254 



agency of Mr. Russell, that I had been summoned there. Under 

 their auspices, 1 should ba?e been introduced like a convict of the 

 inquisition, with my sentence upon my breast. My own wish was 

 lo appear with the accusation against me, and my defence for the 

 House to judge upon both. If Mr. Floyd had then reason to de- 

 sist from his call, I had the more reason for wishing it renewed. 



It was Mr. Russell, too, who chose to go into the newspapers, 

 first by publishing his triplicate in Philadelphia, and then his reply, 

 in the Boston Statesman. It was with extreme reluctance that I 

 followed him into that field, and I took the earliest opportunity of 

 withdrawing from it, until called there again by Mr. Floyd. 



If Mr. Jefferson himself, the patriarch of the revolution, the 

 immortal author of the Declaration of Independence, in the re- 

 tirement of private life, in the last stage of his illustrious career, 

 surrounded by the gratitude and veneration of his country, justly 

 thought it not unworthy of himself, to meet twice in the newspa- 

 pers, the accusations of a nameless " Native of Virginia," because 

 they struck at his honour, I hope it will be imputed to no thirst for 

 newspaper contention, if I, who in comparison with him am but of 

 yesterday, but holding a public trust, for which dishonour is dis- 

 qualification, have met in the public journals, the concurring and 

 persevering, though variously pretexted and modified, attacks of a 

 native of Massachusetts and a native of Virginia, both supported by 

 their names, both acts of men, honoured themselves with public 

 confidence, and both tending, if not intended, to rob me of that 

 good name, without which to me public trust would be a reproach 

 and existence itself but a burthen. 



The perusal of Mr. Russell's duplicate disclosed to me the mys- 

 tery of ruin which had been brewing against me, from the very day 

 after the signature of the treaty of Ghent. It was by representa- 

 tions like those of that letter, that the minds of my fellow citizens in 

 the West, had for a succession of years been abused and ulcerated 

 against me. That letter, indeed, inculpated the whole majority of 

 the mission at Ghent, but subsidiary slander had performed its part 

 of pointing all the guilt, and fastening all the responsibility of the 

 crime upon me. It was I who had made the proposal, and Mr, 

 Bayard, after assenting to it, had repented. Such were the tales 

 which had been for years in circulation, and which ceased not to 

 be told, until after the publication of Mr. RusselPs letters and my 

 remarks. Imputations of motives of the deepest infamy, were 

 connected with these aspersions, conveyed in dark insinuations, 

 and vouched for upon pretended ambiguous givings out of the 

 dead.* Several of the public journals from the first call of Mr. 

 Floyd for the Ghent papers, had caught enough of the oracular and 

 prophetic spirit, to foresee that it would result in my irredeemable 

 disgrace. The House of Representatives bad called for Mr. Rus- 



* See the Aurora, daily, for the last \veek in Mnv. ami the Richmond En- 

 quirer of 4th June. la'?^. 



