The executive, unwilling to relinquish the advantages which the legislature had expected to derive from exhibiting the name of Washington at the head of the Virginia delegation, refused to consider him as having declined the appointment. That his judgment had not completely decided on the course which duty and patriotism required him to pursue; that in a crisis on which probably depended the union of the states, and the happiness of America, he refused himself reluctantly to the anxious wishes of his countrymen; were too apparent not to leave a hope that events might yet determine him to yield to their desires. He was therefore emphatically requested not to decide absolutely, and was informed that as no inconvenience would result from not appointing a successor, the option of complying with the earnest solicitations of those who considered the effort about to be made as the last hope of the union, would, as long as possible, be permitted to remain with him. In the mean time, those who persuaded themselves that much good might result from the proposed convention, continued to urge him with delicacy but with earnestness, not to withhold on this great and particular occasion, those inestimable services which the confidence so justly reposed by the public in his talents and character, enabled him alone to render. Placed in these circumstances, General Washington weighed deliberately in his own mind the arguments for and against accepting the appointment which was so seriously pressed upon him. That the proposed convention was, in any point of view in which it could be contemplated, an object of the first magnitude, appeared to him to be undeniable. It was apparent that the actual government could not exist much longer without additional means. It was therefore necessary to meet the solemn question whether it ought to be supported or annihilated. Those who embraced the former part of the alternative must consider the convention as the only remaining experiment from which the federal government could derive powers sufficiently ample for its preservation. Those who embraced the latter, who thought that on a full and dispassionate revision of the system, its continuance would be adjudged impracticable or unwise, could not hesitate to admit that their opinion would derive great additional weight from the sanction of so respectable a body as that which was about to assemble: and that in such an event, it was greatly desirable, and would afford some security against civil discord, to put the public in possession of a plan prepared and digested by such high authority. "I must candidly confess," he added in a letter to Colonel Humphries, "as we could not remain quiet more than three or four years in time of peace, under the constitutions of our own choosing, which were believed in many states to have been formed with deliberation and wisdom, I see little prospect either of our agreeing on any other, or that we should