November 21st

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A portrait of George Washington Lafayette, 1790.

Georges Washington Lafayette, 1790
Paris Musées

To Alexander Hamilton

Philadelphia, 18 November 1795

My dear Sir,

Having no doubt that the petition contained in the enclosed Gazette, will make its appearance in the Virginia Assembly; and nearly as little of its favourable reception in that body, I resolved to give you the perusal of it, at this moment.

But my principal view in writing to you now, is, to request that you would desire young Fayette and his Tutor to proceed to this place without delay; having resolved, unless some powerful reasons can be suggested to the contrary, to take them at once into my family.

The young gentleman must have experienced some unpleasant feelings already from being kept at a distance from me, and I feel as unpleasantly as he can do, from the same cause.*

Very sincerely & Affectionately I am Yours**

G:o Washington

* Washington was determined to keep separate his personal feelings from his public obligations; he was worried that showing favor to the Marquis de Lafayette’s son (Georges Washington Lafayette) would cause political problems with the new French government, and so had kept him at a distance after his arrive in the United States. The Marquis de Lafayette, his wife and daughters were being held in an Austrian prison. The young Lafayette and his tutor would stay with the Washington’s for nearly two years.

** In a 29 October letter to Hamilton, Washington had written of the 15 year-old Lafayette: “to be in the place of a father and friend to him I am resolved, under any circumstances.”  

Sources and Abbreviations

A portrait of Benjamin Latrobe.

Benjamin Latrobe
Architect of the Capitol

A VISIT TO MOUNT VERNON
THE JOURNAL OF BENJAMIN LATROBE*
Sunday, 16 July 1796

Having alighted at Mount Vernon, I sent in my letter of introduction, and walked into the portico next to the river. In about ten minutes the President came to me. He was attired in a plain blue coat, his hair dressed and powdered. There was a reserve but no hauteur in his manner. He shook me by the hand, said he was glad to see a friend of his nephew’s, drew a chair, and desired me to sit down. Having inquired after the family I had left, the conversation turned upon Bath**, to which they were going. He said he had known the place when there was scarce a house upon it fit to step in, that the accommodations were, he believed, very good at present. He thought the best thing a family, regularly and constantly visiting Bath, could do would be to build a house for their separate accommodation, the expense of which might be two hundred pounds. He has himself a house there which he supposes must be going to ruin. Independent of his public situation, the increased dissipation and frequency of visitors would be an objection to his visiting it again, unless the health of himself or family should render it necessary. At first that was the motive, he said, that induced people to encounter the badness of the roads and the inconvenience of the lodgings, but at present few, he believed, in comparison of the whole number, had health in view. Even those whose object it was, were interrupted in their quiet by the dissipation of the rest. This, he observed, must naturally be the case in every large collection of men whose minds were not occupied by pressing business or personal interest. In these and many more observations of the same kind there was no moroseness nor anything that appeared as if the rapidly increasing immorality of the citizens particularly impressed him at the time he made them. They seemed the well-expressed remarks of a man who has seen and knows the world.

A portrait of President George Washington, 1793.

President George Washington, 1793
Yale University Art Gallery

The conversation then turned upon the rivers of Virginia. He gave me a very minute account of all their directions, their natural advantages, and what he conceived might be done for their improvement by art. He then inquired whether I had seen the Dismal Swamp, and seemed particularly desirous of being informed upon the subject of the canal going forward there. He gave me a detailed account of the old Dismal Swamp Company and of their operations, of the injury they had received by the effects of the war, and still greater, which their inattention to their own concerns had done them. After many attempts on his part to procure a meeting of directors, the number of which the law provided should be six in order to do business, all of which proved fruitless, he gave up all further hopes of anything effectual being done for their interests, and sold out his shares in the proprietary at a price very inadequate to their real value. Since then his attention had been so much drawn to public affairs that he had scarcely made any inquiry into the proceedings either of the Swamp or of the Canal Company. I was much flattered by his attention to my observations, and his taking the pains either to object to my deductions where he thought them ill-founded, or to confirm them by very strong opinions of his own, made while he was in the habit of visiting the Swamp.

