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Washington left Philadelphia for Mount Vernon on the ninth of March, a private citizen and a happy man. He was accompanied by Mrs. Washington and her grand-daughter, Eleanor Parke Custis; and by George Washington Lafayette and his preceptor, M. Frestel, whose arrival and residence in the United States we have already noticed. George Washington Parke Custis, the brother of Eleanor, or “Nelly,” as she was familiarly called, was then in college at Princeton, where he had been for several months. The letters which have been preserved by the Custis family, of the correspondence between Washington and that adopted son, during the college life of the latter, are very interesting, and exhibit the Father of his Country in a light in which he is not viewed by history in her delineation of him, namely, as the father of a talented but wayward boy.

Ever desirous of giving words of encouragement and the meed of praise to the deserving, Washington handed to young Bartholomew Dandridge, his private secretary, on the morning of his departure for Mount Vernon, the following letter:—

On his journey to the Potomac, the retired president received every mark of respect, love, and veneration, from the people. “Last evening,” said a Baltimore paper of the thirteenth of March, “arrived in this city, on his way to Mount Vernon, the illustrious object of veneration and gratitude, George Washington. His excellency was accompanied by his lady and Miss Custis, and by the son of the unfortunate Lafayette and his preceptor. At a distance from the city he was met by a crowd of citizens, on horse and foot, who thronged the road to greet him, and by a detachment of Captain Hollingsworth's troop, who escorted him through as great a concourse of people as Baltimore ever witnessed. On alighting at the Fountain Inn, the general was saluted with reiterated and thundering huzzas from the spectators.”[121]

“The attentions we met with on our journey,” wrote Washington to Mr. M'Henry, the secretary of war, “were very flattering, and by some, whose minds are differently formed from mine, would have been highly relished; but I avoided, in every instance, when I had any previous knowledge of the intention, and could by earnest entreaties prevail, all parade and escorts.” He seldom succeeded, for intelligence of his approach went before him, and citizens and soldiers hastened to do homage to the great Patriot and Chief.

Washington arrived at Mount Vernon on the evening of the fourteenth of March. Never did the threshold of his mansion receive a happier man. The servants flocked around him like children come to greet a returning father, and there was joy in the household and all over the estate of Mount Vernon. The master fairly revelled in the luxury of private life and the repose of domestic enjoyment. Yet he did not sit down, an idle man and indifferent spectator of passing events. “Let me pray you to have the goodness,” he wrote to Mr. M'Henry, “to communicate to me occasionally such matters as are interesting, and not contrary to the rules of your official duty to disclose. We get so many details in the gazettes, and of such different complexions, that it is impossible to know what credence to give to any of them.”

Now, escaped from the turmoils of politics, Washington resolved to cast the burden of speculations concerning them from his mind. During almost his entire administration, the politics of France had been a constant source of anxiety to him, and had given him more real vexation, directly and indirectly, than all other matters of his public life combined. “The conduct of the French government,” he now wrote, “is so much beyond calculation, and so unaccountable upon any principle of justice, or even of that sort of policy which is familiar to plain understandings, that I shall not now puzzle my brains in attempting to develop the motives of it.”

To Oliver Wolcott he wrote in May: “For myself, having turned aside from the broad walks of political into the narrow paths of private life, I shall leave it with those whose duty it is to consider subjects of this sort [the calling of an extraordinary session of Congress], and, as every good citizen ought to do, conform to whatsoever the ruling powers shall decide. To make and sell a little flour annually, to repair houses (going fast to ruin), to build one for the security of my papers of a public nature, and to amuse myself in agricultural and rural pursuits, will constitute employment for the few years I have to remain on this terrestrial globe. If, also, I could now and then meet the friends I esteem, it would fill the measure and add zest to my enjoyments; but if ever this happens, it must be under my own vine and fig-tree.”

