, it is expected, will also be dearer than
heretofore."

Washington was subjected to considerable personal annoyance by the
change. During the recess of Congress, he commissioned Mr. Lear, his
private secretary, to rent a house for his use in Philadelphia. One
owned by Robert Morris appeared to be the most eligible of all; but,
for a long time, Washington could not procure an answer to his prudent
question, "What will be the rent?" Both the state and city authorities,
through committees, had offered to provide at their own expense a home
for the president; but Washington declined the generous offer. He
preferred the independence of a resident in his own hired house; and he
was also convinced that the offer was made because of a desire to have
Philadelphia become the permanent residence of the government. The
erection of a presidential mansion would be an argument in favor of the
scheme. Washington preferred a more southern location. He was to choose
the spot. He wished to have his views unbiassed; so he refused all
offers to lessen his expenses at the cost of the city of Philadelphia,
or of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Time after time Washington wrote to Lear about the rent of Morris's
house. "He has most assuredly," he said, "formed an idea of what ought
to be the rent of the tenement in the condition he left it; and with
this aid, the committee ought, I conceive, to be as little at a loss in
determining what it should rent for, with the additions and alterations
which are about to be made, and which ought to be done in a plain and
neat, and not by any means extravagant, style." He was satisfied that
the committee were delaying with the intention of having the rent paid
by the public; and he foresaw that he might be subjected to heavy bills
of expense in fixing and furnishing the house in an extravagant manner.

"Let us for a moment suppose," he said, "that the rooms (the new ones, I
mean) were to be hung with tapestry, or a very rich and costly paper,
neither of which would suit my present furniture; that costly ornaments
for the bow-windows, extravagant chimney-pieces and the like, were to be
provided; that workmen, from extravagance of the times, for every twenty
shillings' worth of work would charge forty shillings; and that
advantage would be taken of the occasion to newly paint every part of
the house and buildings; would there be any propriety in adding ten or
twelve-and-a-half per cent. for all this to