W A S H I 
which received him as the greatest and best citizen of the 
United States. After a suitable address, he resigned his com¬ 
mission into the hands of the president, who, in energetic 
terms, expressed the national sense of his high merits. Such 
were the feelings of public gratitude towards him, that he 
could have asked nothing which would not readily have 
been granted; but making no request for himself, his fa¬ 
mily, or relations, he limited himself to an indirect recom¬ 
mendation to Congress of some young gentlemen without 
fortune, who had served him as aides-de-camp. He then 
hastened to mount Vernon, where he instantly laid aside the 
statesman and general for the country gentleman. 
Here, not satisfied with attending merely to his own interest, 
he took pleasure in suggesting and accomplishing any scheme 
that tended to the improvement of the country. Accord¬ 
ingly, he zealously promoted a plan of inland navigation; 
and in gratitude for his services, the legislature of Virginia 
passed an act in order to vest in him 150 shares in the naviga¬ 
tion of the rivers James and Potomac. But this grant he 
would not accept, as he had resolved to decline all personal 
recompence for his services; but he consented to the act on 
condition of appropriating the proceeds to the maintenance 
of a seminary of learning in the vicinity of each river; which 
appropriation he confirmed by his last will. 
When a general convention was agreed upon for revising 
the federal system of government, this convention assembled 
at Philadelphia in 1787, and unanimously chose Washing¬ 
ton as president; and when the new form of government 
was settled, the late commander-in chief was unanimously 
elected the first President of the United States, the honour of 
which election was announced to him at mount Vernon on 
the 14th of April, 1789. He accepted the arduous office that 
had been so honourably assigned to him, and immediately 
commenced, as he faithfully continued, the discharge of its 
important duties. “ After having steered the vessel of the 
state,” says one of his biographers, “during an unquiet 
period of eight years, being now in the sixty-sixth year of his 
age, he thought proper to decline a new election to his high 
office. He announced this intention in a long and minute 
address to the people of the United States, replete with the 
most excellent advice for their future conduct, and the sound¬ 
est views of their political state. It was a legacy of wisdom 
which set the seal to all his past services.”—“ It was in the 
beginning of 1797 that Washington resigned his authority 
to his successor, Mr. Adams; on which occasion, whatever 
might be the feelings of a few party-zealots, he received 
abundant proofs of the general esteem and affection. He re¬ 
turned with pleasure to the comforts of domestic life, and 
resumed his agricultural and literary pursuits. From this 
state of privacy, however, he was called in the following- 
year by the aggravated inj nries of the French rulers, which 
produced a determination in Congress to arm by sea and land 
for a defensive war; and in consequence Washington was 
once more nominated to the chief command of the armies of 
the United States. The countenance, however, thus assumed 
and the subsequent deposition of the Directory by Buonaparte 
brought on an accommodation, and all military preparations 
were at an end.” 
When the services of this truly “ great man,” unparalleled 
perhaps in the history of the world, terminated, his life was 
hastening to a close. Having exposed himself to the rain, 
December 13, 1799, in attending to some improvements at 
mount Vernon, he was seized with an inflammatory affection 
of the wind-pipe, attended with fever, which baffled the efforts 
of his physicians, and terminated his life within thirty-five 
hours after his first seizure, without a struggle, and in the 
full possession of his reason, in the sixty-eighth year of his 
age. “ His moral and intellectual qualities,” says one of his 
biographers, were so happily blended, that he might seem 
expressly formed for the part assigned to him on the theatre 
of the world. His firm mind, equally inaccessible to the 
flatteries of hope and the suggestions of despondence, was 
kept steady by the grand principles of love to his country, 
and a religious attachment to moral duty. In him even 
N G T O N. 575 
fame, glory, and reputation, were subordinate to the perfor¬ 
mance of the task imposed upon him; and no one ever 
passed through the ordeal of power more free from the remo¬ 
test suspicion of selfish or ambitious designs. Capable of 
strong and decisive measures when necessary, they were tem¬ 
pered with the lenity which flows from true benevolence. 
In person he was tall and well proportioned. His form was 
dignified, and his port majestic. His passions were naturally 
strong, but he had obtained a full command over them. In 
the character of his intellect, judgment predominated; to 
fancy and vivacity he had no pretension; but good sense dis¬ 
played itself in all that he said or wrote. It was a proof 
of strong powers of acquisition, that, scanty as his literary 
education had been, by a careful study of the English lan¬ 
guage in its best models, he became master of a style at once 
pure, elegant, and energetic; and few better specimens of 
public addresses can be shewn than in the products of his pen. 
— Ramsey's and Marshall's Lives of Washington. 
WASHINGTON, the metropolis of the United States, in 
the district of Columbia. The city of Washington became 
the seat of the national government in 1800. It is situated 
on the Maryland side of the Potomac, 295 miles by the 
course of the river and bay, from the Atlantic, on a point of 
land between the Eastern Branch and the Potomac ; and its 
site, as laid out, extends two or three miles up each of these 
rivers. It is separated from Georgetown by Rock Creek, 
over which are two bridges; and there is a bridge over the 
Potomac, more than a mile in length, leading to Alexandria. 
A canal is constructed from the Potomac, passing up the 
Tiber, a small stream which flows through Washington, and 
then across the plain of the city to the Eastern Branch, 
forming a communication between the two rivers. The 
natural situation of Washington is pleasant and salubrious; 
and it is laid out on a plan which, when completed, will 
render it one of the handsomest and most commodious cities 
in the world. It is divided into squares by spacious streets 
or avenues, running north and south, intersected by others 
at right angles. These are crossed transversely by 15 other 
spacious streets or avenues, named after the different states. 
The rectangular streets are designated by the letters of the 
alphabet, and by numbers. The grand avenues, and such 
streets as lead immediately to public places, are from 130 to 
160 feet wide ; the other streets are from 90 to 110 feet wide. 
The buildings which contain the offices for the great depart¬ 
ments of government, consist of four spacious brick edifices 
of two stories, situated at a small distance from the president’s 
house. In these buildings are kept the papers, records, 
archives, and offices of the departments of state, of the 
treasury, of war, and of the navy. The general post-office 
is a large brick edifice, situated about a mile west-north-west 
of the capital, and contains, besides the various offices be¬ 
longing to the post-office establishment, the general land 
office, the patent-office, where are deposited all the models 
of inventions for which patents have been granted, forming 
a very extensive and curious collection; and a temporary 
library room for the national library, purchased in 1815, of 
the honourable Thomas Jefferson, late president of the 
United States, and consisting of about 8000 volumes. The 
navy-yard is situated on the Eastern Branch, which forms a 
safe and commodious harbour, being sufficiently deep for 
large ships about four miles from its mouth. On the 24th 
of August, 1814, this city was taken by the British, who 
burnt the public edifices, not sparing even the national 
library. All these edifices are now rebuilt and repaired. 
Lat. 38 58. N. long. 77. 2. W. Population about 12,000. 
WASHINGTON, a village of England, in Durham, on 
the Wear. Population 1264.—2. A parish of England, in 
the county of Sussex; 4 miles west-by-north of Steyning. 
Population 619.—3. A county of the United States, on the 
east side of Maine; bounded east by New Brunswick, south 
by the Atlantic, and west by Hancock and Penobscot 
counties. Population 7870.—4. A county of the United 
States, in Vermont, in the central part of the state, formed 
since 1810, from a part of the counties of Caledonia, 
Orange 
