“events which are governed by the public voice”
THE WASHINGTONS had often stayed at the house on Market Street in Philadelphia that served as the presidential mansion from late November. It belonged to the Robert Morrises, who had agreed, earlier in the year, to lease it and move to a smaller house they owned on the same street. In September, on his way from New York to Mount Vernon with Martha, the president formed a firm idea of which rooms should be appropriated for “public rooms,” which for official business, and which for the family’s private use. Alterations, including the installation of a double-height bow window or bay, to extend the dining room and drawing room above it to the south, were decided upon. Work on the house proceeded, if slowly. Mary Morris fell ill, and she and her husband were still in situ in the third week of October. Relations between the Washington and Morris families, however, remained cordial.
Tobias Lear, the president’s private secretary, acted as surveyor of works while Washington was in Virginia. In late October, Lear began to make disposition in the Market Street house of some of the inventory from New York, and his employer advised him: “Mrs Morris, who is a notable lady in family arrangements, can give you much information in all the conveniences about the House & buildings, and I dare say would rather consider it as a compliment to be consulted in these matters (as she is so near) than a trouble to give her opinion of them or in putting up any of the fixtures as the House is theirs & will revert to them.” The lady, Lear reported four days later, “appeared much flattered by your opinion of her Housewifery and taste.” Places were found for looking glasses, lustres, sideboards, moreen curtains, and carpets. Sèvres china purchased at the Comte de Moustier’s sale, and Angoulème biscuit groups and figurines, and mirrored silver platters, acquired by Gouverneur Morris in Paris, were unpacked. The Morrises’ mangle—for wringing sheets—was the subject of some discussion before Mrs. Morris bore it off. Lear installed one that had served the Washingtons in New York.
Lear had taken a bride from his native New Hampshire, Polly Long Lear, in April. They had lodged elsewhere in New York, but it was Martha’s wish that, at Philadelphia, they inhabit the presidential mansion. Polly was termed by Washington “an amiable, & inoffensive little woman,” but she was timorous. “Mrs Lear was in to see me yesterday,” wrote Abigail Adams to her sister, while Bush Hill, her own new residence in Philadelphia, was still in disarray, “and assures me that I am much better off than Mrs Washington will be when she arrives, for that their house is not likely to be completed this year.”
Despite these prognostications, the house on Market Street was habitable when the Washingtons took possession in late November. On the first floor a yellow drawing room in front served for more intimate occasions. The green drawing room measured thirty-five feet in length. On the ground floor the Washingtons breakfasted and usually dined in a blue room at the front. The weekly Thursday gathering, now commonly known as “the Congress dinner,” took place in the large dining room at the back. When not in use, the three Angoulème “groups” were housed there under large glass covers. “The Save [Sèvres] and Cincinnati China—the plate and other things which are not used common” were housed in a closet in the steward’s room opposite. Elsewhere in the house was a study at the back for Washington and a parlor for Martha. In their bedchamber Martha had a new bed installed. The children, the Lears, secretaries, and numerous servants were accommodated above.
The Washingtons had been at some pains to assemble a household in Philadelphia to suit them. In September the president had named, among servants who should transfer from New York to Philadelphia, “the Wives of the footmen—namely James & Fidas. The Washer Women I believe are good.” He did not, however, wish for others: “the dirty figures of Mrs Lewis [kitchen maid and temporary cook in New York] and her daughter will not be a pleasant sight in view (as the Kitchen always will be).” Hercules, one of two cooks at Mount Vernon, traveled to Philadelphia instead.
According to the later recollection of Wash Custis, Hercules was something of a dandy and liked to walk the streets, elegantly dressed, after serving the Thursday “Congress dinner.” Guests congregating in the new bay windows of the “public rooms” that abutted the kitchen block presumably found him a “pleasant sight in view.” Hercules’s son Richmond accompanied his father, Washington bowing, in September, to the cook’s “desire to have him as an assistant.” John Hyde, who had replaced Fraunces in New York, remained as steward, but the president was not enthusiastic: “I strongly suspect that nothing is brought to my table of liquors, fruits or other things that is not used as profusely at his.” Hyde must for the time being serve as housekeeper as well. In the northern city his wife had undertaken these duties: “superintending the women of the family in washing the linen—cleaning the house &ca—taking care of the linen of the family—preparing the desert for dinners—making Cake, tea & Coffee—and assisting Mr Hyde in such parts of his duty as lay within the house.” Mrs. Hyde told Lear in September she was no longer fit for work. Her health had given way, under the strain of serving “in so large a family.”
