From this period, General Washington intermingled the cares and attentions of office with his agricultural pursuits. His solicitude respecting the organization of an army which he might possibly be required to lead against an enemy the most formidable in the world, was too strong to admit of his being inattentive to its arrangements. Yet he never did believe that an invasion of the United States would actually take place. His conviction that it was not the interest of France to wage an unprovoked war with America, and that the hostile measures which the executive Directory had adopted originated in the opinion that those measures would overthrow the administration, and place power in the hands of those who had uniformly supported all the pretensions of the French republic, remained unshaken. As a necessary consequence of this conviction, he was persuaded that the indignation which this system had excited, would effect its change. The only circumstance that weakened this hope, arose from the persevering opposition which was still maintained in congress, and from the evidence which was daily afforded that those party animosities, to which he ascribed the present dangerous crisis, were far from being healed. Those who had embraced the cause of France in the controversy between that nation and the United States, had been overwhelmed by a flood of testimony which silenced them for a time, but which weakened them more in appearance than in reality. They were visibly recovering both strength and confidence. It is not therefore wonderful that General Washington should have expressed himself more freely than had been his custom, respecting American parties, and that he should have exerted an influence which he had not been in the habit of employing, to induce men whose talents he respected, but who had declined political life, to enter into the national and state legislatures. Events soon demonstrated that he had not calculated unreasonably on the effects of the spirit manifested by his country. Although America, supplicating for peace, had been spurned with contempt; although the executive Directory had rejected with insult her repeated and sincere prayers to be permitted to make explanations, and had haughtily demanded a concession of their arrogant and unfounded claims or the advance of pecuniary aids, as a preliminary to negotiation;--America, in arms, was treated with some respect. Indirect pacific overtures were made, and a willingness on the part of France, to accommodate the existing differences on reasonable terms, was communicated. {1799}