It cannot be without danger and inconvenience to our interests, to impress on the nations of Europe an idea that we are actuated by the same spirit which has for some time past fatally misguided the measures of those who conduct the affairs of France, and sullied a cause once glorious, and that might have been triumphant. The cause of France is compared with that of America during its late revolution. Would to Heaven that the comparison were just! Would to Heaven we could discern, in the mirror of French affairs, the same decorum, the same gravity, the same order, the same dignity, the same solemnity, which distinguished the cause of the American Revolution! Clouds and darkness would not then rest upon the issue as they now do. I own I do not like the comparison. When I contemplate the horrid and systematic massacres of the 2nd and 3rd of September, when I observe that a Marat and a Robespierre, the notorious prompters of those bloody scenes, sit triumphantly in the convention, and take a conspicuous part in its measures—that an attempt to bring the assassins to justice has been obliged to be abandoned—when I see an unfortunate prince, whose reign was a continued demonstration of the goodness and benevolence of his heart, of his attachment to the people of whom he was the monarch, who, though educated in the lap of despotism, had given repeated proofs that he was not the enemy of liberty, brought precipitately and ignominiously to the block without any substantial proof of guilt, as yet disclosed—without even an authentic exhibition of motives, in decent regard to the opinions of mankind; when I find the doctrine of atheism openly advanced in the convention, and heard with loud applause; when I see the sword of fanaticism extended to force a political creed upon citizens who were invited to submit to the arms of France as the harbingers of liberty; when I behold the hand of rapacity outstretched to prostrate and ravish the monuments of religious worship, erected by those citizens and their ancestors; when I perceive passion, tumult, and violence usurping those seats, where reason and cool deliberation ought to preside, I acknowledge that I am glad to believe there is no real resemblance between what was the cause of America and what is the cause of France; that the difference is no less great than that between liberty and licentiousness. I regret whatever has a tendency to confound them, and I feel anxious, as an American, that the ebullitions of inconsiderate men among us may not tend to involve our reputation in the issue.[1]

[Footnote 1: Hamilton's Works, 566.]

Citizen Genet continued his campaign unabashed. He attempted to force the United States to give arms and munitions to the French. Receiving cool answers to his demands, he lost patience, and intended to appeal to the American People, over the head of the Government. He sent his communication for the two Houses of Congress, in care of the Secretary of State, to be delivered. But Washington, whose patience had seemed inexhaustible, believed that the time had come to act boldly. By his instruction Jefferson returned the communication to Genet with a note in which he curtly reminded the obstreperous Frenchman of a diplomat's proper behavior. As the American Government had already requested the French to recall Genet, his amazing inflation collapsed like a pricked bladder. He was too wary, however, to return to France which he had served so devotedly. He preferred to remain in this country, to become an American citizen, and to marry the daughter of Governor Clinton of New York. Perhaps he had time for leisure, during the anticlimax of his career, to recognize that President Washington, whom he had looked down upon as a novice in diplomacy, knew how to accomplish his purpose, very quietly, but effectually. A century and a quarter later, another foreigner, the German Ambassador, Count Bernstorff, was allowed by the American Government to weave an even more menacing plot, but the sound sense of the country awoke in time to sweep him and his truculence and his conspiracies beyond the Atlantic.

The intrigues of Genet emphasized the fact that a party had arisen and was not afraid to speak openly against President Washington. He held in theory a position above that of parties, but the theory did not go closely with fact, for he made no concealment of his fundamental Federalism, and every one saw that, in spite of his formal neutrality, in great matters he almost always sided with Hamilton instead of with Jefferson. When he himself recognized that the rift was spreading between his two chief Cabinet officers, he warned them both to avoid exaggerating their differences and pursuing any policy which must be harmful to the country. Patriotism was the chief aim of every one, and patriotism meant sinking one's private desires in order to achieve liberty through unity. Washington himself was a man of such strict virtue that he could work with men who in many matters disagreed with him, and as he left the points of disagreement on one side, he used the more effectively points of agreement. I do not think that Jefferson could do this, or Hamilton either, and I cannot rid myself of the suspicion that Jefferson furnished Philip Freneau, who came from New York to Philadelphia to edit the anti-Washington newspaper, with much of his inspiration if not actual articles. The objective of the "Gazette" was, of course, the destruction of Hamilton and his policy of finance. If Hamilton could be thus destroyed, it would be far easier to pull down Washington also. Lest the invectives in the "Gazette" should fail to shake Washington in his regard for Hamilton, Jefferson indited a serious criticism of the Treasury, and he took pains to have friends of his leave copies of the indictment so that Washington could not fail to see them. The latter, however, by a perfectly natural and characteristic stroke which Jefferson could not foresee, sent the indictment to Hamilton and asked him to explain. This Hamilton did straightforwardly and point-blank—and Jefferson had the mortification of perceiving that his ruse had failed. Hamilton, under a thin disguise, wrote a series of newspaper assaults on Jefferson, who could not parry them or answer them. He was no match for the most terrible controversialist in America; but he could wince. And presently B.F. Bache, the grandson of Benjamin Franklin, brought his unusual talents in vituperation, in calumny, and in nastiness to the "Aurora," a blackguard sheet of Philadelphia. Washington doubtless thought himself so hardened to abuse by the experience he had had of it during the Revolution that nothing which Freneau, Bache, and their kind could say or do, would affect him. But he was mistaken. And one cannot fail to see that they saddened and annoyed him. He felt so keenly the evil which must come from the deliberate sowing of dissensions. He cared little what they might say against himself, but he cared immensely for their sin against patriotism. Before his term as President drew to a close, he was already deciding not to be a candidate for a second term. He told his intention to a few intimates—from them it spread to many others. His best friends were amazed. They foresaw great trials for the Nation and a possible revolution. Hamilton tried to move him by every sort of appeal. Jefferson also was almost boisterous in denouncing the very idea. He impressed upon him the importance of his continuing at that crisis. He had not been President long enough to establish precedents for the new Nation. There were many volatile incidents which, if treated with less judgment than his, might do grievous harm. One wonders how sincere all the entreaties to Washington were, but one cannot doubt that the great majority of the country was perfectly sincere in wishing to have him continue; for it had sunk deep into the hearts of Americans that Washington was himself a party, a policy, an ideal above all the rest. And when the election was held in the autumn of 1792, he was reelected by the equivalent of a unanimous vote.



CHAPTER X

THE JAY TREATY

There is no doubt that Washington in his Olympian quiet took a real satisfaction in his election. On January 20, 1793, he wrote to Governor Henry Lee of Virginia:

A mind must be insensible indeed not to be gratefully impressed by so distinguished and honorable a testimony of public approbation and confidence; and as I suffered my name to be contemplated on this occasion, it is more than probable that I should, for a moment, have experienced chagrin, if my reelection had not been by a pretty respectable vote. But to say I feel pleasure from the prospect of commencing another term of duty would be a departure from the truth,—for, however it might savor of affectation in the opinion of the world (who, by the by, can only guess at my sentiments, as it never has been troubled with them), my particular and confidential friends well know, that it was after a long and painful conflict in my own breast, that I was withheld, (by considerations which are not necessary to be mentioned), from requesting in time, that no vote might be thrown away upon me, it being my fixed determination to return to the walks of private life at the end of my term.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, XII, 256.]

Washington felt at his reelection not merely egotistic pleasure for a personal success, but the assurance that it involved a triumph of measures which he held to be of far more importance than any success of his own. The American Nation's new organism which he had set in motion could now continue with the uniformity of its policy undisturbed by dislocating checks and interruptions. Much, very much depended upon the persons appointed to direct its progress, and they depended upon the President who appointed them. In matters of controversy or dispute, Washington upheld a perfectly impartial attitude. But he did not believe that this should shackle his freedom in appointing. According to him a man must profess right views in order to be considered worthy of appointment. The result of this was that Washington's appointees must be orthodox in his definition of orthodoxy.

His first important act in his new administration was to issue a Proclamation of Neutrality on April 22d. Although this document was clear in intent and in purpose, and was evidently framed to keep the United States from being involved in the war between France and England, it gave offence to partisans of either country. They used it as a weapon for attacking the Government, so that Washington found to his sorrow that the partisan spites, which he had hoped would vanish almost of their own accord, were become, on the contrary, even more formidable and irritating. At this juncture the coming of Genet and his machinations added greatly to the embarrassment, and, having no sense of decency, Genet insinuated that the President had usurped the powers of Congress and that he himself would seek redress by appealing to the people over the President. I have already stated that, having tolerated Genet's insults and menaces as far as he deemed necessary, Washington put forth his hand and crushed the spluttering Frenchman like a bubble.

Persons who like to trace the sardonic element in history—the element which seems to laugh derisively at the ineffectual efforts of us poor mortals to establish ourselves and lead rational lives in the world as it is—can find few better examples of it than these early years of the American Republic. In the war which brought about the independence of the American Colonies, England had been their enemy and France their friend. Now their instinctive gratitude to France induced many, perhaps a majority of them, to look with effusive favor on France, although her character and purpose had quite changed and it was very evident that for the Americans to side with France would be against sound policy and common sense. Neutrality, the strictest neutrality, between England and France was therefore the only rational course; but the American partisans of these rivals did their utmost to render this unachievable. Much of Washington's second term see-sawed between one horn and the other of this dilemma. The sardonic aspect becomes more glaring if we remember that the United States were a new-born nation which ought to have been devoting itself to establishing viable relations among its own population and not to have been dissipating its strength taking sides with neighbors who lived four thousand miles away.

