Note 52 — Chapter XXI
Reading edition
A little later, Jefferson wrote to Madison: “The president is not well; little lingering fevers have been hanging about him for a week or ten days, and affect his looks most remarkably. He is also extremely affected by the attacks made and kept up on him in the public papers. I think he feels these things more than any other person I ever yet met with. I am sincerely sorry to see them.” How utterly insincere appears the last clause of this paragraph, compared with the one next preceding it! The most scurrilous of the attacks alluded to proceeded from Freneau, a clerk in Mr. Jefferson's office!