"[112]

"The die is cast," wrote the new president elect to his wife, on the
following day, "and you must prepare yourself for honorable trials. I
must wait to know whether Congress will do anything or not to furnish my
house. If they do not, I will have no house before next fall, and then a
very moderate one, with very moderate furniture." He had written to Mrs.
Adams a few days before, saying: "I hope you will not communicate to
anybody the hints I give you about our prospects; but they appear every
day worse and worse. House-rent at twenty-seven hundred dollars a year,
fifteen hundred dollars for a carriage, one thousand for one pair of
horses, all the glasses, ornaments, kitchen furniture, the best chairs,
settees, plateaus, &c., all to purchase; all the china, delph [Delft] or
Wedgewood, glass and crockery, of every sort to purchase."

Washington now prepared, with feelings of the most exquisite pleasure,
to retire from public life. Everything which would be unnecessary at
Mount Vernon he offered for sale. "The president," wrote Mr. Adams to
his wife, "has a pair of horses to sell; one nine, the other ten years
old, for which he asks a thousand dollars.... He must sell something to
enable him to clear out. When a man is about retiring from public life,
and sees nothing but a ploughshare between him and the grave, he
naturally thinks most upon that.

"When Charles the Fifth resigned his empire and crown, he went to
building his coffin. When I contemplated a retirement, I meditated the
purchase of Mr. Vesey's farm; and thought of building a tomb in my own
ground, adjoining to the burying-yard. The president is now engaged in
his speculations upon a vault which he intends to build for himself, not
to sleep but to lie down in.... Our friend says she is afraid President
Washington will not live long. I should be afraid, too, if I had not
confidence in his farm and his horse. He must be a fool, I think, who
dies of chagrin when he has a fine farm and a Narragansett mare that
paces and canters. But I don't know but all men are such fools. I think
a man had better wear than rust."

In February, when he could begin to count the days and hours that lay
between him and that retirement he so much coveted, Washington wrote to
his old and dear friends upon the subject with much feeling; and every
day brought him new proofs of the love and veneration in which he was
held by the people. His birthday was celebrated in Philadelph