t was growing
on us: that he had lately expressed this opinion to the President, who
appeared much astonished at it. I told him I had given the same hint to
the President last summer, and lately again had suggested, that we
were even depending for the daily subsistence of government on borrowed
money. He said, that was certain, and was the only way of accounting for
what was become of the money drawn over from Holland to this country.
He regretted that the President was not in the way of hearing full
information, declared he communicated to him every thing he could learn
himself; that the men who vaunted the present government so much on some
occasions, were the very men who at other times declared it was a poor
thing, and such a one as could not stand, and he was sensible they
only esteemed it as a stepping-stone to something else, and had availed
themselves of the first moments of the enthusiasm in favor of it, to
pervert its principles and make of it what they wanted: and that though
they raised the cry of anti-federalism against those who censured the
mode of administration, yet he was satisfied, whenever it should come to
be tried, that the very men whom they called anti-federalists, were the
men who would save the government, and he looked to the next Congress
for much rectification.

April the 18th. The President sends a set of questions to be considered,
and calls a meeting. Though those sent me were in his own hand-writing,
yet it was palpable from the style, their ingenious tissue and suite,
that they were not the President's, that they were raised upon a
prepared chain of argument, in short, that the language was Hamilton's,
and the doubts his alone. They led to a declaration of the executive,
that our treaty with France is void. E. Randolph, the next day, told me
that the day before the date of these questions, Hamilton went with him
through the whole chain of reasoning of which these questions are the
skeleton, and that he recognised them the moment he saw them.

We met. The first question, whether we should receive the French
minister, Genet, was proposed, and we agreed unanimously that he should
be received; Hamilton, at the same time, expressing his great regret
that any accident had happened, which should oblige us to recognise
the government. The next question was, whether he should be received
absolutely, or with qualifications. Here Hamilton took up the whole
subject, and went through it in the or