respects to Mrs. Washington, and here were also the foreign ambassadors, in their rich costumes glittering with decorations. The line was drawn sharply in those days; none were admitted to Mrs. Washington's drawing-room but those who had a right by reason of official station, or were entitled to the privilege by established merit, character and position. Full dress was required of all, and at a period when the costumes of the men were as picturesque and almost as varied as those of the women, full dress meant more than it does to-day. Mr. Huntingdon says that he chose the time for his picture when many powdered heads were still to be seen among men as well as women, and when knee breeches and long silk stockings, with brilliant knee and shoe buckles, were still in vogue.

Prominent among Mrs. Washington's guests were Chief Justice Jay and his beautiful wife, whose social advantages, at home and abroad, enabled her to give the law in fashion and elegance to New York women, as did Mrs. William Bingham to those of Philadelphia. In Mrs. Jay's home on Broadway she held drawingrooms only second in importance to those of Mrs. Washington. Here, as we learn from her visiting-list, preserved to this day, flocked all leading men and women of the time, and all

foreigners of distinction who came to the capital.

This was the only New Year's day spent by the Washingtons in New York. In July of the following summer it was decided to establish the seat of government upon the banks of the Potomac, while the sessions of Congress were to be held in Philadelphia for the ensuing ten years.

Mrs. Washington remained in New York until the last of August, when she and her husband set forth for Mount Vernon, stopping for some days in Philadelphia. Before leaving New York the President expressed his gratification at the manner in which he had been treated in that city, which he says that he left with reluctance, adding: "Mrs. Washington also seemed hurt at the idea of bidding adieu to these hospitable shores."

X

PHILADELPHIA THE CAPITAL

"AND now, at last, we have taken leave of New York. It is natural to look at the prospect before me. The citizens of Philadelphia (such is the strange infatuation of self-love) believe that ten years is eternity to them with respect to the residence, and that Congress will in that time be so enamoured of them as never to leave them; and all this with the recent example of New York before their eyes, whose allurements are more than ten to two compared with Philadelphia." So wrote the Pennsylvania senator, William Maclay, in July, 1790, when it was decided that the sessions of Congress should be held in Philadelphia until the new buildings in the federal city should be ready for occupation.

Mrs. John Adams said, when she came to Philadelphia, that she had left "the grand and sublime at Richmond Hill, the Schuylkill being no more like the Hudson than I to Hercules. Mrs. Lear," she says, 66 was in to see

me yesterday, and assures me that I am better off than Mrs. Washington will be when she arrives, for that their house is not likely to be completed this year. And when all is done, it will not be Broadway. If New York wanted any revenge for the removal, the citizens might be glutted if they would come here, where every article is almost double in price, and where it is not possible for Congress, and the appendages, to be half as well accommodated for a long time."

Others there were who felt differently with regard to the comparative advantages of the two cities. Governor John Page, of Virginia, wrote from New York: "This town is not half as large as Philadelphia, nor in any manner to be compared to it for beauty and elegance;" while Mr. Henry Wansey, who visited the capital a little later, found the manners and styles so like those of London that, while sitting at the theatre, which he described as elegant and convenient and as large as Covent Garden, he felt as if he were still in his own country. Upon evenings when the President and Mrs. Washington were in their box, surrounded by some of the cabinet officers and their wives, and when many fashionable men and women were in the audience, the scene presented must have been a gay one, especially as many of the

ladies wore their hair "full dressed without caps," the younger women with theirs flowing in ringlets upon their shoulders, while the gentlemen appeared in round hats, their coats, which were often of striped silk with high collars, cut quite in the English fashion.

The Philadelphia house chosen as the residence of the Chief Executive was one owned by Mr. Robert Morris, and was then numbered 190 High Street, now Market. It was the largest and most suitable house that could be secured for this purpose. With regard to its furnishing and all household arrangements, Mrs. Washington was saved much care by the forethought of her husband and by the admirable executive ability of Mr. Lear. The President's letters to the latter are most explicit, entering fully into the minutiae of domestic arrangements, even to the exchanging of mangles with Mrs. Morris and to a discussion of the comparative merits of certain butlers and cooks, which ended in the engaging of Mr. and Mrs. Hyde instead of Fraunces, although an advantage that the President set forth in favor of the latter was that he was "an excellent cook, knowing how to provide genteel dinners, and giving aid in dressing them, prepared the dessert, made the cake, etc."

The house on the south side of Market