_one_ sly falsehood. When one is detected, a thousand are suspected.

The first account that arrived in Paris of a treaty being negotiated by
Mr. Jay, (for nobody suspected any,) came in an English newspaper, which
announced that a treaty _offensive and defensive_ had been concluded
between the United States of America and England. This was immediately
denied by every American in Paris, as an impossible thing; and though
it was disbelieved by the French, it imprinted a suspicion that some
underhand business was going forward.(*) At length the treaty itself
arrived, and every well-affected American blushed with shame.

1 When the British treaty had been ratified by the Senate
(with one stipulation) and signed by the President, the
House of Representatives, required to supply the means for
carrying into effect, believed that its power over the
supplies authorized it to check what a large majority
considered an outrage on the country and on France. This was
the opinion of Edmund Randolph (the first Attorney General),
of Jefferson, Madison, and other eminent men. The House
having respectfully requested the President to send them
such papers on the treaty as would not affect any existing
negotiations, he refused in a message (March 30, 1796),
whose tenor Madison described as "improper and indelicate."
He said "the assent of the House of Representatives is not
necessary to the validity of a treaty." The House regarded
the message as menacing a serious conflict, and receded.--
_Editor._

* It was the embarrassment into which the affairs and credit
of America were thrown at this instant by the report above
alluded to, that made it necessary to contradict it, and
that by every means arising from opinion or founded upon
authority. The Committee of Public Safety, existing at that
time, had agreed to the full execution, on their part, of
the treaty between America and France, notwithstanding some
equivocal conduct on the part of the American government,
not very consistent with the good faith of an ally; but they
were not in a disposition to be imposed upon by a counter-
treaty. That Jay had no instructions beyond the points above
stated, or none that could possibly be construed to extend
to the length the British treaty goes, was a matter believed
in America, in England, and in