by children of the same continent and of the same southern soil, who
sacrificed qualities much akin to his own on a cause that, unlike his,
was not the cause of freedom. "First in peace, first in war, and first
in the hearts of his country-men." The phrase of Lee has been worn
threadbare with iteration since it was first uttered, but it always
rings true of the high-minded, unfaltering soldier and honorable,
simple gentleman whose genius in war and whose modesty in peace made
the republic of America an enduring fact in history. Long after the
great soldier and good man had been laid to rest an English poet did
him justice, and no more than justice, by writing that "the first, the
last, the best, the Cincinnatus of the West, whom envy dared not hate,
bequeathed the name of Washington to make man blush there was but one."
Washington was made the first President of the American Republic in
1789, after resolutely resisting all suggestions to make himself king
of the new commonwealth. He served for two terms of four years each,
and then retired into private life, unembittered by the cruel and
stupid ingratitude of the few and unspoiled by the reasoned and
grateful homage of the many. He died in 1799 in his quiet home in
Mount Vernon, while the King who still regarded him as a rebel had many
years of his unquiet reign to live.

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CHAPTER LV.

THE GORDON RIOTS.

[Sidenote: 1778-80--Sir George Savile's Catholic Relief Bill]

In the year 1778 Sir George Savile earned for himself an honorable
distinction by passing his measure for the relief of Roman Catholics.
Sir George Savile was a man of advanced views; he fought gallantly in
the House of Commons through five successive Parliaments, in which he
represented York County, for all measures which he believed to be
sincerely patriotic, and against all measures which he believed to be
opposed to the honorable interests of his country. He gained the
laurel of praise from Burke, who, in one of his famous Bristol
speeches, spoke of him as a true genius, "with an understanding
vigorous, acute, relined, distinguishing even to excess; and
illuminated with a most unbounded, peculiar, and original cast of
imagination." The man whom Burke thus generously praised deserved the
praises. He strove earnestly against the American war. He
enthusiastically supported Pitt's motion in 1783 for a reform in
Parliament. He was the author of an admirable Bill for the Limitation