ed to
the administration. Mr. Jefferson himself gives us this information.
In September, 1795,[77] he terms the effort to carry the treaty with
Great Britain into effect, "an attempt of a party who find _they have
lost their majority in one branch of the legislature_ to make a law by
the aid of the other branch and the executive under colour of a
treaty," &c. Mr. Jefferson then has deprived himself of this
explanation. He could not have intended to exclude the President by
the phrase "two out of three branches of the legislature."

[Footnote 77: Vol. iii. p. 316.]

The same letter contains also the following expression,[78] "Mr.
Pickering quotes the passage in the letter of the men who were Samsons
in the field and Solomons in the council, but who had their heads
shorn by the harlot England." "Now this expression also was perfectly
understood by General Washington. He knew that I meant it for the
Cincinnati generally; and that from what had passed between us at the
commencement of that institution, I could not mean to include him."

[Footnote 78: Vol. iv. p. 404.]

In the letter to Mazzei these words obviously designate distinguished
individuals, not whole classes of men, many of whom were unknown. "It
would give you a fever were _I to name to you the apostates_ who have
gone over to these heresies; men who were Samsons in the field and
Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the
harlot England."

In addition to this apparent allusion to individuals, it may be asked,
could Mr. Jefferson mean to say that every officer engaged in the war
of our revolution (for almost every one of them was a member of the
Cincinnati) was an apostate who had gone over to the heresies he was
describing? Could he mean to say that all those who had passed their
prime of manhood in the field fighting the battles of American
independence, and of republicanism against England, had become
apostates from the cause to which their lives had been devoted, and
the vile instruments of the power it was their pride and boast to have
overthrown? That they were in a body following their ancient chief in
a course directly opposite to that glorious career by which they had
elevated their country to its high rank among the nations of the
earth?

There is other evidence that he could not have intended to fix this
foul stigma on the officers of the revolution. They were far from
being united in support of the administrati