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Washington took a careful survey of all his affairs, on retiring from the public service, and perceived that much was to be done to retrieve losses, and to make his estate an agreeable home, and suitable to his position in life. The mansion, two stories in height, with only four rooms on a floor, was too small to accommodate the visitors who he well knew, might be expected at Mount Vernon, and he had already determined to commence its enlargement with the opening of the spring, as well as the adornment of the grounds around it, and the improvement of his farms. To do this required a large outlay of time and money; and, notwithstanding Washington had an ample fortune for a private gentleman of moderate tastes, he perceived the necessity of practising economy. His private affairs had become somewhat deranged, and his fortune diminished during the war; and he knew that the current expenses of his household must thereafter be materially increased.

At this juncture, when economy appeared so necessary, his consistency as a servant of the public without pecuniary reward, was tested. The temptation came in the specious form of a proposed testimonial of public gratitude for his services, and was so delicately presented to his mind, as almost to leave a doubt of its real purpose. It originated with the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania, who, a few days before Washington resigned his commission at Annapolis, remarked as follows in their instructions to the delegates in Congress from that state:—

President Mifflin forwarded a copy of these instructions to Washington, because it was thought advisable not to lay them before Congress without his knowledge and approbation. True to the consistency of his character, Washington promptly declined the intended favor. “I can not but feel,” he said, in reply to Mifflin, “the greatest obligations to the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania. But as my sentiments on the subject of their instructions have been long and well known to the public, I need not repeat them to your excellency on the present occasion.” All proceedings on the subject were accordingly stopped.

1784

With the opening of the spring of 1784, numerous visitors began to make their way to Mount Vernon. Many of them were officers, and some of them poor soldiers of the war just closed, who went to pay the homage of their affections to the general under whom they had so long served with delight. Others were persons of distinction, from the various states and from abroad; and others went there out of mere curiosity, to see the great man of the nation in his retirement. Every one received the attentions of a generous hospitality from the master; and in these offices he was nobly seconded by Mrs. Washington, whose cheerful good sense and excellent management, made her home a delightful spot for all who entered it.

Of all the visitors who came to Mount Vernon during that first year of Washington's retirement, none was more cordially welcomed than Lafayette, who landed in New York early in August, and reached Mount Vernon on the seventeenth of the same month. He remained there twelve days, during which time the mansion was crowded with guests who came to meet the great friend of America; and when he departed for Baltimore, quite a large cavalcade of gentlemen accompanied him far on his way.

In September, Washington made quite an extensive tour westward, over the Alleghany mountains, to visit his lands on the Ohio and Great Kanawha rivers. He was accompanied by Doctor Craik, his old companion-in-arms in the French and Indian war, and who had accompanied him to the same region in 1770. They travelled in true soldier style—tent, pack-horses, and a few supplies, relying for their food chiefly upon their guns and fishing-tackle.

Owing to accounts of discontents and irritation among the Indian tribes, Washington did not think it prudent to descend the Ohio, and they proceeded no farther West than the Monongahela, which river they ascended, and then went southward through the wilderness, until they reached the Shenandoah valley, near Staunton. They returned to Mount Vernon on the fourth of October, having travelled on horseback, in the course of forty-four days, six hundred and eighty miles.

It was during their first tour, according to the late Mr. Custis, that Washington was visited by a venerable Indian sachem, who regarded him with the utmost reverence, as a God-protected hero. He would neither eat, drink, nor smoke with Washington; and finally, when a fire was kindled, he arose and addressed him through Nicholson, an interpreter, in the following terms:—

This prophetic speech made a deep impression upon the companions of Washington; and always afterward, on the field of battle, Doctor Craik remembered it, and was fully persuaded that his friend would come out of the storm of conflict unharmed. And so he did. It is a singular fact, that Washington never received the slightest wound in battle.

Washington took an active interest in all that concerned the development of the internal resources of the country; and one of the objects of his tour westward in 1784, was the observation of the courses, and the character of the streams flowing into the Ohio; the distance of their navigable parts to those of the rivers east of the mountains, and the distance of the portage between them. He had conceived the idea that a communication, by canals, might be formed between the Potomac and James rivers, and the waters of the Ohio, and thence to the great chain of northern lakes. This idea had assumed the tangible shape of a well-matured scheme of internal improvement, and he had attempted to form a company for the purpose, when the kindling of the War for Independence put a stop to every enterprise of that kind.

Washington now desired to awaken new interest in the matter, and in a long and able letter to Benjamin Harrison, then governor of Virginia, written in October, 1784, he set forth the advantages to be expected by such a system of inland navigation. This letter was “one of the ablest, most sagacious, and most important productions of his pen,” says Mr. Sparks, “presenting first a clear statement of the question, and showing the practicability of facilitating the intercourse of trade between the East and the West, by improving and extending the water communications.”[7]

Washington then proceeded, by a train of admirable arguments and illustrations, to explain the commercial and political value of such a measure, in giving strength to the union of the states, and promoting the prosperity of the country, by multiplying the resources of trade.

