CHAPTER IV. — THE NATIONAL BANK ESTABLISHED. 1790.
On his way from New York to Mount Vernon Washington stopped for a short time, as we have seen, in Philadelphia. While there he addressed a letter to his private secretary, Mr. Lear, which is interesting not only for the information it contains respecting his residence, but from its illustrating that remarkable attention to the details of business, which we have already had occasion to notice.
"After a pleasant journey," he writes, "we arrived in this city on Thursday last (September 2, 1790), and tomorrow we proceed—if Mrs. Washington's health will permit, for she has been much indisposed since we came here—toward Mount Vernon. The house of Mr. Robert Morris had, previous to my arrival, been taken by the corporation for my residence. {1}
"It is the best they could get. It is, I believe, the best single house in the city. Yet without additions it is inadequate to the commodious accommodation of my family. These additions, I believe, will be made. The first floor contains only two public rooms (except one for the upper servants). The second floor will have two public (drawing) rooms, and with the aid of one room with a partition in it, in the back building, will be sufficient for the use of Mrs. Washington and the children, and their maids, besides affording her a small place for a private study and dressing-room. The third story will furnish you and Mrs. Lear with a good lodging-room, a public office (for there is no room below for one), and two rooms for the gentlemen of the family. The garret has four good rooms, which must serve Mr. and Mrs. Hyde {2}—unless they should prefer the room over the workhouse—William, and such servants as it may not be better to place in the proposed additions to the back building. There is a room over the stable which may serve the coachman and postillions, and there is a smokehouse, which may possibly be more valuable for the use of servants than for the smoking of meats. The intention of the addition to the back building is to provide a servant's hall and one or two lodging-rooms for the servants. There are good stables, but for twelve horses only, and a coach-house, which will hold all my carriages. Speaking of carriages, I have left my coach to receive a thorough repair, by the time I return, which I expect will be before the 1st of December."
The Legislature, meantime, had appropriated for his residence an elegant house in South Ninth street, which was taken down a few years since, having been occupied by the University, and other buildings were erected on the same lot for the same purpose. But Washington refused to occupy the house offered by the State authorities, because he would not live in a house which was not hired and paid for by himself. He was desirous, however, to have the rent fixed before he entered the house, and he wrote repeatedly to Mr. Lear from Mount Vernon to ascertain what the rent would be. On the 14th of November, 1790, he wrote to Mr. Lear as follows:
"I am, I must confess, exceedingly unwilling to go into any house without first knowing on what terms I do it, and wish that this sentiment could be again hinted in delicate terms to the parties concerned with me. I cannot, if there are no latent motives which govern in this case, see any difficulty in the business. Mr. Morris has most assuredly formed an idea of what ought in equity to be the rent of the tenement in the condition he left it, and with this aid the committee ought, I conceive, to be as little at a loss in determining what it should rent for, with the additions and alterations which are about to be made, and which ought to be done in a plain and neat, not by any means in an extravagant style, because the latter is not only contrary to my wish but would really be detrimental to my interest and convenience, principally because it would be the means of keeping me out of the use and comforts of the house to a late period, and because the furniture and everything else would require to be accordant therewith, besides making me pay an extravagant price, perhaps to accommodate the alterations to the taste of another or to the exorbitant rates of workmen.
"I do not know, nor do I believe, that anything unfair is intended by either Mr. Morris or the committee, but let us for a moment suppose that the rooms (the new ones I mean) were to be hung with tapestry or a very rich and costly paper, neither of which would suit my present furniture; that costly ornaments for the bow windows, extravagant chimney-pieces, and the like were to be provided; that workmen, from extravagance of the times for every twenty shillings' worth of work would charge forty shillings, and that advantage should be taken of the occasion to new paint every part of the house and buildings, would there be any propriety in adding ten or twelve and a half per cent. for all this to the rent of the house in its original state for the two years that I am to hold it? If the solution of these questions is in the negative, wherein lies the difficulty of determining that the houses and lots, when finished according to the proposed plan, ought to rent for so much? When all is done that can be done, the residence will not be so commodious as the house I left in New York, for there (and the want of it will be found a real inconvenience at Mr. Morris') my office was in a front room below, where persons on business were at once admitted, whereas now they will have to ascend two pair of stairs and to pass by the public rooms to go to it. Notwithstanding which I am willing to allow as much as was paid to Mr. Macomb, and shall say nothing if more is demanded, unless there is apparent extortion or the policy of delay is to see to what height rents will rise before mine is fixed. In either of these cases I should not be pleased, and to occupy the premises at the expense of any public body I will not.
"I had rather have heard that my repaired coach was plain and elegant than rich and elegant."