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A private business letter written by Thomas Jefferson to an Italian named Mazzei in 1796. The paragraph therein contained, to the effect that "an Anglican monarchical aristocratical party" had sprung up in America, whose avowed object was "to draw over us the substance, as they had already done the forms, of the British Government," did much toward arousing animosity against Jefferson, when the letter became public property in 1797. It had been translated into Italian, then into French, and finally appeared in an English paper. An allusion in it to men who had been "Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council" was construed as an attack on Washington.