On the 22d of January, 1797,[69] he says, "I sincerely deplore the situation of our affairs with France. War with them and consequent alliance with Great Britain will completely compass the object of the executive council from the commencement of the war between France and England; taken up by some of them from that moment; by others more latterly." [Footnote 69: Vol. iii. p. 347.] On the 17th of June, 1797,[70] he says, "I have always hoped that the popularity of the late President being once withdrawn from active effect, the natural feelings of the people towards liberty would restore the equilibrium between the executive and legislative departments which had been destroyed by the superior weight and effect of that popularity; and that their natural feelings of moral obligation would discountenance the unnatural predilection of the executive in favour of Great Britain. But, unfortunately, the preceding measures had already alienated the nation who were the object of them, and the reaction has on the minds of our citizens an effect which supplies that of the Washington popularity. [Footnote 70: Vol. iii. p. 347] "P.S. Since writing the above we have received a report that the French Directory has proposed a declaration of war against the United States to the Council of Ancients, who have rejected it. Thus we see two nations who love one another affectionately, brought by the ill temper of their executive administrations to the very brink of a necessity to imbrue their hands in the blood of each other." On the 14th of February, 1799,[71] he says, "The President has appointed, and the senate approved, Rufus King, to enter into a treaty of commerce with the Russians, at London, and William Smith (Phocion) envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to go to Constantinople to make one with the Turks. So that as soon as there is a coalition of Turks, Russians, and English against France, we seize that moment to countenance it as openly as we dare, by treaties which we never had with them before. All this helps to fill up the measure of provocation towards France, and to get from them a declaration of war which we are afraid to be the first in making." [Footnote 71: Vol. iii. p. 418.] If these sentiments, in perfect coincidence with the pretensions of France, and censuring the neutral course of the American government, were openly avowed by Mr. Jefferson; if, when they appeared embodied in a letter addressed to a correspondent in Europe, and republished throughout the United States, they remained, even after becoming the topic of universal interest and universal excitement, totally uncontradicted, who could suspect that any one sentence, particularly that avowing a sentiment so often expressed by the writer, had been interpolated?