f 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 leveled against him particularly and personally. Although he is
soon to become a private citizen, his opinions are knocked down, and
his character reduced as low as they are capable of sinking it, even
by resorting to absolute falsehoods." Again he said, just before
leaving office: "To misrepresent my motives, to reprobate my
politics, and to weaken the confidence which has been reposed in my
administration, are objects which cannot be relinquished by those who
will be satisfied with nothing short of a change in our political
system." He at least labored under no misapprehension after eight
years of trial as to the position or purposes of the party which had
fought him and his administration, and which had savagely denounced
his measures at every step, and with ever-in