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20 you, I would have published the poem, bad I not been apprehensive that, while I only meant to give the world this new instance of your genius, I might have incurred the imputation of vanity. This, and nothing else, determined me not to give it a place in the public prints. If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near headquarters I shall be happy to see a person so favored by the muses, and to whom nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations.

I am, with great respect,

Your obedient, humble servant,

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

A few years of misery shattered the golden bowl of her life, and in a wretched apartment, in an obscure part of Boston, that gifted wife and mother, whose youth had been passed in ease, and even luxury, was allowed to perish alone! She died on the 5th of December, 1794, when she was about thirty-one years of age. The following is an extract from one of her poems previously referred to:

Among other noticeable features in this touching story, we find that the great George Washington—"first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen”–did not hesitate to speak in the highest terms of the genius of this gifted colored woman, nor to pay her an honor which might well be coveted by the greatest intellects of our land to-day.

And Goldsmith adds:

Under the caption of "Women of the Century” Mrs. Hannaford, in her illustrious work, “ Daughters of America,”