The true object of all these movements was to rally a party and break down Jefferson’s great colleague in the cabinet.  The “Rights of Man” served to start the discussion; and the next step was to bring on from New York Philip Freneau, a verse-writer and journalist, and make him translating clerk in the State Department, and editor of an opposition newspaper known as the “National Gazette.”  The new journal proceeded to do its work after the fashion of the time.  It teemed with abuse not only of Hamilton and Adams and all the supporters of the treasury measures, denouncing them as “monarchists,” “aristocrats,” and “a corrupt squadron,” but it even began a series of coarse assaults upon the President himself.  Jefferson, of course, denied that he had anything to do with the writing in the newspaper, and Freneau made oath at the time that the Secretary wrote nothing; but in his old age he declared that Jefferson wrote or dictated all the most abusive articles, and he showed a file of the “Gazette” with these articles marked.  Strict veracity was not the strongest characteristic of either Freneau or Jefferson, and it is really of but little consequence whether Freneau was lying in his old age or in the prime of life.  The undoubted facts of the case are enough to fix the responsibility upon Jefferson, where it belongs.  The editor of a newspaper devoted to abusing the administration was brought to Philadelphia by the Secretary of State, was given a place in his department, and was his confidential friend.  Jefferson himself took advantage of his position to gather material for attacks upon his chief, and upon his colleagues, to whom he was bound to be loyal by every rule which dictates the conduct of honorable men.  He did not, moreover, content himself with this outside work.  It has been too much overlooked that Jefferson, in addition to forming a party and organizing attacks upon the Secretary of the Treasury and his friends, sought in the first instance to break down Hamilton in the cabinet, to deprive him of the confidence of Washington, and by driving him from the administration to get control himself.  At no time did Jefferson ever understand Washington, but he knew him well enough to be quite aware that he would never give up a friend like Hamilton on account of any newspaper attacks.  He therefore took a more insidious method.

Knowing that Washington was in the habit of consulting with old friends at home of all shades of opinion in regard to public affairs, he contrived through their agency to have his own charges against Hamilton laid before the President.  He also, to make perfectly sure, wrote himself to Washington, candidly setting forth outside criticism, and his letter took the form of a well-arranged indictment of the Treasury measures.  This method had the advantage of assailing Hamilton without incurring any responsibility, and the charges were skilfully formulated and ingeniously constructed to raise in the mind of the reader every possible