ELKANAH WATSON.

1821.

I HAD feasted my imagination for several days in the near prospect of a visit to Mount Vernon, the seat of Washington. No pilgrim ever approached Mecca with deeper enthusiasm. I arrived there, in the afternoon of January 23d, '85. I was the bearer of the letter from Gen. Green, with another from Col. Fitzgerald, one of the former aids of Washington, and also the books from Granville Sharp. Although assured, that these credentials would secure me a respectful reception, I trembled with awe as I came into the presence of this great man. I found him at table, with Mrs. Washington and his private family, and was received in the native dignity and with that urbanity so peculiarly combined in the character of a soldier and eminent private gentleman. He soon put me at ease, by unbending in a free and affable conversation.

The cautious reserve, which wisdom and policy dictated, whilst engaged in rearing the glorious fabric of our independence, was evidently the result of consummate prudence, and not characteristic of his nature. Although I had frequently seen him in the progress of the Revolution, and had corresponded with him from France in '81 and '82, this was the first occasion on which I had contemplated him in his private relations. I observed a peculiarity in his smile, which seemed to illuminate his eye; his whole countenance beamed with

intelligence, while it commanded confidence and respect. The gentleman who had accompanied me from Alexandria, left in the evening, and I remained alone in the enjoyment of the society of Washington, for two of the richest days of my life. I saw him reaping the reward of his illustrious deeds, in the quiet shade of his beloved retirement. He was at the matured age of fifty-three. Alexander and Cæsar both died before they reached that period of life, and both had immortalized their names. How much stronger and nobler the claims of Washington to immortality! In the impulses of mad and selfish ambition, they acquired fame by wading to the conquest of the world through seas of blood. Washington, on the contrary, was parsimonious of the blood of his countrymen, and stood forth, the pure and virtuous champion of their rights, and formed for them, (not himself,) a mighty Empire.

To have communed with such a man in the bosom of his family, I shall always regard as one of the highest privileges, and most cherished incidents of my life. I found him kind and benignant in the domestic circle, revered and beloved by all around him; agreeably social, without ostentation; delighting in anecdote and adventures, without assumption; his domestic arrangements harmonious and systematic. His servants seemed to watch his eye, and to anticipate his every wish; hence a look was equivalent to a command. His servant Billy, the faithful companion of his military career, was always at his side. Smiling content animated and beamed on every countenance in his presence.

The first evening I spent under the wing of his hospitality, we sat a full hour at table by ourselves, without the least interruption, after the family had retired. I was extremely oppressed by a severe cold

and excessive coughing, contracted by the exposure of a harsh winter journey. He pressed me to use some remedies, but I declined doing So. As usual after retiring, my coughing increased. When some time had elapsed, the door of my room was gently opened, and on drawing my bed-curtains, to my utter astonishment, I beheld Washington himself, standing at my bed-side, with a bowl of hot tea in his hand. I was mortified and distressed beyond expression. This little incident, occurring in common life, with an ordinary man, would not have been noticed; but as a trait of the benevolence and private virtue of Washington, deserves to be recorded.

ELKANAH WATSON was born at Plymouth, Mass., January 22, 1758, and died at Port Kent, New York, December 5, 1842. In August 1779 he was bearer of dispatches to Franklin at Paris, and afterwards opened a commercial house at Nantes, in which enterprise however, after a short period of prosperity, he failed. He then visited England, Holland and Flanders, and returned to the United States in 1784, settling in Pittsfield, Mass., in 1807 and devoting himself to agriculture. In 1816 he went to Albany and organized the first Agricultural Society in the State of New York, and in 1828 moved to Port Kent on Lake Champlain. His Journals recording his observations of men and incidents, as the events occurred to which they relate, were revised by him in 1821, and published at New York in 1856, by his son Winslow, under the title, "Men and Times of the Revolution or Memoirs of Elkanah Watson," 8vo., from which we quote.

COUNT DE SÉGUR.

1824.

ONE of my most earnest wishes was to see Washington, the hero of America. He was then encamped at a short distance from us, and the Count de Rochambeau was kind enough to introduce me to him. Too often reality disappoints the expectations our imagination had raised, and admiration diminishes by a too near view of the object upon which it had been bestowed; but, on seeing General Washington, I found a perfect similarity between the impression produced upon me by his aspect, and the idea I had formed of him.

His exterior disclosed, as it were, the history of his life: simplicity, grandeur, dignity, calmness, goodness, firmness, the attributes of his character, were also stamped upon his features, and in all his person. His stature was noble and elevated; the expression of his features mild and benevolent; his smile graceful and pleasing; his manners simple, without familiarity.

He did not display the luxury of a monarchical general; every thing announced in him the hero of a republic; he inspired with, rather than commanded respect, and the expression of all those that surrounded his person manifested the existence in their breasts of feelings of sincere affection, and of that entire confidence in the chief upon whom they seemed exclusively to found all their hopes of safety. His quarters, at a little distance from the camp, offered the image of the (177)

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order and regularity displayed in the whole tenor of his life, his manner, and conduct.

I had expected to find, in this popular camp, soldiers ill equipped officers without instruction, republicans destitute of that urbanity so common in our old civilized countries. I recollected the first moment of their revolution, when husbandmen, and artizans, who had never held a gun, had hastened, without order, and in the name of their country, to go and fight the British phalanxes, offering only to the view of their astonished enemies an assemblage of rough and unpolished beings, whose only military insignia consisted of a cap, upon which the word liberty was written.

It will, therefore, be easily imagined how much I was surprised at finding an army well disciplined, in which every thing offered the aspect of order, reason, information, and experience. The manners and language of the generals, their aids-de-camp, and the other officers were noble and appropriate, and were heightened by that natural benevolence which appears to me as much preferable to politeness, as a mild countenance is preferable to a mask upon which the utmost labour has been bestowed to render its features graceful.

The personal dignity of each individual, the noble pride with which all were inspired by the love of liberty, and a sentiment of equality, had been no slight obstacles to the elevation of a chief, who was to rise above them without exciting their jealousy, and to subject their independent spirit to the rules of discipline without promoting discontent.

Any other man but Washington would have failed in the attempt; but such were his genius and his wisdom, that, in the midst of the