it was against the opinion of the other electors. The firmness of the individuals, who separated from their colleagues, was so extraordinary, as to have been contrary to all probable calculation. Had only one of them thrown his vote into the other scale, there would have been an equality and no election. Had two done it, the choice would have fallen upon Mr. Jefferson.

"No one, sincere in the opinion that this gentleman was an ineligible and dangerous candidate, can hesitate in pronouncing, that in dropping Mr. Pinckney, too much was put at hazard; and that those who promoted the other course, acted with prudence and propriety.

"It is a fact, which ought not to be forgotten, that Mr. Adams, who had evinced discontent, because he had not been permitted to take an equal chance with General Washington, was engaged with all those who had thought that Mr. Pinckney ought to have had an equal chance with him. But in this there is perfect consistency. The same turn of temper is the solution of the displeasures in both cases.

"It is to this circumstance of the equal support of Mr. Pinckney, that we are in a great measure to refer the serious schism which has since grown up in the federal party.

"Mr. Adams never could forgive the men who had been engaged in the plan; though it embraced some of his most partial admirers. He has discovered bitter animosity against several of them. Against me, his rage has been so vehement, as to have caused him more than once, to forget the decorum, which, in his situation, ought to have been an inviolable law. It will not appear an exaggeration to those who have studied his character, to suppose that he is capable of being alienated from a system to which he has been attached, because it is upheld by men whom he hates. How large a share this may have had on some recent aberrations, cannot easily be determined."

Mr. Hamilton next adverts to the letter, which, upon Mr. Thomas Pinckney's appointment as Envoy to the Court of London, Adams wrote to Tench Coxe, of Philadelphia. This is truly a most base and infamous transaction. We shall give Mr. Hamilton's account of it at length.

"The letter which has just appeared in the public prints, written by him, while Vice-President, to Tench Coxe, is of itself evidence of the justness of this sentiment. It is impossible to speak of this transaction in terms suitable to its nature, without losing sight that Mr. Adams is President of the United States.

"This letter avows the suspicion, shat the appointment of Mr. Pinckney to the Court of London, had been procured or promoted by British influence. And considering the parade with which the story of the Duke of Leeds is told, it is fair to consider that circumstance as the principal, if not the sole, ground of the odious and degrading suspicion.

"Let any man of candour or knowledge of the world, pronounce on this species of evidence.

"It happened, unfortunately for the Pinckneys, that, while boys, and long before our revolution, they went to school with a British Duke, who was afterwards Minister of the British government for the foreign department. This indiscreet Duke, perhaps for no better reason than the desire of saying something to a parting American minister, and the want of something better to say, divulges to him the dangerous secret, that the two Pinckneys had been his class-mates, and goes the alarming length of making inquiry about their health. From this it is sagaciously inferred, that these gentlemen have "many powerful old friends in England;" and from this again, that the Duke of Leeds (of course of the number of these old friends) had procured by intrigue the appointment of one of his class-mates to the Court of London; or, in the language of the letter, that much British influence had been exerted in the appointment.

"In the school of jealousy, stimulated by ill-will, logic like this may pass for substantial; but what is it in the school of reason and justice?

"Though this contaminating connexion of the Pinckneys with the Duke of Leeds, in their juvenile years, did not hinder them from fighting for the independence of their native country throughout our revolution; yet, the supposition is, that the instant the war was terminated, it transformed them from the soldiers of liberty into the tools of the British monarchy.

"But the hostility of the Pinckneys to Mr. Adams, evidenced by their " long intrigue" against him, of which he speaks in the letter, is perhaps intended as a still stronger proof of their devotion to Great Britain-the argument may be thus understood. Mr. Adams is the bulwark of his country against foreign influence-The batteries of every foreign power desirous of acquiring an ascendant in our affairs, are of consequence always open against him-and, the presumption therefore must be, that every citizen who is his enemy, is the confederate of one or another of those foreign powers.

Let us, without contesting this argument of self-love, examine into the facts upon which its applicability must depend. "The evidence of "the long intrigue" seems to be, that the family of the Pinckneys contributed to limit the duration of Mr. Adams's commission to the Court of London to the term of three years, in order to make way for some of themselves to

succeed

succeed him. This, it must be confessed, was a long-sighted calculation in a governor like ours.

"A summary of the transaction, will be the best comment on the inference which has been drawn.

"The resolution of Congress by which Mr. Adams's commission was limited, was a general one, applying to the commissions of all ministers to foreign courts. When it was proposed and adopted, it is certain that neither of the two Pinckneys was a member of Congress; and it is believed they were both at Charleston, in South Carolina, their usual place of abode, more than eight hundred miles distant from the seat of government.

"But they had, it seems, a cousin, Mr. Charles Pinckney, who was in Congress; and this cousin it was who supported the restrictive resolution. Let us inquire who seconded and voted for it.

"It was seconded by Mr. Howell, a member from Rhode Island, the very person who nominated Mr. Adams as Minister to Great Britain, and was voted for by the four eastern states, with New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and South Carolina. Mr. Gerry, always a zealous partisan of Mr. Adams, was among the supporters of the resolution. To make out this to be a machination of the two Pinckneys, many things must be affirmed :First, that their cousin Charles is always subservient to their views (which would equally prove that they have long been, and still are, opposers of the federal administration :)-Second, that this cunning wight has been able to draw the four eastern states into his plot, as well as New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and South Carolina :-Third, that the Pinckneys could foresee, at the distance of three years, the existence of a state of things which would enable them to reap the fruit of their contrivance.