“I need not remark to you, sir,” he said, “that the flanks and rear of the United States are possessed by other powers, and formidable ones too; nor how necessary it is to apply the cement of interest to bind all parts of the Union together by indissoluble bonds, especially that part of it which lies immediately west of us, with the middle states. For what ties, let me ask, should we have upon those people? How entirely unconnected with them shall we be, and what troubles may we not apprehend, if the Spaniards on their right, and Great Britain on their left, instead of throwing stumbling-blocks in their way, as they now do, should hold out lures for their trade and alliance? What, when they get strength, which will be sooner than most people conceive (from the emigration of foreigners, who will have no particular predilection toward us, as well as from the removal of our own citizens), will be the consequence of their having formed close connections with both or either of those powers, in a commercial way? It needs not, in my opinion, the gift of prophecy to foretell.

“The western states (I speak now from my own observation) stand, as it were, upon a pivot. The touch of a feather would turn them any way. They have looked down the Mississippi, until the Spaniards, very impolitically, I think for themselves, threw difficulties in their way; and they looked that way for no other reason, than because they could glide gently down the stream, without considering, perhaps, the difficulties of the voyage back again, and the time necessary to perform it in; and because they have no other means of coming to us but by long land transportations and unimproved roads. These causes have hitherto checked the industry of the present settlers; for, except the demand for provisions, occasioned by the increase of population, and a little flour, which the necessities of the Spaniards compel them to buy, they have no incitements to labor. But smooth the road, and make easy the way for them, and then see what an influx of articles will be poured upon us; how amazingly our exports will be increased by them, and how amply we shall be compensated for any trouble and expense we may encounter to effect it.

“A combination of circumstances makes the present conjuncture more favorable for Virginia, than for any other state in the Union, to fix these matters. The jealous and untoward disposition of the Spaniards on the one hand, and the private views of some individuals, coinciding with the general policy of the court of Great Britain on the other, to retain as long as possible the posts of Detroit, Niagara, and Oswego (which, though done under the letter of the treaty, is certainly an infraction of the spirit of it, and injurious to the Union), may be improved to the greatest advantage by this state, if she would open the avenues to the trade of that country, and embrace the present moment to establish it. It only wants a beginning. The western inhabitants would do their part toward its execution. Weak as they are, they would meet us at least halfway, rather than to be driven into the arms of foreigners, or to be made dependent upon them; which would eventually either bring on a separation of them from us, or a war between the United States and one or the other of those powers, most probably with the Spaniards.”

Washington's letter had a powerful effect upon the public mind. Governor Harrison laid it before the Virginia legislature, and that body received it with the greatest favor. Thus encouraged in his scheme, Washington hastened to Richmond to give his personal attention to the matter; and on the morning after his arrival (November sixteenth) he was waited upon by a committee of the assembly, with Patrick Henry at their head, who, in the name of the body whom they represented, testified their reverence for his character and affection for his person.

The Virginia assembly proceeded to appoint a commission to make the requisite surveys, and Washington returned to Mount Vernon, accompanied by Lafayette, whom he had met in Richmond. The marquis remained there a few days, and then departed for the seaboard, never to visit the United States again, until he became an old man, and the republic he had assisted in founding, had grown fifty years older.

Washington'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, Washington was invited to Annapolis by the Virginia assembly, to assist in arranging matters with the assembly 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, Washington set in motion that vast scheme of internal improvements, which has had a powerful and salutary influence upon the destinies of our country.

Again Washington'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:—

This mark of his countrymen's appreciation, was, of course, gratifying to Washington, 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 assembly 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 institution 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 flourishing Washington College, but the national university has never been established.

Other examples of Washington's interest in educational institutions, are on record. He cheerfully accepted the chancellorship 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 Washington'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 noble 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 Washington. “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 mass 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.”

1785

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, Washington 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 Hampshire, 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 Washington. 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 Washington of much of the drudgery of the pen, and also took charge of the instruction of his adopted children, Master and Miss Custis.

Washington 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 illustrative 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 Washington to be executed for the statehouse at Richmond. For such a purpose, and under such auspices, Washington 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 Washington'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 Washington's figure, and in Paris, Gouverneur Morris stood for it.

During nearly all of the year 1785, Washington 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 asses 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 noble 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, Washington 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 amusements 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.

Washington was a most cheerful, companionable man at home, yet always dignified. “General Washington 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. Washington 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. Washington, 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 button 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, Washington'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 ship of state was in danger. He was soon at the post of responsibility, upon the turbulent sea of political life.