distribution, but it found its way into the hands of the Republicans; Aaron Burr had parts of it printed in the _New London Bee_ and the whole was soon to be given to the public. When the whole pamphlet came out, it added more fuel to the raging controversy. This is only one incident, but not the least significant, among the many so vividly related by Mr. Bowers. The electoral colleges met in each State on December 4. Returns came in slowly to Washington but by the thirteenth it was known, in so far as could be, that the Federalists were defeated; it also appeared that there was a tie between the two Republican candidates. At this juncture Jefferson, who had remained perfectly silent, took the matter in hand and calmly assumed that he would be elected. To Robert R. Livingston, brother of Edward Livingston who was a member of Congress from New York, Jefferson wrote a letter congratulating him on his communications to the American Philosophical Society and discussing quite seriously the discovery "of some large bones supposed to be of the mammoth" in the vicinity of New York. Then, as in an afterthought, he mentioned the political situation. The matter of the election was as good as settled: "We may, therefore, venture to hazard propositions on that hypothesis without being justly subjected to raillery or ridicule." "To put the vessel on a Republican tack", they would require the entire coöperation of "men who could at once inspire the nation with perfect confidence in their honesty and talents", and Jefferson asked Livingston whether he would not assume the Secretaryship of the Navy. That in his own mind he considered the election well over appears in the sentence in which he speaks, not as a candidate but as the leader of his party, and as if no other hypothesis could enter his mind: "Though I have been too honorably placed in front of those who are to enter the breach so happily made, yet the energies of every individual are necessary, and in the very place where his energies can most serve the enterprise."[406]