7461. RETIREMENT, Reasons for.—[continued].
I expressed to him
[Washington] my excessive repugnance to public
life, the particular uneasiness of my situation
in this place [Philadelphia], where the laws of
society oblige me always to move exactly in the
circle which I know to bear me peculiar hatred;
that is to say, the wealthy aristocrats, the merchants
connected closely with England, the
new created paper fortunes; that thus surrounded,
my words were caught, multiplied,
misconstrued, and even fabricated and spread
abroad to my injury; that he saw also, that
there was such an opposition of views between
myself and another part of the Administration,
as to render it peculiarly unpleasing, and to
destroy the necessary harmony.—
The Anas. Washington ed. ix, 166.
Ford ed., i, 256.
(Aug. 1793)
