supporters, the lesser leaders of that party were first successively the objects of his calumnies, which increased in grossness until they reached Washington and Hamilton. Washington was charged with the "violation of his oath to preserve the Constitution ;"* with having admitted himself to have been "twice a traitor;"† with having authorized the robbery and ruin of the remnants of his own army; with corruption; ‡ with "a perfidious desertion of France;" with "the most audacious usurpation and despotism;"|| Adams was accused of "murder," ¶ and Hamilton held up to "execration."

Though Jefferson had professed his attachment to the Constitution, had lauded Washington, had commended Adams in his addresses to the public,** and had in private expressed to him his personal regard, he is here seen covertly inculcating hostility to the Constitution, exciting to a severance of the Union, and abetting a foreign hireling in his foul defamations. These calumnies were written under the roof of a senator of the United States, founded on information derived from the confidential friends of Jefferson, and paid for by him.

When prosecuted for these libels, Jefferson even deemed him worthy of the protection of Virginia, and thus wrote to Monroe, then Governor: †† "I think it essentially just and necessary that Callender should be substantially defended. Whether in the first stages, by publick interference or private contribution, may be a question. Perhaps it might be as well that it should be left to the Legislature, who will meet in time, and before whom you can lay the matter so as to bring it before them. It is become peculiarly their cause, and may fur

* Page 12. † 16, 19.

34. § 97. ** See his address on his installation as Vice-President. May 26, 1800.

|| 104.

T 84.

nish them with a fine opportunity of showing their respect to the Union, and, at the same time, of doing justice in another way to those whom they cannot protect without committing the public tranquillity."

I

The interval of a year had made a great change in the relations of these men. Jefferson had attained his end by a system of detraction. Callender, the chief instrument, claiming his reward, was only an object of apprehension. On the twenty-sixth of May, eighteen hundred and one, Jefferson again wrote to Monroe: "To take from Callender all room for complaint, I think, with you, we had better refund his fine by private contributions. inclose you an order on Gibson and Jefferson for fifty dollars, which, I believe, is one-fourth of the whole sum." Three days after, he again wrote to him: "Callender is arrived here. He did not call on me, but understanding he was in distress, I sent Captain Lewis, my private secretary, to him with fifty dollars, to inform him we were making some inquiries as to his fine, which would take a little time, and lest he should suffer in the mean time, I had sent him," &c. "His language to Captain Lewis was very high toned. He intimated that he was in possession of things which he could and would make use of in a certain case-that he received the fifty dollars, not as a charity, but a due-in fact, as hush money, that I knew what he expected, viz., a certain office,* and more to this effect. Such a misconstruction of my charities puts an end to them forever. You will, therefore, be so good as to make no use of the order I inclosed you. He knows nothing of me which I am not willing to declare to the world myself."

Driven to excuses, Jefferson now writes: "I consid

Postmaster at Richmond.

ered him as a man of science, fled from persecution, and assured my friends of my readiness to do whatever could serve him. This led to aids and personal interviews." "No man wishes more to see his pen stopped, but I considered him still as a proper object of benevolence. The succeeding year he again wanted money to buy paper for another volume. I made his letter, as before, the occasion of giving him another fifty dollars. He considered these as proofs of my approbation of his writings, when they were mere charities, yielded under a strong conviction that he was injuring us by his writings."* Pressed by Callender's threats, he promised copies of all his correspondence with him. This promise he evaded, stating that he could not find it; and Callender supplied the hiatus by printing the originals.

Callender's disclosures, though chiefly directed against Jefferson, also embraced Madison. Intent on revenge, and not to be silenced, he announced his determination to make public the sources whence he derived the materials for his calumnies, menacing the exposure of Madison, Monroe, Giles, and other leading Virginians. An attempt was then made to silence him by an arrest, made by Callender's late counsel in his defence to the prosecutions of him for libels, now the District-Attorney of Virginia, recently appointed by Jefferson, to extort from him security not to publish any libels. As this precipitate procedure would have brought out the truth, it was not approved. Callender did not live to accomplish this vile betrayal of his secrets, being drowned, as was stated, in a fit of intemperance.

Some of the charges against Jefferson deeply affecting

* Jefferson's Works, iii. 494, to Monroe, July 15, 1802.

his character, were wholly of a personal nature.* These horrible, shocking exposures, Hamilton wholly disapproved; and caused a publication to be made expressing his disapprobation of the republication of matter of this kind, declaring "his sentiments to be averse to all personalities, not immediately connected with public considerations," proudly overlooking the outrage this pensioned tool of Jefferson had committed against himself.

While much indignation was aroused in the public mind by these extraordinary exposures, Thomas Paine arrived in the United States. He proceeded to the seat of Government; where, through the official Gazette of the Administration, he issued a series of essays, teeming with slanders upon Washington and upon the Federal party. But, enfeebled by age and vice, his pen had lost its power. Disappointed of the purpose for which he had invited him back to this country, Jefferson suffered him to repair in neglect to New York, in the vicinity whereof he dragged out a wretched existence among the few low infidel followers, whom his loathsome habits and gross inebriety did not repel.

A short time only elapsed when Jefferson is exhibited, by himself, in broad condemnation of the Press. When he saw its great power employed as a mean to overturn a government by violence, and to deliver an excitable, injured people to all the horrors of Revolution, he has been beheld, avowing, "Were it left to me to decide, whether we should have a Government without newspapers, or newspapers without a Government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter." He has been seen ascribing the se

Jefferson's Life, by Tucker, ii. 120. Dewitt's Jefferson. "Sa vie et sa Correspondence." Part ii. 34. Paris. In "la Revue des deux Mondes." † Evening Post, Sept. 29, 1802.

VOL. VII.-38

curity of American liberties to the influence of his National Gazette. All soon is changed. He is in power and the object of exposure. "Nothing," he wrote, "can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." *** “The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors."*

* Jefferson's Works, v. 92. Jefferson to Norvell, June 11, 1807.