In the autumn of 1793 Jefferson insisted upon resigning as Secretary of State. Washington used all his persuasiveness to dissuade him, but in vain. Jefferson saw the matter in its true light, and insisted. Perhaps it at last occurred to him, as it must occur to every dispassionate critic, that he could not go on forever acting as an important member of an administration which pursued a policy diametrically opposed to his own. After all, even the most adroit politicians must sometimes sacrifice an offering to candor, not to say honesty. At the end of the year he retired to the privacy of his home at Monticello, where he remained in seclusion, not wholly innocuous, until the end of 1796. Edmund Randolph succeeded him as Secretary of State.

Whether it was owing to the departure of Jefferson from the Cabinet or not, the fact remains that Washington concluded shortly thereafter the most difficult diplomatic negotiation of his career. This was the treaty with England, commonly called Jay's Treaty. The President wished at first to appoint Hamilton, the ablest member of the Cabinet, but, realizing that it would be unwise to deprive himself and his administration of so necessary a supporter, he offered the post to John Jay, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The quality, deemed most desirable, which it was feared Jay might lack, was audacity. But he had discretion, tact, and urbanity in full share, besides that indefinable something which went with his being a great gentleman.

The President, writing to Gouverneur Morris, who had recently been recalled as Minister to France, said:

My primary objects, to which I have steadily adhered, have been to preserve the country in peace, if I can, and to be prepared for war if I cannot, to effect the first, upon terms consistent with the respect which is due to ourselves, and with honor, justice and good faith to all the world.

Mr. Jay (and not Mr. Jefferson) as has been suggested to you, embarked as envoy extraordinary for England about the middle of May. If he succeed, well; if he does not, why, knowing the worst, we must take measures accordingly.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, XII, 436. Mount Vernon, June 25, 1794.]

Jay reached London early in June, 1794, and labored over the treaty with the British negotiators during the summer and autumn, started for home before Christmas, and put the finished document in Washington's hands in March. From the moment of his going enemies of all kinds talked bitterly against him. The result must be a foregone conclusion, since John Jay was regarded as the chief Anglo-maniac in America after Hamilton. They therefore condemned in advance any treaty he might agree to. But their criticism went deeper than mere hatred of him: it sprang from an inveterate hatred of England, which dated from before the Revolution. Since the Treaty of 1783 the English seemed to act deliberately with studied truculence, as if the Americans would not and could not retaliate. They were believed to be instigating the Indians to continuous underhand war. They had reached that dangerous stage of truculence, when they did not think it mattered whether they spoke with common diplomatic reticence. Lord Dorchester, the Governor-General of Canada, and to-day better known as Sir Guy Carleton, his name before they made him a peer, addressed a gathering of Indian chiefs at Quebec on the assumption that war would come in a few weeks. President Washington kept steady watch of every symptom, and he knew that it would not require a large spark to kindle a conflagration. "My objects are, to prevent a war," he wrote to Edmund Randolph, on April 15, 1794, "if justice can be obtained by fair and strong representations (to be made by a special envoy) of the injuries which this country has sustained from Great Britain in various ways, to put it into a complete state of military defence, and to provide eventually for such measures as seem to be now pending in Congress for execution, if negotiations in a reasonable time proves unsuccessful."[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, XIII, 4-9.]

The year 1794 marked the sleepless anxiety of the Silent President. Day and night his thoughts were in London, with Jay. He said little; he had few letters from Jay—it then required from eight to ten weeks for the mail clippers to make a voyage across the Atlantic. Opposition to the general idea of such a treaty as the mass of Republicans and Anti-Federalists supposed Washington hoped to secure, grew week by week. The Silent Man heard the cavil and said nothing.

At last early in 1795 Jay returned. His Treaty caused an uproar. The hottest of his enemies found an easy explanation on the ground that he was a traitor. Stanch Federalists suffered all varieties of mortification. Washington himself entered into no discussion, but he ruminated over those which came to him. I am not sure that he invented the phrase "Either the Treaty, or war," which summed up the alternatives which confronted Jay; but he used it with convincing emphasis. When it came before the Senate, both sides had gathered every available supporter, and the vote showed only a majority of one in its favor. Still, it passed. But that did not satisfy its pertinacious enemies. Neither were they restrained by the President's proclamation. The Constitution assigned the duty of negotiating and ratifying treaties to the President and Senate; but to the perfervid Anti-Britishers the Constitution was no more than an old cobweb to be brushed away at pleasure. The Jay Treaty could not be put into effect without money for expenses; all bills involving money must pass the House of Representatives; therefore, the House would actually control the operation of the Treaty.

The House at this time was Republican by a marked majority. In March, 1796, the President laid the matter before the House. In a twinkling the floodgates of speechifying burst open; the debates touched every aspect of the question. James Madison, the wise supporter of Washington and Hamilton in earlier days and the fellow worker on "The Federalist," led the Democrats in their furious attacks. He was ably seconded by Albert Gallatin, the high-minded young Swiss doctrinaire from Geneva, a terrible man, in whose head principles became two-edged weapons with Calvinistic precision and mercilessness. The Democrats requested the President to let them see the correspondence in reference to the Treaty during its preparation. This he wisely declined to do. The Constitution did not recognize their right to make the demand, and he foresaw that, if granted by him then, it might be used as a harmful precedent.

For many weeks the controversy waxed hot in the House. Scores of speakers hammered at every argument, yet only one speech eclipsed all the rest, and remains now, after one hundred and thirty years, a paragon. There are historians who assert that this was the greatest speech delivered in Congress before Daniel Webster spoke there—an implication which might lead irreverent critics to whisper that too much reading may have dulled their discrimination. But fortunately not only the text of the speech remains; we have also ample evidence of the effect it produced on its hearers. Fisher Ames, a Representative from Massachusetts, uttered it. He was a young lawyer, feeble in health, but burning, after the manner of some consumptives, with intellectual and moral fire which strangely belied his slender thread of physical life. Ames pictured the horrors which would ensue if the Treaty were rejected. Quite naturally he assumed the part of a man on the verge of the grave, which increased the impressiveness of his words. He spoke for three hours. The members of the House listened with feverish attention; the crowds in the balconies could not smother their emotion. One witness reports that Vice-President John Adams sat in the gallery, the tears running down his cheeks, and that he said to the friend beside him, "My God, how great he is!"

When Ames began, no doubt the Anti-British groups which swelled the audience turned towards him an unsympathetic if not a scornful attention—they had already taken a poll of their members, from which it appeared that they could count on a majority of six to defeat the Treaty. As he proceeded, however, and they observed how deeply he was moving the audience, they may have had to keep up their courage by reflecting that speeches in Congress rarely change votes. They are intended to be read by the public outside, which is not under the spell of the orator or the crowd. But when Fisher Ames, after what must have seemed to them a whirlwind speech, closed with these solemn, restrained words, they must have doubted whether their victory was won:

Even the minutes I have spent in expostulating, have their value [he said] because they protract the crisis and the short period in which alone we may resolve to escape it. Yet I have, perhaps, as little personal interest in the event as any one here. There is, I believe, no member, who will not think his chance to be a witness of the consequences greater than mine. If, however, the vote should pass to reject—even I, slender and almost broken as my hold on life is, may outlive the government and Constitution of my country.[1]

[Footnote 1: Elson, 359.]

The next day when the vote was taken it appeared that the Republicans, instead of winning by a majority of six, had lost by three.

The person who really triumphed was George Washington, although Fisher Ames, who won the immediate victory, deserved undying laurel. The Treaty had all the objections that its critics brought against it then, but it had one sterling virtue which outweighed them all. It not only made peace between the United States and Great Britain the normal condition, but it removed the likelihood that the wrangling over petty matters might lead to war. For many years Washington had a fixed idea that if the new country could live for twenty years without a conflict with its chief neighbors, its future would be safe; for he felt that at the end of that time it would have grown so strong by the natural increase in population and by the strength that comes from developing its resources, that it need not fear the attack of any people in the world. The Jay Treaty helped towards this end; it prevented war for sixteen years only; but even that delay was of great service to the Americans and made them more ready to face it than they would have been in 1795.



CHAPTER XI

WASHINGTON RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFE

The Treaty with England had scarely been put in operation before the Treaty with France, of which Washington also felt the importance, came to the front. Monroe was not an aggressive agent. Perhaps very few civilized Americans could have filled that position to the satisfaction of his American countrymen. They wished the French to acknowledge and explain various acts which they qualified as outrages, whereas the French regarded as glories what they called grievances. The men of the Directory which now ruled France did not profess the atrocious methods of the Terrorists, but they could not afford in treating with a foreigner to disavow the Terrorists. In the summer of '96, Washington, being dissatisfied with Monroe's results, recalled him, and sent in his place Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, to whom President Adams afterwards added John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry, forming a Commission of three. Some of the President's critics have regarded his treatment of Monroe as unfair, and they imply that it was inspired by partisanship. He had always been an undisguised Federalist, whereas Monroe, during the past year or more, had followed Jefferson and become an unswerving Democrat. The publication here of a copy of Monroe's letter to the French Committee of Public Safety caused a sensation; for he had asserted that he was not instructed to ask for the repeal of the French decrees by which the spoliation of American commerce had been practised, and he added that if the decrees benefited France, the United States would submit not only with patience but with pleasure. What wonder that Washington, in reading this letter and taking in the full enormity of Monroe's words, should have allowed himself the exclamation, "Extraordinary!" What wonder that in due course of time he recalled Monroe from Paris and replaced him with a man whom he could trust!

The settlement of affairs with France did not come until after Washington ceased to be President. I will, therefore, say no more about it, except to refer to the outrageous conduct of the French, who hurried two of the Commissioners out of France, and, apparently at the instigation of Talleyrand, declared that they must pay a great deal of money before they made any arrangement, to which Charles Pinckney made the famous rejoinder, "Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute." The negotiations became so stormy that war seemed imminent. Congress authorized President Adams to enlist ten thousand men to be put into the field in case of need, and he wrote to Washington: "We must have your name, if you will in any case permit us to use it. There will be more efficacy in it than in many an army." McHenry, the Secretary of War, wrote: "You see how the storm thickens, and that our vessel will soon require its ancient pilot. Will you—may we flatter ourselves, that in a crisis so awful and important, you will accept the command of all our armies? I hope you will, because you alone can unite all hearts and all hands, if it is possible that they can be united."[1]

[Footnote 1: Irving, V, 290.]

