Mr. Adams will unquestionably take to himself the charge of political heresy, as conscious of his own views of drawing the present government to the form of the English constitution, and, I fear, will consider me as meaning to injure him in the public eye. I learnt that some Anglomen have, censured it in another point of view, as a sanction of Paine's principles tend to give offence to the British government. Their real fear, however, is that this popular and republican pamphlet, taking wonderfully, is likely at a single stroke, to wipe out all the unconstitutional doctrines which their bell wether Davila has been preaching for a twelvemonth. I certainly never made a secret of my being anti-monarchical, and anti-aristocratical; but I am sincerely mortified to be thus brought forward on the public stage, where to remain, to advance or to retire, will be equally against my love of silence and quiet and my abhorrence of dispute.[251]
His abhorrence of dispute was so real that, at this juncture, he decided to leave Philadelphia for a trip north, staying two days in New York, visiting the battlefield of Saratoga, Lake George, Lake Champlain, and coming back through the Connecticut valley. Madison accompanied him on the trip, and Mr. Bowers has advanced the hypothesis that it was during the long conversations the two friends had during a whole month alone together that the plans were formulated for establishing a separate party to defend the republican ideals. This may have been the result of the journey, but I doubt very much that such was the purpose of Jefferson when he set out from Philadelphia. A more simple explanation is that, having written his letter to Washington and made, as he thought, his position clear, he hoped that the President would not fail to communicate its contents to Adams if any unpleasant situation should develop; and he simply withdrew from the battlefield in order not to enter into a public controversy. But he counted without Adams' temper. The Vice President considered Jefferson's short sentence as a challenge and proceeded promptly to have it answered. A series of articles signed "Publicola" began to appear in the _Centinel_, denouncing not only Paine, but Jefferson himself. "Brutus" took up the cudgels in favor of Jefferson and the newspaper battle was on. The public, always eager to identify anonymous writers, did not fail to attribute to Adams the articles signed "Publicola", while to Jefferson were attributed the answers written by Agricola, Brutus, and Philodemus. When Jefferson came back from his trip the controversy was raging, and soon he began to enjoy the conflict.