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PAPERS 01<' .MIRABEAU BuoNAPARTE LA:MAR
his acting appointment.- Thus it will be seen that I intended no indignity to General McIntosh.- I cannot see the force of your con- clusion that Col. Bee, would be degraded by "reducing" him from a Charge de affaires to the United States to fill the situation which Gen- eral Hamilton now occupies near Great Britain, nor do I think ·either the Col. or Genl. would willingly admit the degradation.- I hope your Excellency will excuse me for believing that I could not stand either in Col. Bee' way or that of any other person whom you might wish to send to Spain or to fill any other office.-And I am mortified that you should at this late day place such an humble estimate upon my personal sagasity or political accumen as for one moment to think so.- Time was, when I had the weakness to believe, that the same candour found in unsophisticated private life extended to the politi- cian-that time has passed, it was a delusion which many have experi- enced; but in me the error has been corrected, and mainly by your Excellency.- Your Excellency, does me justice in saying, that I have been the devoted friend of your admin- istration and have ardently desired "to see it close with honour to yourself, and good to the country," and as such I should be greatly wanting in candour were I not at this time to express my fears, that this _new fashioned doctrine which you have just promulgated, will neither promote ,the one or the other. Your own warm and devoted friends, as well as your inveterate and bitter enemies, will all look upon it as a peace offering to the party which has denounced you so long and loud; and I fear in the sequel you will find yourself deserted by the former, and not trusted by the latter.- What! your Excellency refrain from the exercise of your constitutional duty as matter of courtecy to a party which has denounced your administration as "venal" and to the head of that party which has denounced you in terms of unmitigated contempt-it cannot be!- It may be unpleas- ant for your Excellency to be spoken to with such candour, and one less candid, and less the friend of his country and his. party might flatter the error of your position, but it cannot be expected of me-the history of my whole life forbid it-the journals of the Legislature of my native · state, of Florida, of Texas, all show my freely recorded opinions upon every subject of importanc(,'l upon which I have been called to act.- In every public station of my life I have never hesitated to register those opinions, and perpetuate the same by the most lasting testimony; and now though an humble citizen who has battled for the honour and welfare of the country, permit me to enter my solemn warning, my earnest protest against even the appearance of lowering your flag to a party whose principles are so baseless.- You may by the doing of which secure an indifferent friend, but it will be at the loss of a thousand good ones.- This is a fair average of the game, and he who attempt it will most assuredly find himself in the situation of the fabled bat, in the full receipt of the kicks and cuffs of both parties.- This is straying from the subject- Advice I know is a cheap com- modity and when volunteered it is rarely received in charity; but your Excellency has been one of boasted chiefs [sic] in this "Moral war" which has raged so long and fiercely in our co.intry between "Virtue & Vice," ·and I believe it the duty of the humblest in the ranks of virt.ues side, to warn a leader of his danger, and thus it is I speak.-
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