WASHINGTON DEPARTS ON A TOUR THROUGH NEW ENGLAND--HIS CORDIAL
RECEPTION EVERYWHERE--HONORS ON THE ROUTE--INVITED TO PARTAKE OF
GOVERNOR HANCOCK'S HOSPITALITY WHILE HE REMAINS IN
BOSTON--WASHINGTON DECLINES, BUT AGREES TO DINE WITH
HIM--CONFLICTING PREPARATIONS FOR RECEIVING THE PRESIDENT AT
BOSTON--WASHINGTON ESCORTED TO THE VERGE OF BOSTON--DELAY OCCASIONED
BY DISPUTES CONCERNING A POINT OF ETIQUETTE--WASHINGTON
DISGUSTED--THE DISPUTE SETTLED--A GRAND RECEPTION--THE GOVERNOR OF A
STATE ASSUMES SUPERIOR DIGNITY TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES--HIS HUMILIATION--AN EYE-WITNESS'S ACCOUNT OF THE
MATTER--HONORS BESTOWED UPON THE PRESIDENT AT BOSTON--HE JOURNEYS TO
PORTSMOUTH--RETURNS THROUGH THE INTERIOR TO NEW YORK--POSITION OF
NORTH CAROLINA AND RHODE ISLAND.
Immediately after the adjournment of Congress, Washington prepared to
make a tour through New England, in order to become better acquainted
with public characters there, the temper of the people toward the new
government, and the circumstances and resources of the country. He had
asked the advice of his counsellors on the propriety of such a journey,
immediately after his inauguration, and now he again talked with
Hamilton and Madison about it. They thought it desirable; and on the
morning of Thursday, the fifteenth of October, he set out in his
carriage drawn by four horses, and accompanied by Major Jackson, his
aid-de-camp, and Tobias Lear, his private secretary, with six servants.
All papers appertaining to foreign affairs he left under the temporary
control of Mr. Jay.
The president was accompanied some distance out of the city by
Chief-Justice Jay, General Knox, and Colonel Hamilton. His diary kept
during his tour exhibits his constant and minute observations concerning
the agricultural resources, and mechanical and other industrial
operations, of the country through which he passed. At every
considerable town on his route he was greeted by the authorities and the
people, and everywhere he received demonstrations of the greatest
personal respect and affection. On approaching New Haven on Saturday,
the seventeenth, he was met by the governor and lieutenant-governor of
Connecticut (Huntington and Wolcott), and Roger Sherman, the mayor of
the city. The governor and the congregational ministers of the city
presented to him addresses, in which they congratulated him on the
restoration of his health. He remained in New Haven until Monday
morning, and then journeyed on to Hartford accompanied by an escort of
cavalry and citizens. At Middletown and other places on the way he was
received by escorts, and greeted with the ringing of bells, and
sometimes the firing of cannon. Increasing demonstrations of respect met
him as he proceeded. At Hartford all business was suspended during his
stay; and, in all the towns, every class of citizens thronged the places
of his presence to see the face of their beloved friend.
Grateful as these demonstrations were to the feelings of Washington, as
evidences of personal and official respect, they were not consonant with
his desires. He wished to travel in the quiet manner of a private
citizen, for he was ever averse to ostentatious displays of every kind.
But his wishes could not control the actions of his fellow-citizens, and
he yielded with a good grace to their receptions.
Near Brookfield, between Palmer and Worcester, the president was met by
a messenger sent by John Hancock, then governor of Massachusetts, to
give notice of measures that had been arranged for the chief
magistrate's reception on his approach to, and entrance into the city of
Boston, the capital of the commonwealth. Governor Hancock also invited
him to make his house his home while in Boston.
Washington courteously declined the governor's invitation to partake of
his hospitality. "Could my wish prevail," he said, "I should desire to
visit your metropolis without any parade or extraordinary ceremony. From
a wish to avoid giving trouble to private families I determined, on
leaving New York, to decline the honor of any invitation to quarters
which I might receive while on my journey; and, with a view to observe
this rule, I had requested a gentleman to engage lodgings for me during
my stay in Boston."
