The appointment was, in fact, no more than the transfer to the federal service of an official of approved administrative experience, and was of such manifest propriety that it seems most likely that the rejection was due to local political intrigue using the Georgia Senators as its tool.

The office went to Lachlan McIntosh, who was a prominent Georgia politician.

Over ten years before he had killed in a duel Button Gwinnett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Gwinnett was the challenger and McIntosh was badly wounded in the duel, but the affair caused a feud that long disturbed Georgia politics, and through the agency of the Senate it was able to reach and annoy the President of the United States.
At the time when Washington was inaugurated both North Carolina and Rhode Island were outside the Union.

The national government was a new and doubtful enterprise, remote from and unfamiliar to the mass of the people.
To turn their thoughts toward the new Administration it seemed to be good policy for Washington to make tours.

The notes made by Washington in his diary indicate that the project was his own notion, but both Hamilton and Knox cordially approved it and Madison "saw no impropriety" in it.
Therefore, shortly after the recess of the first session of Congress, Washington started on a trip through the Northern States, pointedly avoiding Rhode Island, then a foreign country.