Washington's position was undoubtedly right.

He would have preferred a better treaty, but he regarded the Jay treaty as very much better than none at all.

Moreover, the last people who had a right to complain of it were those who were most vociferous in their opposition.

The anti-Federalist party was on the whole the party of weakness and disorder, the party that was clamorous and unruly, but ineffective in carrying out a sustained policy, whether of offense or of defence, in foreign affairs.

The people who afterwards became known as Jeffersonian Republicans numbered in their ranks the extremists who had been active as the founders of Democratic societies in the French interest, and they were ferocious in their wordy hostility to Great Britain; but they were not dangerous foes to any foreign government which did not fear words.