While colonel of the Virginia troops in 1754, Washington was stationed at Alexandria. At an election for members of the Assembly Colonel Washington, in the heat of party excitement, used offensive language toward a Mr. Payne. Thereupon that gentleman struck him a heavy blow and knocked him down. Intelligence of the encounter aroused among his soldiers a spirit of vengeance, which was quieted by an address from him, showing his noble character. Next day, Mr. Payne received a note from Washington, requesting his attendance at the tavern in Alexandria. Mr. Payne anticipated a duel, but instead of pistols he found a table set with wine and glasses, and was met with a friendly smile by his antagonist. Colonel Washington felt that himself was the aggressor, and determined to make reparation. He offered Mr. Payne his hand, and said: “To err is human; to rectify error is right and proper. I believe I was wrong yesterday; you have already had some satisfaction, and if you deem that sufficient, here is my hand—let us be friends.” The amende honorable was promptly accepted.

Another case of offence, with prompt regret and reparation, occurred at Cambridge, in 1775, when the army was destitute of powder. Washington sent Colonel Glover to Marblehead for a supply of that article, which was said to be there. At night the colonel returned and found Washington in front of his head-quarters pacing up and down. The general, without returning his salute, asked, roughly, “Have you got the powder?” “No, sir.” Washington swore the terrible Saxon oath, with all its three specifications. “Why did you come back, sir, without it?” “Sir, there is not a kernel of powder in Marblehead.” Washington walked up and down a minute or two in great agitation, and then said, “Colonel Glover, here is my hand, if you will take it and forgive me. The greatness of our danger made me forget what is due to you and myself.”

In his “Memories of a Hundred Years,” Edward Everett Hale says, “It is with some hesitation that I add here what I am afraid is true, though I never heard it said aloud until the year 1901. It belongs with the discussion as to the third term for the Presidency. The statement now is that Washington did not permit his name to be used for a third election because he had become sure that he could not carry the State of Virginia in the election. He would undoubtedly have been chosen by the votes of the other States, but he would have felt badly the want of confidence implied in the failure of his own ‘country,’ as he used to call it in his earlier letters, to vote for him. It is quite certain, from the correspondence of the time, that as late as September of the year 1796, the year in which John Adams was chosen President, neither Adams nor Washington knew whether Washington meant to serve a third time.”

In delineating the characteristics of Washington, Edward Everett says, in his masterly way:

“If we claim for Washington solitary eminence among the great and good, the question will naturally be asked in what the peculiar and distinctive excellence of his character consisted; and to this fair question I am tasked to find an answer that does full justice to my own conceptions and feelings. It is easy to run over the heads of such a contemplation; to enumerate the sterling qualities which he possessed and the defects from which he was free; but when all is said in this way that can be said, with whatever justice of honest eulogy, and whatever sympathy of appreciation, we feel that there is a depth which we have not sounded, a latent power we have not measured, a mysterious beauty of character which you can no more describe in words than you can paint a blush with a patch of red paint, or the glance of a sunbeam from a ripple with a streak of white paint thrown upon the canvas; a moral fascination, so to express it, which we all feel, but cannot analyze nor trace to its elements. All the personal traditions of Washington assure us that there was a serene dignity in his presence which charmed while it awed the boldest who approached him.”

Franklin

Benjamin Franklin is probably the best specimen that history affords of what is called a self-made man. He certainly “never worshipped his maker,” according to a stinging epigram, but was throughout his life, though always self-respectful, never self-conceited. Perhaps the most notable result of his self-education was the ease with which he accosted all grades and classes of men on a level of equality. The printer’s boy became, in his old age, one of the most popular men in the French Court, not only among its statesmen, but among its frivolous nobles and their wives. He ever estimated men at their true worth or worthlessness; but as a diplomatist he was a marvel of sagacity. The same ease of manner which recommended him to a Pennsylvania farmer was preserved in a conference with a statesman or a king. He ever kept his end in view in all his complaisances, and that end was always patriotic. When he returned to his country he was among the most earnest to organize the liberty he had done so much to achieve; and he also showed his hostility to the system of negro slavery with which the United States was burdened. At the ripe age of eighty-four he died, leaving behind him a record of extraordinary faithfulness in the performance of all the duties of life. His sagacity, when his whole career is surveyed, was of the most exalted character, for it was uniformly devoted to the accomplishment of great public ends of policy or beneficence.

During a part of his reign, George III. was in the habit of keeping a note-book, in which he jotted down his observations of men and passing events. In the volume dated 1778, among the names to which the king attached illustrative quotations, was the name of Benjamin Franklin, with the following passage from Shakespeare’s Julius Cæsar, ii. 1:

O let us have him; for his silver hairs

Will purchase us a good opinion,