For the honour of the American character and of human nature, it is to be lamented that the records of the United States exhibit such a stupendous monument of degeneracy.

It will almost require the authenticity of holy writ to persuade posterity that it is not a libel ingeniously contrived to injure the reputation of the saviour of his country." As this state paper was perfectly confidential, and had been communicated only to the cabinet ministers, Mr.Jefferson thought proper to free himself from any possible suspicion of having given it publicity, by assuring the President that this breach of confidence must be ascribed to some other person.
[Sidenote: Letter from General Washington to Mr.Jefferson.] In answer to this letter the President said-- "If I had entertained any suspicion before, that the queries which have been published in Bache's paper proceeded from you, the assurances you have given of the contrary would have removed them:--but the truth is, I harboured none.

I am at no loss to conjecture from what source they flowed, through what channel they were conveyed, nor for what purpose they and similar publications appear.
"As you have mentioned[43] the subject yourself, it would not be frank, candid, or friendly to conceal, that your conduct has been represented as derogating from that opinion I conceived you entertained of me; that to your particular friends and connexions you have described, and they have denounced me, as a person under a dangerous influence, and that, if I would listen _more_ to some _other_ opinions, all would be well.

My answer invariably has been, that I had never discovered any thing in the conduct of Mr.Jefferson to raise suspicions in my mind of his sincerity; that if he would retrace my public conduct while he was in the administration, abundant proofs would occur to him, that truth and right decisions were the _sole_ objects of my pursuit; that there were as many instances within his _own_ knowledge of my having decided _against_ as in _favour_ of the person evidently alluded to; and moreover, that I was no believer in the infallibility of the politics or measures of any man living.

In short, that I was no party man myself, and that the first wish of my heart was, if parties did exist, to reconcile them.
[Footnote 43: In the same letter Mr.Jefferson had stated his total abstraction from party questions.] "To this I may add, and very truly, that until the last year or two, I had no conception that parties would, or even could go the lengths I have been witness to; nor did I believe, until lately, that it was within the bounds of probability--hardly within those of possibility--that while I was using my utmost exertions to establish a national character of our own, independent as far as our obligations and justice would permit, of every nation of the earth; and wished by steering a steady course to preserve this country from the horrors of a desolating war, I should be accused of being the enemy of one nation and subject to the influence of another; and to prove it, that every act of my administration would be tortured, and the grossest and most insidious misrepresentations of them be made, by giving one side only of a subject, and that too in such exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero--to a notorious defaulter--or even to a common pick-pocket.
"But enough of this--I have already gone further in the expression of my feelings than I intended." Of the numerous misrepresentations and fabrications which, with unwearied industry, were pressed upon the public in order to withdraw the confidence of the nation from its chief, no one marked more strongly the depravity of that principle which justifies the means by the end, than the republication of certain forged letters, purporting to have been written by General Washington in the year 1776.
These letters had been originally published in the year 1777, and in them were interspersed, with domestic occurrences which might give them the semblance of verity, certain political sentiments favourable to Britain in the then existing contest.
But the original fabricator of these papers missed his aim.