[123] Conclusion of his third report.

[124] "Opinion on Capital," November 29, 1790. Writings, ed. Ford, V, 253.

[125] Which agreed perfectly with L'Enfant's constant desire to ever do things "en grand." Washington writes to him that, "although it may not be immediately wanting," a large tract of ground must be reserved. The lands to be set apart, "in my opinion are those between Rock Creek, the Potowmac River, and the Eastern Branch, and as far up the latter as the turn of the channel above Evens's point; thence including the flat back of Jenkins's height; thence to the road leading from Georgetown to Bladensburg as far easterly along the same as to include the Branch which runs across it, somewhere near the exterior of the Georgetown Session. Thence in a proper direction to Rock Creek at or above the ford, according to the situation of ground." Mount Vernon, April 4, 1791, Washington's manuscript Letter Book, vol. XI, Library of Congress.

[126] Same letter.

[127] To the Commissioners, December 18, 1791.

[128] Philadelphia, March 12, 1793.

[129] March 31, 1791.

[130] April 8, 1791. Hamilton papers, vol. XI.

[131] To David Stuart, November 20, 1791.

[132] Report to the President, August 19, 1791.

[133] December 2, 1791.

[134] L'Enfant papers.

[135] March 9, 1792. Records of the Columbia Historical Society, II, 137.

[136] To the Commissioners, November 30, 1792.

[137] Morris had bought for it a whole block, limited on its four sides by Chestnut, Walnut, Seventh, and Eighth Streets.

[138] May 9, 1793. (L'Enfant papers.)

[139] He seems to have tried to help the financier rather than to be helped by him. Ill-satisfied as he was with the house, for which he, apparently, never paid l'Enfant anything, Morris wrote: "But he lent me thirteen shares of bank stock disinterestedly, and on this point I feel the greatest anxiety that he should get the same number of shares with the dividends, for the want of which he has suffered great distress." Written about 1800. W.B. Bryan, History of the National Capital, 1914, p. 181.

[140] S.C. Busey, Pictures of the City of Washington in the Past, 1898, p. 108.

[141] Memoirs of 1801, 1802, 1813, in the Jefferson papers, Library of Congress.

[142] Letter from his cousin, Destouches, Paris, September 15, 1805, greatly exaggerating, as shown by the letter mentioned below, his mother's state of poverty. (L'Enfant papers.)

[143] From his cousin, Mrs. Roland, née Mallet, whose husband had a modest position at the Ministry of the Navy; Paris, May 5, 1806. The mother's furniture and silver plate was valued at 1,500 livres. Allusion is made to L'Enfant's deceased sister and to her "mariage projeté avec Mr. Leclerc." (L'Enfant papers.)

[144] To David Stuart November 20, 1791.

[145] Hugh T. Taggart, in Records of the Columbia Historical Society, XI, 216.

[146] Voyage en Amérique, VI, 122 ff.

[147] May 22, 1911.

III

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

I

Washington's acquaintance with things French began early and was of a mixed nature. As a pupil of the French Huguenot Maryes, who kept a school at Fredericksburg, and did not teach him French,[148] we find him carefully transcribing, in his elegant youthful hand, those famous "Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation," which have recently been proved to be French. Whether this French teaching given him by a Frenchman engraved itself in his mind or happened to match his natural disposition, or both, certain it is that he lived up to the best among those maxims, those, for example, and they are remarkably numerous, that deprecate jokes and railing at the expense of others, or those of a noble import advising the young man to be "no flatterer," to "show no sign of choler in reproving, but to do it with sweetness and mildness," those prescribing that his "recreations be manful, not sinful," and giving him this advice of supreme importance, which Washington observed throughout life: "Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience."

Another chance that Washington had to become acquainted with things French was through his reading, and was less favorable to them. An early note in his hand informs us that, about the year 1748, he, being then sixteen, had, "in the Spectator, read to No. 143." All those numbers had been written by Steele and Addison at a period of French wars, at the moment when we were fighting "Monsieur Malbrouk." Not a portrait of the French in those numbers that is not a caricature; they are a "ludicrous nation"; their women are "fantastical," their men "vain and lively," their fashions ridiculous; not even their wines find grace in the eyes of Steele, who could plead, it is true, that he was not without experience on the subject, and who declares that this "plaguy French claret" is greatly inferior to "a bottle or two of good, solid, edifying port."

Washington was soon to learn more of French people, and was to find that they were something else than mere ludicrous and lively puppets.

A soldier born, with all that is necessary to prove a good one and to become an apt leader, having, as he himself wrote, "resolution to face what any man durst."[149] Washington rose rapidly in the ranks, becoming a colonel in 1754, at the age of twenty-two. He was three times sent, in his younger days, to observe, and check if he could, the progress of his future allies, in the Ohio and Monongahela Valleys. His journal and letters show him animated toward them with the spirit befitting a loyal subject of George II, none of his judgments on them being spoiled by any undue leniency.

On the first occasion he was simply ordered to hand to the commander of a French fort a letter from the governor of Virginia, and to ask him to withdraw as having "invaded the King of Great Britain's territory." To which the Frenchman, an old officer and Knight of Saint Louis, Mr. de Saint-Pierre, who shortly before had been leading an exploration in the extreme West, toward the Rockies,[150] politely but firmly declined to assent, writing back to the governor: "I am here by the orders of my general, and I entreat you, sir, not to doubt but that I shall try to conform myself to them with all the exactness and resolution which must be expected from a good officer." He has "much the air of a soldier," Washington wrote of him.

Mr. de Saint-Pierre added, on his part, a word on the bearer of Governor Dinwiddie's message, who was to be the bearer also of his answer, and in this we have the first French comment on Washington's personality: "I made it my particular care to receive Mr. Washington with a distinction suitable to your dignity as well as to his own personal merit.—From the Fort on the Rivière-aux-Bœufs, December 15, 1753." Having received plentiful supplies as a gift from the French, but entertaining the worst misgivings as to their "artifices," the young officer began his return journey, during which, in spite of all trouble, he managed to pay a visit to Queen Aliquippa: "I made her a present," he wrote, "of a match-coat and a bottle of rum, which latter was thought much the best present of the two." On the 16th of January, 1754, he was back at Williamsburg, handed to the governor Mr. de Saint-Pierre's negative answer, and printed an account of his journey.[151]