Washington, in his late address to Congress, compared with the policy of
modern European courts! Illustrious man!--deriving honor less from the
splendor of his situation than from the dignity of his mind! Grateful to
France for the assistance received from her in that great contest which
secured the independence of America, he yet did not choose to give up
the system of neutrality in her favor. Having once laid down the line of
conduct most proper to be pursued, not all the insults and provocations
of the French Minister, Genet, could at all put him out of his way or
bend him from his purpose. It must, indeed, create astonishment that,
placed in circumstances so critical, and filling a station so
conspicuous, the character of Washington should never once have been
called in question; that he should in no one instance have been accused
either of improper insolence or of mean submission in his transactions
with foreign nations. It has been reserved for him to run the race of
glory without experiencing the smallest interruption to the brilliancy
of his career. The breath of censure has not dared to impeach the purity
of his conduct, nor the eye of envy to raise its malignant glance to the
elevation of his virtues. Such has been the transcendent merit and the
unparalleled fate of this illustrious man!
How did he act when insulted by Genet? Did he consider it as necessary
to avenge himself for the misconduct or madness of an individual by
involving a whole continent in the horrors of war? No; he contented
himself with procuring satisfaction for the insult by causing Genet to
be recalled, and thus at once consulted his own dignity and the
interests of his country. Happy Americans! while the whirlwind flies
over one quarter of the globe, and spreads everywhere desolation, you
remain protected from its baneful effects by your own virtues and the
wisdom of your government. Separated from Europe by an immense ocean,
you feel not the effect of those prejudices and passions which convert
the boasted seats of civilization into scenes of horror and bloodshed.
You profit; by the folly and madness of the contending nations, and
afford, in your more congenial clime, an asylum to those blessings and
virtues which they wantonly contemn, or wickedly exclude from their
bosom! Cultivating the arts of peace under the influence of freedom, you
advance by rapid strides to opulence and distinction; and if by any
accident you should be compelled to take part in the present unhappy
contest,--if you should find it necessary to avenge insult or repel
injury,--the world will bear witness to the equity of your sentiments
and the moderation of your views; and the success of your arms will, no
doubt, be proportioned to the justice of your cause.
V
LAST DAYS
GEORGE WASHINGTON[16]
BY HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE
On the 4th of March, 1797, Washington went to the inauguration of his
successor as President of the United States. The Federal Government was
sitting in Philadelphia at that time, and Congress held sessions in the
courthouse on the corner of Sixth and Chestnut Streets.
At the appointed hour Washington entered the hall, followed by John
Adams, who was to take the oath of office. When they were seated,
Washington arose and introduced Mr. Adams to the audience, and then
proceeded to read in a firm, clear voice his brief valedictory--not his
great "Farewell Address," for that had already been published. A lady
who sat on "the front bench," "immediately in front" of Washington,
describes the scene in these words:
There was a narrow passage from the door of entrance to the room.
General Washington stopped at the end to let Mr. Adams pass to the
chair. The latter always wore a full suit of bright drab, with
loose cuffs to his coat. General Washington's dress was a full suit
of black. His military hat had the black cockade. There stood the
"Father of his Country," acknowledged by nations the first in war,
first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen. No
marshals with gold-colored scarfs attended him; there was no
cheering, no noise; the most profound silence greeted him as if the
great assembly desired to hear him breathe. Mr. Adams covered his
face with both his hands; the sleeves of his coat and his hands
were covered with tears. Every now and then there was a suppressed
sob. I cannot describe Washington's appearance as I felt
it--perfectly composed and self-possessed till the close of his
address. Then, when strong nervous sobs broke loose, when tears
covered the faces, then the great man was shaken. I never took my
eyes from his face. Large drops came from his eyes. He looked as if
his heart was with them, and would be to the end.
On Washington's retirement from the Presidency one of his first
employments was to arrange his papers and letters. Then, on returning to
his home, the venerable master found many things to repair. His landed
estate comprised eight thousand acres, and was divided into farms, with
inclosures and farm buildings. And now, with body and mind alike sound
and vigorous, he bent his energies to directing the improvements that
marked his last days at Mount Vernon.
In his earlier as well as in later life, his tour of the farms would
average from eight to twelve or fourteen miles a day. He rode upon his
farms entirely unattended, opening his gates, pulling down and putting
up his fences as he passed, visiting his laborers at their work,
inspecting all the operations of his extensive establishment with a
careful eye, directing useful improvements, and superintending them in
their progress.
He usually rode at a moderate pace in passing through his fields. But
when behind time, this most punctual of men would display the
horsemanship of his earlier days, and a hard gallop would bring him up
to time so that the sound of his horse's hoofs and the first dinner bell
would be heard together at a quarter before three.
