“Mr. Fauchet’s letter, indeed, made me suppose that No. 6 possibly alluded to some actual or proffered loan or expenditure, for the nourishment of the insurrection; and, therefore, I thought it necessary to deny, in my letter of the 19th of August, that one shilling was contemplated by me to be applied by Mr. Fauchet relative to the insurrection.”
Citizen Fauchet’s memory, too, was, it seems, furbished up by this tête-à-tête; for he tells us, in his certificate, that
“now, calling to mind all the circumstances to which the questions of Mr. Randolph call my attention, I have an intimate conviction that I was mistaken in the propositions which I supposed to have been made to me.”
So here is a pretty story for you: Mr. Randolph forgets all about the flour-merchants, till he talks to citizen Fauchet; and citizen Fauchet forgets all about them, till he talks to Mr. Randolph! Their memories, like a flint and steel, could bring forth no light but by friction with each other. If this do not prove a close connection, I do not know what does. Even “their minds,” as the poet says, “in wedlock’s bands were joined.”
There is another singularity worth notice here. Citizen Fauchet’s intercepted letter was written on the 31st of October 1794; and at that time (though it was just after the overtures were made), he did not recollect a word about the flour-men, nor about the machinations of the English: but, on the 27th of September 1795, that is to say, ten months and twenty-seven days afterwards, he has an intimate conviction of the whole matter; and tells as good a tough story about it, as one can in conscience expect from a being that kneels down at the shrine of a jackass. Mr. Randolph, also, recollected nothing about it on the 19th of August; but, in some thirty days after, it all came as pat into his head, as if it had but that moment happened.—Rhode-Island must be like the cave of the Dervise, where every one that entered saw, written in large characters, all the actions of his past life. If so, no wonder our adventurers made such haste to quit it.
I cannot dismiss this subject, without begging the reader once more to call to mind the sarcasms that citizen Fauchet pours out on the changeable men, who seconded the views of the Government with the most scandalous ostentation, who uttered resolutions and harangues without end, and who made excursions to collect troops, “as soon as it was decided that the French Republic purchased no men to do their duty.” Mr. Randolph lays hold of this word duty, too, as a drowning man would of a straw, and to just as much purpose; for if by this word citizen Fauchet meant the real duty of these haranguers, they were here in the performance of it. Their duty, their allegiance to the United States, required them to speak forcibly to the people, to second the declarations of the general Government, and, if ordered, to make excursions to collect troops; and yet he tells us, or rather he tells the French government, that they did all this, “as soon as it was decided that the French Republic purchased no men to do their duty.” Hence it is a clear case, that what he conceived to be their duty, and what he would have paid them to perform, if he had had money, was exactly the contrary of all this; and exactly the contrary of this would have been an opposition to the general Government, its probable defeat and consequent destruction.
After all, to fix the blackest guilt on the conspirators, it is not necessary to prove what their precise intentions were. It is sufficient that we have the clearest evidence, that in consideration of some thousands of dollars, they would have enabled a foreign nation to decide on civil war or on peace for this country. After having, then, satisfied ourselves with respect to who they are, this is the crime we have to lay to their charge. All their asseverations, all their windings and subterfuges are vain: they will never wash away the stain as long as words shall retain their meaning, and as long as virtue shall hold her seat in our hearts, and reason in our minds.
I have already trespassed on the reader’s patience much longer than I intended, and I fear longer than he will excuse; but, as I have promised to take some notice of the Vindicator’s attempt at recrimination, I must be as good as my word.
He has exerted his labyrinthian faculties to the utmost, in order to make it be believed, that the President of the United States ratified the Treaty with Great Britain, under the influence of what he modestly terms, a British Faction. With this object in view, he says, as addressing himself to the President—
“By my advice the United States would have been masters of all contingencies at the end of the campaign. To my unutterable astonishment, I soon discovered that you were receding from your determination. You had been reflecting upon your course from the 26th of June to the 16th of July: on the latter day you decided on it; a communication was made to the British Minister in conformity with it; letters were addressed to our own ministers in conformity to it; they were inspected by you before you rescinded your purpose: no imperious circumstances had arisen, except the strength of the popular voice, which would, according to ordinary calculation, corroborate, not reverse your former resolution; you assigned no new reasons for the new measures; and you disregarded the answer to Boston, although it had committed you upon a special fact, namely, a determination not to ratify during the existence of the provision-order. While I was searching for the cause of this singular revolution, and could not but remember that another opinion, which was always weighty with you, had advised you not to exchange ratifications until the provision-order should be abolished, or the American minister should receive further instructions, if it were not abolished; after duty had dictated to me an acquiescence in your varied sentiments, and I had prepared a memorial to Mr. Hammond adapted to them; after you had signed the ratification on the 18th of August; Mr. Fauchet’s letter brought forth a solution of the whole affair; thence it was that you were persuaded to lay aside all fear of a check from the friends of France; thence it was that myself and the French cause were instantaneously abandoned.”
This appears to be the sum of Mr. Randolph’s statement, the correctness of which is, at least, very doubtful; but, not to tire the reader with a discussion of little importance as to the main point, and in which I might possibly err, I shall take it for granted, that all that he has said and insinuated here is strictly true; and then his charge amounts to this: that the President, even after the decision of the Senate with respect to the treaty was known, hesitated, from the 26th of June to the 13th of July, as to what course he should pursue in regard to the ratification; that, on the day last mentioned, he came to a resolution not to ratify, until the order of his Britannic Majesty, for seizing provisions destined from this country to France, should be withdrawn; and that, notwithstanding this resolution, he did afterwards ratify, leaving the order in force, and that he was induced to this change of conduct from the discovery made by citizen Fauchet’s intercepted letter.
Now, admitting all this to be so, it requires a greater degree of penetration than I am master of, to perceive how it proves the President to have ratified the treaty under the influence of a British faction, or any faction at all.
It would seem, that the Vindicator imagines, that, when a man has once taken a resolution, he can never change it, without incurring the censure of acting under some undue influence. How far such a maxim is from being founded in truth, the experience of every day will prove. A voluntary resolution must ever be supposed to be formed upon existing circumstances; and, of course, if any thing arises that totally alters those circumstances, it would be mere obstinacy to adhere to the resolution. If, for instance, a man determines on giving up a part of his income to a friend, and the next day finds that friend plotting against his life, must he, notwithstanding the discovery, put his determination in practice, or be subjected to the charge of acting under some undue influence? To maintain such a position appears to have been reserved for Mr. Randolph alone. The true question, therefore, is this: Was the discovery, made by citizen Fauchet’s intercepted letter, sufficient to justify the President’s altering his resolution, or not?
The only objection that it is