Will you--may we flatter ourselves, that in a crisis so awful and important, you will accept the command of all our armies?
I hope you will, because you alone can unite all hearts and all hands, if it is possible that they can be united."[1] [Footnote 1: Irving, V, 290.] To President Adams Washington replied on July 4, 1799: "As my whole life has been dedicated to my country in one shape or another, for the poor remains of it, it is not an object to contend for ease and quiet, when all that is valuable is at stake, further than to be satisfied that the sacrifice I should make of these, is acceptable and desired by my country."[1] [Footnote 1: _Ibid_., 291.] Congress voted to restore for Washington the rank of Commander-in-Chief, and he agreed with the Secretary of War that the three Major-Generals should be Alexander Hamilton, Inspector-General; Charles C.Pinckney, who was still in Europe; and Henry Knox.

But a change came over the passions of France; Napoleon Bonaparte, the new despot who had taken control of that hysterical republic for himself, was now aspiring to something higher and larger than the humiliation of the United States and his menace in that direction ceased.
We need to note two or three events before Washington's term ended because they were thoroughly characteristic.

First of these was the Whiskey Insurrection in western Pennsylvania.

The inhabitants first grew surly, then broke out in insurrection on account of the Excise Law.

They found it cheaper to convert their corn and grain into whiskey, which could be more easily transported, but the Government insisted that the Excise Law, being a law, should be obeyed.