Shall turn to thee, O Washington.

* * * * *

WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION[12]

BY EDWARD EVERETT HALE

On the fourth of March, 1789, Elbridge Gerry, who had been chosen to the
Senate of the United States, wrote thus from New York to John Adams:

My Dear Friend: I find, on inquiry, that you are elected
Vice-President, having three or four times the number of votes of
any other candidate. Maryland threw away their votes on Colonel
Harrison, and South Carolina on Governor Rutledge, being, with some
other states which were not unanimous for you, apprehensive that
this was a necessary step to prevent your election to the chair. On
this point they were mistaken, for the President, as I am informed
from pretty good authority, has a unanimous vote. It is the
universal wish of all that I have conferred with, and indeed their
expectation, that both General Washington and yourself will accept;
and should either refuse, it will have a very disagreeable effect.
The members present met to-day in the City Hall, there being about
eleven Senators and thirteen Representatives, and not constituting
a quorum in either house, they adjourned till to-morrow.

Mrs. Gerry and the ladies join me in sincere regards to yourself,
your lady, Colonel and Mrs. Smith, and be assured I remain, etc.

E. GERRY.

So slow was the movement of news in those days, and so doubtful, even
after the election, were all men as to its results, Adams would not
start from Braintree, his home, till he knew he was elected, nor
Washington from Mt. Vernon. Charles Thompson, the Secretary of the old
Congress, arrived at Mt. Vernon on the fourteenth of April and
communicated to Washington the news of his election. No quorum of the
House of Representatives had been formed until the first of April, nor
of the Senate until the sixth. These bodies then counted the electoral
vote, with the result predicted by Gerry in his letter written two days
before.

Washington waited a day before starting to the seat of Government. On
the sixteenth of April he started for New York. He writes in his diary:

About ten o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life and
to domestic felicity; and with a mind oppressed with more anxious
and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for
New York in company with Mr. Thompson and Co