. This dispatch, bearing the number 10, had come
into the possession of Mr. Hammond by a series of accidents; but the
British government and its representatives were quick to perceive that
the chances of the sea had thrown into their hands a prize of much
more value than many French merchantmen. The dispatch thus rescued
from the water, where its bearer had cast it, was filled with a long
and somewhat imaginative dissertation on political parties in the
United States, and with an account of the whiskey rebellion. It also
gave the substance of some conversations held by the writer with the
Secretary of State. This is not the place, nor would space serve, to
examine the details of this famous dispatch, with reference to the
American statesman whom it incriminated. On its face it showed that
Randolph had held conversations with the French minister which no
American Secretary of State ought to have held with any representative
of a foreign government, and it appeared further that the most obvious
interpretation of certain sentences, in view of the readiness of man
to think ill of his neighbor, was that Randolph had suggested corrupt
practices. Such was the document, implicating in a most serious way
the character of his chief cabinet officer, which Pickering and
Wolcott placed in Washington's hands on his arrival in Philadelphia.

Mr. Conway, in his biography of Randolph, devotes many pages to
explaining what now followed. His explanations show, certainly, a most
refined ingenuity, and form the most elaborate discussion of this
incident that has ever appeared. All this effort and ingenuity are
needless, however, unless the object be to prove that Randolph was
wholly without fault, which is an impossible task. There was
nothing complicated about the affair, and nothing strange about the
President's course, if we confine ourselves to the plain facts and the
order of their occurrence.

Before the treaty went to the Senate, Washington made up his mind to
sign it, and when the Senate ratified conditionally, he still adhered
to his former opinion. Then came the news of the provision order,
and thereupon he paused and withheld his signature, at the same time
ordering a memorial against the order to be prepared. But there is no
evidence whatever that he changed his mind, or that he had determined
to make his signature conditional upon the revocation of the order.
To argue that he had is, in fact, misrepresentation. In the letter