January the 24th.  Mr. Smith, a merchant of Hamburg, gives me the following information.  The St. Andrew’s Club, of New York, (all of Scotch tories,) gave a public dinner lately.  Among other guests Alexander Hamilton was one.  After dinner, the first toast was ’The President of the United States.’  It was drunk without any particular approbation.  The next was, ‘George the Third.’  Hamilton started up on his feet, and insisted on a bumper and three cheers.  The whole company accordingly rose and gave the cheers.  One of them, though a federalist, was so disgusted at the partiality shown by Hamilton to a foreign sovereign over his own President, that he mentioned it to a Mr. Schwart-house, an American merchant of New York, who mentioned it to Smith.

Mr. Smith also tells me, that calling one evening on Mr. Evans, then Speaker of the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania, and asking the news, Evans said, Harper had just been there, and speaking of the President’s setting out to Braintree, said, ’he prayed to God that his horses might run away with him, or some other accident happen to break his neck before he reached Braintree.’  This was in indignation at his having named Murray, &c. to negotiate with France.  Evans approved of the wish.

February the 1st.  Doctor Rush tells me that he had it from Asa Green, that when the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation, that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address, as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not.  They did so.  However, he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them.  He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice.  Rush observes, he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers, except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the States when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he speaks of ’the benign influence of the Christian religion.’

I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did.

March, 1800.  Heretical doctrines maintained in Senate, on the motion against the Aurora.  That there is in every legal body of men a right of self-preservation, authorizing them to do whatever is necessary for that purpose:  by Tracy, Read, and Lawrence.  That the common law authorizes the proceeding proposed against the Aurora, and is in force here:  by Read.  That the privileges of Congress are and ought to be indefinite:  by Read.

Tracy says, he would not say exactly that the common law of England in all its extent is in force here; but common sense reason, and morality, which are the foundations of the common law, are in force here, and establish a common law.  He held himself so nearly half way between the common law of England and what every body else has called natural law, and not common law, that he could hold to either the one or the other, as he should find expedient.