will certainly incur an immense responsibility to their friends and to the government.

To promote this co-operation, to defend my own character, to vindicate those friends, who with myself have been unkindly aspersed, are the inducements for writing this letter. Accordingly, it will be my endeavor to regulate the communication of it in such a manner as will not be likely to deprive Mr. Adams of a single vote. Indeed, it is much my wish that its circulation could for ever be confined within narrow limits. I am sensible of the inconveniences of giving publicity to a similar development of the character of the Chief Magistrate of our country; and I lament the necessity of taking a step which will involve that result. Yet to suppress truths, the disclosure of which is so interesting to the public welfare as well as to the vindication of my friends and myself, did not appear to me justifiable.

The restraints, to which I submit, are a proof of my disposition to sacrifice to the prepossessions of those, with whom I have heretofore thought and acted, and from whom in the present question I am compelled to differ. To refrain from a decided opposition to Mr. Adams's re-election has been reluctantly sanctioned by my judgment; which has been not a little perplexed between the unqualified conviction of his unfitness for the station contemplated, and a sense of the great importance of cultivating harmony among the supporters of the government; on whose firm union hereafter will probably depend the preservation of order, tranquillity, liberty, property; the security of every social and domestic blessing.

SIR:

NEW-YORK, August 1, 1800.

It has been repeatedly mentioned to me, that you have, on different occasions, asserted the existence of a British faction in this country; embracing a number of leading or influential characters of the federal party (as usually denominated), and that you have sometimes named me, at others, plainly alluded to me, as one of this description of persons. And I have likewise been

assured, that of late some of your warm adherents, for electioneering purposes, have employed a corresponding language.

I must, sir, take it for granted, that you cannot have made such assertions or insinuations, without being willing to avow them, and to assign the reasons to a party who may conceive himself injured by them. I therefore trust, that you will not deem it improper, that I apply directly to yourself to ascertain from you, in reference to your own declarations, whether the information I have received, has been correct or not; and if correct, what are the grounds upon which you have founded the sugges

The time which has elapsed since my letter of the 1st of Au gust was delivered to you, precludes the further expectation of an

answer.

From this silence, I will draw no inference; nor will I presume to judge of the fitness of silence on such an occasion on the part of the Chief Magistrate of a republic, towards a citizen, who, without a stain, has discharged so many important public trusts.

But thus much I will affirm, that by whomsoever a charge of the kind mentioned in my former letter, may, at any time, have been made or insinuated against me, it is a base, wicked and cruel calumny; destitute even of a plausible pretext, to excuse the folly, or mask the depravity which must have dictated it.

With due respect, I have the honor to be,

Sir, your obedient servant,

TO JOHN ADAMS, Esq. President of the United States.

A. H.

ADDRESS, TO THE ELECTORS OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK.

1801.

FELLOW-CITIZENS:

We lately addressed you on the subject of the ensuing election for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor-recommending to your support Stephen Van Rensselaer and James Watson. Since that, we have seen the address of our opponents, urging your preference of George Clinton and Jeremiah Van Rensselaer.

The whole tenor of our address carries with it the evidence of a disposition to be temperate and liberal; to avoid giving occasion to mutual recrimination. It would have been agreeable to us to have seen a like disposition in our adversaries; but we think it cannot be denied that their address manifests a different one. It arraigns the principles of the federalists with extreme acrimony, and by the allusion to Great Britain, in the preposterous figure of the mantle, attributes to them a principle of action, which every signer of the address knows to have no existence, and which for its falsehood and malice merits indignation and disdain.

So violent an attack upon our principles justifies and calls for an exhibition of those of our opponents. To your good sense, to your love of country, to your regard for the welfare of yourselves and families, the comment is submitted.

The pernicious spirit which has actuated many of the leaders of the party denominated anti-federal, from the moment when our national Constitution was first proposed down to the present period, has not ceased to display itself in a variety of disgusting forms. In proportion to the prospect of success it has increased in temerity. Emboldened by a momentary triumph in the choice of our national Chief Magistrate, it seems now to have laid aside all reserve, and begins to avow projects of disorganization, with the sanction of the most respectable names of the

party, which before were merely the anonymous ravings of incendiary newspapers.

This precipitation in throwing aside the mask will, we trust, be productive of happy effects. It will serve to show that the mischievous designs ascribed to the party have not been the effusions of malevolence, the inventions of political rivalship, or the visionary forebodings of an over-anxious zeal; but that they have been just and correct inferences from an accurate estimate of characters and principles. It will serve to show, that moderate men, who have seen in our political struggles nothing more. than a competition for power and place, have been deceived; that in reality the foundations of society, the essential interests of our nation, the dearest concerns of individuals, are staked upon the eventful contest. And, by promoting this important discovery, it may be expected to rally the virtuous and the prudent of every description round a common standard; to endeavor, by joint efforts, to oppose mounds to that destructive torrent, which in its distant murmuring seemed harmless, but in the portentous roaring of its nearer approach, menaces our country with all the horrors of revolutionary frenzy.

To what end, fellow-citizens, has your attention beển carried across the Atlantic, to the revolution of France, and to that fatal war of which it has been the source? To what end are you told, that this is the most interesting conflict man ever witnessed -that it is a war of principles--a war between equal and unequal rights-between republicanism and monarchy-between liberty and tyranny?

What is there in that terrific picture which you are to admire or imitate? Is it the subversion of the throne of the Bourbons, to make way for the throne of the Buonapartes? Is it the undistinguishing massacre in prisons and dungeons, of men, women, and children? Is it the sanguinary justice of revolutionary tribunals, or the awful terrors of a guillotine? Is it the rapid succession of revolution upon revolution, erecting the transient power of one set of men upon the tombs of another? Is it the assassinations which have been perpetrated, or the new ones which are projected? Is it the open profession of impiety

in the public assemblies, or the ridiculous worship of a Goddess. of Reason, or the still continued substitution of decades to the Christian Sabbath? Is it the dstruction of commerce, the ruin of manufactures, the oppression of agriculture? Or, is it the pomp of war, the dazzling glare of splendid victories, the bloodstained fields of Europe, the smoking cinders of desolated cities, the af flicting spectacle of millions precipitated from plenty and com fort to beggary and misery? If it be none of these things, what is it?

Perhaps it is the existing government of France, of which your admiration is solicited?

Here, fellow-citizens, let us on our part invite you to a solemn pause. Mark, we beseech you, carefully mark, in this result, the fruit of those extravagant and noxious principles which it is desired to transplant into our happy soil.

Behold a consul for ten years elected, not by the people, but by a conservatory Senate, self-created, and self continued for life; a magistrate who, to the plenitude of executive authority, adds the peculiar and vast prerogative of an exclusive right to originate every law of the republic.

Behold a legistature elected, not by the people, but by the same conservative Senate, one branch for fourteen, the other for ten years; one branch with a right to debate the law proposed by the consul but not to propose; another branch with a right neither to debate nor propose; but merely to assent or dissent, leaving to the people nothing more than the phantom of representation, or the useless privilege of designating one tenth of their whole mass as candidates indiscriminately for the offices of the state according to the option of the conservatory Senate.

Behold this magic lantern of republicanism; the odious form of real despotism; garnished and defended by the bayonets of more than five hundred thousand men in disciplined array.

Do you desire an illustration of the practical effect of this despotic system, read it in the last advices from France. Read it in the exercise of a power by the chief consul, recognized to belong to him by the conservatory Senate, to banish indefinitely the citizens of France without trial, without the formality of a