This conversation lasted above one hour, and, as he had at first told me that he was endeavoring to finish some letters to go by the post upon a variety of business which notwithstanding his distance from the seat of Government still pressed upon him in his retirement, I got up to take my leave; but he desired me, in a manner very like Dr. Johnson’s, to “ keep my chair,” and then continued to talk to me about the great works going forward in England, and my own object in this country. I found him well acquainted with my mother’s family in Pennsylvania. After much conversation upon the coal mines on James River, I told him of the silver mine at Rocketts. He laughed most heartily upon the very mention of the thing. I explained to him the nature of the expectations formed of its productiveness, and satisfied him of the probability that ore did exist there in considerable quantity. He made several minute inquiries concerning it, and then said that “it would give him real uneasiness should any silver or gold mines be discovered that would tempt considerable capital into the prosecution of that object, and that he heartily wished for his country that it might contain no mines but such as the plow could reach, excepting only coal and iron.”

A view of Mount Vernon's exterior.

George & Martha Washington’s Mount Vernon
National Gallery of Art

After conversing with me more than two hours he got up and said that “we should meet again at dinner.” I then prowled about the lawn and took some views. Upon my return to the house, I found Mrs. Washington and her granddaughter, Miss Custis***, in the hall. I introduced myself to Mrs. Washington as a friend of her nephew, and she immediately entered into conversation upon the prospect from the lawn, and presently gave me an account of her family in a good-humored free manner that was extremely pleasant and flattering. She retains strong remains of considerable beauty, seems to enjoy very good health, and to have a good humor. She has no affectation of superiority in the slightest degree, but acts completely in the character of the mistress of the house of a respectable and opulent country gentleman. Her granddaughter, Miss Eleanor Custis, the only one of four who is unmarried, has more perfection of form, of expression, of color, of softness, and of firmness of mind than I have ever seen before or conceived consistent with mortality. She is everything that the  chisel of Phidias aimed at but could not reach, and the soul beaming through her countenance and glowing in her smile is as superior to her face as mind is to matter.

Young La Fayette**** with his tutor came down some time before dinner. He is a young man about seventeen, of a mild, pleasant countenance, favorably impressing one at first sight. His figure is rather awkward. His manners are easy, and he has very little of the usual French air about him. He talked much, especially with Miss Custis, and seemed to possess wit and fluency. He spoke English tolerably well, much better, indeed, than his tutor, who has had the same time and opportunities of improvement

* Latrobe was an architect who was touring Virginia (he would become an important architect in Philadelphia and later, Washington, D.C.)

** located in present day West Virginia

*** Eleanor “Nelly” Parke Custis

**** Georges Washington Lafayette (son of the Marquis de Lafayette, imprisoned in Austria); his tutor was Felix Frestel. 

Sources and Abbreviations

An 18th century dining room table holding many dishes of food.

Adobe Firefly

A VISIT TO MOUNT VERNON (CONT’D)
THE JOURNAL OF BENJAMIN LATROBE 
Sunday, 16 July 1796 / Monday, 17 July 1796

Dinner was served about half after three. It had been postponed about a half-hour in hopes of Mr. Lear’s* arrival from Alexandria. The President came into the portico about half an hour before three, and talked freely upon common topics with the family.  At dinner he placed me at the left hand of Mrs. Washington; Miss Custis sat at her right, and himself next to her about the middle of the table. There was very little conversation at dinner. A few jokes passed between the President and young La Fayette, whom he treats more as his child than as a guest. I felt a little embarrassed at the silent, reserved air that prevailed. As I drink no wine, and the President drank only three  glasses, the party soon returned to the portico. Mr. Lear, Mr. Dandridge, and Mr. Lear’s three boys soon after arrived and helped out the conversation. The President retired in about three-quarters of an hour.

As much as I wished to stay, I thought it a point of delicacy to take up as little of the time of the President as possible, and I therefore requested Mrs. Washington’s permission to order my horses. She expressed a slight wish that I would stay, but I did not think it sufficiently strong in etiquette to detain me, and ordered my horses to the door. I waited a few minutes till the President returned. He asked me whether I had any very pressing business to prevent my lengthening my visit. I told him I had not, but that as I considered it an intrusion upon his more important engagements, I thought I could reach Colchester that evening by daylight. “Sir,” said he, “you see I take my own way. If you can be content to take yours at my house, I shall be glad to see you here longer.”

George and Martha Washington along with Eleanor Custis and another child in the living room before a fireplace.

