lattering to me."

His correspondence increased so rapidly, that it soon began to be
burdensome. To Richard Henry Lee he wrote in February, 1785, when
transmitting to him a mass of papers which he had received from the
pious Countess of Huntington, explaining her scheme for Christianizing
the American Indians: "Many mistakingly think that I am retired to ease,
and to that kind of tranquillity which would grow tiresome for want of
employment; but at no period of my life, not in the eight years I served
the public, have I been obliged to write so much myself, as I have done
since my retirement. Was this confined to friendly communication, and to
my own business, it would be equally pleasing and trifling; but I have a
thousand references to old matters, with which I ought not to be
troubled, but which, nevertheless, must receive some answer."

In a letter to General Knox he amplified this topic a little, saying:
"It is not the letters from my friends which give me trouble, or add
aught to my perplexity. It is reference to old matters with which I have
nothing to do; applications which oftentimes can not be complied with;
inquiries which would require the pen of a historian to satisfy; letters
of compliment, as unmeaning, perhaps, as they are troublesome, but which
must be attended to; and the common-place business, which employs my pen
and my time, often disagreeably. Indeed, these, with company, deprive me
of exercise, and unless I can obtain relief, must be productive of
disagreeable consequences."

For more than two years after the war, Washington kept neither clerk nor
secretary. At length the labor became insupportable, and through the
kind offices of General Lincoln, he procured the services of Tobias
Lear, a talented young gentleman of New Hampshire, who had recently left
Harvard college with honor. Mr. Lear took a social position at Mount
Vernon, as one of the family at table and among the guests, and became
greatly beloved by Washington. He remained there several years,
accompanied the general to New York when he went there to take the chair
of chief magistrate of the nation, and continued in his family until
after the seat of government was removed to Philadelphia. He was again a
resident at Mount Vernon, after the death of his wife, and was present
when the master of the mansion died. Mr. Lear relieved Washington of
much of the drudgery of the pen, and also took charge of the instruction
of his adopted childre