Moreover, the aristocratic tone of Washington and his _entourage_ gave deep offense. Both by disposition and by calculation the President cultivated a certain official etiquette. His receptions were formal to the point of frigidity. He received his visitors "with a dignified bow, while his hands were so disposed as to indicate that the salutation was not to be accompanied with shaking hands." His figure clad in black velvet was most impressive. His hair was powdered and gathered in a large silk bag. His hands were dressed in yellow gloves, and he carried a cocked hat adorned with a black feather, while at his side hung a sword in a scabbard of white polished leather. To ardent republicans these trappings were so many manifestations of monarchical leanings. Hamilton's suggestion that coins should bear the head of the President under whom they were minted, was additional evidence to suspicious minds that the group of men who had the President's ear were monarchists at heart. Before the First Congress adjourned, the nucleus of a new party was at hand and its fundamental tenet roughly foreshadowed: namely, opposition to the increase of the powers of the Federal Government through the use of implied powers and at the expense of the State Governments. The appearance of the first number of the _National Gazette_ under the editorship of Philip Freneau was a sign that the further conduct of the Administration would be subjected to searching criticism. Freneau succeeded admirably in voicing the opinions of the nascent party. The columns of the _National Gazette_ had much to say about "aristocratic juntos," "ministerial systems," and "the control of the government by a wealthy body of capitalists and public creditors," whose interests were in opposition to those of the people. When Hamilton's paper, the _United States Gazette_, attempted to stigmatize the opposition as essentially Anti-Federalist, Freneau replied that only those men were true friends of the Union who adhered to a limited and republican form of government and who were ready to resist the efforts which had been made "to substitute, in the room of our equal republic, a baneful monarchy." By posing as the only stanch supporters of republicanism, the opposition secured a great tactical advantage. To call one's self emphatically a Republican was to cast aspersions upon the republicanism of one's opponents.