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ET. 52.]

TOUR OF WASHINGTON AND DR. CRAIK TO THE WEST.

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peat to you the assurances of my friendship, the rest was in the wilderness, and of little value and of the pleasure I should feel in seeing you in the present unquiet state of the country. in the shade of those trees which my hands | He abridged his tour, therefore; proceeded no have planted; and which, by their rapid growth, at once indicate a knowledge of my declining years, and their disposition to spread their mantles over me, before I go hence to return no more."

On the 17th of August he was gladdened by having the Marquis de Lafayette under his roof, who had recently arrived from France. The marquis passed a fortnight with him, a loved and cherished guest, at the end of which he departed for a time, to be present at the ceremony of a treaty with the Indians.

Washington now prepared for a tour to the west of the Appalachian Mountains, to visit his lands on the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers. Dr. Craik, the companion of his various campaigns, and who had accompanied him in 1770 on a similar tour, was to be his fellow-traveller. The way they were to travel may be gathered from Washington's directions to the doctor:-"You will have occasion to take nothing from home but a servant to look after your horses, and such bedding as you may think proper to make use of. I will carry a marquee, some camp utensils, and a few stores. A boat, or some other kind of vessel, will be provided for the voyage down the river, either at my place on the Youghiogheny or Fort Pitt, measures for this purpose having already been taken. A few medicines, and hooks and lines, you may probably want."

This soldier-like tour, made in hardy military style, with tent, pack-horses, and frugal supplies, took him once more among the scenes of his youthful expeditions when a land surveyor in the employ of Lord Fairfax; a leader of Virginia militia, or an aide-de-camp of the unfortunate Braddock. A veteran now in years, and a general renowned in arms, he soberly permitted his steed to pick his way across the mountains by the old military route, still called Braddock's Road, over which he had spurred in the days of youthful ardor. His original intention had been to survey and inspect his lands on the Monongahela River; then to descend the Ohio to the great Kanawha, where also he had large tracts of wild land. On arriving on the Monongahela, however, he heard such accounts of discontent and irritation among the Indian tribes, that he did not consider it prudent to venture among them. Some of his land on the Monongahela was settled;

further west than the Monongahela; ascended that river, and then struck southward through the wild, unsettled regions of the Alleganies, until he came out into the Shenadoah Valley near Staunton. He returned to Mount Vernon on the 4th of October; having, since the first of September, travelled on horseback six hundred and eighty miles, for a great part of the time in wild, mountainous country, where he was obliged to encamp at night. This, like his tour to the northern forts with Governor Clinton, gave proof of his unfailing vigor and activity.

During all this tour he had carefully observed the course and character of the streams flowing from the west into the Ohio, and the distance of their navigable parts from the head navigation of the rivers east of the mountains, with the nearest and best portage between them. For many years he had been convinced of the practicability of an easy and short communication between the Potomac and James Rivers, and the waters of the Ohio, and thence on to the great chain of lakes; and of the vast advantages that would result therefrom to the States of Virginia and Maryland. He had even attempted to set a company on foot to undertake at their own expense the opening of such a communication, but the breaking out of the Revolution had put a stop to the enterprise. One object of his recent tour was to make observations and collect information on the subject; and all that he had seen and heard quickened his solicitude to carry the scheme into effect.

Political as well as commercial interests, he conceived, were involved in the enterprise. He had noticed that the flanks and rear of the United States were possessed by foreign and formidable powers, who might lure the western people into a trade and alliance with them. The Western States, he observed, stood as it were upon a pivot, so that the touch of a feather might turn them any way. They had looked down the Mississippi, and been tempted in that direction by the facilities of sending every thing down the stream; whereas they had no means of coming to us but by long land transportations and rugged roads. The jealous and untoward disposition of the Spaniards, it was true, almost barred the use of the Mississippi; but they might change their policy, and invite trade in that direction. The retention

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IDEAS OF INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT-PARTING WITH LAFAYETTE.

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They returned together to Mount Vernon, where Lafayette again passed several days, a cherished inmate of the domestic circle.

by the British government, also, of the posts | made a tour of the Eastern States, "crowned of Detroit, Niagara, and Oswego, though con- everywhere," writes Washington, "with wreaths trary to the spirit of the treaty, shut up the of love and respect. channel of trade in that quarter. These posts, however, would eventually be given up; and then, he was persuaded, the people of New York would lose no time in removing every obstacle in the way of a water communication; and "I shall be mistaken," said he, "if they do not build vessels for the navigation of the lakes, which will supersede the necessity of coasting on either side."

