left Mount Vernon for the metropolis to assume these new duties of toil and care, we find recorded in his journal,

"About ten o'clock, I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to domestic felicity; and, with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York, with the best disposition to render service to my country in obedience to its call, but with less hopes of answering its expectations."

Washington was inaugurated President of the United States on the 30th of April, 1789. He remained in the presidential chair wo terms, of four years each. At the close of his illustrious administration, in the year 1796, he again retired to the peaceful shades of Mount Vernon, bequeathing to his grateful countrymen the rich legacy of his Farewell Address. The admiration with which these parting counsels were received never will wane. Soon after Washington's return to his beloved retreat at Mount Vernon, he wrote a letter to a friend, in which he described the manner in which he passed his time. He rose with the sun, and first made preparations for the business of the day.

"By the time I have accomplished these matters," he adds, "breakfast is ready. This being over, I mount my horse, and ride round my farms, which employs me until it is time to dress for dinner, at which I rarely miss to see strange faces, come, as they say, out of respect to me. And how different is this from having a few friends at the social board! The usual time of sitting at table, a walk, and tea, bring me within the dawn of candlelight; previous to which, if not prevented by company, I resolve, that, as soon as the glimmering taper supplies the place of the great luminary, I will retire to my writing-table, and acknowledge the letters I have received. Having given you this history of a day, it will serve for a year."

The following anecdotes have been related, illustrative of President Washington's habits of punctuality. Whenever he assigned to meet Congress at noon, he seldom failed of passing the door of the hall when the clock struck twelve. His dining-hour was at four o'clock, when he always sat down to his table, whether his guests were assembled or not, merely allowing five minutes for the variation of time-pieces. To those who came late, he remarked, "Gentlemen, we are punctual here: my cook never asks whether the company has arrived, but whether the hour has."

When visiting Boston, in 1789, he appointed eight o'clock in the morning as the hour when he would set out for Salem; and, while the Old-South clock was striking eight, he was mounting his saddle. The company of cavalry which had volunteered to escort him, not anticipating this punctuality, did not overtake him until he had reached Charles-River Bridge. As the troops came hurrying up, the President said to their commander with a good-natured smile, " Major, I thought you had been too long in my family not to know when it was eight o'clock."

Capt. Pease had purchased a beautiful span of horses, which he wished to sell to the President. The President appointed five o'clock in the morning to examine them at his stable. The captain arrived, with his span, at quarter-past five. He was told by the groom that the President was there at five o'clock, but was then gone to attend to other engagements. The President's time was wholly pre-occupied for several days; so that Capt. Pease had to remain a whole week in Philadelphia before he could get another opportunity to exhibit his span.

Washington, having inherited a large landed estate in Virginia, was, as a matter of course, a slaveholder. The whole number which he held at the time of his death was one hundred and twenty-four. The system met his strong disapproval. In 1786, he wrote to Robert Morris, saying, "There is no man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery."

Lafayette, that true friend of popular rights, was extremely anxious to free our country from the reproach which slavery brought upon it. Washington wrote to him in 1788, "The scheme, my dear marquis, which you propose as a precedent to encourage the emancipation of the black people of this country from the state of bondage in which they are held, is a striking evidence of the state of your heart. I shall be happy to join you in so laudable a work."

In his last will and testament, he inscribed these noble words: "Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire that all the slaves which I hold in my own right shall receive their freedom. To emancipate them during her life would, though earnestly wished by me, be attended with such insuperable difficulties, on account of their mixture by marriage with the dower negroes, as to excite the most painful sensation, if not disagreeable conse

quences, from the latter, while both descriptions are in the occupancy of the same proprietor; it not being in my power, under the tenure by which the dower negroes are held, to manumit them."

Long before this, he had recorded his resolve: "I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase; it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law."

Mrs. Washington, immediately after her husband's death, learning from his will that the only obstacle to the immediate emancipation of the slaves was her right of dower, immediately relinquished that right, and the slaves were at once emancipated.

The 12th of December, 1799, was chill and damp. Washington, however, took his usual round on horseback to his farms, and returned late in the afternoon, wet with sleet, and shivering with cold. Though the snow was clinging to his hair behind when he came in, he sat down to dinner without changing his dress. The next day, three inches of snow whitened the ground, and the sky was clouded. Washington, feeling that he had taken cold, remained by the fireside during the morning. As it cleared up in the afternoon, he went out to superintend some work upon the lawn. He was then hoarse, and the hoarseness increased as night came on. He, however, took no remedy for it; saying, "I never take any thing to carry off a cold. Let it go as it came."

