“Both Grenville and I accepted from the Catholics of Glasgow a piece of plate--of no great value indeed--_after we were turned out_ in 1807.… If you still feel scruples, I can only add that it is impossible to err on the side of delicacy with respect to matters of this nature.” It ended in his declining to accept anything more than the small top of a gold inkstand.[104] In our country Washington keeps his lofty heights, setting himself against gift-taking as against nepotism. In 1785, while in private life, two years after he ceased to be commander-in-chief of our armies and four years before he became President, he could not be induced to accept a certain amount of canal stock offered him by the State of Virginia, as appears in an official communication:-- “It gives me great pleasure to inform you that the Assembly yesterday, without a dissenting voice, complimented you with fifty shares in the Potomac Company and one hundred in the James River Company.”[105] Fully to appreciate the reply of Washington, it must be borne in mind, that, according to Washington Irving, his biographer, “some degree of economy was necessary, for his financial concerns had suffered during the war, and the products of his estate had fallen off.”[106] But he was not tempted. Thus he wrote:-- “How would this matter be viewed by the eye of the world, and what would be the opinion of it, when it comes to be related that George Washington has received twenty thousand dollars and five thousand pounds sterling of the public money as an interest therein?… Under whatever pretence, and however customarily these gratuitous gifts are made in other countries, should I not thenceforward be considered as a dependant?”[107] And subsequently to Jefferson:-- “I never for a moment entertained an idea of accepting it.”[108] How admirably he touches the point when he asks, “Should I not thenceforward be considered as a dependant?” According to our Scripture the gift blinds the eyes; according to Washington it makes the receiver a dependant. In harmony with this sentiment was his subsequent refusal, when President, as is recorded by an ingenuous writer:-- “He was exceedingly careful about committing himself; _would receive no favors of any kind_, and scrupulously paid for everything.… A large house was set apart for him on Ninth Street, [Philadelphia,] on the grounds now covered by the Pennsylvania University, _which he refused to accept_.”[109] By such instances, brought to light recently, and shining in contrast with our times, we learn to admire anew the virtue of Washington.