Washington and the American Republic Part 10

Washington courteously declined the governor's invitation to partake of his hospitality. "Could my wish prevail," he said, "I should desire to visit your metropolis without any parade or extraordinary ceremony. From a wish to avoid giving trouble to private families I determined, on leaving New York, to decline the honor of any invitation to quarters which I might receive while on my journey; and, with a view to observe this rule, I had requested a gentleman to engage lodgings for me during my stay in Boston."

On the receipt of this letter, Governor Hanc.o.c.k wrote by the return courier to the president, expressing his regret that he could not have the honor of entertaining him at his house as a guest, and begging that he and his _suite_ would honor him with their company at dinner, _en famille_, on the day of their arrival. Washington accepted the invitation, and on Sat.u.r.day, the twenty-fourth of October, he pa.s.sed through Cambridge, and approached Boston toward meridian.

Preparations had been made for the reception of the president by Governor Hanc.o.c.k and the munic.i.p.al authorities of Boston, each independently of the other, and without consultation. This produced a disagreeable, but in some respects laughable scene in the ceremonies of the day. Both parties sincerely desired to pay the highest honors to the chief magistrate of the nation, but political considerations separated the governor and the selectmen of Boston. The governor claimed the right, as chief officer of the state, of receiving and welcoming in person the expected guest at the entrance to the capital; while the selectmen said, "You should have met him at the boundary of the _state_; but when he is about to enter the _town_, it is the right of the munic.i.p.al authorities to receive him."

The controversy was unsettled when the president and _suite_, under a military escort commanded by General Brooks, pa.s.sed through Roxbury and were ready to enter Boston. Washington and Major Jackson had left the carriage, and had mounted horses prepared for them; and as the whole procession pa.s.sed over the Neck it was stopped, without apparent cause, for a long time. The contending parties, executive and munic.i.p.al, had their respective carriages drawn up, each with the determination to receive and do honors to the president; and for more than an hour aides and marshals were posting between the leaders of the contending parties, endeavoring to effect a reconciliation. The sky was cloudy and the atmosphere raw, sour, and most disagreeable.[19] Washington finally inquired the cause of the delay, and, being informed, he asked, with evident impatience, whether there was any other avenue into the town. He was about to wheel his horse and seek one, and leave the contestants about etiquette to settle their dispute at leisure--when he was informed that the matter had been arranged, the governor's party having yielded to the munic.i.p.al authorities.

The war of words being ended, the procession moved on. The president was formally welcomed by the selectmen, and was received into the city with acclamations of joy, the ringing of bells, and the firing of cannon. A magnificent arch was raised for Washington to pa.s.s under, and the streets, doors, and windows were filled with well-dressed people of both s.e.xes. The president rode with his hat off, and with a calm, dignified air, without bowing to the people as he pa.s.sed; but when he had reached a balcony of the old statehouse, and he was saluted by a long procession of citizens, he occasionally returned the salutations.[20] When the ceremonials were over, he was conducted to his lodgings, at Mrs.

Ingersoll's--a fine brick house, at the corner of Tremont and Court streets--accompanied by the lieutenant-governor and council, and Vice-President Adams, who was then in Boston. A fine company of light-infantry, commanded by the distinguished Harrison Gray Otis, was a guard of honor on the occasion.

Washington made the following record in his diary that evening: "Having engaged yesterday to take an informal dinner with the governor to-day, but under a full persuasion that he would have waited upon me so soon as I should have arrived, I excused myself upon his not doing it, and informing me through his secretary that he was too much indisposed to do it, being resolved to receive the visit. Dined at my lodgings, where the vice-president favored me with his company."

This record alludes to an amusing display of official pride on the part of Governor Hanc.o.c.k, which Washington, in the most dignified way, completely humbled. Hanc.o.c.k's wealth, public services, and official position, placed him in the highest rank of social life at that time; and he had conceived the opinion that, as governor of a state and within the bounds of his jurisdiction, etiquette made it proper for him to receive the first visit, even from the president of the United States.