It behooved Virginia, therefore, to lose no time in availing herself of the present favorable conjuncture to secure a share of western trade by connecting the Potomac and James Rivers with the waters beyond the mountains. The industry of the western settlers had hitherto been checked by the want of outlets to their products, owing to the before-mentioned obstacles: But smooth the road," said he, "and make easy the way for them, and then see what an influx of articles will pour upon us; how amazingly our exports will be increased by them, and how amply all shall be compensated for any trouble and expense we may encounter to effect it."

Such were some of the ideas ably and amply set forth by him in a letter to Benjamin Harrison, Governor of Virginia, who, struck with his plan for opening the navigation of the western waters, laid the letter before the State Legislature. The favor with which it was received induced Washington to repair to Richmond and give his personal support to the measure. He arrived there on the 15th of November. On the following morning a committee of five members of the House of Assembly, headed by Patrick Henry, waited on him in behalf of that body, to testify their reverence for his character and affection for his person, and their sense of the proofs given by him since his return to private life, that no change of situation could turn his thoughts from the welfare of his country. The suggestions of Washington in his letters to the governor, and his representations, during this visit to Richmond, gave the first impulse to the great system of internal improvement since pursued throughout the United States.

When his visit was ended, Washington, to defer the parting scene, accompanied him to Annapolis. On returning to Mount Vernon, he wrote a farewell letter to the marquis, bordering more upon the sentimental than almost any other in his multifarious correspondence.

"In the moment of our separation, upon the road as I have travelled, and every hour since, I have felt all that love, respect, and attachment for you, with which length of years, close connection, and your merits have inspired me. I often asked myself, as our carriages separated, whether that was the last sight I ever should have of you? And though I wished to answer no, my fears answered yes. I called to mind the days of my youth, and found they had long since fled to return no more; that I was now descending the hill I have been fifty-two years climbing, and that, though I was blessed with a good constitution, I was of a short-lived family, and might soon expect to be entombed in the mansion of my fathers. These thoughts darkened the shades, and gave a gloom to the picture, and consequently, to my prospect of ever seeing you again."

CHAPTER XXXV.

WASHINGTON's zeal for the public good had now found a new channel; or, rather, his late tours into the interior of the Union had quickened ideas long existing in his mind on the subject of internal navigation. In a letter to Richard Henry Lee, recently chosen President of Congress, he urged it upon his attention; suggesting that the western waters should be explored, their navigable capabilities ascertained, and that a complete inap should be made of the country; that in all grants of land by the United States, there should be a reserve made for special sale of all mines, mineral and salt springs; that a medium price should be adopted for the western lands sufficient to prevent monopoly, but not to discourage useful settlers. He had a salutary horror of "land

At Richmond he was joined by the Marquis de Lafayette; who since their separation had accompanied the commissioners to Fort Schuyler, and been present at the formation of a treaty with the Indians; after which he had fayette.

Letter of Washington to the Marchioness de La

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ET. 53.]

SCHEME OF INLAND NAVIGATION-RURAL IMPROVEMENTS.

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jobbers" and "roaming speculators," prowling | insomuch that I can nowhere find so much satabout the country like wolves; marking and isfaction as in those innocent and useful pursurveying valuable spots to the great disquiet suits. While indulging these feelings, I am led of the Indian tribes. "The spirit of emigration to reflect, how much more delightful to an unis great," said he; "people have got impatient, debauched mind is the task of making improveand though you cannot stop the road, it is yet ments on the earth, than all the vain glory that in your power to mark the way; a little while, can be acquired from ravaging it by the most and you will not be able to do either." uninterrupted career of conquest.

"How pitiful, in this age of reason and re

the world with fire and sword for the purpose of conquest and fame, compared to the milder virtues of making our neighbors and our fellowmen as happy as their frail convictions and perishable natures will permit them to be."

He had a congenial correspondent in his quondam brother-soldier, Governor Clinton of New York, whose spear, like his own, had been turned into a pruning-hook.

In the latter part of December he was at Annapolis, at the request of the Assembly of Vir-ligion, is that false ambition which desolates ginia, to arrange matters with the Assembly of Maryland respecting the communication between the Potomac and the western waters. Through his indefatigable exertions two companies were formed under the patronage of the governments of these States, for opening the navigation of the Potomac and James Rivers, and he was appointed president of both. By a unanimous vote of the Assembly of Virginia, fifty shares in the Potomac, and one hundred in the James River company, were appropriated for his benefit, to the end that, while the great works he had promoted would remain monuments of his glory, they might also be monuments of the gratitude of his country. The aggregate amount of these shares was about forty thousand dollars.

