1799.] PROVISIONS OF THE WILL. 299 years afterwards, in August, 1797, he writes to his nephew, Lawrence Lewis, in a letter which we have had in our hands, "I wish from my soul that the legislature of this State could see the policy of a gradual abolition of slavery. It might prevent much future mischief." A deep sorrow spread over the nation on hearing that Washington was no more. Congress, which was in session, immediately adjourned for the day. The next morning it was resolved that the Speaker's chair be shrouded with black: that the members and officers of the House wear black during the session, and that a joint committee of both Houses be appointed to consider on the most suitable manner of doing honor to the memory of the man, "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens." Public testimonials of grief and reverence were displayed in every part of the Union. Nor were these sentiments confined to the United States. When the news of Washington's death reached England, Lord Bridport, who had command of a British fleet of nearly sixty sail of the line, lying at Torbay, lowered his flag half-mast, every ship following the example; and Bonaparte, First Consul of France, on announcing his death to the army, ordered that black crape should be suspended from all the standards and flags throughout the public service for ten days. In the preceding volumes of our work, we have traced the career of Washington from early boyhood to his elevation to the presidential chair. It was an elevation he had neither sought nor wished; for when the independence of his country was achieved, the modest and cherished desire of his heart had been “to live and die a private citizen on his own farm;"* and he had shaped out for himself an ideal elysium in his beloved shades of Mount Vernon. But power sought him in his retirement. The weight and influence of his name and character were deemed all essential to complete his work; to set the new government in motion, and conduct it through its first perils and trials. With unfeigned reluctance he complied with the imperative claims of his country, and accepted the power thus urged upon him: advancing to its exercise with diffidence, and aiming to surround himself with men of the highest talent and information whom he might consult in emergency; but firm and strong in the resolve in all things to act as his conscience told him was "right as it respected his God, his country, and himself." For he knew no divided fidelity, no separate obligation; his most sacred duty to himself was his highest duty to his country and his God. In treating of his civil administration in this closing volume, we have endeavored to show how truly he adhered to this resolve, and with what inflexible integrity and scrupulous regard to the public weal he discharged his functions. In executing our task, we have not indulged in discussions of temporary questions of controverted policy which agitated the incipient establishment of our government, but have given his words and actions as connected with those questions, and as illustrative of his character. In this volume, as in those which treat of his military career, we *Writings, ix. p. 412. 1799.] CONCLUDING REMARKS. 301 have avoided rhetorical amplification and embellishments, and all gratuitous assumptions, and have sought, by simple and truthful details, to give his character an opportunity of developing itself, and of manifesting those fixed principles and that noble consistency which reigned alike throughout his civil and his military career. The character of Washington may want some of those poetical elements which dazzle and delight the multitude, but it possessed fewer inequalities, and a rarer union of virtues than perhaps ever fell to the lot of one man. Prudence, firmness, sagacity, moderation, an overruling judgment, an immovable justice, courage that never faltered, patience that never wearied, truth that disdained all artifice, magnanimity without alloy. It seems as if Providence had endowed him in a preeminent degree with the qualities requisite to fit him for the high destiny he was called upon to fulfil-to conduct a momentous revolution which was to form an era in the history of the world, and to inaugurate a new and untried government, which, to use his own words, was to lay the foundation "for the enjoyment of much purer civil liberty, and greater public happiness, than have hitherto been the portion of mankind.” The fame of Washington stands apart from every other in history; shining with a truer lustre and a more benignant glory. With us his memory remains a national property, where all sympathies throughout our widely-extended and diversified empire meet in unison. Under all dissensions and amid all the storms of party, his precepts and example speak to us from the grave with a paternal appeal; and his name-by all revered-forms a universal tie of brotherhood-a watchword of our Union. "It will be the duty of the historian and the sage of all na tions," writes an eminent British statesman, (Lord Brougham,) "to let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious man, and until time shall be no more, will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue, be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington." |