the entire aspect of affairs. Never were victories better timed. The waning hopes of the people in their cause and their commander were at once restored as if by magic.

It is not possible, in this necessarily brief sketch, to give the details of the agonizing struggle in which Washington and his little army were now involved. Superior numbers and equipments often inflicted upon him disasters which would have crushed a less resolute spirit. Cheered, however, by occasional glimpses of victory, and wisely taking advantage of what his troops learned in hardship and defeat, he was at length enabled, by one sagacious and deeply planned movement, to bring the war virtually to a close in the capture of the British army of 7,000 men, under Cornwallis, at Yorktown, on the 19th of October, 1781.

The tidings of the surrender of Cornwallis filled the country with joy. The lull in the activity of both Congress and the people was not viewed with favor by Washington. It was a period of peril. Idleness in the army fostered discontents there, which at one time threatened the gravest mischief. It was only by the utmost exertion that Washington induced the malcontents to turn a deaf ear to those who were attempting, as he alleged, "to open the flood-gates of civil discord, and deluge our rising empire with blood."

On September 3d, 1783, a treaty of peace was signed at Paris, by which the complete independence of the United States was secured. On the 23d of December following, Washington formally resigned his command. The very next morning he hastened to his beloved Mount Vernon, arriving there that evening, in time to enjoy the festivities which there greeted him.

Washington was not long permitted to enjoy his retirement. Indeed, his solicitude for the perpetuity of the political fabric he had helped to raise he could not have shaken off if he would. Unconsciously, it might have been, by his letters to his old friends still in public life, he continued to exercise a powerful influence on national affairs. He was one of the first to propose a remodeling of the Articles of Confederation, which were now acknowledged to be insufficient for their purpose. At length, a convention of delegates from the several States, to form a new Constitution, met at Philadelphia, in May, 1787. Washington presided over its session, which was long and stormy. After four months of deliberation was formed that Constitution under which, with some subsequent amendments, we now live.

When the new Constitution was finally ratified, Washington was called to the Presidency by the unanimous voice of the people. In April, .1789, he set out from Mount Vernon for New York, then the seat of Government, to be inaugurated.

"His progress," says Irving, "was a continuous ovation. The ringing of bells and the roaring of cannon proclaimed his course. Old and young,

women and children, thronged the highways to bless and welcome him." His inauguration took place April 30th, 1789, before an immense multitude.

The eight years of Washington's Administration were years of trouble and difficulty. The two parties which had sprung up-the Federalist and the Republican-were greatly embittered against each other, each charging the other with the most unpatriotic designs. No other man than Washington could have carried the country safely through so perilous a period. His prudent, firm, yet conciliatory spirit, aided by the love and veneration with which the people regarded him, kept down insurrection and silenced discontent.

That he passed through this trying period safely cannot but be a matter of astonishment. The angry partisan contests, to which we have referred, were of themselves sufficient to dishearten any common man. Even Washington was distrustful of the event, so fiercely were the partisans of both parties enlisted-the Federalists clamoring for a stronger government, the Republicans for additional checks on the power already intrusted to the Executive. Besides, the Revolution then raging in France became a source of contention. The Federalists sided with England,

who was bent on crushing that Revolution; the Republicans, on the other hand, sympathized deeply with the French people: so that between them both, it was with extreme difficulty that the President could prevent our young Republic, burdened with debt, her people groaning under taxes necessarily heavy, and with finances, commerce, and the industrial arts in a condition of chaos, from being dragged into a fresh war with either France or England.

But, before retiring from the Presidency, Washington had the happiness of seeing many of the difficulties from which he had apprehended so much, placed in a fair way of final adjustment. A financial system was developed which lightened the burden of public debt and revived the drooping energies of the people. The country progressed rapidly. Immigrants flocked to our shores, and the regions west of the Alleghanies began to fill up. New States claimed admission and were received into the Union-Vermont, in 1791; Ken. tucky, in 1792; and Tennessee, in 1796; so that, before the close of Washington's second term, the original thirteen States had increased to sixteen.

Having served two Presidential terms, Washington, declining another election, returned once more to Mount Vernon, "that haven of repose to which he had so often turned a wistful eye," bearing with him the love and gratitude of his countrymen, to whom, in his memorable "Farewell Ad

dress," he bequeathed a legacy of practical political wisdom which it will be well for them to remember and profit by. In this immortal docu ment he insisted that the union of the States was "a main pillar" in the real independence of the people. He also entreated them to "steer clear of any permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world."

At Mount Vernon Washington found constant occupation in the supervision of his various

It was while taking his usual round on horseback to look after his farms, that, on the 12th of December, 1799, he encountered a cold, winter storm. He reached home chill and damp. The next day he had a sore throat, with some hoarseness. By the morning of the 14th he could scarcely swallow. "I find I am going," said he to a friend. "I believed from the first that the attack would be fatal." That night, between ten and eleven, he expired, without a struggle or a sigh, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, his disease being acute laryngitis. Three days afterward his remains were deposited in the family tombs at Mount Vernon, where they still repose.

Washington left a reputation on which there is no stain. "His character," says Irving, "possessed fewer inequalities, and a rarer union of virtues than perhaps ever fell to the lot of one man. *It seems as if Providence had endowed him in a pre-eminent degree with the qualities