session
with an address to Congress couched somewhat in the style of the speech
from the throne. At the first session there was talk of providing some
sort of throne for him; but the proposal came to nothing. He spoke from
the Vice-President's chair, and the Representatives went into the Senate
chamber to hear him, as the Commons proceed to the House of Lords on such
occasions. Congress, too, conformed to English precedents by voting
addresses in reply, and then the members repaired to the President's
"audience chamber," where the presiding officers of the two houses
delivered their addresses and received the President's acknowledgments.
These were disagreeable duties for Washington, although he discharged them
conscientiously. Maclay has recorded in his diary the fact that when
Washington made his first address to Congress he was "agitated and
embarrassed more than ever he was by the leveled cannon or pointed
musket."

It was not until June 8 that Washington settled these delicate affairs of
official etiquette sufficiently to enable him to attend to details of
administration. The government, although bankrupt, was in active
operation, and the several executive departments were under secretaries
appointed by the old Congress. The distinguished New York jurist, John
Jay, now forty-four years old, had been Secretary of Foreign Affairs since
1784. He had long possessed Washington's confidence, and now retained his
Secretaryship until the government was organized, whereupon he left that
post to become the first chief-justice of the United States. Henry Knox of
Massachusetts, aged thirty-nine, had been Secretary of War since 1785, a
position to which Washington helped him. They were old friends, for Knox
had served through the war with Washington in special charge of artillery.
The Postmaster-General, Ebenezer Hazard, was not in Washington's favor.
While the struggle over the adoption of the Constitution was going on
Hazard put a stop to the customary practice by which newspaper publishers
were allowed to exchange copies by mail. Washington wrote an indignant
letter to John Jay about this action which was doing mischief by "inducing
a belief that the suppression of intelligence at that critical juncture
was a wicked trick of policy contrived by an aristocratic junto." As soon
as Washington could move in the matter, Hazard was superseded by Samuel
Osgood, who as a member of the old Congress had served on a committee to
exami