By an Associate.

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Concluding the narrative that began here.

A Brief Afterword, Written in the Year 2020.

This Memoir, though in its day it was much read, never had the success of Weems’ Life of George Washington, and by the time of the Civil War it had been largely forgotten. When it was decided to investigate the unusual phenomena at Washington’s tomb, however, this book seemed to be the only one that offered any clues that might eventually point to a solution of the mystery. Since copies of the original are now scarce and expensive, it was thought that making it available in this economical form might encourage further research.

The grave of Washington was measured many times in the nineteenth century, and the measurements vary by no more than an inch. In all cases, they document a ledger, inscribed with the simple epitaph george washington slept here, that was approximately twenty-five feet long. The earliest photographs of the tomb confirm the measurements, at least as well as we can judge by comparing the ledger with other objects in the tomb.

Some time after the First World War, however, visitors to Mount Vernon began to notice that the ledger did not seem to be quite as big as the guide books said it ought to be. By the 1950s, the shrinking had attracted the attention of a few researchers, but the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association was reluctant to allow any examination for fear of damaging the precious relics. The shrinking accelerated in the late twentieth century, however, and by the twenty-first it was so rapid that the Ladies’ Association finally decided to allow a scientific and archaeological investigation, in the hope of stabilizing the structure.

The investigators could not find anything to account for the shrinking. They could only report that the grave was covered by a ledger that appeared to be made of native stone with no unusual properties; that there was nothing to indicate that the stone had been replaced; and that the tomb, when opened, proved to contain the skeletal remains of a male approximately four feet nine inches in height.

the end.

By an Associate.

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Continuing the narrative that began here.

Chapter XV.—Washington’s retirement.—Susanna manages the slaves.—Washington discovers the meaning of slavery,—Equestrian accident.—Illness and medical treatment.—Washington’s last advice.—Death, burial, and tributes.—Birth of G. W. Gist.—Parson Weems’ book.

Washington soon settled into a comfortable routine at Mount Vernon. He experimented with crop rotation, investing in a large turntable for the purpose, which was driven by oxen and could rotate a quarter-acre of crops as many as three times in an hour if the oxen were sufficiently motivated. He also expressed a desire to resume equestrian exercises, which presented some difficulty, as horses tended to shy away from a man who was nineteen feet two inches tall, and probably there was not a horse bred of sufficient size to bear Washington comfortably in his current dimensions. Our old friend Mr. Banneker, however, knew of a clever young engineer by the name of Fulton who was, he said, doing marvelous things with steam power. With the help of one of our better sculptors, Mr. Fulton created a steam-powered horse that, provided we kept to the smooth drives we laid down all over the estate, served very well, though it required half an hour to make enough steam for locomotion, and was subject to occasional mechanical failures. After a few frightening accidents, Mr. Fulton rigged a mechanism by which the steam-horse rolled to a stop whenever Washington fell off, which diminished our worries considerably.

Susanna and I divided our time between our town-house in Alexandria and Mount Vernon, where Washington treated Crispus and Jane almost as if they were his own children, and Mrs. Washington was ever finding excuses to stuff them with pies. I never was certain where Washington thought our children had come from, nor was I sure that he understood the mechanism by which children are introduced into the world; but children never had a better friend than the General.

Susanna’s management of the slaves took the form of making them very comfortable and expecting little in the way of work from them; but even though Washington now had the only estate in Virginia where the slave quarters were more opulent than the main house, with a large library, a lecture hall, a ballroom, an orangery, and a number of other conveniences;—in spite of these things, I say, Susanna was not happy, nor did she believe the slaves were happy so long as they lacked that liberty for which no physical comfort could compensate.

One evening, about two years after he had left the presidency, Washington asked her (over the Madeira, as usual), “How are the slaves, Phillips? Are they happy?”

He had not phrased the question in that way before, but now that he had done so, Susanna did not withhold her opinion.

“I do not believe they are, General, and in their present condition I do not believe there is anything that could make them happy.”

“But why is that, Phillips?” Washington asked. “Have we neglected anything they need?”

“We have neglected nothing that could tend to their physical comfort, but I still believe that they can never be happy in a condition of servitude.”

“Well, I must say, it sounds like rank ingratitude to me, but I suppose if they don’t like working for me they can go somewhere else and do whatever appeals to them.”

Susanna looked confused. “No they can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re property!”

“Property!” Washington sputtered. “Of course not! They’re human beings. How can they be property?”

“But, good heavens, General, what did you think ‘slaves’ meant?”

“I thought it meant they came from eastern Europe.”

“It means they’re property! You own them. That’s what the law says. You can do anything with them, and they can do nothing about it. They have no rights, no liberties, no lives of their own. That is what it means to be slaves.”

Washington turned to me. “Gist, is this true?”

“Yes, Washington,” I replied.

“But this is monstrous! Why was I not told of this?”

“We presumed you knew,” said Susanna.

“But all men are created equal! How can some be the property of others? No, by heaven, I won’t be long in doing something about this! Virginia is a civilized country; we shall have no relics of barbarism here! Phillips, after the levee tomorrow, you will help me make alternate arrangements for Mount Vernon, and then, upon my word! we shall work until not a slave is left in Virginia!”

He stormed off, more angry than I had ever seen him.

Susanna gaped after him, and then closed her jaw and looked thoughtful for a moment.

“He really is an imbecile,” she said. “And right now I am very glad of it.”

We were staying at Mount Vernon that night, in preparation for the levee the next morning; and after Susanna and the children had gone to bed, Washington and I stayed up quite late talking—or, rather, Washington talked, and I listened. I think he was quite upset by his discovery of slavery, but there was more to his discontent than that.

“I feel the effects of age, Gist,” said he, “more than I have done in the past; there were things I thought I would accomplish in my youth, and now I see that I shall never accomplish them.”

“You have quite some time to work on them,” I said with a smile.

