ashington handed to young Bartholomew Dandridge, his
private secretary, on the morning of his departure for Mount Vernon, the
following letter:--

"Your conduct, during a six years' residence in my family, having
been such as to meet my full approbation, and believing that a
declaration to this effect would be satisfactory to yourself, and
justice requiring it from me, I make it with pleasure, and in full
confidence that those principles of honor, integrity, and
benevolence, which I have reason to believe have hitherto guided
your steps, will still continue to mark your conduct. I have only
to add a wish, that you may lose no opportunity of making such
advances in useful acquirements as may benefit yourself, your
friends, and mankind; and I am led to anticipate an accomplishment
of this wish, when I consider the manner in which you have hitherto
improved such occasions as offered themselves to you.

"The career of life on which you are now entering, will present new
scenes and frequent opportunities for the improvement of a mind
desirous of obtaining useful knowledge; but I am sure you will
never forget that, without virtue and without integrity, the finest
talents and the most brilliant accomplishments can never gain the
respect, or conciliate the esteem, of the truly valuable part of
mankind."

On his journey to the Potomac, the retired president received every mark
of respect, love, and veneration, from the people. "Last evening," said
a Baltimore paper of the thirteenth of March, "arrived in this city, on
his way to Mount Vernon, the illustrious object of veneration and
gratitude, GEORGE WASHINGTON. His excellency was accompanied by his lady
and Miss Custis, and by the son of the unfortunate Lafayette and his
preceptor. At a distance from the city he was met by a crowd of
citizens, on horse and foot, who thronged the road to greet him, and by
a detachment of Captain Hollingsworth's troop, who escorted him through
as great a concourse of people as Baltimore ever witnessed. On alighting
at the Fountain Inn, the general was saluted with reiterated and
thundering huzzas from the spectators."[121]

"The attentions we met with on our journey," wrote Washington to Mr.
M'Henry, the secretary of war, "were very flattering, and by some, whose
minds are differently formed from mine, would have been highly relished;
but I avoided,