The Washingtons observed in Market Street the same weekly routine as they had in New York. On Tuesdays the president held his levée at the house, and gentlemen mounting the staircase found him, dressed in his customary black velvet, in the green drawing room, silhouetted effectively against the light and illumined further by “lusters,” or chandeliers above. At Martha’s drawing rooms, as at New York, he wore no sword; nor did he carry a hat. This signified that he appeared in a private character and was, like others, a guest at his wife’s assembly. Once ladies had curtsied to Mrs. Washington, and were in circulation or seated on green damask sofas and chairs formally arranged around the room, they could hope that conversation with Washington would follow.
General Montgomery’s widow, Janet, returning to New York after a period in Europe, expressed regret that the Washingtons no longer resided in that city. Replying in January 1791, Martha wrote, “I have been so long accustomed to conform to events which are governed by the public voice that I hardly dare indulge any personal wishes that cannot yield to that.” Philadelphia, however, suited both Washingtons very well. Grown in confidence, they no longer abjured “private life.” They dined in town and in the country with friends—the Morrises, the Powels, the Willings, the Shippens, and the Penns. In town the Washingtons and the children saw much of the Adams, Hamilton, and Knox families. Invitations to the presidential mansion were no longer confined to the public dinners. One gentleman, commanded to attend at an early hour, was disappointed by the simplicity of the Market Street breakfast. Nelly and Washington Custis were at table, and Mrs. Washington herself made the tea and coffee. Only one waiter, not in livery, was in attendance, the visitor remarked, and “a silver urn for hot water, was the only article of expense on the table.” There was not even fish offered, he complained, but only slices of tongue, “dry toast, bread and butter, etc.”
In late March 1791, prior to embarking on a tour of southern states, Washington met on the Potomac with commissioners—among them David Stuart—appointed in accordance with the Residence Act of the previous summer. He consulted with them and with Andrew Ellicott and Pierre L’Enfant, surveyor and architect, respectively, for the new Federal City. Following skillful negotiations with the owners of land that fell within the proposed federal district, he proclaimed, on the thirtieth at Georgetown, the quadrilateral area it would occupy. Washington was a happy man. Mount Vernon, lying along the western bank of the Potomac only fifteen miles below the site of the future city, was greatly enhanced in value. Congress was to decree, however, that all public buildings in the Federal City were to be built on the Maryland bank of the Potomac, between Georgetown and the eastern branch of the river.
Traveling farther south, Washington wrote to Lear that Paris, one of the slaves with duties as groom or postilion, had become “so lazy, self-willed & impudent, that John”—Fagan, coachman—“had no sort of government of him; on the contrary, John say’s it was a maxim with Paris to do nothing he was ordered, and every thing he was forbid.” Another slave, coachman Giles, was a permanent invalid. Washington wanted Lear to hire replacements in town—“low & squat (well made) boys, would suit best.”
During his absence in the south, Edmund Randolph visited Martha. The attorney general, a fellow Virginian, informed her that “three of his Negroes had given him notice that they should tomorrow take advantage of a law of this State, and claim their freedom.” Pennsylvania’s Gradual Abolition Act, passed eleven years earlier, was the law in question. With some exceptions, “domestic slaves” belonging to citizens from out of state and who resided with their owners in Pennsylvania longer than six months by law became “freemen and Freewomen.”
Among those excepted were “the domestic Slaves attending upon Delegates in Congress from the other American States, foreign Ministers and Consuls, and persons passing through or sojourning in this State, and not becoming resident therein.” Though the law had been amended in 1788 in a bid to prevent slave owners from rotating slaves in and out of the state, still, no exception to the six-month rule existed for “domestic” slaves belonging to members of the executive branch. While members of Congress could keep their slave servants with them as long as they liked, Washington and his cabinet enjoyed no such impunity. The attorney general’s slaves appear to have been among the first to have been led to an understanding of this.
