Add to this, that
the letter saying, 'that two out of the three branches of legislature
were against us,' was an obvious exception of him; it being well known
that the majorities in the two branches of Senate and Representatives
were the very instruments which carried, in opposition to the old and
real republicans, the measures which were the subjects of condemnation
in this letter. General Washington, then, understanding perfectly what
and whom I meant to designate, in both phrases, and that they could not
have any application or view to himself, could find in neither any cause
of offence to himself; and therefore neither needed, nor ever asked any
explanation of them from me. Had it even been otherwise, they must know
very little of General Washington, who should believe to be within the
laws of his character what Doctor Stuart is said to have imputed to
him. Be this, however, as it may, the story is infamously false in
every article of it. My last parting with General Washington was at the
inauguration of Mr. Adams, in March, 1797, and was warmly affectionate;
and I never had any reason to believe any change on his part, as there
certainly was none on mine. But one session of Congress intervened
between that and his death, the year following, in my passage to and
from which, as it happened to be not convenient to call on him, I never
had another opportunity; and as to the cessation of correspondence
observed during that short interval, no particular circumstance occurred
for epistolary communication, and both of us were too much oppressed
with letter-writing, to trouble either the other, with a letter about
nothing.
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