Bonaparte is not a greater autocrat than Jefferson, but
our tyrant fools the world with his dirty old clothes and his
familiarities. But I am not to be diverted. I want to keep you for my
old age. I believe that you have done your part. It has been a
magnificent part; there is no greater in history. Your friends are
satisfied. So should you be. I want you to give up politics before it is
too late. I fear more than one evil, and it has kept me awake many
nights. Burr is not the only one who wishes you under ground. His
'little band' is composed of men who are worse than himself without one
of his talents. Any one of them is capable of stabbing you in the dark.
The Virginia Junta know that the Federalist party will exist as long as
you do, and that some external menace might cohere and augment it again
under your leadership. At every Federalist banquet last Fourth you were
toasted as the greatest man in America; and I know this undiminished
enthusiasm--as well as the influence of the _Evening Post_--alarms them
deeply. They are neither great enough nor bad enough to murder you, nor
even to employ someone to do it; but more than one needy rascal knows
that he has only to call you out and kill you according to the code, to
be rewarded with an office as soon as decency permits.
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