Yet Mr. Jefferson, unmindful of these circumstances, after some acrimonious remarks on Colonel Pickering, has said,[72] "and even Judge Marshall makes history descend from its dignity, and the ermine from its sanctity, to exaggerate, to record, and to sanction this forgery." [Footnote 72: Vol. iv. p. 402.] The note itself will best demonstrate the inaccuracy of this commentary. To this text an appeal is fearlessly made. This unmerited invective is followed by an accusation not less extraordinary. It is made a cause of crimination that the author has copied the remark of the Parisian editor, instead of the letter itself. To remove this reproach, he will now insert the letter, not as published in Europe, and transferred from the French to the American papers, but as preserved and avowed by Mr. Jefferson, and given to the world by his grandson. It is in these words. "Monticello, April 24th, 1796.[73] "My Dear Friend, "The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left us. In place of that noble love of liberty and republican government which carried us triumphantly through the war, an Anglican, monarchical, and aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance as it has already done the forms of the British government. The main body of our citizens, however, remain true to their republican principles; the whole landed interest is republican, and so is a great mass of talents. Against us are the executive, the judiciary, two out of three branches of the legislature, all the officers of the government, all who want to be officers, all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty, British merchants and Americans trading on British capitals, speculators and holders in the banks and public funds, a contrivance invented for the purposes of corruption, and for assimilating us in all things to the rotten as well as sound parts of the British model. It would give you a fever were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England. In short, we are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labours and perils. But we shall preserve it; and our mass of weight and wealth on the good side is so great as to leave no danger that force will ever be attempted against us. We have only to awake and snap the Lilliputian cords with which they have been entangling us during the first sleep which succeeded our labours. "I will forward the testimonials, &c." [Footnote 73: Vol. iii. p. 327.]