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Jefferson here refers to the "Cunningham Correspondence" which had recently been published. John Adams had written some uncomplimentary things about Thomas Jefferson in letters to William Cunningham in 1804, requesting that the letters not be published during his lifetime. After Cunningham's death, the letters were published by his son, probably for political purposes. They contained a statement that Jefferson had "a thirst for popularity, an inordinate ambition, and a want of sincerity." (See Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time, vol. 6, pg. 434.)