resenting as the enemy
of republicans him, who, of all men, is best entitled to the appellation
of the father of that republic which they were endeavoring to subvert,
and the republicans to maintain. They cannot deny, because the elections
proclaimed the truth, that the great body of the nation approved the
republican measures. General Washington was himself sincerely a friend
to the republican principles of our constitution. His faith, perhaps,
in its duration, might not have been as confident as mine; but he
repeatedly declared to me, that he was determined it should have a fair
chance for success, and that he would lose the last drop of his blood in
its support, against any attempt which, might be made to change it from
its republican form. He made these declarations the oftener, because he
knew my suspicions that Hamilton had other views, and he wished to quiet
my jealousies on this subject. For Hamilton frankly avowed, that he
considered the British constitution, with all the corruptions of its
administration, as the most perfect model of government which had ever
been devised by the wit of man; professing, however, at the same time,
that the spirit of this country was so fundamentally republican, that
it would be visionary to think of introducing monarchy here, and that,
therefore, it was the duty of its administrators to conduct it on the
principles their constituents had elected.

General Washington, after the retirement of his first cabinet, and the
composition of his second, entirely federal, and at the head of which
was Mr. Pickering himself, had no opportunity of hearing both sides of
any question. His measures, consequently, took more the hue of the party
in whose hands he was. These measures were certainly not approved by the
republicans; yet were they not imputed, to him, but to the counsellors
around him; and his prudence so far restrained their impassioned course
and bias, that no act of strong mark, during the remainder of his
administration, excited much dissatisfaction. He lived too short a time
after, and too much withdrawn from information, to correct the views
into which he had been deluded; and the continued assiduities of the
party drew him into the vortex of their intemperate career; separated
him still farther from his real friends, and excited him to actions and
expressions of dissatisfaction, which grieved them, but could not
loosen their affections from him. They would not suffer the tempora