leged, with whom he had conversed, that the affairs of
the national government were not yet firmly established; that its
enemies, generally speaking, were as inveterate as ever; that their
enmity had been sharpened by its success and all the resentments which
flow from disappointed predictions and mortified vanity; that a
general and strenuous effort was making in every State to place the
administration of it in the hands of its enemies, as if they were its
safest guardians; that the period of the next House of Representatives
was likely to prove the crisis of its national character; that if
Washington continued in office, nothing materially mischievous was to
be apprehended; but, if he should quit, much was to be dreaded.

Mr. Edmund Randolph also, after a long letter on the "jeopardy of the
Union," which seemed to him "at the eve of a crisis," adds: "The fuel
which has been already gathered for combustion wants no addition. But
how awfully might it be increased, were the violence, which is now
suspended by a universal submission to your pretensions, let loose by
your resignation." Not the cabinet, merely, divided as it was in its
political opinions, but all parties, however discordant in other
points, concurred in a desire that Washington should continue in
office--so truly was he regarded as the choice of the nation.

But though the cabinet was united in feeling on this one subject, in
other respects its dissensions were increasing in virulence.
Washington had noticed this growing feud with excessive pain, and at
length found it necessary to interfere and attempt a reconciliation
between the warring parties. In the course of a letter to Jefferson
(Aug. 23d), on the subject of Indian hostilities, and the possibility
of their being furnished by foreign agents to check, as far as
possible, the rapid increase, extension, and consequence of the United
States, "How unfortunate then," observes he, "and how much to be
regretted that, while we are encompassed on all sides with armed
enemies and insidious friends, internal dissensions should be
harrowing and tearing our vitals. The latter, to me, is the most
serious, the most alarming and the most afflicting of the two; and
without more charity for the opinions and acts of one another in
governmental matters, or some more infallible criterion by which the
truth of speculative opinions, before they have undergone the test of
experience, are to be prejudged, than has yet fallen