To President Adams Washington replied on July 4, 1799: "As my whole life has been dedicated to my country in one shape or another, for the poor remains of it, it is not an object to contend for ease and quiet, when all that is valuable is at stake, further than to be satisfied that the sacrifice I should make of these, is acceptable and desired by my country."[1]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., 291.]

Congress voted to restore for Washington the rank of Commander-in-Chief, and he agreed with the Secretary of War that the three Major-Generals should be Alexander Hamilton, Inspector-General; Charles C. Pinckney, who was still in Europe; and Henry Knox. But a change came over the passions of France; Napoleon Bonaparte, the new despot who had taken control of that hysterical republic for himself, was now aspiring to something higher and larger than the humiliation of the United States and his menace in that direction ceased.

We need to note two or three events before Washington's term ended because they were thoroughly characteristic. First of these was the Whiskey Insurrection in western Pennsylvania. The inhabitants first grew surly, then broke out in insurrection on account of the Excise Law. They found it cheaper to convert their corn and grain into whiskey, which could be more easily transported, but the Government insisted that the Excise Law, being a law, should be obeyed. The malcontents held a great mass meeting on Braddock's Field, denounced the law and declared that they would not obey it. Washington issued a proclamation calling upon the people to resume their peaceable life. He called also on the Governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia for troops, which they furnished. His right-hand lieutenant was Alexander Hamilton, who felt quite as keenly as he did himself the importance of putting down such an insurrection. Washington knew that if any body of the people were allowed unpunished to rise and disobey any law which pinched or irritated them, all law and order would very soon go by the board. His action was one of the great examples in government which he set the people of the United States. He showed that we must never parley or haggle with sedition, treason, or lawlessness, but must strike a blow that cannot be parried, and at once. The Whiskey Insurrectionists may have imagined that they were too remote to be reached in their western wilderness, but he taught them a most salutary lesson that, as they were in the Union, the power of the Union could and would reach them.

One of the matters which Washington could not have foreseen was the outrageous abuse of the press, which surpassed in virulence and indecency anything hitherto known in the United States. At first the journalistic thugs took care not to vilify Washington personally, but, as they became more outrageous, they spared neither him nor his family. Freneau, Bache, and Giles were among the most malignant of these infamous men; and most suspicious is it that two of them at least were proteges of Thomas Jefferson. Once, when the attack was particularly atrocious, and the average citizen might well be excused if he believed that Jefferson wrote it, Jefferson, unmindful of the full bearing of the French proverb, Qui s'excuse s'accuse, wrote to Washington exculpating himself and protesting that he was not the author of that particular attack, and added that he had never written any article of that kind for the press. Many years later the editor of that newspaper, one of the most shameless of the malignants, calmly reported in a batch of reminiscences that Jefferson did contribute many of the most flagrant articles. Senator Lodge, in commenting on this affair, caustically remarks: "Strict veracity was not the strongest characteristic of either Freneau or Jefferson, and it is really of but little consequence whether Freneau was lying in his old age or in the prime of life."[1]

[Footnote 1: Lodge, II, 223.]

An unbiassed searcher after truth to-day will find that the circumstantial evidence runs very strongly against Jefferson. He brought Freneau over from New York to Philadelphia, he knew the sort of work that Freneau would and could do, he gave him an office in the State Department, he probably discussed the topics which the "National Gazette" was to take up, and he probably read the proof of the articles which that paper was to publish. In his animosities the cloak of charity neither became him nor fitted him.

Several years later, when Bache's paper, the "Aurora," printed some material which Washington's enemies hoped would damage him, Jefferson again took alarm and wrote to Washington to free himself from blame. To him, the magnanimous President replied in part:

If I had entertained any suspicions before, that the queries, which have been published in Bache's paper, proceeded from you, the assurances you have given of the contrary would have removed them; but the truth is, I harbored none. I am at no loss to conjecture from what source they flowed, through what channel they were conveyed, and for what purpose they and similar publications appear. They were known to be in the hands of Mr. Parker in the early part of the last session of Congress. They were shown about by Mr. Giles during the session, and they made their public exhibition about the close of it.

Perceiving and probably hearing, that no abuse in the gazettes would induce me to take notice of anonymous publications against me, those, who were disposed to do me such friendly offices, have embraced without restraint every opportunity to weaken the confidence of the people; and, by having the whole game in their hands, they have scrupled not to publish things that do not, as well as those which do exist, and to mutilate the latter, so as to make them subserve the purposes which they have in view.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, XIII, 229.]

Washington's opinion of the scurrilous crusade against him, he expressed in the following letter to Henry Lee:

But in what will this abuse terminate? For the result, as it respects myself, I care not; for I have a consolation within that no earthly efforts can deprive me of, and that is, that neither ambition nor interested motives have influenced my conduct. The arrows of malevolence, therefore, however barbed and well pointed, never can reach the most vulnerable part of me; though, whilst I am up as a mark, they will be continually aimed. The publications in Freneau's and Bache's papers are outrages in that style in proportion as their pieces are treated with contempt and are passed by in silence by those at whom they are aimed. The tendency of them, however, is too obvious to be mistaken by men of cool and dispassionate minds, and, in my opinion, ought to alarm them, because it is difficult to prescribe bounds to the effect.[1]

[Footnote 1: Lodge, II, 236.]

By his refusal to take notice of these indecencies, Washington set a high example. In other countries, in France and England, for example, the victims of such abuse resorted to duels with their abusers: a very foolish and inadequate practice, since it happened as often as not that the aggrieved person was killed. In taking no notice of the calumnies, therefore, Washington prevented the President of the United States from being drawn into an unseemly duel. We cannot fail to recognize also that Washington was very sensitive to the maintenance of freedom of speech. He seems to have acted on the belief that it was better that occasionally license should degenerate into abuse than that liberty should be suppressed. He was the President of the first government in the world which did not control the utterances of its people. Perhaps he may have supposed that their patriotism would restrain them from excesses, and there can be no doubt that the insane gibes of the Freneaus and the Baches gave him much pain because they proved that those scorpions were not up to the level which the new Nation offered them.

As the time for the conclusion of Washington's second term drew near, he left no doubt as to his intentions. Though some of his best friends urged him to stand for reelection, he firmly declined. He felt that he had done enough for his country in sacrificing the last eight years to it. He had seen it through its formative period, and had, he thought, steered it into clear, quiet water, so that there was no threatening danger to demand his continuance at the helm. Many persons thought that he was more than glad to be relieved of the increasing abuse of the scurrilous editors. No doubt he was, but we can hardly agree that merely for the sake of that relief he would abandon his Presidential post. But does it not seem more likely that his unwillingness to convert the Presidency into a life office, and so to give the critics of the American experiment a valid cause for opposition, led him to establish the precedent that two terms were enough? More than once in the century and a quarter since he retired in 1797, over-ambitious Presidents have schemed to win a third election and flattering sycophants have encouraged them to believe that they could attain it. But before they came to the test Washington's example—"no more than two"—has blocked their advance. In this respect also we must admit that he looked far into the future and saw what would be best for posterity. The second term as it has proved is bad enough, diverting a President during his first term to devote much of his energy and attention to setting traps to secure the second. It might be better to have only one term to last six years, instead of four, which would enable a President to give all his time to the duties of his office, instead of giving a large part of it to the chase after a reelection.

As soon as Washington determined irrevocably to retire, he began thinking of the "Farewell Address" which he desired to deliver to his countrymen as the best legacy he could bequeath. Several years before he had talked it over with Madison, with whom he was then on very friendly terms, and Madison had drafted a good deal of it. Now he turned to Hamilton, giving him the topics as far as they had been outlined, and bidding him to rewrite it if he thought it desirable. In September, 1796, Washington read the "Address" before the assembled Congress.

The "Farewell Address" belongs among the few supreme utterances on human government. Its author seems to be completely detached from all personal or local interests. He tries to see the thing as it is, and as it is likely to be in its American environment. His advice applies directly to the American people, and only in so far as what he says has in a large sense human pertinence do we find in it more than a local application.

"Be united" is the summary and inspiration of the entire "Address." "Be united and be American"; as an individual each person must feel himself most strongly an American. He urges against the poisonous effects of parties. He warns against the evils that may arise when parties choose different foreign nations for their favorites.

The great rule of conduct for us [he says] in regard to foreign Nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little Political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, ... or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one People, under an efficient government, the period is not far off, when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected. When belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation when we may choose peace or war, as our interest guided by justice shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humour or caprice?

Compared with Machiavelli's "Prince," which must come to the mind of every one who reads the "Farewell Address," one sees at once that the "Prince" is more limber, it may be more spontaneous, but the great difference between the two is in their fundamental conception. The "Address" is frankly a preachment and much of its impressiveness comes from that fact. The "Prince," on the other hand, has little concern with the moral aspect of politics discussed and makes no pretence of condemning immoral practices or making itself a champion of virtue. In other words, Washington addresses an audience which had passed through the Puritan Revolution, while Machiavelli spoke to men who were familiar with the ideals and crimes of the Italian Renaissance.

