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 three subjects of lasting interest.  He warned them against sectional jealousies.  He remonstrated against the spirit of partisanship, saying that in government “of the popular character, in government purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged.”  He likewise cautioned the people against “the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” saying:  “Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation.  Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns.  Hence, therefore, it would be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities....  Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation?...  It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world....  Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.”