5353. MONARCHY, Throwing off.—
With respect to the State of Virginia in particular,
the people seem to have laid aside the
monarchical, and taken up the republican form
of government with as much ease as would
have attended their throwing off an old and
putting on a new suit of clothes. Not a single
throe has attended this important transformation.
A half-dozen aristocratical gentlemen,
agonizing under the loss of preeminence,
have sometimes ventured their sarcasms on our
political metamorphosis. They have been
thought fitter objects of pity than of punishment.—
To Benjamin Franklin. Washington ed. i, 204.
Ford ed., ii, 131.
(Aug. 1777)
