glory; and to suffer even temporary reproach and obloquy, supported by the approbation of his own conscience and the applause of that small number of wise men whose praise is an earnest of the admiration and gratitude of posterity. Victorious generals easily acquire the confidence of their army. Theirs, however, is a confidence in the fortune of their general. That of Washington's army was a confidence in his wisdom. Victory gives spirit to cowards, and even the agitations of defeat sometimes impart a courage of despair. Courage is inspired by success, and it may be stimulated to desperate exertion even by calamity, but it is generally palsied by inactivity.-A system of cautious defence is the severest trial of human fortitude. By this test the firmness of Washington was tried.

It must not, however, be concealed, that some of the British commanders gave him advantages which he surely did not expect; and it has been thought that more than once they had it in their power to annihilate his army, merely by following up their victories. The issue of the contest is well known.

Much has been said by the American biographers of Washington, concerning his magnanimity during the ravages of a civil war, in which he acted so conspicuous a part; but, on the other hand, two instances have been mentioned in which he is thought to have been deficient in this great quality of a hero. Granting (it has been said) that duty required him to execute, as a spy, the accomplished major André, true magnanimity would have prevented him from insultingly erecting, in the view of that unfortunate officer, the gallows on which he was to be hung, several days before his execution. And when earl Cornwallis was overpowered by numbers, and obliged at York-town to surrender to the united armies of America and France, a magnanimous conqueror would not have claimed, contrary to the usage of civilized war, the sword from the hands of that gallant nobleman. On these two occasions, and on some others, the conduct of Washington agreed so ill with his general character, that he has been supposed to be influenced by the leaders of the French army. Cne thing is certain, that he was so little pleased either with his own conduct on particular occasions, or with the general principle of the American revolution, that he never could be forced to talk on the subject. An Italian nobleman, who visited him after the peace, had often at

tempted, in vain, to turn the conversation to the events of the war. At length he thought he had found a favourable opportunity of effecting his purpose; they were riding together over the scene of an action where Washington's conduct had been the subject of no small animadversion. Count said to him, "Your conduct, sir, in this action has been criticized." Washington made no answer, but clapped spurs to his horse; after they had passed the field he turned to the Italian, and said, "Count, I observe that you wish me to speak of the war. It is a conversation which I always avoid. I rejoice at the establishment of the liberties of America. But the time of the struggle was a horrible period, in which the best men were compelled to do many things repugnant to their nature."

The conclusion of the American war permitted Washington to return to those domestic scenes, from which nothing but a sense of duty seems to have had the power to draw him. But he was not allowed long to enjoy this privacy. The supreme government of the United States, hastily thrown up, in a moment of turbulence and danger, as a temporary fortification against anarchy, proved utterly inadequate to the preservation of general tranquillity and permanent security. The confusions of civil war had given a taint to the morality of the people, which rendered the restraints of a just and vigorous government more indispensably necessary. Confiscation and paper money, the two greatest schools of rapacity and dishonesty in the world, had widely spread their poison among the Americans. One of their own writers tells us that the whole system of paper money was a system of public and private frauds. In this state of things, which threatened the dissolution of morality and government, good men saw the necessity of concentrating and invigorating the supreme authority. Under the influence of this conviction, a convention of delegates was assembled at Philadelphia, which strengthened the bands of the federal union, and bestowed on congress those powers which were necessary for the purposes of good government. Washington was the presiden of this convention, as he, in three years after, was elected president of the United States of America, under what was called "The New Constitution," though it ought to have been called a reform of the republican government, as that republican government itself was only a reform of the ancient Colonial constitution under the British crown. None

of these changes extended so far as an attempt to new model the whole social and political system.

