Part 4 (1/2)
Was.h.i.+ngton's scheme for internal improvements occupied much of his attention, and he corresponded largely upon the subject. His plan, at first, contemplated more especially the interests of Virginia and Maryland, but it expanded in his mind so as to embrace the whole Union.
In a letter written on the fourteenth of December, to Richard Henry Lee, then recently elected president of Congress, he urged the necessity of action by that body, and suggested that the western waters should be explored, the navigation of them fully ascertained, accurately laid down, and a perfect map made of the country; that in the sale of public lands, the United States should make a reservation of all mines, minerals, and salt-springs, for special sale; and that a medium price should be adopted for the western lands, sufficient to prevent a monopoly, but not to discourage actual settlers. He wished to discountenance the land-jobbers and ”roaming speculators,” who were disquieting the Indians, and to encourage the useful citizen. He perceived the necessity of doing something to regulate the matter, for, he said, ”the spirit of emigration is great. The people have got impatient, and, though you can not stop the road, it is yet in your power to mark the way. It is easier to prevent than to remedy an evil.”
Late in December, Was.h.i.+ngton was invited to Annapolis by the Virginia a.s.sembly, to a.s.sist in arranging matters with the a.s.sembly of Maryland, respecting his scheme for uniting the Potomac and James rivers, with those of the West. He attended the conference, and chiefly through his exertions two companies were formed for the purpose, under the auspices of the respective governments, and he was appointed president of both.
They were called respectively, the _Potomac Company_, and the _James River Company_. Thus it will be seen, that during the first year after the close of the Revolution, Was.h.i.+ngton set in motion that vast scheme of internal improvements, which has had a powerful and salutary influence upon the destinies of our country.
Again Was.h.i.+ngton's consistency was put to the test. Grateful for his past services, and conscious of the advantages to the Virginia commonwealth, of the great scheme of improvement which he had now set in motion, they, by unanimous vote, offered to present to him fifty shares in the Potomac Company, valued at ten thousand dollars, and one hundred shares in the James River Company, valued at twenty-five thousand dollars. Aware of his resolution not to receive any pecuniary gift from the public, the legislature, in the preamble to the resolution, said:--
”It is the desire of the representatives of this commonwealth to embrace every suitable occasion of testifying their sense of the unexampled merits of George Was.h.i.+ngton toward his country; and it is their wish in particular, that those great works for its improvement, which, both as springing from the liberty which he has been so instrumental in establis.h.i.+ng, and as encouraged by his patronage, will be durable monuments of his glory, may be made monuments also of the grat.i.tude of his country.”
This mark of his countrymen's appreciation, was, of course, gratifying to Was.h.i.+ngton, but again, true to his convictions and his vows, he declined to receive the donation for his own benefit; but, as a matter of expediency, he offered to accept the shares, provided the legislature would allow him to appropriate them to the use of some object of a public nature. The a.s.sembly cheerfully acceded to his proposition. As the encouragement of education was a subject in which he felt deeply interested, he made over the shares of the James River Company to an inst.i.tution in Rockbridge county, called _Liberty Hall Academy_, and those of the Potomac Company he bequeathed in perpetuity for the endowment of a university in the District of Columbia, under the auspices of the general government. _Liberty Hall_ afterward became the flouris.h.i.+ng _Was.h.i.+ngton College_, but the national university has never been established.
Other examples of Was.h.i.+ngton's interest in educational inst.i.tutions, are on record. He cheerfully accepted the chancellors.h.i.+p of William and Mary college at Williamsburg; during many years he gave two hundred and fifty dollars annually for the instruction of poor children in Alexandria; and by his will he left four thousand dollars, the net income of which was to be used for the same object. ”Other examples,” says Sparks, after enumerating these and other benevolent acts of the great and good man, ”might be cited; and from his cautious habit of concealing from the world his deeds of charity, it may be presumed many others are unknown, in which his heart and his hand were open to the relief of indigent merit.”
We have observed that Was.h.i.+ngton's dreams of repose at Mount Vernon were not realized. Visitors from the old and the new world constantly increased, and among them came that champion of liberty, Catharine Macaulay Graham, whose pen had done n.o.ble service in the cause of human rights. She came with her husband, and professed to have crossed the Atlantic for the sole purpose of testifying, in person, her respect and admiration for the character and deeds of Was.h.i.+ngton. ”A visit from a lady so celebrated in the literary world,” he wrote to Knox, ”can not but be very flattering to me.”