“It is not so much that I cannot do them,” Washington replied; “it is that the things I would have done are no longer worth doing. Once we were young, and the world was vast enough to hold our imaginations and our ambitions; now we are grown old, and how diminished everything is! The men we call great are as tiny puppets to the men of old days; our cities grow, and yet they no longer fill our hearts with a lively sense of boundless possibilities; our country extends its borders, and yet it is a little thing on a little earth, no longer the vast unknown clinging to the edge of the illimitable unknowable. This very house, Gist, was a grand palace when my brother built it; I have extended it, yet it has grown small and familiar. Ah, Gist, I now understand the tales of primordial giants: for in the youth of the world all accomplishments must have been magnificent; but men have multiplied, and their deeds have filled the earth. When we are young, we are filled with the passionate longing to conquer the unconquerable world. As we grow old, we find that we have conquered it, and there are no more worlds to conquer. This is the tragedy of every man’s life. The world is small, Gist! The world is small, and filled with little men, and I am so weary of looking down on it!”

The next morning was the monthly levee at Mount Vernon, where Washington made himself available to all and sundry. We had built stands near the river where Washington’s guests could sit and see Washington at eye level as he rode past on his steam-horse, stopping to speak to his visitors without stooping.

We managed to get Washington mounted on the horse without incident, and the mechanism seemed to be working flawlessly. It was a bitterly cold morning, and snow was in the air; but that had not prevented a few hundred visitors from coming out to pay their respects to the great man.

These occasions were always happy ones for the General, and he took his time riding down the stands, stopping every few feet to speak to someone in the crowd, to bless a child, to thank an old veteran. About two-thirds of the way down the row he stopped in front of a family with a young child, perhaps a year old, and greeted the smiling parents.

“His name is Washington,” the proud mother told him, holding up the indifferent and unimpressed little boy. “We named him for you.”

“A compliment I shall treasure to the end of my life,” Washington graciously replied. “And what is his family name?”

The mother answered, “Irving.”

“Irving!” Washington jumped back in his saddle, the natural consequence of which was that he fell off the horse and into the icy waters of the Potomac. He splashed about in a very undignified way, while women screamed and several of us ran to offer our assistance. But he pulled himself out of the water and insisted on remounting the horse; then he continued the levee until everyone who wanted to speak with him had a chance to do so. He would not go in and change his wet clothes until he had seen off his last visitor.

We were not surprised, therefore, that he spent the rest of the day in bed, and that he woke up the next morning with a sore throat that nearly deprived him of his voice. Washington himself was of the opinion that it was not a serious indisposition, but Mrs. Washington insisted on calling in a physician. I myself rode out to fetch the physician Mrs. Washington trusted most; and there are times when I wish I had fallen into a ditch and broken my neck before I reached his house in Alexandria.

Dr. Polk lived in a very fine house on Duke-street. When he heard that General Washington was ill, he could hardly disguise his satisfaction at the large fee that would doubtless be his no matter what the results of his ministrations. He was a little round man with a big round face, which somehow grew broader without actually erupting into a smile when he heard my news. He told me he would be ready directly; then he trotted upstairs, and a quarter-hour later trotted down with a large case under each arm. He had already summoned his driver, for a coach awaited him in front of the house—a coach and four, suggesting that his practice was a successful one. I allowed myself to be reassured by that observation.

When we arrived at Mount Vernon, I immediately brought Dr. Polk into Washington’s chamber on the ground floor, the only part of the house where the rooms were large enough to accommodate him as long as he did not stand fully upright. As we made the long march from the General’s feet to his head, Dr. Polk explained to me that he intended to stay for several days, as in such cases as these it was critical for the patient to be bled frequently until the crisis had passed.

“Bled?” I asked, and I am certain that my voice betrayed my alarm.

“When the humors have become unbalanced,” said Dr. Polk, “it is essential to restore the proper balance. An excess of the sanguine humor is the most common cause of such illnesses as these, and fortunately the most easily corrected.”

We had now reached the region of the head, where Mrs. Washington was sitting, and Dr. Polk explained to her and the General what he had just finished explaining to me. “All I need,” he said, “is a large tub or vat, or possibly a barrel, and we may begin at once.”

Mrs. Washington was not long in having a large wine-vat, cut in half, brought into the room, and Dr. Polk proceeded at once to the business of disposing of Washington’s excess sanguinary fluid. The vat had already made three trips out to be dumped in the garden by the time evening came; then Dr. Polk closed off the tap, with the promise of more bleeding on the morrow.

The next day, Washington was paler and weaker, which Dr. Polk took as a sign that more bleeding was needed. Prodigious quantities of blood went out into the garden, but in spite of all the bleeding, Washington only grew weaker. Susanna asked more than once whether the General might not need some of that blood, but Dr. Polk explained that it was common for the patient to weaken temporarily in treating cases of humoral imbalance, but recovery would follow provided an aggressive course of treatment was pursued to its conclusion.

Washington only grew weaker, however, and on the third day Dr. Polk tried blistering in addition to the bleeding. On the fourth day he added a bit of cautery to the regimen, but in spite of these treatments Washington did not improve.

The signs, in fact, were worrying. Washington dictated a new will, and began to speak, when he could speak, as one who expected to be taken from the world soon. Parson Weems had been summoned, and Susanna and I sat in the great chamber where the great man—he was now twenty feet and an inch tall—lay stretched out on the bed that had been constructed for him, with Mrs. Washington in constant attendance.

“Please take no more trouble about me,” Washington said, “and especially tell Dr. Polk that I shall not be requiring his services any longer. It may be hard to die, but I am not afraid to go. However—Martha, my dearest, and my dear friend Parson Weems, if you could leave me for just a few moments, I have something to say in private to Gist and Phillips.”

Mrs. Washington kissed his vast forehead, and she and the Parson walked silently out of the room, closing the door soundlessly behind them.

Susanna and I were now alone with the great man, whose breathing grew more and more labored, and his voice more hoarse; but it was clear that he had something to say that was worth any labor to him. We stood next to his head and listened attentively.

“Gist, Phillips, I have left some things unsaid to this day, because I believed that no good could come of saying them, or at least that the harm done would exceed the benefit. As a result, I have the impression that you especially, Phillips, take me for a fool.—No, do not contradict me; it may or may not be so; I say only that I have that impression, and it is because I have not said what I know about you, wherefore I suppose you must have imagined that I did not know it.”

