isfaction of the president. He
had endeavored, on his own part, not to allow his private views to
interfere with them in the performance of those duties; but he now found
himself compelled to take part in the dispute. That part was the noble
one of pacificator. He desired most earnestly to heal the breach, and on
the twenty-third of August he wrote to Jefferson on the subject. After
referring to the hostilities of the Indians, and the possible intrigues
of foreigners to check the growth of the United States, he said:--

"How unfortunate and how much to be regretted is it, that while we
are encompassed on all sides with armed enemies and insidious
friends, internal dissentions should be harrowing and tearing our
vitals. The latter, to me, is the most serious, the most alarming,
and the most afflicting of the two; and, without more charity for
the opinions and acts of one another in governmental matters, or
some more infallible criterion by which the truth of speculative
opinions, before they have undergone the test of experience, are to
be forejudged, than has yet fallen to the lot of fallibility, I
believe it will be difficult, if not impracticable, to manage the
reins of government, or to keep the parts of it together; for if,
instead of laying our shoulders to the machine after measures are
decided on, one pulls this way and another that, before the utility
of the thing is fairly tried, it must inevitably be torn asunder,
and, in my opinion, the fairest prospect of happiness and
prosperity that ever was presented to man will be lost, perhaps for
ever.

"My earnest wish and my fondest hope, therefore, is that instead of
wounding suspicions and irritating charges there may be liberal
allowances, mutual forbearances, and temporizing yieldings on all
sides. Under the exercise of these, matters will go on smoothly
and, if possible, more prosperously. Without them, everything must
rub; the wheels of government will clog; our enemies will triumph,
and, by throwing their weight into the disaffected scale, may
accomplish the ruin of the goodly fabric we have been erecting.

"I do not mean to apply this advice or these observations to any
particular person or character. I have given them in the same
general terms to other officers of the government; because the
disagreements, which h