servations on the Dispute between the United States and
France," printed in 1798, in which is represented Mr. Jefferson on
bended knee before an altar, on which is a flame, fed by papers bearing
the names of _Age of Reason_, _Godwin_, _Aurora_, _Chronicle_, _J. J.
Rousseau_, _Voltaire_, _Ruins of Volney_, _Helvetius_, &c. On the short
shaft is inscribed, "ALTAR TO GALLIC DESPOTISM." It is entwined by a
serpent, who seems to be the instrument of the devil, whose horned head
is seen rising behind the platform of the altar, upon which lies sacks
for consumption, marked, _American spoliations_, _Dutch restitution_,
_Sardinia_, _Flanders_, _Venice_, _Spain_, _Plunder_, &c. Over the flame
on the altar hovers an angry American eagle, gazed upon by the
all-seeing eye. The eagle has just snatched from the hand of Mr.
Jefferson a scroll, on which is written _Constitution and Independence,
U. S. A_., that he was about to commit to the flames. From his other
hand is falling another scroll, inscribed, _To Mazzei_. The composition
is entitled, "THE PROVIDENTIAL DETECTION."

[100] Jefferson's Memoirs and Correspondence, iii., 333.

[101] Jefferson's Memoirs and Correspondence, iii., 336.

[102] Sparks's "Life and Writings of Washington," xi., 137. In a note to
this letter, Mr. Sparks says: "No correspondence, after this date,
between Washington and Jefferson appears in the letter-books, except a
brief note the month following, upon an unimportant matter. It has been
reported and believed, that letters and papers, supposed to have passed
between them, or to relate to their intercourse with each other at
subsequent dates, were secretly withdrawn from the archives of Mount
Vernon, after the death of the former."

Washington's unlimited confidence in Mr. Jefferson's sincerity appears
to have been finally shaken. In a letter to John Nicholson, in March,
1798, he said, "Nothing short of the evidence you have adduced,
corroborative of intimations which I had received long before through
another channel, could have shaken my belief in the sincerity of a
friendship which I had conceived was possessed for me by the person to
whom you allude."

[103] The following is a copy of Washington's "Farewell Address." It was
first published in the "Philadelphia Advertiser," in September, 1796. It
occupied, in manuscript, thirty-two pages of quarto letter-paper, sewed
together as a book.

"FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS:--The period for a new elec