Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

For the Virginia Federalist.

At a time when America is overwhelmed with grief, when a whole country with the exception of a few individuals, is deploring the loss of the great and good WASHINGTON, whatever relates to him, naturally rushes upon our thoughts. The letter to Mazzei the Italian philosopher, written by Mr. Jefferson some time ago cannot be forgotten. The people who now present to the world an unexampled spectacle of affliction from one end of this vast continent to the other, cannot forget the author of that high wrought calumny on him who was their Samson in the field, and their Solomon in council. That it may be recollected with all the abhorrence which it deserves, here follows an exact copy as printed in the various papers in the United States: Let every American citizen read it, and consider with himself, whether Thomas Jefferson is worthy of succeeding to the office of President of a free, affectionate and virtuous people. That he wrote the letter is unquestionable. It is no palliation that it was written confidentially to an intimate friend across the atlantic, to whom Mr. Jefferson was unbosoming his soul. It was well for this gentleman that it was not known prior to the last election of President and Vice President: It is well for him that the law of limitation shields him from punishment. However, no punishment which the laws could inflict for such a crime would be sufficient. It can only be sufficiently punished by a sense of contempt towards the author as sincere and universal among the citizens as is the honor now bestowed on the memory of their departed friend.

COPY of a LETTER
FROM
MR. JEFFERSON TO Mr. MAZZEI,
Resident in Tuscany.

"OUR political situation is prodigiously changed since you left us. Instead of that noble love of liberty, and that republican government which carried us triumphantly through the dangers of the war, an anglo-monarchico-aristocratic party has arisen. Their avowed object is to impose on us the substance, as they have already given us the form of the British government. Nevertheless the principal body of our citizens remain faithful to republican principles. All our proprietors of lands are friendly to those principles, as also the mass of men of talents. We have against us (republicans) the executive power, the judiciary power, (two of three branches of our government) all the officers of government, all who are seeking offices, all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty, the British merchants, and the Americans who trade on British capitals, the speculators. persons interested in the bank and the public funds."—Establishments invented with views of corruption, and to assimilate us to the British model, in its corrupt parts.] I should give you a fever, if I should name the apostates who have embraced those heresies, men who were Solomons in council, and Samsons in combat, but whose hair has been cut off by the whore of England. In the original, par la catin d'Angleterre, probably alluding to the woman's cutting off the hair of Samson, and his loss of strength thereby.]

"They would wrest from us that liberty which we have obtained, by so much labor and peril; but we shall preserve it. Our mass of weight and riches is so powerful that we have nothing to fear from any attempt against us by force. It is sufficient that we guard ourselves, and that we break the Lilliputian ties, by which they have bound us, in the silken strings which succeeded our labors. It suffices, that we arrest the progress of that system of ingratitude and injustice, towards France, from whom they would alienate us, to bring us under British influence, &c."