During the summer of 1792, when he was at Monticello, he received from Washington a letter in which the President expressed his distress at the dissensions that had taken place within the government, and once more attempted to bring about a reconciliation between the two secretaries (August 23). Jefferson answered in a long letter. This time his temper had been thoroughly aroused. He had seen articles signed "An American" in Fenno's _Gazette_, accusing him on three counts: "with having written letters to his friends in Europe to oppose the present constitution; with a desire of repudiating the public debt; with setting up a paper to decry and slander the government." Jefferson had no difficulty in proving the first two accusations absolutely untrue. On the third charge he admitted and even boasted of having given a poet a miserable appointment at a salary of $250 a year, while Hamilton had filled the administration with his creatures. He protested in the name of Heaven that "I never did, by myself, or any other, directly or indirectly, write, dictate, or procure any one sentence of sentiment to be inserted in _his_, or any other gazette, to which my name was not affixed or that of my office." He confessed, however, that he had always taken it for granted, from his knowledge of Freneau's character, "that he would give free place to pieces written against the aristocratical and monarchical principles these papers had inculcated." He again protested against Hamilton's insinuation that Freneau had received his salary before removing to Philadelphia, and on this point he is supported by the evidence published above. In a very dignified way he assured Washington that he would refrain from engaging in any controversy while in office and that he wished to concentrate all his efforts on the last of his official tasks. He added, however, that he reserved the right to answer later, for, he said: "I will not suffer my retirement to be clouded by the slanders of a man whose history, from the moment at which history can stoop to notice him, is a tissue of machinations against the liberty of the country which has not only received and given him bread, but heaped honors on his head."