by proclaiming the
neutrality of America and warning American citizens against hostile acts
toward either France or England. When Genet continued to hold meetings,
issue manifestoes, and stir up the people against England, Washington
asked the French government to recall him. This act he followed up by
sending the Chief Justice, John Jay, on a pacific mission to England.

The result was the celebrated Jay treaty of 1794. By its terms Great
Britain agreed to withdraw her troops from the western forts where they
had been since the war for independence and to grant certain slight
trade concessions. The chief sources of bitterness--the failure of the
British to return slaves carried off during the Revolution, the seizure
of American ships, and the impressment of sailors--were not touched,
much to the distress of everybody in America, including loyal
Federalists. Nevertheless, Washington, dreading an armed conflict with
England, urged the Senate to ratify the treaty. The weight of his
influence carried the day.

At this, the hostility of the Anti-Federalists knew no bounds. Jefferson
declared the Jay treaty "an infamous act which is really nothing more
than an alliance between England and the Anglo-men of this country,
against the legislature and the people of the United States." Hamilton,
defending it with his usual courage, was stoned by a mob in New York and
driven from the platform with blood streaming from his face. Jay was
burned in effigy. Even Washington was not spared. The House of
Representatives was openly hostile. To display its feelings, it called
upon the President for the papers relative to the treaty negotiations,
only to be more highly incensed by his flat refusal to present them, on
the ground that the House did not share in the treaty-making power.

=Washington Retires from Politics.=--Such angry contests confirmed the
President in his slowly maturing determination to retire at the end of
his second term in office. He did not believe that a third term was
unconstitutional or improper; but, worn out by his long and arduous
labors in war and in peace and wounded by harsh attacks from former
friends, he longed for the quiet of his beautiful estate at Mount
Vernon.

In September, 1796, on the eve of the presidential election, Washington
issued his Farewell Address, another state paper to be treasured and
read by generations of Americans to come. In this address he directed
the attention of the people to t