and decrees of Great Britain and France, which subjected American interests to injury from both sides. Giles and Page appear to have been the only speakers on the resolution when it was taken up for consideration on February 24, 1794, and both disclaimed any intention of reflecting upon Hamilton. The resolution received decent interment by reference to a committee, with no one objecting. The practical conclusion of the matter was that Hamilton had beaten his enemies once more and beaten them thoroughly. Before resigning his office, Hamilton added still another great achievement to his record of illustrious service in establishing public authority. The violent agitation against the excise act promoted by the Jeffersonians naturally tended to forcible resistance. One of the counts of Jefferson's indictment of Hamilton's policy which had been presented to Washington was that the excise law was "of odious character ... committing the authority of the Government in parts where resistance is most probable and coercion least practicable." The parts thus referred to were the mountains of western Pennsylvania. The popular discontent which arose there from the imposition of taxes upon their principal staple--distilled spirits--naturally coalesced with the agitation carried on against Washington's neutrality policy. At a meeting of delegates from the election districts of Allegheny county held at Pittsburgh, resolutions were adopted attributing the policy of the Government "to the pernicious influence of stockholders." This was an echo of Jefferson's views. But the resolutions went on to declare: "Our minds feel this with so much indignancy, that we are almost ready to wish for a state of revolution and the guillotine of France, for a short space, in order to inflict punishment on the miscreants that enervate and disgrace our Government." This was an echo of the talk in the political clubs that had been formed throughout the country. The original model was apparently the Jacobin club of Paris. The Philadelphia club with which the movement started, soon after Genet's arrival, adopted the Jacobin style of utterance. It declared its object to be the preservation of a freedom whose existence was menaced by a "European confederacy transcendent in power and unparalleled in iniquity," and also by "the pride of wealth and arrogance of power" displayed in the United States. Writing to Governor Lee of Virginia, Washington said that he considered "this insurrection as the first formidable fruit of the Democratic Societies."