His correspondence increased so rapidly, that it soon began to be burdensome. To Richard Henry Lee he wrote in February, 1785, when transmitting to him a ma.s.s of papers which he had received from the pious Countess of Huntington, explaining her scheme for Christianizing the American Indians: ”Many mistakingly think that I am retired to ease, and to that kind of tranquillity which would grow tiresome for want of employment; but at no period of my life, not in the eight years I served the public, have I been obliged to write so much myself, as I have done since my retirement. Was this confined to friendly communication, and to my own business, it would be equally pleasing and trifling; but I have a thousand references to old matters, with which I ought not to be troubled, but which, nevertheless, must receive some answer.”
In a letter to General Knox he amplified this topic a little, saying: ”It is not the letters from my friends which give me trouble, or add aught to my perplexity. It is reference to old matters with which I have nothing to do; applications which oftentimes can not be complied with; inquiries which would require the pen of a historian to satisfy; letters of compliment, as unmeaning, perhaps, as they are troublesome, but which must be attended to; and the common-place business, which employs my pen and my time, often disagreeably. Indeed, these, with company, deprive me of exercise, and unless I can obtain relief, must be productive of disagreeable consequences.”
For more than two years after the war, Was.h.i.+ngton kept neither clerk nor secretary. At length the labor became insupportable, and through the kind offices of General Lincoln, he procured the services of Tobias Lear, a talented young gentleman of New Hamps.h.i.+re, who had recently left Harvard college with honor. Mr. Lear took a social position at Mount Vernon, as one of the family at table and among the guests, and became greatly beloved by Was.h.i.+ngton. He remained there several years, accompanied the general to New York when he went there to take the chair of chief magistrate of the nation, and continued in his family until after the seat of government was removed to Philadelphia. He was again a resident at Mount Vernon, after the death of his wife, and was present when the master of the mansion died. Mr. Lear relieved Was.h.i.+ngton of much of the drudgery of the pen, and also took charge of the instruction of his adopted children, Master and Miss Custis.
Was.h.i.+ngton was also annoyed by the applications of artists and literary men, the former for him to give them sittings for his portrait, and the latter for materials for either his biography, or a general history of the Revolution. He positively refused compliance with the latter request, but occasionally indulged the former. At the solicitation of Francis Hopkinson, he sat to Robert Edge Pine, a diminutive Englishman and excellent artist. Pine was a warm republican, and came to America to collect portraits of distinguished persons for the purpose of painting a series of pictures ill.u.s.trative of the War for Independence.
Soon after Pine left Mount Vernon, Houdon, the eminent French portrait-sculptor was there, at the request of the legislature of Virginia, who had ordered a statue of Was.h.i.+ngton to be executed for the statehouse at Richmond. For such a purpose, and under such auspices, Was.h.i.+ngton was willing to submit to the manipulations of art, even those so unpleasant as the moulding of the face in plaster, and he wrote to Houdon, on his arrival in New York: ”It will give me pleasure, sir, to welcome you to the seat of my retirement; and whatever I have, or can procure, that is necessary to your purpose, or convenient and agreeable to your wishes, you must freely command, as inclination to oblige you will be among the last things in which I shall be found deficient, either on your arrival or during your stay.”
Houdon made a plaster-mould from Was.h.i.+ngton's face, modelled a complete head and bust in clay, made a cast from that, took the latter to France, and from it executed the statue now in the capitol at Richmond. He made careful measurements of Was.h.i.+ngton's figure, and in Paris, Gouverneur Morris stood for it.
During nearly all of the year 1785, Was.h.i.+ngton was engaged much of the time in the ornamentation of the grounds around the mansion he had greatly enlarged, and in the improvement of his farms. The relief from the pen afforded him by Mr. Lear, gave him time for pursuits of this nature, which he so much loved, and his diary abounds with brief records of his planting of trees and sowing of seeds. His Mount Vernon estate was divided into five farms, and several hundred acres of woodland. The mansion-house farm was his great care and delight, yet he managed the other four with skill and prudence. On them he had over fifty draught-horses, a dozen mules, more than three hundred head of black cattle, three hundred and sixty sheep, and a large number of swine that ran wild in the woods.
He was fond of improvements of every kind. The king of Spain hearing that he was anxious to procure the best breed of a.s.ses in Europe, for the propagation of mules on his estate, sent him a magnificent jack and two jennies. With this jack, and another sent to him by Lafayette, at about the same time, he raised some n.o.ble mules from his coach-mares. In a few years the Mount Vernon estate became stocked with a very superior breed, some of them rising to the height of sixteen hands.