Susanna laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, but did not venture to speak. Washington coughed a few times halfheartedly, as if he knew he was expected to cough but had really lost interest in coughing. Then he spoke again:

“I have known for many years that you and Gist share—share a love after the Grecian manner. No one who knows you both as well as I know you could possibly miss it. I do not condemn you. I am a broadminded man of the world, and I know that in classical times love between men was looked on with indulgence, and often indeed praised as superior to the love between men and women. But these are not classical times. I say not that you must end your love: I am not such a fool as to believe you would do so, even if I adjured you to it as my dying wish. I merely urge you to greater discretion. While I lived, no one would speak against you for fear of offending me. When I am gone, you will not have that protection. Already dark clouds of partisan strife are on the horizon. Jefferson— But I will not speak of politics, except to warn you both that in me you lose a friend who sincerely desired nothing but your good, and where you will find another such I know not. And now, my beloved friends, if I must leave you, farewell. I should like to see Martha again.”

We left the General with heavy hearts, and sent Mrs. Washington back in to him; and then all we could do was sit in the hall and wait.

“There was never a greater fool born on earth,” said Susanna, squeezing my hand. I turned to see her cheek wet with running tears.

It was about a quarter-hour later that Susanna and I both heard a strange and startling sound, something very like the braying of a mule. It was so close that it seemed to be right outside the window; but when we stood to investigate, we could see nothing there. We sat back down, neither of us daring to speak.

Shortly afterward, Mrs. Washington emerged to tell us, with remarkable composure, that General Washington was no more.

Susanna suddenly stood and rushed out of the hall into the great drawing-room. I spoke a few words of consolation to Mrs. Washington, and then turned to follow Susanna. I could already hear her shouting.

“You killed him!”

She had found Dr. Polk in the drawing-room with Parson Weems, and she had turned the full force of an uncharacteristic fury on the doctor.

“You tortured him like a Spanish inquisitor, and then you killed the only great man we had!”

Dr. Polk was already standing. “Madam, I am very sorry for your grief, but—”

“He could have survived anything except you! You killed him, you murdering bastard!”

Dr. Polk was of course sympathetic, but he would not let her accusations pass without defending himself. “The General had everything the Hippocratic art could provide him. Nothing was omitted that could have served to balance the humors and render—”

He had not expected the blow from Susanna’s fist, which connected with his skull so forcefully that the doctor fell flat on the floor, where he remained immobile while Susanna ran out of the room and up the stairs.

“Could you tend to him, please?” I asked Parson Weems. I followed Susanna upstairs to console her. But for the moment she was inconsolable, and all I could do was join her in weeping.

The news of Washington’s death plunged his country into deep mourning. Even across the sea, when the news reached Europe, the British and French both fired twenty guns in his honor, successfully killing twelve British and fourteen French sailors. The great man’s earthly remains were laid to rest on his own beloved estate, and the grave was covered with the largest ledger yet carved in America, on which was inscribed, in neat Roman capitals, the simple message,

george washington slept here.

By the provisions of his will, all of Washington’s slaves were emancipated with generous legacies. Some stayed to work as tour guides, for Mount Vernon quickly became a site of patriotic pilgrimage; but many went to work for Mr. Banneker. With Washington gone, it was no longer possible to maintain the fiction of the talented little Frenchman; so with Susanna’s help a story was concocted to the effect that the irascible little man had stomped off in high dudgeon, but Mr. Banneker had fortunately been able to reconstruct the plans of the city from memory. This supposed feat added markedly to his reputation, and thus to his business, and the firm prospered.

About two months after Washington’s death, Susanna, who was now forty-three years old, surprised me with the news that she was expecting another child. When, seven months later, our new son was born, Susanna insisted that only one name could possibly be appropriate; and so the infant was christened George Washington Gist. Thus, in a sense, the story of George Washington ends, not with a death, but with a birth.

Almost exactly a year after Washington’s death, I had dinner with Parson Weems. He had come to Alexandria to arrange for the printing of his new tract, “On the Detection of Papists by the Olfactory Sense,” and our coming together so close to the scene of our happiest days naturally conduced to an evening spent reminiscing about our departed friend. It was a pastime we were all the more willing to indulge in as being almost the only two men who had followed Washington in all his adventures, from the beginning of the French and Indian War to his last fatal accident. Susanna (who had never thought much of Parson Weems) had retired with little George, and a pleasant melancholy suffused the atmosphere of my front parlor as we talked late into the night; until Parson Weems made a statement that, though no fault of his own, unsettled me.

“In fact,” he said, “I intend to write a biography of our friend Washington.”

I own that this news hit me with unexpected force. I had nearly completed this memoir, and now Parson Weems was preparing a book on exactly the same subject! Still, I could hardly blame him for that.

“I suppose no one is better qualified to write it,” I said mildly. “You and I are perhaps the only two men in the world who have first-hand knowledge of Washington’s entire career, from the beginning to the very end. You, as a literary man, are obviously the best qualified to give the public the truth about our friend.”

“Oh, I don’t think the truth is what the public wants at all,” said Weems.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Great as the man was, the American people have made him greater,” he explained. “They have made him the embodiment of all the virtues they admire, and they attribute their success as a newborn among the nations entirely to his almost-divine agency. He is their Moses, their Solon, their Confucius. They have elevated him to the pantheon; they have placed him among the stars so that they may look up to him forevermore. And they are right to do so. They don’t need Washington the man; they need Washington the guiding principle. As long as they can look up to him and see everything that is best in themselves, they will be inspired to outdo one another in virtue, and these United States of America will grow and flourish and draw all men to themselves. No, the truth about Washington is the last thing the public needs. I shall give the young people of America, not the Washington that was, but the Washington that ought to have been.”

I thought his argument was a good one, and at the same time I felt a strong sense of relief. We might have chosen the same subject, but we were not writing the same book. Parson Weems has his Washington, and I have mine. He has given America and the world the man they imagined, the Washington they wish to remember. I have given you the Washington I knew; and I am not ashamed to say that, imperfect though he may have been, I loved the man as he was.

To be continued in the Afterword.

By an Associate.

