ing inhabitants there, he having, as we have observed,
avoided the soil of Rhode Island when on his eastern tour, that state
not then being a member of the Union. It had recently entered by
adopting the federal constitution.

The sea-voyage was beneficial to the health of the president; and soon
after his return, at the close of August, he set out with his family for
Mount Vernon, there to seek repose from the turmoil of public life, and
the sweet recreation which he always experienced in the midst of
agricultural employments in that happy retreat. He carried with him to
Mount Vernon a curious present which he received from his friend
Lafayette, just before the adjournment of Congress. It was the ponderous
iron key of the Bastile--that old fortress of despotism in Paris which
the populace of that city captured the year before, and which had been
levelled to the ground by order of the marquis, who was still at the
head of the revolution in France.

Washington had watched the course of his friend with great anxiety; for
he loved the marquis as a brother. The career upon which he had entered
was a most difficult and perilous one. "Never has any man been placed in
a more critical situation," the Marquis de Luzerne wrote to Washington.
"A good citizen, a faithful subject, he is embarrassed by a thousand
difficulties in making many people sensible of what is proper, who very
often feel it not, and who sometimes do not understand what it is."

"He acts now a splendid but dangerous part," wrote Gouverneur Morris.
Lafayette himself felt the perils of his position. "How often, my
well-beloved general," he wrote to Washington early in the year, "have I
regretted your sage counsels and friendly support. We have advanced in
the career of the revolution without the vessel of state being wrecked
against the rocks of aristocracy or faction.... At present, that which
existed has been destroyed; a new political edifice is forming; without
being perfect, it is sufficient to assure liberty. Thus prepared, the
nation will be in a state to elect in two years a convention which can
correct the faults of the constitution." Alas! those two years had
scarcely passed away before the hopeful champion of freedom was a
prisoner, far away from his home, in an Austrian dungeon. But we will
not anticipate.

Two months later, Lafayette wrote a most hopeful letter to Washington.
"Our revolution," he said, "pursues its march as happily as is possible