ry of the same kind, though very much less in degree.
That note might have been written on the impulse of the moment; but what
shall we say of his practice of committing to paper Hamilton's sayings
in the freedom of after-dinner conversation--a time when open-hearted
men are apt to forget that there may be a Judas at table--and of saving
them up to be used against him in the future? Jefferson explains away
these and other dubious passages in his life with great ingenuity. He
had to make such explanations too often. An apology implies a mistake,
wilful or accidental. Too many indicate, to say the least, a lack of
discretion. What a difference between these explanations, evasions,
excuses, denials, and the majestic manliness of Washington, who never
did or wrote or said anything which he hesitated to avow openly and
without qualification!

Another dissimilarity between these two worth heeding, is Jefferson's
want of that thrift which produces independence, comfort, and
self-respect. He lived beyond his means, and died literally a beggar.

Jefferson was deficient in that happy combination of courage, energy,
judgment, and probity, which mankind call character, for want of a more
distinctive word--but which, in fact, in its highest expression, is
genius on the moral side. It commands the respect of mankind more than
the most brilliant faculties--and it accomplishes more. We have only to
look at Washington's life to see what can be done by it.

When Governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, Jefferson showed
a want of spirit and of action; the same deficiency was more painfully
conspicuous in his dealings with the Barbary pirates and in the affair
of the Leopard and Chesapeake. The insults and spoliations of the
English and French under the orders in council and the Berlin and Milan
decrees were borne with equal meekness. He was for peace at all hazards,
and economy at any price. When at last he found he had exhausted his
favorite method, and that neither 'time, reason, justice, nor a truer
sense of their own interests' produced any effect upon the obstinate
aggressors, he could desire no better means of checking their
depredations upon our trade than to order our merchants to lay up their
ships and shut up their shops. It was a Japanese stroke of policy--to
revenge an insult by disembowelling oneself--hari kari applied to a
nation.

His was indeed a brilliant theory of government, if we take him at his
word. At