with vocal and some with instrumental music on
board; the decorations of the ships; the roar of cannon, and the
loud acclamations of the people which rent the skies as I passed
along the wharves, filled my mind with sensations as painful
(considering the reverse of this scene, which may be the case,
after all my labors to do good) as they are pleasing."

And a few days after his inauguration he wrote to Edward Rutledge:

"Though I flatter myself the world will do me the justice to
believe that, at my time of life and in my circumstances, nothing
but a conviction of duty could have induced me to depart from my
resolution of remaining in retirement, yet I greatly apprehend that
my countrymen will expect too much from me.... So much is expected,
so many untoward circumstances may intervene, in such a new and
critical situation, that I feel an insuperable diffidence in my own
abilities. I feel, in the execution of the duties of my arduous
office, how much I shall stand in need of the countenance and aid
of every friend to myself, of every friend to the Revolution, and
of every lover of good government."

How nobly, ay, and how sadly, do these feelings of Washington--his
humiliating sense of the great responsibility laid upon him when he
assumed the office of the chief magistrate of the republic--contrast
with the eager aspirations of mere politicians to sit in the seat of
that illustrious and conscientious man! How the spectacle illustrates
the words of the poet:--

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread!"

FOOTNOTES:

[11] "The first number of the _Federalist_," says J. C. Hamilton in his
_History of the Republic of the United States_, "was written by
Hamilton, in the cabin of a sloop, as he was descending the Hudson, and
was published on the 27th of October, 1787. After the publication of the
seventh, it was announced: 'In order that the whole subject of the
papers may be as soon as possible laid before the public, it is proposed
to publish them four times a week.'" It was originally intended to
comprise the series within twenty, or at most twenty-five numbers, but
they extended to eighty-five. Of these Hamilton wrote sixty-five.

Concerning these papers, Washington wrote to Hamilton, at the close of
August, 1788: "I have read every performance which has been printed on
one side and the other of the great question lately agitat