Washington spread his gospel so clearly that all persons were sure to learn and inwardly digest it, and many of them assented to it in their minds, although they did not follow it In their conduct. His paramount exhortations—"Be united"—"Be Americans"; "do not be drawn into complications with foreign powers"—at times had a very real living pertinence. The only doctrine which still causes controversy is that which touches our attitude towards foreign countries. During the late World War we heard it revived, and a great many persons who had never read the "Farewell Address" gravely reminded us of Washington's warning against "entangling alliances." As a matter of fact, that phrase does not appear in the "Farewell Address" at all. It was first used by Thomas Jefferson in his first Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801, sixteen months after Washington was dead and buried. No doubt the meaning could be deduced from what Washington said in more than one passage of his "Farewell." But to understand in 1914 what he said or implied in 1796, we must be historical. In 1796 the country was torn by conflicting parties for and against strong friendship, if not an actual alliance, between the United States on one side and Great Britain or France on the other. Any foreign alliance that could be made in 1914, however, could not have been, for the same reason, with either Great Britain or France. The aim proposed by its advocates was to curb and destroy the German domination of the world. Now Washington was almost if not quite the most actual of modern statesmen. All his arrangements at a given moment were directed at the needs and likelihood of the moment, and in 1914 he would have planned as 1914 demanded. He would have steered his ship by the wind that blew then and not by the wind that had blown and vanished one hundred and twenty years before.

Some one has remarked that, while Washington achieved a great victory in the ratification of the Jay Treaty, that event broke up the Federalist Party. That is probably inexact, but the break-up of the Federalist Party was taking place during the last years of Washington's second administration. The changes in Washington's Cabinet were most significant, especially as they nearly all meant the change from a more important to a less important Secretary. Thus John Jay, the first Secretary of State, really only an incumbent ad interim, gave way to Thomas Jefferson, who was replaced by Edmund Randolph in 1794, and who in turn was succeeded by Timothy Pickering in 1795. Alexander Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury from the beginning in 1789 to 1795, when he made way for Oliver Wolcott, Jr. Henry Knox, the original Secretary of War, was succeeded by Timothy Pickering in 1795, who, after less than a year, was followed by James McHenry. Edmund Randolph served as Attorney-General in 1789 to 1794, then retiring for William Bradford who, after a brief year, was replaced by Charles Lee. The Postmaster-Generalship was filled from 1789 to 1791 by Samuel Osgood, and then by Timothy Pickering. Thus at the end of Washington's eight years we find that in the place of two really eminent men, like Jefferson and Hamilton, he was served by Edmund Randolph and Oliver Wolcott, Jr., and James McHenry, good routine men at the best, mediocrities if judged by comparison with their predecessors. Moreover, the reputation for discretion of some of them, suffered. Thus Randolph had not long been Secretary of State when Joseph Fauchet, the French Minister, produced some papers which could be construed as implying that Randolph had accepted money. Randolph was known to be impecunious, but his personal honor had never been suspected. Washington with characteristic candor sent Randolph the batch of incriminating letters. Randolph protested that he "forgave" the President and tried to exculpate himself in the newspapers. Even that process of deflation did not suffice and he had recourse to a "Vindication," which was read by few and popularly believed to vindicate nobody. Washington is believed to have held Randolph as guiltless, but as weak and as indiscreet. He pitied the ignominy, for Randolph had been in a way Washington's protege, whose career had much interested him and whose downfall for such a cause was doubly poignant.



CHAPTER XII

CONCLUSION

Washington's term as President ended at noon on March 4, 1797. He was present at the inauguration of President John Adams which immediately followed. On the 3d, besides attending to the final necessary routine, he wrote several letters of farewell to his immediate friends, including Henry Knox, Jonathan Trumbull, Timothy Pickering, and James McHenry. To all he expressed his grief at personal parting, but also immense relief and happiness in concluding his public career. He said, for instance, in his letter to Trumbull:

Although I shall resign the chair of government without a single regret, or any desire to intermeddle in politics again, yet there are many of my compatriots, among whom be assured I place you, from whom I shall part sorrowing; because, unless I meet with them at Mount Vernon, it is not likely that I shall ever see them more, as I do not expect that I shall ever be twenty miles from it, after I am tranquilly settled there. To tell you how glad I should be to see you at that place is unnecessary. To this I will add that it would not only give me pleasure, but pleasure also to Mrs. Washington, and others of the family with whom you are acquainted, and who all unite, in every good wish for you and yours.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, XIII, 377.]

In a few days he returned to Mount Vernon and there indulged himself in a leisurely survey of the plantation. He rode from one farm to another and reacquainted himself with the localities where the various crops were either already springing or would soon be. Indoors there was an immense volume of correspondence to be attended to with the aid of Tobias Lear, the faithful secretary who had lived with the President during the New York and Philadelphia periods. When the letters were sorted, many answers had to be written, some of which Washington dictated and others he wrote with his own hand. He admits to Secretary McHenry that, when he goes to his writing table to acknowledge the letters he has received, when the lights are brought, he feels tired and disinclined to do this work, conceiving that the next night will do as well. "The next night comes," he adds, "and with it the same causes for postponement, and so on." He has not had time to look into a book. He is dazed by the incessant number of new faces which appear at Mount Vernon. They come, he says, out of "respect" for him, but their real reason is curiosity. He practises Virginian hospitality very lavishly, but he cannot endure the late hours. So he invites his nephew, Lawrence Lewis, to spend as much time as he can at Mount Vernon while he himself and Mrs. Washington go to bed early, "soon after candle light." Lewis accepted the invitation all the more willingly because he found at the mansion Nelly Custis, a pretty and sprightly young lady with whom he promptly fell in love and married later. Nelly and her brother George had been adopted by Washington and brought up in the family. She was his particular pet. Like other mature men he found the boys of the younger generation somewhat embarrassing. I suppose they felt, as well they might, a great and awful gulf yawning between them. "I can govern men," he would say, "but I cannot govern boys."[1] With Nelly Custis, however, he found it easy to be chums. No one can forget the mock-serious letter in which he wrote to her in regard to becoming engaged and gave her advice about falling in love. The letter is unexpected and yet it bears every mark of sincerity and reveals a genuine vein in his nature. We must always think of Nelly as one of the refreshments of his older life and as one of its great delights. He considered himself an old man now. His hair no longer needed powder; years and cares had made it white. He spoke of himself without affectation as a very old man, and apparently he often thought, as he was engaged in some work, "this is the last time I shall do this." He seems to have taken it for granted that he was not to live long; but this neither slackened his industry nor made him gloomy. And he had in truth spent a life of almost unremitting laboriousness. Those early years as surveyor and Indian fighter and pathfinder were years of great hardships. The eight years of the Revolution were a continuous physical strain, an unending responsibility, and sometimes a bodily deprivation. And finally his last service as President had brought him disgusts, pinpricks which probably wore more on his spirits than did the direct blows of his opponents. Very likely he felt old in his heart of hearts, much older than his superb physical form betokened. We cannot but rejoice that Nelly Custis flashed some of the joyfulness and divine insouciance of youth into the tired heart of the tired great man.

[Footnote 1: Irving, V, 277.]

Perhaps the best offhand description of Washington in these later days is that given by an English actor, Bernard, who happened to be driving near Mount Vernon when a carriage containing a man and a woman was upset. Bernard dismounted to give help, and presently another rider came up and joined in the work. "He was a tall, erect, well-made man, evidently advanced in years, but who appeared to have retained all the vigor and elasticity resulting from a life of temperance and exercise. His dress was a blue coat buttoned to the chin, and buckskin breeches."[1] They righted the chaise, harnessed the horse, and revived the young woman who, true to her time and place, had fainted. Then she and her companion drove off towards Alexandria. Washington invited Bernard to come home with him and rest during the heat of the day. The actor consented. From what the actor subsequently wrote about that chance meeting I take the following paragraphs, some of which strike to the quick:

[Footnote 1: Lodge, II, 277.]

In conversation his face had not much variety of expression. A look of thoughtfulness was given by the compression of the mouth and the indentations of the brow (suggesting an habitual conflict with, and mastery over, passion), which did not seem so much to disdain a sympathy with trivialities as to be incapable of denoting them. Nor had his voice, so far as I could discover in our quiet talk, much change or richness of intonation, but he always spoke with earnestness, and his eyes (glorious conductors of the light within) burned with a steady fire which no one could mistake for mere affability; they were one grand expression of the well-known line: "I am a man, and interested in all that concerns humanity." In one hour and a half's conversation he touched on every topic that I brought before him with an even current of good sense, if he embellished it with little wit or verbal elegance. He spoke like a man who had felt as much as he had reflected, more than he had spoken; like one who had looked upon society rather in the mass than in detail, and who regarded the happiness of America but as the first link in a series of universal victories; for his full faith in the power of those results of civil liberty which he saw all around him led him to foresee that it would erelong, prevail in other countries and that the social millennium of Europe would usher in the political. When I mentioned to him the difference I perceived between the inhabitants of New England and of the Southern States, he remarked: "I esteem those people greatly, they are the stamina of the Union and its greatest benefactors. They are continually spreading themselves too, to settle and enlighten less favored quarters. Dr. Franklin is a New Englander." When I remarked that his observations were flattering to my country, he replied, with great good humor, "Yes, yes, Mr. Bernard, but I consider your country the cradle of free principles, not their armchair. Liberty in England is a sort of idol; people are bred up in the belief and love of it, but see little of its doings. They walk about freely, but then it is between high walls; and the error of its government was in supposing that after a portion of their subjects had crossed the sea to live upon a common, they would permit their friends at home to build up those walls about them."[1]

[Footnote 1: Lodge, II, 338, 339.]

