calculated to give the General all the confidence he needed:[1]—
- "Your enemies have filled the public ear with slanders and your mind with trouble on that account. The establishment of their guilt will let the world see what they ought to think of their clamors; it will dissipate the doubts of those who doubted for want of knowledge, and will place you on higher ground in the public estimate and public confidence. No one is more sensible than myself of the injustice which has been aimed at you. Accept, I pray you, my salutations and assurances of respect and esteem."
As an American citizen Jefferson had the right to respect and esteem whom he pleased, and need not even excuse his friendships. The world often loved and cherished its worst rogues,—its Falstaffs, Macheaths, and Burrs,—and Jefferson was not exempt from such weakness; but that his respect and esteem for Wilkinson should require him to retain a pensioned Spanish spy and a confederate with Burr and Dayton at the head of the United States army during several years of extreme public danger, was a costly consequence to the people whose confidence Jefferson claimed and held. John Randolph saw this point clearly, and his bloodhound instinct detected and followed, without hesitation, the trail that led to the White House. Whether the chief-justice intended it or not, he never struck Jefferson a blow so mischievous as when he directed the clerk to place
- ↑ Jefferson to Wilkinson, June 21, 1807; Works, v. 109.
