nue in secrecy under your injunction.
For, after pledging myself for a more specific investigation of all the
suggestions, I here most solemnly deny that any overture came from me,
which was to produce money to me or any others for me; and that in any
manner, directly or indirectly, was a shilling ever received by me; nor
was it ever contemplated by me that one shilling should be applied by
Mr. Fauchet to any purpose relative to the insurrection."

On the following day, Washington wrote to Mr. Randolph: "Whilst you are
in pursuit of means to remove the strong suspicions arising from this
letter, no disclosure of its contents will be made by me, and I will
enjoin the same on the public officers who are acquainted with the
purport of it, unless something will appear to render an explanation
necessary on the part of the government, and of which I will be the
judge." He afterward said, "No man would rejoice more than I, to find
that the suspicions which have resulted from the intercepted letter were
unequivocally and honorably removed."

A message from Randolph reached Fauchet before he was ready to embark,
and the minister wrote to the late secretary, a declaration, denying
that the latter had ever indicated a willingness to receive money for
his own use, and also affirming that, in his letter to his government,
he did not say anything derogatory to Mr. Randolph's character. With
this declaration from the retiring French minister, and a reliance upon
the general tenor of his conduct while in the cabinet, Randolph
proceeded to prepare his vindication, at the same time publicly boasting
to his friends, with a vindictive spirit, that he would bring things to
view which would affect Washington more than anything which had yet
appeared. Among other things which he proposed to do, in order to damage
the reputation of Washington, was, to undertake to show, by the
president's own letter to him on the twenty-second of July, that he
(Washington) was opposed to the treaty which he had now so eagerly
signed; and that the intercepted despatch had been communicated to
Washington as part of a scheme concocted between the British minister
and the cabinet officers to insure the ratification of the treaty, to
drive Randolph from office, and to crush the republican party in the
United States.

The paragraph in Washington's letter on which Randolph intended to base
this charge was as follows: "My opinion respecting the treaty is the
same n