who is setting out on a matrimonial voyage; first, because I never
could advise one to marry without her own consent; and, secondly because I
know it is to no purpose to advise her to refrain, when she has obtained
it. A woman very rarely asks an opinion or requires advice on such an
occasion, till her resolution is formed; and then it is with the hope and
expectation of obtaining a sanction, not that she means to be governed by
your disapprobation, that she applies. In a word the plain English of the
application may be summed up in these words: 'I wish you to think as I do;
but, if unhappily you differ from me in opinion, my heart, I must confess,
is fixed, and I have gone too far now to retract.'" Again he wrote:

"It has ever been a maxim with me through life, neither to promote nor to
prevent a matrimonial connection, unless there should be something
indispensably requiring interference in the latter. I have always
considered marriage as the most interesting event of one's life, the
foundation of happiness or misery. To be instrumental therefore in
bringing two people together, who are indifferent to each other, and may
soon become objects of disgust; or to prevent a union, which is prompted
by the affections of the mind, is what I never could reconcile with
reason, and therefore neither directly nor indirectly have I ever said a
word to Fanny or George, upon the subject of their intended connection."

The question whether Washington was a faithful husband might well be left
to the facts already given, were it not that stories of his immorality are
bandied about in clubs, a well-known clergyman has vouched for their
truth, and a United States senator has given further currency to them by
claiming special knowledge on the subject. Since such are the facts, it
seems best to consider the question and show what evidence there actually
is for these stories, that at least the pretended "letters," etc., which
are always being cited, and are never produced, may no longer have
credence put in them, and the true basis for all the stories may be known
and valued at its worth.

In the year 1776 there was printed in London a small pamphlet entitled
"Minutes of the Trial and Examination of Certain Persons in the Province
of New York," which purported to be the records of the examination of the
conspirators of the "Hickey plot" (to murder Washington) before a
committee of the Provincial Congress of New York. The manuscript of