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moving these embarrassments, and generally meliorating the condition of the United States, is peculiarly the province of the biographer of Washington.

Congress having organized the great departments of government, it became the duty of the president to designate proper persons to fill them. In discharging this delicate and difficult trust, Washington kept himself free from every engagement, and uniformly declined giving decisive answers to applicants, haying previously resolved to nominate persons to offices with a sole view to the public good, and to bring forward those who, upon every consideration, and from the best information he could obtain, were in his judgment most likely to answer the great end

Under these impressions he placed Colonel Hamilton at the head of the Treasury Department.

At the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, he placed Mr. Jefferson.

General Knox was continued in the Department of War, which he had filled under the old Congress.

The office of Attorney-General was assigned to Mr. Edmund Randolph.

These composed the cabinet council of the first president.
The judicidal department was filled as follows:
John Jay, of New York, Chief Justice.

John Rutledge, of South Carolina,

James Wilson, of Pennsylvania,

William Cushing, of Massachusetts, Associate Judges. Robert Harrison, of Maryland, and

John Blair, of Virginia,

The officers who had been appointed by the individual states to manage the revenue, which, under the old system, was paid into the state treasury, were re-appointed to corresponding offices under the new constitution, by which the revenue had been transferred from the local to the general treasury of the union.

It was among the first cares of Washington to make peace with the Indians. General Lincoln, Mr. Griffin, and Colonel Humphreys, very soon after the inauguration of the president, were deputed by him to treat with the Creek Indians. These met with M'Gillvray, and other chiefs of the nation, with about two thousand men, at the Rock Landing, on the frontiers of Georgia. The negociations were soon broken off by M Gillvray, whose personal interests

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and connexion with Spain were supposed to have been the real cause of their abrupt and unsuccessful termination. The next year brought round an accomplishment of the president's wishes, which had failed in the first attempt. Policy and interest concurred in recommending every prudent measure for detaching the Creek Indians from all connexion with the Spaniards, and cementing their friendship with the United States. Negociations carried on with them in the vicinity of the Spanish settlements, promised less than negociations conducted at the seat of government. To induce a disposition favourable to this change of place, the president sent Colonel Willet, a gallant and intelligent officer of the late army, into the Creek country, apparently on private business, but with a letter of introduction to M Gillvray, and with instructions to take occasional opportunities to point out the distresses which a war with the United States would bring on the Creek nation, and the indiscretion of their breaking off the negociation at the Rock Landing; and to exhort him to repair with the chiefs of his nation to New York, in order to effect a solid and lasting peace. Willet performed these duties with so much dexterity, that M'Gillvray, with the chiefs of his nation, were induced to come to New York, where fresh negociations commenced, which, on the 7th of August, 1790, terminated in the establishment of peace.

The pacific overtures made by Washington to the Indians of the Wabash and the Miamis, failed of success. Long experience had taught the president, that on the failure of negociations with the Indians, policy, economy, and even humanity, required, the employment of a sufficient force to carry offensive war into their country, and lay waste their settlements. The accomplishment of this was no easy matter. The Indian nations were numerous, accustomed to war, and not without discipline. They were said to be furnished with arms and ammunition from the British posts held within the United States, in violation of the treaty of peace. Generals Harmar and Sinclair were successively defeated by the Indians; and four or five years elapsed before they were subdued. This was accomplished by Gen. Wayne, in 1794. Soon after that event, a peace was concluded, under his auspices, between these Indians and the United States. In the progress of this last Indian war, repeated overtures of peace were made to the North West

ern Indians, but rejected. About the same period a new system was commenced for turning them off from hunting to the employments of civilized life, by furnishing them with implements and instructions for agriculture and manu-factures.

In this manner, during the Presidency of George Wash-ington, peace was restored to the frontier settlements both in the north and southwest, which has continued ever since, and it is likely to do so, while, at the same time, the prospect of meliorating the condition of the savages is daily brightening; for the system first began by Washington with the view of civilizing these fierce sons of nature, have been ever since steadily pursued by all his successors. dian wars are now only known from the records or recollection of past events; and it is probable that the day is not far distant when the United States will receive a considerable accession of citizens from the civilized red men of the forest.

In

CHAPTER XII.

