upon political change, will be gratified by the perufal. When, at laft, it became evident to all that fome alteration of the general fyftem was indifpenfable to the prefervation of its parts, a convention was held under his aufpices; and the conftitution which it formed having been adopted by the greater part of the states, he was, in April 1789, called to the office of firft Prefident, by the unanimous voice of the confederation. There is abundance of evidence in these volumes, that he accepted this office with the greatest reluctance. He had no ambition of high place; and, free from all prefumption, this truly great man felt diffident of his capacity to adminifter, in peace, the affairs of a country which, in war, he had faved from ruin. "I bade adieu to Mount-Ver"non, to private life, and domeftic felicity," fays he, in an entry in his diary; "and with a mind oppreffed with more anxious "and painful fenfations than I have words to express, set out for "New York, with the beft difpofitions to render service to my "country, but with lefs hope of anfwering its expectations.

In chooling the officers of his government, in virtue of the pow ers committed to him by the constitution, he is univerfally allowed to have difplayed the utmost difintereftedness. No prejudices, no affections, no interefls were feen to interfere with his great duty, to call to the management of a nation's concerns the talents from which a nation has moft to hope. We felect from Mr Marfhall the following sketch of the two moft diftinguifhed members of his cabinet, and whofe names, after thofe of Washington and Franklin, are oftenest heard on this fide the Atlantic. The characters are certainly not given with the pen of a Clarendon; but they are from the Chief Juftice of America, and may poffibly contain particulars with which all our readers are not acquainted.

At the head of the department of foreign affairs, he placed Mr Jefferson. This gentleman had been bred to the bar; and, at an early period of life, had acquired considerable reputation for extensive attainments in the science of politics. He had been a member of the second Congress, and had been named to a diplomatic appointment, which he had declined. Withdrawing from the administration of continental affairs, he had been appointed governor of Virginia; which office he filled for two years. In the year 1784, he was appointed to succeed Dr Franklin at the court of Versailles. In that station he had acquitted himself much to the public satisfaction, and had added considerably to the reputation he had previously acquired. His notes on Virginia, which were read with applause, were generally considered as an able specimen of his talents for composition, and as evincing the correctness of his political opiHe had long been contemplated by America amongst the most eminent of her citizens, and had long been classed by the President with those who were most capable of serving the nation with effect.

nions.

Colonel

• Colonel Hamilton was placed at the head of the treasury. This gentleman was, at a very early period of life, placed by his friends at New-York. Possessing an ardent temper, he caught fire from the concussions of the moment, and, with all the enthusiasm of youth, engaged first his pen, and afterwards his sword, in the stern contest between the colonies and their parent state. Soon after the war was transferred to the Hudson, his superior endowments recommended him to the attention of the Commander in Chief, into whose family, before completing his twenty-first year, he was invited to enter. Equally brave and intelligent, he continued, in this situa tion, to display a degree of firmness and capacity which commanded the confidence and esteem of his general, and of the principal officers in the army. In all the important acts of the day he performed a conspicuous part, and was greatly distinguished among those eminent characters whom the crisis had attracted to the councils of their country. In the distinguished part he had performed, both in the military and civil transactions of his country, he had acquired a degree of well-merited fame; and the frankness of his manners, the openness of his temper, the warmth of his feelings, and the sincerity of his heart, had secured him many valuable friends. To talents of the highest order, he united a patient industry, not always the companion of genius, which fitted him, in a peculiar manner, for the difficulties to be encountered at the head of the American finances.' V. 180-1.

These two distinguished characters became, though members of the same cabinet, leaders of two opposite parties, which now divide every quarter of the American Union; and threaten, by the acrimony and intensity of their opposition, to occasion, at no distant era, some decisive change in the federal system. Colonel Hamilton was regarded as the head of the Federalist party, as Mr Jefferson was of the Antifederalists. These parties may be traced in the rudest shape of the Union; but it is not very easy, either to indicate the precise point from which they diverge, or to assign the limits of their opposite tendencies. Both, notwithstanding the appellations which distinguish them, affect to hold a federal government essential to their welfare. Their difference is with regard to the extent of the powers with which the federal head should be invested. The French revolution seems greatly to have widened their aims, as well as exasperated their animosity. M. Volney indeed asserts, that the ultimate objects of the Federalists are nothing short of absolute monarchy, and the politico-religious doctrines of our antient Tories. The Duke de la Rochefoucault, perhaps, comes nearer the truth in stating it to be their desire to give a monarchical tendency, and that of their opponents a democratic tendency, to the general government. Mr Marshall gives no connected or comprehensive account of

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their views; but we shall extract what he says were the opinions of their first leaders, that our readers may be able to form some estimate of the very opposite principles of policy by which their conduer was regulated.

• Mr Hamilton is understood to have advanced opinions in the convention favourable to a system, in which the executive and senate, though elective, were to be rather more permanent than they were rendered in that which was actually adopted. He openly avowed the opinion, that the greatest hazards to which the constitution was exposed, arose from its weakness; and that American liberty and happiness had much more to fear from the encroachments of the great states, than from those of the general government.

• Mr Jefferson seems to have entertained no apprehensions from the debility of the government, no jealousy of the state sovereignties, and no suspicion of their encroachments. His fears took a different direction; and all his precautions were used to limit the authorities claimed by the government of the United States. Neither could he perceive danger to liberty, except from the constituted authorites, especially the executive.