A story is told that one day an elderly stranger meeting a Revolutionary
worthy out hunting, a long-tried and valued friend of the chief,
accosted him, and asked whether Washington was to be found at the
mansion house, or whether he was off riding over his estate. The friend
answered that he was visiting his farms, and directed the stranger the
road to take, adding, "You will meet, sir, with an old gentleman riding
alone in plain drab clothes, a broad-brimmed white hat, a hickory switch
in his hand, and carrying an umbrella with a long staff, which is
attached to his saddle-bow--that person, sir, is General Washington."
Precisely at a quarter before three the industrious farmer returned,
dressed, and dined at three o'clock. At this meal he ate heartily, but
was not particular in his diet with the exception of fish, of which he
was excessively fond. Touching his liking for fish, and illustrative of
his practical economy and abhorrence of waste and extravagance, an
anecdote is told of the time he was President and living in
Philadelphia. It happened that a single shad had been caught in the
Delaware, and brought to the city market. His steward, Sam Fraunces,
pounced upon the fish with the speed of an osprey, delighted that he
had secured a delicacy agreeable to the palate of his chief, and
careless of the expense, for which the President had often rebuked him.
When the fish was served, Washington suspected the steward had forgotten
his order about expenditure for the table, and said to Fraunces, who
stood at his post at the sideboard, "What fish is this?" "A shad, sir, a
very fine shad," the steward answered. "I know Your Excellency is
particularly fond of this kind of fish, and was so fortunate as to
procure this one--the only one in market, sir, the first of the season."
"The price, sir, the price?" asked Washington sternly. "Three--three
dollars," stammered the conscience-stricken steward. "Take it away,"
thundered the chief, "take it away, sir! It shall never be said that my
table set such an example of luxury and extravagance." Poor Fraunces
tremblingly did as he was told, and the first shad of the season was
carried away untouched, to be speedily discussed in the servants'
dining-room.
Although the Farmer of Mount Vernon was much retired from the business
world, he was by no means inattentive to the progress of public affairs.
When the post-bag arrived, he would select his letters and lay them
aside for reading in the seclusion of his library. The newspapers he
would peruse while taking his single cup of tea (his only supper) and
read aloud passages of peculiar interest, remarking the matter as he
went along. He read with distinctness and precision. These evenings with
his family always ended at precisely nine o'clock, when he bade
everyone good-night and retired to rest, to rise again at four and renew
the same routine of labor and enjoyment.
Washington's last days, like those that preceded them in the course of a
long and well-spent life, were devoted to constant and careful
employment. His correspondence both at home and abroad was immense. Yet
no letter was unanswered. One of the best-bred men of his time,
Washington deemed it a grave offense against the rules of good manners
and propriety to leave letters unanswered. He wrote with great facility,
and it would be a difficult matter to find another who had written so
much, who had written so well. General Harry Lee once observed to him,
"We are amazed, sir, at the vast amount of work you get through."
Washington answered, "Sir, I rise at four o'clock, and a great deal of
my work is done while others sleep."
He was the most punctual of men, as we said. To this admirable quality
of rising at four and retiring to rest at nine at all seasons, this
great man owed his ability to accomplish mighty labors during his long
and illustrious life. He was punctual in everything, and made everyone
about him punctual. So careful a man delighted in always having about
him a good timekeeper. In Philadelphia the first President regularly
walked up to his watchmaker's to compare his watch with the regulator.
At Mount Vernon the active yet punctual farmer invariably consulted the
dial when returning from his morning ride, and before entering his
house.
The affairs of the household took order from the master's accurate and
methodical arrangement of time. Even the fisherman on the river watched
for the cook's signal when to pull in shore and deliver his catch in
time for dinner.
Among the picturesque objects on the Potomac, to be seen from the
eastern portion of the mansion house, was the light canoe of the house's
fisher. Father Jack was an African, an hundred years of age, and
although enfeebled in body by weight of years, his mind possessed
uncommon vigor. And he would tell of days long past, when, under African
suns, he was made captive, and of the terrible battle in which his royal
sire was slain, the village burned, and himself sent to the slave ship.
Father Jack had in a considerable degree a leading quality of his
race--somnolency. Many an hour could the family of Washington see the
canoe fastened to a stake, with the old fisherman bent nearly double
enjoying a nap, which was only disturbed by the jerking of the white
perch caught on his hook. But, as we just said, the domestic duties of
Mount Vernon were governed by clock time, and the slumbers of fisher
Jack might occasion inconvenience, for the cook required the fish at a
certain hour, so that they might be served smoking hot precisely at
three. At times he would go to the river bank and make the accustomed
signals, and meet with no response. The old fisherman would be quietly
reposing in his canoe, rocked by the gentle undulations of the stream,
and dreaming, no doubt, of events "long time ago." The importune master
of the kitchen, grown ferocious by delay, would now rush up and down
the water's edge, and, by dint of loud shouting, cause the canoe to turn
its prow to the shore. Father Jack, indignant at its being supposed he
was asleep at his post, would rate those present on his landing, "What
you all meck such a debil of a noise for, hey? I wa'nt sleep, only
noddin'."
