Lear said he no longer ago than yesterday
expressed to the President his suspicions of the artifices of that party
to work on him. He mentioned the following fact as a proof of their
writing in the character of their adversaries; to wit, the day after the
little incident of Richet's toasting 'the man of the people' (see the
gazettes), Mrs. Washington was at Mrs. Powel's, who mentioned to her
that, when the toast was given, there was a good deal of disapprobation
appeared in the audience, and that many put on their hats and went out:
on inquiry, he had not found the fact true, and yet it was put into
------'s paper, and written under the character of a republican,
though he is satisfied it is altogether a slander of the monocrats.
He mentioned this to the President, but he did not mention to him the
following fact, which he knows; that in New York, the last summer, when
the parties of Jay and Clinton were running so high, it was an agreed
point with the former, that if any circumstances should ever bring it to
a question, whether to drop Hamilton or the President, they had decided
to drop the President. He said that lately one of the loudest pretended
friends to the government, damned it, and said it was good for nothing,
that it could not support itself, and it was time to put it down and
set up a better; and yet the same person, in speaking to the President,
puffed off that party as the only friends to the government.
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