Randolph “mentioned it to her,” Lear wrote to the president on April 5, following the Virginian’s visit to Martha, “from an idea that those who were of age in this family might follow the example, after a residence of six months should put it in their power.” Washington, from the south, countered that he came into the category of those “passing through or sojourning in this State, and not becoming resident therein.” Randolph opined to Lear that this was a moot point: “there were not wanting persons who would not only give them (the Slaves) advice; but would use all means to entice them from their masters.” The attorney general gave this advice to the Washingtons, ignoring the 1788 amendment: “if, before the expiration of six months, they [the slaves in question] could, upon any pretence whatever, be carried or sent out of the State, but for a single day, a new era would commence on their return.”
Martha and Lear acted. Scullion Richmond was dispatched by water the next day for Alexandria, and Lear told Washington on April 24 that he would hold out a lure to Hercules himself: “by being at home before your arrival he will have it in his power to see his friends—make every necessary preparation in his Kitchen &c.” If Hercules declined to travel to Virginia, the secretary noted, it would be “a pretty strong proof of his intention to take the advantage of the law at the expiration of six months.” Lear was an efficient if unhappy agent: “no consideration should induce me to take these steps to prolong the slavery of a human being, had I not the fullest confidence that they will at some future period be liberated.” In his native New Hampshire such measures were slowly under way. He soothed his conscience. The slaves’ situation at Market Street, he believed, was “far preferable to what they would probably obtain in a state of freedom.” Martha herself, adaptable to much, was fiercely possessive of the slaves that were hers by dower right. They would pass, following her death, to her grandchildren. She had her own plans, Lear told Washington, for Oney Judge, her maid, and Christopher Sheels, footman, “which will carry them out of the State.” When she and the children visited members of the Dickinson family at Trenton, maid and footman went too. On the return of the party to Philadelphia, a “new era” of servitude began. Though it contravened state law, from now on the Washingtons observed a systematic rotation of their slaves in and out of Pennsylvania.
The white servants and stable staff in Market Street posed other problems. Black Sam Fraunces returned to displace Hyde as steward. Martha, while Washington was in the south, hired a housekeeper, Mrs. Emerson. Her greatest difficulty, Lear wrote Washington, would be managing the other servants. Given the importance of their master’s office, they were all “impressed with an idea that they are the best Servants that can be obtained.” Yet insubordination was rife. With the aid of Mrs. Washington, Lear was confident that order would be restored before the president came north.
As the children grew older, their schooling and their holidays governed Martha’s movements. Lear wrote to the president, while he was still in the south, that after the Easter holidays, Wash, ten, would be “put to Cyphering immediately.” Particular attention would be paid to “his writing, reading & as well as to Latin.” Both children—Nelly was now twelve—were taught to dance by English émigré James Robardet. In January 1791 Martha warmly invited “Miss [Caroline Amelia] Smith,” Abigail Adams’s granddaughter—to join the class. A year later Washington praised Robardet’s “attention to my grandchildren, and the progress which they have made under his instruction.” Dancing slippers as well as the necessary accouterments for learning—slates and pencils, a “silver pencil case,” “Elements of Geography”—were purchased for Nelly. She now did her lessons, including French, drawing, and watercolor, with masters at home and was becoming an accomplished musician under the supervision of Alexander Reinagle, who had followed Congress to the city.
Martha did not forget her elder grandchildren. She sent Bet and Pat—now fifteen and fourteen and known as Betsy and Patty—muffs, stays made by “Mr. Serres,” and painting materials: “1 palette, 3/9 [that is, 3s 9d in New York money], a cake of black paint 5/. Ditto of white do 1/10, 4 brushes 2/1, 1 Indian rubber 1/10.” Members of the extended clan, including Fanny and Harriot Washington and Nelly Stuart, too, received stays, ribbon, cambric, nankeen, and shoes. But her attention was focused on Nelly and Wash. Martha made, with purchases for herself at fashionable emporia, others for Nelly—gloves, muffs, cloaks, bonnets, hats, handkerchiefs, and fans, as well as costly fabric for habits, dresses, and gowns. Suitable friends—the Robert Morrises’ daughter, Maria; Attorney General Randolph’s daughter, Susan; and a cousin of Miss Randolph, Elizabeth Bordley—provided companionship for Nelly.