The establishment of Mount Vernon employed a perfect army of domestics;
yet to each one were assigned special duties, and from each one strict
performance was required. There was no confusion where there was order,
and the affairs of this estate, embracing thousands of acres and
hundreds of dependents, were conducted with as much ease, method, and
regularity as the affairs of a homestead of average size.
Mrs. Washington was an accomplished housewife of the olden time, and she
gave constant attention to all matters of her household, and by her
skill and management greatly contributed to the comfort and
entertainment of the guests who enjoyed the hospitality of her home.
The best charities of life were gathered round Washington in the last
days at Mount Vernon. The love and veneration of a whole people for his
illustrious services, his generous and untiring labors in the cause of
public utility; his kindly demeanor to his family circle, his friends,
and numerous dependents; his courteous and cordial hospitality to his
guests, many of them strangers from far distant lands; these charities,
all of which sprang from the heart, were the ornament of his declining
years, and granted the most sublime scene in nature, when human
greatness reposes upon human happiness.
On the morning of the 13th of December, 1799, the General was engaged in
making some improvements in the front of Mount Vernon. As was usual with
him, he carried his own compass, noted his observations, and marked out
the ground. The day became rainy, with sleet, and the improver remained
so long exposed to the inclemency of the weather as to be considerably
wetted before his return to the house. About one o'clock he was seized
with chilliness and nausea, but having changed his clothes, he sat down
to his indoor work. At night, on joining his family circle, he
complained of a slight indisposition. Upon the night of the following
day, having borne acute suffering with composure and fortitude, he died.
In person Washington was unique. He looked like no one else. To a
stature lofty and commanding he united a form of the manliest
proportions, and a dignified, graceful, and imposing carriage. In the
prime of life he stood six feet, two inches. From the period of the
Revolution there was an evident bending in his frame so passing straight
before, but the stoop came from the cares and toils of that arduous
contest rather than from years. For his step was firm, his appearance
noble and impressive long after the time when the physical properties of
men are supposed to wane.
A majestic height was met by corresponding breadth and firmness. His
whole person was so cast in nature's finest mould as to resemble an
ancient statue, all of whose parts unite to the perfection of the
whole. But with all its development of muscular power, Washington's form
had no look of bulkiness, and so harmonious were its proportions that he
did not appear so tall as his portraits have represented. He was rather
spare than full during his whole life.
The strength of Washington's arm was shown on several occasions. He
threw a stone from the bed of the stream to the top of the Natural
Bridge, Virginia, and another stone across the Rappahannock at
Fredericksburg. The stone was said to be a piece of slate about the size
of a dollar with which he spanned the bold river, and it took the ground
at least thirty yards on the other side. Many have since tried this
feat, but none have cleared the water.
In 1772 some young men were contending at Mount Vernon in the exercise
of pitching the bar. The Colonel looked on for a time, then grasping the
missile in his master hand, he whirled the iron through the air, and it
fell far beyond any of its former limits. "You see, young gentlemen,"
said the chief with a smile, "that my arm yet retains some portion of my
early vigor." He was then in his fortieth year, and probably in the
fullness of his physical powers. Those powers became rather mellowed
than decayed by time, for "his age was like lusty winter, frosty yet
kindly," and up to his sixty-eighth year he mounted a horse with
surprising agility, and rode with ease and grace. Rickets, the
celebrated equestrian, used to say, "I delight to see the General ride,
and make it a point to fall in with him when I hear he is out on
horseback--his seat is so firm, his management so easy and graceful,
that I, who am an instructor in horsemanship, would go to him and learn
to ride."
In his later day, the General, desirous of riding pleasantly, procured
from the North two horses of a breed for bearing the saddle. They were
well to look at, and pleasantly gaited under the saddle, but also scary,
and therefore unfitted for the service of one who liked to ride quietly
on his farm, occasionally dismounting and walking in his fields to
inspect improvements. From one of these horses the General sustained a
fall--probably the only fall he ever had from a horse in his life. It
was upon a November evening, and he was returning from Alexandria to
Mount Vernon, with three friends and a groom. Having halted a few
moments, he dismounted, and upon rising in his stirrup again, the horse,
alarmed at the glare from a fire near the roadside, sprang from under
his rider, who came heavily to the ground. His friends rushed to give
him assistance, thinking him hurt. But the vigorous old man was upon his
feet again, brushing the dust from his clothes, and after thanking those
who came to his aid, said that he had had a very complete tumble, and
that it was owing to a cause no horseman could well avoid or
control--that he was only poised in his stirrup, and had not yet gained
his saddle when the scary animal sprang from under him.
