relief, must be productive of disagreeable consequences. Already I
begin to feel their effects. Heavy and painful oppressions of the
head, and other disagreeable sensations often trouble me. I am
determined therefore to employ some person who shall ease me of the
_drudgery_ of this business. At any rate, if the whole of it is
thereby suspended, I am determined to use exercise. My private affairs
also require infinitely more attention than I have given, or can give
them, under present circumstances. They can no longer be neglected
without involving my ruin."

It was some time after the date of this letter before he could
introduce into his family a young gentleman, whose education and
manners enabled him to fill the station of a private secretary and of
a friend.

This multiplicity of private avocations could not entirely withdraw
the mind of Washington from objects tending to promote and secure the
public happiness. His resolution never again to appear in the busy
scenes of political life, though believed by himself, and by his bosom
friends, to be unalterable, could not render him indifferent to those
measures on which the prosperity of his country essentially depended.

To a person looking beyond the present moment, it was only necessary
to glance over the map of the United States, to be impressed with the
importance of connecting the western with the eastern territory, by
facilitating the means of intercourse between them. To this subject,
the attention of General Washington had been directed in the early
part of his life. While the American states were yet British colonies,
he had obtained the passage of a bill for opening the Potomac so as to
render it navigable from tide water to Wills creek.[21] The river
James had also been comprehended in this plan; and he had triumphed so
far over the opposition produced by local interests and prejudices,
that the business was in a train which promised success, when the
revolutionary war diverted the attention of its patrons, and of all
America, from internal improvements to the still greater objects of
liberty and independence. As that war approached its termination,
subjects which for a time had yielded their pretensions to
consideration, reclaimed that place to which their real magnitude
entitled them; and internal navigation again attracted the attention
of the wise and thinking part of society. Accustomed to contemplate
America as his country, and to consider with sol