Just at the close of the convention, when the Constitution in its last draft was in the final stage and on the eve of adoption, Mr. Gorham of Massachusetts moved to amend by reducing the limit of population in a congressional district from forty to thirty thousand. Washington took the floor and argued briefly and modestly in favor of the change. His mere request was sufficient, and the amendment was unanimously adopted.

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3

This passage was written before the recent appearance of Mr. Conway's Life of Randolph. That ample biography, in my opinion, confirms the view of Randolph here given. If, in the light of this new material, I have erred at all, it is, I think, on the charitable side. Mr. Conway, in order to vindicate Randolph, has sacrificed so far as he could nearly every conspicuous public man of that period. From Washington, whom he charges with senility, down, there is hardly a man who ever crossed Randolph's path whom he has not assailed. Yet he presents no reason, so far as I can see, to alter the present opinion of Randolph.

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4

The most lately published contemporary account of this affair with Hancock can be found in the Magazine of American History, June, 1888, p. 508, entitled "Incidents in the Life of John Hancock, as related by Dorothy Quincy Hancock Scott (from the Diary of Gen. W.H. Sumner)."

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5

Sparks, Writings of Washington, x. 98.

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6

The italics are mine.

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7

The italics are mine.

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8

The italics are mine.

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9

See the Letter to the Due de Liancourt explaining the reasons for his not being received by the President. (Sparks, xi. 161.)

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10

"As an analysis of this position, look to the pending election of governor in Pennsylvania."

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11

These italics are mine.

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12

These italics are mine.

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13

See letter to Bushrod Washington, Sparks, vi. p. 387.

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14

Life of Silliman, vol. ii. p. 385.

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15

It was called at the time a quinsy.

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16

See Memoir on The Last Sickness of Washington, by James Jackson, M.D. In response to an inquiry as to the modern treatment of this disease, the late Dr. F.H. Hooper of Boston, well known as an authority on diseases of the throat, wrote me: "Washington's physicians are not to be criticised for their treatment, for they acted according to their best light and knowledge. To treat such a case in such a manner in the year 1889 would be little short of criminal. At the present time the physicians would use the laryngoscope and look and see what the trouble was. (The laryngoscope has only been used since 1857.) In this disease the function most interfered with is breathing. The one thing which saves a patient in this disease is a timely tracheotomy. (I doubt if tracheotomy had ever been performed in Virginia in Washington's time.) Washington ought to have been tracheotomized, or rather that is the way cases are saved to-day. No one would think of antimony, calomel, or bleeding now. The point is to let in the air, and not to let out the blood. After tracheotomy has been performed, the oedema and swelling of the larynx subside in three to six days. The tracheotomy tube is then removed, and respiration goes on again through the natural channels."

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17

Mr. Matthew Arnold, and more recently Professor Goldwin Smith, have both spoken of Washington as an Englishman. I do not mention this to discredit the statements of Mr. Lowell or Mr. King, but merely to indicate how far this mistaken idea has traveled.

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18

See the very interesting memoir on this subject by the Hon. J.C. Bancroft Davis.

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19

Magazine of American History, vol. iii., 1879, p. 81.

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20

Memoir of Rt. Rev. William Meade, by Philip Slaughter, D.D., p. 7.

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21

These facts in regard to Washington's early letters, and to his correspondence generally, were first brought to public attention by the Reed letters, and by the controversy between Mr. Sparks and Lord Mahon. They have, of course, been long familiar to students of the original manuscripts. The full extent, however, of the changes made by Mr. Sparks, and of the mischief he wrought, and of the injustice thus done both to his hero and to posterity, has but lately been made known generally by the new edition of Washington's papers which have been published, under the supervision of Mr. W.C. Ford. Washington himself, when he undertook to arrange his military and state papers after his retirement from the presidency, began to correct the style of some of his earlier letters. This was natural enough, and he had a right to do what he pleased with his own, even if he thereby injured the material of the future historian and biographer. But he did not proceed far in his work, and the fact that he corrected a few of his own letters gave Mr. Sparks no right whatever to enter upon a wholesale revision.

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