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Continuing the narrative that began here.

Chapter XIV.—Washington campaigns for a second term.—Whiskey Rebellion.—Hamilton’s strategy against the rebels.—Susanna suggests Washington take command.—Brackenridge’s wit, and its destructive effects.—Treaty scandal.—Washington retires.—His farewell address.

Toward the end of his third year as President, Washington began to consider the question of who should occupy the office for the next term.

“I am, of course” (he said), “exceedingly reluctant to take a second term, for the exigencies of the office weigh heavily upon me. The business of being surrounded by lackeys who tend to one’s every whim, and of being treated with universal respect, and of having to drink the very best Madeira every evening in the very best company, must eventually be wearing to a simple republican farmer. Nevertheless, if my country were to call me to a second term in office, my conscience would forbid me from making light of my country’s demands. No, I should be forced to answer the call, even at the cost of another four years of luxury and universal adulation. It will be cloying, but if it has to be done, I am not one to shirk my duty. You, Weems” (for we were dining with Parson Weems, on one of Washington’s rare evenings away from his onerous duties), “may let my sentiments be known in some inconspicuous way, for I would not force myself upon the people.”

But of course Hamilton was restrained by no considerations of inconspicuousness, and he took on the management of Washington’s campaign with his accustomed vigor. The result, as readers will recall, was that the people overwhelmingly returned electors for Washington, and his presidency continued for another four years. These years, however, were marked by more difficulties than Washington had expected to meet, and he was forced to confront, on occasion, the unaccustomed sensation of not being universally loved.

One of the most severe tests of his resolve was the Whiskey Rebellion, which enraged Hamilton to such a degree that I thought the man might succumb to apoplexy. A tax having been placed on ardent spirits, certain men in the western part of Pennsylvania, where rye whiskey was the staple food, refused to submit to the collection of it, and had even attacked some of the gentlemen charged with the collecting. Hamilton persuaded Washington to put him in command of a body of soldiers to be sent across the mountains to crush the rebellion, and the enthusiasm with which he planned his campaign was startling to see.

“Of course they must be crushed utterly,” Hamilton said as he explained his plan to Susanna and me. “My strategy will be to come upon them with overwhelming force, thus teaching them that the United States Tax Code is not to be trifled with. I shall besiege and take Pittsburgh, burn the city to ashes, slaughter all the male inhabitants, and distribute the females as prizes to the soldiers. Once we have made an example of the largest settlement in those parts, the terror thus inspired will doubtless induce the rebels to submit forthwith, after which they can be sold as slaves to the islands in the Caribbean. Thus we shall establish the principle that the rule of law prevails in these United States.”

Susanna said nothing, and I was mildly surprised when Hamilton left the room without a blackened eye. But the next day, when we were with Washington, Susanna made a suggestion that ultimately had the effect of changing the aspect of the expedition considerably.

“Do you not think, sir, that as commander in chief of the army, you have a duty to take charge of this expedition yourself?”

“A duty? I had not thought of it, but…”

“The United States need their greatest military mind at this time of crisis,” said Susanna. “It is time for President Washington to don the buff and blue and become General Washington once more.”

“My word, Phillips, you’re right! I must see my tailor.”

Hamilton was furious at this change of plans, but of course he could say nothing against it. Washington visited his tailor—he now measured just under seventeen feet tall—and as soon as his new uniform was ready, we set out (for he insisted on having Susanna and me with him) to cross the Alleghenies.

Civilization had made great progress since our expeditions against the French many years before. At the flourishing town of Bedford in Pennsylvania, we met up with Hugh Henry Brackenridge, a prominent judge and literary man of Pittsburgh, who had come to meet Washington along the way in the hope of working out some peaceful resolution to the crisis. This Judge Brackenridge was a man famous for his wit, whose very amusing books had reached me in Alexandria, and I was glad of the opportunity to make his personal acquaintance.

We put up for the evening in a newly built inn west of Bedford, whose ample interior was just large enough to accommodate Washington if he stooped when he stood. Susanna and I having been distracted in our chamber, we arrived late to dinner, and came in just in time to hear Brackenridge finishing one of his amusing stories.

“And I replied, ‘I know what you mean very well; you want to have a shot at me, but I have no inclination to hit you, and I am afraid you would hit me; I pray thee therefore have me excused.’ ”

I had heard only the end of the story, but it must have been very clever, as the rest of the company were laughing boisterously—all, that is, except for Washington, who sat impassive, looking indeed very dignified, but not even smiling. I saw that Brackenridge was watching Washington’s reaction, and I could see in Brackenridge’s countenance the determination to make the great man laugh; his pride was hurt, and he was going to try harder. I ought to have taken him aside on some pretext and explained to him the peculiar nature of Washington’s sense of humor, but these things, alas! are clear in hindsight alone.

“Which reminds me,” Brackenridge continued, “of the story of the Indian-treaty man and his king of the Kickapoos”; and thus began a very amusing anecdote which had the whole company helpless with laughter—all, of course, but Washington, whose expression of serene benevolence did not change in the least.

That failure spurred Brackenridge to even greater efforts, and tears were running down the cheeks of most of the guests by the time he had finished with his tale of a hard-fought election in the west country of Pennsylvania. But Washington was not moved, and Brackenridge would not accept failure, until at last he had worn himself out and us as well. Washington thanked him for his very informative discourse, and I think Brackenridge was near ready to bite his own tongue off in frustration.

The long table was cleared and then made up to serve as Washington’s bed; Susanna and I went upstairs to our own chamber, extinguished the light, and never once considered the dreadful danger that awaited us.

Some time after midnight I was awakened by a thunderous crash that shook the bed. It had been more than ten years since Yorktown, but my first thought was that a cannon had gone off quite nearby. Then I heard whooping and pounding, and I knew that the long fuse ignited by Brackenridge earlier had at last reached the keg. Washington was laughing, and the sheer number of Brackenridge’s anecdotes, jokes, and aphorisms had led to an explosion of titanic proportions.

Susanna was already out of bed and had managed to light a candle in what was left of the fire. Another loud crash, and the whole floor shook, and then more whoops and howls, and a series of rapid hammerings that caused the whole inn to quake.

