Senator Lodge, in commenting on this affair, caustically remarks: "Strict veracity was not the strongest characteristic of either Freneau or Jefferson, and it is really of but little consequence whether Freneau was lying in his old age or in the prime of life."[1] [Footnote 1: Lodge, II, 223.] An unbiassed searcher after truth to-day will find that the circumstantial evidence runs very strongly against Jefferson.

He brought Freneau over from New York to Philadelphia, he knew the sort of work that Freneau would and could do, he gave him an office in the State Department, he probably discussed the topics which the "National Gazette" was to take up, and he probably read the proof of the articles which that paper was to publish.

In his animosities the cloak of charity neither became him nor fitted him.
Several years later, when Bache's paper, the "Aurora," printed some material which Washington's enemies hoped would damage him, Jefferson again took alarm and wrote to Washington to free himself from blame.
To him, the magnanimous President replied in part: If I had entertained any suspicions before, that the queries, which have been published in Bache's paper, proceeded from you, the assurances you have given of the contrary would have removed them; but the truth is, I harbored none.

I am at no loss to _conjecture_ from what source they flowed, through what channel they were conveyed, and for what purpose they and similar publications appear.

They were known to be in the hands of Mr.
Parker in the early part of the last session of Congress.