reception, with fewer and weaker advocates, and with more and more strenuous opponents. As it is, should the idea prevail, that you will not accept of the Presidency, it would prove fatal in many parts. The truth is, that your great and decided superiority leads men willingly to put you in a place, which will not add to your personal dignity, nor raise you higher than you already stand. But they would not readily put any other person in the same situation, because they feel the elevation of others, as operating by comparison the degradation of themselves, and, however absurd this idea may be, yet you will agree with me, that men must be treated as men, and not as machines, much less as philosophers, and least of all things as reasonable creatures, seeing that in effect they reason not to direct, but to excuse, their conduct.

'Thus much for the public opinion on these subjects, which is not to be neglected in a country where opinion is everything. I am, &c.

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.'

Business now called Mr Morris a second time to Virginia, where he remained, during the larger portion of the winter and spring, superintending the mercantile affairs of Robert Morris, in which he was himself also partly concerned. Large contracts had been entered into by Robert Morris for supplying tobacco in France, and as Virginia was the theatre of that traffic, it was necessary to have an agent there, who understood the business, and who was qualified to arrange some important matters, that had got into disorder, and caused uneasiness among the purchasers in Europe. While in Virginia he wrote a letter to a gentleman in France, containing a paragraph on the political state of affairs.

'You will long ere this have seen the Constitution proposed for the United States. This paper has been the subject of infinite investigation, disputation, and declamation. While some have boasted it as a work from Heaven, others have given it a less righteous origin. I have many reasons to believe, that it

was the work of plain honest men, and such, I think, it will appear. Faulty it must be, for what is perfect? But if adopted, experience will, I believe, show, that its faults are just the reverse of what they are supposed to be. As yet, this paper is but a dead letter. Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Georgia have adopted it. We wait impatiently the result of their deliberations in Massachusetts. Should that State also adopt it, which I hope and believe, there will then be little doubt of a general acquiescence, but otherwise it may be a tedious and difficult business. Should it, however, take effect, the affairs of this country will put on a much better aspect, than they have yet worn, and America will soon be as much respected abroad, as she has for some time past been disregarded.'

The time at length arrived, when he was soon to sail for Europe, and he wrote to General Washington for letters of introduction.

'Dear General,

'Morrisania, November 12th, 1788.

'After many unforeseen delays, I am about shortly to take my departure from Philadelphia for the kingdom of France, and I expect to visit both Holland and England. When I desire to be favored with your commands, it is not the mere ceremonious form of words, which you may every day meet from every man you meet, and which you know better than any man how to estimate at its true value. Whether I can be useful to you in any way, I know not; but this I know, that you may command my best endeavors. And I now desist from farther profession on that subject, because I am sure you know my sincerity.

'You will oblige me by giving me letters of introduction to those persons, who may in your opinion be useful to me, and to whom you may think it proper to present me. Among others to Mr Jefferson, with whom I have only a slight acquaintance. I believe I once mentioned to you my wish, not to be encumbered with the letters introductory of the many, who

are prone to give them. I think them a kind of paper money, which is not only of little value, but which is not always a reputable, though a legal tender. I solicit yours, as an undoubted bill of exchange, which is gold wherever it goes. Permit me, however, to pursue the mercantile phrase, or metaphor, and honestly to request that you do not give me credit for more than I am worth, lest proving a bankrupt, you be called on by iny creditors.

'I will pray your care of the enclosed to Colonel Humphreys, who, I doubt not, is still with you, and will, I expect, come on with you in the spring. I promised you some Chinese pigs, a promise which I can perform only by halves; but such as I have I will send you; and, to piece and patch the matter as well as I may, in company with the pigs shall be sent a pair of Chinese geese, which are really the foolishest geese I ever beheld, for they choose all times for sitting but the spring, and one of them is now actually engaged in that business.

