Page:Nye's History of the USA.djvu/197

 Rh The historian begs leave to say here that the usefulness of the President for the good of his country and the consideration of greater questions will some day be reduced to very little unless he may be able to avoid this effort to please voters who overestimate their greatness.

It is said that Washington had no library, which accounted for his originality. He was a vestry-man in the Episcopal Church; and to see his tall and graceful form as he moved about from pew to pew collecting pence for Home Missions, was a lovely sight.

As a boy he was well behaved and a careful student. At one time he was given a hatchet by his father, which——

But what has the historian to do with this morbid wandering in search of truth?

Things were very much unsettled. England had not sent a minister to this country, and had arranged no commercial treaty with us. Washington's Cabinet consisted of three portfolios and a rack in which he kept his flute-music.

The three ministers were the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of the Treasury. There was no Attorney-General, or Postmaster-General, or Secretary of the Interior, or of the Navy, or Seed Catalogue Secretary.

Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury,