o get Robert Morris to take charge
again of the department that he had formerly managed with conspicuous
ability, and while stopping in Philadelphia on his way to New York, he had
approached Morris on the subject. Morris, who was now engaged in grand
projects which were eventually to bring him to a debtor's prison, declined
the position but strongly recommended Hamilton. This suggestion proved
very acceptable to Washington, who was well aware of Hamilton's capacity.

The thorny question of etiquette was the next matter to receive
Washington's attention. Personally he favored the easy hospitality to
which he was accustomed in Virginia, but he knew quite well that his own
taste ought not to be decisive. The forms that he might adopt would become
precedents, and hence action should be taken cautiously. Washington was a
methodical man. He had a well-balanced nature which was never disturbed by
timidity of any kind and rarely by anxiety. His anger was strong when it
was excited, but his ordinary disposition was one of massive equanimity.
He was not imaginative, but he took things as they came, and did what the
occasion demanded. In crises that did not admit of deliberation, his
instinctive courage guided his behavior, but such crises belong to
military experience, and in civil life careful deliberation was his rule.
It was his practice to read important documents pen in hand to note the
points. From one of his familiar letters to General Knox we learn that on
rising in the morning he would turn over in his mind the day's work and
would consider how to deal with it. His new circumstances soon apprised
him that the first thing to be settled was his deportment as President.
Under any form of government the man who is head of the state is forced,
as part of his public service, to submit to public exhibition and to be
exact in social observance; but, unless precautions are taken, engagements
will consume his time and strength. Writing to a friend about the
situation in which he found himself, Washington declared: "By the time I
had done breakfast, and thence till dinner, and afterwards till bed-time,
I could not get relieved from the ceremony of one visit, before I had to
attend to another. In a word, I had no leisure to read or answer the
dispatches that were pouring in upon me from all quarters."

The radical treatment which the situation called for was aided by a
general feeling in Congress that arrangements should be made for