out what may be called a record, for posterity. Unfortunately, it was worse than labor lost, for it was labor unintentionally productive of evil. No man would regret it more than Mr. Jay himself, if he were living.

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Mr. Jay, at that time, and, doubtless, to the end of his life, was wholly ignorant of the following most material facts, which have been already exhibited to the reader: 1. That Washington had written a long and explicit letter to Mr. Madison, on the 20th May, 1792, requesting him, at that time, to write a Farewell Address, if he approved the measure, and making large suggestions to him on the subject. 2. That Madison had replied to that letter, on the 20th June, 1792, and sent to Washington a draught, containing those expressions in regard to Washington's "very "fallible judgment," and "the inferiority of his qualifications," which strike everybody who reads the Farewell Address, and irresistibly impressed Mr. Jay with the belief, that no man could have written an address which contained those words, except Washington himself. 3. That Washington had applied to Hamilton personally, in the spring of 1796, to "redress" the draught which Washington himself had prepared; and that, on the 15th May of that year, he wrote to Hamilton, sending him the paper, and requesting to correct it, and giving him also authority to write it over anew upon the plan he thought best, founding it upon the sentiments contained in Washington's paper; and that Hamilton had executed the last power referred to, before his interview with Jay,-the execution of that power being a matter which concerned Hamilton alone until Washington should approve it, and which Hamilton thought proper to submit to Washington only. 4. That Hamilton,

before his interview with Jay, had already, on the 30th July, sent to Washington that new form of a Farewell Address; and, in the letter which inclosed it, promised to send him, in a fortnight, Washington's own draught, corrected upon the general plan of it. 5. That the matter upon which he, Mr. Jay, was consulted, on behalf of Washington by Hamilton, was only one of the objects of Washington's letter of the 15th May, this correction of Washington's draught, and did not comprehend the other-the writing it over anewupon the plan Hamilton should think best.

If Mr. Jay had known these several matters, he would have had an outline of all the heads of material facts up to the time of his interview with Hamilton. But he was not aware of any one of them; nor was it necessary that he should be, to enable him to assist in the correction or amendment of Washington's draught, which was an entirely separate and independent matter. Nevertheless, in this imperfect state of his knowledge or information,-perfect enough for the performance of the office Mr. Jay was asked to perform in Washington's behalf,-but wholly insufficient to enlighten him in regard to Hamilton's draught, or to Washington's previous communications with Madison, Mr. Jay proceeded to express a definite opinion upon the whole matter of the authorship of the Farewell Address. 1. He gave an explicit opinion upon the general proposition, that the Farewell Address was a personal act of Washington, and that nobody else could, with propriety, be its author. 2. That it was not likely that Hamilton, or any other person but Washington, was the author, because Washington was perfectly able to write it himself. 3. That if it was "pos"sible to find a man among those whom Washington es

"teemed, capable of offering him such a present” as an address, which contained what the Farewell Address does contain, the broadest avowals of his very fallible judgment, and the inferiority of his qualifications,-"it was impossible "to believe that President Washington was the man to "whom such a present would be acceptable."

The presumptive internal evidence from the Farewell Address, combined with that of Washington's ability, which Mr. Jay argues at large in his letter, and very well, and the direct evidence arising from that interview with Hamilton, therefore resulted to impress Mr. Jay's mind with the conviction, most necessarily implied by his whole letter, though not, I believe, anywhere in it expressly stated, that Washington was the sole author of the Farewell Address, such corrections or amendments of it only excepted as Hamilton had read in that interview, and some of little importance, which had been made by both the parties in the course of it. But it gives me pleasure to add that, considering the lapse of time between the date of that interview, in 1796, and Mr. Jay's letter, in 1811, there is a very reasonable excuse for Mr. Jay's regarding the corrections and emendations of Washington's draught by Hamilton, as having gone into the published Farewell Address; because almost all the corrections of Washington's draught contain the same thoughts, expressed in nearly the same language, as in Hamilton's original draught, and most probably in the amended copy Hamilton sent to Washington. I am very happy to suppose that these important passages in the published Farewell Address, contributed to recall the corrections or emendations of Washington's draught, which Hamilton had read to him, and to strengthen Mr. Jay's belief that the Farewell Ad

dress was identically Washington's draught corrected by Hamilton. But in volume as well as plan, the original draught of Hamilton, and the corrected draught of Washington, were entirely unlike; and some long passages which Hamilton may have left in the corrected draught of Washington, are excluded altogether from his own, particularly those on the subject of political calumny and party abuse, which squared better with parts of Washington's plan than they did with his own, and which are therefore excluded from it.

There were few wiser men in this country, and no purer man anywhere, than John Jay. There is a halo round his venerable head, which we recollect, that makes it exceedingly painful to represent him as having erred so capitally in his conclusions, from the partial evidence before him; especially as his professional astuteness, and the wariness of his judgment, in judicial or quasi-judicial cases of importance, was one of his eminent characteristics. Something, perhaps, in Judge Peters's letter to Mr. Jay may have tended to narrow the scope of his inquiry, or a little to surprise his accurate judgment in this matter; but I have looked in vain to the Life of Mr. Jay by his son, and elsewhere, for further elucidation of the subject.

It is from this letter, perhaps,-probably from Judge Peters's exhibition of it, or repetition of its contents, at a day several years before the publication of Mr. Jay's Life by his son, that has arisen the uncomfortable feeling I have adverted to, in regard to the authorship of the Farewell Address, and with it the opinion or sentiment of Mr. Sparks, that in some way it concerned the honor of Hamilton, to destroy all traces of his connection with it.

160 HAMILTON'S COURSE IN REGARD TO HIS ROUGH ORIGINALS.

There is not the least evidence in the world that the obliteration of such traces ever entered into the heart or mind of Washington; and no man of understanding who shall carry or trace back such a thought to its root or principle, can fail to perceive that it will infer a weakness in Washington, that is out of keeping with his whole life, and with the explicit language of the Farewell Address itself.

Hamilton appears to have preserved the abstract and original rough draught, because there was no motive to destroy them. He could not have destroyed them with the supposed motive, without feeling his own respect for Washington in some degree impaired by the motive. He kept them, as he kept the original draughts of some of the clauses he had prepared for Washington's speeches, as a record of his own sentiments, and as a part of the transactions of his political life. He kept no copy of his corrections of Washington's draught, nor of the amended copy of his own draught, nor of the revision of that draught, nor of any of his letters to Washington on this subject, nor indeed of anything in regard to it, for the two papers he left behind him were not copies, but the rough originals. This was all that Hamilton did. He did not destroy them; that is all. Privacy at the time was material, as the correspondence shows, because the purpose of Washington to retire, was intended to be held in reserve, for public reasons, until the last moment. Hamilton expressly advised him to this effect. It is from this cause, perhaps, that no more copies were taken. Hamilton's own engagements and want of health prevented his making them, and the employment of a clerk would have endangered a disclosure of Washington's purpose. The originals of Washington's letters he preserved, as he probably did or