To James Madison from Thomas Jefferson, 3 August 1795
From Thomas Jefferson
Aug. 3. 95.
Th: J. to J. M.
You will percieve by the inclosed that Hamilton has taken up his pen in support of the treaty.1 (Return it to me.) He spoke on it’s behalf in the meeting at New York, and his party carried a decision in favor of it by a small majority. But the Livingstonians appealed to stones & clubs & beat him & his party off the ground.2 This from a gentleman just from Philadelphia. Adieu.
P. S. Richmond has decided against the treaty.3 It is said that not even Carrington undertakes to defend it.
RC (DLC).
1. On 22 July the N.Y. Argus; or, Greenleaf’s New Daily Advertiser began publication of Hamilton’s essays “The Defence” over the pseudonym “Camillus.” Reprinted in other newspapers, the series continued through January 1796 in thirty-eight installments, ten of which were written by Rufus King (, 18:475–77).
2. On 18 July a New York public meeting convened to consider the Jay treaty. According to some accounts, stones were thrown at Hamilton when he tried to speak in favor of the treaty. Another meeting on 20 July chaired by William Stephens Smith approved twenty-eight resolutions drafted by Henry Brockholst Livingston opposing the treaty, and on 21 July the New York Chamber of Commerce passed protreaty resolutions (ibid., 18:485 n. 33; Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, between His Britannic Majesty, and the United States of America,… to Which Is Annexed, a Copious Appendix [Philadelphia, 1795; 29752], pp. 162–71, 189–90).
3. For the 29 and 30 July Richmond public meetings that denounced the Jay treaty, see JM to Jefferson, 6 Aug. 1795, n. 2.