“Can you do anything?” Susanna asked me as she pulled on a robe.

“You know as well as I do that nothing can stop him once the fit is upon him.”

Suddenly the house shook in a very alarming way. Washington was whooping and laughing, and now shouts from elsewhere in the inn had joined the appalling din.

“I wonder whether we ought—” Susanna began, but she was interrupted by an extended crashing and smashing sound, as if a whole china cupboard had fallen over.

“You go see whether you can stop him, or get him outside,” Susanna told me. “I’ll go get—”

There was another cataclysmic crash, and the ominous sound of creaking and splintering wood.

“Go!” Susanna shouted. “I’ll get the rest out!”

I dashed out into the hall, where I found the other guests, or at least a good many of them, up and in an advanced state of panic. Another crash rocked the house, and toppled several of the guests in the hall; and when we regained our footing, the floor was on a pronounced bias. Susanna was urging the rest down the stairs; I seized a candle from one of them and ran down ahead of the group. As I reached the bottom of the stairway, a huge beam fell in the front parlor, sending plaster dust billowing though the whole ground floor. The pounding and crashing and whooping continued as I dashed back to the end of the hall and into the great dining-room, which looked like Lisbon after the earthquake. The table had fallen to the floor, most of the chairs were piles of splinters, and a great cabinet filled with china and glassware lay in a field of shards of all colors. There were holes in the walls, and the outer wall looked dangerously skewed. And Washington was still howling, kicking, and pounding. “Ten dollars for your scalp!” he bellowed, and then fell over so that his head crashed through the wall into the front parlor, his feet meanwhile kicking holes in the planks of the floor.

“Washington!” I shouted. “Come out before the house comes down!”

“They tarred and feathered the turkey!” he howled, rolling over and taking a good bit of the wall with him. This was too much for the floor above, which began to sag with an appalling ripping and cracking sound.

“Washington! Washington, the ceiling is collapsing!”

But Washington was still in the grip of his fit. Years earlier I might have dragged him out, but he had long since passed the dimensions where that was possible.

Suddenly a beam came down, and another beside it, just missing both of us and lying diagonally with one end of each on the floor and the other above us supported by the outside wall. And I do verily believe those beams saved both our lives, for now the whole house was coming down around us. It was the closest I have ever come to Armageddon, and it seemed to go on for hours, though I suppose it must have been less than a minute. Only the fallen beams above us, and the fragment of floor they supported, kept us from being crushed. It was only a temporary reprieve, however; for now the pile of rubble that once was an inn had caught fire, and we were trapped. I tried shouting, but I could not make myself heard over the din of Washington’s laughter. Fortunately he was still pounding and kicking, and the rubble in his pedal regions was flying in all directions. But for some bruises and cuts, I was not injured, and I was able to add my efforts to clear a passage, which were augmented by the efforts of the escaped guests outside; and before the flames could reach us, we were safely out of the wreckage, with Susanna clinging to me and kissing my scratches, and Washington now reduced to helpless sniggering. We were without shelter, but the burning inn sufficed to keep us warm.

The next morning there was nothing left of the inn but two stone chimneys and some fragments of charred wood clinging to them. But Washington made sure to attach one of his brass plaques to the remains. It is still in place today, so that if, on the road west of Bedford, you stop to examine the picturesque ruin now slowly being reclaimed by the devouring woods, you may learn that once upon a time George Washington slept there.

The end of the Whiskey Rebellion was something of an anticlimax. Washington, who enjoyed the trappings of war but preferred wars in which no one was seriously hurt, summoned the leaders of the rebellion to a parley. They came prepared to defy him, but they did not come prepared for his size. The appearance of a seventeen-foot Washington at the parley routed all opposition. Washington pardoned everyone, heard their grievances, and promised to ask Congress to consider them; but meanwhile he desired them to give him no reason to come back with an even more overwhelming force. They assured him that they had no desire to see him there again, and thus the matter was ended.

It might have been a happier time for Washington if all the crises of his administration had been so easily resolved. Partisan strife, however, began to creep into our government, and some in Congress were looking for excuses to oppose President Washington. They found one in the secret treaty negotiated by the mysterious John J., who always refused to reveal his surname even to his most intimate acquaintances, and responded to every attempt at guessing the name with an enigmatic smile. This treaty granted certain concessions to the British, and congressmen were not uniformly happy with all its provisions, raising questions especially about the clause granting any British ship the right to make rude gestures at any American ship without reprisals in kind. The Congress demanded to see the notes and memoranda generated by the President and his associates on the subject of the treaty. Washington quite correctly replied that there were no notes or memoranda: when he thought something ought to be done, he did it.

But then, somehow, the fact of Mr. Shelton’s secret recordings came to light—I have always suspected that Hamilton had something to do with it, but I have no proof—and Congress began to demand the president’s secret “tapes.” These Washington steadfastly refused to turn over, saying that it was the privilege of the executive to keep his private deliberations secret. Eventually, however, he agreed to have the relevant tapes transcribed (for he would not lose his originals). This course of action quelled the complaints for a time until it was found that, in one of the transcriptions which most interested the men in Congress, there was a gap of eighteen and a half pages, and that Mr. Shelton could not account for how he had lost the corresponding section of “tape.”

Thus the latter part of Washington’s presidency was filled with wrangling and vituperation, neither of which came naturally to the great man. And that is why, though it surprised the country and the world, Washington’s decision not to seek a third term did not surprise me.

“Hamilton,” he told Susanna and me, “has drafted an address for me, in which I shall announce my decision and offer a few parting words of wisdom to the people of my country. It will be good to have done with this business.”

At the mention of Hamilton’s name, Susanna’s ears seemed to move forward. “I should very much like to see this address,” she said, and Washington was happy to oblige her. Having read a few lines, she told him, “If you would like, I could give this a thorough perusal and correct a few trifling errors which have crept into the text, doubtless owing to the haste of the composition.”

