e that those accusations were
countenanced and supported by a great portion of the American people.

These documents were communicated to the public; but, unfortunately,
their effect at home was not such as had been expected, and they were
consequently inoperative abroad. The fury of political controversy
seemed to sustain no diminution; and the American character continued
to be degraded by reciprocal criminations, which the two great parties
made upon each other, of being under a British, and a French
influence.

The measures particularly recommended by the President in his speech,
at the opening of the session, were not adopted; and neither the
debates in Congress, nor the party publications with which the nation
continued to be agitated, furnished reasonable ground for the hope,
that the political intemperance which had prevailed from the
establishment of the republican form of government in France, was
about to be succeeded by a more conciliatory spirit.

The President contemplated with a degree of pleasure[50] seldom felt
at the resignation of power, his approaching retirement to the
delightful scenes of domestic and rural life.

[Footnote 50: See note No. XV. at the end of the volume.]

It was impossible to be absolutely insensible to the bitter
invectives, and malignant calumnies of which he had long been the
object. Yet in one instance only, did he depart from the rule he had
prescribed for his conduct regarding them. Apprehending permanent
injury from the republication of certain spurious letters which have
been already noticed, he, on the day which terminated his official
character, addressed to the secretary of state the following letter.

[Sidenote: He denies the authenticity of certain spurious letters
published as his in 1776.]

"Dear Sir,

"At the conclusion of my public employments, I have thought it
expedient to notice the publication of certain forged letters which
first appeared in the year 1777, and were obtruded upon the public as
mine. They are said by the editor to have been found in a small
portmanteau that I had left in the care of my mulatto servant named
Billy, who, it is pretended, was taken prisoner at Fort Lee, in 1776.
The period when these letters were first printed will be recollected,
and what were the impressions they were intended to produce on the
public mind. It was then supposed to be of some consequence to strike
at the integrity of the motives of the American Comm