n, the
noes twenty-six; whereon the Speaker gave his vote against striking out,
which divides the House: the clause for the disappropriation remained
of course. I mentioned suspicions, that the whole of this was a trick
to serve the bank under a great existing embarrassment; that the debt to
the bank was to be repaid by instalments; that the first instalment was
of two hundred thousand dollars only, or rather one hundred and sixty
thousand dollars, (because forty thousand of the two hundred thousand
dollars would be the United States' own dividend of the instalment.) Yet
here were two millions to be paid them at once, and to be taken from a
purpose of gratitude and honor, to which it had been appropriated.

December the 30th, 1792. I took the occasion furnished by Pinckney's
letter of September the 19th, asking instructions how to conduct himself
as to the French revolution, to lay down the catholic principle of
republicanism, to wit, that every people may establish what form of
government they please, and change it as they please; the will of the
nation being the only thing essential. I was induced to do this, in
order to extract the President's opinion on the question which divided
Hamilton and myself in the conversation of November, 1792, and the
previous one of the first week of November, on the suspension of
payments to France: and if favorable to mine, to place the principle on
record in the letter-books of my office. I therefore wrote the letter
of December the 30th, to Pinckney, and sent it to the President, and he
returned me his approbation in writing, in his note of the same date,
which see.

February the 7th, 1793. I waited on the President with letters and
papers from Lisbon. After going through these, I told him that I had for
some time suspended speaking with him on the subject of my going out
of office, because I had understood that the bill for intercourse with
foreign nations was likely to be rejected by the Senate, in which case,
the remaining business of the department would be too inconsiderable to
make it worth while to keep it up. But that the bill being now passed, I
was freed from the considerations of propriety which had embarrassed me.
That &c. [nearly in the words of a letter to Mr. T. M. Randolph, of
a few days ago,] and that I should be willing, if he had taken no
arrangements to the contrary, to continue somewhat longer, how long I
could not say, perhaps till summer, perhaps autumn. H