Senate greatly increased the unfriendly feeling. The hostility of the French soon showed itself in various ways. Their vessels at first insulted the United States Hostilities flag, then, growing bolder, captured our merchant of France. ships. At the capital of France, the envoys sent by our government were insultingly met by the French Directory, and informed that nothing would be accomplished until a present of money was made. It being intimated that the penalty of a refusal would be war, Cha's C. Pinckney, one of the envoys, replied: "War be it then! Millions for defence, but not a cent for tribute ;" versal cry of the American people. ures to protect the country and its commerce; and Washington was once more called upon to take the command of the land forces. Again sacrificing the comforts of retirement, he accepted; but the army was never raised, for the French government was soon afterward overturned, and peace was made with Napoleon Bonaparte, the head of the new government (1800).' and this became the uni Congress adopted meas 3. "Washington did not live to witness the restoration of peace. On Friday morning (Dec. 1799), while attending to some improvements upon his estate, he was exposed to a light rain, by which his neck and hair became Death of wet. Not apprehending danger from this circumWashington. stance, he passed the afternoon in his usual manner; but, in the night, was seized with an inflammatory affection of the windpipe. The disease commenced with a 1 Two acts of Congress, known as the "Alien and Sedition Laws,” were intended to counteract the schemes of the French Directory, whose emissaries in this country abused the freedom of the press by defaming the administration and exciting the people against it. The president, by the "Alien Act," was authorized to banish such foreigners as in his opinion were dangerous to the peace and safety of the country. The Sedition Act" provided for the punishment of all persons found guilty of abusing the freedom of speech or of the press. Both acts were denounced by the enemies of the administration as tyrannical, and their unpopularity, it was generally believed, contributed more than any other cause to the overthrow of the Federal party. They expired by their W limitation. 66 1799 Character of Washington. 193 violent ague, accompanied with pain in his throat, a sense of stricture in the same part, and a cough, which were soon succeeded by fever and a quick and laborious respiration. Believing at the commencement of his complaint, as well as through every succeeding stage of it, that its conclusion would be mortal, he submitted to the exertions made for his recovery, rather as a duty than from any expectation of their efficacy. Some hours before his death, after repeated efforts to be understood, he succeeded in expressing a desire that he might be permitted to die without interruption. After it became impossible to get anything down his throat he undressed himself and went to bed, there to die. To his friend and physician, Doctor Craik, who sat on his bed and took his head in his lap, he said with difficulty: Doctor, I am dying, and have been dying for a long time, but I am not afraid to die.' At half-past eleven on Saturday night, when retaining the full possession of his intellect, he expired without a struggle (Dec. 14, 1799)." 4. Though a hundred crooked paths may conduct to a temporary success, the one plain and straight path of public and private virtue can alone lead to a pure and lasting fame and the blessings of posterity. Born beneath an humble but virtuous roof, brought up at the krees Character of Washington. of a mother not unworthy to be named with the noblest matrons of Rome or Israel, the good boy, as she delighted to call him, passed uncorrupted through the temptations of the solitary frontier, the camp, and the gay world, and grew up into the good man. I cast my eyes along the far-stretching galleries of history, still echoing to the footsteps of the mighty dead. I behold with admiration the images and the statues of the great and good men with which they are adorned; I see many who deserved well of their country in civil and military life, on the throne, in the council-chamber, on the battle-field, while they lived, wreathed with well-worn laurels and scarred with honest wounds. Hampden and William of Orange, Robert Bruce and King Alfred; and, in the olden times, Cato, and Tully, and Demosthenes, and Ti-mo'-le-on, and E-pam-i-non'-das; but I behold, in the long line, no other Washington." mourns MOUNT VERNON. heart was sad. In Congress, fitting honors were paid to the memory of the man who, in the language of the oration pronounced by Henry Lee, of Virginia, was "first nation in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." His mortal remains rest at Mount Vernon; and to this day the steamers that ply upon the Potomac strike mournful notes upon their bells as they pass the spot where Washington spent the happiest days of his life, and where he died and was buried. Jefferson's Aaministration. 1. Adams was president only four years. Towards the close of his term a fierce struggle took place between the two great political parties of the day, the Federalists and the Republicans, which resulted finally in the choice of Thomas 1 Mount Vernon is situated on the western bank of the Potomac, fifteen miles from Washington city. The place, comprising the mansion, the tomb, and two hundred acres of the original estate, was sold by a nephew of George Washington to the "Ladies' Mount Vernon Association" for two hundred thousand dollars. It is the design of the Association to hold it forever as a place of public resort and pilgrimage. 1803 Admission of Ohio. 195 Jefferson for president, and Aaron Burr for vice-president.1 had been removed the year before. 2. As previously stated, the region north of the Ohio river was organized under the name of the Northwest Territory. The south-eastern part of this territory was the first that was set apart for State purposes, and, in 1803,* it was The admitted into the Union as the State of Ohio. A 17th State. large portion of the land so set apart, along and near Lake Erie, and known as the Western or Connecticut Reserve, had previously belonged to Connecticut. This (in 1 There was no choice by the electors, and consequently the election went to the House of Representatives, where, after a week's contest, Jefferson finally succeeded in obtaining a majority of the States in his favor. Jefferson and Burr were Republican candidates. Under the original clause of the Constitution providing for the election of president and vice-president, the electors voted for two persons, without naming their choice for the higher position," the person having the greatest num ber of votes" being declared president, and the next, vice-president. John Adams was a candidate of the Federalists for a second term. sea. 2 "The charter of Connecticut was derived from the Plymouth Company. This grant was made in 1621, in the most ample form, covering the country west of Connecticut, to the extent of its breadth, from sea to New Netherlands, being then a Dutch possession, could not be claimed as a portion of this munificent grant, if for no other reason, for the very good and substantial one that in the grant to the Plymouth Company an exception was made of all such portions of the territory as then actually possessed or inhabited by any other Christian prince or State.'"-Stone's History of Wyoming. * See note, p. 340. were 1795) was sold to a company of speculators, and, at the time of Ohio's admission to the Union, more than a thousand settlers were already established on the Reserve. The money so received by Connecticut was the original capital of her school fund. Purchase of Louisiana. The outlet 3. In the spring of 1803, while Jefferson was preparing to send an expedition under Lewis and Clarke, to explore the Missouri river and its head branches, and thence to find a water communication across the continent to the Pacific, if such existed, the news reached this country that France, for fifteen millions of dollars, had ceded the whole of the Louisiana territory to the United States. "The Missouri and the Mississippi rivers, with their hundred tributaries, give to the great central basin of our continent its character and destiny. of this mighty system lies through the State of Louisiana. The ancient province so called, the proudest monument of the mighty monarch whose name it bears, passed from the jurisdiction of France to that of Spain in 1763. Spain coveted it, not that she might fill it with prosperous colonies and rising states, but that it might stretch as a broad waste barrier, infested with warlike tribes, between the AngloAmerican power and the silver mines of the West. With the independence of the United States, the fear of a still more dangerous neighbor grew upon Spain, and in the insane expectation of checking the progress of the Union westward, she threatened, and at times attempted, to close the mouth of the Mississippi, on the rapidly increasing trade of the West. 4. The bare suggestion of such a policy roused the population upon the banks of the Ohio, then inconsiderable, as one man. This subject was for years the turning point of the politics of the West, and it was perfectly well understood, that, sooner or later, she would be content with nothing less than the sovereign control of the mighty stream from its head spring to its outlet in the Gulf. So stood affairs at the close of the last century, when the colos |