The writings of George Washington; being his correspondence, addresses, messages, and other papers, official and private, selected and published from the original manuscripts; with a life of the author, notes and illustrations. By Jared Sparks.

AET. 58.] LIFE OF WASHINGTON. 459
as claiming their attention, particularly a provision for
the common defence, laws for naturalizing foreigners,
a uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures,
the encouragement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, the promotion of science and literature, and
an effective system for the support of public credit.
To the difficulties involved in this last subject may
indeed be traced the primary causes of the constitution,
and it had already attracted the notice of the national
legislature. The former session had necessarily been
consumed in framing laws for putting the new government in operation; but, a few days before its close, a
resolution was passed by the House of Representatives,
in which it was declared that an adequate provision
for the support of public credit was essential to the
which I know he has made. Indeed, on his journey from Mount Vernon
to this place, in his late tour through the Eastern States, by every public
and every private information which has come to him, I am persuaded
he has experienced nothing to make him repent his having acted from
what he conceived to be a sense of indispensable duty. On the contrary,
all his sensibility has been awakened in receiving such repeated and
unequivocal proofs of sincere regard from his countrymen.
"With respect to myself, I sometimes think the arrangement is not
quite as it ought to have been, that I, who had much rather be at home,
should occupy a place, with which a great many younger and gayer
women would be extremely pleased. As my grandchildren and domestic
connexions make up a great portion of the felicity, which I looked for in
this world, I shall hardly be able to find any substitute, that will indemnify me for the loss of a part of such endearing society. I do not say
this because I feel dissatisfied with my present station, for everybody
and every thing conspire to make me as contented as possible in it; yet
I have learned too much of the vanity of human affairs to expect felicity
from the scenes of public life. I am still determined to be cheerful and
happy in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience, that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our
dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the
one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go.
"I have two of my grandchildren with me, who enjoy advantages in
point of education, and who, I trust, by the goodness of Providence, will
be a great blessing to me. My other two grandchildren are with their
mother in Virginia." - New York, December 26th, 1789.