Meanwhile Marshall was also rising into political prominence. From the first a supporter of Washington's Administration, he was gradually thrust into the position of Federalist leader in Virginia. In 1794 he declined the post of Attorney-General, which Washington had offered him. In the following year he became involved in the acrimonious struggle over the Jay Treaty with Great Britain, and both in the Legislature and before meetings of citizens defended the treaty so aggressively that its opponents were finally forced to abandon their contention that it was unconstitutional and to content themselves with a simple denial that it was expedient. Early in 1796 Marshall made his first appearance before the Supreme Court, in the case of Ware vs. Hylton. The fame of his defense of "the British Treaty" during the previous year had preceded him, and his reception by the Federalist leaders from New York and New England was notably cordial. His argument before the Court, too, though it did not in the end prevail, added greatly to his reputation. "His head," said Rufus King, who heard the argument, "is one of the best organized of any one that I have known." Either in 1793 or early in the following year, Marshall participated in a business transaction which, though it did not impart to his political and constitutional views their original bent, yet must have operated more or less to confirm his opinions. A syndicate composed of Marshall, one of his brothers, and two other gentlemen, purchased from the British heirs what remained of the great Fairfax estate in the Northern Neck, a tract "embracing over 160,000 acres of the best land in Virginia." By an Act passed during the Revolution, Virginia had decreed the confiscation of all lands held by British subjects; and though the State had never prosecuted the forfeiture of this particular estate, she was always threatening to do so. Marshall's investment thus came to occupy for many years a precarious legal footing which, it may be surmised, did not a little to keep alert his natural sympathy for all victims of legislative oppression. Moreover the business relation which he formed with Robert Morris in financing the investment brought him into personal contact for the first time with the interests behind Hamilton's financial program, the constitutionality of which he had already defended on the hustings.