caught only a few of them, though a good many of other sorts of fish."

"Seven o'clock, a messenger came to inform me that my mill was in great danger of being destroyed. I immediately hurried off all hands, with shovels, etc., to its assistance, and got there myself just time enough to give it a reprieve for this time, by wheeling gravel into the place which the water had washed. While I was there a very heavy thunder shower came on, which lasted upwards of an hour. I tried what time the mill required to grind a bushel of corn, and, to my surprise, found it was within five minutes of an hour. Old Anthony attributed this to the low head of water; but whether it was so or not I cannot say. The works are all decayed and out of order, which I rather take to be the cause."

Such a mill we should think hardly worth saving. Even the vigorous Washington could not get a Virginia plantation into very good order. We read elsewhere in his diary that he owned one hundred and one cows, and yet had to buy butter sometimes for the use of his family. Would the reader like to know the reason? General Washington himself tells us. He mentions in his diary that one morning in February, 1760, he went out to where "my carpenters" were hewing, the said carpenters being black slaves. "I found," he wrote, "that four of them, namely, George, Tom, Mike, and young Billy, had only hewed one hundred and twenty feet since yesterday at ten o'clock." Surprised at this meagre result of a day's labor of four men, he sat down to see how they managed. Under the spell of the master's eye they worked faster, but still in a wonderfully bungling and dawdling manner. He records that, after they had prepared a log for cutting into lengths, "they spent twenty-five minutes more in getting the cross-cut saw, standing to consider what to do, sawing the stock in two places," etc. He found that the four men had done exactly one man's work the day before, supposing they could work no faster than they had done while he watched them, and that one intelligent, active laborer could do about as much hewing in two days as they would in a week. Here we have the reason why a man possessing one hundred and one cows had to buy butter. If this was the case with the best

farmer in Virginia, and one of the richest, what must have been the condition of the ordinary plantations?

Much of his time, however, was spent in taking care of these dilatory and uncalculating laborers. If a malignant disease broke out among them, it was the master who alone had the nerve and energy to make the requisite arrangements. The small-pox once ravaged his negro quarters. He enters in his diary:

"After taking the doctor's directions in regard to my people, I set out for my quarters, and got there about twelve o'clock, time enough to find everything in the utmost confusion, disorder and backwardness, my overseer on his back with a broken leg, and not half a crop, especially of corn ground, prepared."

In these desperate circumstances, with the dead to be buried, the dying to be comforted, the sick to be ministered to, and the well to be tranquillized, the master proceeded to arrange hospitals, separate the sick from the well, provide nurses, and give instruction as to the treatment of the disease.

Such were some of the employments of Washington when he was a Virginia planter. His pleasures were few, but they were such as he keenly enjoyed. We learn from his diary that he hunted, during the season, about twice a week, and it is plain that these were his happy days. There are scores of entries like the following:

"Went hunting after breakfast, and found a fox at Muddy Hole, and killed her after a chase of better than two hours, and after treeing her twice, the last of which times she fell dead out of the tree, after being there several minutes apparently well."

There were balls occasionally at Alexandria, and we find Washington attending them, and entering into the humors and gayeties of the entertainment with much spirit.

The usual course of a day at Mount Vernon was something like this: The master rose early, shaved and dressed himself, except that his queue was arranged by a servant. His first visit was to the stable. It is recorded of him that he once applied, with his own strong right arm, a stirrup strap to the shoulders of a groom who had allowed a favorite horse to stand all night in the sweat and dust of a day's hunt. I think I know some

lovers of the horse who will be able to forgive this action without the least difficulty. After a light breakfast of corn cake, honey, and tea, the general would tell his guests, if he had any, and he usually had, to amuse themselves in their own way till dinner time, offering them his stables, his hunting and fishing apparatus, his boats and his books to their choice. Then he would mount his horse and ride about his farms, returning at halfpast two, in time to dress for dinner at three. He was always dressed with care for this meal, as on all other occasions of ceremony. He liked plain dishes, drank home-brewed ale, and was particularly fond of baked apples, hickory nuts, and other simple products of the country. It was his custom to sit a good while at the table after dinner, eating nuts, sipping wine, and talking over his hunts and his adventures while in service during the French war. His usual toast was, "All our friends." The evening was spent in the family circle around the blazing wood fire, and by ten o'clock he was usually asleep. Such was the ordinary life of this illustrious farmer at home, before his country called him to the field to defend her liberties; and it was just the kind of life that was best fitted to prepare him for the command of an army of American farmers.

INAUGURATION OF WASHINGTON.

THE first Congress, under the present Constitution, met in the city of New York, on the 4th of March, 1789. That, at least, was the day appointed for its meeting; but when the hour had arrived, it was found that, out of twenty-six senators, only eight were present, and of a numerous House of Representatives but fourteen members were in their seats. Both houses adjourned from day to day, and it was not until the 6th of April that a quorum of both houses was present.

The first business in order, after the organization, was the counting of the votes for president and vice-president, and thus to ascertain who it was whom the people had elected to set the new government in motion. The constitution then required that the person who had received the highest number of electoral votes should be the president, and the person who received the next highest number should be the vice-president. For the first office there was nothing that resembled competition. Not only was every electoral vote cast for General Washington, but, so far as is known, he was the choice of every individual voter in every State of the Union.

When we look over the list of those who received votes for the vice-presidency, we cannot but be struck with the transitory nature of political fame. Who has ever heard of an American politician by the name of John Milton? Yet John Milton was a man of sufficient prominence in the United States, in 1789, to receive two electoral votes for the presidency. One Edward Telfair received a vote. Who was Telfair? These two persons are so completely forgotten that their names are not even mentioned in the biographical dictionaries. Among the other persons, nearly forgotten, who received votes for this

office, we find Benjamin Lincoln, James Armstrong, Robert H. Harrison, Samuel Huntingdon, and John Rutledge. The candidate elected was John Adams, who received thirty-four votes. John Jay received nine votes, and John Hancock four votes, and the rest were scattered among the unknown names just mentioned. When the result of the election was proclaimed, a member of the Senate was appointed to go to Mount Vernon and notify General Washington of his election. The long delay which had occurred while a quorum of Congress was assembling was regarded by the general, as he himself remarked, in the light of a "reprieve." He wrote to his old companion in arms, General Knox:

"My movements to the chair of government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution; so unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an ocean of difficulties, without that competency of political skill, abilities, and inclination, which are necessary to manage the helm. I am sensible that I am embarking the voice of the people and a good name of my own on this voyage; but what returns will be made for them, Heaven alone can foretell. tegrity and firmness are all I can promise. These, be the voyage long or short, shall never forsake me, although I may be deserted by all men; for, of the consolations which are to be derived from these, under any circumstances, the world cannot deprive me."

In

All the letters of Washington written at this period show the unwillingness with which he left his beloved retirement to resume the control of public affairs. It was more than unwillingness, it was aversion and dread. He distrusted his own abilities, nor was he satisfied with every part of the new Constitution. Two days, however, after the messenger reached him with the official news of his election, he began his journey to the seat of government.

That journey was a triumphal progress. He had scarcely gone beyond the boundaries of his own estate, when he was met by a company of horsemen from Alexandria, who escorted him to that ancient town, where a public banquet had been pro