ecutive, under colour of a
treaty, which shall bind up the hands of the adverse branch from ever
restraining the commerce of their patron nation."

[Footnote 63: Vol. iii. p. 316.]

On the 30th of November, 1795,[64] he says, "I join with you in
thinking the treaty an execrable thing." "I trust the popular branch
of the legislature will disapprove of it, and thus rid us of this
infamous act, which is really nothing more than an alliance between
England and the Anglo men of this country, against the legislature and
people of the United States."

[Footnote 64: Vol. iii. p. 317.]

On the 21st of December, 1795,[65] speaking of a contemporary member
of the cabinet, he says, "The fact is that he has generally given his
principles to the one party and his practice to the other, the oyster
to one, and the shell to the other. Unfortunately, the shell was
generally the lot of his friends, the French and Republicans, and the
oyster of their antagonists."

[Footnote 65: Vol. iii. p. 319.]

On the 21st of March, 1796,[66] he says, "The British treaty has been
formally at length laid before congress. All America is a tiptoe to
see what the house of representatives will decide on it." Speaking of
the right of the legislature to determine whether it shall go into
effect or not, and of the vast importance of the determination, he
adds, "It is fortunate that the first decision is to be made in a case
so palpably atrocious as to have been predetermined by all America."

[Footnote 66: Vol. iii. p. 323.]

On the 27th of the same month he says,[67] "If you decide in favour of
your right to refuse co-operation, I should wonder on what occasion it
is to be used, if not in one, where the rights, the interest, the
honour and faith of our nation are so grossly sacrificed; where a
faction has entered into a conspiracy with the enemies of their
country to chain down the legislature at the feet of both; where the
whole mass of your constituents have condemned the work in the most
unequivocal manner, and are looking to you as their last hope to save
them from the effects of the avarice and corruption of the first
agent, the revolutionary machinations of others, and the
incomprehensible acquiescence of the only honest man who has assented
to it. I wish that his honesty and his political errors may not
furnish a second occasion to exclaim, 'curse on his virtues, they have
undone his country.'"

[Footnote 67: Vol. i