a great deal too far:  there might be desires, but he did not believe there were designs to change the form of government into a monarchy:  that there might be a few who wished it in the higher walks of life, particularly in the great cities; but that the main body of the people in the eastern States were as steadily for republicanism as in the southern.  That the pieces lately published, and particularly in Freneau’s paper, seemed to have in view the exciting opposition to the government.  That this had taken place in Pennsylvania as to the excise-law, according to information he had received from General Hand.  That they tended to produce a separation of the Union, the most dreadful of all calamities, and that whatever tended to produce anarchy, tended, of course, to produce a resort to monarchical government.  He considered those papers as attacking him directly, for he must be a fool indeed to swallow the little sugar-plumbs here and there thrown out to him.  That in condemning the administration of the government, they condemned him, for if they thought there were measures pursued contrary to his sentiments, they must conceive him too careless to attend to them, or too stupid to understand them.  That though, indeed, he had signed many acts which he did not approve in all their parts, yet he had never put his name to one which he did not think, on the whole, was eligible.  That as to the bank, which had been an act of so much complaint, until there was some infallible criterion of reason, a difference of opinion must be tolerated.  He did not believe the discontents extended far from the seat of government.  He had seen and spoken with many people in Maryland and Virginia in his late journey.  He found the people contented and happy.  He wished, however, to be better informed on this head.  If the discontents were more extensive than he supposed, it might be, that the desire that he should remain in the government was not general.

My observations to him tended principally to enforce the topics of my letter.  I will not, therefore, repeat them, except where they produced observations from him.  I said, that the two great complaints were, that the national debt was unnecessarily increased, and that it had furnished the means of corrupting both branches of the legislature; that he must know, and every body knew, there was a considerable squadron in both, whose votes were devoted to the paper and stock-jobbing interest, that the names of a weighty number were known, and several others suspected on good grounds.  That on examining the votes of these men, they would be found uniformly for every Treasury measure, and that as most of these measures had been carried by small majorities, they were carried by these very votes.  That, therefore, it was a cause of just uneasiness, when we saw a legislature legislating for their own interests, in opposition to those of the people.  He said not a word on the corruption of the legislature, but took up the other point, defended