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 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

upon the United States. If ever there was a period for rejoicing, this is the moment. Every heart in unison with the freedom and happiness of the people ought to beat high with exultation that the name of Washington ceases from this day to give currency to political insults, and to legalize corruption. A new era is now opening upon us, an era which promises much to the people, for public measures must now stand upon their own merits, and nefarious projects can no longer be supported by a name. When a retrospect has been taken of the Washingtonian administration for eight years, it is a subject of the greatest astonishment that a single individual should have cankered the principles of republicanism in an enlightened people just emerged from the gulf of despotism, and should have carried his designs against the public liberty so far as to have put in jeopardy its very existence. Such, however, are the facts, and with these staring us in the face, the day ought to be a JUBILEE in the United States."

This was not the outburst of a single malevolent spirit. The article was copied and imitated in New York and Boston, and wherever the party that called Jefferson leader had a representative among the newspapers. It is not probable that stuff of this sort gave Washington himself a moment's anxiety, for he knew too well what he had done, and he was too sure of his own hold upon the hearts of the people, to be in the least disturbed by the attacks of hostile editors. But the extracts are of interest as showing that the opposition party of that time, the party organized and led by Jefferson, regarded Washington as their worst enemy, and

assailed him and slandered him to the utmost. They even went so far as to borrow materials from the enemies of the country with whom we had lately been at war, by publishing the forged letters attributed to Washington, and circulated by the British in 1777, in order to discredit the American general. One of Washington's last acts, on March 3, 1797, was to file in the State Department a solemn declaration that these letters, then republished by an American political party, were base forgeries, of English origin in a time of war. His own view of this performance is given in a letter to Benjamin Walker, in which he said: "Amongst other attempts,

spurious letters, known at the time of their first publication (I believe in the year 1777) to be forgeries, are (or extracts from them) brought forward with the highest emblazoning of which they are susceptible, with a view to attach principles to me which every action of my life has given the lie to. But that is no stumbling-block with the editors of these papers and their supporters."

Two or three extracts from private letters will show how Washington regarded the course of the opposition, and the interpretation he put upon their attacks. After sketching in a letter to David. Stuart the general course of the hostilities toward his administration, he said: "This not working so well as was expected, from a supposition that there was too much confidence in, and perhaps personal regard for, the present chief magistrate and his politics, the batteries have lately been levelled against