"If the conduct of these men is viewed with indifference; if there are activity and misrepresentation on one side, and supineness on the other, their numbers accumulated by intriguing and discontented foreigners under proscription, who were at war with their own governments, and the greater part of them with _all_ governments, they will increase, and nothing short of Omniscience can foretell the consequences." [Footnote 85] [Footnote 85: Washington's Writings, Vol. XI. p. 390.] In the midst of this pressing danger, Jefferson, who was little inclined to engage any further in the contest, and who had announced his intention six months before, and had only delayed putting it in execution at the solicitation of Washington himself, peremptorily withdrew from the cabinet. The crisis was a formidable one. A general agitation spread throughout the country. The western counties of Pennsylvania resisted with violence the tax on distilled spirits. In Kentucky and Georgia, warlike insurrections, perhaps excited from abroad, threatened, on their own authority, to take forcible possession of Louisiana and Florida, and to engage the nation, in spite of itself, in a conflict with Spain. The war against the Indians continued, always difficult and of doubtful issue. {143} A new Congress had just assembled, full of respect for Washington; but yet the House of Representatives showed itself more reserved in its approbation of his foreign policy, and chose an opposition Speaker by a majority of ten votes. England desired to maintain peace with the United States; but, whether she had doubts of the success of Washington in this system, or acted in obedience to the dictates of her general policy, or from an insolent spirit of contempt, she continued and even aggravated her measures against the commerce of the Americans, whose irritation also increased in its turn. "It has not been the smallest of these embarrassments," writes Washington, "that the domineering spirit of Great Britain should revive again just at this crisis, and the outrageous and insulting conduct of some of her officers should combine therewith to play into the hands of the discontented, and sour the minds of those who are friends to peace. But this, by the bye." [Footnote 86] [Footnote 86: Washington's Writings, Vol. XI. p. 63.] {144}