We find among the allusions of several strangers who travelled in Virginia in Washington's later days, who saw him or perhaps even stayed at Mount Vernon, some which are not complimentary. More than one story implies that he was a hard taskmaster, not only with the negroes, but with the whites. Some of the writers go out of their way to pick up unpleasant things. For instance, during his absence from home a mason plastered some of the rooms, and when Washington returned he found the work had been badly done, and remonstrated. The mason died. His widow married another mason, who advertised that he would pay all claims against his forerunner. Thereupon Washington put in a claim for fifteen shillings, which was paid. Washington's detractors used this as a strong proof of his harshness. But they do not inform us whether the man was unable to pay, or whether the claim was dishonest. Since the man paid voluntarily and did not question the lightness of the amount, may we not at least infer that he had no quarrel? And if he had not, who else had?

Insinuations concerning Washington's lack of sympathy for his slaves was a form which in later days most of the references to his care of them took. But here also there are evident facts to be taken into account. The Abolitionists very naturally were prejudiced against every slave-owner; they were also prejudiced in favor of every slave. Washington, on the contrary, harbored no prepossessions for or against the black man. He found the slaves idle, incompetent, lazy, although he would not have denied that the very fact of slavery caused and increased these evils. He treated the negroes justly, but without any sentimentality. He found them in the order in which he lived. They were the workmen of his plantation; he provided them with food, clothing, and a lodging; in return they were expected to give him their labor. It does not appear that the slaves on Washington's plantation endured any special hardship. A physician attended them at their master's expense when they were sick. That he obliged them to do their specified work, that he punished them in case of dishonesty, just as he would have done to white workmen, were facts which he never would have thought a rational person would have regarded as heinous. In his will he freed his slaves, not for the Abolitionist's reason, but because he regarded slavery as the most pernicious form of labor, debasing alike the slave and his master, uneconomic and most wasteful.

But in so general a matter as Washington's treatment of his slaves, we must be careful not to take a solitary case and argue from it as if it were habitual. By common report his slaves were so well treated that they regretted it if there was talk of transferring them to other planters. We have many instances cited which show his unusual kindness. When he found, for instance, that a mulatto woman, who had lived many years with one of the negroes, had been transferred to another part of his domain and that the negro pined for her, he arranged to have her brought back so that they might pass their old age together. The old negro was his servant, Billy Lee, who suffered an accident to his knee, which made him a cripple for the rest of his life. This he spent at Mount Vernon well cared for. Washington continued to the end the old custom of supplying a hogshead of rum for the negroes to drink at harvest time, always premising that they must partake of it sparingly.

Washington's religious beliefs and practices have also occasioned much controversy. If we accept his own statements at their plain value, we must regard him as a Church of England man. I do not discover that he was in any sense an ardent believer. He preferred to say "Providence" rather than "God," probably because it was less definite. He attended divine service on Sundays, whenever a church was near, but for a considerable period at one part of his life he did not attend communion. He thoroughly believed in the good which came from church-going in the army and he always arranged to have a service on Sundays during his campaigns. When at Mount Vernon, on days when he did not go out to the service, he spent several hours alone in meditation in his study. The religious precepts which he had been taught in childhood remained strong in him through life. He believed moral truths, and belief with him meant putting in practice what he professed. While he had imbibed much of the deistic spirit of the middle of the eighteenth century it would be inaccurate to infer that he was not fundamentally a Christian.

After Washington withdrew to Mount Vernon, early in the spring of 1797, his time was chiefly devoted to agriculture and the renewing of his life as a planter. He declined all public undertakings except that which President Adams begged him to assume—the supreme command of the army in case of the expected war with France. That new duty undoubtedly was good for him, for it proved to him that at least all his official relations with the Government had not ceased, and it also served to cheer the people of the country to know that in case of military trouble their old commander would lead them once more. Washington gave so much attention to this work, which could be in the earlier stages arranged at Mount Vernon, that he felt justified in accepting part of the salary which the President allotted to him. But the war did not come. As Washington prophesied, the French thought better of their truculence. The new genius who was ruling France had in mind something more grandiose than a war with the American Republic.

On December 10, 1799, Washington sent a long letter to James Anderson in regard to agricultural plans for his farm during the year 1800. He calculates closely the probable profits, and specifies the rotation of crops on five hundred and twenty-five acres. The next day, December 12th, he wrote a short note to Alexander Hamilton, in regard to the organization of a National Military Academy, a matter in which the President had long been deeply interested. The day was stormy. "Morning snowing and about three inches drop. Wind at Northeast, and mercury at 30. Continued snowing till one o'clock, and about four it became perfectly clear. Wind in the same place, but not hard. Mercury 28 at night." Washington, who scorned to take any account of weather, rode for five hours during the morning to several of the farms on his plantations, examining the conditions at each and conferring with the overseers.

On reaching home he complained a little of chilliness. His secretary, Tobias Lear, observed that he feared he had got wet, but Washington protested that his greatcoat had kept him dry; in spite of which the observant Lear saw snow hanging to his hair and remarked that his neck was wet. Washington went in to dinner, which was waiting, without changing his dress, as he usually did. "In the evening he appeared as well as usual. The next day, Friday, there was a heavy fall of snow, but having a severe cold, he went out for only a little while to mark some trees, between the house and the river which were to be cut down. During the day his hoarseness increased, but he made light of it, and paid no heed to the suggestion that he should take something for it, only replying, as was his custom, that he would 'let it go as it came.'"

Mrs. Washington went upstairs to a room on the floor above to chat with Mrs. Lewis (Nelly Custis) who had recently been confined. Washington remained in the parlor with Lear, and when the evening mail was brought in from the post-office, they read the newspapers; Washington even reading aloud, as well as his sore throat would allow, anything "which he thought diverting or interesting." Then Lear read the debates of the Virginia Assembly on the election of a Senator and Governor. "On hearing Mr. Madison's observations respecting Mr. Monroe, he appeared much affected, and spoke with some degree of asperity on the subject, which I endeavored to moderate," says Lear, "as I always did on such occasions. On his returning to bed, he appeared to be in perfect health, excepting the cold before mentioned, which he considered as trifling, and had been remarkably cheerful all the evening."

At between two and three o'clock of Saturday morning, December 14th, Washington awoke Mrs. Washington and told her that he was very unwell and had had an ague. She observed that he could hardly speak and breathed with difficulty. She wished to get up to call a servant, but he, fearing she might take cold, dissuaded her. When daylight appeared, the woman Caroline came and lighted the fire. Mrs. Washington sent her to summon Mr. Lear, and Washington asked that Mr. Rawlins, one of the overseers, should be summoned before the Doctor could arrive. Lear got up at once, dressed hastily, and went to the General's bedside. Lear wrote a letter to Dr. Craik, Washington's longtime friend and physician, and sent it off post-haste by a servant. Mrs. Washington was up. They prepared a mixture of molasses, vinegar, and butter, but the patient could not swallow a drop; whenever he attempted it he appeared to be distressed, convulsed, and almost suffocated.

"Mr. Rawlins came in soon after sunrise and prepared to bleed him. When the arm was ready, the General, observing that Rawlins appeared to be agitated, said, as well as he could speak, 'Don't be afraid,' and after the incision was made, he observed, 'The orifice is not large enough,' However, the blood ran pretty freely. Mrs. Washington, not knowing whether bleeding was proper or not in the General's situation, begged that much might not be taken from him, lest it should be injurious, and desired me to stop it; but when I was about to untie the string, the General put up his hand to prevent it, and as soon as he could speak, he said, 'More.' Mrs. Washington being still very uneasy, lest too much blood should be taken, it was stopped after about half a pint was taken from him.

"Finding that no relief was obtained from bleeding, and that nothing would go down the throat, I proposed bathing the throat externally with salvolatile which was done; during the operation, which was with the hand, in the gentlest manner, he observed, ''Tis very sore.' A piece of flannel dipped in salvolatile was then put round his neck. His feet were also bathed in warm water. This, however, gave no relief. In the meantime, before Dr. Craik arrived, Mrs. Washington requested me to send for Dr. Brown, of Port Tobacco, whom Dr. Craik had recommended to be called, if any case should ever occur that was seriously alarming. I despatched a Messenger (Cyrus) to Dr. Brown immediately (between eight and nine o'clock). Dr. Craik came in soon after, and after examining the General, he put a blister of Cantharide on the throat and took some more blood from him, and had some Vinegar and hot water put into a Teapot for the General to draw in the steam from the nozel, which he did as well as he was able. He also ordered sage tea and Vinegar to be mixed for a Gargle. This the General used as often as desired; but when he held back his head to let it run down, it put him into great distress and almost produced suffocation. When the mixture came out of his mouth some phlegm followed it, and he would attempt to cough, which the Doctor encouraged him to do as much as he could; but without effect—he could only make the attempt.

"About eleven o'clock, Dr. Dick was sent for. Dr. Craik requested that Dr. Dick might be sent for, as he feared Dr. Brown would not come in time. A message was accordingly despatched for him. Dr. Craik bled the General again about this time. No effect, however, was produced by it, and he continued in the same state, unable to swallow anything. Dr. Dick came in about three o'clock, and Dr. Brown arrived soon after. Upon Dr. Dick's seeing the General, and consulting a few minutes with Dr. Craik, he was bled gain, the blood ran very slowly and did not produce any symptoms of fainting. Dr. Brown came Into the chamber room soon after, and upon feeling the General's pulse &c., the Physicians went out together. Dr. Craik soon after returned. The General could now swallow a little—about four o'clock Calomel and tartar emetic were administered; but without any effect. About half past four o'clock, he desired me to ask Mrs. Washington to come to his bedside—when he requested her to go down into his room and take from his desk two wills which she would find there, and bring them to him, which she did. Upon looking at them he gave her one, which he observed was useless, as it was superseded by the other, and desired her to burn it, which she did, and then took the other and put it away into her closet. After this was done, I returned again to his bedside and took his hand. He said to me, 'I find I am going, my breath cannot continue long; I believed from the first attack it would be fatal—do you arrange and record all my late military letters and papers—arrange my accounts and settle my books, as you know more about them than any one else, and let Mr. Rawlins finish recording my other letters.' He then asked if I recollected anything which it was essential for him to do, as he had but a very short time to continue with us. I told him that I could recollect nothing, but that I hoped he was not so near his end. He observed, smiling, that he certainly was, and that, as it was the debt which we all must pay, he looked to the event with perfect resignation.

