The political course of Washington while President produced the alienation of the two Virginians whom he most closely associated with himself in the early part of his administration. With Madison the break does not seem to have come from any positive ill-feeling, but was rather an abandonment of intercourse as the differences of opinion became more pronounced. The disagreement with Jefferson was more acute, though probably never forced to an open rupture. To his political friends Jefferson in 1796 wrote that the measures pursued by the administration were carried out “under the sanction of a name which has done too much good not to be sufficient to cover harm also,” and that he hoped the President’s “honesty and his political errors may not furnish a second occasion to exclaim, ‘curse on his virtues, they’ve undone his country.’” Henry Lee warned Washington of the undercurrent of criticism, and when Jefferson heard indirectly of this he wrote his former chief that “I learn that [Lee] has thought it worth his while to try to sow tares between you and me, by representing me as still engaged in the bustle of politics & in turbulence & intrigue against the government. I never believed for a moment that this could make any impression on you, or that your knowledge of me would not overweigh the slander of an intriguer dirtily employed in sifting the conversations of my table.” To this Washington replied,— “As you have mentioned the subject yourself, it would not be frank, candid or friendly to conceal, that your conduct has been represented as derogating from that opinion _I_ had conceived you entertained of me; that, to your particular friends and connexions you have described, and they have denounced me as a person under a dangerous influence; and that, if I would listen more to some _other_ opinions, all would be well. My answer invariably has been, that I had never discovered any thing in the conduct of Mr. Jefferson to raise suspicions in my mind of his insincerity; that, if he would retrace my public conduct while he was in the administration, abundant proofs would occur to him, that truth and right decisions were the _sole_ objects of my pursuit; that there was as many instances within his own knowledge of my having decided _against_ as in _favor_ of the opinions of the person evidently alluded to; and, I was no believer in the infallibility of the politics or measures of _any man living_. In short that I was no party man myself and the first wish of my heart was, if parties did exist, to reconcile them.”