Eleanor Custis (piano) & Martha and George Washington
Library of Congress

Coffee was brought about six o’clock. When it was removed the President, addressing himself to me, inquired after the state of the crops about Richmond. I told him all I had heard. A long conversation upon farming ensued, during which it grew dark, and he then proposed going into the hall. He made me sit down by him and continued the conversation for above an hour. During that time he gave me a very minute account of the Hessian fly and its progress from Long Island, where it first appeared, through New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, part of Pennsylvania, and Maryland. It has not yet appeared in Virginia, but is daily dreaded. The cultivation of Indian corn next came up. He dwelt upon the advantages attending this most useful crop, and then said that the manner in which the land was exhausted by it, the constant attendance it required during the whole year, and the superior value of the produce of land in other crops would induce him to leave off entirely the cultivation of it, provided he could depend upon any market for a supply elsewhere. As food for the negroes, it was his opinion that it was infinitely preferable to wheat bread in point of nourishment. He had made the experiment upon his own land and had found that though the negroes, while the novelty lasted, seemed to prefer wheat bread as being the food of their masters, soon grew tired of it. He conceived that should the negroes be fed upon wheat or rye bread, they would, in order to be fit for the same labor, be obliged to have a considerable addition to their allowance of meat. But notwithstanding all this, he thought the balance of advantage to be against the Indian corn.

He then entered into the different merits of a variety of plows which he had tried, and gave the preference to the heavy Rotheram plow from a full experience of its merits. The Berkshire iron plow he held next in estimation. He had found it impossible to get the iron work of his Rotheram plow replaced in a proper manner, otherwise he should never have discontinued its use. I promised to send him one of Mr. Richardson’s plows of Tuckahoe, which he accepted with pleasure.

A portrait of Martha Washington in 1792.

Martha Washington
Yale University Art Gallery

Mrs. Washington and Miss Custis had retired early, and the President left the company about eight o’clock. We soon after retired to bed. There was no hint of supper.

I rose with the sun and walked in the grounds near the house. The President came to the company in the  sitting room about one-half hour past seven, where all the latest newspapers were laid out. He talked with Mr. Lear about the progress of the work at the great falls and in the City of Washington. Breakfast was served up in the usual Virginia style. Tea, coffee, and cold broiled meat. It was very soon over, and for an hour afterwards he stood upon the steps of the west door talking to the company who were collected round him. The subject was chiefly the establishment of the University at the federal city. He mentioned the offer he had made of giving to it all the interests he had in the city on condition that it should go on in a given time, and complained that, though magnificent offers had been made by many speculators for the same purpose, there seemed to be no inclination to carry them into reality. He spoke as if he felt a little hurt upon the subject. About ten o’clock he made a motion to retire, and I requested a servant to bring my horses to the door. He then returned, and as soon as my servant came up with the horses, he went to him and asked him if he had breakfasted. He then shook me by the hand, desired me to call if I came again into the neighborhood, and wished me a good morning.

Washington has something uncommonly majestic and commanding in his walk, his address, his figure, and his countenance. His face is characterized, however, more by intense and powerful thought than by quick and fiery conception. There is a mildness about its expression, and an air of reserve in his manner lowers its tone still more. He is sixty-four, but appears some years younger, and has sufficient apparent vigor to last many years yet. He was frequently entirely silent for many minutes, during which time an awkwardness seemed to prevail in everyone present. His answers were often short and sometimes approached to moroseness. He did not at any time speak with very remarkable fluency; perhaps the extreme correctness of his language, which almost seemed studied, prevented that effect. He appeared to enjoy a humorous observation, and made several himself. He laughed heartily several times in a very good-humored manner. On the morning of my departure he treated me as if I had lived for years in his house, with ease and attention, but in general I thought there was a slight air of moroseness about him as if something had vexed him.**

For Washington, had Horace lived at the present age, he would have written his celebrated ode: it is impossible to have ever read it and not to recollect in the presence of this great man the virum jus turn propositique tenacem,*** etc.

* Tobias Lear had married Martha Washington’s niece, Frances “Fanny” Bassett (now deceased) and lived on the Mount Vernon estate.

** This was during the time Washington was attacked in the newspapers by the Republican party (later, the Democratic-Republican party). Washington was concerned that the two parties (Republican and Federalist) were in danger of destroying the republic. He had also recently written a rather contentious letter to Thomas Jefferson on 6 July 1796 (see, 16 November entry).

*** approximately, “a just man, firm of purpose”

Sources and Abbreviations

The book cover for George Washington: The Interview Powered by A.I. published by Broadwoods Publishing.

GEORGE WASHINGTON:
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