“Oh, yes, Phillips, that would be very kind of you,” Washington replied; and so we ended by taking Mr. Hamilton’s manuscript home with us, where Susanna sat down and began running long lines through whole paragraphs of text.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“I am making a few trifling corrections,” she replied. “For example, here, where it says, ‘You must destroy their name from under heaven; you must put every male to the sword; you must leave nothing that breathes alive’—I am correcting it so that it does not say that.”

“I suppose Hamilton’s text admits of some improvement,” I said.

“I have also removed some specific references to Mr. Jefferson in which his parentage is called into question.”

“Probably a prudent alteration.”

“And the section that compares Mr. Adams to the back end of certain domestic animals has been struck out as well.”

“I’m sure Washington will be grateful to you for your diligence.”

And so Washington’s farewell address appeared in a somewhat milder form than that in which Hamilton had prepared it, but it was generally well received all the same. When he delivered it in public, however, Washington added one paragraph of his own which did not generally appear in the published versions of the address, and so I reproduce it here:

“It is also essential that you resist to the utmost degree the baneful influence of certain members of the animal kingdom, who, though they may not be visible in the strict sense, are, you may be sure, working incessantly to undermine the system of government, and the individual liberties, which we have labored so assiduously to obtain, and which are the most precious inheritance of our children. In warning you against the machinations of malevolent invisible animals, I am certain I give you no new information; but it is my hope that my words may remain in your memory, perhaps to recur to your minds at a time when their influence will be most profitable.”

The night before he turned over the presidency to Mr. Adams, Washington had a supper with a few of his most intimate friends; and, after the rest had gone, he desired that Susanna and I remain a while longer. Having poured us each another glass of Madeira, he told us, “I shall, of course, be retiring to Mount Vernon; and it would please me very much if I could have the assistance of both of you in maintaining the estate, which I intend to run as a model of a plantation managed on rational principles. I plan to leave some of it forested for game, and I believe you, Gist, would be the very man to take care of that; and I thought I could put Phillips in charge of the slaves. I hope I am not asking too much of you, but the fact is that it would cheer me greatly to see two of my oldest friends often on the grounds, and—Gist, do you think Phillips needs a thump on the back? He seems to be choking on his Madeira.”

To be continued in Chapter XV.

By an Associate.

---

Continuing the narrative that began here.

Chapter XIII.—Washington considers presidential protocol.—Secret “tape” system in his office.—Hamilton invents a new currency.—Choosing a site for the capital.—Mr. Banneker and Mr. L’Enfant.—Washington’s improvements to the plans.

The first decision Washington made was that the President would have to reside wherever the Congress was. He took a house in New-York and removed the second floor to give him a more comfortable ceiling height (for he was now just under sixteen feet tall). The Constitution had made provision for a new capital, but where it would be had not yet been decided. Each state had its reasons why it ought to possess the new capital, and there were many debates to be had before a site could be chosen. Meanwhile, the Congress was still peripatetic; but it had settled in New-York for a while, which suited Washington, as he was hoping to take in a few more puppet-shows.

At Washington’s earnest request, Susanna and I came to New-York as well, along with the children. He also induced Parson Weems to join us; and the evening Weems arrived, we spent two or three hours after supper discussing the protocol for the new office of the presidency.

“I thought perhaps,” said Washington, “we ought to come up with a kind of manual of forms of address. When the President is spoken of, for example, in what way is he styled? I had thought it might be something like “His Gracious and Exalted Majesty the President of the United States, by the Grace of God Defender of the Rights of the American People, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy and of the Militias of the Several States, Appointer to Offices, Filler of Vacancies, Informer of the Congress as Regards the State of the Union, Arbiter of Opinions, Granter of Pardons, Maker of—”

“Do you think that might be somewhat cumbersome?” Susanna asked.

“Well, of course, the full title would be used only the first time the President was mentioned; after that, the title ‘His Gracious and Exalted Majesty’ would suffice.”

“I was thinking perhaps ‘Mr. President’ would do,” said Susanna.

“Is that not somewhat…common?” asked Washington.

“Not at all. Quite the reverse. In all the states of Europe, you will find gracious and exalted majesties, defenders of the faith, high and mighty autocrats, and so on. A man may rule a strip of land the size of a pocket-handkerchief, but his majesty is still gracious and exalted. Gracious and exalted majesties are a shilling a cartload. What no other country has is a President, a ruler whose power depends not on the number of titles he piles on top of his name, but on the genuine love of his people, whereof his very position is the proof and sign. When one has said ‘President,’ one has spoken a name whose luster eclipses all lesser titles, to which any addition must be a diminution.”

“Do you really think so?” Washington asked, obviously impressed.

“So firmly do I believe it, that in the future, I will venture to say, other countries will have Presidents rather than kings, and the most powerful rulers in the world will affect the title we Americans have given to our executive.”

“My word, Phillips!” cried Washington. “I had not thought of the thing in those terms, but ‘Mr. President’ it shall be!”

Some time later, after Washington had retired and we were walking back home to our lodgings, Parson Weems said, “That was very clever, Susanna—puncturing his bubble by pretending to inflate it.”

“I had to do something,” she replied, “and he’s grown too big to be conveniently punched in the face.”

A few days later, Washington was showing me the presidential office he had set up in his New-York residence, which would also serve as a kind of audience chamber. The best cabinetmakers in the city had been commissioned to make an immense desk and chair in Washington’s own size. “Here,” said Washington, “in the back of the house, I may meet privately with such men as I have business with, and we shall not be overheard or disturbed.”

“But is it wise for the President to conduct business with no witnesses?” I asked. “I will not say that there are dishonest men in our government, but misunderstandings may arise, which, without a witness on record, may be difficult to settle.”

“Ah,” Washington said with a sly nod, “in fact I have considered that eventuality;—or Hamilton has, which comes to the same thing.” He pointed to his desk. “In this office I have installed a system that silently records every conversation.”

“Every conversation?” I repeated incredulously. “But how is that possible?”

“You will, of course, keep this a secret as long as I am President,” said Washington; and he led me over to his desk. Lifting the top of it entirely away, he pointed down. I stood on my toes and peered into the desk. There, inside the Washington-sized desk, was a man sitting at an ordinary desk with a quill, a big pot of ink, and a narrow roll of paper, which proceeded from under the right side of the desk, passed across the writing surface, and was wound on a big spool under the left side of the desk.

