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CHAPTER XXIX.

HOME LIFE AND PRIVATE INTERESTS.

OME at last! Probably the words and the thought which they embody, were never more sweet to any man, than were they to Washington when he returned to Mount Vernon, and again took up the thread of the pleasant rural life, which had been so rudely interrupted by the call to arms. Surely no one ever settled more naturally and quietly, from the guardianship of a nation to agriculture. In fact, all through the war Washington had carried the map of his plantation with him, and had directed, if he could not personally administer, his affairs. He had known every season what crops each farm was devoted to, what the yield, price and profit or loss, so exact and methodical was he, even in the field. It is not possible to follow minutely in this work, the life of the late commander and coming president, in the interval between the past which he had relinquished and the future which he did not suspect. His house was open with its old-time generous yet simple hospitality. He entertained all who came with any shadow of title to recognition, and these were more and more, as the months and years passed. Washington, by fighting with France and against England, had become a man of note in the two leading nations of Europe, thence his repute had spread over the continent, and his house was besieged by tourists of every name and nationality; then, too, there came the leading men of America, and, last and most welcome, those whom he loved as his own brothers, his old associates in arms. He possessed a liberal estate, but it had not prospered as in the old days when he had superintended its conduct, and there was free exportation of its tobacco; he was cramped for money, and did not cease to be so for some years. What was at first but an unconvenience, became, with the continual demands upon his hospitality, a positive embarrassment. The Pennsylvania legislature, knowing of the constant throng of visitors coming to his door, thoughtfully called the attention of

Congress to the facts, and recommended that some action be taken for his relief. News of this movement came to him while he was in real anxiety, and, to many men, would have come as a piece of good fortune, but he respectfully and gratefully declined it, his pride of independence, and his especial determination that his service of his country should be gratuitous, standing as repellant sentinels at the opening of his empty purse. How serious this embarrassment later became, is best illustrated by certain letters published for the first time in Bancroft's History of the United States. The first of these, addressed to his mother under date of February 17, 1787, is as follows:

"HONORED MADAM :-I have now demands upon me for more than five hundred pounds, three hundred and forty odd of which are due for the tax of 1786, and I know not where or when I shall receive one shilling with which to pay it."

The second letter is addressed to his family physician, to whom he was indebted in the sum of sixty pounds. It enclosed thirty pounds, and apologized for not remitting the whole amount of the debt:

"I wish it was in my power to send the like sum for the other year, which is now about or near due; and that I could discharge your account for attendance and ministries to the sick of my family, but really it is not, for with much truth, I can say I never felt the want of money so sensibly since I was a boy fifteen years old, as I have for the last twelve months, and probably shall for twelve months more to come."

The last, and, evidently, to Washington, the most humiliating of these letters, is addressed to Richard Conway, of New York city. It was written on the 4th day of March, 1789, after his election to the presidency, for the purpose of securing a loan from Conway, to enable him to pay the expense of his inauguration, and is as follows:

"DEAR SIR-Never, till within these two years, have I experienced the want of money. Short crops, and other causes, not entirely within my control, make me feel it now very sensibly. Under this statement I am inclined to do what I never expected to be driven to-that is, to borrow money on interest. Five hundred pounds would enable me to discharge what I owe in Alexandria, etc. Having thus fully and candidly explained myself, permit me to ask if it is in your power to supply me with the above or a smaller sum. Any security you may like I can give, and you may be assured that it is no more my inclination than it can be yours, to let it remain long unpaid."

At the moment when this letter was written, the United States owed Washington not far from fifty thousand dollars, which it was ready to pay, and he refused to accept. In the year of grace, 1887, there is, in the city which bears his name, a monument to his memory which for many years

was uncompleted for lack of funds; and yet the Government has had the use of the sum named for one hundred years.

In the month of September, 1784, Washington, in company with his old friend, Dr. Clark, made a tour of inspection, which was at first intended. to cover all his lands west of the mountains, including extensive tracts upon the Ohio and Kanawha. These he designed to survey and map, so that they might be available for settlement or sale. The unquiet and dangerous condition of the Indian tribes, rendered the penetration of the wilderness beyond Fort Pitt too hazardous to be attempted, and the two, with their servants and pack-horses, contented themselves with proceeding as far as that point, then made a rough march over the mountains, and, descending into the Shenandoah, reached Mount Vernon, having, in little more than a month, traveled more than six hundred miles, sleeping, for the most part, in a tent, and renewing the experiences of the campaigning of more than thirty years before, in the same region.

The expedition had another object beyond its private purpose, and one of vastly more importance. Washington was thoroughly imbued with the belief of the Roman emperors, that a road is the best civilizer. He saw the magnificent resources of the West, lying, like diamonds in a Brazilian river bed, only waiting to be uncovered and brought to the doors of the settlement, to bring to America a vast population and wealth that should make the shining stores of the Indies seem pitiful. He saw, too, the dangers arising from the existence of alien populations on either hand, the British to the northward, with the command of the great lakes; the Spanish to the southward, with the Mississippi offering so easy a highway to the sea. In all these he saw that the time might one day come when America should lose by the finesse and natural advantages of her neighbors, what she had won at so great cost of blood and treasure, the whole of her vast interior trade. Beyond this, he feared for the political allegiance of the communities which were yet to come into being in the wilderness, should their commercial connections be with foreign and possibly hostile nations. He was no prophet, and could not foretell the intervention of steam in the settlement of the great problem. His view comprehended the rising of a mighty people, which should grow from year to year, indefinitely, and that the improvement of water communication, and the extension of the great highway system, were the only possibilities of providing for this great growth.

Before the Revolution Washington had carefully considered the subject of inland communication, and had become convinced of the feasibility of easy and cheap communication between the waters of the Potomac and James rivers and those of the Monongahela and Ohio, and thence, by the construction of canals, to the great lakes. He had great confidence that this alone was necessary to attract to Virginia a great volume of trade, at