"In the course of the afternoon he appeared to be in great pain and distress, from the difficulty of breathing, and frequently changed his posture in the bed. On these occasions I lay upon the bed and endeavored to raise him, and turn him with as much ease as possible. He appeared penetrated with gratitude for my attentions, and often said, 'I am afraid I shall fatigue you too much'; and upon my answering him, that I could feel nothing but a wish to give him ease, he replied, 'Well, it is a debt we must pay to each other, and I hope, when you want aid of this kind, you will find it.' He asked when Mr. Lewis and Washington[1] would return. They were then in New Kent. I told him I believed about the 20th of the month. He made no reply.

[Footnote 1: George Washington Parke Custis.]

"About five o'clock Dr. Craik came again into the room, and upon going to the bedside the General said to him: 'Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go. I believed, from my first attack, that I should not survive it. My breath cannot last long.' The Doctor pressed his hand, but could not utter a word. He retired from the bedside, and sat by the fire absorbed in grief. The physicians, Dr. Dick and Dr. Brown, again came in (between five and six o'clock), and when they came to his bedside, Dr. Craik asked him if he could sit up in the bed. He held out his hand to me and was raised up, when he said to the Physicians: 'I feel myself going. I thank you for your attention—you had better not take any more trouble about me; but let me go off quietly; I cannot last long,' They found out that all which had been done was of no effect. He lay down again, and all retired except Dr. Craik. He continued in the same position, uneasy and restless, but without complaining; frequently asking what hour it was. When I helped to move him at this, he did not speak, but looked at me with strong expressions of gratitude. The Doctor pressed his hand, but could not utter a word. He retired from the bedside, and sat by the fire absorbed in grief. About eight o'clock the Physicians came again into the Room and applied blisters, and cataplasms of wheat bran, to his legs and feet: but went out (except Dr. Craik) without a ray of hope. I went out about this time, and wrote a line to Mr. Low and Mr. Peter requesting them to come with their wives (Mrs. Washington's granddaughters) as soon as possible.

"From this time he appeared to breathe with less difficulty than he had done; but was very restless, constantly changing his position to endeavor to get ease. I aided him all in my power, and was gratified in believing he felt it: for he would look upon me with his eyes speaking gratitude; but unable to utter a word without great distress. About ten o'clock he made several attempts to speak to me before he could effect it. At length, he said: 'I am just going. Have me decently buried, and do not let my body be put into the Vault in less than three days after I am dead.' I bowed assent, for I could not speak. He then looked at me again, and said, 'Do you understand me?' I replied, 'Yes, sir.'

"''Tis well,' said he. About ten minutes before he expired his breathing became much easier; he lay quietly; he withdrew his hand from mine and felt his own pulse. I spoke to Dr. Craik who sat by the fire; he came to the bedside. The General's hand fell from his wrist. I took it in mine and laid it upon my breast. Dr. Craik put his hand on his eyes and he expired without a struggle or a Sigh! While we were fixed in silent grief, Mrs. Washington, who was sitting at the foot of the bed, asked, with a firm and collected voice, 'Is he gone?' I could not speak, but held up my hand as a signal that he was. ''Tis well,' said she in a plain voice. 'All is now over. I have no more trials to pass through. I shall soon follow him.'"[1]

[Footnote 1: Ford, XIV, 246-52. I have copied Tobias Lear's remarkable account of Washington's death almost verbatim.]

Once read, honest Tobias Lear's account of Washington's death will hardly be forgotten. It has a majestic simplicity which we feel must have accompanied Washington in his last hours. The homely sick-bed details; his grim fortitude; his willingness to do everything which the physicians recommended, not because he wanted to live, nor because he thought they would help him, but because he wished to obey. We see him there trying to force out the painful words from his constricted throat and when he was unable to whisper even a "thank you" for some service done, Lear read the unuttered gratitude in his eyes. The faithful Lear, lying on the outside of the bed in order to be able to help turn Washington with less pain, and poor old Dr. Craik, lifelong friend, who became too moved to speak, so that he sat off near the fire in silence except for a stifled sob, and Mrs. Washington, placed near the foot of the bed, waiting patiently in complete self-control. She seemed to have determined that the last look which her mate of forty years had of her should not portray helpless grief. And from time to time the negro slaves came to the door that led into the entry and they peered into the room very reverently, and with their emotions held in check, at their dying master. And then there was a ceasing of the pain and the breathing became easier and quieter and Dr. Craik placed his hand over the life-tired eyes and Washington was dead without a struggle or even a sigh.

The pathos or tragedy of it lies in the fact that all the devices and experiments of the doctors could avail nothing. The quinsy sore throat which killed him could not be cured by any means then known to medical art. The practice of bleeding, which by many persons was thought to have killed him, was then so widely used that his doctors would have been censured If they had omitted it. Sixty years later it was still in use, and no one can doubt that it deprived Italy's great statesman of his chance of living. The premonition of Washington on his first seizure with the quinsy that the end had come proved fatally true.

The news of Washington's death did not reach the capital until Wednesday, December 18th. The House immediately adjourned. On the following day, when it reassembled, John Marshall delivered a brief tribute and resolutions were passed to attend the funeral and to pay honor "to the memory of the Man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," The immortal phrase was by Colonel Henry Lee, the father of General Robert E. Lee. President Adams, in response to a letter from the Senate of the United States, used the less happy phrase, "If a Trajan found a Pliny, a Marcus Aurelius can never want biographers, eulogists, or historians."

During the days immediately following Washington's death, preparations were made at Mount Vernon for the funeral. They sent to Alexandria for a coffin and Dr. Dick measured the body, which he found to be exactly six feet three and one half inches in length. The family vault was on the slope of the hill, a little to the south of the house. Mrs. Washington desired that a door should be made for the vault instead of having it closed up as formerly, after the body should be deposited, observing that "it will soon be necessary to open it again." Mourning clothes were prepared for the family and servants. The ceremony took place on Wednesday. There were many troops. Eleven pieces of artillery were brought down from Alexandria and a schooner belonging to Mr. R. Hamilton came down and lay off Mount Vernon to fire minute guns. The pall-holders were Colonels Little, Charles Sims, Payne, Gilpin, Ramsay, and Marsteller, and Colonel Blackburne walked before the corpse. Colonel Deneal marched with the military. About three o'clock the procession began to move. Colonels Little, Sims and Deneal and Dr. Dick directed the arrangements of the procession. This moved out through the gate at the left wing of the house and proceeded around in front of the lawn and down to the vault on the right wing of the house. The procession was as follows: The troops; horse and foot; music playing a solemn dirge with muffled drums; the clergy, viz.: the Reverends Mr. Davis, Mr. James Miner, and Mr. Moffatt, and Mr. Addison; the General's horse, with his saddle, holsters, and pistols, led by two grooms, Cyrus and Wilson, in black; the body borne by officers and Masons who insisted upon carrying it to the grave; the principal mourners, viz.: Mrs. Stuart and Mrs. Low, Misses Nancy and Sally Stuart, Miss Fairfax, and Miss Dennison, Mr. Low and Mr. Peter, Dr. Craik and T. Lear; Lord Fairfax and Ferdinando Fairfax; Lodge No. 23; Corporation of Alexandria. All other persons, preceded by Mr. Anderson, Mr. Rawlins, the Overseers, etc., etc.

The Reverend Mr. Davis read the service and made a short extempore speech. The Masons performed their ceremonies and the body was deposited in the vault. All then returned to the house and partook of some refreshment, and dispersed with the greatest good order and regularity. The remains of the provisions were distributed among the blacks. Mr. Peter, Dr. Craik, and Dr. Thornton tarried here all night.[1]

[Footnote 1: From notes by T. Lear, Ford, XIV, 254-55.]

The Committee appointed by Congress to plan a suitable memorial for Washington proposed a monument to be erected in the city of Washington, to be adorned with statuary symbolizing his career as General and as President, and containing a tomb for himself and for Mrs. Washington. The latter replied to President Adams that "taught by the great example which I have so long had before me, never to oppose my private wishes to the public will, I must consent to the request made by Congress, which you have had the goodness to transmit me, and in doing this, I need not say, I cannot say, what a sacrifice of individual feeling I make to a sense of public duty." The intended monument at the capital was never erected. Martha Washington lies beside her husband where she wished to be, in the family vault at Mount Vernon. From her chamber window in the upper story of the Mount Vernon house she could look across the field to the vault. She died in 1802, a woman of rare discretion and good sense who, during forty years, proved herself the worthiest companion of the founder of his country.

I have wished to write this biography of George Washington so that it would explain itself. There is no need of eulogy. All eulogy is superfluous. We see the young Virginia boy, born in aristocratic conditions, with but a meagre education, but trained by the sports and rural occupations of his home in perfect manliness, in courage, in self-reliance, in resourcefulness. Some one instilled into him moral precepts which fastened upon his young conscience and would not let him go. At twenty he was physically a young giant capable of enduring any hardship and of meeting any foe. He ran his surveyor's chain far into the wilderness to the west of Mount Vernon. When hardly a man in age, the State of Virginia knew of his qualities and made him an officer in its militia. At only twenty-three he was invited to accompany General Braddock's staff, but neither he nor angels from heaven could prevent Braddock from plunging with typical British bull-headedness into the fatal Indian ambush. He gave up border warfare, but did not cease to condemn the inadequacy of the Virginia military equipment and its training. He devoted himself to the pursuits of a large planter, and on being elected a Burgess, he attended regularly the sessions at Williamsburg. Wild conditions which in his boyhood had reached almost to Fauquier County, had drifted rapidly westward. Within less than ten years of Braddock's defeat, Fort Duquesne had become permanently English and the name of Pittsburgh reminded men of the great British statesman who had urged on the fateful British encroachment on the Ohio River. For Washington in person, the lasting effect of the early training and fighting in western Pennsylvania was that it gave him direct knowledge of the Indian and his ways, and that it turned his imagination to thinking out the problem of developing the Middle West, and of keeping the connections between the East and the West strong and open.