From Arthur Young, an English agriculturist, Was.h.i.+ngton received many precious seeds, improved implements, and good advice in the laying out and management of farms. His early life habits were resumed--his early rising, his frugal breakfast, his ride over his estate, and his exact method in everything. He loved amus.e.m.e.nts still, but of a more quiet kind than those of his younger days. The pleasures of the chase were relinquished. His kennel was broken up, and his hounds, some of them a present from Lafayette, were given away.
Was.h.i.+ngton was a most cheerful, companionable man at home, yet always dignified. ”General Was.h.i.+ngton is, I believe,” said Mr. Lear, after two years residence in his family, ”almost the only man of an exalted character, who does not lose some part of his respectability by an intimate acquaintance. I have never found a single thing that could lessen my respect for him. A complete knowledge of his honesty, uprightness, and candor in all his private transactions, has sometimes led me to think him more than a man.”
In his family he was peculiarly kind and affectionate. Between himself and Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton the most perfect harmony existed. In all his intercourse with his wife, he was most considerate. Mrs. Lewis (Nelly Custis) said she had often seen Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton, when she had something to communicate, or a request to make, at a moment when the general's mind was entirely abstracted from the present, seize him by the b.u.t.ton to command his attention, when he would look down upon her with a most benignant smile, and, become at once attentive to her wishes, which were never slighted.
Thus, in the management of his estate, the entertainment of his guests, correspondence with his friends at home and abroad, and the contemplation of years of peaceful life that lay before him, Was.h.i.+ngton's hours glided away for a season. Meanwhile the political horizon of his country began to darken, and omens of a fearful storm appeared. The people looked to their ancient pilot for help, and at the hour when he was dreaming most sweetly of domestic quiet, they called him to take the helm, for the s.h.i.+p of state was in danger. He was soon at the post of responsibility, upon the turbulent sea of political life.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Life of Was.h.i.+ngton, page 379.
Chapter V.
JEALOUSIES OF THE STATES--WEAKNESS OF CONGRESS--VIEWS OF WAs.h.i.+NGTON AND HIS COMPATRIOTS--WAs.h.i.+NGTON'S LETTER TO JAMES WARREN ON THE CONFEDERATION--CONFERENCE AT MOUNT VERNON--WAs.h.i.+NGTON SUGGESTS A NATIONAL COMMERCIAL CONVENTION--HAMILTON'S VIEWS OF THE CONFEDERATION--THE CONTINENTALIST--HAMILTON RECOMMENDS A GENERAL CONVENTION OF STATES TO AMEND THE CONFEDERATION--SECONDED BY THE NEW YORK LEGISLATURE--LETTER OF JAY TO WAs.h.i.+NGTON--WAs.h.i.+NGTON'S REPLY--AN IMPENDING CRISIS--WAs.h.i.+NGTON'S SECOND LETTER TO JAY--WAs.h.i.+NGTON'S INFLUENCE IN HIS RETIREMENT--CONVENTION AT ANNAPOLIS A FAILURE--ANOTHER RECOMMENDED--WAs.h.i.+NGTON APPOINTED A DELEGATE FROM VIRGINIA--HE HESITATES--CONGRESS RECOMMENDS A CONVENTION--WAs.h.i.+NGTON ACCEPTS THE APPOINTMENT AND PROCEEDS TO PHILADELPHIA.
We have had occasion, from time to time, to notice the jealousies of individual states toward the continental Congress during the war, and the consequent weakness of that body, as an executive of the will of the people, at times when strength and energetic action were most needed.
It was with great difficulty that the states were brought to agree to the _Articles of Confederation_, and nothing but the pressure of a common danger, which required unity of action, could have induced them to surrender even so much of their individual sovereignty as those articles required. When, therefore, the common danger had pa.s.sed, and the people felt security in the pursuits of peace, sectional and provincial pride began to operate powerfully in dissolving the union of the states. The Congress, doubtful of their power, and but little relied upon by the great ma.s.s of the people as an instrument for the promotion of national prosperity, were incompetent to execute treaties, to regulate commerce, or to provide for the payment of debts contracted for the confederation, amounting in the aggregate, foreign and domestic, to a little more than forty millions of dollars. And that body itself was often distracted by party dissentions, and rendered powerless to exercise even its acknowledged authority, through disagreement.