guns inclusive, and six sloops, besides galleys and revenue cutters, making a total of thirty active cruisers. Numerous privateers were also fitted out. The chief theater of naval operations was the archipelago of the West Indies, where the aggressions on our commerce by French cruisers and privateers had originally commenced. Of the numerous encounters which took place, two remarkable ones afforded a promise of the future glories of the American navy. One of these was a very severe action (February, 1799) between the American frigate Constellation, of thirtyeight guns, commanded by Commodore Truxton, and the French frigate l'Insurgente, of forty guns, which terminated in the capture of the latter. Truxton, in a subsequent engagement, compelled another French frigate, the Vengeance, mounting no less than fifty-two guns, to strike her colors, but she afterward made her escape in the night.

The determined attitude of the United States soon convinced the French Directory that the people were united in support of the administration in its hostile operations, and Talleyrand sent certain intimations to our government, through William Vans Murray, American minister at the Hague, as well as by more private channels, that the Directory were willing and desirous to treat for peace. President Adams determined to avail himself of these friendly dispositions, and, without consulting his Cabinet or the leading members of Congress, on the 18th of February (1799) nominated to the Senate Mr. Murray as minister plenipotentiary to the French republic. Patrick Henry and Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth were subsequently appointed joint ambassadors, but the latter declining on account of ill health, Gen. William Richardson Davie, Governor of North Carolina, was appointed in his place. Ellsworth and Davie did not leave the country, however, till November. The peace which terminated the quasi war

with France was negotiated by these envoys, but it did not take place till the 3d of September, 1800, when Napoleon was at the head of affairs in France, as First Consul, and after the death of Washington.

We have seen that when Washington retired from the office of President, he had promised himself a season of leisure and repose before closing his useful and honorable life. But this the course of events did not permit. His last days were destined to be fully occupied with public affairs.

During the years 1798 and 1799 he was engaged in a most voluminous correspondence with the President, the heads of departments, and the officers of the provisional army, in relation to military affairs, and in addition to this his published letters show that he had to keep up a correspondence with many public men, both in Europe and America, as well as with his own connections and dependants.

This correspondence and the arrangement of his papers. added to the writing occasioned by his accounts and the army affairs, made it necessary for him to have assistance, and he accordingly wrote to his old secretary, Mr. Tobias Lear, with a view to engaging him in the same office again (August 2, 1798). An extract from his letter to Mr. Lear shows how his writing labors had increased. "The little leisure I had," he writes, "before my late appointment (from visits, my necessary rides, and other occurrences), to overhaul, arrange, and separate papers of real from those of little or no value, is now, by that event, so much encroached upon by personal and written applications for offices, and other matters incidental to the commander-inchief, that, without assistance, I must abandon all idea of accomplishing this necessary work before I embark in new scenes, which will render them more voluminous, and, of

course, more difficult; a measure which would be extremely irksome to me to submit to, especially as it respects my accounts, which are yet in confusion; my earnest wish and desire being, when I quit the stage of human action, to leave all matters in such a situation as to give as little trouble as possible to those who will have the management of them hereafter.

"Under this view of my situation, which is far from being an agreeable one, and at times fills me with deep concern when I see so little prospect of complete extrication, I have written to the Secretary of War to be informed whether as my taking the field is contingent, and no pay or emolument will accrue to myself until then I am at liberty to appoint my secretary immediately, who shall be allowed his pay and forage from the moment he joins me. If he answers in the affirmative, can you do this on these terms?"

Mr. Lear accepted the appointment of secretary, proceeded immediately to Mount Vernon, and remained with Washington till his decease.

With the aid of Mr. Lear, who was thoroughly conversant with his papers and accustomed to his methods of transacting business, he was enabled to keep up his old habit of riding over the estate, and superintending its culture, during the early hours of the day. "When he returned from his morning ride," which, he remarks in a letter to Mr. McHenry, "usually occupied him till it was time to dress for dinner," he generally found some newly arrived guests, perfect strangers to him, come, as they said, out of respect to him. They were always received courteously, but their number and their constant succession must have made serious inroads on the domestic quiet in which he so much delighted. "How different this," he

says in the same letter, "from having a few social friends at a cheerful board."

During the last two years of his life his domestic circle was small. Mrs. Washington, Miss Custis, and some others of his adopted children, and his old friend, Mr. Lear, were at Mount Vernon; and some of his visitors were such as he himself would have chosen. But the greater part of them were comparative strangers.

Distinguished persons sometimes came from Europe to visit him, and these were received with his usual hospitality. When they sought to draw him into conversation about his own actions, he changed the subject and made inquiries about Europe and its affairs. In his own house, although maintaining toward strangers great courtesy and amenity, he always avoided discussing on matters in which he himself had played the most conspicuous part. At home he was the plain, modest country gentleman he had been before the destinies of an army and an empire had been placed in his hands.

CHAPTER XIII.

LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND CHARACTER OF

WASHINGTON.

1799.

N Thursday, December 12, 1799, Washington rode

ON

out to superintend as usual the affairs of his estate. He left the house at 10 o'clock in the morning and did not return till 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Soon after he went out the weather became very inclement, rain, hail, and snow falling alternately, with a cold wind. When he came in his secretary and superintendent, Mr. Lear, handed him some letters to frank, but he declined sending them to the post-office that evening, remarking that the weather was too bad to send a servant with them. On Mr. Lear's observing that he was afraid he had got wet, he said, No, his great coat had kept him dry. Still his neck was wet and snow was hanging on his hair. But he made light of it, and sat down to dinner without changing his dress. In the evening he appeared as well as usual.*

A heavy snowstorm on Friday prevented his riding out on the estate as usual. He had taken cold the day before by his long exposure, and he complained of a sore throat. This, however, did not prevent his going out in the afternoon to mark some trees not far from the house, which

* Our authority for the details of Washington's last illness and death is a statement carefully prepared by Mr. Lear at the time, and published from the original in Sparks' "Life of Washington." It is the most exact and reliable authority extant.