Bred in the vigorous school of frontier warfare, "the earth for his
bed, his canopy the heavens," Washington excelled the hunter and
woodsman in their athletic habits, and in those trials of manhood which
filled the hardy days of his early life. He was amazingly swift of foot,
and could climb steep mountains seemingly without effort. Indeed, in all
the tests of his great physical powers he appeared to make little
effort. When he overthrew the strong man of Virginia in wrestling, upon
a day when many of the finest athletes were engaged in the contest, he
had retired to the shade of a tree intent upon the reading of a book. It
was only after the champion of the games strode through the ring calling
for nobler antagonists, and taunting the reader with the fear that he
would be thrown, that Washington closed his book. Without taking off his
coat he calmly observed that fear did not enter his make-up; then
grappling with the champion, he hurled him to the ground. "In
Washington's lion-like grasp," said the vanquished wrestler, "I became
powerless, and went down with a force that seemed to jar the very marrow
in my bones." The victor, regardless of shouts at his success, leisurely
retired to his shade, and again took up his book.
Washington's powers were chiefly in his limbs. His frame was of equal
breadth from the shoulders to the hips. His chest was not prominent, but
rather hollowed in the center. He never entirely recovered from a
pulmonary affection from which he suffered in early life. His frame
showed an extraordinary development of bone and muscle; his joints were
large, as were his feet; and could a cast of his hand have been
preserved, it would be ascribed to a being of a fabulous age. Lafayette
said, "I never saw any human being with so large a hand as the
General's."
Of the awe and reverence which the presence of Washington inspired we
have many records. "I stood," says one writer, "before the door of the
Hall of Congress in Philadelphia, when the carriage of the President
drew up. It was a white coach, or, rather, of a light cream color,
painted on the panels with beautiful groups representing the four
seasons. As Washington alighted, and, ascending the steps, paused on the
platform, he was preceded by two gentlemen bearing large white wands,
who kept back the eager crowd that pressed on every side. At that moment
I stood so near I might have touched his clothes; but I should as soon
have thought of touching an electric battery. I was penetrated with
deepest awe. Nor was this the feeling of the schoolboy I then was. It
pervaded, I believe, every human being that approached Washington; and I
have been told that even in his social hours, this feeling in those who
shared them never suffered intermission. I saw him a hundred times
afterward, but never with any other than the same feeling. The Almighty,
who raised up for our hour of need a man so peculiarly prepared for its
whole dread responsibility, seems to have put a stamp of sacredness upon
his instrument. The first sight of the man struck the eye with
involuntary homage, and prepared everything around him to obey.
"At the time I speak of, he stood in profound silence and had the
statue-like air which mental greatness alone can bestow. As he turned to
enter the building, and was ascending the staircase to the Congressional
hall, I glided along unseen, almost under the cover of the skirts of his
dress, and entered into the lobby of the House, which was in session to
receive him.
"At Washington's entrance there was a most profound silence. House,
lobbies, gallery, all were wrapped in deepest attention. And the souls
of the entire assemblage seemed peering from their eyes as the noble
figure deliberately and unaffectedly advanced up the broad aisle of the
hall between ranks of standing Senators and members, and slowly ascended
the steps leading to the Speaker's chair.
"The President, having seated himself, remained in silence, and the
members took their seats, waiting for the speech. No house of worship
was ever more profoundly still than that large and crowded chamber.
"Washington was dressed precisely as Stuart has painted him in
full-length portrait--in a full suit of the richest black velvet, with
diamond knee-buckles and square silver buckles set upon shoes japanned
with most scrupulous neatness; black silk stockings, his shirt ruffled
at the breast and waist, a light dress sword, his hair profusely
powdered, fully dressed, so as to project at the sides, and gathered
behind in a silk bag ornamented with a large rose or black ribbon. He
held his cocked hat, which had a large black cockade on one side of it,
in his hand, as he advanced toward the chair, and when seated, laid it
on the table.
"At length thrusting his hand within the side of his coat, he drew forth
a roll of manuscript which he opened, and rising, read in a rich, deep,
full, sonorous voice his opening address to Congress. His enunciation
was deliberate, justly emphasized, very distinct, and accompanied with
an air of deep solemnity as being the utterance of a mind conscious of
the whole responsibility of its position, but not oppressed by it. There
was ever about the man something which impressed one with the conviction
that he was exactly and fully equal to what he had to do. He was never
hurried; never negligent; but seemed ever prepared for the occasion, be
it what it might. In his study, in his parlor, at a levee, before
Congress, at the head of the army, he seemed ever to be just what the
situation required. He possessed, in a degree never equaled by any human
being I ever saw, the strongest, most ever-present sense of propriety."