hiladelphia in May, 1784; and, in
the mean time, he had been appointed the temporary president.

To prepare the officers for those fundamental changes in the
principles of the society, which he contemplated as a necessary
sacrifice to the public apprehensions, his ideas were suggested to his
military correspondents; and to give weight to the measures which
might be recommended, his utmost influence was exerted to obtain a
full assemblage of deputies, which should be respectable for its
numbers, and for its wisdom.

Officers of high respectability entertained different opinions on
surrendering those parts of the institution which were deemed
objectionable. By some, the public clamour was attributed to a spirit
of persecution, which only attached them more closely to the order.
Many, it was said, were in quest of a cause of quarrel with their late
protectors; and the removal of one ground of accusation against them,
would only induce the substitution of some other. The source of the
uneasiness which had been manifested was to be found in the temper of
the people, not in the matters of which they complained; and if the
present cause of irritation was removed, their ill humour would be
openly and avowedly directed against the commutation.

General Washington was too much in the habit of considering subjects
of difficulty in various points of view, and of deciding on them with
coolness and deliberation, to permit his affections to influence his
judgment. The most exact inquiries, assiduously made into the true
state of the public mind, resulted in a conviction that opinions
unfriendly to the institution, in its actual form, were extensively
entertained; and that those opinions were founded, not in hostility to
the late army, but in real apprehensions for equal liberty.

A wise and necessary policy required, he thought, the removal of these
apprehensions; and, at the general meeting in May, the hereditary
principle, and the power of adopting honorary members, were
relinquished. The result demonstrated the propriety of this
alteration. Although a few who always perceive most danger where none
exists, and the visionaries then abounding in Europe, continued their
prophetic denunciations against the order, America dismissed her
fears; and, notwithstanding the refusal of one or two of the state
societies to adopt the measures recommended by the general meeting,
the members of the Cincinnati were received as brethren into the b