The French military and naval officers, Lafayette, Rochambeau, D'Estaing, and others, gave letters of introduction to be presented to Washington by their friends whenever any of them came to America, and those letters were always duly honored by hospitable attentions to those who bore them. His own compatriots were still more numerous and more assiduous in attention to the retired commander. Officers who had served with him in the old French war and in the Revolution, members of Congress, politicians, and magistrates from distant States, were among the guests at Mount Vernon; so that Washington's time would thus have been completely taken up but for the efficient aid which he received in discharging the duties of hospitality from the ease, urbanity, and excellent management of his accomplished lady.
"His habits," says Mr. Sparks, "were uniform and nearly the same as they had been previously to the war. He arose before the sun and employed himself in his study writing letters or reading till the hour of breakfast. When breakfast was over his horse was ready at the door, and he rode to his farms and gave directions for the day to the managers and laborers. Horses were likewise prepared for his guests whenever they chose to accompany him, or to amuse themselves by excursions into the country. Returning from his fields and dispatching such business as happened to be on hand, he went again to his study, and continued there till 3 o'clock, when he was summoned to dinner. The remainder of the day and the evening were devoted to company or to recreation in the family circle. At 10 he retired to rest. From these habits he seldom deviated unless compelled to do so by particular circumstances." {1}
In a delightful memoir {2} of his own life and times by Mr. Elkanah Watson, we find the following interesting notice of Washington at home, and we also learn what subject chiefly occupied his thoughts at the time of which we are writing:
"I had feasted my imagination for several days," says Mr. Watson, "on the near prospect of a visit to Mount Vernon—the seat of Washington. No pilgrim ever approached Mecca with deeper enthusiasm. I arrived there on the afternoon of January 23d, 1785. I was the bearer of a letter from General Greene, with another from Colonel Fitzgerald, one of the former aides of Washington, and also the books from Granville Sharpe. Although assured that these credentials would secure me a respectful reception, I felt an unaccountable diffidence as I came into the presence of the great man. I found him at table with Mrs. Washington and his private family, and was received with the native dignity and urbanity so peculiarly combined in the character of a soldier and eminent private gentleman. He soon put me at ease, by unbending in a free and affable conversation.
"The cautious reserve which wisdom and policy dictated whilst engaged in rearing the glorious fabric of our independence was evidently the result of consummate prudence and not characteristic of his nature. Although I had frequently seen him in the progress of the Revolution and had corresponded with him from France in 1781 and 1782, this was the first occasion on which I had contemplated him in his private relations. I observed a peculiarity in his smile which seemed to illuminate his eye; his whole countenance beamed with intelligence, while it commanded confidence and respect. The gentleman who had accompanied me from Alexandria left in the evening, and I remained alone in the enjoyment of the society of Washington for two of the richest days of my life. I saw him reaping the reward of his illustrious deeds in the quiet shade of his beloved retirement. He was at the matured age of fifty-three. Alexander died before he reached that period of life and he had immortalized his name. How much stronger and nobler the claims of Washington to immortality! In the impulses of mad, selfish ambition, Alexander acquired fame by wading to the conquest of the world through seas of blood. Washington, on the contrary, was parsimonious of the blood of his countrymen, stood forth the pure and virtuous champion of their rights, and formed for them, not himself, a mighty empire.
"To have communed with such a man in the bosom of his family I shall always regard as one of the highest privileges and most cherished incidents of my life. I found him kind and benignant in the domestic circle, revered and beloved by all around him, agreeably social, without ostentation; delighting in anecdote and adventures, without assumption; his domestic arrangements harmonious and systematic. His servants seemed to watch his eye, and to anticipate his every wish; hence a look was equivalent to a command. His servant Billy, the faithful companion of his military career, was always at his side. Smiling content animated and beamed on every countenance in his presence.
"The first evening I spent under the wing of his hospitality we sat a full hour at table, by ourselves, without the least interruption, after the family had retired. I was extremely oppressed with a severe cold and excessive coughing, contracted from the exposure of a harsh winter journey. He pressed me to use some remedies, but I declined doing so. As usual after retiring my cough increased. When some time had elapsed the door of my room was gently opened, and on drawing my bed-curtains, to my utter astonishment, I beheld Washington himself standing at my bedside with a bowl of hot tea in his hand. I was mortified and distressed beyond expression. This little incident, occurring in common life with an ordinary man would not have been noticed, but as a trait of the benevolence and the private virtue of Washington it deserves to be recorded.
"He modestly waived all allusions to the events in which he had acted so glorious and conspicuous a part. Much of his conversation had reference to the interior country and to the opening of the navigation of the Potomac, by canals and locks at the Seneca, the Great, and the Little Falls. His mind appeared to be deeply absorbed in that object, then in earnest contemplation. He allowed me to take minutes from his former journal on this subject, of which the following is a partial summary:
"'The stock of the company is divided into 500 shares at £50 sterling each. The canal company has been incorporated by both Maryland and Virginia.' Washington had accepted the presidency of it. 'The preliminary preparations are in full train, to commence operations in the ensuing spring, not only to remove the obstacles in the Potomac to a boat navigation from Georgetown to Fort Cumberland, a distance of 190 miles, but to the ultimate construction of a canal to Lake Erie, which is intended not only to give a direction to the fur trade from Detroit to Alexandria, but to attract the eventual trade of the country north of the Ohio which now slumbers in a state of nature.' This scheme was worthy of the comprehensive mind of Washington.
"To demonstrate the practicability and the policy of diverting the trade of the immense interior world yet unexplored to the Atlantic cities, especially in view of the idea that the Mississippi would be opened by Spain, was his constant and favorite theme. To elucidate the probability, also, that the Detroit fur trade would take this direction, he produced the following estimates, which I copied in his presence and with his aid from the original manuscript: