January the 2nd, 1800.  Information from Tench Coxe.  Mr. Liston had sent two letters to the Governor of Canada by one Sweezy.  He had sent copies of them, together with a third, (original) by one Cribs.  Sweezy was arrested (being an old horse-thief), and his papers examined.  T. Coxe had a sight of them.  As soon as a rumor got out that there were letters of Mr. Liston disclosed, but no particulars yet mentioned, Mr. Liston suspecting that Cribs had betrayed him, thought it best to bring all his three letters, and lay them before Pickering, Secretary of State.  Pickering thought them all very innocent.  In his office they were seen by Mr. Hodgen of New Jersey, commissary of military stores, and the intimate friend of Pickering.  It happens that there is some land partnership between Pickering, Hodgen, and Coxe, so that the latter is freely and intimately visited by Hodgen, who, moreover, speaks freely with him on political subjects.  They were talking the news of the day, when Mr. Coxe observed that these intercepted letters of Liston were serious things; (nothing being yet out but a general rumor.) Hodgen asked which he thought the most serious.  Coxe said the second; (for he knew yet of no other.) Hodgen said he thought little of any of them, but that the third was the most exceptionable.  This struck Coxe, who, not betraying his ignorance of a third letter, asked generally what part of that he alluded to.  Hodgen said to that wherein he assured the Governor of Canada, that if the French invaded Canada, an army would be marched from these States to his assistance.  After this it became known that it was Sweezy who was arrested, and not Cribs; so that Mr. Liston had made an unnecessary disclosure of his third letter to Mr. Pickering, who, however, keeps his secret for him.  In the beginning of the conversation between Hodgen and Coxe, Coxe happened to name Sweezy as the bearer of the letters.  ’That ‘s not his name,’ says Hodgen, (for he did not know that two of the letters had been sent by Sweezy also) ’his name is Cribs.’  This put Coxe on his guard, and set him to fishing for the new matter.

January the 10th.  Doctor Rush tells me, that he had it from Samuel Lyman, that during the X. Y. Z. Congress, the federal members held the largest caucus they have ever had, at which he was present, and the question was proposed and debated, whether they should declare war against France, and determined in the negative.  Lyman was against it.  He tells me, that Mr. Adams told him, that when he came on in the fall to Trenton, he was there surrounded constantly by the opponents of the late mission to France.  That Hamilton pressing him to delay it, said, ’Why, Sir, by Christmas, Louis the XVIII. will be seated on his throne.’  Mr. A.  ‘By whom?’ H.  ‘By the coalition.’  Mr. A.  ’Ah! then farewell to the independence of Europe.  If a coalition, moved by the finger of England, is to give a government to France, there is an end to the independence of every country.’