Gen. Washington attends to the foreign relations of the United States....Negociates with Spain.... Difficulties in the way.... The free navigation of the Mississippi is granted by a treaty made with Major Pinckney....Negociations with Britain.... Difficulties in the way....War probable.... Mr. Jay's mission.... His treaty with Great Britain....Opposition thereto....Is ratiSed... Washington refuses papers to the flouse of Representacives.... British posts in the United States evacuated....Negociations with France.... Genet's arrival....Assumes illegal powers, in the violation of the neutrality of the United States. Is flattered by the people, but opposed by the executive....Is recalled....Gen. Pinckney sent as public minister to adjust disputes with France....Is not received....Washington declines a re-election, and addresses the people... His last address to the national legislature....Recommends a navy, a military academy, and other public institutions.

EVENTS which had taken place before the inauguration of Washington, embarrassed his negociations for the ad

justment of the political relations between the United States and Spain.

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In the year, 1779, Mr. Jay had been appointed by the old Congress to make a treaty with his Catholic Majesty ; but his best endeavours for more than two years were ineffectual. In a fit of despondence, while the revolutionary war was pressing, he had been authorised to agree to relinquish, and in future forbear to use the navigation of the river Mississippi, from the point where it leaves the United States, down to the ocean.". After the war was ended, a majority of Congress had agreed to barter away for twenty five years, their claim to this navigation. A long and intricate negociation between Mr. Gardoqui, the minister of his Catholic Majesty, and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, had taken place at New York, in the interval between the establishment of peace and of the new constitution of the United States; but was rendered abortive from the inflexible adherence of Mr. Gardoqui to the exclusion of the citizens of the United States from navigating the Mississippi below their southern boundary. This unyielding disposition of Spain, the inability of the United States to assert their claims to the navigation of this river, and especially the facility which the old Congress had shown to recede from it for a term of years, had soured the minds of the western settlers. Their impatience transported them so far beyond the bounds of policy, that they sometimes drop, ped hints of separating from the Atlantic States, and attaching themselves to the Spaniards. In this critical state of things, the president found abundant exercise for all his prudence. The western inhabitants were, in fact, thwarting his views in their favour, and encouraging Spain to persist in refusing that free navigation, which was so ardently desired both by the president and the people. The adherence of Spain to the exclusive use of the lower Missisippi, and the impolitic discontents of the western inhabitants, were not the only embarrassments of Washington, in negociating with the court of Madrid.

In 1793, four Frenchmen left Philadelphia, empowered by Mr. Genet, the minister of the French Republic, to prepare an expedition in Kentucky against New Orleans. Spain, then at war with France, was at peace with the United States. Washington was officially bound to interpose his authority to prevent the raising of an armed force from

among his fellow-citizens to commit hostilities on a peaceable neighbouring power. Orders were accordingly given to the civil authority in Kentucky, to use all legal means to prevent this expedition; but the execution of these orders was so languid, that it became necessary to call in the aid of the regular army. Gen. Wayne was ordered to establish a military post at Fort Massac on the Ohio, for the purpose of forcibly stopping any body of armed men, who, in opposition to remonstrances, should persist in going down that river.

Many of the high spirited Kentuckians were so exasperated against the Spaniards, as to be very willing to second the views of the French minister, and under his auspices to attack New Orleans. The navigation of the Mississippi was so necessary for conveying to proper markets the surplusage of their luxuriant soil, that to gain this privilege others were willing to receive it from the hands of the Spaniards at the price of renouncing all political connexion with the United States. While these opposite modes of seeking a remedy for the same evil were pursuing by persons of different temperaments, a remonstrance from the inhabitants of Kentucky was presented to Washington and Congress. This demanded the useof the Mississippi as a natural right, and at the same time charged the government with being under the influence of a local policy, which had prevented all serious efforts for the acquisition of a right which was essential to the prosperity of the western people. It spoke the language of an injured people, irritated by the maladministration of their public servants; and hinted the probability of a dismemberment of the union, if their natural rights were not vindicated by government. To appease these discontents; to restrain the French from making war on the Spaniards with a force raised and embodied in the United States; and at the same time, by fair negotiation, to obtain the free use of the Mississippi from the court of Madrid, was the task assigned to Washington. Difficult and delicate as it was, the whole was accomplished. Anterior to the receipt of the Kentucky remonstrance, the president, well knowing the discontents of the interior people, and that the publication of them would obstruct his views, had directed the Secretary of State to give assurances to the Governor of Kentucky, that every exertion was making to obtain for the western people the free navigation they so

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