On the receipt of this letter, Governor Hancock wrote by the return
courier to the president, expressing his regret that he could not have
the honor of entertaining him at his house as a guest, and begging that
he and his _suite_ would honor him with their company at dinner, _en
famille_, on the day of their arrival. Washington accepted the
invitation, and on Saturday, the twenty-fourth of October, he passed
through Cambridge, and approached Boston toward meridian.
Preparations had been made for the reception of the president by
Governor Hancock and the municipal authorities of Boston, each
independently of the other, and without consultation. This produced a
disagreeable, but in some respects laughable scene in the ceremonies of
the day. Both parties sincerely desired to pay the highest honors to the
chief magistrate of the nation, but political considerations separated
the governor and the selectmen of Boston. The governor claimed the
right, as chief officer of the state, of receiving and welcoming in
person the expected guest at the entrance to the capital; while the
selectmen said, "You should have met him at the boundary of the _state_;
but when he is about to enter the _town_, it is the right of the
municipal authorities to receive him."
The controversy was unsettled when the president and _suite_, under a
military escort commanded by General Brooks, passed through Roxbury and
were ready to enter Boston. Washington and Major Jackson had left the
carriage, and had mounted horses prepared for them; and as the whole
procession passed over the Neck it was stopped, without apparent cause,
for a long time. The contending parties, executive and municipal, had
their respective carriages drawn up, each with the determination to
receive and do honors to the president; and for more than an hour aides
and marshals were posting between the leaders of the contending parties,
endeavoring to effect a reconciliation. The sky was cloudy and the
atmosphere raw, sour, and most disagreeable.[19] Washington finally
inquired the cause of the delay, and, being informed, he asked, with
evident impatience, whether there was any other avenue into the town. He
was about to wheel his horse and seek one, and leave the contestants
about etiquette to settle their dispute at leisure--when he was informed
that the matter had been arranged, the governor's party having yielded
to the municipal authorities.
The war of words being ended, the procession moved on. The president was
formally welcomed by the selectmen, and was received into the city with
acclamations of joy, the ringing of bells, and the firing of cannon. A
magnificent arch was raised for Washington to pass under, and the
streets, doors, and windows were filled with well-dressed people of both
sexes. The president rode with his hat off, and with a calm, dignified
air, without bowing to the people as he passed; but when he had reached
a balcony of the old statehouse, and he was saluted by a long procession
of citizens, he occasionally returned the salutations.[20] When the
ceremonials were over, he was conducted to his lodgings, at Mrs.
Ingersoll's--a fine brick house, at the corner of Tremont and Court
streets--accompanied by the lieutenant-governor and council, and
Vice-President Adams, who was then in Boston. A fine company of
light-infantry, commanded by the distinguished Harrison Gray Otis, was a
guard of honor on the occasion.
Washington made the following record in his diary that evening: "Having
engaged yesterday to take an informal dinner with the governor to-day,
but under a full persuasion that he would have waited upon me so soon as
I should have arrived, I excused myself upon his not doing it, and
informing me through his secretary that he was too much indisposed to do
it, being resolved to receive the visit. Dined at my lodgings, where the
vice-president favored me with his company."
This record alludes to an amusing display of official pride on the part
of Governor Hancock, which Washington, in the most dignified way,
completely humbled. Hancock's wealth, public services, and official
position, placed him in the highest rank of social life at that time;
and he had conceived the opinion that, as governor of a state and within
the bounds of his jurisdiction, etiquette made it proper for him to
receive the first visit, even from the president of the United States.
He therefore omitted to meet Washington on his first arrival, or to call
upon him; but, lacking courage to avow the true reason, he pleaded
indisposition. The true cause of the omission had been given to the
president, and he determined to resist the governor's foolish
pretensions. He therefore excused himself from the engagement to dinner,
and dined, as he says, at his own lodgings, with Vice-President Adams as
his guest.
Hancock soon perceived that he had made a great mistake, and sent three
gentlemen that evening to express to Washington his concern that he had
not been in a condition to call upon him as soon as he entered the town.
"I informed them," says Washington in his diary, "in explicit terms,
that I should not see the governor unless it was at my own lodgings."
