were the levees, birth-days,
the pompous cavalcade to the State House on the meeting of Congress, the
formal speech from the throne, the procession of Congress in a body to
re-echo the speech in an answer, &c. &c. But the translator here, by
substituting form in the singular number, for forms in the plural, made
it mean the frame or organization of our government, or its form of
legislative, executive, and judiciary authorities, co-ordinate and
independent: to which form it was to be inferred that I was an enemy. In
this sense they always quoted it, and in this sense Mr. Pickering still
quotes, it (pages 34, 35, 38), and countenances the inference. Now
General Washington perfectly understood what I meant by these forms,
as they were frequent subjects of conversation between us. When, on my
return from Europe, I joined the government in March, 1790, at New York,
I was much astonished, indeed, at the mimicry I found established
of royal forms and ceremonies, and more alarmed at the unexpected
phenomenon, by the monarchical sentiments I heard expressed and openly
maintained in every company, and among others by the high members of the
government, executive and judiciary (General Washington alone excepted),
and by a great part of the legislature, save only some members who had
been of the old Congress, and a very few of recent introduction. I
took occasion, at various times, of expressing to General Washington my
disappointment at these symptoms of a change of principle, and that
I thought them encouraged by the forms and ceremonies, which I found
prevailing, not at all in character with the simplicity of republican
government, and looking as if wishfully to those of European courts.
His general explanations to me were, that when he arrived at New York
to enter on the executive administration of the new government, he
observed to those who were to assist him, that placed as he was in an
office entirely new to him, unacquainted with the forms and ceremonies
of other governments, still less apprized of those which might be
properly established here, and himself perfectly indifferent to all
forms, he wished them to consider and prescribe what they should be; and
the task was assigned particularly to General Knox, a man of parade,
and to Colonel Humphreys, who had resided some time at a foreign court.
They, he said, were the author's of the present regulations, and that
others were proposed so highly strained, that he absolutely