justify the concealing such an overture, nor indeed that it could be concealed, made a nomination, hoping that his friends in the Senate would take on their own shoulders the odium of rejecting it; but they did not choose it.  The Hamiltonians would not, and the others could not, alone.  The whole artillery of the phalanx, therefore, was played secretly on the President, and he was obliged himself to take a step which should parry the overture while it wears the face of acceding to it. (Mark that I state this as conjecture; but founded on workings and indications which have been under our eyes.) Yesterday, therefore, he sent in a nomination of Oliver Ellsworth, Patrick Henry, and William Vans Murray, Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary to the French Republic, but declaring the two former should not leave this country till they should receive from the French Directory assurances that they should be received with the respect due by the law of nations to their character, &c.  This, if not impossible, must at least keep off the day, so hateful and so fatal to them, of reconciliation, and leave more time for new projects of provocation.  Yesterday witnessed a scandalous scene in the House of Representatives.  It was the day for taking up the report of their committee against the alien and sedition laws, &.c.  They held a caucus and determined that not a word should be spoken on their side, in answer to any thing which should be said on the other.  Gallatin took up the alien, and Nicholas the sedition law; but after a little while of common silence, they began to enter into loud conversations, laugh, cough, &c., so that for the last hour of these gentlemen’s speaking, they must have had the lungs of a vendue-master to have been heard.  Livingston, however, attempted to speak.  But after a few sentences, the speaker called him to order, and told him what he was saying was not to the question.  It was impossible to proceed.  The question was taken and carried in favor of the report, fifty-two to forty-eight; the real strength of the two parties is fifty-six to fifty.  But two of the latter have not attended this session.  I send you the report of their committee.  I still expect to leave this on the 1st, and be with you on the 7th of March.  But it is possible I may not set out till the 4th, and then shall not be with you till the 10th.  Affectionately adieu.

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER CCLII.—­TO T. LOMAX, March 12, 1799

TO T. LOMAX.

Monticello, March 12, 1799.

Dear Sir,

Your welcome favor of last month came to my hands in Philadelphia.  So long a time has elapsed since we have been separated by events, that it was like a letter from the dead, and recalled to my memory very dear recollections.  My subsequent journey through life has offered nothing which, in comparison with those, is not cheerless and dreary.  It is a rich comfort sometimes to look back on them.