from every lip, while in every heart there dwells but one sentiment: Washington, chief magistrate of the Republic."

The newly-chosen president was deeply affected by this generous, this universal testimonial of the love and attachment of his countrymen. The people triumphed! The man of the people yielded to the will of the people. A day or two sufficed for preparation for departure. A sigh to the fond memories of home and happy days of retirement, and the first president of the United States bade adieu to Mount Vernon. For eight years silence reigned in the ancient halls, when, in 1797, they again teem with animation. The long-absent master returns. Time has blanched his locks, and traced its furrows on his noble brow, but his manly form is still erect; ay, with lightsome step and joyous heart he once more enters the portals of his beloved Mount Vernon.

Our tableau having exhibited the changing events in the history of Mount Vernon for forty-six years, in its closing scene portrays the aged chief in his last retirement. His days are numbered, his glorious race is nearly run, yet, when invasion threatens, he obeys the last call of his country, and is again in arms, her general and protector.**

When Washington was appointed to his last command in the armies of his country, his acceptance was accompanied by an intimation that he should remain in his beloved retirement of Mount Vernon, till imperious circumstances should call him to the field. The commander-inchief gave the necessary attention to military duties through his private secretary, while himself continued the occupations of rural affairs.

*See note on page 327.

A number of the principal characters in the United States were desirous that their sons should make a first essay in arms under the immediate auspices of the venerable chief. Among these was the Hon. Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, for whom Washington ever entertained the very warmest political as well as personal attachment and esteem. To Mr. Carroll's application, the general replied, that as it was his firm resolve, in case the enemy effected a landing, to meet them on the very threshold of the empire, he should, in such an event, require about his person, officers of tried knowledge and experience in war; but with a view to gratify Mr. Carroll, his son should be received as an extra aid-de-camp.

Among the applicants of a more veteran stamp, was Colonel H., of Richmond, one of that band of ardent and youthful chivalry, which Virginia sent to the War for Independence in the very dawn of the Revolution. Colonel H. was lieutenant of Morgan's famed corps of Riflemen, which performed the memorable march across the wintry wilderness of the Kennebec in 1775. During that display of almost superhuman privation and toil, and in the subsequent assault on Quebec, he displayed a hardihood of character, and heroism of heart, that won for him the admiration of his comrades, and esteem of their intrepid commander; and elicited a cognomen, that a Ney might have been proud to deserve"The most daring of all who dare." Morgan, himself, bred in the hardy school of the frontier and Indian warfare, declared of Colonel H.-"He exceeds all men. During the greatest horrors of our march, when the bravest fainted and fell from exhaustion and despondency, it was he who cheered us on, for oft have I seen

him dance upon the snow, while he gnawed his moccasins for subsistence."

Yet even to the application of such a soldier, did the ever cautious mind of Washington pause, while he weighed in the balance not the past, but the present merits of the man. The general wrote to his nephew, then in Richmond, to this effect: "Colonel H. has applied to become a member of my military family. In the War of the Revolution I knew him well; and of a truth he was then all that could be desired in a good and gallant officer, and estimable man; but time, my dear Bushrod,* often changes men as well as things. Now, the object of this letter is to inquire whether the habits of Colonel H. are unaltered, and whether I shall find him now what I knew him to be in other days." The answer to this letter was most satisfactory. Colonel H. was the same, good, gallant, and estimable. The chief was content, and quickly marked him for promotion.

What a moral does this little private memoir impress upon those who are high in authority, upon whose knowledge and judgment of men and things, so often depend the destinies of nations! How careful should chiefs be, in the choice of their subordinates, to weigh well in the balance the present as well as the past merits of applicants for office, lest, as in the words of the venerated Washington, "Time, which changes men as well as things,"

* Bushrod Washington, son of the general's brother John Augustine. His profession was the law; and in 1798, President Adams appointed him a judge of the supreme court of the United States, an office which he held until his death. He was the first president of the American Colonization Society. On the death of General Washington he inherited the estate of Mount Vernon, and the general's books and papers. He died at Philadelphia on the twenty-sixth of November, 1829, at the age of seventy years. His remains are in the family vault at Mount Vernon, and near it is a fine white marble obelisk erected to his memory.

may have rendered them unworthy of being "marked for promotion."

After a long and unexampled career of glory in the service of his country and mankind, well stricken in years and laden with honors, in his own beloved Mount Vernon, with the fortitude and resignation befitting the Roman fame of his life and actions, the Pater Patriæ yielded up his soul to Him who gave it, calmly declaring, "I am not afraid to die."

Our tableau vivant closes with the grandeur and solemnity of the spectacle that bore him to his grave.

CHAPTER XXIV.

LAST HOURS OF WASHINGTON.

LAST SURVIVOR OF THE DEATH-SCENE-WASHINGTON EXPOSED TO A STORM -SYMPTOMS OF SICKNESS-THE SUCCEEDIng Evening LATE IN HIS LIBRARY-CHARACTERISTIC REMARK TO MRS. WASHINGTON-SLEEPLESSNESS - ALARM-PHYSICIANS SENT FOR-DOCTOR CRAIK -SEVERITY OF THE ILLNESS-CALLS FOR HIS WILL-DIRECTIONS ABOUT HIS BODY - A SCRIPTURAL CUSTOM OBSERVED WHY NO CLERGYMAN WAS AT THE DEATH-BED OF WashINGTON-MRS. WASHINGTON'S SECRET PRAYERS-THE CLOSING SCENE.

TWENTY-EIGHT years have passed since an interesting group were assembled in the death room, and witnessed the last hours of Washington.* So keen and unsparing hath been the scythe of time, that of all those who watched over the patriarch's couch, on the thirteenth and fourteenth of December, 1799, but a single personage survives.†

On the morning of the thirteenth, the general was engaged in making some improvements in the front of Mount Vernon. As was usual with him, he carried his

*This was first published in the National Intelligencer, in February, 1827. †The persons here alluded to were, Mrs. Washington, Christopher, a favorite house-servant who attended upon the master, Colonel Tobias Lear, Mrs. Forbes, the housekeeper, Mr. Albert Rawlins, Drs. Craik, Brown, and Dick, and Caroline, Molly, and Charlotte, three of the house-servants. Mrs. Lewis (Eleanor Parke Custis) was confined, by childbirth, to an upper chamber, and her husband and the author of these Recollections, were absent in New Kent. Who the survivor was, to whom the author alludes, can not now be determined.

| Colonel Tobias Lear, a talented and educated gentleman, who resided many years with Washington, first as secretary, and afterwards as superintendent of his private affairs, wrote, immediately after the death of the patriot, a circumstantial