ADJOURNMENT OF CONGRESS--WASHINGTON'S OPINION OF THEIR CONDUCT--HIS
PUBLIC LABORS--TOUR ON LONG ISLAND--SEVERE ILLNESS OF THE
PRESIDENT--VOYAGE TO RHODE ISLAND--IN RETIREMENT AT MOUNT
VERNON--LAFAYETTE'S POSITION--KEY OF THE BASTILE PRESENTED TO
WASHINGTON--WASHINGTON'S HOPES FOR THE FUTURE OF THE UNITED
STATES--HIS NEUTRAL POLICY FORESHADOWED--INDIAN WAR IN THE WEST.
Congress adjourned on the twelfth of August, after a session of about
seven months, during which time questions of great importance had been
met, discussed, and settled; not always, it must be confessed, in a
conciliatory spirit. In a partial defense of the national legislature,
in a letter to Doctor Stuart, Washington remarked: "I do not mean,
however, from what I have here said, to justify the conduct of Congress
in all these movements; for some of their movements, in my opinion, have
been injudicious, and others unseasonable; whilst the questions of
assumption, residence, and other matters, have been agitated with a
warmth and intemperance, with prolixity and threats, which, it is to be
feared, have lessened the dignity of that body, and decreased that
respect which was once entertained for it. And this misfortune is
increased by many members, even among those who wish well to the
government, ascribing in letters to their respective states, when they
are defeated in a favorite measure, the worst motives for the conduct of
their opponents, who, viewing matters through another medium, may and do
retort in their turn; by which means jealousies and distrusts are spread
most impolitically far and wide, and will, it is to be feared, have a
most unhappy tendency to injure our public affairs, which, if wisely
managed, might make us, as we are now by Europeans thought to be, the
happiest people upon earth."
The session just closed had been a season of great labor for the
president. The cares of state had been many and important, and the
affairs of France had occupied much of his attention. Some days his
application to public business was so continuous, from early morning
until evening, that he omitted his usual exercise in the open air. He
managed, however, to make a tour of four days, in his carriage, upon
Long Island. He travelled eastward as far as Huntington, making (as
appears by his diary) careful observations of the country and its
resources. He proceeded from Brooklyn, through Flatbush and New Utrecht,
to Gravesend, on the extreme western point of the island, and then
eastward to Jamaica by the middle road. From Jamaica he journeyed to
South Hempstead, and then to Hart's tavern in Brookhaven, from which
place he struck across toward the north shore of the island by Coram to
Setauket. On the third day of his journey (April the twenty-third) he
went through Smithstown to Huntington, where he dined; and then turning
westward, he drove to Oyster bay and lodged. Early the following morning
he passed through Mosquito cove, and breakfasted at Hendrick
Onderdonk's, at the head of a bay, the site of the present village of
Roslyn, or Hempstead harbor. He dined at Flushing, reached Brooklyn
ferry before sunset, and home at twilight.
Incessant application to business made severe inroads upon the health of
the president, and on the tenth of May he was seized with a severe
illness, which reduced him to the verge of dissolution. He was confined
to his chamber for several weeks, and it was not until the twenty-fourth
of June that he was able to resume his diary. His chief difficulty was
inflammation of the lungs, and he suffered from general debility until
the close of the session of Congress in August. Then, accompanied by
Jefferson, he made a voyage to Newport, Rhode Island, especially for the
benefit of his health, and incidentally to have personal intercourse
with the leading inhabitants there, he having, as we have observed,
avoided the soil of Rhode Island when on his eastern tour, that state
not then being a member of the Union. It had recently entered by
adopting the federal constitution.
The sea-voyage was beneficial to the health of the president; and soon
after his return, at the close of August, he set out with his family for
Mount Vernon, there to seek repose from the turmoil of public life, and
the sweet recreation which he always experienced in the midst of
agricultural employments in that happy retreat. He carried with him to
Mount Vernon a curious present which he received from his friend
Lafayette, just before the adjournment of Congress. It was the ponderous
iron key of the Bastile--that old fortress of despotism in Paris which
the populace of that city captured the year before, and which had been
levelled to the ground by order of the marquis, who was still at the
head of the revolution in France.
Washington had watched the course of his friend with great anxiety; for
he loved the marquis as a brother. The career upon which he had entered
was a most difficult and perilous one. "Never has any man been placed in
a more critical situation," the Marquis de Luzerne wrote to Washington.
"A good citizen, a faithful subject, he is embarrassed by a thousand
difficulties in making many people sensible of what is proper, who very
often feel it not, and who sometimes do not understand what it is."
"He acts now a splendid but dangerous part," wrote Gouverneur Morris.
Lafayette himself felt the perils of his position. "How often, my
well-beloved general," he wrote to Washington early in the year, "have I
regretted your sage counsels and friendly support. We have advanced in
the career of the revolution without the vessel of state being wrecked
against the rocks of aristocracy or faction.... At present, that which
existed has been destroyed; a new political edifice is forming; without
being perfect, it is sufficient to assure liberty. Thus prepared, the
nation will be in a state to elect in two years a convention which can
correct the faults of the constitution." Alas! those two years had
scarcely passed away before the hopeful champion of freedom was a
prisoner, far away from his home, in an Austrian dungeon. But we will
not anticipate.