The next day (Sunday), on consultation with his friends, Hancock
determined to waive the point of etiquette; and at noon he sent a
message to Washington that he would do himself the honor of visiting him
within half an hour, notwithstanding it was at the hazard of his health.
Washington immediately returned a note in reply to the governor,
informing him that he would be at home until two o'clock, and adding,
with the most polished irony: "The president need not express the
pleasure it will give him to see the governor; but, at the same time, he
most earnestly begs that the governor will not hazard his health on the
occasion."
Hancock made the visit within the specified time. After recording in his
diary his attendance upon public worship in the morning and afternoon,
Washington added: "Between the two I received a visit from the governor,
who assured me that indisposition alone prevented him from doing it
yesterday, and that he was still indisposed; but as it had been
suggested that he expected to _receive_ the visit from the president,
which he knew was improper, he was resolved at all hazards to pay his
compliments to-day." Thus the matter ended; and the next day the
president drank tea with the governor, the latter not having been
injured by his exposure in calling upon Washington.[21]
The president remained in Boston until Thursday, the twenty-ninth,
during which time he received many calls and addresses, and visited the
manufacturing establishments in the city, and the French ships-of-war in
the harbor. On the twenty-seventh he had a busy day. In his diary he
recorded: "At ten o'clock in the morning received the visits of the
clergy of the town. At eleven, went to an oratorio; and between that and
three o'clock received the addresses of the governor and council of the
town of Boston[22]--of the president, et cetera, of Harvard college, and
of the Cincinnati of the state; after which, at three o'clock, I dined
at a large and elegant dinner at Faneuil hall, given by the governor and
council, and spent the evening at my lodgings."
Of all the addresses, none were so grateful to him as that from his old
companions-in-arms, the members of the Cincinnati. "After the solemn and
endearing farewell on the banks of the Hudson," they said, "which our
anxiety presaged as final, most peculiarly pleasing is the present
unexpected meeting. On this occasion we can not avoid the recollection
of the various scenes of toil and danger through which you conducted us;
and while we contemplate the trying periods of the war, and the triumphs
of peace, we rejoice to behold you, induced by the unanimous voice of
your country, entering upon other trials and other services, alike
important, and in some points of view equally hazardous. For the
completion of the great purposes which a grateful country has assigned
you, long, very long may your invaluable life be preserved; and as an
admiring world, while considering you as a soldier, have wanted a
comparison, so may your virtues and talents as a statesman leave it
without a parallel."
To these remarks Washington replied: "Dear, indeed, is the occasion
which restores intercourse with my associates in prosperous and adverse
fortune; and enhanced are the triumphs of peace participated with those
whose virtue and valor so largely contributed to procure them. To that
virtue and valor your country has confessed her obligations. Be mine the
grateful task to add to the testimony of a connection which it was my
pride to own in the field, and is now my happiness to acknowledge in the
enjoyment of peace and freedom."
On board the French vessels in the harbor were about thirty officers who
had served in America during the Revolution, and several of these were
members of the society of the Cincinnati in France. Of these the
admiral, Viscount de Pondevez, the Marquis de Traversay, and the
Chevalier de Braye (the Marquis de Galhsoneire being ill on board his
ship) accompanied the Cincinnati in presenting their address. On the
following day the president was conveyed on board the flag-ship of the
French admiral, in the beautiful barge of the ship _Illustrious_, having
the flag of the United States at the bow, and that of France at the
stern. It was steered by a major and rowed by midshipmen, and the
president was received on board with the homage given to sovereigns.
"The officers," says one account, "took off their shoes, and the crew
all appeared with their legs bared." "Going and coming," says Washington
in his diary, "I was saluted by the two frigates which lay near the
wharves, and by the seventy-fours after I had been on board of them. I
was also saluted, going and coming, by the fort on Castle island."
