"Just _launched_ on the _Ocean of Empire_, the Ship COLUMBIA, GEORGE WASHINGTON, Commander, which, after being thirteen years in _dock_, is at length well _manned_, and in very good condition. The Ship is a _first rate_--has a good _bottom_, which all the Builders have pronounced _sound_ and _good_. Some objection has been made to parts of the _tackling_, or _running rigging_, which, it is supposed, will be _altered_, when they shall be found to be incommodious, as the Ship is able to make very good _headway_ with them as they are. A _jury_ of _Carpenters_ have this matter now under consideration. The _Captain_ and _First Mate_ are universally esteemed by all the Owners--Eleven[40] in number--and she has been _insured_, under their direction, to make a good _mooring_ in the _harbor_ of Public Prosperity and Felicity--whitherto she is bound. The Owners can furnish, besides the Ship's Company, the following materials:--_New-Hampshire_, the Masts and Spars; _Massachusetts_, Timber for the Hull, Fish, &c.; _Connecticut_, Beef and Pork; _New-York_, Porter and other Cabin stores; _New-Jersey_, the Cordage; _Pennsylvania_, Flour and Bread;--_Delaware_, the Colors, and Clothing for the Crew; _Maryland_, the Iron work and small Anchors; _Virginia_, Tobacco and the Sheet Anchor; _South-Carolina_, Rice; and _Georgia_, Powder and small Provisions. Thus found, may this _good Ship_ put to sea, and the prayer of all is, that GOD _may preserve her, and bring her in safety to her desired haven_." [Footnote 40: Only eleven States had accepted the Constitution when this was written.] The Government had not been long domiciled in the City of Brotherly Love before parties became defined and party spirit acrimonious. The popular heart and hope and imagination were all on the side of revolutionized France in her unequal struggle with the allied kings. Conservative and "safe" men were more and more drawn into sympathy with the powers that were striving to maintain the established order, chief of which was Great Britain. President Washington, in maintaining the just balance between the two contending principles and powers, could not but give some dissatisfaction to both political parties, and, most of all, to the one in the warmest sympathy with France. In the dearth of pictorical relics of that period, I insert the parody of the Athanasian creed annexed, from the _National Gazette_ of Philadelphia, edited by Freneau, and maintained by the friends of Jefferson and Madison: "A NEW POLITICAL CREED FOR THE USE OF WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.