his contractors, would certainly have excited a laugh in Fauchet: and if he had thought such a silly proposition worth a mention in his dispatches, he would naturally have said—“What a loggerheaded fellow they have chosen for Secretary of State here! Would you imagine that he has proposed to me to pay my flour-contractors what I owe them, as a mean of inducing them to penetrate into the designs of the English government! The man must certainly be out of his wits, or he never would be foolish enough to suppose that these people, in gratitude for having received no more than their due from me, would be induced to undertake a dangerous and expensive service for him. However, the poor man, though a little crack-brained, is a good patriot, and has no other motive in all this than to serve his country.” These would have been the remarks of citizen Fauchet had the overtures been of the nature he now pretends they were. He would have had all the reason in the world to accuse the Secretary of folly, but none to accuse him of guilt; none to authorize those bitter reflections on the saleableness of the consciences of the pretended patriots of America, or on the decrepitude of the Government.
This is not all. If the overtures for money were in behalf of citizen Fauchet’s flour-men, there remains a very important passage of his intercepted letter which both he and the Vindicator have left unexplained. It is this:—
“As soon as it was decided that the French Republic purchased no men to do their duty, there were to be seen individuals about whose conduct the Government could at least form uneasy conjectures, giving themselves up with a scandalous ostentation to its views, and even seconding its declarations. Ref 055 The popular societies soon emitted resolutions stamped with the same spirit; and who, although they may have been advised by love of order, might nevertheless have omitted or uttered them with less solemnity. Then were seen coming from the very men whom we had been accustomed to regard as having little friendship for the system of the Treasurer, harangues without end, in order to give a new direction to the public mind. The militia, however, manifest some repugnance, particularly in Pennsylvania; at last, by excursions or harangues, incomplete requisitions are obtained. How much more interesting than the changeable men I have painted above were those plain citizens!” &c.
That citizen Fauchet understood the money overtures to be made on the part of these changeable men is evident; for the passage here transcribed follows immediately after the paragraph in which those overtures are mentioned. And the passage itself is too unequivocal to be misunderstood. All this scandalous ostentation, he says, these second-hand declarations, and harangues without end, in favour of the Government, took place among these changeable men as soon as it was known (and not before) that the French Republic purchased no men to do their duty. Now then, let Mr. Randolph, or any one of these changeable men, twist this passage till it applies to his flour-merchants, if he can. What! did the flour-merchants give themselves up to the views of the Government with a scandalous ostentation? What harangues did these poor devils ever make, I wonder, to disguise their past views, and give a new direction to the public mind? We all know that the democratic Societies and the good Governor of Pennsylvania issued declarations seconding that of the Government; but the flour-merchants never issued any, or at least that I know of. And yet the citizen tells us, that all these harangues and declarations took place as soon as it was decided that the French Republic purchased no men to do their duty. How then, in the name of all that is vile and corrupt, could the money overtures be made in behalf of three or four flour-merchants?
But I must not let these haranguers go off so.
“Then,” says citizen Fauchet, “were seen coming from the very men whom we had been accustomed to regard as having little friendship for the system of the Treasurer, harangues without end.”
Who, then, were the persons that citizen Fauchet had been accustomed to regard as having little friendship for the system of the Treasurer?
“Of all the governors,” says Citizen Fauchet, in the 16th paragraph, already quoted, “of all the governors whose duty it was to appear at the head of the requisitions, the Governor of Pennsylvania alone enjoyed the name of Republican: his opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury, and of his systems, was known to be unfavourable.” In another part of the letter, when speaking about the behaviour of several of the general officers on the Western expedition, he says, “The Governor of Pennsylvania, of whom it never would have been suspected, lived intimately and publicly with Hamilton.”
As to the fact concerning the harangues without end, those of my readers whose memories are not very faithful, have only to open the Philadelphia newspapers for the months of August and September, 1794. Let the reader, particularly if he be a Pennsylvanian, treasure up all these things in his mind.
I have but one more observation to add here, and that does not arise from any thing said in the Vindication, but from a paragraph which appeared in Mr. Bache’s Gazette of the 22nd December, signed A. J. Dallas, and which contained the following words:—
“The publication of Mr. Fauchet’s intercepted letter, renders any remark unnecessary on my part, or on the part of the Governor, upon the villanous insinuations of the libeller” [meaning Mr. Wilcocks, who had said that it was reported that citizen Fauchet’s letter charged the Governor of Pennsylvania, Mr. Randolph, and Valerius (by which name Mr. Dallas looks upon himself as designated) of bribery and corruption], “in relation to the contents of that letter; but we may expect to derive a perfect triumph on the occasion, from the candour of those who have incautiously circulated injurious conjectures, and from the mortification of those who have wilfully fabricated iniquitous falsehoods.”
It seems that this A. J. Dallas is the self-same “Secretary of this State,” and that this governor is the same “governor of Pennsylvania,” of whom citizen Fauchet has made such honourable mention, and of whom we have been talking all this time. For my part, I do not know the men, nor either of them, nor have I any ambition to know them, but if they can see any thing in citizen Fauchet’s intercepted letter from which they “expect to derive a perfect triumph,” I congratulate them on their penetration with all my heart. Should they triumph, their triumph will be perfect, indeed; for conscious I am, that it will be attended with this singular and happy circumstance, that it will excite envy in no living soul? Ref 056
As I am pretty confident that no further remark is necessary with respect to the persons who were to receive the product of Mr. Randolph’s overtures, I shall now speak to the second question: for what purpose were they to receive it?
I believe few people have read the intercepted letter without being fully convinced that the money, if obtained, was to be so employed as to enable the receivers openly to espouse the cause of the Western insurgents, and overturn the Federal government, or, at least, counteract its measures so far as to oblige those at the head of it to abandon it to the direction of those corrupt and profligate men who wished to prevent any accommodations taking place with Great Britain, and to plunge their devoted country into a war on the side of France. The passage of the letter where the overtures are mentioned authorizes this conclusion; and when we come to examine the other paragraphs, together with the extract from the dispatch No. 6, and to compare the whole of citizen Fauchet’s account with the well-known conduct of those who are clearly designated as the persons in whose behalf the money overtures were made, the evidence becomes irresistible.
To weaken this evidence, nothing has been advanced, that does not, if possible, add to its force, by showing to what more than miserable shifts and subterfuges the Vindicator has been driven. Nevertheless as we profess to make observations on the Vindication, all that it contains, however false and absurd, claims some share of our attention; and, therefore, we must now take a view of what has been said concerning the application of the money to be obtained by the overtures of Mr. Randolph, beginning, as before, with the certificate of citizen Fauchet.
After telling us, that he had frequently had conversations with Mr. Randolph about the insurrection, and that he himself suspected the English of fomenting and supporting it, he says:—
“I communicated my suspicions to Mr. Randolph. I had already communicated to him a Congress, which at this time was holden at New-York. I had communicated to him my fears, that this Congress would have for its object, some manœuvre against the Republic of France, and to render unpopular some virtuous men, who were at the head