In the House of Burgesses Washington was a taciturn member, yet he seemed to have got a great deal of political knowledge and wisdom so that his colleagues thought of him as the solid man of the House and they referred many matters to him as if for final decision. He followed political affairs in the newspapers. Above all, at Mount Vernon he heard all sides from the guests who passed his domain and enjoyed his hospitality. From the moment that the irritation between Great Britain and the Colonies became bitter he seems to have made up his mind that the contention of the Colonists was just. After that he never wavered, but he was not a sudden or a shallow clamorer for Independence. He believed that the sober second sense of the British would lead them to perceive that they had made a mistake. When at length the Colonies had to provide themselves with an army and to undertake a war, he was the only candidate seriously considered for General, although John Hancock, who had made his peacock way so successfully in many walks of life, thought that he alone was worthy of the position. Who shall describe Washington's life as Commander-in-Chief of the Colonial forces during the Revolutionary War? What other commander ever had a task like his? For a few weeks the troops led by Napoleon—the barefooted and ragged heroes of Lodi and Arcola and Marengo—were equally destitute, but victory brought them food and clothes and prosperity. Whereas Washington's men had no comfort before victory and none after it.

Some of the military critics to-day deny Washington's right to be ranked among the great military commanders of the world, but the truth is that he commanded during nearly eight years and won one of the supreme crucial wars of history against far superior forces. The General who did that was no understrapper. The man whose courage diffused itself among the ten thousand starving soldiers at Valley Forge, and enabled them to endure against the starvation and distress of a winter, may very well fail to be classified among the Prince Ruperts and the Marshal Neys of battle, but he ranks first in a higher class. His Fabian policy, which troubled so many of his contemporaries, saved the American Revolution. His title as General is secure. Nor should we forget that it was his scrupulous patriotism which prevented the cropping out of militarism in this country.

Finally, a country which owed its existence to him chose him to be for eight years its first President. He saw the planting of the roots of the chief organs of its government. In every act he looked far forward into the future. He shunned making or following evil precedents. He endured the most virulent personal abuse that has ever been poured out on American public men, preferring that to using the power which his position gave him, and denaturing the President into a tyrant. Nor should we fail to honor him for his insistence on dignity and a proper respect for his office. His enemies sneered at him for that, but we see plainly how much it meant to this new Nation to have such qualities exemplified. Had Thomas Jefferson been our first President in his sans-culotte days, our Government might not have outlasted the sans-culottist enthusiasts in France. A man is known by his friends. The chosen friends of Washington were among the best of his time in America. Hamilton, Henry Knox, Nathanael Greene, John Jay, John Marshall—these were some.

Although Washington was less learned than many of the men of his time in political theory and history, he excelled them all in a concrete application of principles. He had the widest acquaintance among men of different sorts. He heard all opinions, but never sacrificed his own. As I have said earlier, he was the most actual statesman of his time; the people in Virginia came very early to regard him as a man apart; this was true of the later days when the Government sat in New York and Philadelphia. If they sought a reason, they usually agreed that Washington excelled by his character, and if you analyze most closely you will never get deeper than that. Reserved he was, and not a loose or glib talker, but he always showed his interest and gave close attention. After Yorktown, when the United States proclaimed to the world that they were an independent Republic, Europe recognized that this was indeed a Republic unlike all those which had preceded it during antiquity and the Middle Age. Foreigners doubted that it could exist. They doubted that Democracy could ever govern a nation. They knew despots, like the Prussian King, Frederic, who walked about the streets of Berlin and used his walking-stick on the cringing persons whom he passed on the sidewalk and did not like the looks of. They remembered the crazy Czar, Peter, and they knew about the insane tendencies of the British sovereign, George. The world argued from these and other examples that monarchy was safe; it could not doubt that the supply of monarchs would never give out; but it had no hope of a Republic governed by a President. It was George Washington more than any other agency who made the world change its mind and conclude that the best President was the best kind of monarch.

It is reported that after he died many persons who had been his neighbors and acquaintances confessed that they had always felt a peculiar sense of being with a higher sort of person in his presence: a being not superhuman, but far above common men. That feeling will revive in the heart of any one to-day who reads wisely in the fourteen volumes of "Washington's Correspondence," in which, as in a mine, are buried the passions and emotions from which sprang the American Revolution and the American Constitution. That George Washington lived and achieved is the justification and hope of the United States.

THE END



INDEX

Throughout the index, the initial W. is used for the name of George Washington.

Adams, John, his Diary quoted, 57 n.; on committee to confer with Howe, 79; on Peace Commission, 130; chosen first Vice-President, 176; appoints W. Commander-in-Chief, in 1799, 217, 240; letter of W. to, 217; 49, 59, 155, 156, 162, 180, 212, 215, 217, 231, 251, 254.

Adams, Samuel, 49, 57, 59, 60, 162, 175, 176.

Addison, Rev. Mr., 253.

Agriculturist, W. as an, 37 ff.

Albert, Prince, 153.

Alleghany Mts., 7.

American Revolution, 64-126 passim; great extent of field of operations, 67; really ended with surrender at Yorktown, 126; nature and results of, 126-128; proclamation of end of hostilities, 135; saved by W.'s Fabian policy, 257.

Ames, Fisher, speech on Jay Treaty, and its effect, 211-213.

Anderson, James, 240, 253.

Andre, John, Clinton's messenger to Arnold, court-martialed and hanged, 110, 111.

Annapolis Convention, 158.

Anti-Assumptionists. See State debts.

Anti-Federalists, 186.

Army, Colonial, at Boston, 69 ff.; brought into order by W., 72; lacks powder, 72; compels evacuation of Boston, 72,73; how distributed, 76, 77; W. on proper organization of, 80, 81; his influence over, 82,88; condition of, at end of 1776, 84; desertions from, 84, 97; at Valley Forge, 100 ff.; W. on condition of, after the war, 131, 132; difficulties about back pay, 133, 134, 141; some officers of, intrigue to make W. king, 134; W.'s reply, 135; continued turmoil in, 135; W.'s farewell to officers of, 136, 137; attitude of Congress toward, 139, 140.

Arnold, Benedict, repulsed at Quebec, 72; surrenders West Point, 110; in Virginia, 122, 123; 77.

Articles of Confederation, 152, 153, 156. And see States of the Confederation.

Assumptionists. See State debts.

Aurora. See Bache, B.F.

Bache, Benjamin F., attacks W.'s administration, in the Aurora, 201, 219, 221, 222.

Ball, Mary, marries Augustine Washington, 1. And see Washington, Mary (Ball).

Barbados, W.'s visit to, 9-11.

Barbary States, corsairs of, 155.

Bard, Dr. Samuel, 185, 186.

Beaumarchais, Caron de, 94.

Beefsteak and Tripe Club, 10.

Belvoir, Fairfax estate, 7.

Bennington, Battle of, 92.

Bernard, John, quoted on W. in retirement, 234-236.

Blackwood's Magazine, 3.

Blair, John, 161.

Bland, Theodorick, letter of W. to, 131, 132.

Bonhomme Richard, the. See Jones, John Paul.

Boston, port of, transferred to Salem, 58; blockaded by W., 69; evacuated by Howe, 72, 73; W.'s visit to, as President, 189, 190.

Boston Tea Party, 58.

Botetourt, Norborne Berkeley, Lord, 53.

Boucher, Rev. Jonathan, 41.

Braddock, Edward, his career, 19, 20; in America, 20; attacks Fort Duquesne, and is defeated and killed, 21, 22; 255.

Bradford, William, 229.

Brant, Joseph, 92.

British troops, position of, at end of 1776, 83, 84, 85; confined to New York City and Long Island, 86; W. on maltreatment of prisoners by, 98; field of operations of, transferred to South, 107, 121-123; surrender of, at Yorktown, 123 ff.

Brown, Dr., 244, 245, 247, 248.

Bunker Hill, Battle of, 65, 68.

Burgoyne, John, takes Ticonderoga, 91; defeated at Bennington, 92; surrenders to Gates at Saratoga, 93.

Burke, Edmund, 55, 62, 120.

Bute, John Stuart, Earl of, 29, 49.

Butler, Pierce, 162.

Byrd, William, letter of W. to, 20, 21.

Calvert, Nelly, 42.

Cambridge, W. takes command of army at, 65; W.'s headquarters at, 69.

Canada, and Wolfe's victory at Quebec, 28.

Canova, Antonio, statue of W. by, 148.

Capital, national, question of location of, 182-185.

Carlyle, Thomas, 17.

Carroll, Daniel, 161.

Cavour, Camillo, Count di, 30, 251.

Chamberlayne, Major, 33.

Charming, Edward, History of the U.S., 111 n.

Chantrey, Sir F.L., statue of W., 148.

Cherry-tree story, absurdity of, 2.

Cincinnati, Society of the, public feeling against, 159; W. resigns presidency of, 159.

Clark, Major, 10.

Clinton, George, Governor of New York, 136, 199.

Clinton, Sir Henry, succeeds Howe as Commander-in-Chief, 105; takes troops to New York, 106; was he responsible for bribing Arnold? 109, 110; W.'s criticism of, 118, 119; 93, 121, 123.

Clive, Robert, Lord, 28.

