9197. X. Y. Z. PLOT, Delusion through.
—There is a most respectable part of our
State [Virginia] who have been enveloped in
the X. Y. Z. delusion, and who destroy our
unanimity for the present moment. This disease
of the imagination will pass over, because
the patients are essentially republican. Indeed,
the doctor is now on his way to cure it,
in the guise of a tax gatherer. But give time
for the medicine to work, and for the repetition
of stronger doses, which must be administered.—
To John Taylor. Washington ed. iv, 259.
Ford ed., vii, 309.
(M.
1798)
