Washington, on seeing this picture, remarked, “this work, highly
valuable in itself, is rendered more estimable in my eye when I remember
that America gave birth to the celebrated artist that produced it.” The
picture is ten feet long, and seven feet six inches high. The painter
refused fifteen hundred guineas for it; it was purchased, we know not
at what price, by the Earl of Liverpool, who used to say that such a
work ought not to be in his possession, but in that of the public. These
words were not heard in vain by the son of the Earl, who munificently
presented it to the National Gallery.