Clymer, George, 161.

Colonies, effect of Seven Years' War on, 29; opposition to taxation in, 49 ff.; at outbreak of war, 67; diversity in origin and customs, 67, 68; increasing urgency of demand for independence in, 75; relations of, with England, in 1763, 47; how affected by the Imperial Spirit, 47, 48; in 1770, 53, 54; at beginning of Revolution, 66; lack of ardor for Independence, 84.

Committees of Correspondence, 57, 58.

Compromises of the Constitution. See Representation, Slave trade, Slavery.

Concord, Battle of, 64.

Congress of the U.S.: First: W.'s first address to, 179; votes to assume state debts and change location of capital, 182-185. Fourth: Jay Treaty ratified by Senate, 210; bill to carry out treaty provisions passed by House, 210-213. Sixth: revives rank of Commander-in-Chief for W., 217; and W.'s death, 251, 253, 254.

Connecticut, population of, in 1775, 68.

Constitution of the U.S., in the making, 164-168; promulgated, 168, 169; W.'s views of, 170, 171, 172; ratified by States, 173-175; opposition to, in N.Y. and Virginia, 174.

Constitutional Convention, call for, 158; first meeting of, 160; members of, 160-162; W. President of, 161, 163; proceedings of, secret, 163; divers questions discussed, 164-168, 169, 170.

Continental Congress: First: members of, 59; work of, 59-61; adopts Declaration of Rights, 60; importance of, as a symbol, 61. Second: elects W. Commander-in-Chief, 64; sectional intrigues in, 74; W. quoted on, 75; appoints committee to confer with Howe, 79; and W.'s "doleful reports," 81; removes to Baltimore, 85; method of conducting the war, 90; W.'s farewell reception by, and address to, 137-139; post-war attitude of, toward the army, discussed, 141, 142; powers of, limited by Articles of Confederation, 152, 153; its weakness, 153; lack of unanimity in, 155; rejects Spanish treaty, 155; orders first election under Constitution, 175.

Conway, Thomas, and the Cabal, 112, 113; letters of, to W., 113; 96.

Conway Cabal, The, 112-114, 116, 117.

Cornwallis, Charles, Earl, surrenders at Yorktown, 123.

Cowpens, Battle of the, 122.

Craik, Dr. James, attends W. in his last illness, 243 ff.; 253.

Critical Period of American History, 151 ff.

Custis, Daniel P., 33, 34.

Custis, Eleanor, W.'s affection for, 233, 234. And see Lewis, Eleanor (Custis).

Custis, George W P., 233, 247.

Custis, John Parke, W.'s step-son, 40-42; 104.

Custis, Mrs. Martha (Dandridge), widow of D.P. Custis, is courted by W., 33, 34, and marries him, 35. And see Washington, Martha (Custis).

Custis, Martha, W.'s step-daughter, 40, 41.

Dandridge, Francis, letter of W. to, 51, 52.

Davis, Rev. Mr., 252, 253.

Deane, Silas, sent to enlist aid of France, 94; his unauthorized promises to Ducoudray, 95, and Lafayette, 99.

Declaration of Independence, 78, 191.

"Declaration of Rights," 60.

Delaware River, W.'s crossing of, 85, 86.

Democracy in the U.S., contrasted with earlier types, 178.

Democratic Party, 186.

Dent, Elizabeth, 31.

Dick, Dr., 245, 247, 248, 252.

Dickinson, John, 161.

Dinwiddie, Robert, sends W. on mission to French, 14; sends expedition under Fry to take Duquesne, 15; 16, 17, 18, 20, 21.

Dorchester, Guy Carleton, Lord, 208.

Dorchester Heights, occupied by Americans, 73.

Ducoudray, M., 95.

Election, first, under Constitution, 175, 176.

Ellsworth, Oliver. 161.

England, expeditions planned by, 19 ff.; effect of Chatham's administration on power and prestige of, 27, 28; relations with Colonies in 1763, 47; the Imperial Spirit in, 47 ff.; measures imposing taxation on Colonies, 49 ff.; division of opinion in, in 1770, 53, 54, 55; Hessians in service of, 76; effect of sea-power of, 84; plans for campaign of 1777, 90, 91; sends Commission to treat for peace, 109, 120; reconstruction of government in, after Yorktown, 130; and W.'s proclamation of neutrality (1789), 204; hatred of, in U.S., and the Jay Treaty, 208 ff.; threat of war with, 208, 209; and the U.S. in 1796 and 1914, 227, 228. And see Paris, Treaty of (1783).

England and France, rivalry between in North America, 12, 13; actually at war, 19; effect of Wolfe's victory at Quebec, 28; war between (1789), 193; difficulty in maintaining neutrality of U.S., 193 ff.

"Entangling alliances," authorship of the phrase, 227.

Estaing, Charles H, Count d', brings French fleet to America, 108.

Excise tax, on distilled spirits, 189; and the Whiskey Insurrection, 218.

Fairfax, Bryan, letter of W. to, 62, 63; 253.

Fairfax, Sally, 31.

Fairfax, Thomas, Lord, employs W. to survey his estate, 5; 7.

Farewell Address, the, 224 ff.; declarations of, how far applicable in 1914, 227, 228.

Fauchet, Joseph, 229.

Fauntleroy, Betsy, 30.

Fauquier, Francis, 35.

Federalist, The, 162.

Federalist Party, break-up of, 228; 186, 187.

Fitzsimmons, Thomas, 161.

Fort Duquesne, built by French, 13; unsuccessfully attacked by Braddock, 21 ff.; renamed Fort Pitt, 34, 255.

Fort Necessity, surrender of, 16, 17.

Fox, Charles James, 55.

France, steps toward alliance with, 94 ff.; effect of victory at Saratoga in, 99; treaty with, 99 and n.; results of alliance on American commerce and privateering, 108; sends fleet to America, 108; effect in England of alliance with, 119; and W.'s proclamation of neutrality, 204; effect of feeling of gratitude to, in U.S., 205; later relations with, 215, 216; and the U.S. in 1796 and 1914, 227, 228. And see England and France.

Franklin, Benjamin, on committee to confer with Howe, 79; on Peace Commission, 130; quoted, 173; 21, 155, 160, 161, 201, 236.

Frederick the Great, 259.

Freedom of speech, W. and, 222, 223.

Freemasons, at W.'s funeral, 253.

French, westward and southward progress of, 13; build Fort Duquesne, 13.

French Committee of Public Safety, Monroe's letter to, 216.

French and Indian War. See Seven Years' War.

French Revolution, reaction of, in U.S., 193 ff.

Freneau, Philip, and his National Gazette, encouraged by Jefferson, 200, 201, 219, 220.

Fry, Colonel, 15.

Gage, Thomas, military and civil governor of Boston, 61; W. quoted on his conduct, 63; recalled, 72.

Gallatin, Albert, opposes Jay Treaty, 210, 211.

Gates, Horatio, Adjutant-General, 71; defeats Burgoyne at Saratoga, 92, 93; ambitious to supplant W., 114; 112.

Genet, Edmond Charles, mission of, to U.S., 194 ff.; would appeal to people over government, 198,205; snubbed by Jefferson, 198; his recall requested, 199.

George II, 18.

George III, dismisses Pitt, 29; and the British Empire, 48; makes North Prime Minister, 54; effect of events of 1778 on, 119; and of the failure of the Commission on Reconciliation, 120; 60, 130, 153, 259.

Georgetown, proposed as seat of national capital, 184.

Georgia, only colony unrepresented in First Continental Congress, 59; British victories in, 122; 165.

Gerry, Elbridge, on X.Y.Z. mission to France, 215; 161, 168, 169.

Giles, William B., and newspaper attacks on W., 219, 221.

Gist, Christopher, 14.

Gladstone, W.E., quoted, 173.

Gorham, Nathaniel, 161.

Great Britain. See England.

Great Meadows. See Fort Necessity.

Greene, Nathanael, commands in South, 122; 110, 162, 163, 258.

"Half-King, the." See Thanacarishon.

Hamilton, Alexander, influence of, ensures ratification of Constitution in N.Y., 174; Secretary of Treasury, 181, 228, 229; opposition to, 181, 182; favors "Assumption," 182,183; obtains Jefferson's support for compromise, 183, 184; his political status, 187; his protective tariff, 188; his measures tended to centralization, 189,192; quoted, on the French Revolution, 197, 198; W. seeks to keep peace between Jefferson and, 199, 200; attacked by Freneau, 200; attacks Jefferson in newspapers, 201; urges W. to accept second term, 201; and the Whiskey Insurrection, 218; and the Farewell Address, 224; 160, 167, 168, 180, 195, 208, 210, 217, 241, 258.

Hancock, John, President of Congress, 64; letter of W. to, 80, 81; Governor of Massachusetts, and W.'s visit to Boston, 189, 190; 64, 256.

Harlem, Heights of, army stationed on, 80.

Harrison, Benjamin, letter of W. to, 143.

Hay, Anthony, 53.

Henry, Patrick, quoted, 50; opposed to Constitution, 174; 59, 60, 162.

Herkimer, Nicholas, 92.

Hessians, in British army, 76; defeated at Trenton, 86.

Hortalaz et Cie, 94.

Houdon, Jean A., statue of W. 148.

House of Representatives, representation of States in, 167.

Howe, Richard, Lord, takes fleet to N.Y., 76; 72, 83.

Howe, Sir William, evacuates Boston, 72, 73; fruitless peace overtures of, 79; in Phila. (1777-78), 104, 105; succeeded by Clinton, 105; 74, 78, 87, 91.

Humphreys, Colonel, as Chamberlain at President's receptions, 180, 181.

Imperial Spirit, effect of, on relations between England and Colonies, 47, 48; revived by events of 1778, 119.