the magnificent fête given by the French minister the following week. Her dresses worn on these historic occasions are preserved by her descendants, and nothing more beautiful has ever since been seen in New York. The material was imported, a quality of silk not within reach of our present ladies of fashion, covered with bouquets of flowers in the brightest and most enduring of colors, embroidered apparently by hand. The style in which they are made is charmingly unique, and not so very different from the fashions of to-day. It is sincerely hoped these dresses will be worn at the coming centennial ball in New York on April 29, 1889, by descendants of Mrs. Duane.

Rufus King was a native of Maine, but as a member of the old congress he had for some time resided in New York. He was thirty-four years of age in 1789, and described by Brissot de Warville as "passing for the most eloquent man in the United States." He had been in the convention that framed the constitution, and his vigorous oratory and rare combination of personal and intellectual endowments made him a prominent figure. He was remarkably well informed, and a model of courtly refinement. He was rich by inheritance as well as studiously inclined, possessed a large library, and wrote with ease. Washington held him in such high esteem that he offered him the secretaryship of the department of state, which was declined, but he accepted the post of minister to England, where he remained six years. His wife was the only daughter of the eminent New York merchant John Alsop. They were married in 1786, and their residence was henceforward in Mr. Alsop's house, corner of Maiden Lane and William Street. Mrs. King was a bright, clever woman, remarkable for personal beauty-face oval, with a clear brunette complexion, delicately formed features, expressive blue eyes, black hair, and exquisite teeth; her motions were all grace, her bearing gracious, her voice musical, and her education exceptional. The frequency with which, her name is found among the dinner guests of President and Mrs. Washington indicates that she was a special favorite with them.

Washington was a member, in full communion, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and was for many years before and after the revolution a vestryman in Truro parish, Virginia. He was always a strict observer of the Sabbath, and invariably attended divine service once a day when within reach of a place of worship. His respect for the clergy as a body was evidenced by his public entertainments given to it, the same as to the corps legislative and diplomatic. In an old number of the London New Monthly Magazine, an English writer describes a visit to Washington in 1789, which will bear repeating: "A servant, well-looking and well-dressed,

received the visitants at the door, and by him they were delivered over to an officer of the United States service, who ushered them into the drawingroom, in which Mrs. Washington and several ladies were seated. There was nothing remarkable in the person of the lady of the President; she was matronly and kind, with perfect good-breeding; she at once entered into easy conversation, asked how long we had been in America, how we liked the country, and such other familiar questions. In a few minutes the general was in the room; it was not necessary to announce his name, for his peculiar appearance, his firm forehead, Roman nose, his height and figure, could not be mistaken by any one who had seen a full-length picture of him, and yet no picture accurately resembled him in the minute. traits of his person. His features, however, were so marked by prominent characteristics, which appear in all likenesses of him, that a stranger could not be mistaken in the man. He was dignified in his manners, and had an air of benignity which his visitant did not expect, being rather prepared for sternness of countenance. After an introduction by Mrs. Washington, he entered into conversation. His manner was full of affability. He asked how I liked the country, the city of New York, talked of the infant institutions of America, and the advantages she offered by her intercourse for benefitting other nations. He was grave in manner but perfectly easy. His dress was of purple satin. In every movement there was a polite gracefulness equal to any met with in the most polished individuals in Europe, and his smile was extraordinarily attractive. There was an expression in his face that no painter has ever succeeded in taking. No man could be better formed for command. Neither with the general nor with Mrs. Washington was there the slightest restraint of ceremony. The house of Washington was in Broadway, and the street-front was handsome. The drawing-room was lofty and spacious, but the furniture was not beyond that found in dwellings of opulent Americans in general, and might be called plain for its situation. The upper end of the room had glass doors, which opened upon a balcony, commanding an extensive view of the Hudson river, interspersed with islands, and the opposite shore."

Among those who participated in the reception of our first Presidentelect was Samuel Osgood, first commissioner of the United States treasury; he had served in that capacity since the early part of the year 1785. When he received his appointment, the bonds required were so heavy that he was about to decline rather than ask his friends to become security; but the legislature of Massachusetts came forward in a body and offered to be his bondsmen, an honor never accorded to any other private individual. When the departments of the new government were organized,

Washington made him the first postmaster-general, a post which he resigned when the seat of government was removed to Philadelphia, and although of Massachusetts birth he continued to reside in New York, holding from time to time positions of great trust. He was distinguished for integrity, piety, and public spirit, also for scientific and literary attainments, wrote several volumes on religious subjects, and was the author of a work on chronology. He left a very modest autobiography, which, through the courtesy of his granddaughter, is now given to the public for the first time on another page of this magazine. When he first came to New York he was a widower and kept bachelor's hall with Rufus King;

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but he lost his heart on meeting the beautiful widow of Walter Franklin, whom he married in 1786-the same year of Rufus King's marriage. It was their house in Franklin Square that was occupied as the first presidential residence, to which reference has heretofore been made. Osgood resided for a time in a house adjoining that of the President, a double flight of steps leading up to the same broad platform upon which the two front doors opened, and Mrs. Osgood, as related to her daughters in after years, often stood by her window as Washington went out for a drive, and observed him take out his immaculate handkerchief to test the work of his groom, and if a speck of dust was discovered upon his horses they were sent immediately back to the stables.

Washington continued to correspond with Lafayette, who was made commander-in-chief of the National Guards of France in July, 1789. But the sympathies of our first President were not in the direction of the peculiar sense of equality that was maddening the French mind. The masses could never quite understand how little the French revolution, the most gigantic and appalling illustration of the natural depravity of the human race in the annals of the world, resembled in its principles our own conflict for independence. Washington was sincerely attached to Lafayette, but he trembled in view of the probable effects of his latest interpretation of "liberty." The more sensible and astute American intellect could not keep abreast in such an unbridled canter. Lafayette wrote to Washington in 1792, just prior to his own arrest and imprisonment: "I wish we had an elective senate, a more independent set of judges, and a more energetic administration; but the people must be taught the advantages of a firm government before they reconcile it to their ideas of freedom, and can distinguish it from the arbitrary systems which they have just got You see, my dear general, I am not an enthusiast for every part of our constitution, although I love its principles, which are the same as those of the United States, except the hereditary character of the president of the executive, which I think suitable to our circumstances. But I hate everything like despotism and aristocracy, and I cannot help wishing the American and French principles were in the heart and on the lips of the American ambassador in France. This I mention to you alone." The last clause referred to Gouverneur Morris, whose counter-revolutionary principles were not acceptable to Lafayette. But it was not very long after this before news reached New York that Gouverneur Morris had interposed, at the risk of his life, to save Madame de Lafayette from a horrible fate.

over.

Nothing could be more striking than the contrast between the early