462

WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL TO HIS ARMY.

[1782.

majesty's permission to add that although I have sometimes before been entrusted by my country, it was never in my whole life in a manner so agreeable to myself."

Mr. Adams, in continuing his narrative, says that the king listened to every word he said, with an apparent emotion; that he was himself much agitated; but that his majesty "was much affected, and answered me with more tremor than I had spoken with." The king said, "Sir-the circumstances of this audience are so extraordinary, the language you have now held is so extremely proper, and the feelings you have discovered so justly adapted to the occasion, that I must say, that I not only receive with pleasure the assurance of the friendly disposition of the United States, but that I am very glad the choice has fallen upon you to be their Minister. I wish you, sir, to believe, and that it may be understood in America, that I have done nothing in the late contest but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do, by the duty which I owed to my people. I will be very frank with you. I was the last to conform to the separation; but the separation having been made, and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an • Independent Power. The moment I see such sentiments and language as yours prevail, and a disposition to give this country the preference, that moment I shall say, let the circumstances of language, religion, and blood, have their natural and full effect."*

There is one man who was the chief instrument in the hands of Providence for conducting the war, by his energy, prudence, and constancy, to that triumphant assertion of Independence which has built up the great North American republic. To Washington the historian naturally turns, as to the grandest object of contemplation, when he laid aside his victorious sword, that sword which, with those he had worn in his earlier career, he bequeathed to his nephews with words characteristic of his nobleness: "These swords are accompanied with an injunction not to unsheathe them for the purpose of shedding blood, except it be for self-defence, or in defence of their country and its rights; and in the latter case, to keep them unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands to the relinquishment thereof." + On the 4th of December, 1782, Washington bade farewell to the principal officers of his army. He filled a glass and said, “With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honourable." He asked that each com

*Works of John Adams, vol. viii. The remaining passage of the official letter of Mr. Adams is sufficient evidence that the king did not treat the first eminent American who came into his presence with "marked incivility." "The king then asked me whether I came last from France; and upon my answering in the affirmative, he put on an air of familiarity, and smiling, or rather, laughing, said, 'There is an opinion among some people that you are not the most attached of all your countrymen to the manners of France.' I was surprised at this, because I thought it an indiscretion, and a descent from his dignity. I was a little embarrassed, but determined not to deny the truth on the one hand, nor leave him to infer from it any attachment to England on the other. I threw off as much gravity as I could, and assumed an air of gaiety and a tone of decision, as far as was decent, and said, 'That opinion, Sir, is not mistaken; I must avow to your majesty I have no attachment but to my own country.' The king replied as quick as lightning, An honest man will never have

Will of Washington," 1799.

any other.'

1782.]

WASHINGTON RETIRES TO PRIVATE LIFE.

463

panion in arms should come and take him by the hand. In silence the friendly grasp was given and returned, as each passed before him. On the 20th of December the commander of the American armies resigned his commission to a deputation from Congress, in a modest speech, of which these were the concluding words: "Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action; and, bidding farewell to the august body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of my public life." Eight days after this act, he wrote to a friend-"I feel myself eased of a load of public I hope to spend the remainder of my days in cultivating the affections of good men, and in the practice of the domestic virtues." There was public work for Washington yet to do-the work of "directing the formation of a new government for a great people, the first time that so vast an experiment had ever been tried by man-finally retiring from the supreme power to which his virtue had raised him over the nation he had created, and whose destinies he had guided as long as his aid was required."

care.

Statue of Washington. By Canova.

Lord Brougham-"Statesmen," vol. ii. p. 333.