Colonel Henry Lee, too, who used to be a favoured guest at Mount Vernon, does not seem to have been much under the influence of that "reverential awe " which Washington is said to have inspired; if we may judge from the following anecdote. Washington one day at table mentioned his being in want of carriage horses, and asked Lee if he knew where he could get a pair.

"I have a fine pair, general," replied Lee, "but you cannot get them."

"Why not?"

"Because you will never pay more than half price for anything; and I must have full price for my horses."

The bantering reply set Mrs. Washington laughing, and her parrot, perched beside her, joined in the laugh. The general took this familiar assault upon his dignity in great good part. "Ah, Lee, you are a funny fellow," said he,"see, that bird is laughing at you."

Hearty laughter, however, was rare with Washington. The sudden explosions we hear of were the result of some sudden and ludicrous surprise. His general habit was a calm seriousness, easily softening into a benevolent smile.

In some few of his familiar letters, yet preserved, and not relating to business, there is occasionally a vein of pleasantry and even of humour; but almost invariably they treat of matters of too grave import to admit of anything of the kind. It is to be deeply regretted that most of his family letters have been purposely destroyed.

The passion for hunting had revived with Washington on returning to his old hunting-grounds; but he had no hounds. His kennel had been broken up when he went to the wars, and the dogs given away, and it was not easy to replace them. After a time he received several hounds from France, sent out by Lafayette and other of the French officers, and once more sallied forth to renew his ancient sport. The French hounds, however, proved indifferent; tion of the negro, and their own dismantled state, struck them so ludicrously as to produce loud and repeated bursts of laughter. Washington, who happened to be out upon his grounds, was attracted by the noise, and so overcome by the strange plight of his friends, and the whimsicality of the whole scene, that he is said to have actually rolled on the grass with laughter.-See Life of Judge J. Smith.

' Communicated to us in a letter from a son of Colonel Lee.

he was out with them repeatedly, putting other hounds with them borrowed from gentlemen of the neighbourhood. They improved after a while, but were never stanch, and caused him frequent disappointments. Probably he was not as stanch himself as formerly; an interval of several years may have blunted his keenness, if we may judge from the following entry in his diary:

"Out after breakfast with my hounds; found a fox and ran him sometimes hard, and sometimes at cold hunting, from 11 till near 2-when I came home and left the huntsmen with them, who followed in the same manner two hours or more, and then took the dogs off without killing."

He appears at one time to have had an idea of stocking part of his estate with deer. In a letter to his friend, George William Fairfax, in England, a letter expressive of kind recollections of former companionship, he says: "Though envy is no part of my composition, yet the picture you have drawn of your present habitation and mode of living is enough to create a strong desire in me to be a participator of the tranquillity and rural amusements you have described. I am getting into the latter as fast as I can, being determined to make the remainder of my life easy, let the world or the affairs of it go as they may. I am not a little obliged to you for contributing to this, by procuring me a buck and doe of the best English deer; but if you have not already been at this trouble, I would, my good sir, now wish to relieve you from it, as Mr. Ogle of Maryland has been so obliging as to present me six fawns from his park of English deer at Bellair. With these, and tolerable care, I shall soon have a full stock for my small paddock.'

While Washington was thus calmly enjoying himself, came a letter from Henry Lee, who was now in Congress, conveying a mournful piece of intelligence: "Your friend and second, the patriot and noble Greene, is no more.

1 George William Fairfax resided in Bath, where he died on the 3rd of April, 1787, in the sixty-third year of his age. Though his income was greatly reduced by the confiscation of his property in Virginia, he contributed generously during the revolutionary war to the relief of American prisoners.-Sparks' Washington's Writings, v. ii., p. 53.

Universal grief reigns here." Greene died on the 18th of June, at his estate of Mulberry Grove, on Savannah River, presented to him by the State of Georgia. His last illness was brief, caused by a stroke of the sun; he was but forty-four years of age.

The news of his death struck heavily on Washington's heart, to whom, in the most arduous trials of the Revolution, he had been a second self. He had taken Washington as his model, and possessed naturally many of his great qualities. Like him he was sound in judgment; persevering in the midst of discouragements; calm and selfpossessed in time of danger; heedful of the safety of others; heedless of his own. Like him he was modest and unpretending, and like him he had a perfect command of temper.

