessayed to destroy all confidence in the constituted authorities of this country, it is peculiarly grateful to my sensibility.

"I have long since resolved, for the present time at feast, to let my calumniators proceed without any notice being taken of their invectives by myself, or by any others, with my participation or knowledge. Their views, I dare say, are readily perceived by all the enlightened and welldisposed part of the community; and by the records of my administration, and not by the voice of faction, I expect to be acquitted or condemned hereafter."

The vindication which Mr. Randolph had been preparing, appeared in December. In this, he gave a narrative of the principal events relating to the case, his correspondence with the President, and the whole of the French minister's letter. He endeavored to explain those parts of the letter which had brought the purity of his