electric battery. I was penetrated with a veneration amounting to the deepest awe. Nor was this the feeling of a schoolboy only; it pervaded, I believe, every human being that approached Washington; and I have been told that, even in his social and convivial hours, this feeling in those who were honored to share them never suffered intermission. I saw him a hundred times afterward, but never with any other than that same feeling. The Almighty, who raised up for our hour of need a man so peculiarly prepared for its whole dread responsibility, seems to have put an impress of sacredness upon His own instrument. The first sight of the man struck the heart with involuntary homage, and prepared every thing around him to obey. When he 'addressed himself to speak,' there was an unconscious suspension of the breath, while every eye was raised in expectation.

"The President, having seated himself, remained in silence, serenely contemplating the legislature before him, whose members now resumed their seats, waiting for the speech. No house of worship, in the most solemn pauses of devotion, was ever more profoundly still than that large and crowded chamber.

"Washington was dressed precisely as Stuart has painted him in Lord Lansdowne's full-length portrait-in a full suit of the richest black velvet, with diamond knee-buckles, and square silver buckles set upon shoes japanned with the most scrupulous neatness, black silk stockings, his shirt ruffled at the breast and wrists, a light dress-sword, his hair profusely powdered, fully dressed, so as to project at the sides, and gathered behind in a silk bag, ornamented with a large rose of black riband. He held his cocked hat, which had a large

black cockade on one side of it, in his hand, as he advanced toward the chair, and, when seated, laid it on the table.

"At length, thrusting his hand within the side of his coat, he drew forth a roll of manuscript, which he opened, and rising, held it in his hand, while in a rich, deep, full, sonorous voice, he read his opening address to Congress. His enunciation was deliberate, justly emphasized, very distinct, and accompanied with an air of deep solemnity, as being the utterance of a mind profoundly impressed with the dignity of the act in which it was occupied, conscious of the whole responsibility of its position and action, but not oppressed by it." Washington made a hurried visit to Mount Vernon in April, on account of the death of his nephew, already mentioned, some matter connected with that young man's affairs requiring his personal attention. He was again called to Mount Vernon at the close of June, on account of the sudden death of Mr. Whiting, his manager, who had taken the place of Robert Lewis. "It was a critical season," says Washington, in a letter to General Henry Lee, "for the business with which he was interested. How to supply his place I know not; of course my concerns at Mount Vernon are left as a body without a head."

Notwithstanding Congress was not in session, the pressure of public business was such that Washington remained at the seat of government all through the summer, and it was not until the yellow fever, which broke out in Philadelphia in August, had raged for two or three wecks, and the officers of government had fled, that he left his post and retired to Mount Vernon. He left Philadelphia on the 10th of September. He would have remained longer, but Mrs. Washington, alarmed

for the safety of the whole family, the house in which they lived being in a manner blockaded by the disorder, prevailed on him to leave.

The fever raged with great violence until late in October, when frosts checked its progress, and in November the inhabitants who had fled from the pestilence generally returned to the city. On the 2d day of December Congress was convened there.

The progress of the disease at Philadelphia was watched by Washington, at Mount Vernon, with great solicitude, especially when September had passed away, and much of October had gone by, before it abated. It was near the time set for the assembling of a new Congress, and the public welfare demanded legislative action, upon important points, as early as possible. He therefore proposed to call the Congress together at Germantown, or some other place near Philadelphia, but at a safe distance from the pestilence; and yet he doubted his power to do so. This topic employed his pen as well as his thoughts, and of many letters from Mount Vernon it was the burden.

His agricultural affairs occupied much of his time while at home. He appears to have found a manager not much to his liking, for he needed instruction. At the middle of October we find him writing to his friend, General Henry Lee, concerning a threshing-machine that that gentleman had recommended. He seemed anxious to use all really useful improvements, but the difficulty in making his overseers understand them was a bar.

"The model [of a threshing machine] brought over by the English farmers," he said, "may also be a good one, but the

utility of it among careless negroes and ignorant overseers will depend absolutely upon the simplicity of the construction; for if there is any thing complex in the machinery, it will be no longer in use than a mushroom is in existence. I have seen so much of the beginning and ending of new inventions, that I have almost resolved to go on in the old way of treading until I get settled again at home, and can attend, myself, to the management of one. As a proof in point of the almost impossibility of putting the overseers of this country out of the track they have been accustomed to walk in, I have one of the most convenient barns in this or perhaps any other country, where thirty hands may with great ease be employed in threshing. Half of the wheat of the farm was actually stowed in this barn in the straw by my order, for threshing; notwithstanding, when I came home about the middle of September, I found a treading-yard not thirty feet from the barn-door, the wheat again brought out of the barn, and horses treading it out in an open exposure, liable to the vicissitudes of weather.”

Washington and his family set out for the seat of government toward the close of October. Mr. Dandridge, a relation of his wife, who had been appointed the President's private secretary, accompanied them. Philadelphia presented a most gloomy aspect. Between three and four thousand of the inhabitants had fallen before the scythe of the pestilence, and there was mourning in almost every family. There was very little gayety in the capital during the session of Congress that followed. There was also a general expectation that the scourge would reappear the ensuing summer of 1794; and when, at the middle of June, Washington made a flying visit to Mount Vernon, he removed his family to a pleasant resi

dence at Germantown, about six miles from the city. To that place he returned at the close of July, and he seems not to have visited Mount Vernon again until April the following year, when he was there for only a short time, to give his personal attention to home duties that required them. He again visited his home early in July, 1795, but, as his correspondence on the way and at Mount Vernon shows, he carried a vast weight of public business upon his mind; for, besides the routine of official duties, he was greatly burdened with anxiety respecting a treaty lately made with England, by John Jay, which he approved, and which for a time was so unpopular as to cause great excitement throughout the country.

Washington left Mount Vernon again toward the middle of August for the seat of government, and returned early in September. He remained until the 12th of October, when he set out for Philadelphia, stopping at Georgetown for a day to attend to business with the commissioners of the federal city.

It was not until June, 1796, that the master of Mount Vernon was again under his own roof. His family accompanied him; and there, at the beginning of July, they received as a guest, Don Carlos Martinez, Marquis d'Yrujo, the newlyarrived Spanish ambassador. On the 4th of July Washington wrote to Timothy Pickering, the secretary of state, saying:

"The Spanish Minister, M. d'Yrujo, spent two days with me, and is just gone. I caused it to be intimated to him that, as I should be absent from the seat of the government until the middle or latter end of August, I was ready to receive his letter of credence at this place. He answered, as I understood it, that his credentials were with his baggage on its passage to