supply the place, of attachment to, or interest in, the object.”  Washington’s own letters at this period show no trace of concern about his personal safety though he smarted under the attacks on his motives.  An entry of August 2, 1793, in Jefferson’s private diary, forming the volume since known as “The Anas,” relates that at a cabinet meeting Knox exhibited a print entitled the funeral of George W——­n, in which the President was placed on a guillotine.  “The President was much inflamed; got into one of those passions when he cannot command himself; ran much on the personal abuse which had been bestowed upon him; defied any man on earth to produce one single act of his since he had been in the Government which was not done from the purest motives; that he had never repented but once the having slipped the moment of resigning his office, and that was every moment since; that by God he had rather be in his grave than in his present situation; that he had rather be on his farm than to be made emperor of the world; and that they were charging him with wanting to be king; that that rascal Freneau sent him three of his papers every day, as if he thought he would become the distributor of his papers; that he could see in this nothing but an impudent design to insult him.”

Freneau was one of Jefferson’s subordinates in the State Department, combining with his duties there the editorship of a newspaper engaged in spreading the calumny that the Administration was leaning toward monarchy through the influence of Hamilton and his friends, who despised republicanism, hated France, and loved England.  This journalistic campaign went on under the protection of Jefferson to the disturbance of an administration of which Jefferson himself formed a part.  This circumstance has given trouble to Jefferson’s biographers, and it is now somewhat difficult to make those allowances to which Jefferson is entitled from the candid historian.  Such behavior at the present day would be regarded as treacherous, for it is now a settled doctrine that it is the duty of a member of the President’s Cabinet to give unreserved support to his policy, or to resign.  But at that period, neither in England nor in the United States, did this view of cabinet solidarity prevail.  It was not considered against the rules of the game for a cabinet official to use any opportunities within reach for promoting his aims or to boast such behavior as patriotic zeal.  Jefferson, who wanted to resign and stayed on only at Washington’s earnest desire, certainly rendered a service to the Administration, which was then so unpopular that Jefferson’s connection with it was a political asset of great value.