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of his wife's annual visit to the camp during the revolutionary war, with his passing allusion to the "self denial" which the exigencies of his country had cost him, furnishes a charming illustration of his habitual exactness. The fact that every barrel of flour which bore the brand of "George Washington, Mount Vernon," was exempted from the customary inspection in the West India ports—that name being regarded as an ample guaranty of the quality and quantity of any article to which it was affixed—supplies a not less striking proof that his exactness was everywhere understood.
Everybody saw that Washington sought nothing for himself. Everybody knew that he sacrificed nothing to personal or to party ends. Hence, the mighty influence, the matchless sway, which he exercised over all around him. "He was the only man in the United States who possessed the confidence of all, (said Thomas Jefferson;) there was no other one who was considered as anything more than a party leader."
Who ever thinks of Washington as a mere politician? Who ever associates him with the petty arts and pitiful intrigues of partisan office-seekers or partisan office-holders? Who ever pictures him canvassing for votes, dealling out proscription, or doling out patronage?
"No part of my duty," wrote Washington to Governor Bowdoin, in a letter, the still unpublished original of which is a precious inheritance of my own: "No part of my duty will be more delicate, and in many instances more unpleasant, than that of nominating and appointing persons to office. It will undoubtedly happen that there