He had Washington's habits of early rising, and close and methodical despatch of business, "never suffering the day to crowd upon the morrow." In private intercourse he was frank, noble, candid, and intelligent; in the hurry of business he was free from petulance, and had, we are told, a winning blandness of manner that won the affections of his officers."

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His campaigns in the Carolinas showed him to be a worthy disciple of Washington, keeping the war alive by his own persevering hope and inexhaustible energy, and, as it were, fighting almost without weapons. His great contest of generalship with the veteran Cornwallis has ensured for him a lasting renown.

"He was a great and good man! was Washington's comprehensive eulogy on him; and in a letter to Lafayette he writes: "Greene's death is an event which has given such general concern, and is so much regretted by his numerous friends, that I can scarce persuade myself to touch upon it, even so far as to say that in him you lost a man who affectionately regarded, and was a sincere admirer of you."

We are happy to learn that a complete collection of the correspondence of General Greene is about to be published by his worthy and highly cultivated grandson, George Washington Greene. It is a work that, like Sparks' Writings of Washington, should form a part of every American library.

Other deaths pressed upon Washington's sensibility about the same time. That of General McDougall, who had served his country faithfully through the war, and since with equal fidelity in Congress. That too, of Colonel Tench Tilghman, for a long time one of Washington's aides-decamp, and “who left," writes he, "as fair a reputation as ever belonged to a human character." Thus, adds he, some of the pillars of the Revolution fall. Others are mouldering by insensible degrees. May our country never want props to support the glorious fabric!"

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In his correspondence about this time with several of the French noblemen who had been his associates in arms, his letters breathe the spirit of peace which was natural to him; for war with him had only been a matter of patriotism and public duty. To the Marquis de la Rouerie, who had so bravely but modestly fought under the title of Colonel Armand, he writes: "I never expect to draw my sword again. I can scarcely conceive the cause that would induce me to do it. My time is now occupied by rural amusements in which I have great satisfaction; and my first wish is (although it is against the profession of arms, and would clip the wings of some of our young soldiers who are soaring after glory) to see the whole world in peace, and the inhabitants of it as one band of brothers, striving who should contribute most to the happiness of mankind."

So, also, in a letter to Count Rochambeau, dated July 31st, 1786: "It must give pleasure," writes he, "to the friends of humanity, even in this distant section of the globe, to find that the clouds which threatened to burst in a storm of war on Europe, have dissipated, and left a still brighter horizon. . . . As the rage of conquest, which in times of barbarity stimulated nations to blood, has in a great measure ceased; as the objects which formerly gave birth to wars are daily diminishing; and as mankind are becoming more enlightened and humanized, I cannot but flatter myself with the pleasing prospect, that a more liberal policy and more pacific systems will take place amongst them. To indulge this idea affords a soothing consolation to a philanthropic mind; insomuch that, although it should be found an illusion, one would hardly wish to

be divested of an error so grateful in itself and so innocent in its consequences."

And in another letter,-"It is thus, you see, my dear Count, in retirement upon my farm I speculate upon the fate of nations, amusing myself with innocent reveries that mankind will one day grow happier and better."

How easily may the wisest of men be deceived in their speculations as to the future, especially when founded on the idea of the perfectibility of human nature. These halcyon dreams of universal peace were indulged on the very eve, as it were, of the French Revolution, which was to deluge the world in blood, and when the rage for conquest was to have unbounded scope under the belligerent sway of Napoleon.

CHAPTER CLXIV.

Washington doubts the solidity of the confederation - Correspondence with John Jay on the subject- Plan of a convention of all the States to revise the federal system - Washington heads the Virginia delegation Insurrection in Massachusetts- - The convention - A federal constitution organized-Ratified.

FROM his quiet retreat of Mount Vernon Washington, though ostensibly withdrawn from public affairs, was watching with intense solicitude the working together of the several parts in the great political confederacy; anxious to know whether the thirteen distinct States, under the present organization, could form a sufficiently efficient general government. He was daily becoming more and more doubtful of the solidity of the fabric he had assisted to raise. The form of confederation which had bound the States together and met the public exigencies during the Revolution, when there was a pressure of external danger, was daily proving more and more incompetent to the purposes of a national government. Congress had devised a system of credit to provide for the national expenditure and the extinction of the national debts, which amounted to something more than forty millions of dollars. The system experienced neglect from some States and opposition from others; each consulting its local interests and prejudices,