ied them in the
grave with themselves. As to myself, there never had been any thing
personal between us, nothing but the general opposition of party
sentiment; and our personal intercourse had been that of urbanity, as
himself says. But it seems he has been all this time brooding over an
enmity which I had never felt, and that with respect to myself, as well
as others, he has been writing far and near, and in every direction, to
get hold of original letters, where he could, copies, where he could
not, certificates and journals, catching at every gossipping story he
could hear of in any quarter, supplying by suspicions what he could find
no where else, and then arguing on this motley farrago, as if
established on gospel evidence. And while expressing his wonder,
'at the age of eighty-eight, the strong passions of Mr. Adams should not
have cooled '; that on the contrary, 'they had acquired the mastery of
his soul,' (p. 100 ;) that 'where these were enlisted, no reliance
could be placed on his statements,' (p. 104 ;) the facility and little
truth with which he could represent facts and occurrences, concerning
persons who were the objects of his hatred, (p. 3 ;) that 'he is
capable of making the grossest misrepresentations, and, from detached
facts, and often from bare suspicions, of drawing unwarrantable
inferences,' if suited to his purpose at the instant,' (p. 174;) while
making such charges, I say, on Mr. Adams, instead of his '_ecce homo_,'
(p. 100;) how justly might we say to him, '_Mutato nomine, de te fabula
narratur_.' For the assiduity and industry he has employed in his
benevolent researches after matter of crimination against us, I refer to
his pages 13, 14, 34, 36, 46, 71, 79, 90, bis. 92, 93, bis. 101, ter.
104, 116, 118, 141, 143, 146,150,151,153, 168, 171, 172. That Mr.
Adams's strictures on him, written and pointed, should have excited some
notice on his part, was not perhaps to be wondered at. But the
sufficiency of his motive for the large attack on me may be more
questionable. He says, (p. 4) 'of Mr. Jefferson I should have said
nothing, but for his letter to Mr. Adams, of October the 12th, 1823.'
Now the object of that letter was to soothe the feelings of a friend,
wounded by a publication which I thought an 'outrage on private
confidence.' Not a word or allusion in it respecting Mr. Pickering, nor
was it suspected that it would draw forth his pen in justification of
this infidelity, which he has, howeve