This was not the outburst of a single malevolent spirit. The article was copied and imitated in New York and Boston, and wherever the party that called Jefferson leader had a representative among the newspapers. It is not probable that stuff of this sort gave Washington himself a moment's anxiety, for he knew too well what he had done, and he was too sure of his own hold upon the hearts of the people, to be in the least disturbed by the attacks of hostile editors. But the extracts are of interest as showing that the opposition party of that time, the party organized and led by Jefferson, regarded Washington as their worst enemy, and assailed him and slandered him to the utmost. They even went so far as to borrow materials from the enemies of the country with whom we had lately been at war, by publishing the forged letters attributed to Washington, and circulated by the British in 1777, in order to discredit the American general. One of Washington's last acts, on March 3, 1797, was to file in the State Department a solemn declaration that these letters, then republished by an American political party, were base forgeries, of English origin in a time of war. His own view of this performance is given in a letter to Benjamin Walker, in which he said: "Amongst other attempts, ... spurious letters, known at the time of their first publication (I believe in the year 1777) to be forgeries, are (or extracts from them) brought forward with the highest emblazoning of which they are susceptible, with a view to attach principles to me which every action of my life has given the lie to. But that is no stumbling-block with the editors of these papers and their supporters." Two or three extracts from private letters will show how Washington regarded the course of the opposition, and the interpretation he put upon their attacks. After sketching in a letter to David Stuart the general course of the hostilities toward his administration, he said: "This not working so well as was expected, from a supposition that there was too much confidence in, and perhaps personal regard for, the present chief magistrate and his politics, the batteries have lately been leveled against him particularly and personally. Although he is soon to become a private citizen, his opinions are knocked down, and his character reduced as low as they are capable of sinking it, even by resorting to absolute falsehoods." Again he said, just before leaving office: "To misrepresent my motives, to reprobate my politics, and to weaken the confidence which has been reposed in my administration, are objects which cannot be relinquished by those who will be satisfied with nothing short of a change in our political system." He at least labored under no misapprehension after eight years of trial as to the position or purposes of the party which had fought him and his administration, and which had savagely denounced his measures at every step, and with ever-increasing violence.