Washington continued his tour eastward as far as Portsmouth, in New
Hampshire, passing through Salem and Newburyport on the way. He was
attended nearly the whole distance by military escorts. He left Boston
on the morning of the twenty-ninth. Eight o'clock was the hour appointed
for departure. The escort that was to accompany him was not ready, and
the punctual president, ever deprecating delays, and fearing some other
question of etiquette was to be settled, left the laggards to overtake
him on the road. He enjoyed the hospitalities of the executive of New
Hampshire (General Sullivan) and the citizens of Portsmouth, for several
days. There he gave Mr. Gulligher, a Boston painter, one sitting for his
portrait, at the request of several of the inhabitants of that city, and
also partook of a public dinner and attended a ball given in his
honor.[23]
From Portsmouth Washington journeyed toward New York by an interior
route, passing through Exeter, Haverhill, Andover, Lexington, Watertown,
Uxbridge, Pomfret (where General Putnam lived), and arrived at Hartford
on Monday, the ninth of November. He reached New York in the afternoon
of the thirteenth, his health much benefitted by the journey, and his
store of knowledge of the people and the country greatly increased. He
had been everywhere received as a father, and he left behind him many
pleasant memories, which the participants cherished as long as life
lasted.[24]
The excess of adulation to which the president had been exposed during
his tour in New England was deprecated by the more thoughtful, but none
found fault with the matter seriously. Trumbull, the author of McFingal,
said good-naturedly in a letter to his friend Oliver Wolcott: "We have
gone through all the popish grades of worship, and the president returns
all fragrant with the odor of incense."
It will be observed that in this tour the president avoided Rhode Island
altogether. The reason was that that state, and North Carolina, had not
yet ratified the federal constitution, and were so far regarded as
foreign states that tonnage duties were imposed upon the vessels of each
coming into any port of the other eleven states. But this unpleasant
position of the two commonwealths was soon changed. On the very day when
Washington reached New York from his eastern tour, a convention of North
Carolina voted to ratify the constitution; and on the twenty-ninth of
May following, Rhode Island was admitted into the Union.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Washington took cold on that occasion. In his diary, the following
Monday, he recorded: "The day being rainy and stormy, myself much
disordered by a cold and inflammation in my left eye, I was prevented
from visiting Lexington," etc. Sullivan, in his Familiar Letters, tells
us that, for several days afterward, a severe influenza prevailed at
Boston and in its vicinity, and was called the _Washington influenza_.
It may not be inappropriate to mention that a similar epidemic prevailed
all over New England and a part of New York, after the visit of
President Tyler to Boston, in 1843, which was called the _Tyler grippe_.
[20] Washington wrote in his diary, under date of Saturday, October
twenty-fourth: "Suffice it to say, that at the entrance of the town I
was welcomed by the selectmen in a body. Then following the
lieutenant-governor and council in the order we came from Cambridge
(preceded by the town corps, very handsomely dressed), we passed through
the citizens classed in their different professions and under their own
banners, till we came to the statehouse, from which, across the street,
an arch was thrown, in the front of which was this inscription, 'To the
man who unites all hearts;' and on the other, 'To Columbia's favorite
Son.' On one side thereof, next the statehouse, in a panel decorated
with a trophy, composed of the arms of the United States, of the
commonwealth of Massachusetts, and our French allies, crowned with a
wreath of laurel, was this inscription--'Boston relieved, March 17,
1776.' This arch was handsomely ornamented, and over the centre of it a
canopy was erected twenty feet high, with the American eagle perched on
the top. After passing through the arch, and entering the statehouse at
the south end and ascending to the upper floor, and returning to the
balcony at the north end, three cheers were given by a vast concourse of
people who by this time had assembled at the arch. Then followed an ode,
composed in honor of the president, and well sung by a band of select
singers. After this three cheers, followed by the different professions
and mechanics, in the order they were drawn up with their colors,
through a lane of the people which had thronged about the arch, under
which they passed. The streets, the doors, the windows, and tops of the
houses, were crowded with well-dressed ladies and gentlemen."
[21] The venerable Samuel Breck, of Philadelphia, now [1859] in the
eighty-ninth year of his age, communicated to me in a letter dated May
twenty-fifth, 1859, the following interesting reminiscences of
Washington's visit to Boston on the occasion under consideration. After
giving me a most interesting account of matters connected with the
French vessels there, Mr. Breck says:--
"At the time when Admiral de Pondevez was lying with his fleet in
the harbor of Boston, General Washington, the first president of
the United States, who was making a tour East during the recess of
Congress, arrived there. He was received with open arms and hearty
cheers by the people. In his honor a triumphal arch was raised,
with appropriate mottoes, near the old statehouse. Under this he
passed in great state. I stood at a window close by, and saw him
enter the balcony of that building and show himself to the
thousands who came from far and near to greet him. I saw all that
passed, heard the fine anthems that were composed for the occasion,
and gazed with admiring eyes upon his majestic figure.