Events occurred during his chief magistracy, which convulsed the whole political world, and which tried most se verely his moderation and prudence. The French revolution took place. Both friends and enemies have agreed in stating that Washington, from the beginning of that revolution, had no great confidence in its beneficial operation. He must indeed have desired the abolition of despotism, but he is not to be called the enemy of liberty, if he dreaded the substitution of a more oppressive despotism. It is extremely probable that his wary and practical understanding, instructed by the experience of popular commotions, augured little good from the daring speculations of inexperienced visionaries. The progress of the revolution was not adapted to cure his distrust, and when, in 1793, France, then groaning under the most intolerable and hideous tyranny, became engaged in war with almost all the governments of the civilized world, it is said to have been a matter of deliberation with the president of the United States, whether the republican envoy, or the agent of the French princes should be received in America as the diplo matic representative of France. But whatever might be his private feelings of repugnance and horror, his public conduct was influenced only by his public duties. As a virtuous man he must have abhorred the system of crimes which was established in France. But as the first magistrate of the American commonwealth, he was bound only to consider how far the interest and safety of the people whom he governed, were affected by the conduct of France. He saw that it was wise and necessary for America to preserve a good understanding and a beneficial intercourse with that great country, in whatever manner she was governed, as long as she abstained from committing injury against the United States. Guided by this just and simple principle, uninfluenced by the abhorrence of crimes which he felt, he received Mr. Genet, the minister of the French republic, and was soon shocked by the outrages which that minister committed, or instigated, or countenanced against the American government. The conduct of Washington was a model of firm and dignified moderation. Insults were offered to his authority in official papers, in anonymous libels, by incendiary declaimers, and by tumultuous meetings. The law of nations was trampled under foot.

His confidential ministers were seduced to betray him, and the deluded populace were so inflamed by the arts of their enemies that they broke out into insurrection. No vexation, however galling, could disturb the tranquillity of his mind, or make him deviate from the policy which his situation prescribed. With a more confirmed authority, and at the head of a longer established government, he might perhaps have thought greater vigour justifiable. But in his circumstances, he was sensible that the nerves of authority were not strong enough to bear being strained. Persuasion, always the most desirable instrument of government, was in his case the safest; yet he never overpassed the line which separates concession from meanness. He reached the utmost limits of moderation, without being betrayed into pusillanimity. He preserved external and internal peace by a system of mildness, without any of those virtual confessions of weakness, which so much dishonour and enfeeble supreme authority. During the whole of that arduous struggle, his personal character gave that strength to a new magistracy which in other countries arises from ancient habits of obedience and respect. The authority of his virtue was more efficacious for the preservation of America, than the legal powers of his office.

During this turbulent period he was re-elected to the office of president of the United States, which he held from April 1789 till September 1796. Probably no magistrate of any commonwealth, ancient or modern, ever occupied a place so painful and perilous. Certainly no man was ever called upon so often to sacrifice his virtuous feelings (he had no other sacrifices to make) to his public duty. Two circumstances of this sort deserve to be particularly noticed. In the spring of 1794 he sent an ambassador to Paris with credentials, addressed to his "dear friends, the citizens composing the committee of public safety of the French republic," whom he prays God "to take under his holy protection." Fortunately the Ameriean ambassador was spared the humiliation of presenting his credentials to those bloody tyrants. Their power was subverted, and a few of them had suffered the punishment of their crimes, which no punishment could expiate, before his arrival at Paris.

Washington had another struggle of feeling and duty to encounter when he was compelled to suppress the insurrection in the western counties of Pennsylvania by force of

arms. But here he had a consolation in the exercise of mer cy, for the necessity of having recourse to arms. Never was there a revolt quelled with so little blood. Scarcely ever was the basest dastard so tender of his own life, as this virtuous man was of the lives of his fellow citizens. The value of his clemency is enhanced by recollecting that he was neither without provocations to severity, nor without pretexts for it. His character and his office had been reviled in a manner almost unexampled among civilized nations. His authority had been insulted. His safety had been threatened. Of his personal and political enemies some might, perhaps, have been suspected of having instigated the insurrection; a greater number were thought to wish well to it; and very few shewed much zeal to suppress it. But neither resentment, nor fear, nor even policy itself, could extinguish the humanity of Washington. This seems to have been the only sacrifice which he was incapable of making to the interest of his country.

Throughout the whole course of his second presidency, the danger of America was great and imminent almost beyond example. The spirit of change indeed, at that period, shook all nations. But in other countries it had to encounter ancient and solidly established power. 'It had to tear up by the roots long habits of attachment in some nations for their government, of awe in others, of acquiescence and submission in all. But in America the government was new and weak. The people had scarce time. to recover from the ideas and feelings of a recent civil war. In other countries the volcanic force must be of power to blow up the mountains, and to convulse the continents that held it down, before it could escape from the deep caverns in which it was imprisoned :-in America it was covered only by the ashes of a late convulsion, or at most by a little thin soil, the produce of a few years' quiet.

The government of America had none of those salutary prejudices to employ which in every other country were used with success to open the eyes of the people to the enormities of the French revolution. It had, on the contrary, to contend with the prejudices of the people in the most moderate precautions against internal confusion, in the most measured and guarded resistance to the unpa ralleled insults and enormous encroachments of France. Without zealous support from the people, the American government was impotent. It required a considerable time,