He passed the evening as usual, reading the papers, answering letters, and conversing with his family. About two o'clock the next morning, Saturday, the 14th, he awoke in an ague-chill, and was seriously unwell. At sunrise, his physician, Dr. Craig, who resided at Alexandria, was sent for. In the mean time, he was bled by one of his overseers, but with no relief, as he rapidly grew worse. Dr. Craig reached Mount Vernon at eleven o'clock, and immediately bled his patient again, but without effect. Two consulting physicians arrived during the day; and, as the difficulty in breathing and swallowing rapidly increased, venesection was again attempted. It is evident that Washington then considered his case doubtful. He examined his will, and destroyed some papers which he did not wish to have preserved.

His sufferings from inflammation of the throat, and struggling for breath, as the afternoon wore away, became quite severe. Still he retained his mental faculties unimpaired, and spoke briefly

of his approaching death and burial. About four o'clock in the afternoon, he said to Dr. Craig, "I die hard; but I am not afraid to go. I believed, from my first attack, that I should not survive it: my breath cannot last long." About six o'clock, his physician asked him if he would sit up in his bed. He held out his hands, and was raised up on his pillow, when he said, “I feel that I am going. I thank you for your attentions. You had better not take any more trouble about me, but let me go off quietly. I cannot last long."

He then sank back upon his pillow, and made several unavailing attempts to speak intelligibly. About ten o'clock, he said, "I am just going. Have me decently buried, and do not let my body be put into the vault until three days after I am dead. Do you understand me?" To the reply, "Yes, sir," he remarked, "It is well." These were the last words he uttered. Soon after this, he gently expired, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.

At the moment of his death, Mrs. Washington sat in silent grief at the foot of his bed. "Is he gone?" she asked in a firm and collected voice. The physician, unable to speak, gave a silent signal of assent. ""Tis well," she added in the same untremulous utterance. "All is now over. I shall soon follow him. I have no more trials to pass through."

On the 18th, his remains were deposited in the tomb at Mount Vernon, where they now repose, enshrined in a nation's love; and his fame will forever, as now, fill the world.

CHAPTER II.

JOHN ADAMS.

Ancestry of John Adams.- Anecdote of his Boyhood. - State of the Country. Marriage. - British Assumptions. Riot in Boston. - Adams's Defence of the Soldiers. - Anecdote. Patriotism of Adams. - The Continental Congress. His Influence in Congress. -Energy of Mrs. Adams. — The Appointment of Washington. - The Declaration of Incependence. - Letter from Mrs. Adams. -Interview with Lord Howe. - Journey to Baltimore. Delegate to France. · The Voyage. Adams and Franklin. - The Contrast. Franklin and Voltaire. - Second Trip to Paris. Successful Mission to Holland. -Conflict with the French Court. Mission to England. - Presidential Career.- Last Days and Death.

JOHN ADAMS was born in the present town of Quincy, then a portion of Braintree, on the 30th of October, 1735. His father's elder brother, Joseph, had been educated at Harvard, and was, for upwards of sixty years, minister of a Congregational church at Newington, N.H. The father of John Adams was a farmer of moderate means, a worthy, industrious man, toiling early and late for the very frugal support which such labor could furnish his family. The fact that he was a deacon of the church attests the esteem in which he was held by the community. Like most Christian fathers, he was anxious to give his son a collegiate education, hoping that he would become a minister of the gospel. But, like most boys, John Adams was not fond of his books. In the bright, sunny morning of his boyhood in Braintree, with the primeval forest waving around, the sunlight sleeping upon the meadows, the sparkling brooks alive with trout, and the ocean rolling in its grandeur before him, out-door life seemed far more attractive than the seclusion of the study, and the apparent monotony of life in the midst of books. When he was about fourteen years of age, his father said to him, " My son, it is time for you to decide respecting your future occupation in life. What business do you wish to follow?"

"I wish to be a farmer," the energetic boy replied.

Very well," said the judicious father: "it is time now for you to commençe your life-work. You must give up play, and enter upon that steady, hard work, without which no farmer can get a