THE NATIONAL CAPITAL 327 



in the custody of the Chief of Engineers. Some ten years ago this 

 now precious manuscript was taken to the Coast Survey office, 

 where it was carefully traced, photolithographed. and published. 

 Copies of it are (or were) obtainable at the Coast Survey office. 

 This map may be said to represent Washington in embryo. 

 Great praise is due to the proud L'Enfant for the part he took in 

 designing the city ; but his zeal, his pride, and his impetuosity 

 soon brought a rupture ; his services were dispensed with ; the 

 pay tendered him was spurned as unworthy of him. His remains 

 rest in an unmarked grave in. private grounds in the northeastern 

 suburbs of the city. The relative credit due to L'Enfant and to 

 Ellicott for the part taken by each in designing and laying out 

 the city is still a mooted question, and the disagreement as to 

 this is doubtless the reason why to this day no suitable public 

 recognition of their services has ever been made. 



The interval between 1791 and 1800 was spent in erecting pub- 

 lic buildings — " the President's House," " the Congress House," 

 and others. In 1800 the government records were all brought 

 over from Philadelphia. On June 15 the public offices were 

 first opened. Thus June 15, 1900, will be a suitable day for a 

 public holiday in Washington for commemoration and retro- 

 spect. Men still live in .Washington whose fathers served the 

 United States in Philadelphia and who followed that little bunch 

 of records— the entire archives of the Republic — -to the imagin- 

 ary city in the real wilderness on the Potomac, nearly a century 

 ago. 



According to the census of 1800, the " inhabitants of the city 

 of Washington numbered 3,210 souls." Down to 1850 or later 

 Washington continued to be a great straggling village. It grew, 

 but it grew slowly. The foreign ambassador whose assignment 

 brought him to Washington was prone to feel that he was ban- 

 ished. No pavements, no water supply save from pumps in 

 wells scattered here and there, no sewerage system, no street 

 cars, few schools and poor, and distances " magnificently great." 

 Indeed, Washington's greatness still existed chiefly in the imag- 

 ination of its projectors. No manufactures brought workmen 

 here ; it was not a commercial center. Indeed, it might be 

 likened to a great straggling college town, where all life is de- 

 rived either at first or second hand from the college. So here 

 there grew up about the government offices boarding-houses for 

 the transients and shopkeepers to supply the boarding-houses. 



The war of 1812 had made little impress on the capital. The 



