ow that it was; namely, not favorable to it, but that it is better
to ratify it in the manner the senate have advised, and with the
reservation already mentioned, than to suffer matters to remain as they
are, unsettled." The letter from which this is copied was on file in the
office of the secretary of state; and Randolph, with evidences of a
strangely bitter feeling toward Washington, applied to him for a copy of
it, that he might publish it in his vindication. "You must be sensible,
sir," he said, "that I am inevitably driven to the discussion of many
confidential and delicate points. I could, with safety, immediately
appeal to the people of the United States, who can be of no party. But I
shall wait for your answer to this letter, so far as it respects the
paper desired, before I forward to you my general letter, which is
delayed for no other cause. I shall also rely that any supposed error in
the general letter in regard to facts will be made known to me, that I
may correct it if necessary, and that you will consent to the whole
affair, howsoever confidential and delicate, being exhibited to the
world. At the same time, I prescribe to myself the condition not to
mingle anything which I do not seriously conceive to belong to the
subject."

Utterly mistaking the character of Washington, and ungenerously
presuming that the president would withhold his consent to the
publication of the letter referred to, Randolph published in the
_Philadelphia Gazette_, two days after he wrote to Washington, the
paragraph in his application which has just been quoted, and with it a
note to the editor, saying, "The letter from which the enclosed is an
extract relates principally to the requisition of a particular paper.
My only view at present is to show to my fellow-citizens what is the
state of my vindication."

Washington was then at Mount Vernon, and the letter, an extract from
which was published, could not have reached him when that paragraph was
made public. It passed Washington while on his way to Philadelphia, and
he did not receive it until the twentieth of October, twelve days after
it was written. On the following day, Washington, with a perfect
consciousness of his own rectitude at all times and under all
circumstances, and with a noble generosity to which his assailant showed
himself a stranger, wrote to him as follows:--

"It is not difficult, from the tenor of your letter, to perceive what
your objects are. But, that