Two months later, Lafayette wrote a most hopeful letter to Washington.
"Our revolution," he said, "pursues its march as happily as is possible
with a nation which, receiving at once all its liberties, is yet subject
to confound them with licentiousness." He then spoke of the hinderances
to speedy success in the establishment of a sound republican government,
and said: "After having avowed all this, my dear general, I will tell
you, with the same frankness, that we have made an admirable and almost
incredible destruction of all the abuses, of all the prejudices; that
all which was not useful to the people--all which did not come from
them--has been retrenched; that, in considering the situation,
topographical, moral, and political, of France, we have effected more
changes in ten months than the most presumptive patriots could have
hoped, and that the reports about our anarchy, our internal troubles,
are greatly exaggerated."
In conclusion, the marquis said: "Permit me, my dear general, to offer
you a picture representing the Bastile, such as it was some days after I
had given orders for its demolition, with the main key of the fortress
of despotism. It is a tribute which I owe as a son to an adopted
father--as an aid-de-camp to my general--as a missionary of liberty to
its patriarch."
The picture and key were placed in the hands of Thomas Paine, then in
London, who was intending soon to visit the United States. His
destination was changed to France, and after considerable delay he
forwarded the precious mementoes, with a letter, in which he said:--
"I feel myself happy in being the person through whom the marquis
has conveyed this early trophy of the spoils of despotism, and the
first ripe fruit of American principles transplanted into Europe,
to his great master and patron. When he mentioned to me the present
he intended for you, my heart leaped with joy.... That the
principles of America opened the Bastile is not to be doubted, and
therefore the key comes to the right place."
On the receipt of these presents early in August, Washington wrote to
Lafayette, saying: "I have received your affectionate letter of the
seventeenth of March by one conveyance, and the token of the victory
gained by liberty over despotism by another; for both which testimonials
of your friendship and regard, I pray you to accept my sincerest thanks.
In this great subject of triumph for the new world and for humanity in
general, it will never be forgotten how conspicuous a part you bore, and
how much lustre you reflected on a country in which you made the first
displays of your character."
Referring in the same letter to the treaty which had been concluded with
the Creeks, he said: "This event will leave us at peace from one end of
our borders to the other, except when it may be interrupted by a small
refugee banditti of Cherokees and Shawnees, who can be easily chastised,
or even extirpated, if it shall become necessary." He then added:--
"Gradually recovering from the distress in which the war left us,
patiently advancing in our task of civil government, unentangled in the
crooked politics of Europe, wanting scarcely anything but the free
navigation of the Mississippi (which we must have, and as certainly
shall have as we remain a nation), I have supposed that, with the
undeviating exercise of a just, steady, and prudent national policy, we
shall be the gainers, whether the powers of the old world may be in
peace or war, but more especially in the latter case. In that case, our
importance will certainly increase, and our friendship will be coveted."
The last clause foreshadows that neutral policy which Washington assumed
for the government of the United States at a little later period, when
great efforts were made to involve it in the meshes of European
politics, by active sympathy with the democratic movements in France.
Rest at Mount Vernon was grateful to the wearied chief of the republic.
Yet it was not absolute repose. As a conscientious public servant; as
the chief officer of a government yet in a comparatively formative
state, and charged with the highest trusts that can be committed to
mortal man, he felt most sensibly the care of state, even in his quiet
home on the banks of the Potomac. One subject, in particular, filled him
with anxiety. He had ordered the chastisement of the Indians in the Ohio
country, and troops had gone thither for the purpose. He had deprecated
a war with the deluded savages, but good policy appeared to demand it;
and on the thirtieth of September an expedition set out from Fort
Washington, where the city of Cincinnati now stands, under General
Harmer, a veteran of the Revolution. But from that time until his
arrival in Philadelphia, at the close of November, Washington remained
in profound ignorance of the operations or the fate of the expedition.
On the second of November he wrote to General Knox, the secretary of
war, expressing his surprise that no information of the expedition had
been received, and saying: "This, in my opinion, is an undertaking of a
very serious nature. I am not a little anxious to know the result of
it.... This matter, favorable or otherwise in the issue, will require to
be laid before the Congress, that the motives which induced the
expedition may appear."
On his arrival in Philadelphia, Washington received a letter from
Governor Clinton, of New York, giving an account of Harmer's ill success
against the Indians, reported by Captain Brant, the celebrated Mohawk
warrior of the Revolution. "If this information of Captain Brant be
true," Washington wrote to Clinton in reply, "the issue of the
expedition against the Indians will indeed prove unfortunate and
disgraceful to the troops, who suffered themselves to be ambuscaded."
It was even so. The expedition, as we have already observed, failed in
its efforts, and the savages took courage for future operations. An
expensive war of four or five years' duration ensued.