Both Washingtons were uneasy on a number of scores about their home in Virginia. George Augustine was spitting blood and had a severe pain in his chest that no “blister”—liniment—could relieve. At the end of August he went over the mountains to Berkeley Springs in search of a cure. Anthony Whitting, hired to manage the mansion farm alone, administered the estate. There were other causes for concern about George Augustine. He exercised little control over the overseers and expressed dismay when a slave, whom he had authorized an overseer to punish, subsequently died. As aide-de-camp to Lafayette during the war, the young man had often heard the marquis express his horror of the institution of slavery. His stewardship of Mount Vernon may have sat uncomfortably with ideas he had imbibed from the marquis, ideas that indeed underlay recent legislation in other states as well as Pennsylvania. Only in Massachusetts, in 1783, had immediate abolition been enacted. But New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island too had passed acts for the “gradual abolition of slavery,” following the Pennsylvanian model of March 1780, which deemed all children of slaves born in the state thereafter to be free.
The president had no high opinion of the overseers’ humanity at Mount Vernon. He relied, however, on these managers to extract the due portion of work from a “people” disinclined to render it. Lear, writing home to New Hampshire, noted: “The negroes are not treated as blacks in general are in this Country. They are clothed and fed as well as any labouring people whatever, and they are not subject to the lash of a dominating overseer—but still they are slaves.” The president did his duty, as he saw it, by his “people,” including, in a memorandum this summer for his nephew, the instruction: “Huts, or some kind of covering will be wanting at Dogue-run; some of the People at that place complain much of the Leakiness of their Houses.”
Though the Washingtons, approaching sixty, were still energetic, many of the house slaves on whom they had relied at home were now “past service.” Doll, whose housekeeping skills Martha had respected, was listed four years earlier by Washington as “almost past service.” George Augustine’s wife, Fanny, was not a good housekeeper; nor did she exercise sufficient authority at the mansion house. Frank Lee, steward, was prone to drink, and Nathan, the cook, was slovenly. Martha wrote in August of Charlotte, seamstress, to Fanny, “She is so indolent, that she will do nothing but what she is told. She knows what work is to be done.” Martha dismissed out of hand the slave servants’ protests to her niece that they were fully occupied, making “the people’s clothes”—the clothing given out annually to the field slaves. “If you suffer them to go on so idle, they will in a little time do nothing but work for themselves.”
Martha, adamant that Fanny must stir herself, wrote of an impending visit home in September: “I shall leave all the housekeeping to you.” There would be “company” staying, she informed her niece, the whole time she and the president were in residence: “I shall not concern in the matter at all. Make Nathan clean his kitchen and everything about it very well.” Charlotte and her fellow seamstresses must endeavor to get all other business done “as fast as they can.” Martha would be bringing up “work”—or sewing—from Philadelphia for them to do.
Those for whom the Washingtons felt responsibility were many. The president had reflected the previous autumn, “The easy and quiet temper of Fanny is little fitted, I find, for the care of my Niece Harriot Washington, who is grown almost, if not quite a Woman.” Ultimately the girl was dispatched to her aunt, Betty Lewis at Fredericksburg, with this injunction from her uncle: “I wish you would examine her Cloaths, and direct her in the use and application of them—for without this they will be (I am told) dabbed about in every hole & corner—& her best things always in use.”
Harriot continued to press for “best things,” asking her uncle in subsequent years to fund a dress and a “silk jacket and a pair of shoes,” for her to wear on “the Birth night” [Washington’s birthday]. If Harriot was unsatisfactory, their uncle approved of her brothers, George Steptoe and Lawrence. They were now studying at the College in Philadelphia, and the president had judged them in 1790 “well disposed Youths—neither of them wanting capacity; and both, especially the first, very desirous of improvement.” One of Martha’s nephews, Bartholomew Dandridge, served Washington as an assistant secretary, and he or the Washingtons’ boys sometimes accompanied the children to the “play” or concerts.
Martha and the president had plenty of curiosity themselves to see the sights of the city. In 1792 Washington paid to view a “sea leopard [leopard seal]” on display. Martha visited at least once the famous “flower garden”—or botanic garden—that John Bartram had established outside the city. Bowen’s Waxworks—now transposed to Philadelphia and incorporating a scene from The School for Scandal—was another destination. The whole family inspected the natural history exhibits at Charles Willson Peale’s museum that included in 1792 an “Otaheitian [Tahitian] dress.”
