CHARACTER OF M. TALON. 399 been presented to him by his majesty, as the inscription imported. The Duke de la Rochefoucault gives some particulars of the Asylum settlement, humorously called by some of the settlers, refugium peccatorum, and enumerates the families which had established themselves there, many of whom, from their names, I remember to have seen; but I have understood that the settlement is now entirely abandoned by the French, and I have been told by persons who have seen the tract, that one more rugged and mountainous, except the particular spot whereon the town stands, could hardly be found. In this it agrees with Mr Talon's account of it, who, upon my asking him as to its situation, said the mountains were trop rapproches, thereby conveying the idea of a narrow strip of flat land along the river. The affairs of France were a subject not often touched upon by Mr Talon ; but it was impossible not sometimes to advert to them, and he testified much concern for the death of the murdered Malesherbes, who, if I mistake not, was one of the counsel for the king. He spoke of him as a noble generous man-un gallant homme was, I recollect, one of his expressions. Talon was understood to have been in the law-line himself, and to have been Avocat General under the old regime. If this was the fact, the office was, apparently, through royal favour, hereditary in his family, as one of the same name in that office is spoken of by Cardinal de Retz in the following very honourable manner, and the more so from his being in the opposite party, and a foe to his seditious designs. Talon, advocate-general, made one of the finest speeches that was ever made on a like subject. I never heard or read any thing more eloquent. He mixed with his reasons 66 400 WASHINGTON'S UNPOPULARITY. whatever could serve to make them the more moving. He invoked the manes of Henry the Great, and, kneeling down, he called upon St Louis to protect the kingdom of France. You fancy, perhaps, that you had laughed at this spectacle; but it had moved you as it did the whole company, upon whom it worked in such a manner that the clamours of the inquests began, as I perceived, to decrease by it." Though this quotation may be thought a strange wandering from my purpose, inasmuch as it mingles the transactions of ages past with those of the present, I could not suppress it, since it places in so amiable a light the virtue of patriotism, and the irresistible eloquence which may flow from that source. We, too, have our sainted friend in Heaven, who, by a stretch of fiction more warrantable, may be supposed to be watching over the destinies of this country; but much, I question, whether an equally solemn invocation to his manes would find matter so soft as was found in the breast of this Catiline, and in the hearts of those who were set in motion by his machinations. To return to our own affairs. Although no other specific ground of opposition, than those already mentioned, was taken against the President, yet the whole tenor of his administration was bitterly and incessantly inveighed against as hostile to liberty. The logic of democracy was extremely compendious, and, therefore, the more satisfactory to superficial inquirers. On the one hand, it pointed to republican France; on the other, to a combination of despots-and this was enough. In so interesting a struggle, could any friend to his kind be neutral! And the inference was, that they who were not for France were against her, and monarchists, tories, and tyrants, of course. The name of England, GEN. WASHINGTON RETIBES FROM THE PRESIDENCY. 401 too, was well calculated to rouse old resentments; and the single circumstance of her being opposed to France was quite sufficient to make all staunch, Boeotian Whigs, allies of the latter. Was she not, it was asked, engaged in a cause exactly similar to our own-and shall we side with royalists against her? Shall we not rather, in the glowing language of Genet, march to combat under her banners, and repay her for the generous assistance she gave us in our contest? Such arguments struck the public sensory with force; and the impression they made was not to be effaced by any reasoning more complex and refined. Besides, who listens to reasoning that runs counter to his passions, his prejudices, and his interests? One, perhaps, in a thousand. It now became evident, that, to be popular, or even tolerated, it was necessary to be a partisan of the French; as to doubt merely the holiness of their cause, was the certain road to odium and proscription. It is not at all to be wondered at, therefore, that the prudent, the timid, and the thrifty, all lent themselves to democracy, and helped to swell a tide which seemed ready to rise above all mounds, and to bear down every thing before it, even to the weight and popularity of Washington, That good man now began to doubt whether the prize of independence, which had cost him so many anxious days and sleepless nights, were really worth the sacrifices which he had made for it; and whether posterity might not have cause to question the value of his services, or, even under the smart of anarchy, to exclaim-" Curse on his virtues, they have undone his country!" Weary of the struggle "with vice and faction," he at length resolved, at the expiration of his second term of service, to retire from the presidency, and leave it to be scuffled for between Mr Adams and Mr Jefferson. C C 402 CHARACTER OF GENERAL WASHINGTON. Never had the soul of Washington exhibited more illustrious proofs of true nobility, than in that very part of his life which excited the most viperous malignity, and brought upon him the execrable charge of having legalized corruption. Though always great-though in his early manhood distinguished as the protector of his country from savage inroad and depredation-though the only man perhaps in America who, by a transcendently virtuous, prudent, dignified, and persevering, deportment, could have kept us united, and carried us triumphantly through the revolution-he never appeared to more advantage than during the arduous season of his eight years presidency. Like the magnanimity displayed by Cato in his march through Syrtes and Libyan deserts, it might justly be preferred to the most brilliant military achieve ments. Hunc ego per Syrteis Libyesque extrema triumphum Scandere Pompeii, quam frangere colla Jugurtha. Contrasting the glorious height to which he carried the American name with its present lamentable degradation; the prosperity to which he raised his country with its present wretched state of despondency and subserviency to a foreign and despotic power; are we not fully justified in applying to him the "fine rapture" of Lucan in regard to the patriot of Rome? Ecce parens verus patriæ, dignissimus aris Roma tuis! His country's father here, O Rome, behold, Worthy thy temples, priests, and shrines of gold! If liberty be e'er restor❜d again, Him shalt thou place in thy divine abodes, Swear by his holy name, and rank him with thy gods. ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT ADAMS. 403 CHAPTER XVI. Mr Adams President-Opposition to his Administration— French Partisans-Imposition of Taxes-InsurrectionFederalists lose their ground-Death of General Washington, and Election of Mr Jefferson-Character of that Gentleman-Reflections-Death of the Author's Mother-Conclu sion. In the contest for the presidency Mr Adams prevailed by a very small majority. Hence, federalism was still ascendant in the National Councils, though considerably depressed in those of some of the states which were working by sap, while their myrmidons abroad displayed as much ardour to storm the strong hold of aristocracy, as the Parisians had done to demolish the Bastile. The tone given by Washington was maintained by his successor. Equally federal, he spoke a language more lofty; and in his answers to the numerous addresses which were presented to him on occasion of the insolence of the French Directory he was thought egregiously heterodox; particularly in one in which he somewhat unnecessarily, indeed, takes occasion to speak of his having once had the honour to stand in the presence of the Majesty of Britain. Shocking sounds, to be sure, to the republican ears of the day!—though now we can talk of the Imperial Majesty of France without the smallest danger of setting our teeth on edge, or of |