Should their immediate operation on the executive of France disappoint his hopes, he persuaded himself that he could not mistake their influence in America; and he felt the most entire conviction that the accusations against the United States would cease, with the evidence that those accusations were countenanced and supported by a great portion of the American people.
These documents were communicated to the public; but, unfortunately, their effect at home was not such as had been expected, and they were consequently inoperative abroad.

The fury of political controversy seemed to sustain no diminution; and the American character continued to be degraded by reciprocal criminations, which the two great parties made upon each other, of being under a British, and a French influence.
The measures particularly recommended by the President in his speech, at the opening of the session, were not adopted; and neither the debates in Congress, nor the party publications with which the nation continued to be agitated, furnished reasonable ground for the hope, that the political intemperance which had prevailed from the establishment of the republican form of government in France, was about to be succeeded by a more conciliatory spirit.
The President contemplated with a degree of pleasure[50] seldom felt at the resignation of power, his approaching retirement to the delightful scenes of domestic and rural life.
[Footnote 50: See note No.XV.at the end of the volume.] It was impossible to be absolutely insensible to the bitter invectives, and malignant calumnies of which he had long been the object.

Yet in one instance only, did he depart from the rule he had prescribed for his conduct regarding them.

Apprehending permanent injury from the republication of certain spurious letters which have been already noticed, he, on the day which terminated his official character, addressed to the secretary of state the following letter.
[Sidenote: He denies the authenticity of certain spurious letters published as his in 1776.] "Dear Sir, "At the conclusion of my public employments, I have thought it expedient to notice the publication of certain forged letters which first appeared in the year 1777, and were obtruded upon the public as mine.

They are said by the editor to have been found in a small portmanteau that I had left in the care of my mulatto servant named Billy, who, it is pretended, was taken prisoner at Fort Lee, in 1776.
The period when these letters were first printed will be recollected, and what were the impressions they were intended to produce on the public mind.