But  Mr.  Jefferson  produces  from  the  same  dialogue,  "  another
incident,"  which  he  seems  with  great  reason  to  consider  as
equally  efficacious  in  proving  Hamilton's  political  turpitude.  It
is,  as  you  have  already  seen,  that  at  Mr.  Jefferson's  hospitable
board,  Hamilton  said  "  Julius  Caesar  was  the  greatest  man  that
ever  lived."  And  to  aggravate  the  enormity  of  this  open  attempt
on  the  liberties  of  his  country,  Hamilton  it  would  seem  made  this
daring  assertion  after  Mr.  Jefferson  had  told  him  that  Bacon,
Newton  and  Locke  were  the  greatest  men  "  the  world  had  ever
produced."

The  inference  here  attempted,  it  must  be  confessed,  "  at  one
bound  high  overleaps  all  bounds."  It  is  however  of  the  true  Jef-
fersonian  press-copy  stamp,  under  which  assurance  and  malice
were  circulated  for  fairness  and  truth.  This  monstrous  and
abominable  opinion  which  Hamilton  had  the  audacity  to  utter,
and  with  the  emphasis  of  a  preliminary  pause,  to  propel  against
the  patriotic  nerves  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  happened  not  only  to  coin-
cide with  the  opinion  of  the  world,  but  to  be  in  exact  conformity
with  the  dictum  of  Lord  Bacon,  who  in  one  of  his  Essays  ob-
serves that  "  Julius  Caesar  was  the  most  complete  character  of  all
antiquity."

It  may  however  be  urged,  that  in  the  lapse  of  years  between
the  commencement  of  modern  history  and  the  year  1791,  there
had  lived  men,  among  them  Bacon,  Newton,  and  Locke,  for
whom  Hamilton,  in  order  to  save  his  political  virtue,  ought  to
have  expressed  greater  admiration  than  for  Julius  Caesar.  Yet
Montesquieu,  the  philosopher  of  liberty  and  law,  who  died  about
the  time  Hamilton  was  born,  (1755)  has  left  on  his  immortal
pages  the  same  opinion ;  *  as  has  Lord  Byron  t,  who  lived  after
Hamilton  was  dead,  who  was  the  devoted  friend  of  human  free-
dom, risked  his  fortune  and  his  life  in  an  attempt  to  rescue  Italy
from  servitude,  and  expired  in  a  generous  struggle  for  the  liberty
of  Greece.  As  Lord  Bacon  was  Mr.  Jefferson's  principal  idol,  it
would  follow  that  the  charge  of  bribery  and  corruption  in  office,
would,  by  his  own  reasoning,  lie  against  Mr.  Jefferson,  inasmuch
as  Lord  Bacon  was  convicted,  fined  and  disgraced  for  that  offence.