Martha had firm ideas about the upbringing of the children, including the need to control their diet. When her niece Fanny Washington was later to write that her young daughter Maria was ill, Martha was swift in her diagnosis: “Children that eat everything as they like and feed as heartily as yours does must be full of worms. Indeed my dear Fanny I never saw children stuffed as yours was when I was down.” Mr. Spence, dentist, cleaned the children’s teeth and supplied toothbrushes and tooth powder. In addition, Washington’s own hairdresser, Durang, attended to her grandson’s hair. A “pair of skeats [skates],” noted in the household accounts, in December 1792, as well as innumerable handkerchiefs and items such as “10 pairs of stockings,” hint at Wash’s predilection for outdoor activities.
At Georgetown this summer Washington inspected, as he wrote to Lear from Mount Vernon, “many well conceived & ingenious plans for the Public buildings in the New City.” It had been “a pleasure indeed, to find—in an infant Country—such a display of Architectural abilities.” Irish immigrant James Hoban had been chosen to design the President’s House, and they were digging out its foundations. Washington had written to Jefferson in April 1791: “The most superb edifices may be erected.” He wished their inhabitants much happiness. “I shall never be of their number myself.”
The Washingtons’ sojourn at Mount Vernon in the summer and autumn of 1792 was tinged with sadness on more than one account. This year the Stuarts, with the Parke Custis girls and their many half-siblings, removed to a smaller and more isolated home, Hope Park, some way west of Alexandria. Abingdon, the estate Jacky had acquired with such enthusiasm, was sold. Moreover, Washington wrote to Lear on September 21, George Augustine was “but the shadow of what he was; he has not been out of his room & scarcely from his bed these six weeks.”
Washington was in a quandary. Should he yield to the pleas of his friends, as well as cabinet colleagues of all political colors, and serve a second presidential term? Doing so was not merely contrary to his inclination; George Augustine’s wasted state added, as he wrote to Lear in September, “not a little to my distress & perplexity on a subject you are already acquainted with.” If he were to serve again, to whom should he look to manage the estate?
Whether he served a second term or not, he must renew the lease on the Morris house in Philadelphia. It would soon expire, even before the presidential term was up in April 1793. When Lear called on Mr. Morris in July to secure another year, the financier “hoped to God” that love of country would persuade the president to serve another term. “He thought,” reported Lear, “the reasons for your continuing were, if possible, more strong than those which first induced your acceptance of the Office.” Lear had taken other soundings, at Washington’s request. He noted: “The general idea seemed to be, to say nothing of the fatal effects expected from divisions & parties, that most of the important things hitherto done under this government, being, as it were, matters of experiment, had not yet been long enough in operation to give satisfactory proof whether they are beneficial or not.” A second term would accord an opportunity for a “fair experiment.”
“Divisions and parties” already played a lively part in governmental politics. Madison and others vehemently favored the empowerment of the different states and opposed the establishment of a national bank. Hamilton in the Senate was prominent among those who wished further powers to accrue to the federal government. Jefferson, inimical to Hamilton and all “monarchical” tendencies and tired of the Federalist press attacks, wrote to Washington in September of his own wish to retire. When the secretary of state called in at Mount Vernon in early October on his way to Philadelphia, however, Washington was persuasive. It was important, he said, to preserve what he called “the check” of his fellow Virginian’s opinions in the administration. The president denied that Hamilton, Adams, and others wished to transform the country into a constitutional monarchy on the British model.
Washington, at this exchange of views, was still undecided whether to serve another term. He told Jefferson, as the secretary of state reported: “nobody disliked more the ceremonies of his office, and he had not the least taste or gratification in the execution of its function.” Declaring himself “happy at home alone” at Mount Vernon, the president observed that “his presence there was now peculiarly called for by the situation of Major Washington whom he thought irrecoverable.” If his aid, however, was thought necessary to “save the cause to which he had devoted his life principally,” he would “make the sacrifice of a longer continuance.”
The question was unresolved when the Washingtons returned to Philadelphia. George Augustine, Fanny, and their three children made a slow journey to Eltham, where attempts would be made to nurse the invalid back to health. Frank Lee, steward, and his wife, Lucy, were deputed to look after the mansion house. The plantation was left in the hands of Anthony Whitting. The president closed a long list of instructions for the manager: “Although it is last mentioned, it is foremost in my thoughts, to desire you will be particularly attentive to my Negros in their sickness.” Every overseer, moreover, was to do likewise and to send for Dr. Craik if the case demanded it. “I am sorry to observe that the generality of them [the overseers], view these poor creatures in scarcely any other light than they do a draught horse or Ox; neglecting them as much when they are unable to work; instead of comforting & nursing them when they lie on a sick bed.” This ill treatment had cost him dear, he wrote severely. He had “lost more Negros last Winter, than I had done in 12 or 15 years before, put them altogether.”