'It would be degrading to the noble race of man, should I introduce politics after hogs and geese. This is a tolerable excuse for saying nothing, but the truth is I have nothing to say. I am of the breed of optimists, and believe that all will go well, for you will certainly be seated in the President's chair, and will, I am certain, when there greatly labor to prevent things from going ill. As to the rest, I heartily agree in the text, that "the wisdom of man is foolishness with God," having seen both fools and folly succeed in a most surprising manner. And the only key to such sort of success, that I ever met with, was in a sarcastic remark on three lawyers of New York; Smith given to the study of divinity, Alexander deep in mathematics, and C. deep in nothing. Smith, said the wag, is always in the clouds; Alexander loses himself in angles and triangles; the only sensible man at the bar is C. for he talks nonsense to a common jury.

'Present, I pray you, my sincere respects to Mrs Washington. It is my fervent wish, that neither she nor you may regret

the shades of Mount Vernon. But this is more my wish, than expectation, for I do not believe it possible for you to be more happily placed, at least if I may judge from what I saw and what I felt. I am yours,

'GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.'

In compliance with this request, General Washington sent him several letters of introduction to persons in England, France, and Holland. He likewise entrusted him with a commission to purchase in Paris a gold watch for his own use, not a small, trifling, nor a finical, ornamental one, but a watch well executed in point of workmanship, large and flat, with a plain, handsome key.' In regard to the Presidency, upon which Mr Morris had touched, he adds; 'I have really very little leisure or inclination to enter on the discussion of a subject so unpleasant to me. You may be persuaded, in the first place, that I hope the choice will not fall upon me; and in the second, that, if it should, and I can with any degree of propriety decline, I shall certainly contrive to get rid of the acceptBut if, after all, a kind of inevitable necessity should impel me to a different fate, it will be time enough to yield to its impulse, when it can be no longer resisted.'

ance.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MR MORRIS SAILS FOR EUROPE.-ARRIVES IN PARIS. LAFAYETTE.-JEFFERSON. MR MORRIS'S DIARY.—EXTRACTS CONCERNING EVENTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.-MADAME DE CHASTELLUX,-DUTCHESS OF ORLEANS.-MARECHAL DE CASTRIES.-NECKER.-CEREMONY OF OPENING THE STATES GENERAL.-SEGUR.THE BISHOP D'AUTUN.-MONTMORIN. MADAME DE STAEL.-LETTER TO LAFAYETTE ON A NEW MINISTRY. AFFAIR OF FAVRAS.-MR MORRIS'S NOTE TO THE QUEEN.

THE ship Henrietta, on board of which Mr Morris was embarked for France, passed the Capes of Delaware and put to

sea, on the eighteenth of December. It was a cheerless day, and the shores of his native country receded from his view, under an atmosphere darkened and chilled with snow, sleet, and hail. He kept a journal during the whole voyage, but like most journals at sea, it is little else than a record of the winds and waves, calms, gales, and storms. It establishes the certainty, however, that he had a most disagreeable winter passage of forty days, before the Henrietta entered the port of Havre. He remained there three days, detained by the civilities of friends and arrangements of business. One gentleman, in particular, beset him with his attentions. This must,' says he, certainly be a man of great wealth, great talents, and great integrity, for he has assured us of all this twenty times over. He has given me some advice gratis. He thinks it a great pity, that he is not King, or Minister at least. France would then be well governed, for all her misfortunes flow from the ignorance and cupidity of her rulers, who have done no one wise act these thirty years, and the alliance with America is, it seems, the most foolish part of all her conduct.'

6

Mr Morris arrived in Paris on the third of February, 1789, and the first persons he sought out were Mr Jefferson, at that time American Minister in France, and the Marquis de Lafayette. These gentlemen engaged him to dine the two succeeding days. Meantime he delivered his letters of introduction, looked out for lodgings, and prepared to establish himself for a residence of considerable duration in Paris. With Lafayette, of course, he had been well acquainted in America. After their first interview on the present occasion, he writes in his Diary; 'Lafayette is full of politics; he appears to be too republican for the genius of his country.' In short, it is as well to premise at the outset, that, from the first day of his arrival in France, Mr Morris showed very little cordiality of sentiment or feeling with the revolutionists; and although some of his connexions of friendship were among the leaders of that party, yet his attachments soon ran into the other channel, and his intimate associates were chiefly in the list of those, who aimed