I received from Mr. Muhlenberg and Mr. Monroe in answer the letters No. XXVII and XXVIII.
Thus the affair remained ’till the pamphlets No. V and VI of the history of the U. States for 1796 appeared; with the exception of some dark whispers, which were communicated to me by a friend in Virginia, and to which I replied by a statement of what had passed.
When I saw No. V though it was evidence of a base infidelity somewhere, yet firmly believing that nothing more than a want of due care was chargeable upon either of the three gentlemen who had made the inquiry, I immediately wrote to each of them a letter of which No. XXV is a copy in full confidence that their answer would put the whole business at rest. I ventured to believe, from the appearances on their part at closing our former interview on the subject, that their answers would have been both cordial and explicit.
I acknowledge that I was astonished when I came to read in the pamphlet No. VI the conclusion of the document No. V, containing the equivocal phrase “We
