wished to retire to private life at Mount Vernon. The true patriots, however, looked with dread on this step, and the leading men of all parties urged him so earnestly to become again a candidate that he yielded. When the election came off Washington was again chosen President, and Adams Vice-President.

The Indian affairs at the west were still a great source of care. General Wayne had been appointed to command the forces, but a strong party in the country were opposed to war, and clamored for a peaceable settlement of the difficulties with the red men, although, between 1780 and 1790, fifteen hundred inhabitants of Kentucky had been massacred in their homes, or carried off to endure the rigors and tortures of Indian captivity. Nor had the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania suffered less. Yielding to the clamors of the peace party, envoys were dispatched. Two officers, Colonel Harden and Major Trueman, who were sent to negotiate with them, were barbarously murdered. It was evident that nothing but a thorough campaign against them would have any effect, especially as the English, in spite of the treaty of 1783, still held several posts in the West, where they supplied the Indians with arms, gave them hopes of English aid, and filled their minds with hatred and contempt for the Americans.

While this Indian difficulty, and the national debt, which Hamilton was devising plans to meet, occupied the public mind, alarming news arrived from Europe. France was in the midst of a bloody revolution. Louis XVI., whom America had reason to respect, had perished on the scaffold, soon to be followed by his queen, Marie Antoinette. A general war in Europe was imminent, the new republic having already begun hostilities with England. Counting on the alliance and support

of the United States, the French republic sent out as ambassador to Washington, Genet, a bold and enterprising man. Of the two parties which had arisen in the United States, the republicans, headed by Jefferson, sympathized with France, while the Federalists, who supported Washington and Adams, could not approve the excesses committed in France, and looked with alarm at the mad course on which that country had entered. On his arrival at Charleston, in South Carolina, Genet was warmly received by the Democratic clubs, which had been formed in various parts of the United States, in connection with the Jacobin club of Paris. Intoxicated by the honors thus done him, Genet began a bold course; he issued commissions, and fitted out privateers in the United States, to sail against English commerce. Vessels captured by these cruisers were brought into Charleston, and sold under the authority of French consuls. All thoughtful men were alarmed. Washington issued a proclamation, warning people against being misled by such foreign agents, but Genet, backed by the more ardent opponents of Washington's administration, and its temperate policy, openly set government at defiance. A vessel fitted out under Genet's authority, eluded the authorities, and sailed out of the Delaware. Washington, unwilling to come to an open rupture with France, at last requested the government of that country to recall M. Genet, and Congress passed an act prohibiting enlistment for the service of any foreign power, or the fitting out of privateers, except by the authority of the United

states.

Our affairs were at the same time in so difficult a position with England, that this affair was most unfortunate. It exasperated the English government, which was already complaining of the United States, alleging that they had violated the late treaty, by preventing English