“Mr. Shelton here,” Washington explained (and the man immediately started scribbling), “is a remarkably quick man with a quill. With a continuous roll of narrow paper, or ‘tape,’ as Hamilton calls it, he has no need to lose time changing sheets, and his shorthand can keep up with the fastest talker. Every conversation that takes place in this office is recorded on one of these ‘tapes,’ and I can retrieve the exact words that were spoken any time I like.”

He set the top back down, and Mr. Shelton was completely hidden.

“But isn’t it dark under there?” I asked. “How does he see?”

“I have no idea,” Washington replied. He lifted the top of the desk again. “It seems light enough under there now.” He set the top back down. “And the important thing is that all my presidential conversations are recorded on ‘tape,’ so that the chance of my being embarrassed in any way is virtually eliminated.”

“And you don’t worry that someone might use the very existence of such a record to embarrass you?”

“Gist, I hope I can say with confidence that I never say anything in this room of which I have cause to be ashamed. Indeed I find it difficult to imagine that the states would ever elect a man to the presidency who would be embarrassed by anything that might be recorded by such a system. The electoral mechanism is designed to select honorable men, and I have faith that it will continue to do so.”

Meanwhile the business of creating a government occupied most of the meetings of Congress; and as Congress created the positions, the President was required to nominate men to fill them. Of course Washington could think of only one man to be the Secretary of the Treasury, and Mr. Hamilton was hardly able to contain his joy at being able to found his own currency.

“We shall base it on tens,” he explained, “which will at a stroke eliminate the difficulties of converting between pounds, shillings, dollars, and all the other coins that jangle in our purses; and we shall have a national currency, so that there will be no complicated formula, as there is now, to convert the coin of New Hampshire to that of North Carolina. As the people are familiar with the name, and as it carries no memories of our oppression by the British, we shall call our coin the dollar, and if—”

“And these dollars,” Washington interrupted—“of what size and weight will they be?”

“The weight, of course, will depend on the value we assign to the United States dollar; as for the size, we shall consult with the men we choose to run our mint, who will be able to tell us how such and so much a weight of silver is best distributed in a coin.”

“These are very important considerations from the point of view of a coin’s projectile properties,” said Washington. “The Spanish milled dollar travels well through the air, and possesses enough heft to carry it to its target without being too much buffeted by the wind. I should hate to see an American dollar without those properties; for men who throw dollars for sport are very particular about the dollars they throw, and might reject our United States dollar if its range and accuracy do not meet their expectations.”

“I am certain you could persuade our mint to take those considerations into account,” said Hamilton. “Now, as I said, multiples of ten will—”

“A milled edge also improves the grip, which for sporting purposes is one of the most important considerations.”

“Yes. The grip. Now, as I was saying, we shall make our dollar divisible into tens, which we might call ‘dimes,’ as being, of course, the tenth part of a dollar. A tenth part of a dime would then be a ‘cent,’ because it is the hundredth part of—”

“I thought you said it was the tenth part.”

“It is the tenth part of a dime, and therefore the hundredth part of a dollar.”

“Why can’t it make up its mind?”

“It is both at the same time!”

“My word! That’s clever.”

“And then the tenth part of a cent would be a mill, bec—”

“Because it is the millionth part of a dollar!”

“No,” Hamilton explained with strained patience, “only the thousandth part.”

“Then why is it called a mill?”

“Because it is—”

“Why not a thou?”

“Because the names come from Latin, or rather—”

“Oh, Latin,” said Washington knowingly. “Well, Latin is another matter altogether.”

Hamilton was about to say something more, but then appeared to realize that he had won as much of a victory as he was likely to win in this discussion, and resumed his earlier topic. “As I was saying, the division into tens will make calculations much easier for ordinary shopkeepers and merchants, who will find their duties lightened considerably.”

“For example,” said Washington, “if I buy a turkey quill at Stimson’s in Alexandria for one bit, which is an eighth of a dollar, then that comes to…now let me see…”

“Twelve and a half cents,” said Susanna.

“Twelve and a half? Well, that doesn’t sound very easy at all. How is that easier than saying ‘one bit,’ Hamilton?”

“It just is!” Hamilton sputtered. “Tens are easier!”

I looked at Susanna, but she had nothing more to say. With Hamilton’s explosion, she had accomplished her goal.

It is perhaps too early to speak with authority, but generations to come may remember the planting of our new capital city as the most lasting achievement of Washing­ton’s first term as President. The location of it was much debated, and it was early decided that, if the city were located on the border between two states, with perhaps land taken from both of them, it would more clearly appear to belong to the whole Union, and not to any individual state. But which border was to be chosen? To many in Congress, especially the representatives from Mary­land and Penn­syl­vania, the border between Mary­land and Penn­syl­vania seemed the obvious choice, as being the traditional line between North and South. Wash­ing­ton, however, favored a site at the head of navigation of the Potomac, which, he said, would give the new city water access to the Chesa­peake, that great arm of the greater sea, and thus easy transportation to such important destinations as would not be similarly accessible from other sites. That the site was easy to reach from Mount Vernon may also have figured in his calculations. At any rate, Washington’s site was chosen, because it was usually easier to give Washington what he wanted if he seemed to be set on getting it.

The business of surveying the new capital and beginning its construction gave Washington an excuse to get back to Mount Vernon, where he always felt more at home, and thus for us to get back to our house on Prince-street. Washington threw himself into the project with much enthusiasm, and he was delighted to report to us that he had found a little Frenchman named Pierre L’Enfant who was just the man to lay out his new city. He invited us to meet this man at Mount Vernon, where he would explain exactly where he had chosen to place the capital.

When we arrived at Mount Vernon, we expected to find a pale little Frenchman; but the man who was seated (on a very tall stool) at Wash­ing­ton’s immense table, with various maps and surveys spread out before him, was nearly as dark as Susanna.

“This is Mr. Banneker, Mr. L’Enfant’s assistant,” Washington told us. “Mr. Banneker, my good friends Mr. Gist and Colonel Phillips.”