Washington was exceedingly embarrassed by the appropriation. To decline so noble and unequivocal a testimonial of the good opinion and good will of his countrymen, might be construed into disrespect, yet he wished to be perfectly free to exercise his judgment and express his opinions in the matter, without being liable to the least suspicion of interested motives. It had been his fixed determination, also, when he surrendered his military command, never to hold any other office under government to which emolument might become a necessary appendage. From this resolution his mind had never swerved.

"Whenever the season is proper and an opportunity offers," writes he to the governor, “I shall be glad to receive the balsam trees or others which you inay think curious and exotic with us, as I am endeavoring to improve the grounds about my house in this way." He recommends to the governor's care certain grapevines of the choicest kinds for the table, which an uncle of the Chevalier de Luzerne had engaged to send from France, and which must be about to arrive at New York. He is literally going to sit under his own vine and his own fig-tree, and devote himself to the quiet pleasures of rural life.

At the opening of the year (1785) the entries in his diary show him diligently employed in preparations to improve his groves and shrubbery. On the 10th of January he notes that the white thorn is full in berry. On the 20th he begins to clear the pine groves of undergrowth.

In February he transplants ivy under the While, however, he declined to receive the walls of the garden to which it still clings. In proffered shares for his own benefit, he inti- March he is planting hemlock trees, that most mated a disposition to receive them in trust, to beautiful species of American evergreen, numbe applied to the use of some object or institu- bers of which had been brought hither from tion of a public nature. His wishes were com- Occoquan. In April he is sowing holly berries plied with, and the shares were ultimately ap-in drills, some adjoining a green-brier hedge on propriated by him to institutions devoted to public education. Yet, though the love for his country would thus interfere with his love for his home, the dream of rural retirement at Mount Vernon still went on.

"The more I am acquainted with agricultural affairs," he says, in a letter to a friend in England, "the better I am pleased with them;

the north side of the garden gate; others in a semicircle on the lawn. Many of the holly bushes thus produced, are still flourishing about the place in full vigor. He had learnt the policy, not sufficiently adopted in our country, of clothing his ornamented grounds as much as possible with evergreens, which resist the rigors of our winter, and keep up a cheering

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646 THE BURTHEN OF CORRESPONDENCE-ORNAMENTAL CULTIVATION. verdure throughout the year. Of the trees fit- | the painters' pencil, that I am altogether at ted for shade in pasture land he notes the lo- their beck, and sit 'like Patience on a monu cust, maple, black mulberry, black walnut, ment,' whilst they are delineating the lines of black gum, dogwood, and sassafras, none of my face. It is a proof among many others, of which, he observes, materially injure the grass what habit and custom can accomplish. At beneath them. first I was impatient at the request, and as restive under the operation as a colt is under the saddle. The next time I submitted very reluctantly, but with less flouncing. Now no drayhorse moves more readily to his thill, than I to the painter's chair. It may easily be conceived, therefore, that I yield a ready obedience to your request, and to the views of Mr. Pine."

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Is then for once a soldier's dream realized? Is he in perfect enjoyment of that seclusion from the world and its distractions, which he had so often pictured to himself amid the hardships and turmoils of the camp? Alas, no! The "post," that "herald of a noisy world," invades his quiet and loads his table with letters, until correspondence becomes an intolerable burthen.

He looks in despair at the daily accumulating mass of unanswered letters. "Many mistakenly think," writes he, "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."* Again-" It is not the letters from my friends which give me trouble, or add aught to my perplexity. It is references to old matters, with which I have nothing to do; applications which often cannot 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 commonplace business which employs my pen and my time often disagreeably. These, with company, deprive me of exercise, and unless I can obtain relief, must be productive of disagreeable consequences."

From much of this drudgery of the pen he was subsequently relieved by Mr. Tobias Lear, a young gentleman of New Hampshire, a graduate of Harvard College, who acted as his private secretary, and at the same time took charge of the instruction of the two children of the late Mr. Parke Custis, whom Washingtou had adpoted.

There was another tax imposed by his celebrity upon his time and patience. Applications were continually made to him to sit for his likeness. The following is his sportive reply to Mr. Francis Hopkinson, who applied in behalf of Mr. Pine:

"In for a penny in for a pound,' is an old adage. I am so hackneyed to the touches of

Letter to Richard Henry Lee.

It was not long after this that M. Houdon, an artist of great merit, chosen by Mr. Jefferson and Dr. Franklin, arrived from Paris to make a study of Washington for a statue, for the Legislature of Virginia. He remained a fortnight at Mount Vernon, and having formed his model, took it with him to Paris, where he produced that excellent statue and likeness to be seen in the State House in Richmond, Virginia.

Being now in some measure relieved from the labors of the pen, Washington had more time to devote to his plan for ornamental cultivation of the grounds about his dwelling.

