■which you allude may never happen, among other reasons because, if the partiality of my fellow-citizens conceive it to be a mean by which the sinews of the new government would be strengthened, it will of consequence be obnoxious to those who are in opposition to it, many of whom, unquestionably, will be placed among the electors.” — Vol. V. p. 138. LETTER TO DAVID STUART. New York, June 15, 1790. “ Before the custom was established, which now accommodates foreign characters, strangers, and others who from motives of curiosity, respect to the chief magistrate, or any other cause, are induced to call upon me, I was unable to attend to any business whatsoever. For gentlemen, consulting their own convenience rather than mine, were calling from the time I rose from breakfast, often before, until I sat down to dinner. This, as I resolved not to neglect my public duties, reduced me to the choice of one of these alternatives, either to refuse them altogether, or to appropriate a time for the reception of them. The first would, I well knew, be disgusting to many ; the latter, I expected, would undergo animadversion from those who would find fault with or without cause. To please every body wras impossible. I therefore adopted that line of conduct which combined public advantage with private convenience, and which in my judgment was unexceptionable in itself. That I have not been able to make boros to the taste of poor Colonel B------ (who, by the by, I believe never saw one of them) is to be regretted, especially too as, upon those occasions, they were indiscriminately bestowed, and the best I was master of. Would it not have been better to have thrown the veil of charity over them, ascribing their stiffness to the effects of age, or to the unskilfulness of my teacher, than to pride and dignity of office, which Cod knows has no charms for me ? For I can truly say, I had rather be at Mount Vernon with a friend or two about me, than to be attended at the seat of government
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