election took place, and Washington was chosen President for a term of
four years from March 4, 1788. An entry in his diary, on March 16,
says--"I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to domestic
felicity; and with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful
sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York with the
best disposition to render service to my country in obedience to its
call, but with less hope of answering its expectations."

The weight and influence of his name and character were deemed all
essential to complete his work; to set the new government in motion, and
conduct it through its first perils and trials. He undertook the task,
firm in the resolve in all things to act as his conscience told him was
"right as it respected his God, his country, and himself." For he knew
no divided fidelity, no separate obligation; his most sacred duty to
himself was his highest duty to his country and his God.

His death took place on December 14, 1799, at Mount Vernon.

The character of Washington may want some of the poetical elements which
dazzle and delight the multitude, but it possessed fewer inequalities
and a rarer union of virtues than perhaps ever fell to the lot of one
man. Prudence, firmness, sagacity, moderation, an overruling judgement,
an immovable justice, courage that never faltered, patience that never
wearied, truth that disdained all artifice, magnanimity without alloy.

* * * * *


JOSEPHUS