We find in his diary noted down with curious exactness, each day's labor and the share he took in it; his frequent rides to the Mill Swamp; the Dogue Creek; the "Plantation of the Neck," and other places along the Potomac in quest of young elms, ash trees, white thorn, crab-apples, maples, mulberries, willows, and lilacs; the winding walks which he lays out, and the trees and shrubs which he plants along them. Now he sows acorns and buck-eye nuts brought by himself from the Monongahela; now he opens vistas through the Pine Grove, commanding distant views through the woodlands; and now he twines round his columns scarlet honeysuckles, which his gardener tells him will blow all the summer.

His care-worn spirit freshens up in these employments. With him Mount Vernon is a kind of idyl. The transient glow of poetical feeling which once visited his bosom, when in boyhood he rhymed beneath its groves, seems about to return once more; and we please ourselves with noting among the trees set out by him, a group of young horse-chestnuts from Westmoreland, his native county, the haunt of his schoolboy days; which had been sent to him by Colonel Lee (Light-Horse Harry), the son of his "Lowland Beauty."

A diagram of the plan in which he had laid out

ET. 53.]

MANAGEMENT OF THE ESTATE-VISIT OF MR. WATSON.

his grounds, still remains among his papers at Mount Vernon; the places are marked on it for particular trees and shrubs. Some of those trees and shrubs are still to be found in the places thus assigned to them. In the present neglected state of Mount Vernon, its walks are overgrown, and vegetation runs wild; but it is deeply interesting still to find traces of these toils in which Washington delighted, and to know that many of the trees which give it its present umbrageous beauty were planted by his hand.

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over unnoticed. He seldom used many words on the subject of his plans; rarely asked advice; but, when once determined, carried them directly and silently into execution; and was not easily dissuaded from a project when once commenced.

We have shown, in a former chapter, his mode of apportioning time at Mount Vernon, prior to the Revolution. The same system was, in a great measure, resumed. His active day began some time before the dawn. Much of his correspondence was despatched before breakfast, which took place at half-past seven, After breakfast he mounted his horse which stood ready at the door, and rode out to differ

rious parts of the camp, to see that all was right at the outposts, and every one at his duty. At half-past two he dined.

The ornamental cultivation of which we have spoken, was confined to the grounds appertaining to what was called the mansion-house farm; but his estate included four other farms, all ly-ent parts of his estate, as he used to do to vaing contiguous, and containing three thousand two hundred and sixty acres; each farm having its bailiff or overseer, with a house for his accommodation, barns and outhouses for the produce, and cabins for the negroes. On a general map of the estate, drawn out by Washington himself, these farms were all laid down accurately and their several fields numbered; he knew the soil and local qualities of each, and regulated the culture of them accordingly.

In addition to these five farms there were several hundred acres of fine woodland, so that the estate presented a beautiful diversity of land and water. In the stables near the mansion-house were the carriage and saddle horses, of which he was very choice; on the four farms there were 54 draught horses, 12 mules, 317 head of black cattle, 360 sheep, and a great number of swine, which last ran at large in the woods.

He now read much on husbandry and gardening, and copied out treatises on those subjects. He corresponded also with the celebrated Arthur Young; from whom he obtained seeds of all kinds, improved ploughs, plans for laying out farm-yards, and advice on various parts of rural economy.

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Agriculture," writes he to him, "has ever been among the most favored of my amusements, though I have never possessed much skill in the art, and nine years' total inattention to it has added nothing to a knowledge, which is best understood from practice; but with the means you have been so obliging as to furnish me, I shall return to it, though rather late in the day, with more alacrity than ever."

In the management of his estate be was remarkably exact. No negligence on the part of the overseers or those under them was passed

If there was no company he would write until dark, or, if pressed by business, until nine o'clock in the evening; otherwise he read in the evening, or amused himself with a game of whist.

His secretary, Mr. Lear, after two years' residence in the family on the most confidential footing, says,-" General Washington is, I believe, 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.”

The children of Parke Custis formed a lively part of his household. He was fond of children and apt to unbend with them. Miss Custis, recalling in after life the scenes of her childhood, writes, "I have sometimes made him laugh most heartily from sympathy with my joyous . and extravagant spirits; " she observes, however, that "he was a silent, thoughtful man. He spoke little generally; never of himself. I never heard him relate a single act of his life during the war. I have often seen him perfectly abstracted, his lips moving; but no sound was perceptible."

An observant traveller, Mr. Elkanah Watson, who visited Mount Vernon in the winter of 1785, bearer of a letter of introduction from General Greene and Colonel Fitzgerald, gives a home picture of Washington in his retirement. Though sure that his credentials would secure him a respectful reception, he says, "I

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