government, without producing any good to the country."

He had shown by his acts as well as by his words his real friendship for France, such as a proper sense of gratitude required. As has been already pointed out, rather than run the risk of even seeming to reflect upon the government of the French republic, he had refused even to receive distinguished émigrés like Noailles, Liancourt, and Talleyrand.1 He was so scrupulous in this respect that he even did violence to his own strong desires in not taking into his house at once the son of Lafayette; and when it became necessary to choose a successor to Morris, his anxiety was so great to select some one agreeable to France that he took such an avowed opponent of his administration as Monroe.

On the other hand, he had never lost the strong feeling of hostility toward England which he, above all men, had felt during the Revolution. The conduct of England, when he was seeking an honorable peace with her, tried his patience severely. He wrote to Morris in 1795: "I give you these details (and if you should again converse with Lord Grenville on the subject, you are at liberty, unofficially, to mention them, or any of them, according to circumstances), as evidences of the unpolitic conduct (for so it strikes me) of the British government towards these United States; that it may be

1 See the Letter to the Duc de Liancourt explaining the reasons for his not being received by the President. (Sparks, xi. 161.)

seen how difficult it has been for the executive, under such an accumulation of irritating circumstances, to maintain the ground of neutrality which had been taken; and at a time when the remembrance of the aid we had received from France in the Revolution was fresh in every mind, and while the partisans of that country were continually contrasting the affections of that people with the unfriendly disposition of the British government. And that, too, as I have observed before, while their own sufferings during the war with the latter had not been forgotten." The one man in the country who above all others had the highest conception of American nationality, who was the first to seek to lift up our politics from the low level of colonialism, who was the author of the neutrality policy, had reason to resent the bitter irony of an attack which represented him as a British sympathizer. The truth is, that the only foreign party at that time was that which identified itself with France, and which was the party of Jefferson and the opposition. The Federalists and the administration under the lead of Washington and Hamilton were determined that the government should be American and not French, and this in the eyes of their opponents was equivalent to being in the control of England. In after years, when the Federalists fell from power and declined into the position of a factious minority, they became British sympathizers, and as thoroughly colonial in their politics as the party of Jefferson had been. If

they had had the wisdom of their better days they would then have made themselves the champions of the American idea, and would have led the country in the determined effort to free itself once for all from colonial politics, even if they were obliged to fight somebody to accomplish it. They proved unequal to the task, and it fell to a younger generation led by Henry Clay and his contemporaries to sweep Federalist and Jeffersonian republican alike, with their French and British politics, out of existence. In so doing the younger generation did but complete the work of Washington, for he it was who first trod the path and marked the way for a true American policy in the midst of men who could not understand his purposes.

Bitter and violent as had been the attacks upon Washington while he held office, they were as nothing compared to the shout of fierce exultation which went up from the opposition journals when he finally retired from office. One extract will serve as an example of the general tone of the opposition journals throughout the country. It is to be found in the "Aurora" of March 6, 1797:

"Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,' was the pious ejaculation of a pious man who beheld a flood of happiness rushing in upon mankind. If ever there was a time that would license the reiteration of the ejaculation, that time has now arrived, for the man who is the source of all the misfortunes of our country is this day reduced to a level with his fellow-citizens, and is no longer possessed of power to multiply evils

a Federalist, in the place of Attorney-General. When Hamilton left the Treasury, Wolcott, Hamilton's right-hand man, and the staunchest of party men, was given the position thus left vacant. If Randolph had remained in the cabinet, he would have become a Federalist. Like all men disposed to turn, when he was compelled to jump he sprang far, as was shown by his signing the treaty and memorial, both of which he strongly disapproved. He was quite ready to fall in with the rest of the cabinet, but on account of the Fauchet despatch he resigned. Then Washington, after offering the portfolio to several persons known to be in hearty sympathy with him, took the risk of giving it to Pickering, who was by no means a safe leader, rather than take any chance of getting another adviser who was not entirely of his own way of thinking. At the same time he gave the secretaryship of War to James McHenry, a most devoted personal friend and follower. He still held back from calling himself a party chief, but he had discovered, as William of Orange discovered, that he could not, even with his iron will and lofty intent, overcome the impossible, alter human nature, or carry on a successful government under a representative system, without the assistance of a party. He stated his conclusion with his wonted plainness in a letter to Pickering written in September, 1795, in the midst of the struggle over the treaty. "I shall not," he said, "whilst I have the honor to administer the government, bring a man into any office

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of consequence knowingly, whose political tenets are adverse to the measures which the general government are pursuing; for this, in my opinion, would be a sort of political suicide. That it would embarrass its movements is most certain." A terser statement of the doctrine of party government it would be difficult to find, and in the conduct of Monroe and the course of the opposition journals Washington had ample proofs of the soundness of his theory.

If he had needed to be strengthened in his determination, his opponents furnished the requisite aid. In February, 1796, the House refused to adjourn on his birthday for half an hour, in order to go and pay him their respects, as had been the pleasant custom up to that time. The Democrats of that day were in no confusion of mind as to the party to which Washington belonged, and they did not hesitate to put this deliberate slight upon him in order to mark their dislike. This was not the utterance of a newspaper editor, but the well-considered act of the representatives of a party in Congress. Party feeling, indeed, could hardly have gone further; and this single incident is sufficient to dispel the pleasing delusion that party strife and bitterness are the product of modern days, and of more advanced forms of political organization.

Yet despite all these attacks there can be no doubt that Washington's hold upon the masses of the people was substantially unshaken. They would have gladly seen him assume the presidency