me to make them, and which I would with pleasure lay before you. Probably my reasons for nominating Mr. Fishburn may tend to show that such a mode of proceed ing, in such cases, might be useful. I will therefore detail them."

He then proceeds to state that Colonel Fishburn had served under his own eye with reputation as an officer and a gentleman; had distinguished himself at the storming of Stony Point; had repeatedly been elected to the Assembly of Georgia as a representative from Chatham County, in which Savannah was situated; had been elected by the officers of the militia of that county Lieutenant-Colonel of the militia of the district; had been member of the Executive Council of the State, and president of the same; had been appointed by the council to an office which he actually held, in the port of Savannah, nearly similar to that for which Washington had nominated him.

"It appeared therefore to me," adds Washington, "that Mr. Fishburn must have enjoyed the confidence of the militia officers in order to have been elected to a military rankthe confidence of the freemen, to have been elected to the Assembly-the confidence of the Assembly to have been selected for the Council-and the confidence of the Council to have been appointed collector of the port of Savannah."

We give this letter in some detail, as relating to the only instance in which a nomination by Washington was rejected. The reasons of the Senate for rejecting it do not appear. They seem to have felt his rebuke, for the nomination last made by him was instantly confirmed.

While yet in a state of convalescence, Washington received intelligence of the death of his mother. The event, which took place at Fredericksburg in Virginia, on the 25th of August, was not unexpected: she was eighty-two years of age, and had for some time been sinking under an incurable malady, so that when he last parted with her he had apprehended that it was a final separation. Still he was deeply affected by the intelligence; consoling himself, however, with the reflection that "Heaven had spared her to an age beyond which few attain; had favoured her with the full enjoyment of her mental faculties, and as much bodily health as usually falls to the lot of fourscore.”

Mrs. Mary Washington is represented as a woman of strong plain sense, strict integrity, and an inflexible spirit of command. We have mentioned the exemplary manner in which she, a lone widow, had trained her little flock in their childhood. The deference for her, then instilled into their minds, continued throughout life, and was manifested by Washington when at the height of his power and reputation. Eminently practical, she had thwarted his military aspirings when he was about to seek honour in the British navy. During his early and disastrous campaigns on the frontier, she would often shake her head and exclaim, "Ah! George had better have staid at home and cultivated his farm. Even his ultimate success and renown had never dazzled, however much they may have gratified her. When others congratulated her, and were enthusiastic in his praise, she listened in silence, and would temperately reply that he had been a good son, and she believed he had done his duty as a man.

Hitherto the new government had not been properly organized, but its several duties had been performed by the officers who had them in charge at the time of Washington's inauguration. It was not until the 10th of September that laws were passed instituting a department of Foreign Affairs (afterwards termed Department of State), a Treasury department, and a department of War, and fixing their respective salaries. On the following day Washington nominated General Knox to the department of War, the duties of which that officer had hitherto discharged.

The post of Secretary of the Treasury was one of far greater importance at the present moment. It was a time of financial exigency. As yet no statistical account of the country had been attempted; its fiscal resources were wholly unknown; its credit was almost annihilated, for it was obliged to borrow money even to pay the interest of its debts.

We have already quoted the language held by Washington in regard to this state of things before he had assumed the direction of affairs. 66 My endeavours shall be unremittingly exerted, even at the hazard of former fame or present popularity, to extricate my country from the embarrassments in which it is entangled through want of credit."

Under all these circumstances, and to carry out these views, he needed an able and zealous coadjutor in the Treasury department-one equally solicitous with himself on the points in question, and more prepared upon them by financial studies and investigations than he could pretend to be. Such a person he considered Alexander Hamilton, whom he nominated as Secretary of the Treasury, and whose qualifications for the office were so well understood by the Senate that his nomination was confirmed on the same day on which it was made.

Within a few days after Hamilton's appointment, the House of Representatives (Sept. 21), acting upon the policy so ardently desired by Washington, passed a resolution, declaring their opinion of the high importance to the honour and prosperity of the United States, that an adequate provision should be made for the support of public credit; and instructing the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare a plan for the purpose, and report it at their next session.

