NOW I shall insert several publications, which appeared in the papers during the months of October and November 1795, leaving my readers to determine what effect they must have produced on the mind of Washington, and whether they did not form one of the strongest reasons for his declining to serve as President a third time.

"To the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES.

" SIR,

"Few men are born great generals, and still fewer illustrious statesmen. The discipline of patient reflection and diligent observation can alone give perspicuity to the judgment, and vigour to the conduct. Pardon me, therefore, when I endeavour to mark the bounds of intellectual strength which nature and education have assigned you. It may be auspicious to your future, however nugatory on your past conduct, for you to compare the opinions which others entertain of you with your own partial predilections; and enable you to decide how far it may be prudent to substitute the will of the sovereign in the place of the wishes or inclinations of the servant.

"You seem to have entered life with a mind unadorned by extraordinary features or uncommon capacity. Equal to the common duties of private life, it emitted none of those sparks of genius, however irregular and inconstant, which mark the dawn of future eminence. Fortuitous circumstances yielded you in early life a small measure of military eclat, which arose chiefly from the barren talents of your predecessor in the Indian warfare. For some time after this you reposed in unambitious ease till the chances of a revolution called you

to

to the supreme command of the American army. An inoffensive neutrality had heretofore characterized your actions, and it was probably, because you were in principle neither a Briton nor an American, a whig nor a tory, that you slid into this important station. In no way was the spirit of party wounded, because no man could affirm to what party you belonged. The current of American gratitude soon set in upon all those men who hastened by their swords or their counsels the interesting crisis of a revolution. He who held the ostensible post of honour received the overflowing thanks of his country. The name of the commander in chief was known to all, while the names of many modest heroes were unknown, or soon forgotten. There has always existed an unfortunate disposition in mankind to heap on the head of one man, in military transactions, the accumulated honours due to an army of heroes; such may be stiled the American army, which had probably entered the Temple of Fame under any commander. Whatever doubts the judicious may have entertained of your military talents, which doubts will find their way to posterity, sustained by a cloud of proofs, they deemed this an improper time to give them publicity. The low passion of envy had hid her head, and does not seem once to have meditated revenge. Hence one voice called you, as a general, virtuous and wise.

"Precedents were not wanting to convert the laurel into the olive, and hence the indistinct voice of indiscriminate panegyric buzzed the splendid talents of a new born statesman. The army was declared to be the best school for civic virtues, and it was foreseen that the inspiration which atchieved a revolution by the sword, could with equal facility frame a constitution and guide an Empire! In the actions of our hero. a new system of mi

racles

racles began to develope themselves, and the military despot formed to command, sunk into the executive magistrate of a free republic, ready to obey! With the constitution in one hand, and the word of God in the other, he swore to defend the one as he regarded the other. He swore to defend a system of republican government which abhors the insidious nachinery of royal imposture. The first fruits of this solemn declaration were the seclusion of a monk, and the supercilious distance of a tyrant.

"Old habits were innovated upon, and he who had been more than others accustomed to indulge the manly walk and use the generous steed, is now never seen to practice either without exciting the remark of surprise. The concealing carriage drawn by supernumerary horses expresses the will of the President, and defines the loyal duty of the people. A reciprocity of intercourse is entirely annihilated. He consents to receive the visits of constraint, but wholly declines a return. In his presence, silence, with regard to political concerns, is exemplarily imposed and dutifully complied with. The ear of the President is only open to ministerial communications, which may be considered as the echoes of his own thoughts. Tell me, ye who have gathered wisdom from the varied walk, who have studied man in all his varieties with enthusiastic research, had ye been the men you now are, if surrendering yourselves to the gloom of seclusion and the flattery of sycophants emanating from yourselves, you had disdained the information of the enlightened, and the society of the virtuous? Had your toils received the stamp of wisdom, or the award of virtue? Had you lived beloved of your fellow-men, and died amidst the regrets of your country ?

"He who accepts a common post of confidence, must carry integrity and knowledge into the discharge

VOL. IV.

D d

charge of its duties. He must possess an intimate acquaintance with the desires and interests of those whom he serves. For this purpose he must mingle thoughts with thoughts, he must yield the severity of reflection to the freedom of unsuspecting confidence. He must endeavour, by an ingenuous and intelligent deportment, to mark the identity of his own, with their interest.

"Are these the traits of unaffected virtue? Do they command our esteem? And shall a President of a free republic unblushingly set them all at defiance? Shall the man, who should in all things think and feel with the people, whose mind should be the focus of the wills of converging millions, be the first to burst the natural ties of benevolence and the national bands of gratitude? Lost to an enlightened sense of his own happiness, shall he blast it for ever by despising the voice of his

creator?

"When, Sir, your country called you to honourable preferment, it was not because she thought you the wisest of her sons. She knew that nature had played the miser when she gave you birth; and that education had not been lavish in her favours. She considered, however, the moderation of your talents as the shield of your virtue; and confided to your diffidence what she would not have trusted to the claims of superior endowments. It was said, that if the first magistrate possessed a sound judgment, without splendid talents, he would be less subject to the disease of ambition, than with splendid talents unchecked by a sound judgment: that in the first instance he would be the faithful organ of the public sentiment; whereas, in the last, he might give himself up to the immoderate lust of power. This view of human nature was but half true. Deeper research would have foreseen the resu't of experience, and have convinced us that the

nominal

nominal depositary of power, however dull his own apprehension, is sure to be surrounded by beings alive to the high prerogatives of unlimited authority. It would have been foreseen that a wicked mind delights in national misfortunes, that a weak mind yields to the wicked suggestions of others; that virtue, to be successful on the political scene, must be inseparable from sense.

"VALERIUS."

"To Oliver Wolcott, Esq. late Comptroller, now Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.

" SIR,

"When a man who has been advanced from an inferior to a superior station in the government, and called upon to execute a high and responsible public office, deliberately violates every obligation of duty, overleaps the barriers of the constitution, and breaks down the fences of the law, contemning and despising every principle which the people have established for the security of their rights and to restrain the arbitrary encroachments of power, what, I ask, Sir, is the degree of guilt of such a a man? And to you, is the enquiry particularly addressed, for as Nathan said unto David, 'Thou 'art the man;' and by your own acts shall you be condemned.

"Attend then, Sir, to the following particulars and state of facts.

"On the 30th day of April 1789, the President of the United States qualified into office and took the following oath: "I do solemnly swear that