is purposes; and I am convinced he is more
deeply seated in the love and gratitude of the republicans, than in the
Pharisaical homage of the federal monarchists. For he was no monarchist
from preference of his judgment. The soundness of that gave him correct
views of the rights of man, and his severe justice devoted him to them.
He has often declared to me that he considered our new constitution as
an experiment on the practicability of republican government, and with
what dose of liberty man could be trusted for his own good; that he was
determined the experiment should have a fair trial, and would lose
the last drop of his blood in support of it. And these declarations he
repeated to me the oftener and the more pointedly, because he knew my
suspicions of Colonel Hamilton's views, and probably had heard from
him the same declarations which I had, to wit, 'that the British
constitution, with its unequal representation, corruption, and other
existing abuses, was the most perfect government which had ever been
established on earth, and that a reformation of these abuses would make
it an impracticable government.' I do believe that General Washington
had not a firm confidence in the durability of our government. He was
naturally distrustful of men, and inclined to gloomy apprehensions:
and I was ever persuaded that a belief that we must at length end in
something like a British constitution, had some weight in his adoption
of the ceremonies of levees, birthdays, pompous meetings with Congress,
and other forms of the same character, calculated to prepare us
gradually for a change which he believed possible, and to let it come on
with as little shock as might be to the public mind.

These are my opinions of General Washington, which I would vouch at the
judgment-seat of God, having been formed on an acquaintance of thirty
years. I served with him in the Virginia legislature from 1769 to the
Revolutionary war, and again, a short time in Congress, until he left us
to take command of the army. During the war and after it we corresponded
Occasionally, and in the four years of my continuance in the office
of Secretary of State, our intercourse was daily, confidential, and
cordial. After I retired from that office, great and malignant pains
were taken by our federal monarchists, and not entirely without
effect, to make him view me as a theorist, holding French principles of
government, which would lead infallibly to licentiousness