December the 26th.  In another conversation, I mentioned to Colonel Hitchburn, that though he had not named names, I had strongly suspected Higginson to be one of Hale’s men.  He smiled and said, if I had strongly suspected any man wrongfully from his information, he would undeceive me:  that there were no persons he thought more strongly to be suspected himself, than Higginson and Lowell.  I considered this as saying they were the men.  Higginson is employed in an important business about our navy.

February the 12th, 1801.  Edward Livingston tells me, that Bayard applied to-day or last night to General Samuel Smith, and represented to him the expediency of his coming over to the States who vote for Burr, that there was nothing in the way of appointment which he might not command, and particularly mentioned the Secretaryship of the Navy.  Smith asked him if he was authorized to make the offer.  He said he was authorized.  Smith told this to Livingston, and to W. C. Nicholas, who confirms it to me.  Bayard in like manner tempted Livingston, not by offering any particular office, but by representing to him his (Livingston’s) intimacy and connection with Burr; that from him he had every thing to expect, if he would come over to him.  To Doctor Linn of New Jersey, they have offered the government of New Jersey.  See a paragraph in Martin’s Baltimore paper of February the 10th, signed, ‘a looker on,’ staling an intimacy of views between Harper and Burr.

February the 14th.  General Armstrong tells me, that Gouverneur Morris, in conversation with him to-day on the scene which is passing, expressed himself thus.  ‘How comes it,’ says he, ’that Burr, who is four hundred miles off (at Albany), has agents here at work with great activity, while Mr. Jefferson, who is on the spot, does nothing?’ This explains the ambiguous conduct of himself and his nephew, Lewis Morris, and that they were holding themselves free for a price; i.e. some office, either to the uncle or nephew.

February the 16th.  See in the Wilmington Mirror of February the 14th, Mr. Bayard’s elaborate argument to prove that the common law, as modified by the laws of the respective States at the epoch of the ratification of the constitution, attached to the courts of the United States.

June the 23rd, 1801.  Andrew Ellicot tells me, that in a conversation last summer with Major William Jackson of Philadelphia, on the subject of our intercourse with Spain, Jackson said we had managed our affairs badly; that he himself was the author of the papers against the Spanish minister signed Americanus; that his object was irritation; that he was anxious, if it could have been brought, about, to have plunged us into a war with Spain, that the people might have been occupied with that, and not with the conduct of the administration, and other things they had no business to meddle with.