The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 9 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 9 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
His paper has
saved our constitution, which was galloping fast into monarchy, and has
been checked by no one means so powerfully as by that paper. It is well
and universally known, that it has been that paper which has checked the
career of the monocrats; and the President, not sensible of the designs
of the party, has not with his usual good sense and _sang froid_, looked
on the efforts and effects of this free press, and seen that, though
some bad things have passed through it to the public, yet the good have
preponderated immensely.
* * * * *
June the 7th, 1793. Mr. Beckley, who has returned from New York within
a few days, tells me that while he was there, Sir John Temple, Consul
General of the northern States for Great Britain, showed him a letter
from Sir Gregory Page Turner, a member of Parliament for a borough in
Yorkshire, who, he said, had been a member for twenty-five years, and
always confidential for the ministers, in which he permitted him to
read particular passages of the following purport: "that the government
was well apprized of the predominancy of the British interest in the
United States; that they considered Colonel Hamilton, Mr. King, and Mr.
W. Smith of South Carolina, as the main supports of that interest; that
particularly, they considered Colonel Hamilton, and not Mr. Hammond, as
their effective minister here; that if the anti-federal interest (that
was his term), at the head of which they considered Mr. Jefferson to be,
should prevail, these gentlemen _had secured_ an asylum to themselves
in England." Beckley could not understand whether they had secured it
_themselves_,[10] or whether they were only notified that it was secured
to them. So that they understand that they may go on boldly in their
machinations to change the government, and if they should be overset
and choose to withdraw, they will be secure of a pension in England, as
Arnold, Deane, &c., had. Sir John read passages of a letter (which he did
not put into Beckley's hand, as he did the other) from Lord Grenville,
saying nearly the same things. This letter mentions to Sir John, that
though they had divided the Consul Generalship, and given the southern
department to Bond, yet he, Sir John, was to retain his whole salary.
[By this it would seem, as if, wanting to use Bond, they had covered
his employment with this cloak.] Mr. Beckley says that Sir John Temple
is a strong republican. I had a proof of his intimacy with Sir John in
this circumstance. Sir John received his new commission of Consul for
the northern department, and instead of sending it through Mr. Hammond,
got Beckley to enclose it to me for his exequatur. I wrote to Sir John
that it must come through Mr. Hammond, enclosing it back to him. He
accordingly then sent it to Mr. Hammond.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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