Washington was not unsocial, yet he loved to be away from the great gathering-places of men and the tumults of public life. He loved his friends warmly; and those for whom he had a thorough esteem—a friendship based upon the perception of genuine qualities of head and heart that made them trustworthy—were always most welcome to his retreat on the banks of the Potomac. With such friends he kept up a cordial correspondence; and in many of his letters, immediately after his retirement, he spoke of his domestic employments and pleasures. “Retired from noise myself,” he wrote to General Heath, “and the responsibility attached to public employment, my hours will glide smoothly on. My best wishes, however, for the prosperity of our country, will always have the first place in my thoughts; while to repair buildings, and to cultivate my farms, which require close attention, will occupy the few years, perhaps days, I may be a sojourner here, as I am now in the sixty-sixth year of my peregrinations through life.”

To Secretary M'Henry he wrote, in joyous mood, at the close of May: “I am indebted to you for several unacknowledged letters; but never mind that: go on as if you had answers. You are at the source of information, and can find many things to relate; while I have nothing to say that would either inform or amuse a secretary of war in Philadelphia.

“I might tell that I begin my diurnal course with the sun; that, if my hirelings are not in their places at that time, I send them messages of sorrow for their indisposition; that, having put these wheels in motion, I examine the state of things further; that, the more they are probed, the deeper I find the wounds which my buildings have sustained by an absence and neglect of eight years; that, by the time I have accomplished these matters, breakfast (a little after seven o'clock, about the time I suppose you are taking leave of Mrs. M'Henry) is ready; that, this being over, I mount my horse and ride round my farms, which employ me until it is time to dress for dinner, at which I rarely miss seeing strange faces—come, as they say, out of respect for me. Pray, would not the word curiosity answer as well? And how different this from having a few social friends at a cheerful board! The usual time of sitting at table, a walk, and tea, bring me within the dawn of candlelight; previous to which, if not prevented by company, I resolve that, as soon as the glimmering taper supplies the place of the great luminary, I will retire to my writing-table and acknowledge the letters I have received; but, when the lights are brought, I feel tired, and disinclined to engage in this work, conceiving that the next will do as well. The next night comes, and with it the same causes for postponement, and so on.

“This will account for your letters remaining so long unacknowledged; and, having given you the history of a day, it will serve for a year, and I am persuaded you will not require a second edition of it. But it may strike you that, in this detail, no mention is made of any portion of time allotted for reading. The remark would be just, for I have not looked into a book since I came home; nor shall I be able to do it until I have discharged my workmen, probably not before the nights grow longer, when possibly I may be looking in Doomsday-Book.”

Washington soon became wearied with the continual visits of strangers, to which he alluded in his letter to Mr. M'Henry, and he resolved to adopt some plan of relief that should be consistent with the most genuine hospitality. He had an accomplished and favorite nephew, Lawrence Lewis, son of his sister Elizabeth. He invited him to make Mount Vernon his home, and to assume the duties of entertainer of company when the master should desire repose. “As both your aunt and I,” he said, in his letter of invitation, “are in the decline of life, and regular in our habits, especially in our hours of rising and going to bed, I require some person (fit and proper) to ease me of the trouble of entertaining company, particularly of nights, as it is my inclination to retire (and, unless prevented by very particular company, I always do retire), either to bed or to my study, soon after candlelight. In taking those duties (which hospitality obliges me to bestow on company) off my hands, it would render me a very acceptable service.”[122]

Young Lewis accepted his uncle's invitation with pleasure, for he loved the society of such as he knew he should meet at Mount Vernon. There was also a charmer there for young men, in the person of Nelly Custis, a gay, beautiful, and accomplished girl of eighteen years, who was the life of a social party, and a beam of sunshine in the family circle. As his adopted daughter, Washington had watched over her with parental solicitude. Tradition says that he frequently inculcated the most valuable precepts when talking seriously with her; and in his most playful mood would give her words of wisdom that took root in her mind and heart. This fact is so well exhibited in the following letter of his, written to Nelly, when she was about sixteen years of age, that we give it entire. It was on the occasion of her first attendance at a ball, an account of which she had given him in a letter:—

“Phila., January 16, 1795.

