Washington recognized Bernard as the actor whom he had "had the pleasure of seeing perform" in Philadelphia during the previous winter, and after some pleasant chat an invitation to ride with him to Mount Vernon, only a mile distant, revealed to Bernard the name of his companion. He was profoundly impressed, and upon reaching Mount Vernon they found that Mrs. Washington was indisposed, and the General ordered refreshments into a little parlor looking upon the Potomac. At some length his guest describes the commanding presence of Washington, in which "a feeling of awe and veneration stole over you." During a conversation of an hour and a half "he touched on every topic that I brought before him with an even current of good sense, if he embellished it with little wit or verbal elegance." "When I mentioned to him the difference I perceived between the inhabitants of New England and of the Southern States, he remarked: 'I esteem those people greatly; they are the stamina of the Union, and its greatest benefactors. They are continually spreading themselves, too, to settle and enlighten less favored quarters. Dr. Franklin is a New-Englander.' When I remarked that his observations were flattering to my country, he replied, with great good-humor: 'Yes, yes, Mr. Bernard, but I consider your country the cradle of free principles, not their arm-chair. Liberty in England is a sort of idol; people are bred up in the belief and love of it, but see little of its doings. They walk about freely, but then it is between high walls; and the error of its government was in supposing that after a portion of their subjects had crossed the sea to live upon a common, they would permit their friends at home to build up those walls about them.'