In conversation with Jefferson in February 1793, Washington was to declare that “strong solicitations” the previous autumn led to his remaining in office. But he also told his fellow Virginian that he mentioned “his purpose of going out,” or intention not to serve a second term, to no one except to his cabinet colleagues and Mr. Madison. In fact, among those with whom he had discussed his quandary was Mrs. Powel, with whom he entered into the subject in a conversation in Philadelphia on Thursday November 1, 1792. She docketed a draft of a letter that she subsequently sent Washington: “To the President of the United States on the Subject of his Resignation November the 4th 1792.” She began: “After I had parted with you on Thursday, my Mind was thrown into a Train of Reflections in Consequence of the Sentiments that you had confided to me.” The arguments which she marshaled proved she knew well the man she addressed:
Your Resignation wou’d elate the Enemies of good Government and cause lasting Regret to the Friends of humanity.
The “enemies of good government”—anti-Federalists—would, she continued, “urge that you, from Experience, had found the present System a bad one, and had, artfully, withdrawn from it that you might not be crushed under its Ruins.” They would use his resignation as an argument for dissolving the Union. The Federalists were keen to hand him the presidency, she wrote. They “gave what a great and generous People might offer with Dignity and a noble Mind receive with Delicacy.” Would he withdraw his aid “from a Structure that certainly wants your Assistance to support it? Can you, with Fortitude, see it crumble to decay?”
Mrs. Powel went to so far as to attack his wish to live in retirement at Mount Vernon as selfish and misguided: “you have frequently demonstrated that you possess an Empire over yourself. For Gods sake do not yield that Empire to a Love of Ease, Retirement, rural Pursuits, or a false Diffidence of Abilities which those that best know you so justly appreciate.” One wonders if Washington showed this letter to Martha. Mrs. Powel went on to ask: “admitting that you could retire in a Manner exactly conformable to your own Wishes and possessed of the Benediction of Mankind, are you sure that such a Step would promote your Happiness? Have you not often experienced that your Judgement was fallible with Respect to the Means of Happiness? Have you not, on some Occasions, found the Consummation of your Wishes the Source of the keenest of your Sufferings?”
Washington did not withdraw his name, but made “the sacrifice of a longer continuance.” He was returned unanimously by the electoral college on December 5, 1792. The 132 electors supplied by the states, now numbering fifteen with new-minted Vermont and Kentucky, had two votes. Adams received seventy-seven of the second votes and was elected vice president once more. John Adams wrote on December 28 to his wife in Massachusetts: “The Noise of Election is over.…Four years more will be as long as I shall have a Taste for public Life or Journeys to Philadelphia. I am determined in the meantime to be no longer the Dupe, and run into Debt to Support a vain Post which has answered no other End than to make me unpopular.” Washington too harped on his reluctance to serve. Early in the new year, in response to a letter of congratulation, he wrote to Henry Lee in Virginia: “my particular, & confidential friends well know, that it was after a long and painful conflict in my own breast, that I was withheld…from requesting, in time, that no votes might be thrown away upon me.”
Before Washington took the oath of office in Philadelphia, on March 4, 1793, any faint hopes that George Augustine might recover his strength and return to manage Mount Vernon were blasted. Washington’s nephew died at Eltham in early February. Nevertheless, as Washington wrote to widowed Fanny, offering her and her children a home at Mount Vernon, matters there were “now so arranged as to be under the care of responsible persons.” Whitting was proving a conscientious estate manager, and Catherine Ehlers, wife of the German gardener, supervised the “spinners,” following instruction from Martha.
Had the president had the gift of second sight, he might have quailed at the four years of faction and personal attacks on him that lay ahead. The anti-Federalists were calling for the government to support republican France. Washington and his fellow Federalists, however, favored strengthening ties with Britain, America’s principal trading partner since the war. Mrs. Powel had prophesied the previous autumn that if he retired, “a great Deal of the well earned Popularity that you are now in Possession of will be torn from you by the Envious and Malignant.” As it turned out, he was to be stripped of it in office.