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still the scene which surrounded me—the metropolis of a great nation in its first stage from a sylvan state—was strikingly singular. I thought it the more so, as the accounts which I had received of Washington while at Philadelphia, and the plan which I had seen hung up in the dining-room at Bladensburg, had prepared me for something rather more advanced. Looking from where I now stood, I saw on every side a thick wood pierced with avenues in a more or less perfect state."

Sometime before this, and in answer to an advertisement by the Commissioners, James Hoban, an Irish architect, then acting as supervising architect of the Capitol, had submitted plans for a "President's House," and they had been accepted. Inasmuch as the Act of Congress creating the District decreed that the houses for Congress and the President should be ready for occupancy by the year 1800, the work on both was now carried forward vigorously. Washington, retiring to his home at Mount Vernon at the close of his second term in 1797, gave over the care of the Federal city to his successor, John Adams. President Adams first appointed a new architect for the Capitol, Stephen Hallett, who resigned after holding the position for one year. George Hadfield, an Englishman, next appointed, resigned in 1798, and left James