He therefore omitted to meet Washington on his first arrival, or to call upon him; but, lacking courage to avow the true reason, he pleaded indisposition. The true cause of the omission had been given to the president, and he determined to resist the governor's foolish pretensions. He therefore excused himself from the engagement to dinner, and dined, as he says, at his own lodgings, with Vice-President Adams as his guest.

Hanc.o.c.k soon perceived that he had made a great mistake, and sent three gentlemen that evening to express to Washington his concern that he had not been in a condition to call upon him as soon as he entered the town.

"I informed them," says Washington in his diary, "in explicit terms, that I should not see the governor unless it was at my own lodgings."

The next day (Sunday), on consultation with his friends, Hanc.o.c.k determined to waive the point of etiquette; and at noon he sent a message to Washington that he would do himself the honor of visiting him within half an hour, notwithstanding it was at the hazard of his health.

Washington immediately returned a note in reply to the governor, informing him that he would be at home until two o'clock, and adding, with the most polished irony: "The president need not express the pleasure it will give him to see the governor; but, at the same time, he most earnestly begs that the governor will not hazard his health on the occasion."

Hanc.o.c.k made the visit within the specified time. After recording in his diary his attendance upon public worship in the morning and afternoon, Washington added: "Between the two I received a visit from the governor, who a.s.sured me that indisposition alone prevented him from doing it yesterday, and that he was still indisposed; but as it had been suggested that he expected to _receive_ the visit from the president, which he knew was improper, he was resolved at all hazards to pay his compliments to-day." Thus the matter ended; and the next day the president drank tea with the governor, the latter not having been injured by his exposure in calling upon Washington.[21]

The president remained in Boston until Thursday, the twenty-ninth, during which time he received many calls and addresses, and visited the manufacturing establishments in the city, and the French ships-of-war in the harbor. On the twenty-seventh he had a busy day. In his diary he recorded: "At ten o'clock in the morning received the visits of the clergy of the town. At eleven, went to an oratorio; and between that and three o'clock received the addresses of the governor and council of the town of Boston[22]--of the president, et cetera, of Harvard college, and of the Cincinnati of the state; after which, at three o'clock, I dined at a large and elegant dinner at Faneuil hall, given by the governor and council, and spent the evening at my lodgings."

Of all the addresses, none were so grateful to him as that from his old companions-in-arms, the members of the Cincinnati. "After the solemn and endearing farewell on the banks of the Hudson," they said, "which our anxiety presaged as final, most peculiarly pleasing is the present unexpected meeting. On this occasion we can not avoid the recollection of the various scenes of toil and danger through which you conducted us; and while we contemplate the trying periods of the war, and the triumphs of peace, we rejoice to behold you, induced by the unanimous voice of your country, entering upon other trials and other services, alike important, and in some points of view equally hazardous. For the completion of the great purposes which a grateful country has a.s.signed you, long, very long may your invaluable life be preserved; and as an admiring world, while considering you as a soldier, have wanted a comparison, so may your virtues and talents as a statesman leave it without a parallel."

To these remarks Washington replied: "Dear, indeed, is the occasion which restores intercourse with my a.s.sociates in prosperous and adverse fortune; and enhanced are the triumphs of peace partic.i.p.ated with those whose virtue and valor so largely contributed to procure them. To that virtue and valor your country has confessed her obligations. Be mine the grateful task to add to the testimony of a connection which it was my pride to own in the field, and is now my happiness to acknowledge in the enjoyment of peace and freedom."

On board the French vessels in the harbor were about thirty officers who had served in America during the Revolution, and several of these were members of the society of the Cincinnati in France. Of these the admiral, Viscount de Pondevez, the Marquis de Traversay, and the Chevalier de Braye (the Marquis de Galhsoneire being ill on board his ship) accompanied the Cincinnati in presenting their address. On the following day the president was conveyed on board the flag-ship of the French admiral, in the beautiful barge of the ship _Ill.u.s.trious_, having the flag of the United States at the bow, and that of France at the stern. It was steered by a major and rowed by midshipmen, and the president was received on board with the homage given to sovereigns.