Mr. Banneker looked puzzled for a moment; and then he appeared to recall that Washington had his quirks, and accepted the introduction as it came to him.

“And is Mr. L’Enfant here?” I asked after the usual greetings.

Mr. Banneker hesitated, but Washing­ton answered for him: “Oh, Mr. L’Enfant is not visible in the strict sense.”

Mr. Banneker smiled helplessly, but we simply accepted the information as it came to us.

“Now, Mr. Banneker,” Washington continued, “what does Mr. L’Enfant think of the site?”

“Mr. L’Enfant thinks it’s mostly a swamp,” replied Mr. Banneker. “Mr. L’Enfant wonders why you don’t put the city somewhere on higher ground.”

“But this is the best possible site. Look—it’s a perfect square. Where else would you find that?”

“It is a perfect square,” said Banneker, “because you drew it that way on the map.”

“Well, yes. Of course I did. Why would I draw it in a shape that it is not?”

Banneker paused for a moment, wearing that expression common to all who entered thus into a debate with Washington and found themselves unaccountably bested. Then he continued: “The site also includes two cities already extant, namely George­town and Alexandria.”

“That should present no problem. They can be moved. So, since we have overcome all objections, it seems to me that Mr. L’Enfant can continue with his plans.”

It happened that Mr. Banneker was staying in Alexan­dria on Duke-street; so, although Wash­ing­ton had sent a coach to fetch him, we offered to take him home in ours, an offer he gladly accepted. In the coach Susanna did not let much time pass before saying, “Tell me about Mr. L’Enfant.”

Her smile left Banneker in no doubt that she understood most of the story already, so he was quite candid with us. “Mr. L’Enfant is a creation of my own. I realized, madam, that my color might obscure my abilities, and I thought if I described myself as the assistant to a well-known French engineer, I might be able to secure a better class of client. I did not expect President Wash­ing­ton to choose me for such an important commission, and I was certain that my deception would be discovered when he demanded to see Mr. L’Enfant personally. But when I insisted that Mr. L’Enfant could not be seen, President Wash­ing­ton took me more literally than I had expected. It seems there is some person by the name of Irving⁠—”

“Not a person,” I told him. “A mule.”

“Ah,” said Banneker, and he seemed not to know what to say after that.

“I don’t believe the deception was necessary,” said Susanna. “The President believes I am a white man named Phillips. That the fact is otherwise should, in spite of my masculine garb, be apparent to you.”

“Abundantly,” said Banneker, with an expression that brought me a momentary pang of jealousy. “That said, will you betray me to him? I have no doubt I deserve it, but—”

“I do not think it would be possible to change Wash­ing­ton’s mind about you,” I said. “He has known my wife Susanna for thirteen years, and not even the arrival of our children could persuade him that she is anything other than Colonel Phillips.” I own I added these details partly in order to forestall any false impressions Banneker might have about Susanna. When a man possesses a single precious jewel, he may at times seem overcautious.

“So you will not betray me?”

“Vive L’Enfant, as far as I’m concerned.”

Banneker soon had a draft of his plan ready, and Susanna and I, along with Parson Weems, were privileged to be at Mount Vernon when he presented it to Washington.

“You see that the pattern of the streets is very rational,” Banneker explained. “They go north and south, or east and west; the former numbered, the latter named by letters of the alphabet.”

“Oh, yes, this is very fine,” said Washington. “I foresee a mighty city rising here—a city whose position at the head of navigation on the Potomac will give rise to undreamt-of prosperity; a city of globe-circling commerce, of gleaming towers and verdant parks; a center of learning and the arts—”

“A city called Washington?” asked Parson Weems.

“No, of course not. Don’t be absurd. It would be presumptuous of me in the extreme to establish a capital bearing my own name. I was thinking of ‘Columbia,’ after the great navigator who discovered the New World. How does that sound?”

“A fine name,” Susanna said with what sounded like relief.

“Now, this round thing here,” Washington continued—“what is that?”

“A natural basin, which we shall improve as a promenade for the residents. I was thinking it might look especially splendid in the spring if we planted the perimeter with cherry trees.”

“I think not,” said Washington, suddenly stiff.

“But the blossoms would make—”

“No cherries. I particularly desire you, for very good and sufficient reasons, not to plant cherry trees.”

“Of course if you insist—”

“I think we can do without the cherries.—Now, you have all these streets going straight up and down or back and forth.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And this is the President’s house here. And the Capitol, where the Congress meets, here. Now, what happens if the President needs to go to the Capitol to address Congress?”

“Then he can walk down past this street, and this, and then turn left and walk straight to the Capitol like this,” replied Banneker.

“Would it not,” asked Washington, picking up the quill and dipping it in the ink, “be more efficient to have a street connecting the two points directly?” He drew a straight line between the President’s house and the Capitol on the map.

Banneker looked horrified. “But it destroys the logical symmetry of it all. If you—”

“And then to get from here to here you could have a street going directly like this.” He drew a diagonal straight across Mr. Banneker’s neat horizontals and verticals. “And from here to here” (he drew another line), “and here to here, and here to here.”

“But I had a perfectly neat system of numbered and lettered streets!” And then, recollecting himself, Banneker added, “I mean, Mr. L’Enfant had.”

“I’m sure Mr. L’Enfant will see the wisdom of these improvements. We could name these more direct streets after states of the Union. This one could be Pennsylvania, this one New-York, this one Virginia, this one Wisconsin, this one Georgia, and so on.”

“There’s no state called ‘Wisconsin.’ ”

“We could make one to match the street. Plenty of room in the Northwest. I don’t see why some of my land can’t be set aside for states with whimsical names.”

Mr. Banneker sighed and said, “I’ll present the idea to Mr. L’Enfant.”

Later, as we were on our way home in our coach, Susanna asked me, “Will anyone be able to find his way in our capital city once Washington has done with altering the plans?”

“Probably not,” I replied. “But consider the advantages. If we ever go to war again, the enemy will never successfully invade our capital. Any invading force would find itself hopelessly lost and easily overcome.”

“I do love your good cheer,” said Susanna, “but please, just this once, will you admit to me that the man is an imbecile?”

To be continued in Chapter XIV.