When the question arose in regard to the relative rank of the major-generals, Washington said to Knox: "No doubt remained in my mind that Colonel Hamilton was designated second in command (and first, if I should decline an acceptance) by the Federal characters of Congress; whence alone anything like a public sentiment relative thereto could be deduced." He was quite clear that there was no use in looking beyond the confines of the Federal party for any public sentiment worth considering. He had serious doubts also as to the advisability of having the opponents of the government in the army, and wrote to McHenry on September 30, 1798, that brawlers against the government in certain parts of Virginia had suddenly become silent and were seeking commissions in the army. "The motives ascribed to them are that in such a situation they would endeavor to divide and contaminate the army by artful and seditious discourses, and perhaps at a critical moment bring on confusion. What weight to give to these conjectures you can judge as well as I. But as there will be characters enough of an opposite description who are ready to receive appointments, circumspection is necessary. Finding the resentment of the people at the conduct of France too strong to be resisted, they have in appearance adopted their sentiments, and pretend that, notwithstanding the misconduct of the government has brought it upon us, yet if an invasion should take place, it will be found that _they_ will be among the first to defend it. This is their story at all elections and election meetings, and told in many instances with effect." He wrote again in the same strain to McHenry, on October 21: "Possibly no injustice would be done, if I were to proceed a step further, and give it as an opinion that most of the candidates [for the army] brought forward by the opposition members possess sentiments similar to their own, and might poison the army by disseminating them, if they were appointed." In this period of danger, when the country was on the verge of war, the attitude of the opposition gave Washington much food for thought because it appeared to him so false and unpatriotic. In a letter to Lafayette, written on Christmas day, 1798, he gave the following brief sketch of the opposition: "A party exists in the United States, formed by a combination of causes, which opposed the government in all its measures, and are determined, as all their conduct evinces, by clogging its wheels indirectly to change the nature of it, and to subvert the Constitution. The friends of government, who are anxious to maintain its neutrality and to preserve the country in peace, and adopt measures to secure these objects, are charged by them as being monarchists, aristocrats, and infractors of the Constitution, which according to their interpretation of it would be a mere cipher. They arrogated to themselves ... the sole merit of being the friends of France, when in fact they had no more regard for