"The officers," says one account, "took off their shoes, and the crew all appeared with their legs bared." "Going and coming," says Washington in his diary, "I was saluted by the two frigates which lay near the wharves, and by the seventy-fours after I had been on board of them. I was also saluted, going and coming, by the fort on Castle island."

Washington continued his tour eastward as far as Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, pa.s.sing through Salem and Newburyport on the way. He was attended nearly the whole distance by military escorts. He left Boston on the morning of the twenty-ninth. Eight o'clock was the hour appointed for departure. The escort that was to accompany him was not ready, and the punctual president, ever deprecating delays, and fearing some other question of etiquette was to be settled, left the laggards to overtake him on the road. He enjoyed the hospitalities of the executive of New Hampshire (General Sullivan) and the citizens of Portsmouth, for several days. There he gave Mr. Gulligher, a Boston painter, one sitting for his portrait, at the request of several of the inhabitants of that city, and also partook of a public dinner and attended a ball given in his honor.[23]

From Portsmouth Washington journeyed toward New York by an interior route, pa.s.sing through Exeter, Haverhill, Andover, Lexington, Watertown, Uxbridge, Pomfret (where General Putnam lived), and arrived at Hartford on Monday, the ninth of November. He reached New York in the afternoon of the thirteenth, his health much benefitted by the journey, and his store of knowledge of the people and the country greatly increased. He had been everywhere received as a father, and he left behind him many pleasant memories, which the partic.i.p.ants cherished as long as life lasted.[24]

The excess of adulation to which the president had been exposed during his tour in New England was deprecated by the more thoughtful, but none found fault with the matter seriously. Trumbull, the author of McFingal, said good-naturedly in a letter to his friend Oliver Wolcott: "We have gone through all the popish grades of worship, and the president returns all fragrant with the odor of incense."

It will be observed that in this tour the president avoided Rhode Island altogether. The reason was that that state, and North Carolina, had not yet ratified the federal const.i.tution, and were so far regarded as foreign states that tonnage duties were imposed upon the vessels of each coming into any port of the other eleven states. But this unpleasant position of the two commonwealths was soon changed. On the very day when Washington reached New York from his eastern tour, a convention of North Carolina voted to ratify the const.i.tution; and on the twenty-ninth of May following, Rhode Island was admitted into the Union.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Washington took cold on that occasion. In his diary, the following Monday, he recorded: "The day being rainy and stormy, myself much disordered by a cold and inflammation in my left eye, I was prevented from visiting Lexington," etc. Sullivan, in his Familiar Letters, tells us that, for several days afterward, a severe influenza prevailed at Boston and in its vicinity, and was called the _Washington influenza_.

It may not be inappropriate to mention that a similar epidemic prevailed all over New England and a part of New York, after the visit of President Tyler to Boston, in 1843, which was called the _Tyler grippe_.

[20] Washington wrote in his diary, under date of Sat.u.r.day, October twenty-fourth: "Suffice it to say, that at the entrance of the town I was welcomed by the selectmen in a body. Then following the lieutenant-governor and council in the order we came from Cambridge (preceded by the town corps, very handsomely dressed), we pa.s.sed through the citizens cla.s.sed in their different professions and under their own banners, till we came to the statehouse, from which, across the street, an arch was thrown, in the front of which was this inscription, 'To the man who unites all hearts;' and on the other, 'To Columbia's favorite Son.' On one side thereof, next the statehouse, in a panel decorated with a trophy, composed of the arms of the United States, of the commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts, and our French allies, crowned with a wreath of laurel, was this inscription--'Boston relieved, March 17, 1776.' This arch was handsomely ornamented, and over the centre of it a canopy was erected twenty feet high, with the American eagle perched on the top. After pa.s.sing through the arch, and entering the statehouse at the south end and ascending to the upper floor, and returning to the balcony at the north end, three cheers were given by a vast concourse of people who by this time had a.s.sembled at the arch. Then followed an ode, composed in honor of the president, and well sung by a band of select singers. After this three cheers, followed by the different professions and mechanics, in the order they were drawn up with their colors, through a lane of the people which had thronged about the arch, under which they pa.s.sed. The streets, the doors, the windows, and tops of the houses, were crowded with well-dressed ladies and gentlemen."

