rom
a gentleman who has long maintained an unexampled ascendency over
public opinion, can not be entirely disregarded.

[Footnote 59: Vol. iv. p. 402.]

The offence consists in the reference to the letter written by him to
Mr. Mazzei, which was published in Florence, and republished in Paris
by the editor of the Moniteur, then the official paper of the
Directory. In this letter, Mr. Jefferson says, a paragraph was
interpolated which makes him charge his own country with ingratitude
and injustice to France.

By the word "country," Mr. Jefferson is understood to allude to the
government, not to the people of America.

This letter, containing the sentence now alleged to be interpolated,
was published throughout the United States in the summer of 1797. It
became immediately, as may well be supposed, the subject of universal
conversation. The writer, and the individual to whom it particularly
alludes, filled too large a space in the public mind for such a paper
not to excite general attention and deep interest. It did excite both.

Had it been fabricated, Mr. Jefferson, it was supposed, could not have
permitted it to remain uncontradicted. It came in a form too
authentic, the matter it contained affected his own reputation and
that of the illustrious individual who is its principal subject, too
vitally to permit the imputation to remain unnoticed. It would not, it
could not have remained unnoticed, if untrue. Yet its genuineness was
never questioned by Mr. Jefferson, or by any of his numerous friends.
Not even to General Washington, as is now avowed, was it ever denied.
Had it been denied to him, his strong sense of justice and of right
would have compelled him to relieve the reputation of the supposed
writer from a charge of such serious import.

It was, of course, universally received as a genuine letter. An open
avowal of it could not have added to the general conviction.

The letter having this irresistible claim on the general confidence,
no one part of it was entitled to less credit than every other. The
interpolation of a particular sentence was neither suggested nor
suspected. The whole was published in Europe and republished in
America as the letter of Mr. Jefferson, with his name subscribed. The
genuineness of no part of it was ever called into question. How then
could the public or any individual have ventured to select a
particular sentence, and to say--this is spurious?

Had it been suggested by M