"Against us _are_ two out of three branches of the legislature." The fact is notorious that the house of representatives was, at the date of the letter, opposed to the administration.

Mr.Jefferson himself gives us this information.
In September, 1795,[77] he terms the effort to carry the treaty with Great Britain into effect, "an attempt of a party who find _they have lost their majority in one branch of the legislature_ to make a law by the aid of the other branch and the executive under colour of a treaty," &c.

Mr.Jefferson then has deprived himself of this explanation.

He could not have intended to exclude the President by the phrase "two out of three branches of the legislature." [Footnote 77: Vol.iii.p.

316.] The same letter contains also the following expression,[78] "Mr.
Pickering quotes the passage in the letter of the men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who had their heads shorn by the harlot England." "Now this expression also was perfectly understood by General Washington.