The whole was published in Europe and republished in America as the letter of Mr.Jefferson, with his name subscribed.

The genuineness of no part of it was ever called into question.

How then could the public or any individual have ventured to select a particular sentence, and to say--this is spurious?
Had it been suggested by Mr.Jefferson or his confidential friends that the letter was in general his, but that one sentence was fabricated, there is not perhaps an individual in the United States who would have pointed to that which censured the conduct of our government towards France, as the fabricated sentence.

That which placed the then chief magistrate at the head of the "Anglican, monarchical, and aristocratical party which had sprung up," would have been much more probably selected.

This conjecture is hazarded because, at the date of the letter,[60] Mr.Jefferson shared the confidence of General Washington, and was on terms of intimate professed friendship with him; while his censures of the conduct of the United States towards France were open and unreserved.