"Would not the circumstances better warrant the suspicion that the resolution was a contrivance of the friends of Mr. Adams, to facilitate in some way his election, and that Mr. Pinckney was their coadjutor, rather than their prompter ?

"But the truth most probably is, that the measure was a mere precaution to bring under frequent review the propriety of continuing a minister at a particular court, and to facilitate the removal of a disagreeable one, without the harshness of formally displacing him. In a policy of this sort, the cant ous maxims of New England would very naturally have taken a lead.

"Thus in the very grounds of the suspicion, as far as t' ey appear, we find its refutation. The complete futility of it will now be illustrated by additional circumstances.

"It is a fact, that the rigour with which the war was prosecuted by the British armies in our southern quarter, had pro duced among the friends of our revolution there, more animo

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sity against the British government, than in the other parts of the United States: and it is a matter of notoriety, in the same quarter, that this disposition was conspicuous among the Pinckneys, and their connexions. It may be added, that they were likewise known to have been attached to the French Revolution, and to have continued so, till long after the appointment of Mr. Thomas Pinckney to the Court of London.

"These propensities of the gentlemen were certainly not such as to make them, favourites of Great Britain, or the appointment of one of them to that court, an object of particu lar solicitude.

"As far as appeared at the time, the idea of nominating Mr. Thomas Pinckney, originated, with the then President himself: but whatever may have been its source, it is certain that it met the approbation of the whole administration, Mr. Jefferson included. This fact alone, will go far to refute the surmise of a British agency in the appointment.

Supposing that, contrary to all probability, Great Britain' had really taken some unaccountable fancy for Mr. Pinckney, upon whom was her influence exerted?

"Had the virtuous, circumspe& Washington been ensnared in her insidious toils? Had she found means for once to soften the stern, inflexible hostility of Jefferson? Had Randolph been won by her meretricious caresses? Had Knox, the uniform friend of Mr. Adams, been corrupted by her seducing wiles? Or was it all the dark work of the alien Secretary of the Treasury? Was it this arch juggler, who debauched the principles, or transformed the prejudices, of Mr. Pinckney; who per suaded the British government to adopt him as a pliant instru ment; who artfully induced the President to propose him as of his own selection; who lulled the zealous vigilance of Jefferson and Randolph, and surprised the unsuspecting frankness of Knox?

"But when the thing had been accomplished, no matter by what means, it was surely to have been expected that the man of its choice would have been treated at the Court of London with distinguished regard, and that his conduct towards that Court would have been marked, if not by some improper com pliances, at least by some displays of extraordinary complai

sance.

"Yet, strange as it may appear, upon Mr. Adams's hypothesis, it might be proved, if requisite, that neither the one nor the other took place. It might be proved that, far from Mr. Pinckney's having experienced any flattering distinctions, incidents not pleasant to his feelings had occurred, and that in the discharge of his official functions, he had advanced pretensions in favour of the United States, from which, with the approbation of the then Secretary of State, Mr. Jefferson, he was instructed to desist.

<< What

What will Mr. Adams or his friends reply to all these facts? How will he be excused for indulging and declaring, on grounds so frivolous, a suspicion so derogatory, of a man so meritorious of a man who has acted in a manner so unexcep tionable?

"But a more serious estion remains: How will Mr: Adams answer to the government and to his country, for having thus wantonly given the sanction of his opinion to the worst of the aspersions which the enemies of the administration have impudently thrown upon it? Can we be surprised that such a torrent of slander was poured out against it, when a man, the second in official rank, the second in the favour of the friends of the government, stooped to become himself one of its calumniators? It is peculiarly unlucky for Mr. Adams in this affair, that HE HIMSELF is known to bave desired, at the time, the appointment which was given to Mr. Pinckney. The President declined the measure, thinking that it was compatible neither with the spirit of the constitution nor with the dignity of the Government, to designate the Vice-President to such a station,

-

"This letter, better than volumes, developes the true, the unfortunate character of Mr. Adams."

The Author might further have observed, that Adams, having been refused the appointment for himself, asked it for his son-in-law, William Smith, which request was also refused by General Washington. Hence his hatred of the Pinckneys and his foul insinuations against them in his letter to Coxe. Mr. Hamilton next enters into an examination of Adams's conduct as President.

"It will be recollected that General Pinckney, the brother of Thomas, and the gentleman now supported together with Mr. Adams, had been deputed by President Washington, as successor to Mr. Monroe, and had been refused to be received by the French government in his quality of Minister Plenipotentiary.

This, among those of the well informed, who felt a just sensibility for the honour of their country, excited much disgust and resentment. But the opposition party, ever too ready to justify the French government at the expense of their own, vindicated or apologized for the ill treatment: and the mass of the community, though displeased with it, did not appear to feel the full force of the indignity.

"As a final effort for accommodation, and as a mean, in case of failure, of enlightening and combining public opinion, it

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