The latter, however, by a perfectly natural and characteristic stroke which Jefferson could not foresee, sent the indictment to Hamilton and asked him to explain.
This Hamilton did straightforwardly and point-blank--and Jefferson had the mortification of perceiving that his ruse had failed.

Hamilton, under a thin disguise, wrote a series of newspaper assaults on Jefferson, who could not parry them or answer them.

He was no match for the most terrible controversialist in America; but he could wince.
And presently B.F.Bache, the grandson of Benjamin Franklin, brought his unusual talents in vituperation, in calumny, and in nastiness to the "Aurora," a blackguard sheet of Philadelphia.

Washington doubtless thought himself so hardened to abuse by the experience he had had of it during the Revolution that nothing which Freneau, Bache, and their kind could say or do, would affect him.

But he was mistaken.