to
the seat of government. In the meantime, for the reason above referred
to, I pray you to decide on no important political measure, in whatever
form it may be presented to you. Mr. Wolcott and I (Mr. Bradford
concurring) waited on Mr. Randolph, and urged his writing to request
your return. He wrote in our presence, but we concluded a letter from
one of us also expedient."

On the day after his arrival, the president called a cabinet meeting.
Mr. Pickering had already explained the mysterious hints in his letter,
by handing to Washington some papers which had excited suspicions
concerning Secretary Randolph's conduct. When the cabinet had convened,
the president submitted the question, "What shall be done with the
treaty?" Randolph not only insisted upon the repeal of the provision
order already alluded to, as a preliminary to ratification, but took the
ground that the treaty ought not to be ratified at all, pending the war
with Great Britain and France. The other members of the cabinet were in
favor of immediate ratification, with a strong memorial against the
provision order. In this opinion Washington coincided, and on the
eighteenth the ratification was signed by the president. Randolph was
directed to complete the memorial which he had commenced, and also
instructions for further negotiations.

Washington's feelings had been deeply moved by the papers which
Pickering placed in his hands. The chief of these was a despatch of M.
Fauchet, the French minister, to his government, late in the autumn of
1794, and which had been intercepted. In that despatch, Fauchet gave a
sketch of the rise of parties in the United States, in substantial
accordance with Jefferson's views, and then he commented freely upon the
Whiskey Insurrection in western Pennsylvania, then drawing to a close.
Echoing the sentiments of the democratic leaders, Fauchet, professing to
have his information from Randolph, declared that the insurrection grew
out of political hostility to Hamilton. It was Hamilton's intention, he
said, in enforcing the excise, "to mislead the president into unpopular
courses, and to introduce absolute power under pretext of giving energy
to the government."

In his further comments, the minister, in deprecation of the conduct of
professed republicans, and the general co-operation with the president
in putting down the insurrection, said: "Of the governors whose duty it
was to appear at the head of the requisitions, the g