3620. HAMILTON (Alexander), English mission and.—
I learn by your letters
and Mr. Madison's that a special mission to
England is meditated, and Hamilton the missionary.
A more degrading measure could not
have been proposed. And why is Pinckney to be
recalled? For it is impossible he should remain
after such a testimony that he is not confided
in? I suppose they think him not thorough fraud
enough. I suspect too the mission, besides the
object of placing the aristocracy of this country
under the patronage of that government,
has in view that of withdrawing Hamilton from
the disgrace, and the public execrations which
sooner or later must fall on the man who, partly
by erecting fictitious debt, partly by volunteering
in the payment of the debts of others, who could
have paid them so much more conveniently
themselves, has alienated forever all our ordinary
and easy resources, and will oblige us
hereafter to extraordinary ones for every little
contingency out of the common line; and who
has lately brought the President forward with
manifestations that the business of the Treasury
had got beyond the limits of his comprehension.—
To James Monroe.
Ford ed., vi, 504.
(M.
April. 1794)
