The Sun.
London, England, 1830-02-02 00:00:00

is plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances,

he was slow in a readjustment. The conse-
quence was, that he often failed in the field,
and rarely against an enemy in station, as at
Boston and York. He was incapable of
fear, meeting personal dangers with the
calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest
feature in his character was prudence, never
acting until every circumstance, every con-
sideration, was maturely weighed ; refraining if
he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going
through with his purpose, whatever obstacles 6p-
posed: His integrity was most pure, his justice
the most inflexible I have ever known ; no mo-
tives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship
or hatred, being able to bias his decision. Ile
was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise
a good, and a great man. His temper was na-
turally irritable and high toned ; but reflection
and resolution had obtained a firm and_ habitual
ascendancy over it. If ever, however, it broke
hls bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath.
In his expences he was honourable, hut exact ;
in contributions to whatever promise.!
utility ; but frowning and unyielding on all
visionary projects, and all unworthy calls on his
charity. His heart was not warm in its affec-
tions ; but he exactly calculated every man's
value, and gave him a solid esteem proportiod
to it. His person was fine, his stature exactly
what one would wish, his deportment easy, erect,
and noble ; the best horseman of his age, and
the most graceful figure that could be seen on
horseback. Although in the circle of his friends,
where he might be unreserved with safety, he took
a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents
were not above mediocrity, possessing neither
copiousness of ideas, nor fluency of words. In
public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he
was unready, short, and embarrassed. Yet, he
wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and
correct style. This he had acquired by conver-
sation with the world, for his education was

merely reading, writing, and common arithmetic,
to which he added surveying at a later day. His
time was employed in action chiefly, reading
little, and that only in agriculture and English
history. Uis correspondence became necessarily
extensive, ard, with journalizing his agricultural
proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours
within doors. On the whole, his character was,
in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few polies
indifferent ; and it may truly be said, that never
did nature and fortune combine more perfectly
to make a man great, and to place him in the
same constellation with whatever worthies have .
merited from man an everlasting remembrance.
For his was the singular destiny and merit of
leading the armies of his country successfully
through an arduous war, for the establishment of
its independence ; of conducting its councils
through the birth of a government, new in its
forms and. principles, until it had settled doWn
into a quiet and orderly train ; and of scrupu-
lOusly obeying- the laws through the whole of his
career, civil and military, of which the history of
the world furnishes no other example.
flow, then, can it be perilous for you to take
such a man on your shoulders ? lam satisfied
the great body of republicans think of him as I
do. We were, indeed, dissatisfied with him on
the ratification of the British treaty. But this
was short-lived. We knew his honesty, the
wiles with which he was encompassed, and that
age had already. begun to relax the firmness of
his purposes, and lam convinced he is more
deeply seated in the love and gratitude of the
republicans, than in the Pharisaical homage of
the federal monarchists. For he was no. mo-
narchist from preference of his judgment. The
soundness of that gave him correct views of the
rights of man, and his severe justice devoted
him to them. He has often declared to me that
he considered our new constitution as an expe-
riment on the practicability of republican govern-
ment, and with what dose of liberty man could
be trusted for his own good ; that he was deter-
mined the experiment should have a fair
trial, and would lose the last drop of his
blood in support of it. And these declara-
tions he repeated to me the oftener and.
the more pointedly, because he kite, : my
suspicions of Colonel Hamilton's views, and
probably had heard from him the same declara-
tions which I had, to wit, " that the British
Constitution, with its unequal representation,
corruption, and other existing abuses, was the
most perfect Government which had ever been
established on earth, and that a reformation of
these abuses would make it an impracticable
Government." I do believe that General
Washington had not a firm confidence in the
durability of our Government. He was naturally
distrustful of men, and inclined to gloomy ap-
prehensions; and I was ever persuaded that a
belief that we must at length end in something
like a British Constitution, had some weight in
his adoption of the ceremonies of levees, birth-
days, pompous meetings with Congress, and
other forms of the same character, calculated to
prepare us gradually for a change which he be-
lieved possible, and to let it come on with as
little shock as might be to the public mind.
These are my opinions of General Washing-
ton, which I would vouch at the judgment seat
of God, having been formed on an acquaintance
of thirty years. I served with him in the Vir-
ginia legislature from 1769 to the revolutionary
war, and again, a short time in Congress, until
he left us to take command of the army, During
the war, and after it, si e corresponded occa-
sionally, and in the four years of my continuance
in the office of Secretary of State, our intercourse
was daily, confidential, and cordial. After I re-
tired from that office great and malignant paius
were taken by our federal monarchists, and not
entirely without effect, to make him view me as
a theorist, holding French principles of Govern-
ment, which would lead infallibly to licentious-
ness and anarchy. And to this he listened the
more easily, from my ltnewit. disapprobation of
the British treaty. tnever saw him afterwards,
or these malignant insinuations should have been
dissipated before his just judgment, as mists be-
fore the sun. I telt on hisdeath, .w.ith my cowl-
trymen, that " verily a great Man bath fallen this
il',lay in Israel." . r-•

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