“Your letter, the receipt of which I am now acknowledging, is written correctly and in fair characters, which is an evidence that you command, when you please, a fair hand. Possessed of these advantages, it will be your own fault if you do not avail yourself of them; and, attention being paid to the choice of your subjects, you can have nothing to fear from the malignancy of criticism, as your ideas are lively, and your descriptions agreeable. Let me touch a little now on your Georgetown ball; and happy, thrice happy, for the fair who were assembled on the occasion, that there was a man to spare; for had there been seventy-nine ladies and only seventy-eight gentlemen, there might, in the course of the evening, have been some disorder among the caps, notwithstanding the apathy which one of the company entertains for the 'youth' of the present day, and her determination 'never to give herself a moment's uneasiness on account of any of them.' A hint here: men and women feel the same inclinations to each other now that they always have done, and which they will continue to do until there is a new order of things; and you, as others have done, may find, perhaps, that the passions of your sex are easier raised than allayed. Do not, therefore, boast too soon or too strongly of your insensibility to, or resistance of, its powers. In the composition of the human frame there is a good deal of inflammable matter, however dormant it may lie for a time, and like an intimate acquaintance of yours, when the torch is put to it, that which is within you may burst into a blaze; for which reason, and especially, too, as I have entered upon the chapter of advices, I will read you a lecture drawn from this text.

“Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is therefore contended that it can not be resisted. This is true in part only, for, like all things else, when nourished and supplied plentifully with aliment, it is rapid in its progress; but let these be withdrawn, and it may be stifled in its birth, or much stinted in its growth. For example, a woman (the same may be said of the other sex) all beautiful and accomplished, will, while her hand and heart are undisposed of, turn the heads and set the circle in which she moves on fire. Let her marry, and what is the consequence? The madness ceases, and all is quiet again. Why? Not because there is any diminution in the charms of the lady, but because there is an end of hope. Hence it follows that love may and therefore ought to be under the guidance of reason; for, although we can not avoid first impressions, we may assuredly place them under guard: and my motives for treating on this subject are to show you, while you remain Eleanor Parke Custis, spinster, and retain the resolution to love with moderation, the propriety of adhering to the latter resolution, at least until you have secured your game, and the way by which it may be accomplished.

“When the fire is beginning to kindle, and your heart growing warm, propound these questions to it: 'Who is this invader? Have I a competent knowledge of him? Is he a man of good character? a man of sense?' For, be assured, a sensible woman can never be happy with a fool. 'What has been his walk of life? Is he a gambler, a spendthrift, or drunkard? Is his fortune sufficient to maintain me in the manner I have been accustomed to live, and my sisters do live, and is he one to whom my friends can have no reasonable objection?' If these interrogatories can be satisfactorily answered, there will remain but one more to be asked; that, however, is an important one, 'Have I sufficient ground to conclude that his affections are engaged by me?' Without this, the heart of sensibility will struggle against a passion that is not reciprocated—delicacy, custom, or call it by what epithet you will, having precluded all advances on your part. The declaration, without the most indirect invitation of yours, must proceed from the man, to render it permanent and valuable; and nothing short of good sense and an easy, unaffected conduct, can draw the line between prudery and coquetry. It would be no great departure from truth to say that it rarely happens otherwise than that a thorough-paced coquette dies in celibacy, as a punishment for her attempts to mislead others, by encouraging looks, words, or actions, given for no other purpose than to draw men on to make overtures, that they may be rejected.

“This day, according to our information, gives a husband to your elder sister, and consummates, it is to be presumed, her fondest desires. The dawn with us is bright, and propitious, I hope, of her future happiness, for a full measure of which she and Mr. Law have my earnest wishes. Compliments and congratulations on this occasion, and best regards are presented to your mamma, Doctor Stuart, and family; and every blessing—among which a good husband, when you want and deserve one—is bestowed on you by yours, affectionately.”[123]