LETTER CCXLVI.--TO EDMUND PENDLETON, January 29, 1799
TO EDMUND PENDLETON.
Philadelphia, January 29, 1799.
Dear Sir,
Your patriarchal address to your country is running through all the
republican papers, and has a very great effect on the people. It is
short, simple, and presents things in a view they readily comprehend.
The character and circumstances too of the writer leave them without
doubts of his motives. If, like the patriarch of old, you had but one
blessing to give us, I should have wished it directed to a particular
object. But I hope you have one for this also. You know what a wicked
use has been made of the French negotiation; and particularly, the X. Y.
Z. dish, cooked up by ------ , where the swindlers are made to appear as
the French government. Art and industry combined, have certainly wrought
out of this business a wonderful effect on the people. Yet they have
been astonished more than they have understood it, and now that Gerry's
correspondence comes out, clearing the French government of that
turpitude, and showing them 'sincere in their dispositions for peace,
not wishing us to break the British treaty, and willing to arrange a
liberal one with us,' the people will be disposed to suspect they have
been duped. But these communications are too voluminous for them, and
beyond their reach.
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