nd his disregard of French complaints can hardly be ascribed to any
other cause than his delusion that Morris was deeply occupied with
the treaty negotiations confided to him. It must be remembered that
Washington believed such a treaty with England to be the alternative of
war.(2) On that apprehension the British party in America, and British
agents, played to the utmost, and under such influences Washington
sacrificed many old friendships,--with Jefferson, Madison, Monroe,
Edmund Randolph, Paine,--and also the confidence of his own State,
Virginia.

1 Washington's marginal notes on Monroe's "View, etc.,"
were first fully given in Ford's "Writings of Washington,"
vol. xiii., p. 452, seq.

2 Ibid., p. 453.

There is a traditional impression that Paine's angry letter to
Washington was caused by the President's failure to inter-pose for
his relief from prison. But Paine believed that the American Minister
(Morris) had reclaimed him in some feeble fashion, as an American
citizen, and he knew that the President had officially approved Monroe's
action in securing his release. His grievance was that Washington, whose
letters of friendship he cherished, who had extolled his services to
America, should have manifested no concern personally, made no use of
his commanding influence to rescue him from daily impending death, sent
to his prison no word of kindness or inquiry, and sent over their mutual
friend Monroe without any instructions concerning him; and finally, that
his private letter, asking explanation, remained unanswered. No doubt
this silence of Washington concerning the fate of Paine, whom he
acknowledged to be an American citizen, was mainly due to his fear
of offending England, which had proclaimed Paine. The "outlaw's"
imprisonment in Paris caused jubilations among the English gentry,
and went on simultaneously with Jay's negotiations in London, when any
expression by Washington of sympathy with Paine (certain of publication)
might have imperilled the Treaty, regarded by the President as vital.

So anxious was the President about this, that what he supposed had been
done for Paine by Morris, and what had really been done by Monroe,
was kept in such profound secrecy, that even his Secretary of State,
Pickering, knew nothing of it. This astounding fact I recently
discovered in the manuscripts of that Secretary.(1) Colonel Pickering,
while flattering enough to the President in public, despised