musket."

It was not until June 8 that Washington settled these delicate affairs of
official etiquette sufficiently to enable him to attend to details of
administration. The government, although bankrupt, was in active
operation, and the several executive departments were under secretaries
appointed by the old Congress. The distinguished New York jurist, John
Jay, now forty-four years old, had been Secretary of Foreign Affairs since
1784. He had long possessed Washington's confidence, and now retained his
Secretaryship until the government was organized, whereupon he left that
post to become the first chief-justice of the United States. Henry Knox of
Massachusetts, aged thirty-nine, had been Secretary of War since 1785, a
position to which Washington helped him. They were old friends, for Knox
had served through the war with Washington in special charge of artillery.
The Postmaster-General, Ebenezer Hazard, was not in Washington's favor.
While the struggle over the adoption of the Constitution was going on
Hazard put a stop to the customary practice by which newspaper publishers
were allowed to exchange copies by mail. Washington wrote an indignant
letter to John Jay about this action which was doing mischief by "inducing
a belief that the suppression of intelligence at that critical juncture
was a wicked trick of policy contrived by an aristocratic junto." As soon
as Washington could move in the matter, Hazard was superseded by Samuel
Osgood, who as a member of the old Congress had served on a committee to
examine the post-office accounts. There was no Secretary of the Treasury
at that time, but the affairs of that department were in the hands of a
board of commissioners,--this same Samuel Osgood, together with Walter
Livingston and Arthur Lee. To all these officials Washington now applied
for a written account of "the real situation" of their departments.

Several months elapsed before he was in a position to make new