"My journey to Savannah," he said, "unless retarded by unforeseen interruptions, will be regulated, including days of halt, in the following manner: I shall be, on the 8th of April at Fredericksburg, the 11th at Richmond, the 14th at Petersburg, the 16th at Halifax, the 18th at Tarborough, the 20th at Newbern, the 25th at Wilmington, the 29th at Georgetown, South Carolina; on the 2d of May at Charleston, halting there five days; on the 11th at Savannah, halting there two days. Thence leaving the line of mail, I shall proceed to Augusta; and according to the information which I may receive there, my return by an upper road will be regulated.”

It is a singular fact that Washington was at these various places on the very days contemplated. He wrote to Jefferson from Richmond on the 13th of April, to Hamilton from Charleston on the 7th of May, and to Mr. Seagrove, collector of the port of St. Mary, Georgia, from Savannah on the 20th. He was everywhere received with demonstrations of the highest respect and veneration. At Wilmington he was met by a military and civic escort, entertained at a public dinner, and in the evening attended a ball given in his honor. At Newbern he received like homage; and when, on Monday, the 2d day of May, he arrived at Haddrell's Point, a short distance from Charleston, beyond the mouth of the Cooper River, a twelveoared barge, manned by thirteen captains of American ships, was in readiness to receive him, and convey him to the city. The barge contained a band of vocal and instrumental performers, and was followed by a flotilla of richly decked boats, of every kind, filled with gentlemen and ladies. At the wharf he was received by Governor Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and conducted to his lodgings by a military and civic escort.

On Monday, the 9th of May, he left Charleston for Savannah; and on his way from that city a week afterward, he stopped and dined with the widow of General Greene. He reached Augusta on the 18th, and on Saturday, the 21st, he started for home, travelling by way of Columbia, Camden, Charlotte, Salisbury, Salem, Guilford, Hillsborough, Harrisburg, Williamsburg, and Fredericksburg, to Mount Vernon. He arrived home on the 12th of June, having made a most satisfactory journey of more than seventeen hundred miles, in sixty-six days, with the same team of horses. "My return to this place is sooner than I expected," he wrote to Hamilton, "owing to the uninterruptedness of my journey by sickness, from bad weather, or accidents of any kind whatsoever," for which he had allowed eight days.

Washington remained at Mount Vernon between three and four weeks. Meanwhile, he met commissioners at Georgetown, who had been appointed to lay out the national city, Washington having selected as the site the point of land on the eastern side of the Potomac, between that river and the Anacostia, or eastern branch, which flows eastward of the capitol. It is related as an historical fact, that in the year 1663, almost two hundred years ago, the proprietor of that land, named Pope, marked out a city upon it, called it Rome, named the elevation on which the capitol now stands (and where the Indian tribes held their councils) the Capitoline Hill, and the east branch of the Potomac the Tiber!

Major L'Enfant, a Frenchman, who had served as engineer in the continental army, was employed to furnish a plan and make a survey of the national city, and he spent a week at Mount Vernon, after Washington's return from his southern

tour, in consultation with the President. His plans were laid before Congress at the next session, and were approved. The national city was laid out on a magnificent scale, on a plot containing eight square miles. The states of Virginia and Maryland had already ceded to the United States a territory ten miles square, for the purpose of erecting the national city within it, and this was named the District of Columbia.

L'Enfant and the commissioners disagreed, and he was succeeded by Andrew Ellicott, in 1792. On the 2d of April that year, President Washington approved of a plan for the capitol, submitted by Dr. Thornton, and in September, 1793, he laid the corner-stone of the north wing, with Masonic honors. The commissioners, without the President's knowledge or consent, named the national metropolis the City of Washington, which honored name it bears.

Washington was again at the presidential mansion, in Philadelphia, on the 6th of July, where he remained until September, when he returned to Mount Vernon, to spend a few weeks previous to the assembling of the new Congress. During that recess from official labors he was part of the time employed in the instruction of a new agent, Robert Lewis, in the management of his estate, his nephew, George A. Washington, having been compelled to leave for the mountains on account of ill health. At the same time he carried on quite an extensive correspondence with officers of the government and private citizens. Every post brought him numerous letters. An Indian war, in the North-western territory, was in progress; the French Revolution was assuming an alarming shape, for the obligations of an ally still appeared to rest upon the United States, especially so long as Louis remained king; and

domestic affairs, pertaining to finance and commerce, were largely occupying the public mind. These topics engaged Washington's pen very frequently during his weeks of rest at Mount Vernon.

The first session of the second Congress opened on the 24th of October, and on the 25th Washington delivered his annual message in person, in the Congress Hall, corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets. About two months later he was waited upon by Archibald Robertson, a Scotch artist of considerable merit, who had been induced to come to the United States to practice his profession, by Doctor Kemp, of Columbia College, New York.

Robertson came charged with an interesting commission from the Earl of Buchan. He arrived in New York in October, and in December went to Philadelphia to fulfil his special engagement. He had been charged by the Earl to deliver to Washington a box made of the celebrated oak-tree that sheltered Sir William Wallace after the battle at Falkirk. Accompanying the box was a letter from the Earl, dated at Dryburgh Abbey, Jan. 28, 1791, in which, after speaking of the box, and his having entrusted it to the "care of Mr. Robertson, of Aberdeen, a painter," he said:

"This box was presented to me by the goldsmiths' company at Edinburgh, of whom―feeling my own unworthiness to receive this magnificent and significant present—I requested, and obtained leave to make it over to the man in the world to whom I thought it most justly due; into your hands I commit it, requesting you to pass it, in the event of your decease, to the man in your own country, who shall appear to your judg ment to merit it best, upon the same considerations that have induced me to send it to your Excellency"

He added

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"I beg your Excellency will have the goodness to send me your portrait, that I may place it among those I most honor, and I would wish it from the pencil of Mr. Robertson."

Robertson presented the box to the President on Friday, the 13th of December. He was much embarrassed, he said, on being introduced to "the American hero," but was soon relieved by Washington, who entered into familiar conversa- ‹ tion with him, and introduced him to Mrs. Washington. The President also made the painter happy, by consenting to sit for his portrait, in compliance with the wishes of the Earl of Buchan. He also invited Robertson to dine with him; and the painter felt quite at ease before he left the august presence. Of that dinner (a family one) Robertson thus writes:

"It was ready at three o'clock-plain, but suitable for a family in genteel circumstances. There was nothing specially remarkable at the table, but that the general and Mrs. Washington sat side by side, he on the right of his lady; the gentlemen on his right hand, and the ladies on his left. It being on Saturday, the first course was mostly of eastern cod and fresh fish. A few glasses of wine were drank during the dinner, with other beverages. The whole closed with a few glasses of sparkling champagne, in about three-quarters of an hour, when the general and Colonel Lear retired, leaving the ladies in high glee about Lord Buchan and the Wallace box."

After dinner, the President sat to Mr. Robertson, for a miniature portrait, and from it, when finished, the artist painted a larger picture, in oil, for Lord Buchan, "of a size," he said, "corresponding to the collection of portraits of the most celebrated worthies of liberal principles and of useful literature,