in every instance, when I had any previous knowledge of
the intention, and could by earnest entreaties prevail, all parade and
escorts." He seldom succeeded, for intelligence of his approach went
before him, and citizens and soldiers hastened to do homage to the great
Patriot and Chief.

Washington arrived at Mount Vernon on the evening of the fourteenth of
March. Never did the threshold of his mansion receive a happier man. The
servants flocked around him like children come to greet a returning
father, and there was joy in the household and all over the estate of
Mount Vernon. The master fairly revelled in the luxury of private life
and the repose of domestic enjoyment. Yet he did not sit down, an idle
man and indifferent spectator of passing events. "Let me pray you to
have the goodness," he wrote to Mr. M'Henry, "to communicate to me
occasionally such matters as are interesting, and not contrary to the
rules of your official duty to disclose. We get so many details in the
gazettes, and of such different complexions, that it is impossible to
know what credence to give to any of them."

Now, escaped from the turmoils of politics, Washington resolved to cast
the burden of speculations concerning them from his mind. During almost
his entire administration, the politics of France had been a constant
source of anxiety to him, and had given him more real vexation, directly
and indirectly, than all other matters of his public life combined. "The
conduct of the French government," he now wrote, "is so much beyond
calculation, and so unaccountable upon any principle of justice, or even
of that sort of policy which is familiar to plain understandings, that I
shall not now puzzle my brains in attempting to develop the motives of
it."

To Oliver Wolcott he wrote in May: "For myself, having turned aside from
the broad walks of political into the narrow paths of private life, I
shall leave it with those whose duty it is to consider subjects of this
sort [the calling of an extraordinary session of Congress], and, as
every good citizen ought to do, conform to whatsoever the ruling powers
shall decide. To make and sell a little flour annually, to repair houses
(going fast to ruin), to build one for the security of my papers of a
public nature, and to amuse myself in agricultural and rural pursuits,
will constitute employment for the few years I have to remain on this
terrestrial globe. If, also, I could now and then meet the friend