ilent acquiescence gave to
the opinion that the whole letter was genuine--not towards the great
body of his countrymen who yielded implicit faith to this imposing
testimony.

Could such a letter from such a personage be entirely overlooked by
the biographer of Washington? Having assumed the task of delineating
the character, and detailing the actions and opinions of the great
soldier and statesman of America, an essential part of which was to be
looked for in the difficulties and the opposition he encountered and
overcame, could a transaction which contains such strong intrinsic
evidence of those difficulties and that opposition be passed over in
total silence? These questions were revolved in his mind while engaged
in this part of the work; and the result to which his judgment
conducted him was a conviction that, though he might forbear to make
those strictures on the letter which the relative situation of the
writer and the individual so seriously criminated seemed to invite,
his duty required him to notice it so far as it indicated the violence
of party spirit at the time, the extreme to which it was carried, the
dangers to which it led, and the difficulties which the wise and firm
mind of Washington was doomed to encounter.

The remarks of the French editor were quoted because they have a
strong tendency, especially when connected with subsequent events, to
explain the motives by which the Directory was actuated in its
aggressions on the United States, and to justify the policy of the
Washington administration. These remarks did not grow out of the
interpolated sentence, nor were they confined to it. They apply to the
whole letter. That sentence is not cited, nor is any particular
allusion made to it, in the note which is charged with "exaggerating,
recording, and sanctioning the forgery." How then could Mr. Jefferson
deliberately make the charge?

In the same letter he endeavours to convey the opinion that the harsh
and injurious strictures made to Mazzei were not intended for General
Washington, and that this distinguished individual never applied them
to himself.

The evidence in support of this proposition is not derived from the
person whose opinion Mr. Jefferson undertakes to state. The writer
says,[75] "I do affirm that there never passed a word, written or
verbal, directly or indirectly, between General Washington and myself
on the subject of that letter." If his observations on this point are
to be co