[21] The venerable Samuel Breck, of Philadelphia, now [1859] in the eighty-ninth year of his age, communicated to me in a letter dated May twenty-fifth, 1859, the following interesting reminiscences of Washington's visit to Boston on the occasion under consideration. After giving me a most interesting account of matters connected with the French vessels there, Mr. Breck says:--

"At the time when Admiral de Pondevez was lying with his fleet in the harbor of Boston, General Washington, the first president of the United States, who was making a tour East during the recess of Congress, arrived there. He was received with open arms and hearty cheers by the people. In his honor a triumphal arch was raised, with appropriate mottoes, near the old statehouse. Under this he pa.s.sed in great state. I stood at a window close by, and saw him enter the balcony of that building and show himself to the thousands who came from far and near to greet him. I saw all that pa.s.sed, heard the fine anthems that were composed for the occasion, and gazed with admiring eyes upon his majestic figure.

"The procession that had accompanied him from the entrance of the town took up its line of march again, after these ceremonies, and accompanied him to the house selected for his residence, which stood at the corner of Tremont and Court streets. It was a handsome brick building. A beautiful company of light-infantry served as a guard of honor, commanded by the well-known and greatly distinguished Harrison Gray Otis.

"Governor Hanc.o.c.k had prepared a great dinner at his house, to which he invited the French admiral, the officers of the fleet, and many of the princ.i.p.al citizens. A notion had got into Hanc.o.c.k's head, that the governor of a state was a kind of king or sovereign in his own territory, and that it would be derogatory to his station to pay the first visit to any one, even the president of the United States; and, acting always upon this rule, he sent an invitation to General Washington to dine with him, but excused himself from calling on him, alleging that sickness detained him at home; thus covering by a lame apology the resolution which he dared not openly exercise toward the president. Washington, who had received some hint of this absurd point of etiquette which sought to exalt the head of a part above the head of the whole, sent his aid-de-camp, Major William Jackson, with a message to his excellency, declining the invitation to dinner, and intimating that if his health permitted him to receive company, it would admit of his visiting him.

"My father dined at the governor's, and about sunset brought Admiral de Pondevez and several of his officers, who spent the evening with us. The dinner-party went off heavily, owing to the general disappointment in not meeting the president. Meantime the French ships-of-war in the harbor were dressed in variegated lamps, and bonfires blazed in the streets. The ladies wore bandeaux, cestuses, and ribands, stamped and embroidered with the name of Washington; some in gold and silver letters, and some in pearls.

"About ten o'clock I accompanied the admiral to the wharf of embarkation for his ship. As we pa.s.sed the house where the president lodged, De Pondevez and his party expressed great surprise at the absence of all sort of parade or noise. 'What!'

said he, 'not even a sentinel? In Europe,' he added, 'a brigadier-general would have a guard; and here this great man, the chief of a nation, does not permit it!'

"The next day was Sunday, and immediately after morning service, Mr. Joseph Russell, an intimate friend of the governor, called at our house, and told my father that his excellency had swallowed the bitter pill, and was then on his way to visit the president--to which step he had been urged by a report that the people generally condemned his false pride."

[22] The address from the town was accompanied by a request, in behalf of the ladies of Boston, that he would sit for his portrait, to be placed in Faneuil hall, that others might be copied from it for their respective families. On account of a want of time he was compelled to decline, but promised to have it painted for them after his return to New York.

[23] "At half-after seven," he says in his diary, "I went to the a.s.sembly, where there were about seventy-five well-dressed, and many of them very handsome ladies, among whom (as was also the case at the Salem and Boston a.s.semblies) were a greater proportion with much blacker hair than are usually seen in the southern states."