Although affection for France and jealousy of Britain, were sentiments common to the people of America, the same unanimity did not exist respecting the influence which ought to be allowed to these sentiments over the political conduct of the nation. While many favoured such discriminations as might eventually turn the commerce of the United States into new channels, others maintained, that on this subject equality ought to be observed; that trade ought to be guided by the judgment of individuals; and that no sufficient motive existed for that sacrifice of interests which was involved in the discrimination proposed. The former opinion was taken up with warmth by Mr Jefferson, the latter by Mr Hamilton; and this contrariety of sentiment respecting commercial regulations extended to all the relations which might subsist between America and these two great powers,' V. 310, &c.

The French revolution, as we have already said, widened all these party divisions; and turned not only against the administration of Washington, but the constitution itself, a torrent of opinions which it required all his characteristic firmness and prudence to withstand. Viewed through the deceitful lights of French liberty and equality, the Federal government appeared to the zealots to bear obviously to monarchy; and the prudent system of neutrality, upon which the President had wisely decided, was stigmatized as an inglorious and treacherous subservience to the interests and politics of England. Washington, in common with his countrymen, felt a bias towards France; but as he had given no car to the foolish schemes for diverting American commerce from its natural channels into others favourable to that power, so he was now equally decided against any conduct

which her enemies might interpret into a warmer regard for her interests than was compatible with the duties of rigid neutrality. In this prudent policy he was supported by the Federalists; who, in conséquence, obtained the opprobrious appellation of the English party.

The austere spirit of democracy was, we find, sorely scandalized by the President's levees, simple and unostentatious as they certainly were; and drew forth many doleful predictions, that, by such assimilations to the ways of kings, America would gra-' dually be defrauded of her liberty. The President's own account of the portentous ceremonial which excited these lugubrious speculations, will perhaps amuse our readers.

Between the hours of three and four every Tuesday, I am prepared to receive visits. Gentlemen, often in great numbers, come and go, chat with each other, and act as they please. At their 'first entrance, they salute me, and I them; and as many as I can talk to, I do. What pomp there is in all this, I am unable to dis6 cover. Perhaps it consists in not sitting. To this two reasons are opposed first, it is unusual; secondly, (which is a more substantial reason) because I have no room large enough to contain a third of the chairs which would be necessary. Similar to these, but of a more familiar and sociable kind, are the visits every Friday afternoon to Mrs Washington, where I always am. These

public meetings, and a dinner once a week to as many as my table will hold, is as much, if not more, than I have leisure for. Notwithstanding the opposition which most of Washington's measures encountered, the reverence in which he was held was such, that, in March 1793, when a new election became necessary, he was again unanimously called to the presidency. He had, at one period, proposed to retire; but the critical situation of affairs, and pressing entreaties from all quarters of the Union, induced him to undertake, for another four years, the duties of first magistrate. During this latter period, both Jefferson and Hamilton resigned. The enemics of the President often insinuated, that he had been too much guided by the latter, whose opinions they regarded as peculiarly heterodox. In allusion to this charge, he took occasion to state, in a letter to Mr Jefferson, that he was no believer in the infallibility of the politics or measures of any man living;'-an assertion, which every view of his character tends to corroborate. In fact, the characteristic feature of Washington's mind, was a certain cold and steady firmness, founded upon the previous deliberations of a judgment, too powerful to submit to influence, and too active to be guided by faith. When the four years were about to expire, he took leave of his countrymen in a valedictory address, which contains, at large, his maxims of government, and certain precepts, by the observance of which,

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he thought, America might flourish, and her institutions be rendered indestructible by time.

The duties of Washington's civil administration, though far Jess arduous than those of his military command, yet required much of that fortitude and sagacity which that command so conspicuously displayed. To reestablish credit, and provide for the debts of the Union, when there was every desire to profit by injustice, and where taxation was both difficult and odious-to give stability and energy to a new government, encountered in its first operations by the jealousies of thirteen separate states-and to preserve the blessings of peace to a rising community, when the misguided feelings of the people would have precipitated a war, were efforts which statesmen are seldom called to make, and which but few, would have been equal to perform. In his public conduct, we look in vain for any of those vices which oppose the prosperity of nations, and the peace of the world. His addresses to the people, and to Congress, afford indubitable proofs of the purity, as well as the solidity of his principles; and it is impossible to read them, and to trace them, as exemplified in the whole course of his public career, without admitting, that he ⚫ performed justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war.'

But, will the constitution, established under his auspices, have that endurance of which he seems to have thought it capable? Is there no danger that it will be found, as he himself observed of the confederation which preceded it, that its founders have • proceeded upon a view of human nature by far too favourable ? ' We confess, we think, the era of this discovery is not very distant. We have little hopes of a system of polity, which, in an advancing society, offers no prizes to talents, and no distinctions to wealth-which takes no aids from the great extrinsic sources of individual power and authority. This, however, is an inquiry which, in all its extent, we have not now either leisure or space to pursue; but which we hope, hereafter, to find occasion to resume. Meantime, it may be asked, what political aspect will America present, should the feeble and shadowy texture of the federal government be dissolved? Will she separate into two or three consolidated masses? Or, will the states, more nearly connected, still preserve a certain federal connexion? Will the natives of the new world, like those of antient Greece, form a cluster of independent and rival republics, connected by language, and, with an emulation warmed by liberty, at last deprive Europe of her boasted superiority in the sciences and arts? Or, is it more likely, that, by some grand revolutionary effort, they will be finally incorporated into one nation, with one name, and one government?