Part 10 (1/2)
Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Hanc.o.c.k 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. Was.h.i.+ngton accepted the invitation, and on Sat.u.r.day, the twenty-fourth of October, he pa.s.sed through Cambridge, and approached Boston toward meridian.
Preparations had been made for the reception of the president by Governor Hanc.o.c.k and the munic.i.p.al 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 munic.i.p.al authorities to receive him.”
The controversy was unsettled when the president and _suite_, under a military escort commanded by General Brooks, pa.s.sed through Roxbury and were ready to enter Boston. Was.h.i.+ngton and Major Jackson had left the carriage, and had mounted horses prepared for them; and as the whole procession pa.s.sed over the Neck it was stopped, without apparent cause, for a long time. The contending parties, executive and munic.i.p.al, 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] Was.h.i.+ngton 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 munic.i.p.al 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 Was.h.i.+ngton to pa.s.s under, and the streets, doors, and windows were filled with well-dressed people of both s.e.xes. The president rode with his hat off, and with a calm, dignified air, without bowing to the people as he pa.s.sed; 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.
Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Hanc.o.c.k, which Was.h.i.+ngton, in the most dignified way, completely humbled. Hanc.o.c.k'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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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.
Hanc.o.c.k soon perceived that he had made a great mistake, and sent three gentlemen that evening to express to Was.h.i.+ngton 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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, Hanc.o.c.k determined to waive the point of etiquette; and at noon he sent a message to Was.h.i.+ngton that he would do himself the honor of visiting him within half an hour, notwithstanding it was at the hazard of his health.
Was.h.i.+ngton 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.”
Hanc.o.c.k made the visit within the specified time. After recording in his diary his attendance upon public wors.h.i.+p in the morning and afternoon, Was.h.i.+ngton added: ”Between the two I received a visit from the governor, who a.s.sured 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 Was.h.i.+ngton.[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 s.h.i.+ps-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 a.s.signed 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 Was.h.i.+ngton replied: ”Dear, indeed, is the occasion which restores intercourse with my a.s.sociates in prosperous and adverse fortune; and enhanced are the triumphs of peace partic.i.p.ated 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 s.h.i.+p) accompanied the Cincinnati in presenting their address. On the following day the president was conveyed on board the flag-s.h.i.+p of the French admiral, in the beautiful barge of the s.h.i.+p _Ill.u.s.trious_, 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 mids.h.i.+pmen, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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.”
Was.h.i.+ngton continued his tour eastward as far as Portsmouth, in New Hamps.h.i.+re, pa.s.sing 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 Hamps.h.i.+re (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 Was.h.i.+ngton journeyed toward New York by an interior route, pa.s.sing 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 partic.i.p.ants 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 wors.h.i.+p, 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 const.i.tution, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton reached New York from his eastern tour, a convention of North Carolina voted to ratify the const.i.tution; and on the twenty-ninth of May following, Rhode Island was admitted into the Union.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Was.h.i.+ngton 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 _Was.h.i.+ngton 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] Was.h.i.+ngton wrote in his diary, under date of Sat.u.r.day, 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 pa.s.sed through the citizens cla.s.sed 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sembled 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 pa.s.sed. 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 Was.h.i.+ngton'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:--