[24] Between Uxbridge and Pomfret, the president lodged at an inn kept by Mr. Taft, where he was so much pleased with the family, that on his arrival at Hartford he wrote the following letter to Mr. Taft:--

"HARTFORD, _8th November, 1789._

"SIR: Being informed that you have given my name to one of your sons, and called another after Mrs. Washington's family, and being moreover very much pleased with the modest and innocent looks of your two daughters, Patty and Polly, I do for these reasons send each of these girls a piece of chintz; and to Patty, who bears the name of Mrs. Washington, and who waited more upon us than Polly did, I send five guineas, with which she may buy herself any little ornament she may want, or she may dispose of them in any other manner more agreeable to herself. As I do not give these things with a view to have it talked of, or even to its being known, the less there is said about the matter the better you will please me.

But, that I may be sure the chintz and money have got safe to hand, let Patty, who I dare say is equal to it, write me a line, informing me thereof, directed to 'The President of the United States at New York.' I wish you and your family well, and am your humble servant,

"GEO. WASHINGTON."

CHAPTER XII.

FIRST ACT IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION--LAFAYETTE'S PARTIc.i.p.aTION IN IT--AMERICAN SYMPATHY IN THE MOVEMENT--WASHINGTON'S EXPRESSION OF FEELINGS--OPENING OF THE SECOND SESSION OF CONGRESS--WASHINGTON'S MESSAGE--PRECEDENTS ESTABLISHED--HAMILTON'S REPORT ON THE PUBLIC DEBT AND PUBLIC CREDIT--HIS FINANCIAL SCHEME--THE PLAN BEFORE CONGRESS--a.s.sUMPTION OF STATE DEBTS--FINANCIAL MEASURES ADOPTED BY CONGRESS--EFFECTS OF THE DISCUSSION OF THE SUBJECT--WASHINGTON'S OPINIONS--HIS LETTER CONCERNING SECTIONAL JEALOUSIES.

During the summer of 1789 a revolution had broken out in France, and its influence was soon materially felt in the politics of the United States.

It was severe at the beginning and terrible in its subsequent course.

For a long time the enormous corruptions of state had been apparent, and an attempted cure by the most violent means appeared inevitable to the thoughtful and sagacious. The French monarch was a weak man and governed much by bad advisers; and he often refused to listen to the true friends of himself and France when they talked of political and social reforms.

Among these was the good, and brave, and generous Lafayette, who loved the king for his many virtues, but loved France and her true glory, based upon the welfare and prosperity of her people, far more.

Lafayette's princ.i.p.al a.s.sociates in the scheme of reform were the Duke de Rochefoucauld and M. Candorcet. These and one or two others were regarded as the leaders. They aimed to obtain for France a const.i.tution similar to that of England, which they regarded as the most perfect model of human government then known. They desired to retain the throne, but to diminish very materially the power of the monarch. They desired a house of peers, with legislative powers similar to that of England, but restricted in number to one hundred members. They desired a house of representatives, to be chosen by the great body of the people from among themselves, and to make the government a const.i.tutional monarchy upon a republican basis.

With this view Lafayette with his coadjutors had labored for several months, when, in the a.s.sembly of Notables in April, he boldly demanded a series of reforms, and among others a national a.s.sembly. "What!"

exclaimed the Count d'Artois, one of Louis's bad advisers, "do you make a motion for the states-general?"--"Yes, and even more than that,"

quickly responded Lafayette. That _more_ was a charter from the king, by which the public and individual liberty should be acknowledged and guarantied by the future states-general. The measure was carried, and early in May a session of the states-general was opened at Versailles.

Had the king now listened to the advice of his true friends, and made concessions, all would have been well. But he ordered the hall of the national a.s.sembly, or states-general, to be closed. He also allowed German troops from every quarter to gather around Paris, and when requested by the national a.s.sembly to send them away he refused. M.

Necker, the patriotic controller of the treasury, and other ministers who favored reform were dismissed, and the populace became greatly excited. For three days there were scenes of violence in the French capital that presaged the most terrible results. The national a.s.sembly decreed the establishment of an armed militia of forty-eight thousand men, when no less than two hundred and seventy thousand citizens enrolled themselves. Arms were seized, and the greatest exasperation appeared on every side. Again the removal of the troops around Paris was demanded. "I alone," replied the king, "have the right to judge of the necessity, and in that respect I can make no change."