There are few pages in our history so painful as those on which are recorded the complaints extorted from Washington, at this period, by the trials of his situation. That he, an accomplished soldier, who had retired with honor from the late war with France to his serene Mount Vernon; who had left it again, to stake life, and all that makes life valuable, on the new issue of his country's independence; who asked no recompense and sought no object but her welfare, should have been compelled to pass into the dark valley of the retreat through New Jersey, with all its perplexities, dangers, and discouragements,--its cruel exertions and its humiliating reverses,--without a powerful and energetic government to lean upon, and with scarcely more than Divine assistance to which to turn, presents, indeed, to our separate contemplation, a disheartening and discreditable fact. But no trials are appointed to nations, or to men, without their fruits. The perplexities and difficulties which surrounded Washington in the early part of the Revolution contributed, undoubtedly, to give him that profound civil wisdom, that knowledge of our civil wants, and that influence over the moral sense of the country, which were afterwards so beneficently felt in the establishment of the Constitution. The very weakness of the government which he served became in this manner his and our strength. Without the trials to which it subjected him, it may well be doubted whether we should now possess that tower of strength,--that security against distracted counsels and clashing interests,--which exist for us in the character and services of that extraordinary man.