was able to publish a card stating that the subscriptions had passed beyond his most sanguine expectations.
Jefferson relied on Madison to give Hamilton fitting replies. "Hamilton," he wrote, "is really a colossus. For God's sake, take up your pen and give him a fundamental reply."
It was not, however, the "fundamental "replies of Madison, but the ridicule and savage attacks of Freneau that finally goaded Hamilton to desperation. Proud and sensitive as he was, when he did enter the arena it was not to break a lance with Freneau—a common clerk in the government employ, whom he probably met every day,—but to attack a man who had, he felt, vitalized the opposition to him and given form and momentum to the democratic movement now called the Republican party.
It was in July, 1792, that Hamilton unadvisedly rushed into print under the signature of T. L. attacking Jefferson in this fashion:
Mr. Fenno:
The editor of the National Gazette receives a salary from the government. Quære: Whether this salary is paid for translations or for publications the design of which is to villify those to whom the voice of the people has committed the administration of our public affairs,—to oppose the measures of government and by false insinuation to disturb the public peace?
In common life it is thought ungrateful for a man to bite the hand that puts bread in his mouth, but if the man is hired to do it, the case is altered.
Freneau, not realizing who his adversary was, boldly reprinted this attack and pointed out that Fenno was obtaining from various sources far more money than his (Freneau's) two hundred and fifty dollars a year salary. In return for this, he (Fenno) was trying to poison the minds of the people against democracy and Freneau