The arrangement of the Judicial department was one of Washington's earliest cares. On the 27th of September he wrote unofficially to Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, informing him that he had nominated him AttorneyGeneral of the United States, and would be highly gratified with his acceptance of that office. Some old recollections of the camp and of the early days of the revolution may have been at the bottom of this good-will, for Randolph had joined the army at Cambridge in 1775, and acted for a time as aide-de-camp to Washington in place of Mifflin. He had since gained experience in legislative business as member of Congress from 1779 to 1782, Governor of Virginia in 1786, and delegate to the convention in 1787. the discussions of that celebrated body, he had been opposed to a single executive, professing to discern in the unity of that power the "foetus of monarchy," and preferring an executive consisting of three; whereas, in the opinion of others, this plural executive would be " a kind of Cerberus with three heads." Like Madison, he had disapproved of the equality of suffrage in the Senate, and been, moreover, of opinion, that the President should be ineligible to office after a given number of years.

In

Dissatisfied with some of the provisions of the constitution as adopted, he had refused to sign it; but had afterwards supported it in the State convention of Virginia. As we recollect him many years afterwards, his appearance and address were dignified and prepossessing; he had an expressive countenance, a beaming eye, and somewhat of the ore rotundo in speaking. Randolph promptly accepted the nomination, but did not take his seat in the cabinet until some months after Knox and Hamilton.

By the judicial system established for the Federal Government, the Supreme Court of the United States was to be composed of a chief justice and five associate judges. There were to be district courts with a judge in each State, and circuit courts held by an associate judge and a district judge. John Jay, of New York, received the appointment of Chief Justice, and, in a letter enclosing his commission, Washington expressed the singular pleasure he felt in addressing him "as the head of that department which must be considered as the keystone of our political fabric." Jay's associate judges were, John Rutledge of South Carolina, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, William Cushing of Massachusetts, John Blair of Virginia, and James Iredell of North Carolina. Washington had originally nominated to one of the judgeships his former military secretary, Robert Harrison, familiarly known as the old Secretary; but he preferred the office of Chancellor of Maryland, recently conferred upon him.

On the 29th of September, Congress adjourned to the first Monday in January, after an arduous session, in which many important questions had been discussed, and powers organized and distributed. The actual Congress was inferior in eloquence and shining talent to the first Congress of the revolution; but it possessed men well fitted for the momentous work before them; sober, solid, upright, and well informed. An admirable harmony had prevailed between the legislature and the executive, and the utmost decorum had reigned over the public deliberations.

Fisher Ames, then a young man, who had acquired a brilliant reputation in Massachusetts by the eloquence with which he had championed the new constitution in the convention of that important State, and who had re

cently been elected to Congress, speaks of it in the following terms:-"I have never seen an assembly where so little art was used. If they wish to carry a point, it is directly declared and justified. Its merits and defects are plainly stated, not without sophistry and prejudice, but without management. * * There is no intrigue, no caucusing, little of clanning together, little asperity in debate, or personal bitterness out of the House."

CHAPTER CLXX.

Sketch of Jefferson's

The Department of State still without a Head Character and Opinions - Deeply immersed in French Politics at Paris Gouverneur Morris abroad Contrast of his and Jefferson's Views on the French Crisis - News of the French Revolution in America - Popular Excitement - Washington's cautious Opinion on the Subject-Hamilton's apprehensive View-Jefferson offered a Place in the Cabinet as Secretary of State.

THE cabinet was still incomplete; the department of foreign affairs, or rather of State, as it was now called, was yet to be supplied with a head. John Jay would have received the nomination, had he not preferred the bench. Washington next thought of Thomas Jefferson, who had so long filled the post of Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Versailles, but had recently solicited and obtained permission to return, for a few months, to the United States for the purpose of placing his children among their friends in their native country, and of arranging his private affairs, which had suffered from his protracted absence. And here we will venture a few particulars concerning this eminent statesman, introductory to the important influence he was to exercise on national affairs.

His political principles, as a democratic republican had been avowed at an early date in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, and subsequently in the successful war which he made upon the old cavalier traditions of his native State, its laws of entails and primogeniture, and its church establishment; a war which broke down the hereditary fortunes and hereditary families, and put an end to the hereditary aristocracy of the Ancient Dominion.