"The procession that had accompanied him from the entrance of the
town took up its line of march again, after these ceremonies, and
accompanied him to the house selected for his residence, which
stood at the corner of Tremont and Court streets. It was a handsome
brick building. A beautiful company of light-infantry served as a
guard of honor, commanded by the well-known and greatly
distinguished Harrison Gray Otis.
"Governor Hancock had prepared a great dinner at his house, to
which he invited the French admiral, the officers of the fleet, and
many of the principal citizens. A notion had got into Hancock's
head, that the governor of a state was a kind of king or sovereign
in his own territory, and that it would be derogatory to his
station to pay the first visit to any one, even the president of
the United States; and, acting always upon this rule, he sent an
invitation to General Washington to dine with him, but excused
himself from calling on him, alleging that sickness detained him at
home; thus covering by a lame apology the resolution which he dared
not openly exercise toward the president. Washington, who had
received some hint of this absurd point of etiquette which sought
to exalt the head of a part above the head of the whole, sent his
aid-de-camp, Major William Jackson, with a message to his
excellency, declining the invitation to dinner, and intimating that
if his health permitted him to receive company, it would admit of
his visiting him.
"My father dined at the governor's, and about sunset brought
Admiral de Pondevez and several of his officers, who spent the
evening with us. The dinner-party went off heavily, owing to the
general disappointment in not meeting the president. Meantime the
French ships-of-war in the harbor were dressed in variegated lamps,
and bonfires blazed in the streets. The ladies wore bandeaux,
cestuses, and ribands, stamped and embroidered with the name of
Washington; some in gold and silver letters, and some in pearls.
"About ten o'clock I accompanied the admiral to the wharf of
embarkation for his ship. As we passed the house where the
president lodged, De Pondevez and his party expressed great
surprise at the absence of all sort of parade or noise. 'What!'
said he, 'not even a sentinel? In Europe,' he added, 'a
brigadier-general would have a guard; and here this great man, the
chief of a nation, does not permit it!'
"The next day was Sunday, and immediately after morning service,
Mr. Joseph Russell, an intimate friend of the governor, called at
our house, and told my father that his excellency had swallowed the
bitter pill, and was then on his way to visit the president--to
which step he had been urged by a report that the people generally
condemned his false pride."
[22] The address from the town was accompanied by a request, in behalf
of the ladies of Boston, that he would sit for his portrait, to be
placed in Faneuil hall, that others might be copied from it for their
respective families. On account of a want of time he was compelled to
decline, but promised to have it painted for them after his return to
New York.
[23] "At half-after seven," he says in his diary, "I went to the
assembly, where there were about seventy-five well-dressed, and many of
them very handsome ladies, among whom (as was also the case at the Salem
and Boston assemblies) were a greater proportion with much blacker hair
than are usually seen in the southern states."
[24] Between Uxbridge and Pomfret, the president lodged at an inn kept
by Mr. Taft, where he was so much pleased with the family, that on his
arrival at Hartford he wrote the following letter to Mr. Taft:--
"HARTFORD, _8th November, 1789._
"SIR: Being informed that you have given my name to one of your
sons, and called another after Mrs. Washington's family, and being
moreover very much pleased with the modest and innocent looks of
your two daughters, Patty and Polly, I do for these reasons send
each of these girls a piece of chintz; and to Patty, who bears the
name of Mrs. Washington, and who waited more upon us than Polly
did, I send five guineas, with which she may buy herself any little
ornament she may want, or she may dispose of them in any other
manner more agreeable to herself. As I do not give these things
with a view to have it talked of, or even to its being known, the
less there is said about the matter the better you will please me.
But, that I may be sure the chintz and money have got safe to hand,
let Patty, who I dare say is equal to it, write me a line,
informing me thereof, directed to 'The President of the United
States at New York.' I wish you and your family well, and am your
humble servant,
"GEO. WASHINGTON."