THE YOUTH OF WASHINGTON [Illustration: “MY BROTHER COMFORTED ME IN MY DISAPPOINTMENT.”] Author’s Definitive Edition THE YOUTH OF WASHINGTON TOLD IN THE FORM OF AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY BY S. WEIR MITCHELL, M.D. [Illustration] NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1910 Copyright, 1904, by THE CENTURY CO. _Published October, 1904_ The Knickerbocker Press, New York TO JOHN S. BILLINGS IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF FORTY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP THE YOUTH OF WASHINGTON “And if I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired: but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto.”――_2 Maccabees xv. 38._ THE YOUTH OF WASHINGTON DIARY――NOVEMBER, 1797 I My retirement from official duties as President has enabled me to restore order on my plantations, and in some degree to repair the neglected buildings which are fallen to decay. The constant coming of guests――moved, I fear, more by curiosity than by other reasons――is diminished owing to snows, unusual at this period of the year. Owing to these favouring conditions, I have now some small leisure to reflect on a life which has been too much one of action and of public interests to admit, hitherto, of that kind of retrospection which is natural, and, as it seems to me, fitting in a man of my years, who has little to look forward to and much to look back upon. My recent uneasiness lest I should be called upon to conduct a war against our old allies, the French, is much abated, and I feel more free to consider my private affairs. I am too far advanced in the vale of life to bear much buffeting, and I have satisfaction in the belief we have escaped a new war for which the nation has not yet the strength. For sure I am, if this country is preserved in tranquillity twenty years longer, it may bid defiance in a just cause to any powers whatever, such in that time will be its power, wealth, and resources.